by himself for a moment—When he wakes there’s no one there … He still loves her, girl from—and then they all kick back in.
Respect.
Respect for the real people.
Nah, it’s not The Real People.
It’s … um …
[From the September 1995 issue of Craze magazine.]
Lance knocks back the rest of his champagne and shrugs.
“It’s all right. I mean, it’s a decent crop of new bands and they’re all doing fairly decently. It happens. I’m not convinced it’s earth-shattering. I haven’t heard anything that, like, radically influences me or sends me scratching my head back to the drawing board. But it’s pretty healthy, I s’pose. A fuck sight better than the crap that was around when we first came out. I quite like Sleeper, she writes good lyrics. Supergrass are cool.”
A foreign writer asks who he’s rooting for in the great Blur/ Oasis single battle.
“Neither, I think both songs are shit.”
But which group does he prefer?
“Slade.”
CRAZE: Do you see yourself as part of, or an alternative to, the current explosion?
“I don’t see why we have to be either.”
CRAZE: Were you ever concerned that you’d be superfluous to it?
“How do you mean?”
CRAZE: Rendered unnecessary?
“I knew this was coming. I dunno. You tell me. Why would we be?”
CRAZE: You’re part of the old guard. Pretty much everyone else has been swept away.
“Like who?”
CRAZE: You know. The Cure. The Wonder Stuff. The Mission. James. Pop Will Eat Itself. Carter. Jesus Jones.
“Yeah, and you’ve forgotten Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, Eat and Kingmaker, and why don’t you throw in Gaye Bikers on Acid and Dumpy’s Rusty Nuts while you’re at it?”
About half the room laugh. The others look puzzled. Lance continues.
“You must’ve got that list off the back of an old Camden Palace flyer. You see … we’ve never had much in common with that lot. We’ve always been more than capable of moving on, and we’re not stopping now just ’cos there’s suddenly a cool new scene for all you cool new people to shake your record bags to. I mean, why shouldn’t people continue listening to us? Why is it such a surprise? It’s not as if we’re doing something completely contrary to what’s happening now. We use guitars. We’re British. We write real pop songs about real life. And we still rock harder than anyone. A lot of the new bands rock about as hard as Simply Red.”
CRAZE: But you represent a bygone era.
“No. That’s just what you’ve decided, because the goths and grebos used to dig us, and ’cos we’re from Reading. It’s a complete fallacy. I bet you won’t be asking Shaun Ryder the same question.”
CRAZE: Does a backlash scare you?
“From the press? We’ve already had four of them. One after each album. We’d survived our first one probably before you finished your GCSEs.” [Laughs]
CRAZE: What about from the public?
“No,” he scowls. “You read Music Week—look at the sales figures, mate. The record’s already gone platinum, and it’ll probably be double by the time the Blur album comes out. And that’s just Britain. So I don’t think anyone at BFM’s losing sleep just yet.”
Deciding the conference has reached a natural conclusion, he rises, delivers one of his characteristic cheeky grins, gathers up his routinely silent bandmates and departs. Although he’s slightly more defensive than we’ve come to expect, the consensus is that his acerbic style is on fine form and that it’s business, for the foreseeable future, as usual.
So it comes as some surprise five hours later when, in front of fifty thousand people, Lance Webster single-handedly ensures that the significant portion of his own musical career is drawn to a rapid close.
“Summer’s gone, days spent with the grass and sun…” Hang on.
“I don’t mind, to pretend I do seems really dumb…” You’ve woken up. Which means you must have fallen asleep. The last streak of daylight in the sky has gone. So has your good mood. You’re pissed. In the British and American senses of the word. That last little half-pill has wormed its way into your bloodstream, blended with the alcohol and made your head hurt, in that sort of nonhurting way that ecstasy does. Your mouth is dry. Anything left in the beer cup? Nope. Better get another one.
But they’re playing your favourite Boo Radleys song. Hell, it’s everyone’s favourite Boo Radleys song this summer. Apart from those who liked them before they turned into The Monkees. You struggle to your feet. The tune is blasting out. The crowd’s loving it. Impressive stuff. Wake up, Boo. There’s so many things for