SCRITTI POLITTI

-- Jamming, 1982

Words: Tony Fletcher.

THE INTRO

A sunny afternoon in early summer, just off London's bustling Oxford Street; a meeting with an old (though never close) friend who I don't recognise. Would you?

Green Gartside, leader of Scritti Politti, had always been a thin, fragile creature dressed in black with tatty clothes, his looks tieing in with his group 'Scritti Politti', who specialised in left-field music and promoting the idea of DIY records. The group did a great job, producing some very entertaining music and influencing a LOT of people into making their own records through the heady days of I979 and I980. But Green had never appeared a well person and disappeared from London in 1980. This interview was the first time I had seen him for a year and a half, and though I knew well the changes in the group, I dldn't expect to see such a different young man. The once straggly, depressed figure now looked bouncy, energetic, lively and extremely self-confident, even arrogant. It would appear that serious illness CAN, believe it or not, do a man good. Certainly Green has come out of it a happier, healthier and wiser person.

Anyone (un)lucky enough to have a copy of Jamming! 6 lying about their house might recall it featuring the first-ever interview with Scritti Politti, back in November I978. Their debut single, 'Skank Bloc Bologna' (with all the details of it's costings on the cover), had caused quite a buzz, and they were the darlings of the NME and Rough Trade. Three and a half years later they still are, but, as their critics will be quick enough to remind you, their music and image has undergone one hell of a change in that period.

'I don't think anyone could ever say we've bandwaganed. But a lot of the point of the DIY thing was spent. At any given time, there's going to be some group who's got the best information about it, and you can only pioneer that for so long. So we did that. After having done the three singles in that vein -- the kind of aesthetics that went with the business -- we wouldn't have been happy doing any more. It just so happened that there was a long layoff while I was sick, and I came back to do the music this way. I think that the big switch to 'pop' and the white soul thing is really just a copywriter's invention more than mine, although there is an element of that in it. But it would be totally unfair to say it was a contrived thing; it just genuinely does reflect my changing interests.

WHAAM! Green has just answered half my questions in one fell swoop. Maybe even the bright atmosphere of a cafe pavement for an interview (better than a pub, gig or press office any day) has made a difference.

D.I.WHY?

Green might have made it clear from the start that he'd sooner forget the old DIY days of the Scrits, but it's something that needs to be remembered. Scritti Politti used to be three live members -- Green on guitar and vocals, Nial on bass, and Tom on drums -- with about a dozen people behind them supposedly making valid contributions to a communal organisation. One of them, Matt, certainly was useful as organiser and is just as much their manager now as he ever was. Green explains a bit more about how and why everything changed....

'In I980 I spent nine months in Wales, and the reason I went away was not just because I was sick, but also because there was a bit of dissension in the group about me. I wanted to go very poppy, but Tom and Nial weren't very keen on the idea, so in coordinance wIth the old bookwormish Scritti Politti I decided to make some notes -- which in retrospect is a ridiculous thing to do -- about the theory and politics of it, and why it was a good thing to do, as opposed to keep slogging away at St. Pancras Records. So I went away and wrote an enormous amount of stuff for them as well.

'I ended up saying "Right, from now on when I've got a number of songs I want to do, then if you want to play on them, that's great; if you don't, lets forget the whole thing." That was the basic shift of footing, that I wasn't prepared to go to the lengths of all that intellectualising to justify the songs -- it was crazy. And as it transpired, Nial happily and pleasantly left, and Tom was happy as long as he got to pIay the drums which (laughs)...well we could have saved a lot of time...

'I think it took too long. And some of it was...well, the 'Peel sessions' EP, I really can't understand what we were doing then. It was trying to juggle with too many things, and living that ridiculous lifestyle, trying to concoct this magic potion anaesthetic that reflected it somehow, and I'm not sure whether it was wholly succeesful. I personally vould have made that shift late '79, but there was the whole thing of having to account to the other two -- or three -- and that was a ridiculous way to function.

'It was just that crazy way of living and working. We had such an arrogant, lackadaisical attitude towards the DIY thing. There was a lot of jaw-jaw went on aboat it, more than actually getting down to doing it. It was seen as some sort of tactical ballistical exercise sometimes.'

Do I detect a trace of bitterness there?

'Well I'm not bitter...(pauses) Perhaps I'm a little bit annoyed that, as I say, it dragged on for as long as it did. Because it had become a fair bit of a drag by I980. That's why it took so long; there wasn't the freedom for me to write a song and take it to the others -- there had to be a board meeting first! Stupid.'

Are you saying that it was always you who wrote the songs?

'Yeah, the bass lines and everything. But again the whole thing of having 15 people pose for group photos was part of this great colIectivism thing. It really couldn't sustain itself -- and it would have been terribly boring if it had -- but people developed their own ways and at their own rates, and it just drifted apart. And as much as we tried to make that unit thing work, it was always the case that I wrote and arranged the stuff. For my sins! I wish some other bugger had written the early stuff (laughs) -- no I don't really.'

SWEET

The change referred to here was almost immediate: in the gap between the group's 12" EP of late '79, and the emergence of 'The "Sweetest Girl"' on the NME/Rough Trade C81 cassette, Green developed a new taste and love of music, and the result was quite astounding. 'The "Sweetest Girl"' will remain in a lot of people's list of all-time favourites; certainly a more emotional and better crafted love song would be hard to find.

When eventually released as a single in August, 'The "Sweetest Girl"' was not the great hit it deserved to be, though it was the first single on the actual Rough Trade label to chart. I remain convinced that it was too long in being released, leaving time for many imports and cassette copies to be bought by avid fans who might have given the record a much beigger initial push. But Matt explains the reasons behind its delay:

'We wanted to hold it closer to the LP being ready. Although one can say that had it been put out in March, then everything might have happened, it doesn't really work that way. It takes a long time to wind people up about things. You need both the press and the shops and everybody else to be behind you to really have a hit and I don't think at that point they knew anything about the group.'

Green: 'It was a good thing to do. The NME asked for it, so as it was a new track, we gave it to them. There are a number of other putatedly successful single on the album.'

Ah yes, the Scritti Politti album! In 1979 they were planning it; in late 1980 they started on it; in early 1981 they finished the backing tracks; and in August they finished it totally. Considering that it's taken almost a year to see a very much in-demand record released, surely people are justified to accuse the Scrits of being a terribly laid-back, lazy group. That's what I'd been beginning to believe, until I heard Matt and Green justify their reasons for not putting the album out until now.

'We could have released it then,' explains Green, 'and it would probably have got some nice reviews, sold a few thousand copies and disappeared. But we thought that if we held on to it, put out 'The "Sweetest Girl"', built on that a bit, took some more singles off the album, built up the interest and then put it out, it would do a lot more. Seeing as we were really pleased with it, I would much rather that happened. Considering it's almost a year old, I'm amazed at myself that I still love it. The next LP is going to be devastating but this one's a great start.'

RT

Of course, this is where we get onto the business side of music, the planning and organisation that goes on behind all successful records. And though to the general public, Rough Trade and Scritti Politti have probably appeared as inseparable as Paul Morley and cocktails, a large reason for the absence of the LP -- called 'Songs To Remember' -- has been problems with said record label.

Matt: 'We wanted to build up to the point where the LP would get the recognition and space it deserved.'

Green: 'When we finished it, we weren't very happy with the way Rough Trade were going, thinking "Oh god, is this going to go the way of all independent flesh?"'

Matt: 'But with things like Pigbag and Yazoo doing so well, there's certainly been a growth in expertise and distribution.'

Green: 'There's still a lot of problems, as far as I'm concerned, fundamental matters of distribution and economics, promotion, marketing and a bias against their product at radio stations -- which happens.'

But surely things have changed recently with the success they've had with other stuff?

Green: 'Well I don't know what's on Rough Trade itself -- apart from us and 'Faithless' at tht moment -- that's going to get near the charts, so it's going to be a bit pioneering in htat respect.'

But are things like that going to stop you now?

'Oh no. Nothing at all is going to stop us now, I'm absolutely hell-bent on success.'

Chart success?

'Oh yeah. There's absolutely no point in making music, no point in having a bash at pop, and theorising about it, without actually having popular records.'

At this point I mention that Scritti Politti seem to have always been the archetypal Rough Trade group, from the days when they were both heavily into DIY and self-suffiency, to the current situation with both looking towards the charts; and ask whether this is a natural progression, or if one has influenced the other.

Matt takes the subject up. 'I think that we became interested in the charts long before they did, and played quite an important role in pressing them into going that way. The other important factor has been Mute Records, with Depeche Mode and Yazoo doing so well.

Green: 'I can remember having discussions with them where we were saying that we'd want simple promotional devices on a record like someone taking it to the radio stations, that just wouldn't be contemplated.'

'They felt that things should sell -- in some odd way -- on their own merit,' says Matt.

In fact, Scritti Politti used to order Rough Trade not to give away promotional copies of their records, a far cry from the nicely packaged press kit Matt presented me with after the interview.

'The one thing that still worries me is Rough Trade's A&R,' continues Green. 'They missed a lot of opportunities to wise up to the new populism, but instead kept paying for more Pere Ubu albums, which weren't even selling. It's crazy and I'm still pretty concerned about that aspect of it.' (Without trying to stir -- I think I should point out that Green, along with Nial the old bass player, cited Pere Ubu as an important influence back in Jamming! 6.) 'Although we are both purportedly interested in commercial success, they've still got this A&R thing that puts us away from other people on the label.'

Is there a plan these days? Three years ago it was very much 'release a record and see what happens'; how has it changed?

Matt: 'We're much more coordinated and thought out.'

Green: 'It's "Let's be the best group in the world" these days!'

Matt: 'Have a hit with 'Faithless, then a hit with the LP, then a hit with the next single.'

REMEMBER 'SONGS'?

With all this talk about the LP, people are going to be expecting something pretty remarkable. And they're not going to be disappointed: 'Songs To Remember' is an album of pure class, a deeply emotional yet extremely commercial collection of nine songs, that is almost impossible to fault, by virtue of the obvious craftmanship that has gone into it. Although it contains four tracks available on singles, I don't think anything's going to stop this record being bought by different types of people all over the country. People can talk about 'new soul' or any other kind of hype, but when it comes down to it, this record is timeless and fashionless -- certainly not many groups could leave their LP in the studios for a year and still sound contemporary when they release it.

'Songs To Remember' opens with 'Asylums in Jerusalem', a three-minute pop song with funk influences, and possibly my favourite on the LP for it's hookliness and wonderful flow. the importance of the new members is shown on songs like 'A Slow Soul', full of melancholy sax solos and beautiful backing vocals courtesy of Lorenza, Mae and Jackie. The title of the song must be a slight pun, as it's certainly very reminiscent of the old Aretha Franklin/Otis Redding sound Green claims to have been aiming for.

'Jacques Derrida', the next single, is once more a different sound, this time taken along by accoustic guitars and quick moving vocals, quite folky in some respects. Other songs are all equally varied, and almost all perfectly made. 'Sex' is a dance-orientated number; 'Rock-A-Boy-Blue' features a great double bass solo following Green's musings on pop, as well as a terrible edit; and 'Gettin' Havin' and Holdin'' is a leaf out of the lovers rock book, slow smooth and decidedly off-beat.

The numbers already familiar with some people are 'Lions After Slumber', in this case the 12" version, 'Faithless' and the albums finale, 'The "Sweetest Girl"', those three adding up 17 minutes playing time. Any record that can start with something as wonderful as 'Asylums In Jerusalem' and end with 'The "Sweetest Girl"', yet manage to keep the inerest all the way through, has to be something special. In fact, I'd sooner the music papers stopped trying to adopt Green as their own little hero, and gave the group a lot more space to appeal to Radio 2 listeners, soul-boys, the down-and-outs, and the well off businessmen. Music like this really shouldn't just be appealing to the hip readership of the music press, but should be accepted as high quality sounds that will mean something to anyone.

PERSON-ALL

Talking of which, the lyrical content seems very personal, in fact quite hard to get into.

'Yeah, they mean a lot to me,' explains Green, 'but they're not actually abour any individuals. I mean, there isn't a 'Sweetest Girl', and there wasn't a girl or man in min in 'Faithless'. It's more just the language, the sort of language one finds in soul or lovers rock records. Though they've obviously got a very personal feel, they're not autobiographical. They are very serious, ' he conludes, and laughs while he says it!

Funnily enough it's Matt who very simply and sweetly sums up the songs, saying how 'None could have written them without having lived, loved and lost.' This is certainly very true -- I can see 'Songs To Remember' providing the soundtrack to quite a few lonely days and nights of regret and sorrow, one of those great records to be left alone with.

Green: 'The line in 'Faithless' about the sweetest boy is a reference to the fact that in this song, I suppose it's the boy who kind of gets his comeuppance from knowing too much to ever be...' Green trails off while trying to find the right words to convey the emotions felt on songs like his. 'The son's about what a pain in the arse it is to be enlightened! It's lovely to know what's going on, but when you do know, it's a shitty place to live. It makes for a tough life.'

Of course, none could claim to have had much opportunity to see these songs live...

'Well for a long time, it was a mixture of being nervous about it; there not being a fiexed line-up to do it, and then the kind of feeling more recently that it wasn't a hugely necessary thing to put a lot of time and energy into. It would be a better idea to get a whole lot of songs finished, do some more recording, work on some videos, and then step out when perhaps we've consolidated. Playing live isn't as important as it used to be for being successful. But we did a Peel session last Saturday and that was such great fun to do, the whole seven of us. We did it effectively live -- one take, no practice -- and it was something that I'd never experienced before, just to go in there and really enjoy playing.'

So how do you feel now: would you...

'Yeah, yeah, I would like to play live now,' interrupts Green, relaxed and answering my questions before I can ask them. 'But I'm obviously going to be careful about that; we're going to do a bit more recording, plus we've got to decide a bit more about what the future involves as regards companies and publishing, all that crap. Then when that's sorted out, we'll get some more stuff recorded, and maybe if we work fast, and get the second album done before Christmas, there'll be time then.'

Well Green, do you ever see yourselves as being the next big thing?

'Yeah! In an impeccably classy way, definitely, particularly after doing this Peel session.'

Matt: 'I'd never want to be the next month's thing and then it's gone.'

'That definitely won't happen', retorts Green. 'Mainly down the songwriting, which is quite classy, solid, varied.'

You seem very confident.

'Yeah, for a change!'

'We don't want to just hype ourselves up there', explains Matt. A lot of companies wanted to put 'The "Sweetest Girl"' out, confident they could make it a big hit. But we sent them away -- we weren't interested in all htat.'

Ah, talk of hyping. A little chat with Matt when arranging the interview had seen him offer some strange suggestions of promoting a record for the once kings of KIY, so I asked him whether he was definitely going to avoid that.

'Not necessarily, no. I don't disapprove of it morally, or think that it's wicked or evil, but you have to choose the right course for the right time.'

Don't you think it's possible to succeed on talent alone, then?

'I don't think it's impossible, but sometimes you can have talent but not have anywhere to display it.'

We work out exactly what we call hyping, then Matt continues with his explanation...'Even if you do give records away like that, all that the companies can really do is get the records into the Top 75, maybe the Top 50, or at a pinch the Top 40, but if people don't like the record, they won't go out and buy it to make that company's money back. More important to most record companies is getting radio play, and though you can buy the producers lunch, you can't buy their airtime.'

Green: 'Records are never going to make it on merit alone; we've established that. There's no way you can make a beautiful record and say "Come and get it." You have to actually go out and get people into it.'

THE EXIT

Green sits back contentedly, having pilfered one of my cigarettes, only to meet stern warnings from Matt acting the nanny at his side. Well, do you want to be a pop star, Green?

'Yeah, Yeah,' he sounds a bit lethargical, as though I should have assumed he already is one! 'Not as an end in itself, but as a reflection of interest and popularity, I guess yes, I must admit I'm extremely enthusiastic about it all.'

Enthusiastic must be the word. For all Green's arrogance, all the changes the group have gone through, the annoying fact of always being ultra-hip, the image of this one man 'rediscovering' soul; for all that, Green and Scritti Politti are certainly something to get enthusiastic about. They are pure class, creating true 'music of quality and distinction', and with Green Gartside as songwriter and leader, they could turn into a 'pop' group of the ultimate kind.