From a love of pop and weird communities.

“It’s weird, doing these interviews is like therapy,” states Delay’s singer/guitarist Greg Gilbert. “In a recent interview I said when I was young all I ever bought was film soundtracks and I thought ‘Shit, that’s where some of my tastes come from.’”

Southampton’s Delays produce the kind of old school, jangly-guitar indie-pop-music that hasn’t been heard since the early nineties. Think The La’s, think SHACK. It’s pop in the classic sense, not in a manufactured, commercial way. “As far as I’m concerned, pop music is about making great records and mattering to a group of people,” says Greg. “I guess we’re on a mission to reclaim it from people like Pete Waterman.”

Along with Gilbert and his brother Aaron (keyboards/vocals), Colin Fox (bass/vocals) and Rowly (the drummer) all went to the same school. Yet they never talked to each other and it wasn’t until they re-met later at the local indie club that they found a common bond. “We were all requesting tracks that cleared the dance floor but we were the three that were left,” explains Greg. “And you think, ‘Ah, like minded people’. It happened a few times and eventually we got talking about it.”

And it wasn’t just the love of songs like Abba’s Does Your Mother Know that they had in common, they also all discovered a mutual respect for TV shows like Twin Peaks and The Prisoner. “Until recently I’ve never actually sat down and thought what it is I like about them,” Greg says. “I’ve worked out that they’re both about communities of freaks. And if you take away the dark scary elements of Prisoner and Twin Peaks, I’d actually like to live in those places, with weird people, in a little community. And I think we all feel a bit like that, a bit like outsiders.”

Delays certainly aren’t following trends but this also means they sound a little different from anything else. “I agree it’s unfashionable but it’s not been wilfully directed that way. We’ve shut ourselves away here and just pursued our tastes really,” shugs Greg. “I’ve always had this real hankering after 80s stuff and for a number of years I’ve really had to suppress that because it just wasn’t the done thing, was it?”

Their debut album is due in March but next week sees the release of the euphoric epic, Long Time Coming: “It’s about observing someone you really care about crumbling and giving into all the clichés of what being a young adult is all about and losing that spark. It’s about wishing you could say something, but knowing you’re not going to change their mind. So essentially it’s about losing somebody you know.”

So is writing music a way of working though difficult things? “No it’s denial,” he laughs. “It’s about filling the room with an atmosphere that makes you feel good and brings in other people. It comes back to that community thing I guess, The Prisoner vibe.” Matt Walton 16 January 04

Delays – Long Time Coming, released 19 January 04 on Rough Trade.

useful link: www.thedelays.co.uk