Interviews

Roger Quigley

All his bad thoughts

All My Bad Thoughts has been three years in the making. Has it been a labour of love?

"Yes and no. It’s really obvious from my point of view that it needed those three years to complete; and I don’t mean that in terms of the way everybody's 'third, difficult album' stories go. We didn’t write the material two years and eleven months ago and then spend thousands of wasted hours since in some god-awful lake-side recording studio retreat with hot ‘n’ cold running massage and integral yoga workshops. We didn’t sack four producers, only to go back to the first one. We didn’t even ship the entire BBC Philharmonic to Montserrat for a month; it was simply a particularly slow, methodical exercise. It happened the way most of our stuff does. Mark supplied me with demoed tunes and I waited for the next situation to walk by and write about.

"We're pretty private individuals, me and Mark, and we know each other's space and time is important. So once the tunes were safely in my hands, he pretty much lets me wait and wait and wait, until something suddenly came along that I could confidently commit to paper. It’s a way of working that we began with and have kept, because it works so well: we don’t write together. We don’t sit down and construct a song. We don’t shoehorn our individual ideas into a final, compromised song.

"In fact, the only time we really sit down together in the whole process is when we produce and master it, because by that time, the songs are finished; we've both agreed that they work and that we've got the all-important 'nod' from Richard (Vespertine & Son boss man)."

It's a dark title for an album. Does it reflect the music within?

The Montgolfier Brothers

"This album's a little different to the previous two, in that it hopefully shows our age. I’m completely unapologetic at being 36. In fact I revel in it: I love getting older and seeing the world slowly changing. It'd be so boring otherwise! I try to be as un-sceptical about things as possible. Yes, I'll look at some god-awful design of a block of flats in town, where a few years back there was a gorgeous broken-down, unwanted, unloved wreck of a building and think, 'but...'. But what can you do about it? You don’t write to the council when the leaves start falling off the trees in the autumn or when some 'cheeky-beggar-bulbs' start sprouting in your garden in the spring.

"So, if the album's about anything, it’s about that: our reaction to change. We refuse to believe that anything should be allowed to change. It should be as it always was, which is rubbish. Change defines us. It’s puts us in context. If the city still looked like it did in 1969, would I feel any better about life? I very much doubt it. But sit in any cafe, any pub, any bus queue and you'll hear that it was so much nicer 20 years ago, 10 years ago, two weeks ago for God’s sake!

"I’m not saying that I don’t do it myself. Buy me a couple of cooking lagers and I'll bore your backside off about 'my Manchester'. But I’m just very aware of doing it and I feel like I’m insulting people when I do do it. It’s like saying 'my time is or was better than yours'. We're obsessed with time and being better and unique. In short, we're absolutely scared stiff of life.

"So the title and the music refers to that. It’s a shared realisation that whichever way you look at it, when the penny drops, we’re screwed and we've no idea what to do about it. You can say it about your city, you can say it about your ex, but I think of it as looking in the mirror."

The album seems firmly rooted in Manchester's streets. How inspirational do you find this city?

Roger Quigley

"If I was from Glasgow, then that’s what I would have written about. The fact that I edited a lot of the lyrics whilst sat in the Koffee Pot (in the Northern Quarter) could be considered coincidental. Don’t expect me to wax lyrical about how romantic the rain is, how beautifully desperate I think that part of the city is, because I can’t and won’t. I might feel that sometimes, but I wouldn’t wish for a million years to be as desperate as some of the people and faces I see every long miserable day.

"The secret is out; it rains in lots of other parts of the world. People fall in and out of love in places other than this wee city. I just see it and experience it here, as that softly spoken game-show host many times suggested, I say what I see."

Dave Campion makes his recording debut, narrating a tale of bygone Manchester. How did that come about?

"Before the Kings Arms (in Salford) twinned with Greater Hoxten, it was the meeting point for a small and committed band of drinkers, thinkers, talkers and smokers. I’m proud to say I served with that elite band of brave souls, though rather late in the day, it’s got to be said, and Dave was one of the front-line troops. Doing our best to keep the baliffs away from the door of the pub, we'd drink in the name of all things drinkable to.

"It soon became clear that Dave had a couple of stories under his belt. It wasn’t until half way through writing the lyrics for the album that I decided that it needed another perspective. Dave’s voice and story fitted exactly. He floats into the record at a point where I’ve painted the city and myself so dark that you think it’s irretrievably lost and in he comes to tell you about an experience that he still remembers, one that still warms his heart to this day. For me, it’s like a fire-cracker up the backside! It’s like, 'right you, you miserable git, you can spend the rest of your life being a sad little sod, or you can enjoy it.'"

Your sound is a rich mix of humour and despair. How would you describe it?

The Montgolfier Brothers

"Would it be a cop-out to describe it as a rich mix of despair and humour? I think they're more or less from the same box. See Reggie Perrin, see Tati's Mon Oncle, see Lost In Translation; they work because of the balance of both emotions.

"I was having this conversation the other night and yes, we do need the occasional crappy song, film, TV show, but get it right, hit the target exactly, like Lost In Translation and you’re left absolutely dazed. You don’t know if you're coming or going, right or wrong, half empty or half full. I love that idea of the ability to tune so specificaly into an emotion and relay it."

You're playing the Cornerhouse as part of its 20th Birthday celebrations. What does the place mean to you?

"I probably feel like most people about where they work. I’ve been there now for several years and yes, it means a great amount to me. It’s been the scene of a few of my highs and lows."

You've also written the soundtrack for a short film, The Flower Chamber, recently. How was that?

"Absolutely painless and an experience I could do over and over again. Me, mark and Otto (the Otto Show and Montgolfier live guitarist) split the work three ways for each of the three characters, wrote it separately and by heavens, it worked beautifully again once more. I really hope the project goes forward because it’s a gorgeous film."

So what's next? More Montgolfier stuff, soundtracks or will you be doing more with your solo project, At Swim Two Birds?

"Please, please, please more soundtrack stuff! I cannot think of a better day than sat in the 'office' or Café Nero on Deansgate as the rest of the world call it, clunky headphones on, laptop-Mac burning a hole into my family heirlooms, going over a seven-second piece of film for hours and hours: I’m telling you that would be absolute bliss!

"Until that time, we're busy sticking irons in fires. Mark's solo project (GNAC/Mark Tranmer) is busy filling out complicated paper work for a Russian album release, and has just completed a track for the Paris-based Pschent label's 'Mezzanine De L'Alcazar' volume four.

"I’m in firing-all-cylinders mode and enjoying every minute of it, working on an album for the Spanish label, Green UFOs, and nearing my ambition of becoming Salford's version of Serge Gainsbourg, recording and producing with Emme Asplund, a local from Sweden (if that’s possible!) heading for a self-release on another little project I’m cooking up called Care In The Community records."