It's been seven years since their last album, but London trio Saint Etienne are still totally in love with music, keyboardist Bob Stanley tells LAUREN MURPHY
IT’S NOT OFTEN that albums do exactly what they say on the tin, but Words and Music by Saint Etienne doesn’t leave much room for misinterpretation. Yes, you may argue that the majority of albums are comprised of words and music – but few of them hone in on those two elements and make them the central theme of a record.
Confused? In that case, opening track Over the Border will set you straight. A spoken-word track in which singer Sarah Cracknell reminisces about teenage pilgrimages to Peter Gabriel’s house and using Top of the Pops as her “world atlas”, it perfectly encapsulates the idea behind the London trio’s eighth studio album: their lifelong love affair with music.
Keyboardist, songwriter and erstwhile producer Bob Stanley came up with the concept. A self-confessed music anorak who “was the sort of kid who kept exercise books full of the charts”, he spent most of the last four years writing Do You Believe in Magic?, a non-fiction book about the modern pop era, set for publication next spring.
“It’s funny, ’cos it doesn’t feel like we said ‘OK, we’ve really got to do a new album now’,” he explains of the band’s return to the music world.
“But with me personally, [writing the book] meant that I’ve been thinking about little else for the last four years except music history, and how music has affected my life. I brought the subject up and Pete [Wiggs, guitarist] and Sarah both really liked the idea. We ended up writing songs independently; some of them, we wrote together, but mostly they were written by one or the other of us. We’re all of a certain age now, and Pete and Sarah are watching their kids get into music, so it’s bringing back memories for them of how you get into music as a kid, which is completely abstract, really. It hits you at different stages of your life in completely different ways. By the time you get to your 40s, one single song can remind you of so many different stages of your life. I find that fascinating.”
It’s been seven years since the last Saint Etienne album, Tales from Turnpike House, and although the band have been kept busy with other projects – most notably a year-long tenure as artists-in-residence at London’s South Bank Centre that focused predominantly on film – Stanley was never worried about their name sliding into ‘Whatever happened to . . . ?’ territory.
“To be honest, a lot of people assume we don’t exist anymore, anyway,” he chuckles. “I think it’s only the people paying attention who know we’re still around, but I suppose the name of the group has been kept going by what we’ve been doing in between – film projects and putting together film seasons, or just doing reissues, obviously, which took a fair bit of delving into the archives. And I don’t think there would have been a time in particular over the last seven years where people would have been desperate to hear a new album from us, anyway.”
Although 21 years have passed since Saint Etienne’s era-defining debut, Foxbase Alpha, Words and Music certainly doesn’t hark back to the band’s glory days. If nothing else, the album continues the trend for innovation that has run through their output, from Tiger Bay’s blend of folk and ambient electronica to the subtle synth stylings of Tales From Turnpike House.
But how does a pop band – and, dare we say it, one whose members are now in their mid- to late-40s – continue to innovate? By working with some of the best pop producers around, of course. Their partnership with production house Xenomania stretches back to the aforementioned Turnpike House album, but their collaboration with former Xenomania masterminds Tim Powell and Nick Coler is especially fruitful on the dance-addled pop of I’ve Got Your Music and Answer Song. Add Richard X (Sugababes, Kelis), regular producer Ian Catt and former Mud guitarist Rob Davis, and you’ve got an impressively eclectic line-up behind the production desk.
“When the two Tims and Nick Coler all left [Xenomania] and went independent, it made sense to go to them and ask if they wanted to work on a new album. We got on with them all really well, they’re lovely people, and they’re really talented. Richard, we’d obviously worked with separately, because he was a fan when he was a teenager and asked if he could do the remix of Foxbase Alpha about three years ago. He likes to go to the pub and so do we, so we get on really well,” he laughs.
“Another reason we thought it’d be great to work with them was that we wouldn’t have to work in a different way, but the end result would hopefully sound like something that gets played on the radio.
“And it seems to have worked, because the first two singles are getting played on Radio 2 and 6 Music, which is the best we can hope for now. I’m not expecting to have a top five hit, or for Sarah to do a duet with Dappy, but it’s the closest we can get without losing our dignity, I think.”
Does bringing such contemporary producers on board signify a wish to keep up with the new generation of pop artists? Is it difficult to maintain an interest in the charts? “Well, I would have said Girls Aloud are my favourite group a few years ago, but even they don’t exist anymore. I’m gonna sound like a miserable old git now, but a lot of these sensitive singer-songwriters with beards – or any post-punk-new-wave Brooklyn band . . . well, I’d have to be really convinced not to just think ‘Oh, I can spot all the reference points here’. The xx album was pretty good, but I didn’t really go back to it.
“That’s the problem, I’ll hear something and think ‘That’s pretty good’, and then just go and listen to an album of Elvis out-takes,” he laughs.
“It’s not something I’m proud of . . .”
Nonetheless, Words and Music is a welcome return for one of the most enduring British pop acts of recent years. Considering that it’s possibly their most out-and-out pop release to date, does Stanley consider it to herald a new era for Saint Etienne?
“Yeah, by the time we’re 70, we’ll be back in the top 10,” he laughs heartily. “Oh, I don’t know. To me, it’s quite simple: we had the idea for lyrics, we wrote the songs the same way we ever would, and we ended up working with these producers who are trained to make things sound radio-friendly. And we really enjoyed it this time. It’s worked out well.”
Words and Music by Saint Etienne is released on Universal May 18
