The Fall Interview

• 24th Oct 2008

The creative force behind, seminal band, The Fall since its inception back in 1976, Mark E Smith has earned a reputation as a formidable frontman. While developing a line in often incoherent, absurd lyricist (with his cryptic delivery riding those abrasive guitar grooves), thirty years of performance haven’t detracted from his appeal. He now joins the likes of Goldfrapp, Black Kids, Martha Wainwright, Vampire Weekend, Mystery Jets and Dizzee Rascal for the sprawling MTV Liverpool Music Week.

How are you?

Okay. I’ve just found out that it’s International Fall Day today. Nobody thought to tell me any earlier.

Looking forward to the Liverpool Music Week performance?

I am. The Fall hasn’t ever been a ‘festival’ group. We’re more of a club band so this works for me in as much as what we’re doing is part of a load of stuff that’s also going on around the same time. And loads of younger bands are on too. That’s good.

What young bands do you like?

My minds gone blank now. I do listen to a lot of stuff: I get sent a lot of new shit. And I watch some of them on that daft show on T4. You know: where they get the chance to play or talk in between that girl going on. Some of them sound all right. There’s that one band from Liverpool who are pretty good. The Wombats? Yeah, that’s them.

During one era for The Fall, wouldn’t your contemporaries have been seen to be Liverpool bands like The Teardrop Explodes and Echo and the Bunnymen?

Yeah. But we always held them in contempt. There was a bit of a rivalry there.

Hasn’t there always been some rivalry for musical supremacy between Liverpool and Manchester?

Personally, I’ve always preferred Liverpool over Manchester. Then again, I’m actually from Salford.

Fellow Salfordian Tony Wilson used to further the banter between Manchester and Liverpool’s music scenes. So you never saw it as ‘them’ and ‘us’?

No. Not at all. People forget that we could never get a show in Manchester for ages. Then we’d drive over to Liverpool and find that we were top of the bill. That went on for about three or four years, believe it or not. We couldn’t get jack shit in the place where we lived.

The Fall have never really fitted in with the various Manchester bands, have they?

No. We tried to keep it all at arm’s length. I’ve never seen us as part of the city’s music scene. Every few years they’ll revive some Manchester thing. One year it might be The Buzzcocks or whatever. But a mate of mine was saying it’s the same in Glasgow and there’s this cycle where people try to spark some kind of revival. We never did that. We never saw us as part of any particular movement. If you want the brutal truth, Manchester’s really just a lot of big fish in a small pond. And while we were being ignored there, we were playing to crowds in Liverpool. We were bigger in Germany. People don’t appreciate what’s on their doorstep.

Do you think that it’s because you weren’t closely associated with any particular movement that The Fall has really endured?

I do think that’s true. But then we’ve also been through a lot of different line-ups and that’s helped too. People move on, don’t they?

So who, for you, are The Fall’s peers?

I don’t really see any. I’m not much of a musician, me. Believe it or not. I’m more of a writer. I’ve always thought about what I do in those terms. When it comes to the music, I do like it to be pretty brutal and I can’t think of an example of anyone else who is working along similar lines.

So where do you get your inspiration?

I do go back to a lot of rockabilly and dub reggae. I like how raw some of it sounds compared to a lot of new music.

Do you listen to your own music?

When I do, I don’t tend to listen to a lot of the early records. The thing is, I am a pretty big fan of The Fall. I am [laughs]. Sometimes I’ll play an old recording and I’ll be like, “that’s great, that is”. It does surprise me how great some of it is.

So who is the average Fall fan these days?

From what I see, they’re all like 17 years-old. Real wild boys. The dads must be stood somewhere near the back or something. We played the other night and people went mad, barricades were broken, all that.

And you don’t tire of playing?

No. These MTV Music Week events look good and – especially as it’s for Liverpool – I was up for playing a gig. Sometimes we get invited to do these things and they’re not as well organised. I mean, we did one and we played after that Karl bloke. You know: the f*cking doctor from Neighbours. And then, after we were on, there was this other old crock from Barclay James Harvest or summat. You looked at the brochure for that one and there were no new groups. None. But even some of the new bands that you see coming through at these things, half of them seem to be made up of professional actors. Groups that were all formed at some London college or stage school. They’re not proper groups. It is all pretty polished but, behind it, there’s really nothing there.

So you reckon The Fall would never have made it beyond the first X Factor audition?

Too right. Because what programmes like that forget is something called creativity. I look around sometimes and I think I’m in the wrong f*cking job.

The Fall open this years MTV Liverpool Music Week, performing at Nation, Courtyard on Thursday 30th October, tickets on sale now £16+BF, Tickets: 0151 256 5555 / Info: link