Record Collector October 2005



Brown happy to bloom alone


After 4 solo albums, 2 compilations, a remix album and a former life in one of our most loved modern bands, Ian Brown releases The Greatest this month.He told Jake Kennedy all about it.

Talking about music with Ian Brown is to walk a thin line between sour memories, a love of music and an eternal optimism brought on by a colourful life. After Manchester's Stone Roses degenerated in the mid-90s, after just two albums,he was,as is widely accepted,the boy least likely to,of the four members.But by picking himself up,dusting himselfdown and working with friends,he has turned in four vibrant,sunshine-filled albums,with an astonishing 13 singles to boot.

As an avid music fan (from the days of punk,through to being a scooter boy, then a Northern soul fan,right through to the acid house-era and on into 'Madchester'), Brown is nothing if not down to earth. His recollections of darker times (he served a stretch in prison in 1999 for a much reported'air rage incident',and the toll of working with John Squire on The Second Coming) are always followed by the lessons they taught him.His outlook is sunny.You can still tell he was once the archetypal arrogant young singer whom countless stars have copied, but he has mellowed with age.He checks himself regularly;perhaps he has been burnt before?A friend in Japan sends him a box of clothesevery six months. "I gave up shopping in 1997"; Ian Brown is a pop star now. And I think he loves it.....

Have you always wanted to be a pop star?
I never set out to be one. It's just that the rug was pulled out from under me when John left the Roses, and I didn't feel like doing music then. But then I wanted to get back into it. I love music, that's what I'm all about.

How did that period affect you?
I wanted to do something dead honest and simple, to grow flowers and sell them at the market. It was only people, mates, coming up to me saying, 'you're Ian Brown, do something', that got me going again.

Was Unfinished Monkey Business a reaction against the polish of The Second Coming?
It probably was actually, yeah. I deliberatly wanted to make an LP that sounded home made. Rough and ready, almost as if you were present at the session as it was going along. I didn't want that 24-track super-sheen over-produced sound. It was probably a reaction against spending 15 months in that studio(Monmouth, Wales), because I've done five albums in seven and a half years, including remixes, and with this hits collection I've got six LP's on the shelf. Plus two compilation albums. That's a reaction to 15 months of semi-idleness. Waiting for guys to finish guitar parts; eight months of lead guitar before I could get singing. We'd spend every day wiping 20 guitar tracks off.Then there'd be another 20, and we'd wipe them off as well...

Would you be happy if a household only had The Greatest, and nothing else, like Abba with Abba Gold?
Yeah. They're my best songs, the greatest. If someone got introduced through that I'd be well happy. They'd be making a mistake if that's all they had, because there are four nice LP's as well. Is this the high point? This year has been the biggest since '89. And the most enjoyable. I'm gonna smash it, I'm gonna take it as far as I can. Sometimes in life you only get one bite of the cherry, but I feel like I'm on my second full bowl of cherries. I don't want to reach a stage where I look back and think 'I could of done that'. While I'm fit and healthy I want to smash it.

One thing Ian Brown is not is a hippie. He may come across as a stoned ranger, a man-boy-monkey who partied too hard in the 80s and is now frazzled, but behind the pout is a music making machine that will seemingly never stop. Get him talking about beats or sleeve design or even studio work, one of the more arduous aspects to the rock star lifestyle, and he will talk for hours.

Do you jam in the studio?
No. I never do that. No, 90% of it is, well, I look at it like a cake, and most of that is preparation. A couple of good ideas in the studio will do me. A new bassline or a great drum sound. It's more funthough, to bring in a pal to play guitar, so I'll bring in whoever's needed at that time. And I'll work close with the engineer or the mixer to get what sounds I want.

Was there there ever a point when you might have been a band, rather than 'Ian Brown'?
No, because I felt like I'd formed a band, and I didn't want to do that again. The Roses were 12 years' work. We started in '84, and I didn't feel I could find a band as strong asthat so... I didn't even want to play shows 'cos of that. I just wanted to make a record. But then each record has given me the confidence to do the next.It seems pretty free-form... Well, if I eat a big dinner, they eat a big dinner. We're all good pals, but I'm the boss, if you want. I make all the decisions. But the Roses were fairly rigid? Well, I dunno if you've noticed, but every band I've had since '97 has been different, has had different players. I'm always trying to keep it fresh. Every new project I treat as if it's my first.

What might the Roses have sounded like today?
My guitar player summed it up the other day. John went out with the wrong Jimi. When we first came out, he followed Jimi Hendrix, and then he started following Jimmy Page. He followed the wrong Jimi. If he'd stuck with Hendrix he would of been alright.

Are you a control freak?
My band would say that I was dead easy to work with. They'd say we have a great laugh, because we do. I might be a control freak, though. I have to know about every millisecond on an album. If they don't agree with it I'll still stick my foot down, but then they might come to me and say I was right. But if I've been wrong, I'll say that too. I think I made a mistake with Monkey Business. I should have got someone else to mix that; it was going to be the Dust Brothers, who mixed the Beasties. Only I had to wait six weeks, and I wouldn't wait six weeks. Now I think if they'd mixed it, it would have sounded a whole lot better than it does. I mixed it myself.But I've no regrets. It does what I wanted it to do. The love for music in general is a theme Brown returns to continually during our conversation. He is already a confident person, but when reminising about a period of music, or a gig or album, he becomes supremely so. We touch on many genres as we talk, but the end of the 80s seems to stand out, understandably, as a special time for the singer. What sort of electronic music do you listen to? I like the original house, Detroit, all the late 80s stuff. And I like hip-hop, which uses a lot of electronic noise.

Were you into that during the Roses?
Yeah, one of the best gigs I've ever seen was in 1987, Farley Jackmaster Funk with Frankie Knuckles and Joe Smooth, amazing...amazing. And I think what the British did was to copy that. And that's what we've got now, weak, piss-poor anaemic copies of the music back in the day.

Are you bothered by the charts?
Well... I'm always to get in them, whatever number I hit. Every single I've done has charted somewhere. But I don't follow the charts like I did in the 70s.

Lovebug (from The Greatest) is practically a ska track...
Well, I've still got an ace collection of Trojan and Blue Beat that I built up when I was 17 or 18. Northern soul, Motown, and skawas the music to listen to. But I'd like to do more work with trumpets in the future. Tim (Hutton, Groove Armada) is now in the live band. Trumpets are triumphant. I've got a friend in Mexico who has opened a studio, and I want to get a track where we mix up some of my players and some of the old boys over there. Make a real party LP.

Who inspires you these days then?
Paul Weller. He's an inspiration to me. He's come out of a really loved British band, but on his own terms. He's obviously a music lover and a music maker. His age makes no differance; his crowds are getting bigger and bigger, 20 year olds at the front, older fans at the back. He's the only one I can think of, though.

What are you listening to these days?
Reggae mainly. Hip-hop, I like the newer stuff, and Maxican mariachi music. And I've started playing loads of old punk rock again-my sound engineer's an old punk rocker, and we drive round in the van listening to that. The spirit's still there.

Were you a punk in the 70s?
I bought God Save The Queen the day it came out. That spirit, just being yourself,that's what it's all about.




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