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The death of the physical format is a real possibility after a couple of mobsters woke up realizing (with desperate cries) they had run out of cocaine supplies: sales had plummeted by 13%. As a direct consequence of the withdrawal, last month the music chain Fopp definitively closed its hundred stores across the UK, and HMV, with more than 400 mobsters to feed, reported a 75% drop in profits. But what are the reasons for this tragedy, apart from the recent capture of Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia, known as Chupeta, king of drug trafficking? According to the mobsters, the blame lies with downloads (with the participation of the American Secret Services), with fans now randomly lassoing songs instead of shelling out cash like fools like me. According to the fools, however, the bands have simply grown tired. As in all revolutions, the monsters benefit: money is accumulating thanks to the worst ideas, such as in the mobile phone market (the only useful thing God has created for the man who already has everything) giving mobsters new opportunities for income: the R&B star with a chemical-biological warfare stage name, Akon, made 6 million dollars from cellphone ringtone royalties. If I'm not mistaken, you suffered for seven years before debuting. Your first three albums are all well-crafted, each subsequent one better than the previous. Then something happened. "Saturday Night Sunday Morning Records" was born. Since then, bear with me, but it's becoming a torture to keep up with you.
Yes, it has been a difficult journey. The music industry is becoming a place where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. I never believed it would be easy, but I never expected (the first 3 Six By Seven albums were critically acclaimed, ed) it would become impossible. What people don't understand is that every time they download a song for free, they are saving money but at the same time killing a band.
Six By Seven are one of the last hard and pure bands fighting against extinction. Allow me to give you my heartfelt compliments: I have all your original CDs. The only one I'm missing is "Fuck Me USA", about which two legends are told: the first says that the copies were bought in bulk by the American Secret Services to not fuel revolutionary ferment; the second that you didn't even print 100 copies. Do you think the USA is ready for a female president? Or a snappy black guy? They have been governed by a white idiot for seven years.
Of course! Why not? America now more than ever could use a black female president. Kill Bush! (me?, ed), that's the only thing I can say. Oh, yes: and long live Fuck Me USA.
I really wouldn't know how to define your latest album. Perhaps "a mystical shoegaze convulsion My Bloody Valentine/early Primal Scream/Jesus And Mary Chain genetically modified into a damn wall of depraved and bleeding noise"? What do you think, do you like it? Do you think I can be a journalist? Can I download it as a ringtone?
I think our new album is great, it works perfectly on one level; all the songs have the same tempo and the recording was immediate. I also think that although it might sound like the bands you've mentioned, it also has a modern approach, especially in the way it was recorded.
In the booklet of a Swell album, I read: "I don’t give a fuck about them and their copyright: you download my shit and I'll catch you". When your sixth album was released you wrote: "These songs were worth releasing and besides this, we need your money". I have to admit your honesty scares me more. Amidst mobsters and adversities of all kinds, the story of these two (excellent) bands, on opposite sides of the ocean, has become a struggle for survival which, as Antonio Puglia wrote about you, "becomes an indispensable and characterizing element". The only completely useless thing God has created for the man who has nothing left.
Yes, we need money, why should we do this and not get paid? Just because we are musicians do we have to suffer? I don't think there's anyone who likes working for nothing, you simply can't keep doing anything and get nothing in return.
I would love to ask you about the legend of your first concert. Is it really true like all other legends, did it really happen? A 17-minute noise-psychedelic suite in front of a handful of curious spectators and industry people, completed even though the venue (the "Charlotte" in Leicester) emptied halfway through the song.
Yes, everything you said is true except it wasn’t our first concert. At the time our manager was convinced we could get a record deal and invited all these shady figures from record labels: as soon as the first one left the venue, he was followed by everyone else. We weren't very technical back then, and you have to consider it was during the brit-pop explosion: the music and its message were reaching a wide audience but no one was ready for a 17-minute piece. It was only a year later that the NME presented our first single, "European Me", which incidentally wasn’t joking either, reaching seven minutes, describing it as "one of the best singles of all time". Oasis were already emptied of meaning and Radiohead released "Paranoid Android" as a single; a band like Spiritualized was starting to make great strides. You always have to fight for what you believe in, and it has to be said that today these opportunities and brave bands no longer exist. I’m increasingly convinced that the music world would be perfect if there were more oddballs like Julian Cope (Chris Olley is currently on tour with Julian Cope, ed).
The last time I talked to Chris was at a London concert.
"Something's wrong with me" I thought as he finished "Oceans", and everyone was applauding Olley and I was applauding Olley's woman’s thighs. "American beer!" one shouted towards the stage. "American beer!" - shouted the two meters of thighs. "American beer!" I shouted too. And "Clouds" began.
"I love that song!" - I told her aroused. She looked at me disgusted and erased me from her memory at record speed.
"American beer" they didn’t play at all - I got up and went to order a couple at the bar.
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