In their decade-and-a-half-long career, Supergrass have managed to become one of British rock's great survivors, creating a diverse body of work and having a damn good time doing it. Their sixth studio album, the raucous Diamond Hoo Ha, contains all the trademark Supergrass ingredients with a big chunk of glam-rock added to the mix.
yourGigs spoke to bass player Mick Quinn while he was taking a break from touring.
yourGigs (yG): You were quite busy over the northern summer, what are you up to at the moment?
Mick Quinn (MQ): We're on a two-week break at the moment. We've just come back from Ireland. I've got a bit of time at home. I think we've got a few little gigs around England before we come out to Australia.
yG: What do you do in your downtime?
MQ: Catch up on all of that sleep I've been missing. Just what everyone else does, I guess. Go shopping, cooking, live and play a bit of guitar when I'm bored.
yG: Congratulations on the album. What was recording in Berlin like?
MQ: I think the actual recording for me - it doesn't matter where you are because you're in a studio and it makes no difference what part of the world you're in because you're still locked in a room, recording and it's the same kind of intensity. I think it's the living, the food you're eating and what you do when you aren't actually recording that has an influence on it. For me, it was brilliant. I really enjoyed Berlin. It's a very strange city; it's like no other city in Europe at the moment. It's got so much history and it's being reborn as we speak.
yG: Is it right that the studio you recorded in was where David Bowie worked in the late '70s?
MQ: Yeah, the Hansa Studio complex. I think Bowie worked on the second floor, which is no longer a studio, it's kind of turned into a big ballroom. We worked on the fourth floor. It's where Bowie did "Heroes", Iggy Pop's recorded there, U2 recorded there, Japan, all sorts of people. Even David Hasselhoff's recorded there, so it's got a good pedigree.
yG: What were the sessions like? - it's a very 'up' album as opposed to Road to Rouen.
MQ: It's definitely a different record to Road to Rouen. The vibe in the studio was just very intense. The actual recording time was three weeks. We didn't have much time to even think there, we were kind of just laying it down. The vibe of the record came from all the writing we did in the five months previous to that. We were all at home, writing.
yG: You split up into pairs to write; how did that work?
MQ: That was on the lyrics. We always tend to write the music very quickly and very easily without having to soul-search too much. When it comes to the lyrics, we've got this huge blank canvas waiting to get done and it's always been a problem. Because all of us sort of sit round and try and write the lyrics together, it becomes very difficult and people want to change single words and argue about really ridiculous points. So we kind of just split off into pairs and that just seemed to work a lot better. You can sort of get off in a role when there's two of you. It was interesting to see what pairs worked. I think I worked with all three of the other band members at some point and they all have different writing styles, so it was quite interesting.
yG: Which member do you think you worked best with?
MQ: It's really difficult actually I think, for different reasons. I kind of liked working with Bob because he's quite wordy and stuff. Then again, Gaz comes up with some amazing stuff and so does Danny.
yG: Where do you think this album sits in the Supergrass catalogue?
MQ: At the end [laughs]. I wouldn't like to compare the records. They're written at different times. I think Road to Rouen is an album of its time. We'd just finished making our best-of - Supergrass is 10 - and finished promoting all that and we just didn't want to do anything like that so we made Road to Rouen. I think this new album again is something that's kind of a reaction to that. I wouldn't say it's our best record or we've reached a peak. It's an interesting record but there's room to change and move on from it.
yG: We missed out on seeing you guys here when you toured Road to Rouen; can we expect to hear some songs from that as well?
MQ: I've been talking to the others about that. Personally, I'd like to play a few more. We've just been playing 'St Petersburg' and, occasionally, 'Fin' when we've been touring but it would be nice to play a few more tracks because we didn't make it out for Road to Rouen and they're great tracks live. They are more complex and more difficult to perform live than the new record. It must be said that the songs on Diamond Hoo Ha translate beautifully live.
yG: You've had Charley Coombes [brother of singer Gaz and keyboardist Bob] touring with the band. What's it like to have a third Coombes in the band?
MQ: He will be coming out. It's quite a stretch for Charley to come out because he's terrified of flying. It's been great touring with him. He's been playing second guitar. Sometimes I catch the fact that we've got three Coombes brothers in the band and I feel like we're in the Bee Gees or something. It's a bit scary. He's great to have around because he is kind of the most similar musician to me, in a way. He plays off the floor and he's very spontaneous.
yG: How are you going touring now after your accident? [Quinn fell out of a first-floor window of a rented villa in France in July 2007, suffering two broken vertebrae and a smashed heel.]
MQ: Well, I don't think I'll ever fully recover. I'm still like an old man when I'm bending over. But it's been great. That's basically what's got me out of bed and recovered: the prospect of touring. What got me out of bed in the first place was the Diamond Hoo Ha Men and the fact that Danny and Gaz had gone off to do a band without me.
yG: Was it weird seeing them perform without you?
MQ: I didn't see them actually. I saw them perform with Charley playing keyboard bass. I went to see those. It was quite interesting actually. I thought they were missing me for starters. It was interesting to see how the crowd reacted and what their stagecraft was like, because I never get to see what we look like from out front. It was quite surreal.
yG: After Australia, you have a small run of shows in Europe and one in London. Will that be the end of Diamond Hoo Ha?
MQ: I think it might well be. I think we want to see what happens next after that. I think the big heavy touring's going to be over. We didn't get out to Japan on this tour, which is a bit of shame. Come the new year, we'll see what happens. There's a few ideas on the backboiler to get started with before we get involved in making a major record.
Michael Hartt
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