Thanks so much to Rob Cross-Menzies for the fantastic interview! I wrote about The Ferocious Apaches some time ago on the blog and was lucky that Robert stumbled upon my post and got in touch! And I was even luckier that he was up for answering many of my questions about the story of the band and finally painting a picture of this obscure Tamworth, UK, band!
++ Hi Rob! Thanks so much for being up for this interview and getting in touch! How are you? Are you still based in Tamworth? Still making music?
I left Tamworth in the late 80s and moved to Liverpool, ostensibly to study but in reality I just wanted to leave Tamworth. At the time I had a real beef with the place I disliked the small town-ness of it and I thought musically it was squaresville daddy-o. It took some time but I came to realise it actually had a great music scene for a small town I couldn’t see that as I had no comparison to draw from. I had a ‘Tamworth’ pin badge which I had scrawled ‘I hate’ above the word Tamworth (based on an original idea from John Lydon’s Pink Floyd T-shirt, as modelled by Paul Cook) and wore proudly. Yes I still make music, can’t seem to help myself.
++ Let’s start from the beginning. What are your first music memories? Do you remember what was your first instrument? How did you learn to play it? What sort of music did you listen at home while growing up?
My first musical memories are getting ready for school and listening to BRMB radio breakfast show (the Birmingham station) playing the hits of the day which would have been ABBA, Leo Sayer and if you were really lucky you might get something like Madness or the Jam. My parents had mostly crooner stuff and jazz in their record collection, but amongst that was Alan Freeman’s History of Pop which literally shaped my musical tastes – at least side 4 is pretty much did – even Hermans Hermits, who I give a pass to for launching bubblegum pop. My First instrument was a Kays catalogue guitar which came with the typical instruction book that taught you the wrong way to play, but did have chord diagrams so you could do E, A, D and blow me it’s the Gloria riff. The first records I owned were the Jam, Who, Beatles – in England around the end of the 70s/start of the 80s there was a MOD revival thing going on which I and my Jnr school friends latched onto and carried into our early teens (I got a MOD kangaroo trial for buying the Clash’s first album! You could not be a Mod and a punk that was verboten). Then came Echo & the Bunnymen, Teardrop Explodes, The Cure, Birthday Party, The Smiths, and of course the Jesus and Mary Chain.
++ Were you involved in other bands before The Ferocious Apaches?
No. But…..I think Mark & I made our live debut as drummer and guitarist at Emma Gibbs Love Badges debut gig at the Rathole. We did a few covers, definitely a Velvets tune (as was obligatory at the time), possibly the Stooges. Then Mark & I got unceremoniously booted off stage as we didn’t have the chops for Paint it Black, so we fired off a volley of candles that we had found from fuck knows where at the new line up – the Rathole was that kind of place.
++ You were based in Tamworth, right? Were all of you originally from there?
No, I moved to Tamworth at about age7 as part of the ‘scumbag’ Birmingham overspill. Mark was certainly in Tamworth before me but not sure if ‘born and bred’, John lived in Hansacre a few miles away and original bassist Bob was from a satellite village. Has Tamworth become cool – did I miss a meeting?
++ How was around Tamworth back then? Were there any bands that you liked? What were the good record stores? Or what about the pubs or venues to go check out up and coming bands?
As I said above, I thought Tamworth was dire but it was actually pretty good for bands/music scene ,fair enough most of it was terrible metal/’eavy rock but there were actually bands and venues. There were some pockets – the band Love On Board were great, the Dream Factory took a much wider view of the music world and played all over the place and were all the better for it. The most likely place to see a band was the arts centre until the Rathole opened, which also seemed to coincide with a number of new bands doing stuff that could be described as fitting in to the indie bracket. There was quite a lot of goth as well!
++ When and how did the band start? How did you all meet? How was the recruiting process?
We started around 1986. Mark & I were school mates and Mark met John at art college, to this day I have no recollection of how we teamed up with Bob or how he became detached from the group. I met Gavin who drummed in the second line up through him asking me to play guitar in his psychedelic garage band Hamilton Hammond and the Extension (which is a whole other brilliant story), Gavin & I went on to do Liberty Caps with our friends Dan & Mark (another ridiculous story) and then he joined Ferocious Apaches before sodding off to join Primal Scream. Recruiting was just a case of ‘we like you, you’re in’.
++ Why the name The Ferocious Apaches?
After Big John of the June Brides’ fanzine.
++ How was the creative process for you? Where did you usually practice?
The process was whatever we could get away with, initially the songs were short sharp shocks written by Mark after overdosing on the Shop Assistants! Then as senior musician John came up with some good stuff and I threw in some Jesus & Mary Chain/Sonic Youth things. Our ‘signature’ tune Loop was a bass line by Bob that we played 1 chord over for what seemed like a ludicrous amount of time. We practiced in garages – as is the correct method.
++ And who would you say were influences in the sound of the band?
The Jesus and Marychain and by extension the Velvet Underground.
++ So as I understand you didn’t have a clue about the existence of the Are You Ready? tape where the song “Golden” was included. How do you think it might have ended up there?
Ha! I have no idea, it was great to see though as there are some bands I was a fan of on there: Pale Saints, Dandelion Adventure. Judging from the song attributed to the Liberty Caps that is on there Gavin may have passed the stuff on. Hell, I may have even sent the stuff to someone in the fanzine network who then spread it around until it ended up on the comp.
++ This is a great song, so I wonder if you can tell me the story behind this song? What inspired it?
John wrote it and it was possibly the first one we played where we were looking at each other going ‘I think we actually sound okay’. I think it started off as a ‘Then He Kissed Me’ drum beat (by which I really mean Just Like Honey) but got speeded up when we recorded it. Inspiration? You’d have to ask John.
++ And were you in any other compilations that you remember of?
Nothing I know of.
++ I read that you recorded songs at Expresso Bongo studios. What can you tell me about this place? And how was the experience recording there?
The studio was owned and run by Paul Speare, an ex Attraction (of the Elvis Costello kind) and a Dexys Midnight Runner. Mark Mortimer of the Dream Factory decided we should go in there and organised it. It had just been converted to 16 track and we were the first to use the upgraded equipment – we had 2 tracks for drums, 1 for bass, 1 for vocals, 2 for guitars and the rest we filled up with layers of feedback – of course it doesn’t sound like that as Isn’t Anything was still a few years away and we couldn’t rip it off yet. Paul was very good about the whole thing and engineered it stoically. I think most of the recordings by 1980s Tamworth bands were done there.
++ How many songs did you record? Do you remember the names? Were they released in any way?
We did Golden, Babies Ivory and Loop. Also a couple of quick run throughs of the Modern Lovers She Cracked and the Creation’s Making Time. Well apparently one got realised on a compilation. We later did a few more tracks on a bedroom 4 track.
++ Why weren’t there any proper releases?
No one wanted to release them and we didn’t know how to do it ourselves.
++ Was there any interest about any labels?
No.
++ And what about this patronage you got from Ian Gibbons from The Rathole? What did it consist of?
Ian – what a dude! First time I saw him he was standing (possibly slumping) in middle entry (rubbish 70s bit of Tamworth town centre) with a bucket raising money for Live Aid, I did a double take thinking it was Geldof himself. We got to know him through frequenting the Rathole and he liked the idea of our fanzines that were basically a ‘go fuck yourself Tamworth’ statement in cheap photocopy. That cheap photocopy still wasn’t free so when the Rathole moved to the Arts Centre and Mark & I were somehow incoporated we took full advantage of the grant funded photocopier and our circulation expanded. But we also ‘advised’ on bands, did posters (mostly Mark who is a visual genius) and played records, handed out fliers, put up posters and generally acted as ambassadors for the indie scene very few people in Tamworth wanted. We also got some gigs thanks to Ian. But what we mostly got was some great nights out and lots of anecdotes! Ian was a bit of a situationist and along with his business partner Chippy (the 4th furry freak brother) a kind of Lynchian anarchy prevailed – great moments included putting out the slogan ‘Councillor Dicks is NOT gay’ to bend a local councillor’s brain….”Who is saying I’m gay? And who are these people I don’t know who are defending me?”, and putting out an advert for psycho-billy band the Meteors in the paper as revenge on a local pub for pulling a gig on us. The last I heard Ian was trying to get into politics – god help us.
++ What do you think of the c86 term? Do you like it? Would you say The Ferocious Apaches was a c86 band?
C86 is kinda odd as it has become a byword for a certain type of indie music which is only partly represented on the NME C86 tape. Among Primal Scream, Soup Dragons, Pastels there is also Age of Chance, Bogshed, Stump, Big Flame, A Wtness who don’t fit the c86 stereotype. Latterly C86 has become a pejorative term for a kind of wimpy, fey, wilfully childish type of music (Tallulah Gosh spring to mind) and I don’t think Ferocious Apaches really fit that model, but having ‘been there at the time’ I am completely comfortable with the axiom that Ferocious Apaches are a c86 band – I think the term ‘shambling’ is useful here.
++ What about gigs? Did you play many?
Definitely under 20, maybe even under 10!
++ How important was the Tamworth Arts Centre for you and the bands in town?
It went up and down depending on who was in charge at the time. The author John Garforth took over the running for a while and he was great, he had put on gigs by various punk luminaries – Pistols, Clash, Jam in a previous life. Other managers were more interested in theatre, poetry, yoga, etc – nothing wrong with that but they seemed to consider rock music an anathema.
++ And were there any bad gigs at all?
The worse they were the better they were. We generally liked the idea of being an affront to the local music community. We played the local biker bar doing our weirdest set including a version of Paranoid done Velvets 3rd style and they loved it. Probably the worst gig was the last one simply because we were all so wasted, but at the same time it was so loud and virtually industrial (for the time) that it was one of the best – we managed to pretty much send everyone running on the obnoxious basis of frequency and volume.
++ When and why did The Ferocious Apaches stop making music?
1989, we all went off to do other things in other places.
++ Did you continue making music with any other bands afterwards?
Many and varied.
++ You had been in other bands as mentioned like Herb Garden, Big Muff, Liberty Caps, The Hamilton Hammond, Mr Ray’s Wig World and Extension. Wondering if you could tell me a bit about them? Were they also guitar pop bands?
That’s quite a list. Big Muff were a band that did covers of the covers Spacemen 3 and Loop did and being in Tamworth no one had heard of Spacemen 3 and Loop, so people thought we were innovative, especially the goths for some reason. The Herb Garden were more a ‘proper’ band and I feel I wrote the songs (this maybe contested!) but after I left they continued with new songs and did quite well. The Liberty Caps were genuine confrontational noise that became an experiment in mainstream media manipulation. Thee Hamilton Hammond Extension was a musically brilliant lie. Mr Ray’s Wig World came when I moved to Liverpool and were actually successful, indie chart top tens and even an NME debut single award type thing that we shared with Radiohead and Suede – wonder whatever happened to those guys – and a few tours with people like (our friends) Boo Radleys, Verve, Cornershop (who started out supporting us until they had hits, then we supported them), Peel sessions and actual proper radio play/interviews.
++ You uploaded two live videos on Youtube, for the songs “Sunrise” and “She Cracked“. Were were these recorded? Do you have more video recordings of the band?
2 gigs were recorded, one at the Tamworth rock festival (She Cracked) and the second was a gig we put on as a kind of protest at the cost of local gigs – we considered £3 for 2 local bands an outrage so we put 6 on for 50 pence. The second one (Sunrise) was actually the final gig.
++ Did you get much attention from the radio or press?
The local paper gave us the usual nice write ups until they got pissed off at our constant attacks at what we considered ‘their scene’, then they gave us bad write ups. But never anything above local and no radio – there was very little option except John Peel who would play that kind of stuff and we were nowhere near that level.
++ What about from fanzines?
I don’t remember being in any fanzines apart from our own – and we were mercilessly slagged off in that.
++ You still enjoy indiepop, that’s clear, and still follow it. What are the last records you have enjoyed?
The last thing I brought was the Courtney Barnett album (actually a present for my wife, who is a proper musician who plays flute, piano, guitar, ocarina, reads music and all that stuff you actually have to spend time learning). Oh Sees, Liminanas, Goat, Klaus Joynson (a Dr Who concept album no less!), the mighty Lovely Eggs. But I suppose the majority of my record collection is psychedelia – Golden Dawn, West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, The Factory, Kaleidoscope, and later stuff like Dukes of Stratosphear, Rain Parade. And a ridiculous amount of Velvet Underground stuff for a band who released 4 albums. I still love stuff like June Brides, Wolfhounds, Felt, TVPs, The Loft, etc, etc.
++ And today, aside from music, what other hobbies do you have?
I still do the odd fanzine when the mood takes, and the occasional trip out on the skateboard (although this gets less and less as time goes on).
++ Looking back in retrospective, what would you say was the biggest highlight for the band?
It was all great – we were snotty little bastards and people got wound up by us when we weren’t even trying. I remember coming off stage and a chap in a local ‘proper’ band called Spiritlake was fuming at the side of the stage and shouting ‘my son can play better than you lot and he’s 9 fucking years old’. So when we actively tried to wind people up it tended to get very stupid very quick, I got threatened a few times but it was only ever words.
++ Never visited Tamworth, though I have been many times to the UK. So maybe I can ask for some suggestions? Like what are the sights I shouldn’t miss? Or the traditional food or drinks that you love that I should try?
Hmm, I wouldn’t recommend Tamworth particularly as an interesting tourist destination – nice castle, was once the capital of Mercia (ye olde English province). The house Julian Cope lived in? In the Ferocious Apaches days we lived on a steady diet of cheap vermouth and nothing, but again, I wouldn’t recommend it! Sorry – that’s honest but not very helpful.
++ Thanks again Rob! Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Thanks for taking an interest, the nice words and alerting us to the 30 year old compilation we didn’t know we were on!
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