Thanks a lot to Angus and Richard for the great interview!! The Relationships hail from Oxford if you didn’t know them. Their band members have been in classic indiepop bands like the Razorcuts and The Anyways. They’ve been around since the 90s and have produced 4 top albums of jangle pop. They are still going and they have 4 new brand new songs on their Bandcamp. Now, if you want to learn more about them, which I think is a good idea, read this interview. Also make sure to visit their website!

++ The Relationships continue making music till this day. What is coming up in the future for the band? Is there a new release under way perhaps? Gigs?

Angus: Yes, if we’re spared! We’ve had so many interruptions and problems the last couple of years, with people being ill and parents dying. I’m not saying that we’re cursed or tragic, these are the sorts of issues everyone goes through when they get a bit older. But we still love playing and have so many great new songs to play you. Hopefully a new album and some gigs and festivals over the next year or so.

+ How much would you say has the band changed since the late 90s when the band was formed?

Angus: That’s a good question. Maybe I could say that we’ve come to sound more and more like ourselves! I don’t think you could tell in which year our more recent stuff was recorded. Richard’s songwriting has created a mythical Surrey of the 60s and early 70s.

++ Let’s go back in time. 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?

Angus: My first rock memory was seeing David Bowie doing Starman on the TV show Top of the Pops – the one where Mick Ronson puts his head on Bowie’s shoulder. So many people have this as their first musical impression! I was just too young to have been a hippy or prog fan and so was just starting to find out about that music when punk happened, which made for an interesting mix. Then I was really into new wave and post punk, and early indie like Orange Juice and Postcard records. At the same time I was going back and finding out about the 60s, the Byrds, people like that, which of course led naturally into the C86 indie thing. That was one of the few times when my tastes coincided with what was going on at the time!

Richard: Beatles on the radio. First instrument: keyboards. 60s pop, psychedelia and early prog

++ Prior to The Relationships you had been in the Razorcuts. What were the highlights for your time in the Razorcuts and how would you compare both bands?

Angus: I was so excited to join Razorcuts and it was wonderful meeting all the other bands of the time like Primal Scream, Felt, and Hurrah, playing some pretty good gigs, being interviewed in NME, and of course doing proper recording for the first time. It was what I wanted to do and I’m so glad I got the chance. But really I don’t think Razorcuts were a very good band when I was with them. They had some decent songs but we never practised and everything was always done in a rush.

++ And what would have been your first band? And what other bands had you been involved with other than the Razorcuts and The Relationships?

Angus: Before Razorcuts I was in Here Comes Everybody with Richard, original R’ships member Pete Lock and also Pete Momtchiloff, who formed Talulah Gosh and then Heavenly, the Would-Be-Goods, and many others. Richard and Pete Lock then became The Anyways who were together for a few years and were kind of local heroes. Here Comes Everybody were one of the first indie bands in town, I think – there had been a punk scene but Oxford was mainly just blues and covers bands by then. Since then the scene has exploded and of course all the bands like Ride, Radiohead, and Supergrass have appeared.

++ Were there any lineup changes at all?

Angus: Me and Richard are the ever presents. We’ve had two drummers and a few exploding bass players, but current bass player Andy is the new boy and he’s been a member since about 2001! Our drummer Tim is an original punk but is also a top sound engineer who loves Frank Zappa. Andy was in a band called The Bigger the God that did two albums in the 90s.

++ What’s the story behind the name The Relationships?

Richard: Shorter than The Meaningful Relationships (original, not entirely serious suggestion)

+ And who would you say were influences in the sound of the band?

Richard: Beatles, Byrds, Love, Syd Barrett, Yes, Stranglers, Kevin Ayers, Caravan

++ Your first releases didn’t come out in the UK but in the US on the Twee Kitten label. How did this connection happen? Did you ever meet the people behind the label?

Angus: We didn’t meet them. I think I just sent a tape out, actually. It was great to have a release out on a label from California!

++ After your album “Trend”, also on Twee Kitten, “Scene” came out. This was released by Trailer Star Records. Who were they?

Angus: a mad beatnik poet we knew, who had done cover art for the Weather Prophets. Great guy but sadly not really a businessman or promoter!

++ Afterwards your next two album, “Space” and “Phase” were released by Big Red Sky, I am guessing this is your own label? Or who were behind it?

Angus: Big Red Sky is a guy we know in Oxford, he’s a great musician and engineer who has put out quite a few local releases and does a lot of promoting and recording in town. We’ve not had much luck with the more established indie labels, maybe because we don’t have a sound that is easy to categorize – it’s not the classic Sarah or C86 sound. At one point we were going to sign to Vinyl Japan but then the main guy came to see us and was put off by how loud and raucous we were!

++ I start to notice that you like album titles that are just one-word, is that right? Why is that?

Angus: At first it wasn’t deliberate but then we noticed it and decided to stick with it! They’re all one-syllable words with five letters. I guess we were maybe influenced by the way the Go-Betweens’ album titles always had a double ‘l’.

++ I read someone describing your music in this album (though I think it can be said of all of your records) as a mix of sixties and c86 inspired pop nuggets. You think that’s a good way of putting it?

Angus: Yes, those are among our influences, but we also have post punk and early prog threads! C86, not really so much – we listen to some of the same stuff as the C86-ers such as the Byrds and Love, but don’t really do the ‘twee’ thing. We’re mature men and Tim is the loudest drummer in town, and covered in tattoos! We feel we have stuff in common with people like XTC and Robyn Hitchcock, which people don’t generally pick up on. Richard went to the school that Robyn had been at and we once supported him.

++ On the “Scene” album you can find “Mediaeval Day” a song I’ve always been curious of as I love all sorts medieval I must say. I am wondering what inspired you to write this song?

Richard: A walk on Port Meadow, cathedral bells, swifts

++ One of the songs from “Space” got a promo video for the song “Space Race”. It was made by Jon Spira. Where was it made? Was it your first promo video that you made? How was that experience?

Richard: Yes, first and to date only R-ships promo. Various band members had featured in Jon’s Oxford music scene film, Anyone Can Play Guitar. He offered to do a vid for us.

++ I got “Phase” just a few days ago and it sounds gorgeous. So many good songs in it. How was recording this album? Did it take long? Where was it recorded? Any anecdotes you could share of these sessions?

Richard: Thanks! Glad you like. We did it at Evolution Studios, which was new at the time. (We were the first band in!) . It’s run by Nick Moorbath who’s been in a million bands and sometimes plays keyboards live with Ride. One day we ran out of studio snacks!

++ I found on Discogs a few compilation appearances, on the “Eine Kleine Nightshiftmusik” tape, “Pop Goes the Weasel Vol. 2”, “Popular World” and “I Am a Victim of this Song” CDs. Are there any missing that you can remember?

Angus: You probably know more about these than we do! Eine Kleine Nightshiftmusik was an Oxford thing, there’s a music magazine called Nightshift that put this together. The others were random and worldwide! Japan, France, maybe more. I think people heard us because we were on Twee Kitten. We’ve always had more appreciation from outside the UK, for some reason, which is odd since people often say we are so ‘English’.

++ And what about these four songs that are available to stream on Bandcamp? Care telling me a bit about each of them?

Angus: Yeah these are our latest recordings. They are getting deeper into Richard’s childhood and the mythical world of old Surrey, where guitar heroes like Robin Trower and Gordon Giltrap play golf with each other. Soundwise maybe they’re simpler, more direct than some of our earlier stuff, but at the same time quirkier, more individual. Someone once said we were ‘tweedy psychedelia’ and we like that. Also we like the chord of ‘M’ which Richard discovered, or maybe invented. Or perhaps Edwyn Collins or Arthur Lee could have first constructed that. For me personally I am very happy to play the twelve string guitar which is very jangly and not something you hear enough of. I hope these songs will be the basis for our next album which would be number five.

Richard: Mike Oldfield is about an unnamed (but real) band recording at The Manor studios near Oxford in 1973 [this was the first Virgin studio, owned by Richard Branson – before our time!]. Angus invented some new notes for the instrumental of this one.

Fairgrounding is set at St Giles’ Fair, which happens every September in Oxford

Guitar Heroes at the BBC takes its title from a long-running music clips series on BBC4, and lists various favourite guitarists from the 1970s who might have appeared on The Old Grey Whistle Test.

Strange Archaeology involves a stretch of Surrey countryside which was dug up for the North Sea Gas pipeline during Richard’s childhood

++ If you were to choose your favourite The Relationships song, which one would that be and why?

Angus: I like Well, from the first album, and English Blues from the second. Also Medieval Day is up there.

Richard: Clockwork Toy and Victorian Séance from Space, Ghost Child from Phase… plus the four Bandcamp ones (newest recordings!)

++ What about gigs? Did you play many? All over England?

Angus: Not enough! Mainly just around Oxford

++ Aside from music, what other hobbies do you have? Do you follow any football team?

Angus: yes, Oxford United, they’re a sort of ‘indie’ team who never get too mainstream or successful. I go with original R’ships bassist Ian.

++ I’ve never been to Oxford, so I’m hoping to hear from a local for some recommendations! What are the sights one shouldn’t miss? Or the traditional food or drinks that you love that I should try?

Angus: just take a walk around the centre, the ancient university buildings are all around you. Then head up north to the historic Jericho Tavern where the Relationships and so many bands started, have a traditional English pie and a pint, then go for a walk on the wide open spaces of Port Meadow.

++ Anything else you’d like to add?

Angus: thanks very much for having us!

Richard: Yes, thanks and take care!

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Listen
The Relationships – Mediaeval Day