It's a great pleasure to offer an interview with the Normil Hawaiians. Their lost album 'Return of the Ranters' has received nods from Wire, Louder Than War and Record Collector amongst other worthy publications. With talk of a reissue series on the way it seems a good time to find out more about Normil Hawaiians, so here we go...
Hi! Thanks for taking part in this interview! Where are you right now? What are you up to?
Guy Smith: I'm in Wales in a
community in the sticks, a long way from London......but accessible in 5 hours
so not too bad. Back in ‘85 we were all
living communally in Brixton, then as we started having kids first Noel then
Simon moved with their families to N.E. Kent...I harboured visions of
travelling overland to Morocco in a converted bus so with Viv and our 2 kids in
tow hit the road in 87 learning to juggle and playing Irish folk music. We made it to Morocco and then spent a couple
of years touring Europe, busking...but we needed a base and finding London too
claustrophobic after all that fresh air
and living for the moment stumbled across the community in Wales where we've
been based since, though travelled a lot
in the meantime.
You played your first show in 30 years recently at The
Lexington, how did it feel to be on stage again?
GS: Great! I've done
loads of different performances over the years from singing acapella in pubs in
Wales to juggling fire shows in Japan and with different bands on stages in
clubs and festivals. First time with the
Hawaiians - but it felt like last week not last century...so easy, a lot of
mutual love and respect.
How did you prepare for the show?
GS: We came up with a
set list based on our favourite stuff from the albums and as Noel hadn’t
drummed for years we asked the very affable Ian Button lately of Death In Vegas
to deputise whilst Noel played some keyboard parts and other percussion...I
wanted to do some acapella stuff too and asked Zinta Egle to provide an extra
vocal presence. We then met up and
rehearsed for a week in a barn in Dover adding some extra bits to some
pieces...and we all stayed at Noels place as with Jimmy and mark living in
different parts of Scotland, Wilf on the South coast it was great to all hang
out together again.
Some of the visuals in your show made me want to ask whether
you’d seen Jacques Peretti’s BBC series ‘The Men Who Made Us Spend’ last
year. It talks about capitalism,
obsolescence, how we part with our money and where it goes – did you see
it? What are your feelings on this
topic?
GS: I didn't see
this, no but this is all stuff that we were aware of and debating in the squats
and festivals of the 80's and singing The Big Lie (particularly) on stage at
The Lexington I was reminded how relevant politically it sounded now.
Normil Hawaiians formed as a collective in Brixton in the
80s, what can you tell us about life then and what kind of connection you had
to any kind of music scene?
GS: Normil Hawaiians
was formed from the ashes of punk in ‘79 by myself, Jim Lusted and our mate Kev
Armstrong’s 15 year old sister Janet.
Jim and I were both 20 and had been at school together ...I'll never
forget the day near the end of the fifth form, when about a dozen of us were
all lined up outside the headmasters office at St Olave Grammar School for Boys
to be told we were surplus to requirements and on no account would be welcomed
into the sixth form...nearly everyone in that queue became a friend and most
joined bands. That school was horrible,
but we had a pretty cool education listening to Zappa , Soft Machine and
Hawkwind as 12 year olds.
We formed The
Tarts and with Max Splodge as our drummer, played The Roxy and wherever we
could and were very much part of the second wave of punk bands formed in the
wake of The Pistols, Dammed and Buzzcocks.
Until the whole punk thing splintered and we looked for new directions,
Siouxsie and The Banshees were mates of mates from the same part of South
London/Kent border. There was a while when just about everyone we knew was in a
band, I put out a compilation album of South London bands 'East of Croydon' on
Nothing Shaking Records in 1981.
You
could live off the dole then and they’d ask you what your occupation was and
you said 'musician' so they just let you get on with it....some great places we
rehearsed and hung out at, one was InterGalacticArt Studios down The Old Kent
Road - a squatted pub with all kinds of freaks , actors and arty people passing
through. There were squatted wooden Wharfs by the river and the Anarchist
bookshop in Brixton, both inspiring, sometimes challenging and eclectic, smoky
jazz gigs and squatted boat yards, squatted boats, peace convoy and travellers
yards full of people living in busses and trucks passing through, welding
sculptures. There were the Stop The City
demonstrations, Colourful but always peaceful
CND marches and north of the river we were part of Dining Outs label and did all-nighters at the Scala;
film, band, film, band with 23 Skidoo, Disco Zombies, Kan Kan, Occult Chemistry
. All bands who were beginning to push the musical boundaries further out.
Noel Blanden: At the same
time as the Olavians demobbed I too, in a local rival school, went through a
similar experience. I was hauled into the headmaster’s office and accused of
theft in the most juvenile display of psychological manipulation I’d yet
encountered in my young years. I lost
the last vestiges of respect for my betters who were capable of behaving in
such a childish way and immediately told them where to stick their school,
walked out and never went back. I was already in bands by then and came to
Guy’s attention via a group I played in that comprised Jim and Berlin/Bertie
(who were with/in Normil Hawaiians) and Peter Fenton who had just left Siouxsie
and the Banshees (and wrote Love in A Void and Make up To Break Up). It was
quite an incestuous community and yet everyone was playing in group of some
kind. Similarly Simon and Greenfield
Leisure, with Cliff McLenehan (also of Normil Hawaiians), who was an old school
friend of mine.
The inventiveness and quality of your recordings made me
wonder if you were influenced by other artists to start a musical project. Or, were you turned off by everything you
heard at the time and wanted to do something new?
GS: I was doing the
sound for my mates band The Heartbeats at The Rock Garden some-time around 1981
and I looked around and everyone looked the same...Slicked back hair, make-up
and dinner suits.....from an inspiring post punk beginning the scene had
morphed into a yuppie, Duran Duran clone thing. Horrified I vowed to grow my hair long, head
for the hills and start improvising musically. Of course it wasn't that simple...Jim, Nick
and Brian were getting a really funky groove going on guitar, bass and drums,
but it wasn't my thing. I wanted to
really push the boat out and started dusting off my old Faust, Can, Gong and
Hawkwind records which were big pre-punk influences. After a rather dismal gig
in Camden supporting The Thompson Twins we split, leaving me with the name- and
a week later a record contract with Illuminated. Simon, another Old Olavian joined on guitar,
Mark appeared from the Ether with a string synth and we recruited Noel on
drums. After a while we felt comfortable swapping instruments and sometimes
would improvise for 4 hours at a time in darkness doing whatever we felt like
doing...anything! Zoviet France was
about doing some really radical stuff but no one else around us...it was
factioning and genres and labels were being stuck on groups. We wanted to do
our own thing, without labels.
How do you think you were perceived when you started? And do you think that impression has changed
at all since 'Return Of The Ranters' came out?
GS: Hard to tell to a
point...John Peel loved us at first and played 'The Beat Goes On' directly
after announcing John Lennon’s death. We
had a bit of a reputation as eccentrics, slightly weird - but with only the
music papers and a few fanzines around it was hard to gauge. We didn't have a
manager or agent so no-one with an ear to the ground. We were always railing against the machine,
and politically nothing has changed. We've been pleased to receive some really
positive reviews and comments regarding the album since it has been released
even making For The Rabbits top twenty best albums of the year- 2015, not bad
for a 30 year old recording...but it does sound fresh and relevant. But generally people seem to get it more now.
We got much more stick for being different back then.
How does it feel to have 'Return Of The Ranters' finally
released?
GS: Nice...it's been a long wait, but we split in '86
frustrated that the project wasn't complete, but we all needed to do different
things at the time.
Why did now feel like the right time to do it?
GS: The timing does feel right, summer last year I stumbled
into the cinema tent at The Green Gathering Festival where they had just shown
Operation Solstice the documentary about The Battle of The Beanfield and the
director Gareth Morris was there talking about the film. We chatted and I sung The Battle of
Stonehenge acapella to the whole audience and that kind of started a ball
rolling. Of course 2015 is the 30th anniversary of the ambush and also of the
last Brixton Riots which we were also involved in the miners’ strike and all
that Jimmy sings of on Slums...the 30 year thing has significance somehow.
And of course it was helped no end by a phone call from Chris
of Upset The Rhythm wanting to release our recordings, the people in the music
business seem much nicer now...real enthusiasts.
Importantly when we all made contact again, finding people
is relatively easy nowadays of course, we all wanted to play together again.
What was the recording process for 'Return Of The Ranters',
I understand you went to Wales and worked with Dave Anderson to make this
album?
GS: We'd recorded
nearly everything we'd done since '82 at Foel and Brian the engineer knew us
well, Dave Anderson had become a good friend by then so we knew the environment
too. We'd go for long walks up the
mountains. We had a few half worked out
ideas taken from the IGA improvisations....but none of it seemed to be going anywhere
after a couple of days, so we decided to instil a bit of discipline by working
on an old Eartha Kit song- something we'd never tried before. We didn't use the
track, eventually and as far as I remember the entire album was written or
improvised there and then over 2 weeks, but we lived it day and night.
How important is experimentation in your music? I saw you playing with hammers and trowels at
the Lexington, so was curious about this element in your song-writing.
GS: Interestingly The
Lexington gig was the least experimental of all as we mainly took pre-recorded
pieces and effectively copied them. We
also played more 'songs' than we would have done before. But then I suppose
that in a way was an experiment. We also
stuck to single roles more, Zinta and I just sung…though Simon persuaded me to
play guitar on Big Lies and I did play a bit of bass on ‘Sally IVth’ and some
keyboard on Travelling West. But generally
we stuck to one thing with Simon using some samples, something we were just
touching on in ‘85. As for the hammers and trowels, again this was quite toned
down really from the past, though Simon makes a beautiful wail from his guitar
with screwdriver jammed in the frets. We were always a bit theatrical and all
of us having been involved in different musical, and circus and theatre
projects over the years it was nice to put on a bit of a show and include some
juggling as well as using industrial implements.
What's your favourite song on the album?
GS: It's got to be ‘Sianne
Don't Work In A Factory’, my one and only love song written for me eldest
daughter. The contrast between the opening womblike sounds of the birth,
followed by a gentler softer....dare I say it Love Song, then evolving into
industrial factory noise seems to work.
But if I'm singing acapella live- ‘The Battle of Stonehenge’
is the one.
Some of the other tracks were complete improvisations, many
with a real outpouring of emotion...almost impossible to recreate....some of
the sounds Simon created particularly are quite unique, but everyone played their
part.
What do you hope people take away from listening to your
music?
GS: A wry smile maybe, but know we really created sounds
that came from within us spontaneously and lyrics a reflection of the times. I
hope it moves people one way or another
As far as I can tell all of your songs are originals, would
you ever cover a song? What would you
cover if you did?
GS: Ha ha we actually
did two covers at the Lexington gig- both acapella. ‘Heaven’ from the David Lynch film Eraserhead,
though we did it differently. The other was the chant at the end of ‘Sally
IVth’ which is a Hebredian mourning song
originally sung whilst beating the chest with both fists to release grief. Towards the end a cover version of a Leisure
song kicks in.
In 1980 we did a cover of Frank Zappa’s ‘Mr Green Genes’ as
part of the John Peel session we got to the BBC studio and there was a Grand
Piano and Hammond Organ. We really had to use them somehow and decided to try
something quite different. Nick was the best pianist amongst us so he played
both parts I think.
The record has two different sleeves, can you talk us
through the decision behind that and where the images came from?
GS: The photo montage
with the billboard and Stonehenge and a traveller mate of ours, Liam, was put
together by Wilf back in early 86 and was to be the original front cover. But over the years the artwork was lost
somehow, Simon felt we should come up with a different cover and he chose the
image of Jimmy, Jim and I before a gig we did in Basle in ‘85. Wilf eventually found a copy of the original
montage. Both seemed to have their merits so we went for both in the end.
'Return Of The Ranters' feels political, especially
documenting your experience at Stonehenge in 1985, do you feel like you've
outgrown the ideology you had in the 80s?
Has your perspective shifted at all?
Or do you still feel as passionately in the same things as you always
have?
GS: No not at
all....though throughout the nineties things didn't seem quite so bad. But now globalisation and technological developments
have created a monster of corporate greed that like a truly successful parasite
is not recognised by its hosts. This aggressive
form of capitalism without compassion is ruining the world and its life-force,
the media is controlled by tax avoiding villains masquerading as protectors and
informants.
Squatting is now illegal, sleeping rough is often illegal,
rents and house prices are out of reach of many...where are people to go, what
are they to do?
I stood as a candidate for The Green Party in the last
election to help spread awareness of the plight the power mongers are putting
the planet in. The whole system is crooked, but I do believe that it can be
changed with stealth and education. The banks are holding countries to ransom
but with a will- as in Iceland, there is a way.
NB: The
battles 30 years ago were to destroy community and collective power bases but
in doing so a terrible genie was let out of the bottle. Democratic capitalism has all but consumed
all other ideologies and has been so successful that the only route left for it
is to consume itself. It’s now
capitalism versus democracy and capitalism is winning. Global corporations are bigger than some
governments and they are starting to join and merge. These tax avoiding, people hoovering
behemoths pose a great threat to freedom.
Governments disguise their own impotence and cling onto what little
power they have by focussing on
peripheral issues e.g. immigration and the unseen enemy, which is why we need
to do all we can to protect and promote local, family and community
alternatives to just being plugged into the mainframe. To paraphrase Guy we need to be aware of the
dangers and yet celebrate hope and beauty. These are the themes of today and
will I’m sure emerging in our new music.
I was wondering, now we're back in a Tory government… if
your band formed today, would you say/do anything differently in your song-writing
compared to 30 years ago when ‘Return Of The Ranters’ was penned? Are there new things that trouble you today
in this version of the Conservative Party?
GS: With the internet
now we know more about how we are being lied to and exploited, man being pitted
against fellow man. Divide and conquer. Our lyrics today will be as critical of
the powers that be, but also we see the beauty in so much and it's important
not to get swamped by the negative. I
really do wonder how Cameron, Osborne IDS (sounds like a disease) can look
people in the eye without flinching...I always thought that with privilege come
responsibility. HA!
How did you feel about the level of interest in Normil
Hawaiians recently after such a long time since going separate ways?
GS: Nice!
What do you plan on
doing with the momentum that has built up for the band now? New songs? Reissues? Touring?
GS: It was so good to
get back to performing with such good friends that we can't just leave it at
that. We are planning a few gigs around
Easter – Brighton & London again...but we want to play interesting places, we'll
see. We still all live miles from each other so we are limited with what we can
do, but definitely re-issues with Upset The Rhythm if all goes to plan...then
who knows, more recording- it's possible
and we want to do it so....
What have been the main differences you've experienced from
being in a band in the 80’s compared to now, technology has changed the game so
much for example, and have you felt any part of the process is helped or
hindered with the way things work today?
GS: Well the biggest
difference for us was the ability to use visuals , something we couldn't afford
in the 80's. A friend of Jimmy’s put
them together after we gave him an idea of what we wanted and then he pinged ‘em
back down to us to use as backdrops. Brilliant!
NB: We have already
seen a change of approach as much of our pre-rehearsal exchanges and practice
has been facilitated online. Despite
this, Normil Hawaiians have never been defined by the current technology. One of the main reasons ‘Return of The
Ranters’ has been well received (apart from the lyrical resonances) has been
that it doesn’t sound like it was recorded in the 80’s. So much 80’s music is unlistenable now, as
bands at the time rushed to embrace nascent technological developments without
pausing to reflect how best to utilise them,
Consequently those records are locked in a time capsule. We deliberately eschewed novelty and
concentrated on performance and the dynamic interplay of our personalities to
grow our sound, only allowing into the process that which added value. That is
part of our blueprint. What we did know
was that we did not want to sound like every other band at the time. Today, we
are all aware of and use modern recording aids (there is some awesome tech out
there) and fully expect to trade ideas and explore online platforms to develop
new songs (out of necessity given that we all live so far apart) but the most
important thing is that what emerges has worth and fits our ethos. It’s a very democratic process.
Is there anything you want to say that you feel you haven't
been able to yet as a band? If so please
share!
Simon Marchant: I
would say that the things we have done best in the past have been our
recordings. These have been honest and very much simply a record of 'what
happened then'; a triangulation of political, spiritual and geographical
aspects. I don't feel we've really done this live, though, and I would dearly
love to do so in future. But to do this
with integrity is quite an intimate thing. It's exposing and so can be quite a
challenge. Ironically, I feel that in order to feel free to perform effectively
in this way, to eschew rigidity and form, we have to create structures and
frameworks within which such freedom can take place and this is something
currently being worked on.
For more about the Normil Hawaiians and to pick up a copy of 'Return of the Ranters' CLICK HERE!
