Somewhere around 1992...I was listening to a show on 104.4 GMR Rock Station when they played several songs that were considered as crossovers. It was the time when teenagers were heavily exposed to thrash metal, grindcore, and a newborn called grunge. It was also a transitional time when funky bass plus rappin’ vocalists were in, and guitar heroes plus high octave front men were out. But on that particular night, the songs on GMR sounded nothing like all of that. They were guitar-laden music mixed with dancey beats, vocals that were so far behind buried under the layers of distorted/reverb noise, yet still delivered their catchy pop sensibility. I was instantly hooked. Among the new names I discovered that night were The Boo Radleys, My Bloody Valentine, Ride, The Darling Buds, and Revolver. I taped the whole show and had been listening to it on repeat.
Crimson was the track that drew my attention a lot. One of the great songs with striking intro, playful dynamic that makes you hopping, spinning and even headbanging at the same time. When I finally got my hands on Baby’s Angry (a compilation of singles) I couldn’t stop listening to Painting Pictures, Heaven Sent An Angel and Red All Over as well. Later on I’d gotten more impressed by Cold Water Flat, a collection of songs with beautiful arrangements all over ‘em. Some of the songs send straight forward lyrics of adoration and bewilderment, wonderfully beautified by orchestral touch. Sadly it was the first and the final album of Revolver.
Thanks to the internet, I have now been able to get access to those treasured singles of Revolver via on-line stores such as eBay, etc. Even more than that, I managed to contact Mat Flint (vocals, guitar) who has been so nice to kindly answer my questions about Revolver, and also about his current band; Deep Cut. And it’s very exiciting to know about the unheard Revolver tracks and the possibility of listening to them in the near future. Am a happy fan. Here’s the complete Q&A...
Revolver had only released an album and a singles compilation, it is kinda a small catalogue for the fans to enjoy. Were there any materials recorded for the 2nd album? If so, can you tell us about it and are you going to release them someday?
Yes, we did a whole album's worth of demos in late 1993, early 1994, which never got finished and so have never come out. The first batch of them were done to try to convince Virgin records not to drop us - and the second batch were done when we were trying to get a new deal, after we'd been dropped! Some of the songs were up with the best stuff we'd done, and a lot of it was really different - really poppy. I'm still not sure what to do with the demos. I'm really tempted to finish them off - record them properly and release it as a new Revolver album. You know, online or something. It's just whether I would have the time to do it - and whether there would be enough interest in it, really. If I don't do that, I'll probably put them up on Bandcamp or something, as they are now. I do actually put lots of stuff up on our Facebook page, links to demos, live tracks, and unreleased stuff which I'm gradually uploading to Soundcloud. And I might put up the original 1990 demos on Bandcamp, from before we got signed. Going to remaster those over Christmas I think.
What was your best moment with Revolver?
Reading Festival in 1991 was pretty nuts, when we were getting all that press coverage - the Mean Fiddler tent was absolutely rammed, there were people climbing up the supporting poles in the tent, and the lighting rig, to see us. It was crazy. Recording wise, it was definitely recording Cold Water Flat. It was the only time in Revolver that I really enjoyed myself in the studio, where I got the confidence to be a bit more in control of what was being done. I was only just 20 when we did the first EP, and so it was a case of watching and learning how records got made. By the time of Cold Water Flat I knew what I was doing a bit more. Not only that, I put my heart and soul into that album - whereas a lot of the earlier stuff was done without much thought, if you know what I mean. It just kind of happened!
How do you see the fact about the short-lived early 90s scene,the so-called shoegaze, that has now been a great influence on today's contemporary music?
I don't actually like many bands from that scene - I didn't then, and I don't now. I mean I loved My Bloody Valentine, always have, but all the bands we got lumped in with - I never rated any of them really. I mean Slowdive were good, but the rest of it just didn't do it for me. But I guess it has had a massive influence on stuff, especially now you've got bands who just sound like carbon copies of the old ones. Oh, I quite liked Moose as well.
What was your favorite Revolver's track to play live back then? Can you tell us the reason / the story behind the song?
I always liked doing "Cradle Snatch". Just because it was different, had a different vibe and a bit of a groove behind it. And I got to scream at the end, which was good! That was a song about not being able to get out of bed, not being able to face what you had to do that day. "Molasses" was always good to play live. I can't really remember what that one was about though, other than it was about some girl. And "Venice" was always really great to play live, it was our most powerful song. Best riff. That was another one about some girl that I fancied, I think!
I love "Crimson" and "I Wear Your Chain", any interesting trivia about those songs?
When I wrote "Crimson" I thought it was the best song I'd written, and I was really excited about it. I thought it was going to be our big hit, you know, the single that went top 40. But we really fucked up the recording of it. We were working with Guy Fixsen, who was an incredible engineer/producer - he did some amazing stuff with Moonshake and the Telescopes, but he wasn't right for that track. We needed it to be really straightforward - in your face and powerful - and Guy doesn't really do straightforward! He likes things to be more unusual, with more stuff going on... So, the b-side, "Don't Ever Leave", worked perfectly with him. But "Crimson" always sounded really weedy. The guitars were wrong, and the vocals were too dry and loud in the mix. And it had this horrible guitar harmonic thing in the middle section. We had done versions of it for radio sessions and knew it should sound more powerful than it did - and so we decided to remix the track with Stephen Street. He made it a bit better, and we went along with it - but it was always wrong. I hated it. And so we left it off "Baby's Angry", and always planned to re-record it at some point in the future - which we did, as a b-side for "Cradle Snatch". That version was much better! "I Wear Your Chain", it was a good tune - I was trying to do something like "If I Can't Change Your Mind" by Sugar. It was written when we were listening to "Copper Blue" a lot. And I wrote the lyrics on a tour bus, going across America.
Five facts that most people don't know about Revolver are...?
i) We did a gig as Molasses before Hamish joined, with a guy called Phil on bass. In fact we might have done two. I've got one on video somewhere.
ii) We nearly signed another deal after we got dropped by Virgin - with Roadrunner records. The A&R guy there, Miles Leonard, went on to head up Parlophone. The offer was on the table but we turned it down as it was really a heavy metal/rock label!
iii) We turned down 3 or 4 quite big publishing deals with people like EMI Music and Warner Music, on the advice of people who said we should hold out and wait for more money. These offers never came, of course.
iv) The guy that engineered our album, was into dance music - remixing and stuff. He wanted to do a remix of our track "Nothing Without You" - a kind of electronic dub remix, kind of like the Orb I guess. Even though he offered to do it for free, Virgin wouldn't let us do it. They said we weren't that sort of band.
v) The last Revolver gig was in Sweden in early 1994. We did a load of new songs, and had a different line-up - an extra guitarist, who was my mate Tom, and a keyboard player.
After My Bloody Valentine, Chapterhouse, The Primitives, and now The Stone Roses, is there any plan for Revolver reunion gigs?
You know what, I would love to do it. Even if it was a really small show, I'd love to get up there and play those songs again. Most - if not all - of my close friends never saw Revolver, and so it would be great to be able to do it. And we have had offers - from promoters in Japan, from Germany, from Denmark.. and Club AC30 enquired about us doing some shows. But Nick and Hamish aren't interested, really. They are both very busy with what they do now. I asked them, and told them I was up for it, but they didn't show a lot of interest. I mean, I have the option of doing it with a new band, but I dunno, that just feels wrong really. Maybe one day. But I'm just not sure how much interest there would be. It's not really like the Stone Roses reforming, is it?!
Since the internet happened there has been countless bands to discover on-line, Who are your current favorites?
I like the Horrors, I think they're the best band around at the moment. I also like Dead Skeletons, really like their album. I don't hear much new music that I really like, though, to be honest. Currently I'm listening to a lot of old stuff, 60s psych and 90s hip-hop. And Neil Young.
Is there any particular concept behind Deep Cut's Disorientation?
Not really. The songs were just the 12 songs that we finished, we didn't pick and choose from a big batch of songs - they were the 12 songs that we finished in 2010. And even though a lot of them sound quite different, when we put them altogether we realised they worked really well as an album. "Disorientation" is a theme that runs through a few of the songs' lyrics - in fact it's the first word in "Out Of Nothing" - which is a key song on the album. So it seemed like a good title.
Revolver had only released an album and a singles compilation, it is kinda a small catalogue for the fans to enjoy. Were there any materials recorded for the 2nd album? If so, can you tell us about it and are you going to release them someday?
Yes, we did a whole album's worth of demos in late 1993, early 1994, which never got finished and so have never come out. The first batch of them were done to try to convince Virgin records not to drop us - and the second batch were done when we were trying to get a new deal, after we'd been dropped! Some of the songs were up with the best stuff we'd done, and a lot of it was really different - really poppy. I'm still not sure what to do with the demos. I'm really tempted to finish them off - record them properly and release it as a new Revolver album. You know, online or something. It's just whether I would have the time to do it - and whether there would be enough interest in it, really. If I don't do that, I'll probably put them up on Bandcamp or something, as they are now. I do actually put lots of stuff up on our Facebook page, links to demos, live tracks, and unreleased stuff which I'm gradually uploading to Soundcloud. And I might put up the original 1990 demos on Bandcamp, from before we got signed. Going to remaster those over Christmas I think.
What was your best moment with Revolver?
Reading Festival in 1991 was pretty nuts, when we were getting all that press coverage - the Mean Fiddler tent was absolutely rammed, there were people climbing up the supporting poles in the tent, and the lighting rig, to see us. It was crazy. Recording wise, it was definitely recording Cold Water Flat. It was the only time in Revolver that I really enjoyed myself in the studio, where I got the confidence to be a bit more in control of what was being done. I was only just 20 when we did the first EP, and so it was a case of watching and learning how records got made. By the time of Cold Water Flat I knew what I was doing a bit more. Not only that, I put my heart and soul into that album - whereas a lot of the earlier stuff was done without much thought, if you know what I mean. It just kind of happened!
How do you see the fact about the short-lived early 90s scene,the so-called shoegaze, that has now been a great influence on today's contemporary music?
I don't actually like many bands from that scene - I didn't then, and I don't now. I mean I loved My Bloody Valentine, always have, but all the bands we got lumped in with - I never rated any of them really. I mean Slowdive were good, but the rest of it just didn't do it for me. But I guess it has had a massive influence on stuff, especially now you've got bands who just sound like carbon copies of the old ones. Oh, I quite liked Moose as well.
What was your favorite Revolver's track to play live back then? Can you tell us the reason / the story behind the song?
I always liked doing "Cradle Snatch". Just because it was different, had a different vibe and a bit of a groove behind it. And I got to scream at the end, which was good! That was a song about not being able to get out of bed, not being able to face what you had to do that day. "Molasses" was always good to play live. I can't really remember what that one was about though, other than it was about some girl. And "Venice" was always really great to play live, it was our most powerful song. Best riff. That was another one about some girl that I fancied, I think!
I love "Crimson" and "I Wear Your Chain", any interesting trivia about those songs?
When I wrote "Crimson" I thought it was the best song I'd written, and I was really excited about it. I thought it was going to be our big hit, you know, the single that went top 40. But we really fucked up the recording of it. We were working with Guy Fixsen, who was an incredible engineer/producer - he did some amazing stuff with Moonshake and the Telescopes, but he wasn't right for that track. We needed it to be really straightforward - in your face and powerful - and Guy doesn't really do straightforward! He likes things to be more unusual, with more stuff going on... So, the b-side, "Don't Ever Leave", worked perfectly with him. But "Crimson" always sounded really weedy. The guitars were wrong, and the vocals were too dry and loud in the mix. And it had this horrible guitar harmonic thing in the middle section. We had done versions of it for radio sessions and knew it should sound more powerful than it did - and so we decided to remix the track with Stephen Street. He made it a bit better, and we went along with it - but it was always wrong. I hated it. And so we left it off "Baby's Angry", and always planned to re-record it at some point in the future - which we did, as a b-side for "Cradle Snatch". That version was much better! "I Wear Your Chain", it was a good tune - I was trying to do something like "If I Can't Change Your Mind" by Sugar. It was written when we were listening to "Copper Blue" a lot. And I wrote the lyrics on a tour bus, going across America.
Five facts that most people don't know about Revolver are...?
i) We did a gig as Molasses before Hamish joined, with a guy called Phil on bass. In fact we might have done two. I've got one on video somewhere.
ii) We nearly signed another deal after we got dropped by Virgin - with Roadrunner records. The A&R guy there, Miles Leonard, went on to head up Parlophone. The offer was on the table but we turned it down as it was really a heavy metal/rock label!
iii) We turned down 3 or 4 quite big publishing deals with people like EMI Music and Warner Music, on the advice of people who said we should hold out and wait for more money. These offers never came, of course.
iv) The guy that engineered our album, was into dance music - remixing and stuff. He wanted to do a remix of our track "Nothing Without You" - a kind of electronic dub remix, kind of like the Orb I guess. Even though he offered to do it for free, Virgin wouldn't let us do it. They said we weren't that sort of band.
v) The last Revolver gig was in Sweden in early 1994. We did a load of new songs, and had a different line-up - an extra guitarist, who was my mate Tom, and a keyboard player.
After My Bloody Valentine, Chapterhouse, The Primitives, and now The Stone Roses, is there any plan for Revolver reunion gigs?
You know what, I would love to do it. Even if it was a really small show, I'd love to get up there and play those songs again. Most - if not all - of my close friends never saw Revolver, and so it would be great to be able to do it. And we have had offers - from promoters in Japan, from Germany, from Denmark.. and Club AC30 enquired about us doing some shows. But Nick and Hamish aren't interested, really. They are both very busy with what they do now. I asked them, and told them I was up for it, but they didn't show a lot of interest. I mean, I have the option of doing it with a new band, but I dunno, that just feels wrong really. Maybe one day. But I'm just not sure how much interest there would be. It's not really like the Stone Roses reforming, is it?!
Since the internet happened there has been countless bands to discover on-line, Who are your current favorites?
I like the Horrors, I think they're the best band around at the moment. I also like Dead Skeletons, really like their album. I don't hear much new music that I really like, though, to be honest. Currently I'm listening to a lot of old stuff, 60s psych and 90s hip-hop. And Neil Young.
Is there any particular concept behind Deep Cut's Disorientation?
Not really. The songs were just the 12 songs that we finished, we didn't pick and choose from a big batch of songs - they were the 12 songs that we finished in 2010. And even though a lot of them sound quite different, when we put them altogether we realised they worked really well as an album. "Disorientation" is a theme that runs through a few of the songs' lyrics - in fact it's the first word in "Out Of Nothing" - which is a key song on the album. So it seemed like a good title.
How did you meet Emma Bailey*?
We met at university actually, which isn't very rock and roll, I know. After Revolver ended, I spent a year to 18 months or so getting wasted and not really doing anything, other than buying records and going to clubs - which was great - but couldn't carry on forever.. and I realised that in order to make something happen in my life I needed to go back to college. It was just one positive thing I could do. Within a month of going back there, in September 1995, I'd met Emma, been asked to play bass guitar for Death In Vegas, and started DJ-ing at the Heavenly Social night. It was really weird, I'd spent 18 months doing nothing other than going out and getting hammered, and as soon as i went back to university all these really great things started happening for me.
*Emma Bailey is the vocalist of Deep Cut.
Besides Deep Cut & Real Bravadons are you involved in other music project?
Well, I played in the live Death in Vegas band for 10 years or so, from 1995 to 2005. And I played on all the records. So that was pretty major really. I also played bass guitar on Paula from Drop Nineteens' solo album back in 1993, they were called Hot Rod. I put together a hip-hop compilation album called Shoot Tha Pump which came out on Concrete Records in 1996. What else.. I just played guitar on a track for a band called Bliss City East from Chicago. And Tim Holmes, who used to be in Death In Vegas, I might be playing on his solo record. And Deep Cut just did a remix of Ringo Deathstarr that came out on their Japanese CD single. We're remixing another band called Velochrome, and also a couple of other people - someone quite exciting! And I still DJ out sometimes, although not as often as I used to. I used to play at the Heavenly nights- first the Social, then the Heavenly Jukebox at Turnmills. I did that every week, or every other week, for about 4 years, playing hip hop records. And I still do that sometimes, at people's parties and stuff. I'm actually DJ-ing at the Club AC30 Christmas party this week - although it will be guitar records in the box for that one! Don't know if they'd appreciate a hip-hop set...
Deep Cut has just released their 2nd album, Disorientation that you can buy from Club AC30.
As for more Revolver unreleased goodies, find ‘em here, here, and here.
Big thanks to Mat Flint for doing the Q&A
We met at university actually, which isn't very rock and roll, I know. After Revolver ended, I spent a year to 18 months or so getting wasted and not really doing anything, other than buying records and going to clubs - which was great - but couldn't carry on forever.. and I realised that in order to make something happen in my life I needed to go back to college. It was just one positive thing I could do. Within a month of going back there, in September 1995, I'd met Emma, been asked to play bass guitar for Death In Vegas, and started DJ-ing at the Heavenly Social night. It was really weird, I'd spent 18 months doing nothing other than going out and getting hammered, and as soon as i went back to university all these really great things started happening for me.
*Emma Bailey is the vocalist of Deep Cut.
Besides Deep Cut & Real Bravadons are you involved in other music project?
Well, I played in the live Death in Vegas band for 10 years or so, from 1995 to 2005. And I played on all the records. So that was pretty major really. I also played bass guitar on Paula from Drop Nineteens' solo album back in 1993, they were called Hot Rod. I put together a hip-hop compilation album called Shoot Tha Pump which came out on Concrete Records in 1996. What else.. I just played guitar on a track for a band called Bliss City East from Chicago. And Tim Holmes, who used to be in Death In Vegas, I might be playing on his solo record. And Deep Cut just did a remix of Ringo Deathstarr that came out on their Japanese CD single. We're remixing another band called Velochrome, and also a couple of other people - someone quite exciting! And I still DJ out sometimes, although not as often as I used to. I used to play at the Heavenly nights- first the Social, then the Heavenly Jukebox at Turnmills. I did that every week, or every other week, for about 4 years, playing hip hop records. And I still do that sometimes, at people's parties and stuff. I'm actually DJ-ing at the Club AC30 Christmas party this week - although it will be guitar records in the box for that one! Don't know if they'd appreciate a hip-hop set...
Deep Cut has just released their 2nd album, Disorientation that you can buy from Club AC30.
As for more Revolver unreleased goodies, find ‘em here, here, and here.
Big thanks to Mat Flint for doing the Q&A