Interview from "Live at Full House"

Fairground Attractionが残した唯一のライブビデオ、Live at Full Houseの途中でMarkとSimonが受けたインタビューを私が聞き取ったものをここに載せます。

インタビューここから：
Introduction: Fairground Attraction, or I guess today our Full House. Fairground Attraction seemingly appeared from nowhere last year when their very first single shot right up to number two in the English charts. The band went from total obscurity, if you like, to being completely famous in the space of just a couple of weeks. The single that made that all possible was of course, PERFECT. And next to me to talk about that record and the band, in general, are Mark and Simon.

Interviewer: The first thing I'd like to ask you, I mean everybody says PERFECT, that was a start, an amazing start for the band. But presumabley that wasn't the first thing that you did together. That must've been a surprise. Can you tell me a little bit about what you were doing before that single took off the way it did?

Simon Edwards: We didn't really have a chance to do a lot before that actually because, um, we signed basically, we signed the record deal about six months before that, and, recorded the album and PERFECT was the first thing we'd released. So, uh, oh it just happened so fast.

Interviewer: Do you think it had a lot to do with the time that it came out? I mean, I can't really imagine if that record had come out maybe three, four years ago, that people would have jumped on it, perhaps the way that they did now. It seems as a certain time, when a certain kind of music seems to be what people really want to hear.

Mark Nevin: Yeah I think that people are very tired of, certain people tired of the very high-tech productions and kind of records that you hear on the radio an awful lot. And we certainly felt, just, well you know, just not a part of all that really, and I think when our record came out, it was an opportunity to, to our record on the radio that was something just a bit different. A bit more traditional in the sense that it was a real song played by real people, rather than a production made by machines, you know.

Interviewer: People always talk, because you are using acoustic instrumentation, about the similarity between what you do and say, folk music. It seems to me that there is a greater similarity in terms of what you're singing about and the music itself with jazz. I mean do you all come from jazz or rather from a folk background?

Mark: Well, it varies actually. Eddi, the singer Eddi, she is from more of a folk background in Scotland, where there is a big Celtic kind of thing. She worked her way through folk clubs as a busker around Europe. And Simon and Roy have been more involved in kind of jazz, Latin and African music. And I'm more of a so straight ahead pop person meself. More of an Elvis and country fan. So collectively, we, we call on all of those influlences. And the sound we have is something to do with all of those, I think.

Interviewer: I mean it's an obvious question. I'm sure you have had to answer it a thousand times already, but I'm still interested to what you have to say about it. About the fact, that you're writing the songs, and Eddi that sings them. You're collaborating in that sense at all from the beginning of the songs, or are you thinking specifically of her personality when you write?

Mark: Um more..., (touches an instrument), oh dare me. Sorry about that.

Interviewer: We're gonna save that for later.
(all laugh)

Mark: Hold on, hold on. But more so now I write for her specifically because of say, we're working together all the time. Um, but generally I've written songs for women, with women in mind. I think basically because I like women singers to listen to myself, and so it's something I've been interested in. And I don't find it, I mean, people always ask me, "Is it strange writing for a woman?" But I don't really see that it's irrelevant really. I mean in the sense that I feel that a woman commands more empathy with songs sometimes she can sing a song. And to me personally anyway, I feel, always feel more sympathetic towards a woman singer if she's singing a song that is kind of heartfelt and sad, you know.

Interviewer: One could ask the other way around and say, are there songs you present to her where she says "I don't understand that song. It's not a song I can sing because I don't feel that."

Mark: Oh yeah. Definitely. Yeah and I respect that. Because I mean, if she didn't feel it, then I wouldn't want her to do it anyway. Because it's the, it's the thing between the two of us, but on the four of us. But on that point, that really makes it happen and it's why we started in the first place. She was looking for a particular kind of song. I was looking for a particular kind of singer. And when we went over it in the song that I feel very good about, and she feels very good about. And we do it, that's when it really works, you know.

Interviewer: You suggested at the beginnig of the interview, that what you're doing is in a way a reaction against all of the high-tech productions that are going on. It seems to me too, if one considers what punk music was about in '76, '77. It was a reaction about what had gone before. It does seem at the moment that there are a lot of bands reacting in their own way to what's been going on for the last six or seven years. Not in an aggressive sense necessarily, the way that punk was, but in the sense of "let's just get back to playing music." Regardless of whether it is high-tech, you can use machines as well, but let's get back to playing music and writing songs.

Simon: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, someone described it as a gentle rebellion once, which I think is quite nice. But, yeah, done in a much more musical way for, for kind of music's sake, as opposed to some kind of social or political statement.

Interviewer: You don't occasionally feel, "Mmm I wouldn't mind strumming on an electric guitar and rocking out a bit."

Simon: Yeah, it has been known. (Laughs) Wait and see later.

Mark: I like it.

Interviewer: Alright, we'll wait and see later. Thanks very much the pair of you. Now you can do your number.

(Mark touches the instrument playfully)　

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