The Bluetones - in a blue tone

Dec 15 2008 By Andy Welch

Britpop survivors The Bluetones are touring the UK, playing their debut album Expecting To Fly in its entirety. We talk to frontman Mark Morriss about the album, how he feels about it 12 years after it release, and why he doesn't care that the band won't ever be fashionable again.

The Bluetones handed out that sage advice on their first album, Expecting To Fly.

These words have served the Hounslow-based four-piece especially well in the years that have passed since their debut was released in 1996.

While they were lumped in with the Britpop crowd almost as soon as they'd formed, the band soon set themselves apart from the pack when people actually heard the record.

Expecting To Fly was full of nods to The Smiths, Neil Young and Buffalo Springfield - the album was named after a song by the latter - and showed the group drew on a wider range of influences than your average British indie band.

Their debut, which knocked Oasis' behemoth (What's The Story) Morning Glory? off the top of the album charts, spawned a number of hits. Slight Return, which reached No 2 in the Top 40, was only denied chart-topping status by Babylon Zoo's song-from-the-Levi-advert Spaceman.

Now, 12 years on from the Expecting To Fly's release, The Bluetones have decided to perform it in its entirety on a UK tour.

"We haven't toured for a while, and we haven't got a new album ready to go yet," explains the band's frontman Mark Morriss.

"We love being out on the road, so this is chance for us to get together, get back into the old groove, and then concentrate on the next record.

"We also decided to finally listen to what a lot of people on our website's forum have been saying for ages.

"A lot of the people on there are always reminiscing about Expecting To Fly, and it feels like a good time to do it. Before, it would have felt a bit too retrogressive, but now seems right."

The album was released in January 1996, and Britain was very different to the country we now live in.

Tony Blair and New Labour were yet to come to power and fill us with waves of hope and optimism, and Euro '96, when football came home and Baddiel and Skinner's modern hymn united a nation, hadn't kicked off.

These were years before iPods, the dominance of the internet and social networking.

In other words, it was a much more innocent time.

"There was definitely a naivety to the whole album," reflects 37-year-old Mark.

"Not just in terms of the playing, but the themes in the songwriting too.

"It's not like I go home at night and put the album on all the time, but I really enjoyed hearing again getting ready for the tour."

While the band's subsequent work shows that they have definitely become more polished musicians, they have never quite managed to recapture the magic of their Expecting To Fly.

Songs from the album The Fountainhead, A Parting Gesture and Putting Out Fires in particular are all downbeat classics, full of poetic, heartbroken verse. And all from a songwriter in his early 20s.

"I was only 23 when we recorded that album, and even younger when I wrote the songs. Looking back, I'm astonished at the emotional depth of some of those lyrics," Mark says.

"I've got enough distance from the actual sentiment of the song, breaking up with a girlfriend, so it's not heartbreaking for me to hear them or to play them like it was.

"I won't be breaking down on stage, anyway. Maybe I will, who knows?," he adds.

"Maybe I'll turn on the taps, it's what the ladies like, isn't it? It didn't hurt Gazza, anyway."

Tears aside, Mark's main concern at the moment is whether he can still sing an octave higher, as he did on the record.

"Mother Nature's had her way with my voice in 12 years," he jokes.

"Not to mention thousands of cigarettes and lots of late nights since then, dear oh dear."

For the past few weeks, he along with the rest of the band - guitarist Adam Devlin, drummer Eds Chesters (cor) and bass-playing brother Scott - have been "dusting down the old tunes" and re-learning their various parts.

"Some of the songs have stayed in our live set ever since, but there are some, like Talking To Clarry, Things Change and Time & Again that we haven't played for more than a decade," he admits.

"We don't remember the nuts and bolts of the songs, we just remember the tunes and the choruses, but going back through them, we've noticed some really nice little touches.

"There are some lovely arrangements, and great chord progressions. I think we were a better band than we gave ourselves credit for at the time. That's easy to say now.

"Of course, I rate us, because we're still doing it, and if I didn't think that all of us would have walked away before now, but we were good, and it's a good record."

After Expecting To Fly was released to universal praise, The Bluetones became darlings of the music press, gracing the cover of NME numerous times among other publications.

The support stayed with them through the second album Return To The Last Chance Saloon, but by the time of third album Science & Nature, which the quartet regard as their best, the worm turned and they didn't get any coverage.

Since then, The Bluetones haven't been seen in music magazines that much, but have retained a devout fan base.

"Getting press coverage and all those things are out of your control," says Mark.

"If you're just concerned about being fashionable, then you've got the wrong idea about music.

"It's just to best enjoy it while it's there, and learn to take the rough with the smooth. It's to do with fashion, and it happens all the time now. The music press is obsessed with the new, and there are only one or two acts that slip through the net and still get good reviews after their third or fourth record.

"Sometimes you come back round into fashion, but I don't think that's going to happen to us. Who cares, though? Who cares?"

THE BLUETONES - EXTRA TIME

The Bluetones have released five albums, and are currently writing and recording their sixth.

The band is friends with many British comedians, including Simon Pegg and David Walliams. They have made cameos in series such as Spaced, The Adam And Joe Show and Little Britain.

There are a few stories about where the band got their name. One suggests guitarist Adam had a dream about the best band in the world, which was called The Bluetones. Another suggests the name is an anagram of The Subtle One, the band's previous name.

One of their early singles, Bluetonic, adapts an extract from a poem by Adrian Mitchell called Celia Celia. The poem is as follows:

"When I am sad and weary, when I think all hope has gone, when I walk around High Holborn, I think of you with nothing on."

Mark's nickname in the band is Big Mo.

The Bluetones are currently on tour, performing their debut album Expecting To Fly. They play Manchester University on December 10, Sheffield Leadmill on December 11, Birmingham Academy on December 12 and London Astoria on December 19.