Classic_Pop_Issue_30_July_2017

84

SAINT ETIENNE

Walking out to

30,000 people at

Glastonbury, I look like the

cat who got the cream

SARAH CRACKNELL

and strange ambient interludes on

Foxbase Alpha and 1993’s follow-

up, So Tough, inspired by arcane

Dexys Midnight Runners album tracks

and Teardrop Explodes B-sides. Like

The Smiths, they created their own

self-contained universe, with their

own idiosyncratic iconography. “We

were cocky,” says Stanley, “but also

quite odd.”

So cocky, in fact, that in one of

the last articles he wrote for Melody

Maker – a piece on the new wave of

post-Roses/Mondays wannabes such

as Northside and Flowered

Up – he sneaked in a mention of

Saint Etienne.

“I thought, ‘Let’s see what happens’.

And the labels got in touch! It was

incredibly cheeky, but it worked.”

HIGHWAY TO HEAVENLY

Saint Etienne signed to Heavenly

and took their “shared love of minor

chords and dance music” to the

toppermost of the poppermost, or

at least to Top Of The Pops where,

for their fi rst appearance (for You’re

In A Bad Way), they shared the

Borehamwood stage with East 17

(Stanley remembers Brian Harvey

playing pool at the bar with “Mandy

from EastEnders”, Nicola Stapleton),

2 Unlimited and Rolf Harris doing

Stairway To Heaven.

“Our fi rst time on is embedded

in my mind,” Stanley says. “It was

amazing. The whole place had that

British Rail gravy smell that you

didn’t get anywhere anymore. It

was trapped in time – like being in

a sitcom in the 70s. I was a

wooden model of myself onstage –

I barely moved – but it felt like,

‘That’s it.’ It was like playing in the

cup fi nal at Wembley. It was always

going to be a pinnacle of my life,

and I was quite aware of that as it

was going on.”

Being on TOTP strongly hinted to

Wiggs that his decision to jack in

his job in “phone support” wasn’t

as hasty as he fi rst thought. Then,

one day during a picnic in Highbury

Fields, someone approached him for

an autograph, and that confi rmed it.

“It was like I’d staged it,” he

laughs, still amazed. “It was really

bizarre – like, I’ve done the right

thing here.”

For Cracknell, the moment of

realisation – that Saint Etienne

had truly become a mainstream

proposition – came during their

performance on the main stage at

Glastonbury in 1994.

Saint Etienne’s

new LP Home

Counties is a

loosely framed

concept album that

retains the band’s

grab-bag mix of

musical infl uences

© Rob Baker Ashton

CP30.Feat_StEtienne.print.indd 84 08/06/2017 15:06