85“When we walked out to 30,000
people,” she sighs at the memory.
“We got there really late, and
didn’t have enough time to take it
on board. I didn’t presume tons of
people would come and watch us,
so it was a real, ‘Wow!’ moment.
I’ve watched footage of it and I look
like the cat who got the cream,” she
says, although Wiggs admits he was
so overwhelmed by the occasion, he
was petrified into total stasis.SOUNDS OF THE CITY
Their first three albums – Foxbase
Alpha, So Tough and 1994’s Tiger
Bay – were all recorded in London
and are considered by Stanley to
be of a piece. For the excellent, and
overlooked, Good Humor (1998)
the band decamped to Sweden to
work with Cardigans producer
Tore Johansson.
It was their bid to shake off their
reputation as the quintessential
Londoners – they even gave “humor”
an American spelling.
“We all got a flat in Malmö
for that one,” Stanley reminisces.
“It was terrific – I have incredibly
fond memories of living and eating
together, like The Beatles in Help!
“That,” he explains, “was the first
album where we all wrote together
as well – for the first three, me and
Pete wrote together and Sarah wrote
separately. That’s how we’ve always
worked since.”
Stanley sees Good Humor and
the subsequent two albums – 2000’s
Sound Of Water (recorded in Berlin,
with arrangements by To Rococo Rot
and Sean O’Hagan) and 2002’s
Finisterre – as another obvious
grouping, and the start of “another
era” for the band. And he would put
the next three – 2005’s Tales From
Turnpike House, 2012’s Words And
Music and the new Home Counties –
together. The latter is a “pretty loose”
(Wiggs’ words) concept about the
commuter belt that manages to make
such unfashionable subject matter
engaging by populating the songs
with colourful characters (such as
the Church Pew Furniture Restorer
and the Train Drivers In Eyeliner),
and filling the songs with elegantly
hummable melodies.
Stanley might be a fan of rock’s
cult heroes or marginal eccentrics,
whose trajectories were marked by
vertiginous highs and subterranean
lows, but his group have never gone
off the rails. Did they never have a
mad moment, when fame went to
their heads? “There was a time,”
mutters Wiggs over the thump of
Personal Jesus on the cafe stereo,“when we went a bit nuts, and if
we’d carried on that way we might
have ended up...”
“...very ill,” Cracknell finishes
his sentence.
When asked why their friends
in Pulp became so successful while
Saint Etienne maintained a steady,
modest path, they ascribe it to Pulp’s
amazing live form and the fact
that, as Cracknell says, “They were
absolutely ready for it”. And because
Saint Etienne didn’t release an album
for four years, they were never really
lumped in with the Britpop massive,
even if Oasis did support them in
Glasgow and Birmingham, where
Wiggs remembers them being
“full-on rock’n’roll”.
Unlike many of their peers, who
shone brightly then faded away,
Saint Etienne are in it for the long
haul. All the better for pop scholars
to study them over the distance.
The sleevenotes that accompanied
their albums by the likes of Jon
Savage and Simon Reynolds, and
their reclaiming of the capital as a
psychogeographic space (LondonBelongs To Me, indeed), have
afforded Saint Etienne a brainy
allure. And yet they did have proper
hits – even one, 7 Ways To Love,
in 1991 as Cola Boy – that proved
they had “the common touch”. But
are they really more of a theorist’s
delight, making conceptual pop
music for academic types?
“I don’t think we hide our light
under a bushel,” says Stanley of
the suggestion they’re bookish and
far from the degenerate rocker
stereotype, adding that he “would
love to cultivate a mystique”. Fact
is, none of them have ever suffered
a meltdown.
“I read this interview with Justin
Hayward [of The Moody Blues]
where he said: ‘Acid? I took it 10
or 11 times, then I realised that’s
probably enough.’ So sensible! We
were probably like that. We all took
drugs and did things we shouldn’t
have looking back, but we were very
sensible. Very Home Counties.”Home Counties is out now on
Heavenly RecordingsSAINT ETIENNE’S BEST-EVER NON-LP TRACKS.THE PROCESS (1995)
Extra track with the He’s On The Phone single.
“Everybody thinks they know the answers/ Everybody
wants to be courageous,” coos La Cracknell.
Impossibly touching.
BURNT OUT CAR (1996)
Takes the old Smokey Robinson and The Miracles
adage – “I gotta dance to keep from crying” – and
runs with it. Just call it sob disco.
PUBLIC INFORMATION
FILM (1997)
Unexpectedly manages to combine French
chanteuse pop with drum’n’bass.
SUSHI RIDER (1994)
Extra track with Like A Motorway. A Pale Blue Eyes
for the Sarah Records generation.
LOVER PLAYS
THE BASS (1999)
Another new gorgeous Saint Etienne paradigm:
lovers dubstep.ANGEL (BROADCAST
MIX) (1996)
Like an unearthly transmission from a satellite planet
inhabited by the desolate and heartbroken.
STUDIO KINDA
FILTHY (1991)
More sorrowful dub from the Etienne’s
private soundworld.
JAYDIP PHARMACY (1998)
First written for Good Humor, a gorgeous instrumental
trifle, all harps, minor chords and keyboard glissandos
that transports you to the nearest faraway place.
A SLAVIC BEAUTY
WITH A ROSE BETWEEN
HER TEETH (1997)
From the Valentine’s Day EP, this demonstrates
Saint Etienne’s filmic smarts from the start.
ANDREW MCCARTHY (1998)
Ostensibly a paean to the Brat Pack actor, but its
wistful grooviness could suit anyone or anything.CP30.Feat_StEtienne.print.indd 85 08/06/2017 15:06