Back to index of Nerve 18 - Summer 2011

The Cubical Cornered

Interview by Sebastian Gahan
Photo by Julie Naglestad

The Cubical is a name that may be familiar with many readers of Nerve, and recently I interrupted their recording sessions to have a chat with Alex and Dan of the band. Many pertinent and may be silly topics were covered over less than twenty questions and you can’t help but imagine a night out with these guys would be fun and highly intellectually stimulating.

Hi Guys, you’ve just come back off a tour. How did it go and any highlights you can safely share with us?
Alex: It was great. We had a blast playing in so many different cities in such a short period of time. We did 4000 miles in 10 days you know. Gig wise, Madrid and Bilbao were definitely the highlights, wild old nights in sweaty little venues. In support were our Basque friends Yellow Big Machine who showed us the delights of Basque nightlife after the Bilbao gig. Our drivers were pillars of patience and saintliness throughout as we, high on out of date Caffreys and red wine bought from a cockney trickster for a laughably pathetic amount of Euros in Calais , played our improvised travel games in the back of the van at full volume.

Listening to your music, I can hear lots of influences present. But the one that jumps out like the proverbial jack in the box for me is The Velvet Underground in the rough quality and subjects of the songs. Would you agree or would you disagree?
Alex: He is very proverbial that Jack in the Box isn’t he? Yes, The Velvet Underground have been an influence, probably more when we started out back in the 80s than now. I myself have been very influenced by Sterling Morrison who I think must be one of the most underrated guitarists of all time. I’ll take the comparison in the rough quality of the recordings as a huge complement as I think that The Velvet Underground’s self titled third album is one of the best sounding and under-produced records ever made.
Dan: I'm not sure about the subject of the songs but they are an amazing band and there is a real rough beauty to their songs so thanks for the compliment.

The rough quality of the vocals gives the music an almost insane quality and I think puts a new side to the music behind it completely.
Dan: I suppose it does add a little insanity and heightens the whole thing a little. In some songs it is certainly the desired effect but deep down I'm still an old fashioned song and dance man. You need a little strangeness.

If I may say so, the artwork on your releases is wonderfully suited to the music contained on them. Who created the artwork and is there a specific concept behind them?
Alex: They’re all paintings by a good friend of ours, John O’Neill, an incredibly talented artist who we believe deserves more recognition. For our first EP, Great White Lie, Dan got together with John and took him over the lyrical ideas in the song. He painted a bespoke piece and it was amazing. Since then we’ve gone back to John for every release as, as you say, the imagery seems to fit the music and John understands where we are coming from. It looks good as a body of work to have an artistic theme running throughout and it’s also a handy way of not having to spend months mulling over artwork or using photographs of our ugly mugs. If John hasn’t painted something specifically for a release there’ll always be something in his vast archive that’s suitable. He’s a good lad is John!

Connected to that, many artists work differently. What environment do you find most conducive to writing songs and how often do you sit down and do exactly that?
Alex: On most days. We write in several different ways: all together down at the practice room, Dan and I write and then show the rest of the lads or we’ll use Dan’s songs that he’s already written. We’ve found over the years, purely by chance, that sitting in a damp and smoky room full of discarded strings, empty beer bottles, ancient tobacco pouches and rotting food is most conducive to writing songs.

What for you are the main benefits of being in the creative industry and why should we encourage people to create more?
Alex: I suppose the satisfaction of creating something that you hope will last and be appreciated by others. I’m not sure about “encouraging” people to create more; they probably either will or won’t but artists of all sorts need more of a helping hand in this country. There’s an awful culture in the UK, I can only speak for musicians, of not paying and treating people very well, you only have to go to Europe to see the difference in attitudes. Luckily we are now at a stage where we get paid reasonably well for shows etc but there were times when you would go down to London or somewhere for a gig, ask if there were any free beers and they’d look at you like you were mentally ill.

Whilst you were away on tour, the city marched on the cuts. Are you in favour of the political protest song and what would you write about if you were to write one?
Dan: I am in favour of political protest in all forms so couldn't really object to protest in song. It’s another medium that's all. I am certainly not averse to writing a protest song and have written many in my own way over the years. Nearly every song I have written has been political in one way or another. I have written about the Holocaust, Terrorism, Colonialisation and the carving up of Africa, the Madre's of the Plaza Mayor and The Disappeared, to name a few, let alone the dozen of songs about sexual politics. I am a massive Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie fan so am big into songs of the protest movement. My only problem is when I see and hear songs that are so literal and expressed without nuance and artistry, some of the worst poetry I have ever heard has been espoused by people with whom I share the political landscape. Christ a night listening to bad anti George Bush poetry near enough killed me!
If I was to write one today it would be probably about the selling of the state and its services to the highest bidder and the illusion of debt crisis. Health care brought to you by KFC. That’s just one evil amongst many.

Will the cuts to arts funding in Liverpool make less art in the city or more determined artists?
Alex: I don’t know, I just think people of a certain persuasion will always make art but it’s a struggle to make art and survive, the grass roots get fuck all anyway. Great art is often created out of adversity and struggle so one silver lining of this horrible political landscape at the moment will possibly be the galvanization of artistic critical comment and maybe a bit of good old fashioned civil disobedience. Liverpool was fucked in the 80s but art poured out of it. We shall see. I'm more concerned about the cuts to the public sector as a whole. The last Tory government destroyed traditional industries, so everyone that could retrained in the public sector, this Tory government is destroying the public sector so it’s the same hardworking people getting fucked over again.

Is there anywhere that you’ve toured that you really didn’t enjoy at all or failing that, liked so much that you didn’t want to leave?
Alex: We toured Australia for 6 weeks a few years ago, which was an amazing experience but for the first month we had hardly any gigs and we were stuck in a sleepy little town in the middle of nowhere on the Gold Coast. It was like paradise at first, beautiful beach on the pacific, weird animals and all that but we started to go a little mad as we had nothing to do and no money. Naturally, out of shear lack of other options, we drank a lot, every night, which seemed to be a favoured passtime of folks up there. It was a relief to get out of there and down to the coast to Byron Bay, Sydney and all the rest but the memories of the whole tour is mainly fond. We are quite adept at enjoying ourselves in the most adverse of circumstances and usually manage to laugh and drink our way through it. Places we didn’t want to leave? We loved playing in Spain during the last tour. When we sat in the sunshine fat on tapas and Vino Tinto in San Sebastien on the Atlantic, a drive back up the M6 to a drizzly Liverpool didn’t seem that appealing.

How much of a truth is it that Liverpool is a haven for artists of all kinds and what would you cite as your favourite venue for creativity of any kind?
Alex: Yeah, it’s certainly a good place for artists to be, there’s a good creative energy and DIY spirit going on here. I like a few of the underground venues: Static Gallery, Mello Mello and the like. Sometimes I do long for the heady days of the KIF from yester year, now that was a place, man.

Out if interest, how did you acquire the name The Cubical? It certainly doesn’t evoke the rich tapestry of sound you make on record, rather an office space or some sort of similar space!
Alex: Years ago, back in the old country, I used to work in a laboratory. In that laboratory were some toilets. On the back of the toilet doors were signs saying “No Smoking in The Cubicle.” Being of fast metabolism, I would see this sign several times a day and always thought it would make a good name for a band if you changed the spelling to “Cubical”. I was wrong on several levels.

As I’m a lover of words, I always listen to the words sung on a record. I certainly had great fun with your songs! What is the most bizarre influence for a song you’ve had?
Dan: I'm glad you enjoyed the lyrics, thank you. There are a lot of strange things that influence me and work their way in to songs. I write about all the usual things, the grotesque to the sublime, my life, characters I create, people, historical injustices and some of the more odious current social trends. Probably the most bizarre influence for a song that will be on our next record, concerns the toilet habits of an elderly domesticated dog. When being taken for a walk the dog without fail would always defecate three times, rain or shine always the same, a mechanism. That stuck with me as people are always attempting to re-zero, change, yet make the same mistakes over and over from week to week and as a society we do it en masse. Behind the layers there is the defecating beast. This formed the starting point for the song that then developed into something much uglier.

Is there a new album coming soon? The energy of Come Sing These Crippled Songs is seriously suggesting another is on the way to me…
Alex: There certainly is. We’ve just finished it. It took a bit longer than expected as the studio in which we were recording closed for 4 months for renovation. But it’s done now so we should have it out in September. We’ve recorded about 18 songs so we’ve got to choose the track listing. We’ll probably have three different versions like last time: European, Australian and American with different bonus tracks etc. Albums take a preposterous amount of time to prepare with recording, mixing, mastering, labels, promo and whatnot. The writing bits easy. We’d have two out a year if we could. In fact we are recording album three in an old analogue studio in Berlin in the summer, but that’s just a rumour.

If you had to describe the sound of The Cubical for someone new to the band, how would you describe it?
Alex: Right now, too loud.

Finally, have you got any messages for the readers of Nerve to mull over?
Alex: Drugs are for mugs, just say no.

Many thanks to Alex and Dan for their very valuable time in between touring and recording and look out for the new album and some highly recommended gigs soon!

The Cubical on MySpace: myspace.com/thecubicalthecubical

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