THE TELESCOPES Posted by claire on Friday, January 4, 2002 Having just performed a successful hometown comeback show after a nine-year absence, THE TELESCOPES look set to confound both punters and critics alike with their forthcoming album ‘Third Wave’, which is set for release in the early part of 2002. Dom Gourlay speaks to founder member STEPHEN LAWRIE about his darker side that appears to have re-kindled his desire to extend the ‘Scopes creative output after so long. DOM GOURLAY: So what gave you the inspiration to continue with The Telescopes after such a long absence? STEPHEN LAWRIE: I’ve been writing a load of songs which sound as if they’d been written for The Telescopes rather than Unisex. I’ve been writing in the same sort of way that I was probably ten or so years ago, and I thought about them in the same way. It just would not have been appropriate for these songs to come out as Unisex, and I spoke to Randall out of Fuxa about these songs, and he’d been really miffed about what had happened to The Telescopes. A lot of people thought we’d spent the last nine years making the third album and that we were still on Creation even when they had folded! He said that a lot of people in the States kept asking him if he’d heard anything about the new Telescopes stuff. So we thought about making a third album and we spoke to Double Agent records. We knew they loved the Telescopes, their director used to write a fanzine called “Splashdown”. They were really up for it and said they would finance the release. DOM GOURLAY: Would you say ‘Third Wave’ is a continuation of The Telescopes or do you see it as your way of putting the record straight, sort of writing the final chapter? STEPHEN LAWRIE: No it’s definitely a continuation. There’s gonna be about another three albums at least. The Telescopes will be touring as part of Fuxa when they tour early next year. As well as us, there’ll be Will from Spacemen 3 on bass, Jerry from The Dust Collectors, Dan from Unisex, and I know Sonic Boom will be making an appearance as well, doing vocals on an old Suicide song. The Telescopes will definitely tour again at some point, We’re doing an acoustic appearance at Jumbo Records in Leeds in February, which coincides with the Fuxa tour. We’ve rehearsed stuff like ‘Flying’, ‘Spaceships’, ‘Splashdown’, ‘Sadness Pale’. DOM GOURLAY: So what would strike the listener about ‘Third Wave’ in a way to differentiate as being The Telescopes rather than Unisex? STEPHEN LAWRIE: The intensity of it I suppose, and the darkness. DOM GOURLAY: Lyrically? STEPHEN LAWRIE: Well, yeah, I like to fuck things up a bit. Unisex take a more traditional approach to songwriting, whereas with The Telescopes…we like to fiddle with the formula. It’s like on the second album, where we used silence as a middle 8. Music shouldn’t be so predictable, and that’s what The Telescopes are about, the machine that does not obey it’s master. DOM GOURLAY: There has been talk of Ride reforming. Would you play with those bands again as part of a package tour if the circumstances were appropriate? STEPHEN LAWRIE: I’m not sure if a shoegazing package thing would be the right thing for us to do. DOM GOURLAY: One significant change with The Telescopes is the personnel, with only yourself and Jo remaining from the original line up. What can we expect from the other members? STEPHEN LAWRIE: Always expect the least expected. At the moment we’ve got different people in the line up every time we get together. I suppose it’s about keeping it interesting and fresh. It’s like with the song ‘Nemo’ – you can hear all different things on there while at the same time it is so obviously The Telescopes. We’ve actually tried to recreate the sounds of a submarine through the rhythm on it. In the mix I tried to imagine being in charge of a submarine, the engine room would be the band playing away behind me with Captain Nemo singing! That’s what people like Brian Wilson did, trying to create something that you could dream to. We’ve also got one track called ‘Tesla Death Ray’ which features the video game Space Invaders and is constructed entirely out of toys! DOM GOURLAY: Looking back over the entire history of The Telescopes, what would you say is your proudest moment? STEPHEN LAWRIE: ‘Perfect Needle’ doing well, both in the indie charts and in the way it was received critically, because to me that was justified. It was one hell of a brilliant EP. I wrote that song the day before the recording sessions for the ‘Taste’ album, so originally it wasn’t set to appear on that record, we liked it so much it ended up being the first song we recorded for it. DOM GOURLAY: Apart from ‘Perfect Needle’, what would you say was the most enjoyable song to listen to? STEPHEN LAWRIE: I think ‘Winter#2’ from the new album is definitely one of the most pleasing things we’ve made. DOM GOURLAY: What about the tour you did with the Jesus And Mary Chain? STEPHEN LAWRIE: That was enlightening really. It was enlightening because it was disappointing when we found out what they were actually like! They were really defeatist, in the way that when they played there was just no excitement there. It was like they really knew what they were doing, and they’d been doing it all the way across America and it was just a job to them. I remember one of the nights we played with them, at Rock City actually, and I let Jim Reid know what I thought about them! They were just so condescending. I asked him why they didn’t seem to be enjoying playing to so many people night after night, and his answer was something along the lines of “well you don’t do you when you get to our level!”, and I just told him that you do it for whatever reason you wanna do it for. I just found his attitude so deplorable. DOM GOURLAY: So apart from the disappointment of meeting one of your heroes, would you say there were any low points of being a Telescope? STEPHEN LAWRIE: Disillusionment I suppose after the second album when things weren’t going so well. I think one of the scariest moments was when our record label What Goes On folded. Things were going really well and then all of a sudden we were owned by receivers. There was a guy who ran the record label who was our friend and he invited us over to his house to discuss things such as publicity photos and promo videos for the next single. This was on the Saturday, and then on the Sunday we got a phone call from someone who worked in the offices telling us he had been given 24 hours to clear his stuff out and anything he didn’t take would become the possession of a firm of receivers. It was a real kick in the face, because the manager of the record label who we looked on as a friend had sat there and lied to us, knowing what was about to happen. That’s why I’ll always be grateful to Alan McGee, because he bought our back catalogue and gave it to us. He said to the receivers “these are real people, you can’t just treat them like a tin of beans or something”. DOM GOURLAY: You released three singles and the second album on Creation Records, and in terms of sales this was probably the most successful period for the band. How do you feel when you read the biography on Creation which has inadvertently omitted the Telescopes? STEPHEN LAWRIE: Yeah it’s a bit sad really, but even McGee wasn’t happy with the finished article that went in the book. He came out and slagged the guy off who wrote it for concentrating too much on Martin Carr. There’s a hell of a lot more to Creation Records than that, you know, it’s as if nearly ten years’ worth of history has just been forgotten about. I suppose at the end of the day if they write more about those who were in the spotlight, especially with Britpop, it will sell more copies of the book. It’s a real shame. DOM GOURLAY: How did The Telescopes and Creation part company? STEPHEN LAWRIE: It would be around 1993 or something like that, and Alan McGee had got really ill. A guy called Dick Green took over the day to day running of the label and he just didn’t like what we were about I guess. I was told he’s the same guy that was sent a copy of My Bloody Valentine’s ‘To Here Knows When’ on cassette and he sent it back to them saying there was something wrong with it! Kevin Shields sent it back to him and said there was nothing wrong with it and that’s the single, and it became the biggest selling My Bloody Valentine single and I believe the biggest selling record on Creation at that time. There was a side to them that always wanted a band like Oasis, and in the end they got it.