Ian Brown Documentary (The Works 2001)

Documentary from 2001, Ian talking about The Stone Roses and his solo career and stuff..
Don't know much about it but enjoy!

(c)Joe Lister

(music plays)

Good evening.

The American writer Andreas Thompson has this great line about how

if you stand on the hill top outside Las Vegas and look west you can see the very point

at which the tide of the 60's finally stopped and began to head backwards.

If you stand on this hill outside **** and look north you can see the very point

at which the thrill and the vigour of late 80's British youth culture reached its high water mark

before heading backwards into the flocks of some Brit-Pop and Fizzy-Pop.

You can see Spike Island witness and the man who helped enter stage

of the council that wasSpike Island was the legendary Ian Brown.

I shouldn't be here. You know, if you was in a group in '66

and you were known, you wouldn't have been there in '78 & '79

If you was known in '77 you shouldn't be there in 1999

You know my first LP was 12 years ago, I shouldn't be here.

Pop music a short life span. I'm not one of those big like Bowie, I shouldn't be here.... but I am.

(Music plays.)

Ian's still part of the whole system and always will be as far as I'm concerned.

It's the face that's launched a thousand haircuts. Ian's got the genuine definitive

true Manchester swagger. He is everything a start should be.

He can't sing rock, um, he can present something that I think is better, on a higher level.

Is he not a loose cannon?

Oh, absolutely! Absolutely. But that's what makes him interesting.

The musical autumn of 2001 will be enriched by the release of the third albumn and the solo career of former Stone Rose's lead singer, Ian Brown.

It's bedroom music, it's personal music, is that correct?

Expensive bedroom music (laughter).

It was made in an ***** and a kid I caught with and he had his wife and his child in the back bedroom and we took all the front room and we had 400,000 pounds of equipment in the front room.

We brought in all the equipment and we spent the whole winter working in the house, not with a view with where we were going to take it, just to get the songs down.

We wanted to use proper songs, but the main thing, I wanted some of the most modern songs we could get.

Super modern, 2001 songs. And to complete that we had to go into a proper studio to mix it.

It's all about songs, though, isn't it? Fear? That's the lead singer, isn't it? Yea.

What are you prepared to do to make it?

Eh, I'll only do what I feel comfortable doing. Like a did an interview recently, Q Magazine, and I it's just I'd taken a picture halfway up my old 2000 year old tree.

She saw the tree, it's a big wide beautiful tree, and I thought, why not, when it caught my eye for a tree and I was barking. (music)

Have you conscientiously placed your voice somewhere in the mix?

Yea, I got this so it's as strong as it can be without it *** the music. (music)

Your voice sound pretty good on this new album, but you still have, there's some very Manchurian twang in it.

Some sounds are like are backing off and what sounds really Narvon and let me do it again.

And the guys are going, no, that is you. Leave it.

And my mother said, when you're doing this project can you speak proper 'cause your accent's sometimes too strong for me to pick up.

(music)

In terms of myths and stuff, there is this idea that you're brilliant, you're fantastic, but maybe your voice isn't as good.

Yea. Where does this come from, 'cause the voice sounds great on the new album?

I have done a few bad shows, but I think it is clearly the guitarist with 4 or 4 Fender twins , so I sometimes couldn't hear myself singing.

So maybe I'd shout, so ********. I did do Reading in '96 and the singing was aweful.

But when I first come out, they said he sings like an angel, he sings like a eunuch.

(music...right on, man...music)

Influences make musicians what they are.

What made Ian Brown?

How informative were the Pistols to you?

When you're 40 and the Pistols are everything...they're saying everything how it is. Plus you have the *** and you can say it when your 40 when you're 40 and you're wide awake.

You're wide awake, you know exactly what's going on and the Pistols were perfect for us.

And they were only 19, I think, at the time. Were young. Yea.

What made you a musician?

I'm in Uni. and it's 1983 and the girl is at a party, she's 21, her name, a kid called Glenn. You remember Glenn that used to work in the ***?

He brought Gino down to the Pipe because he was working at - Gino Washington, the great Gino Washington? Yea.

He brought him down, this guy, to the party and he just played *** set. And Jon at Pipes keeps telling me I'm a star - you're a star, you're a star, you're a star, you should be singing, you're a star.

And I'm like so what's this guy like? What's he on vacation?

He just kept saying it to me all night, be a singer, and he kept saying being a singer, go for it, be a singer.

'Cause actually, your main activity then was scootering wasn't it?

Well it was mainly the Marshal Arts from age 11 to 18 I did Marshal Arts.

That's every day, 7 days a weeks. But we used make our own schools, yea.

We used to make our own choppers

Just to see

And

the influence fermented

Now it's 1988?

The Stone Roses

I've got my own studio on the other side of *** And guess what, I'm not having the Roses on

I've seen them in '85 and they were a bunch of goths

and now they're being managed by a bunch of

my ex-partners.

No way

Until Gary Williams, drummer of *** plays me anonymously a song.

It's utterly wonderful and it's by the Stone Roses

and all I can say is "I'm sorry."

'89 begins them with a complete admission of error on my part

big apologies

and here's a new one from the excellent Stone Roses.

(music)

How did you feel about doing this on a ***

Yeah

it didn't look like it did

it didn't look like it did cause he seemed to be ***

Yeah, I think the last time I got

It was good though, had fact it was more than good

***What's your

Yes,

Yeah, yeah

It's the first

(music)

The very front***

And one important point about and

Manny the bass player and Crassy the roadie, they were (aseed?)

But the Roses themselves were always rock. Great rock.

Well the Roses, they didn't***dance

We thought we were beyond rock. We didn't realize it was gonna come hurdling back on the other side.

I think, without any doubt, the Stone Roses are the most important British band

*** two, three decades without any doubt

Why didn't they take over America?

*** the big company paid all lot money and all this blah-blah-blah

Why haven't- why haven't hardly any bands taken over America

er... For about the last 15 years

And I'll tell you the reason

It's because of the way the industry is

They are very in media driven and you can become a star in five minutes

And certainly in England

And if you're lucky, also in Europe

And that doesn't happen in America.

What went wrong for the Roses?

Drugs and children is the oft quoted be explanation.

It wasn't that they were doing drugs, they were doing different drugs.

They had a flamboyant, crazy, but effective manager

And they got rid of him.

It's four had little chiefs

*** was the biggest mistake

With a two million dollar advance (laughs)