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Steranko, London based four-piece is not your usual run of the mill London based four piece, you either love them or hate them but you just can’t feel indifference.
You couldn’t leave one of their notoriously explosive, interactive live performance and not have an opinion on the matter, just like an Iggy Pop gig couldn’t leave you cold.
But there is a lot more to Steranko than frenetic instrument playing and a dangling from the ceiling frontman [and that’s when he’s not climbing the furniture], there is classic 2005 first album ‘Culturephrenia’, freshly released Ep ‘Queen Of The Karaoke Bar’ and a masterpiece second Lp in the making.
Team Steranko have an unusual working ethos that younger bands could learn from and I am particularly interested in the way they have recorded their latest offerings, so we meet in a South London pub, before one of their ‘short but powerful kick in the guts’ live set, and yes they also hit women....
Steranko is lead singer Lee Mangan, guitarist Chris Cole, drummer John Barrett and bass player Lee Elvey.
Florence: For the last year, you’ve had in the region of 30 tracks recorded and ready to go, yet beginning of July you’ve only released an Ep, ‘Queen Of The Karaoke Bar’ when maybe an Lp was expected of you as a follow up to your first album, ‘Culturephrenia’....
Lee E: It’s our way of working up towards an album.
We decided to put out an Ep first to include the single ‘Queen Of The Karaoke Bar’, and we’ll probably release another single and then be ready for an album.
To the contrary of the release of our first Lp, we’re building up to the second one.
 Lee M: This is like a movie trailer, we’re trying to tease people....
We hope that everyone is going to love this Ep so much that they’ll be asking for an album, but then we’ll tease them some more by only releasing another single and then one more until they beg for an album!!
We’ll tease and tease but the climax comes with the Lp.
Florence: There is a name for people like you....
Lee M: We’ve chosen to do it this way because we have so many songs. We thought we’d release an Ep and try to better ourselves with every release. Go around playing those tracks live, again and again until they’re absolutely brilliant on stage and then move on to some other tracks.
Florence: Your first album is fantastic and a ‘must have’.
Do you think that you’ll do even better next time and do you feel confident about the material you’ve got now?
Lee E: Definitely.
It’s different. I feel that it’s darker and heavier.
What we’ve got now is much more what we were trying to achieve with the first record.
But we haven’t reached our goal yet as we’re gonna try to write better and better songs, always better our writing.
Lee M: When you do a piece of work you have no idea whether it’s good or bad, you just put it together.
‘Culturephrenia’ was a concept album, it had a relevance to where we were then...somehow it turned into a studio album.
But the new songs were recorded very quickly.
Most of it was spontaneous, most of the guitar, most of the drums and bass and a lot of the vocals were off the cuff and of the moment.
It became a momentous time for us.
We gave ourselves one or two takes.
We know that in this society anyone can get conned, you can take photographs and make people look younger for instance, you can bullshit everyone but there is one thing you can’t bullshit, that’s the sincerity of ‘the moment’...
Sometimes I didn’t even finish words!
A lot of it just came straight out and that’s because at that moment, in that room that’s how we felt.
The music and vocals were recorded at the same time, it’s the combination of the coming together of a group. We are a group.
Most groups aren’t groups they are members of a band.
On this new recording we wanted to capture a couple of ‘moments’, the sincerity of that instant, believing that people could hear it.
We have real faith in human instincts.
Florence: Effectively it’s not overworked and that’s the beauty of it.
However your working method is very different from other bands’.
I was under the impression that you had to lock yourselves away for a few months writing songs and then spend more time in a studio putting it all together.
 Lee E: A lot of bands have nothing to say and take too long to say it.
They will spend a month writing a song that says “ooh baby I love you”!!
Lee M: Being mainly a live band we need to and we’re used to be spontaneous. When we go and play a gig we don’t know how it’s gonna end up, we need to feel what the crowd is going to do.
That’s how the song writing came about, we have to know what to say and play at the right time.
The other day we played a gig up North and we weren’t going down well for the first three songs so we pulled back and played a Reggae number and the audience loved it. It was fine after that, but it’s something you have to work on. You can’t always get it straight away. You can’t always win and you can’t always be loved.
Sometimes the audience will say we’re ‘shit’ and sometimes we’re ‘genius’ but we’re neither, we’re something in the middle.
Florence: Tell me about your new single ‘Queen Of The Karaoke Bar’.
Lee M: ‘Queen Of The Karaoke Bar’ is an observation of that feeling and that moment.
It’s an abstract opinion of a very real situation, karaoke bars, eating at McDonald’s. It concerns an entire generation.
We’re from a generation where everything is disposable, it be television or the way we eat...
Florence: As a live band you are one of the most entertaining with an incredibly contagious energy as musicians and compelling, interactive performances from you Lee.
Luckily you’re also appreciated abroad and particularly in Korea!
Lee M: On stage is where we’re at our best and yes very energetic.
Personally, sometimes I can lose my way, so to speak and not because I’ve got my head in a bottle Gin, [actually I don’t drink], but you get so caught up in the moment. Sometimes I find myself so far away from the stage and I think to myself “how the fuck did I get over here!”.
Music is an universal thing and anyone can understand whether something is honest or dishonest, you don’t need to understand the songs.
Regarding playing abroad, we don’t actually question how these gigs came about, but in Korea for instance, John could virtually speak fluent Korean which made him the big star of the band over there.
If you work with the crowd and get on stage like it’s the last gig you’re ever gonna play, if you’re prepared to go as far as we’re prepared to go then people will always appreciate you.
Being on a stage doesn’t automatically mean that we are gonna be worshipped.
It would be a mistake to believe that just like it’s a mistake to think that people are gonna look up to you.
Florence: Being outrageous has become a trademark for you,
hasn’t it?
Lee E: Especially when you play a lot of small venues.
They haven’t got great sound or lights. Small venues don’t aim at making you sound or look amazing, so you’ve got to make an impact on people who a) have never seen you before, b) don’t know any of your songs and c) in some cases, because of the poor sound can’t really hear the vocals or the guitar.
To make an impact we can’t really just stand there, shoe gazing.
People want to be entertained
 Chris: A lot of bands forget that they’re on stage to entertain.
They get on stage, under those lights and forget....they think that people are there to watch them but it’s not only that, you’re on stage to entertain the audience. That’s your job.
Lee M: Being in a band can be overwhelming but we’re lucky to have a lot of freedom, to be able to do nearly whatever we want, which is a sense of freedom you probably wouldn’t get anywhere else, unless maybe if you were a film director.
We get a chance to play music nearly every night and we play in front of crazy kids sometimes and we play in front of people who hate us sometimes, but my God it’s such an honour, it’s unbelievable and we’ve sacrificed everything to be able to do that.
Florence: Clearly it’s not money motivated!
Lee M: If it was we would have packed it in years ago.
We could have made a lot of money and being very successful elsewhere.
We chose to keep it pure, we didn’t want to write American sounding songs, we didn’t really play the game, so to speak.
We just kept doing what we were doing because it felt naturally right and that’s why the forthcoming album is sacred to us, it’s the purest we could do.
Florence: Have you got a release date in mind?
Lee E: Probably around February 2007.
Lee M: We also have a lot of people to consider, like the record company and our management because they put just as much work into it, maybe even more than the band and of course they have a big say into it.
Playing live is such a small part in the band’s life and it takes a lot to carry a band.
Florence: What about record producers?
You don’t mention any.
Most bands would do anything to get a big name to produce their material, so what’s that all about?
Lee M: If you watch the Rolling Stones movie ‘Sympathy For The Devil’
you can see that songs are recorded in one take, Bang! one take, just like that. That’s how all the classics were made.
The Beatles didn’t go and overdub for six months, get an American producer in, and then get ‘that’ producer involved, send the stuff to Tokyo, back from Japan ‘this’ guy will need to do some backing....
Fuck that shit!
It’s all about what we have to say and if we haven’t got anything to say of any importance then it’s just not gonna work.
Lee E: We recorded something like 34 tracks in four days and with very little money!
Florence: Some of the best records have been made quickly and on a tight budget.
Anton Newcombe can proudly brag that some Brian Jonestown Massacre’s albums were recorded in a day and for under $20.
I think that there is an important lesson to be learnt here.
Lee M: If you look at the back of most albums you will see a list of very famous names, and those bands are so insecure that they need to be associated with these big names.
As individuals they don’t have the balls to stand on their own.
The first think they get asked when they do an album is “which producer do you want?”.
It didn’t take any producer to make us write the songs and it’s not gonna take any producer to make us record them.
The music world is all about who you know and if you’ve got big names on your record then ‘you must be good’.
Unfortunately that’s not true.
Florence: Through your website you’ve asked your fans to select tracks and pick artwork for your second Lp.
Why did you do that?
Lee M: As we started recording tracks, people starting telling us that this track was good, and that one was unsellable but this one would sell...
So we thought of putting it on the web page and let the fans decide, let them pick the tracks.
The best way to get an honest opinion is to ask someone who will actually part with money.
Florence: Again this only worked because you had so many tracks to choose from but nevertheless it show a lot of respect for your fans.
It’s not very often that as a fan your opinion really matters.
What are you listening to right now?
 John: Right now I’m very much into trying to catch up with bands’ unreleased tracks.
Florence: A little nerdy but interesting...
Lee M: Today I was listening to Barbra Streisand, I know it sounds a little gay...
Florence: I wish I’d never asked...
Lee M: No hold on, also Mars Volta and The Avett Brothers, a country and western band. They don’t have a drummer but use a kettle or something.
Chris: I can listen to so many different things but today it was Bob Dylan, Mars Volta yesterday and I can’t even remember the day before that.
Lee E: I never listen to anything at home.
I’m not home long enough to put the stereo on!
Florence: What is your message to the world?
Lee E: Go buy our Ep!
Lee M: Make your own mistakes, make them as big as you can, don’t take any advice, do it as much as you can on you own.
No one has got any answers. If you need an answer to anything, it’s you who gonna find it.
Go out there and live like it’s your last fucking day...
Words: Florence ACHERY
www.sterankomusic.com
www.myspace.com/sterankomusic |
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