TotalRock speaks with The Wedding Present’s David Gedge

The Wedding Present have announced a new album called 24 Songs.

Last year saw the Leeds-formed outfit release two new tracks every month as a double A-side 7-inch record. Now, they have comprised each of the tracks as a compilation album, which will also include five bonus tracks. Thirty years ago the band released one single every month for a year all of which got into the Top 40.

TOTALROCK: spoke to Wedding Present Singer David Gedge

DAVID GEDGE: Well, basically, 30 years ago in 1992. We did 12 singles in a year. The Wedding Present I mean, so we did 12 singles one a month. And it was coming up to the 30th anniversary of that, obviously, 2022. So I decided I wanted to mark it in some way. Some kind of celebratory, 30 year kind of thing. And I thought, well, I’ll just do it again. So we decided to embark on this very similar project called 24 songs, which was a single every month, throughout 2022. And what we’re releasing in May is a compilation album, basically, of all the of all the tracks from the singles.

TOTALROCK: And the thing was, I’ve only just heard about this. And, you know, I listen to the radio all day long and stuff like that. And it’s just like, Oh, why didn’t they play all this stuff?

DAVID GEDGE: That’s a good question. I mean, Mark Riley and Gideon Coe played it but I don’t think anybody and Shawn Keaveney might have played it before he before he was removed, but now Yeah, you think you think they play more of it? But other than that, that’s kinda life.

TOTALROCK: And which one’s your favorite one off it on? Because do you release them in sort of seven inch singles or CD singles

DAVID GEDGE: So there was obviously 24/7 in singles really it’s quite as they’re all like them all. Otherwise, I wouldn’t release them I suppose. But it’s weird though. Because we didn’t last time in 1992 they have fitted on on a double LP, you know, like 12 songs on each on each LP but this time they’re all a bit longer. So we so we had to make it a triple LP a bit progressive rock.

TOTALROCK: Well, the only triple LPS I’ve got are Sandinista and Woodstock. The only ones I can think of.

DAVID GEDGE: I’ve got an Emerson Lake and Palmer one, I think from, when I was a kid.

TOTALROCK: So it was 30 years ago “Hit parade”. Is that true? Because you were on Top of the Pops quite a lot. Were the people at “Top of the pops” sort of going “not this lot again”? Were they happy to see you?

DAVID GEDGE: Kind of I think I don’t know. It’s on “Top of the pops” because I’ve kind of got this love / hate relationship with it. Because I grew up loving it. Like we all did as kids. It was the only place where we saw you know, music on TV. So I loved it. Loved it. And then obviously the Wedding Present were on it. And I think in the 80s It was terrible Top Of The Pops. It was kind of you know, I just think chart music got really bad.

TOTALROCK: White Man gets synthesizer….

DAVID GEDGE: Terrible synthesizer sounds like not even good synthesizer sounds. Yeah, I watch the repeats on BBC Four from the 80s and 90s. I just think it gets worse and worse.

And then some of the Wedding Present. In the early 90s, I think the first time we were on 1989 or something, and then then with Hit Parade we were on a few times. And so we didn’t really take it seriously. I didn’t really sing it because it was live vocals at that time. I didn’t really sing properly.

And I feel a bit embarrassed because when I ever see the repeats, I was feel like I kind have should. I wasn’t paying homage to the historic program that it was really I suppose. But yeah, so we did it. And I mean, to be honest, it was a strange thing to do because the singles were limited to initially 10,000, 15,000

And so they all sold out in like a day really. So the record would come out, and then we will be in the charts that following week on Top of the Pops the week after that on the Thursday so it’s been unavailable for the best part of two weeks.

So it was kind of a strange thing to do. And the record company loved it because I guess it was good. As RCA at the time we were on promotion kind of thing but we were always a bit dubious about it. And we ended up a couple times kind of pretending that one of us was ill. Because we’d say ”Keith, the bass players broke his leg or something”. So it was a bit of an odd thing really, I kind of regret it now.

TOTALROCK: I mean, you must have some sort of world record for the most singles that went in the charts for one week, or something like that. Because

DAVID GEDGE: We’ve got the record for that we share the record with Elvis Presley, for the most number of hit singles in a year. So both Wedding Present and Elvis because they had 12, I think it’s top 40, top 30 or top 40 hits in the year. The difference being actually though, some of Elvis’ were cover versions. So we hold the record for most original hits.

TOTALROCK: And none of the band died on the toilet either, which is always a bonus.

DAVID GEDGE: Not yet…

TOTALROCK: Oh, a friend of mine. I asked it wants to know who’s Harry in the song Kennedy?

DAVID GEDGE: Random question, but it’s based on Aristotle Onassis actually, is the answer, because the songs all kind of about the conspiracy theories surrounding the (JFK) assassination. I bought a book actually, when I was writing it, it’s called the Gemstone File. And it was a book about all the conspiracy theories that surrounded the assassination, of the president. And there were some accusations of him being linked to the mafia and Aristotle Onassis was something to do with it. I can’t remember exactly. And obviously, Jacqueline Kennedy, eventually married and so that, so she walked off with Harry basically, is, I changed it to Harry

TOTALROCK: Is the apple pie reference, a reference to poisoning somebody, somebody’s asked me that.

DAVID GEDGE: Yes, yes. It’s because apparently, the, or the CIA, or the FBI uses this chemical, which induced the heart attack. And it tastes it smells like apples. So if it’s ingested into apple pies, it was indistinguishable. So these two cool people, and also kind of tied in with, you know, the American idea of mom’s apple pie kind of everything. You know, so I quite like there’s loads. It’s a really strange candidate, because it’s one of my least favorite songs. And it’s, it’s a very short lyric. And it’s very simple, but it’s, there’s loads of stuff in it. It took me absolutely ages because I read the book, and I did a load of kind of drafts of that song. And as I say, it’s all in the autobiography.

TOTALROCK: Yeah. All right. Well, we’ll get we’ll get that one this week. Then, just plowing through me rock autobiographies as we go as a graphic novel, actually. All right. Okay. Fair enough. I’ll get hold of that. What was it called?

DAVID GEDGE: Well, actually, it’s called Tales from the Wedding Present. And we did Volume One came out in 2021. We released Volume Two, in 2022. And I’m working on volume three now. Basically, it’s volume one was my life up to the band. And then Volume Two is the Wedding Present starting and got signed to RCA,

TOTALROCK: What I wanted to ask you about like way back in history? Because you were on the C86 compilation. And how’d you feel about that? Because me just as a fan, I thought, well, there’s about three bands I like on this. And there’s the Wedding Present, there’s Primal Scream and the Shop Assistants. And I thought a lot of the rest of it when the NME was trying to make a scene, you know, I mean, did you feel that way?

DAVID GEDGE: I think there was an undeniably a bit of a scene going on there because I remember, you know, and we just started actually because our first single came out and that’s 85 and then we find doing gigs and stuff and then suddenly there’s it seems to be a flurry of kind of like minded bands, kind of guitar bands, really. promoters and people don’t fanzines. I’m not sure whether they’d all existed before or after, but it just felt it was anyway, we were certainly we playing with these bands, Shop Assistants, like you say Big Flame, you know, some bands off that, from that era Primal Scream from that era. And then yeah, we just, we got the call. “So you want to be on this compilation, LP?”. And obviously we’re all fans of the NME because we used to we used to buy we used to read it religiously. So we just said yes, really. How do I feel about it now? I have not played it for 30 years. I mean, it was good for us in a way because you know, it was good for marketing really, because obviously, the NME are big. It was a big institution. So, so people heard of the band, but then it did become a bit of a millstone around the neck People saying “you’re just one of those C86 bands” almost like disparaging. I think that’s the nature of those scenes isn’t it? It comes along, everyone’s gets excited. It’s all great for about a year and then suddenly, everyone hates that, that scene because here’s another thing….

TOTALROCK: You don’t live in 1986, obviously. And, you know, the Happy Mondays broke big and then suddenly it’s 1988 everybody’s got a bucket hat and a flowery shirt and going raving…

DAVID GEDGE: That was the way it used to happen. There’s a series of these things have that kind of I don’t think it happens quite as much now.
But yeah, the Shoe Gazing scene and all that kind of stuff wasn’t there. But yeah, yeah. I’m glad we did. it. I mean, people talk about all the time, like now still. So. I mean, someone just did a book about C86. Nigel Tassel.

What he did was, it’s kind of like, “Where are they now” right. So obviously, a lot of these bands don’t exist anymore, I think it’s only like, three or four of them that carried on really. So a lot of them have alternative careers and do stuff and it’s quite interesting. It’s quite interesting read because it’s not just all about music. It’s about you know, there’s some really sad stories, actually, because people died.

TOTALROCK: After you’re done Wedding Present first time round, what was Cinerama all about why the decision to go that way?

DAVID GEDGE: Because I’ve always been interested in in soundtrack music. Specifically, John Barry, who did the Bond theme, Ennio Morricone and stuff. But also, I kind of always like kind of classic 60s and 70s Pop music, really.
And so I kind of had this idea I wanted to do something along those lines, but The Wedding Present in 1997 didn’t feel like the place to do it. I didn’t want to say to the band. “Yeah. Okay, now we’re going to sound like Abba, or we’re going to do Bond themes.”

So I decided to do as little solo project really. And to be honest with you, when I first started doing it, I thought I’d do it for kind of eight months. And ended up doing it for eight years because I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed the freedom and I enjoyed working in a different kind of way really, because I did it all on my own. All the orchestrations at home really. So it was the it was interesting. Just a little tangent that I took for a while.

TOTALROCK: Yeah, but I suppose you must have people clamoring for you to play “Everyone thinks he looks daft.”

DAVID GEDGE: Well, yeah, it did get a little bit annoying, because it felt like I was doing this exciting new projects and people you know, but that’s the way I’m sure every everybody gets that. And to be honest, it’s happened all our lives, even in the very early days. You know, we did George Best and Bizarro. Then we went to Chicago and recorded Sea Monsters with Steve Albini. Everybody hated it at the time. They love it now, but then they was like, where’s the jangly indie stuff that you do. So then we did Ukrainian folk music, you know, we’ve always been alienating the fans, I suppose you’d say,

TOTLA ROCK
Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know. I still hear echoes of like, kind of Orange Juice and Buzzcocks and that kind of thing. I mean, you were a fan of the Birthday Party, weren’t you? That’s why you call it the Wedding Present.

DAVID GEDGE: I love them. I thought that I just liked the way they were so extreme really, you know, the Release The Bats I heard that on the radio just sounded like I’ve not heard anything like this. But you don’t hear that anymore. You know I used to, like the first time you hear the Pixies and you think this is interesting, different music, isn’t it? You know? I don’t feel like you get that so much this Century.

TOTALROCK: What I was going to ask you about on your video on one of the current videos. You’re not like you’re dressed up like Steve Albini because he always wears his overalls. He still wears dungarees to go to work, man.

DAVID GEDGE: Yeah, it does. It’s kind of intentional. And it’s mainly because we because 2021 was the 30th anniversary of Sea Monsters, actually. So we decided to incorporate that look. Because we played it live. That album, actually, because of the pandemic ended up being more in 2022. But yeah, we decided to have this uniform to recreate that kind of thing.

TOTALROCK: Yeah. And what was it like working with him? (Steve Albini) Because he’s got a reputation?

DAVID GEDGE: Yes, he’s got a reputation. Certainly. I think he’s aware of that, though. And I think he likes to have that reputation.
So it’s, I think it’s sometimes it’s a bit calculated. But for me, it’s, he’s just a great engineer. You know, it’s just what we did on Sea Monsters. And I’ve worked with him since we did El Rey with him with the Wedding Present and he did some of the Cinerama the band stuff, and it’s just always a great sound. He’s just really good. You know, it sounds really boring. Because it’s not a special magic trick. It’s just basically, he’s great at micing up a drum kit, in a room, making it sound. Brilliant, amazing, you know, big.

TOTALROCK: Does he still do everything? Like one take and go, that’s it? Or does he mess around?

DAVID GEDGE: Well, he just gets, I mean, his kind of forte is basically to kind of capture a band playing together live. And I suppose his point is, if you’ve got to play the song 12 times, you’re losing that kind of wherever you have that kind of ambience, and so he does get a bit annoyed. Yeah.

TOTALROCK: basically gigs these days. Are they the same as they used to be? Or is it like, indie crowd on walking sticks, that kind of thing?

DAVID GEDGE: Obviously, it’s changed. The crowd has grown considerably older although, strangely, we get quite a lot of new fans. And fans now, I’ve noticed over the last couple years, I don’t know whether it’s the kids of the old fans who have grown up now. And they’re in their 20s. And they’re coming along, but it’s the it’s the demographic is kind of widened, but pretty much the same as it always has been really, it’s just like music and rock and roll.

TOTALROCK: Yeah. Okay. And what’s touring like for you now? Is it? Is it more sedate? Or are you just sort of same as you used to be?

DAVID GEDGE: The same as it used to be? I mean, technology’s changed a lot. Because we have we have GPS. And I just remember, like, in the old days, you know, we didn’t have laptops, and mobiles and things so it’s all it’s a lot easier now. Because you can ring people up and say, “We’re going to be a bit late”, you know, in the old days, we have to come off the motorway, find a phone box, put some coins and wring them out and say “we’re going to be late”. Whereas now it’s a lot easier

TOTALROCK: And how was it for like flogging your stuff at gigs because I’m hearing all these tales from bands going “We played a well-known rock venue in Manchester and you know, they charged us 25% of our merch” or whatever, do you do you get that or do you managed to get round it?

DAVID GEDGE: Depends on the venue depends on the promoter depends on loads of factors, really. And I know that’s the big thing. It’s been a big thing in the last year hasn’t bands standing up against it. But I’ve got to be honest with you some bands. Like if when you get an American band come over. And they don’t want to be bringing their merchandiser over from America because it costs on flights and hotels and stuff.

So what they do is they just drop all their merchandise off at the venue. And when somebody says we’ll sell it for 25% That’s actually quite a good deal for them. So it’s not just the quite, it’s not just the beast that everybody thinks is I think sometimes you can negotiate with them, you know, they’re not idiots.

But yeah, sometimes when it’s, it’s a bit black and white for bands are thinking that, you know, they’ve got their merchandise, which often pays for their fuel or their van or whatever. And then you got this venue saying, “Well, we’re taking 25%” If there’s no way out of that, you know, it’s not a nice situation. But yeah, just don’t play that venue, play somewhere else.

TOTALROCK: Over time, have you got certain venues that you love certain venues that you don’t.

DAVID GEDGE:
I mean, there’s venues we played so, you know, we played the Leadmill in Sheffield more than any other venue. And that used to be the case. But now I do my own festival down here in Brighton every year or two in Brighton. Obviously, it’s the 13th one of those years

TOTALROCK: And what’s the festival ?

DAVID GEDGE: At The Edge Of The Sea. It’s basically it’s just me being like a kid in a sweet shop. (selecting acts) “And they can play, they can play, they can play”, . And then I’ve got this kind of Co-promoter who’s a bit more financially, shall we say conservative, saying “We can’t afford that, We can’t afford this”. It’s not a massive festival. It’s just it’s 500 capacity or something. So I just love it. I just love doing it every August.

TOTALROCK: Last off, what did John Peel mean to you? I mean, obviously, he gave you the break really.

DAVID GEDGE: Well, yeah, I mean, in those days, he was the kind of, you know, he was the only way that you get recognition before the NME kind of picks up on you or whatever. Or the only way you could get any, anybody finding out about you outside of your own little kind of local areas versus appeal really.

And I was a big Peel fan from the 70s. You know, on the punk side, playing these bands, like the Ramones.

I tuned in and straight away I was that forever, really. So I became a regular listener. I started doing demo tapes. And then we eventually did a single. As I say, I think it’s 1985 and he played it, he played it 10 times. And then suddenly, it all changed because it was before that it was me trying to get gigs at the local pub or whatever. And suddenly people are writing to us saying, “Oh, did your record get played on Peel” you know, “Come and play in Carlisle”.

I mean, in some ways, it was I’ve said this before, I think he was kind of too powerful in a way because he was a bit like the Emperor in the Roman Gladiators. If the thumb went up. If it went down, you might as well give up because he is not gonna play you on the radio.
But there were certain bands, I know that I was thinking, why didn’t he play those?

TOTALROCK: I did work for a month at Radio One. I had the job of sifting through tapes that might get to John Peel at some point, I had to sift through it all. So it was a case of “here’s a box of stuff”. And if it got past an idiot like me, it might get to him

DAVID GEDGE: To get like, like bin liners full of tapes. Yeah,

TOTALROCK: And yeah, so you would get sort of a Swedish school band sending me stuff to play “Can you play this” and it was kind of probably on the “NO” pile.
And he (John Peel) literally would come in with and sit with his headphones on with a record player because he’s gone out there and just put the next record on and then dropped to sleep for a bit, and then wake up again, and put the next one on.
If he fell asleep whilst he was playing your record, you might miss the boat. So, such is life, them was the breaks.