Baby's Got The Bends!

It s been five years since Elastica last released an album the same length of time it took the Beatles to progress from Please, Please Me to The White Album or, if you prefer, The Smiths to form, put out a half-dozen albums (if you include compilations) and split up, or for that matter the entire studio output of the Pixies to see the light of day or . . . you get the general idea.
In a way, we shouldn t have been surprised that it took the indie art-skool aesthetes so long to release The Menace, their second long-player. After all, this was a band who s best known song complained how much hard work it was just staying awake in the morning, never mind getting a job or a date.
Of course, ironically, the paradox is that the very people who were seen to be advocating slackerdom as a lifestyle choice Evan Dando, Richard Linklater, Beck, Douglas Coupland were actually working their arses off in order to bring their sloth manifesto to the people.
This was no less true of Elastica at least for the first few years after their eponymous album won over the college brigade from Camden to California back in 1995. Of course, it all metamorphosed into the shape of a pear after that, but we ll come to that later. Firstly, like a worried mother waiting up way after dark for their teenage daughter to come home from the disco, we must ask Justine Frischmann where the hell she got to, and what took her so long (. . . and why didn t she ring?!) . . .
"Well, after touring and promoting the first album, we got back to England after a lot of time slogging it out in the States, and we all felt pretty shell-shocked, really," says Frischmann. "People at that point were already saying, where s the new album? . But we had no bass player; Annie (Holland) had left during that tour. For about a year, we were playing with Sheila Chipperfield and we did some songs with her. But I didn t really think it was working out.
"During that time, Donna (Matthews, pouty lead guitarist) and I also decided that we didn t really want to be working together anymore and, I guess, what followed was a period of time where I d pretty much given up on the band. I was still writing music but it really wasn t for Elastica. I was writing with my flatmate, Loz Hardy, in my basement.
"Basically, towards the end of 98 I bumped into Annie again who said that she d really like to do some stuff and I also bumped into Paul, who I d seen playing in Linoleum, and it felt like we really didn t have much to lose. So we decided to start playing together and it worked."
So there was a period of time, then, when you thought Elastica were finished altogether?
"Yeah, I think during 97, early 98, it really didn t seem to me that the band was going to continue," she avers. "I was writing a different type of music which, in a way, was really good therapy for me. But I didn t think that that music would ever see the light of day. Some of that music has been included on the album, ultimately, but I hadn t intended to use it originally."
The unnatural state of being perpetually in transit not having really arrived before leaving again has taken its toll on nearly every touring band since the wheel was invented. And the media splash that came with their first recorded plunge almost drowned Justine and her fellow band members before they had time to learn the press breaststroke.
"When Elastica started, I never imagined it would be such a successful group," says Frischmann. "And I challenge any band on their first record to sell that amount of records and tour for that long and not go a bit crazy. We were pretty young, and we didn t have any idea what was going to happen to us and when it did, in a way, it probably was a bit more than how we knew how to handle."
How did you stay sane living this Twilight Zone rock n roll existence?
"I didn t, to be honest. I think after the first album and all the touring, I did suffer a bit of a breakdown. Donna did as well. To be honest, It took a couple of years of just living normally going to the pub and seeing friends and buying food and cooking dinner to start feeling like I knew who the fuck I was again.
"I think it is a pretty tricky business and I think some people deal with it better than others.One of the problems is that bands are pretty young when they make it. And you haven t the things in place to help you cope with that. Who do you go to for advice when you re in that position?
"It s a very bizarre situation. You go to the pub and all your friends are sitting in the same place that they always sit in. You say, hi, what have you been doing? . They say, nothing much; how about you? . And you say, well, I ve been around the world three times . So it s a bit of a weird one, really."

Those of you who have kept even half-an-eye on the music biz gossip pages of the last few years will be convinced that Elastica s lead singer was too busy breaking the heart and wrecking the head of we-know-all-too-well-who to get around to recording music of her own. The transatlantic treadmill of endless after-show partying was always going to take its toll; the lost weekends that found their way into the papers: Frischmann didn t just find herself forced to grow up in public, she had to break-up in public too.
"What became quite difficult was the tabloid interest," states Frischmann. "I never really felt that Elastica were a band that warranted that. It wasn t so difficult with magazines like the NME. I also found it quite difficult coping with the way I was portrayed as someone who was constantly having famous boyfriends. . . and dumping them. Cos I met Brett Anderson at college. And I met Damon before he even had a record deal. So I felt pretty uncomfortable with that. There was a touch of the Patsy Kensits about the way they portrayed me, which I just don t think was very fair."
It s no secret to put it mildly that Justine acted as the muse for many of the songs on Blur s 13 album. In many ways, that particular record was sold as a sort of 90s take on Blood On The Tracks; with Justine the muse and Damon the musician providing new skin for the old ceremony, namely that rite of passage where the birth of art can only take place after a break of the heart.
A track like No Distance Left To Run came with such a hullaballoo that it read more like a coroner s cardiac report than a drowning man s song to his siren. The music press lapped it up, though, finding a modern day version of Mick n Marianne being played out before its very eyes: all that was missing was the odd Mars bar. How did Justine feel about Damon writing all those songs about her?
"On the one hand, I was very flattered," says Justine, "and I thought some of the songs were beautiful songs, very touching. Damon turned what was a difficult situation into something quite positive. That was something that I admired him for.
"What was a bit difficult for me to deal with was that it ended up being quite a cynical marketing exercise in terms of Damon. .. basically marketing the album on our break-up and talking at length about that. I found that quite difficult. I thought it was a bit unfair because I wasn t really in a position to defend myself. So I guess I have contradictory feelings about it, really."
Was there a temptation to get your own back and write songs about him on your new album?
"No. If anything, I ve tried to avoid doing that," she says. "The last thing I wanted was for the album to be some kind of reply. I don t think that would be very dignified."
Then we re back down the road of the Blur vs. Oasis and the Blur vs. Pavement stand-offs. . .
"Damon s a very competitive kind of person," answers Justine. "He s never really grown out of that and he ll make a competition where there isn t one. But that s nothing to do with me."
It s true that Blur-watchers hoping to find some open-heart surgery being performed on The Menace will be disappointed. The only track where Justine really goes under the knife is My Sex , a haunted spoken-word confessional that is made all the more arresting because of its willowy, ambient sound FX. It really does provide the missing link between Belle & Sebastian and Arab Strap.
"That was written with Loz in my basement during the time when I wasn t really writing for Elastica," says Justine. "It was probably more therapy than anything. I only put it on the record because it had such a positive reaction when I played it to people."
I noticed two references to old Smiths songs in the lyrics ( Half A Person and Reel Around The Fountain if you really want to know).
"Yes, there is. There s a few references to songs that have meant a lot to me. The ones that I used rang very true."
What of the strange sound effects?
"I have fuck-all effects in my basement. What I have got is a little zoom box. And it s just a little standard programme on that. It s really not anything very fancy."
The Menace is so diverse that there is really no whole to speak of this is a scattershot of what s been going through Justine s head and on her turntable for the past, well, five years. For instance, after My Sex , we get what sounds disconcertingly like a PJ Harvey blues-moan (I can see more lawsuits!) followed by a pointless cover of Trio s one and only hit from 1982, Da Da Da .
This being an Elastica album after all, there s also Wire fencing and much New Wave meshing. But then there s the sublime FM pure-pop of Nothing Stays The Same , which really should be the next single. . . but will not be because, Justine tells me, there won t be any singles from this album. I wonder how her record company feel about that!
"I think it s so diverse because head-space changes so much over such a long period of time. There s stuff on this album that s much darker and moodier than what we ve done before and I think that reflects a period of time where we all felt quite isolated.
"Hopefully, that s all been balanced by new stuff that we did with the band which is punkier and a bit more like what people would expect from us. I think it s an accurate representation of everything that happened to us over the last few years."
One of the talking points of the album has to be Justine s collaboration with the godfather of curmudgeonly old geniuses himself, Mark E Smith, who barks all over How He Wrote Elastica Man Justine s little tribute to Smith, who wrote a song called How I Wrote Elastic Man back when Justine was very young.
"He was brilliant," enthuses Justine. "He was just totally charming when he was in the studio with us. I was terrified when I found out he was going to come in. Cos he was working round the corner and Dave bumped into him in the pub and said Elastica are in the studio . Dave used to be in The Fall so he knows Mark.
"When I found out that he might come in, I was absolutely petrified. When he walked through the door of the studio, I refused to come out of the live room because I was too scared. But he was great. He was very inspiring and not at all as his reputation would have you believe."
He usually looks like he s about to beat someone up.
"And he has done! When we played at Reading he was playing during the day and I think the guitarist lamped him. Also, when they first arrived at Reading, they were out looking for a drummer because they had left their drummer at a service station without telling him he was sacked the day of Reading! So I think he can be quite a volatile person."
It s almost impossible to think of Elastica without picturing their accountant sending cheques for vast sums of money to the members of Wire and The Stranglers, both of whom successfully sued the band when, er, elements of some of Elastica s songs bore an uncanny resemblance to their own. So are there record company lawyers going through the new album with a fine toothcomb?
"I don t think they ll find anything this time," answers Justine. "We ve used a Wire sample, which we ve cleared with Wire, for that track Human . Bruce Gilbert actually wrote me a really great letter and said he really liked what we did with the riff. So hopefully we won t be hearing from any lawyers this time."
The music scene has changed a lot since you released your first album. How do you feel about it now?
"Well, there s a lot to react against," says Justine. "There s a lot of really shitty music on the radio. And Top Of The Pops makes me want to throw my TV out the window. But on the other hand, it s a very exciting time because there s a lot of interesting stuff going on in various underground movements of music [she later mentions Clinic, Echoboy, Death In Vegas, Super Furry Animals, the Flaming Lips and Gomez as current turn-ons]. I think we re probably a happier, more stable group for not being seen as a mainstream band. That s something I feel good about.
What does the future hold for Elastica?
"The only thing to do is to move on and start putting completely new stuff out now," asserts Justine. "It s funny to still be doing interviews about the album because it was finished before Christmas and I already feel like we ve come a long way from it. We ve been in the studio this week. We ve just recorded our next single."
What does it sound like?
"It s actually quite different. I ve been really into this band, ESG. They re like an 80s all-girl black group from New York. Like a cross between The Slits and Grace Jones."
Can you see yourself going down the road of dance remixes and the like?
"Yeah, I can, partly because Dave Bush is in the band and he s much more a dance music fan than a guitar aficionado. Through him, we ve met quite a lot of people involved in dance music. But we wouldn t put out dance remixes just for the sake of it. We d have to think it was really worth it."
Has the imbibing of illicit substances helped your creative process in any way?
"I think that the idea that narcotics inspire creativity is a bit of a myth," says Justine. "I think what narcotics do is to help make you feel more comfortable when you first take them. But I think that ultimately they just destroy your brain and, seeing as that s where all inspiration comes from, it s a very short-term inspiration.
"It seems to be an endless pattern that people who are in bands and who are under a lot of pressure tend to kill themselves with drugs and drink. But I don t really think that that s a very positive side of the rock n roll mythology. I kind of resent it, to be honest. I think it s quite easy to fall into that trap and end up killing yourself. I don t think they re a muse as such."
Meanwhile, Elastica will be playing live at a city near you pretty soon, as well as dipping their toes into the festival circuit, where they will play this year s Glastonbury and Reading festivals.
"We ve been offered a spot on an absolutely brilliant bill: Beck, Super Furries. .. I thought I m gonna be there anyway so I may as well play and get paid for it!"
The Menace is out now on Deceptive Records.