With their last single, We Could Be Kings , impacting in the Top 20, and a UK tour that will culminate in a prestigious gig at the Royal Albert Hall, the signs are that, as they release their new album Drawn To The Deep End, Gene are not sinking but swimming.
That such a stylised guitar band as the reviled/revered London-based four-piece can wade in the same commercial waters as yer Peter Andres and Toni Braxtons is genuinely satisfying, but despite their protestations to the contrary, there has always been the suspicion that Gene are paddling in someone else s pool. That someone else being, well, you-know-who.
I am sick of people saying that my guitar is all jingly-jangly like Johnny Marr, says Steve Mason, Gene s, er, guitarist. That comparison s got so dull and boring that we don t even think about it anymore.
We weren t influenced by The Smiths at all musically, asserts bass player, Kevin Miles, thinking about the comparison. OK, so Martin [Rossiter] was influenced by Morrissey s lyric style. But he s not really like him. And I think it s just a bit unfair that he s been cast off as this Morrissey rip-off artist cos there s a lot more to him than that. Which Smiths record sounds like Gene? I can t hear it. Steve s more Hendrix at times than Johnny Marr.
This assertion that the thrust of Gene s musical momentum is more Voodoo Chile than Vicar In A Tutu is highly contestable to say the least, but what underlines such an exaggeration is a determination, shared by all the musicians in the band, to shrug off the widely-held perception of Gene as a lightweight, featherbeaten bunch of pale-faced prudes. The raw aggression of The Clash, the sleazy bar band schtick of The Faces and the uncompromising attitude of early Jam provided the inspiration to give up the day job, they insist.
This is where Martin slightly overshadowed the band, muses Mason. We got tarnished by the image that we were a bunch of fey, winsome characters and I think that we were misrepresented because at the end of the day, although we all have some degree of intelligence, we like drinking, we like watching football, we like going out with the lads and having a bit of a laugh. We don t go home and plough through William Blake books.
But because Martin is the one who does most of the press interviews, it s always his side of it which comes across. Come see us live, you fuckers, then you ll know what s really going on. Then people come to our show and they say, Christ, I didn t realise how powerful you can be. Then I say well, you should have fucking come and seen us earlier, you tossers, and stop reading the press, for God s sake .
cucumber sandwiches
Hence Fighting Fit , the testosterone-fuelled declaration of intent from Rossiter that was surprising because it came, for once, from the hip rather than the heart.
It was a change for us, something different, agrees Miles. Martin s had a few well-documented problems and it s nice that he s able to come out and write a song about the joys of sex.
So if it s not all cucumber sandwiches and Edith Wharton volumes on the Gene tourbus, are we to take it that you re as sorted for Es and whizz as the next lot of rock n roll desperadoes?
Is taking drugs rock n roll? I saw more drug-taking going on when I was in college than I have done with most bands that I ve been on tour with, avers Mason, evidently not a mate of Brian Harvey s. This whole rock n roll myth is getting more and more out of hand. It s just getting stupid.
If you wanna be a great band, there s no way that you can be out of your face all the time on drugs cos you ve gotta go and perform and have your wits about you. Otherwise, you re gonna fuck up. You can t really be an alcoholic and tour and do fantastic shows year after. You can t physically do it. And most of the people who were like that died a death.
But everyone assumes that becasue you re in a band, you ve got this hedonistic lifestyle. Why does it have be like that? Why can t you just get up on stage, play a blinding show, talk about it with the band for two hours afterwards, fall asleep and do that routine day in, day out?
This idea that you have to prove to everybody that you can be incredibly rude and decadent and rebellious because you re in a band is bollocks. It doesn t concern Gene and it never has done.
Miles concurs: Sometimes after a show we get on the bus and get pissed out of our faces but that doesn t mean throwing beds out of the bus window or climbing up on the roof.
And no Patsy Whatsits lurking in the hotel foyer?
No. We ve all got girlfriends, says Mason. We re all just . . . good blokes. If you go to a party, you re not going to tramp off with someone just because you re pissed. I think you ve got to have a certain mentality to have lots of groupies and chase that lifestyle and, yes, it is possible to do that when you re in a band that get as much publicity as Gene do but we re not really up for it. Quite frankly, we don t wanna be like those bands that you read about.
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Drawn To The Deep End is out now on Polydor