The glow team

The idea of bowdlerising the cocaine-dusted biog of motor mogul John DeLorean for a concept album came to Gruff Rhys as he thumbed through a glossy volume of car porn.

“The more I read about him,” says Rhys, the Welsh half of sci-fi retronauts Neon Neon, “the more I came to see that his life resembled a Greek tragedy.”
A tale of drug busts, financial shennagians and corporate excess, DeLorean’s story could have been ripped from the pages of a sleazy airport thriller. In 1979, the former General Motors executive – a permatanned smoothie with a string of ex-wives and the nip and tuck complexion of a cosmetic surgery addict – pitched up in Belfast, promising to transform the motor industry, and the local economy, with his bling-a-rrific DMC12 concept-car. All he needed was a little Westminster payola to kick start the enterprise.
“He had genuinely big ideas but the problem was that he was a really dodgy guy and eventually that started to catch up with him,” resumes Rhys, who formed Neon Neon with US electro artist Brian ‘Boom Bip’ Hollon while on sabbatical from his day-job fronting Super Furry Animals. “He ended up being caught in a cocaine sting by the FBI. He was able to prove it was entrapment but it ruined his reputation.”
Stainless Style – a fusion of biographical snatches and reconstituted ‘80s glitch-scapes – casts DeLorean less as a fiend than as a hapless naif. The real devil of the piece is Margaret Thatcher, who turned off the life-support on De Lorean’s subsidy-dependent Belfast plant upon assuming power in 1980 (leaving hundreds of workers facing a return to life on the dole at the height of the Troubles). There’s even a theory that the British government tacitly encouraged the FBI sting that dragged him down, so eager were they to see DeLorean finally go to the wall.
“I think everyone was out to get him in the end. He left a trail of corruption. Thatcher pulled the plug on him. But in a way I think it was always going to end unhappily for him.”
Growing up in South Wales, ground zero for the miners’ strike, Rhys can remember first-hand the social devastation wrought by Thatcher.
“The ‘80s were a disaster for Wales,” he avers. “Thatcher shut down most of the heavy industries in order to take power off the unions, who were a big threat to her.”
Though the Neon Neon partnership feels in some ways far-fetched – Rhys is a classic songwriter, Boom Bip a laptop minimalist – the duo have been planning a collaboration for some time. The idea for Stainless Style gelled when Hollon presented the singer with a collection of ‘sleek synthetic’ backing tracks and some of his favourite coffee table books on the American auto industry.
“He’s a lot more interested in cars than me,” says Rhys, who reveals that Hollon once bought a 1966 Thunderbird on the strength of a Prince lyric. “We knew we wanted to do something together. It was he who suggested that I look at a book about cars, which is where I came across the DeLorean story.”
On Stainless Style the duo are augmented by potty-mouthed Philly rapper Spank Rock and vocalist Cate le Bon, whose glossy back-and-forths with Rhys provide the album’s stand-out moments, especially the dark ‘Valentine I Lust U’. Given the LP’s ‘80s ambiance, it seems only fair to ask if Ms Le Bon is any relation. “They say that Duran Duran played Swansea in 1983 and left behind more than their musical accomplishment,” deadpans Rhys.
The singer bridles at the notion that Neon Neon are interested solely in ‘80s pastiche. Listening to Stainless Style, you might think it a record that wears its influences on its hem: Giorgio Moroder, ‘Blue Monday’-era New Order, the edgier side of the New Romantic scene are clear touchstones. But Rhys stresses the LP isn’t a quaint period piece.
“We didn’t have tunnel vision about the time frame. We were drawing from the last 40 years of music. A lot of very disparate elements went into the mix.”
One such disparate element, says Rhys with a completely straight face, was bequiffed pop moppet Rick Astley. While neither he nor Boom Bip are particularly fans, Astley’s shadow loomed heavily over the recording sessions.
“I don’t really care about his music that much but the videos are great. I like the way the image stands up. Conceptually, that had a huge influence on the record. We spent an awful lot of time looking at things on YouTube. They informed the tone of the songs.”
With its gull-wing design and silver finish, the DMC-12 was eye-candy for petrol-heads and the ultimate symbol of ‘80s excess (one writer likened the sight of the car blazing over white road markings to a septum hoovering up a line of blow). However Rhys hopes that Stainless Style isn’t seen as a homage to an especially slinky automobile (which, ironically, would go on to achieve fame after the demise of the DeLorean company, thanks to the Back To The Future movies).
“I actually have very little interest in cars,” he confesses. “To an extent, it’s a very reckless time to be glorifying them, what with global warming and everything. In a way, this is looking back to a different era.”

Stainless Style gets a run out at the Electric Picnic