Haze Meets: Clint Boon (Part One)
We caught up with Manchester's favourite broadcaster to discuss Manchester music old and new, Oasis and some exciting Inspiral Carpets news.
Your most memorable Manchester music moment? For me personally, it was seeing the Sex Pistols in December 1976, it was a turning point in my life. They played the Lesser Free Trade Hall in July 1976, but back in December they did a gig that I went to in Collyhurst, the venue was called The Electric Circus, it’s been demolished now and turned into a block of flats. But just seeing that gig that night, with The Buzzcocks, The Clash and the Sex Pistols, I was only 17 at the time, everything that I do now started at that moment, you know what I mean? It’s what inspired me to get into it and do it. In terms of most memorable occasions in music in a city, it’s gotta be that for me. Then there’s other personal moments, like Inspiral Carpets headlining the GMEX Centre which is now Manchester Central. That was 21st July 1990 that we did that. Which was a massive moment for a kid who’s dreamed about being a popstar all my life, I was 29 and suddenly my band were massive. It just like proved to all our families that we were doing the right thing because suddenly there’s 11,000 people stood there singing our songs, songs that I’d written in my bedroom in Oldham. It’s a nice moment. It was the first time my mum and dad got to see my band actually, they never came to see us in pubs round Oldham, so the first gig they saw us do was this fucking huge gig so it was a nice family moment as well. That was like the grand start 1990 was the first year where we broke big and we were up there for 4 years after that travelling the world. One song to come out of the city? For me, I love ‘Pounding’ by Doves, it’s still one of my favourite records, the way it makes me feel when I play it, it was just really uplifting, a lot of the time I’d say it’s my favourite single of all time, but definitely my favourite Manchester record. There’s probably other records that are more definitive with Manchester, you know ‘Love will tear us apart’ ‘there is a light that never goes out’ they’re all like postcards from Manchester. Each of them are like a slice of Manchester life. A lot of the Stone Roses or Oasis songs are again definitively Manchester records, but yeah for me it’s Pounding by Doves, it’s the one, I get goosebumps every time I play it.
Do you think the music scene was healthier back when you were starting out or now? It feels like there’s a really good scene happening again now. There’s been times over the last 20 odd years where it’s just felt like, there’s not much happening with guitar bands in Manchester. But now I think we’re definitely on the crest of a wave again, there’s some great stuff happening, some brilliant bands breaking through. The Cabbage guys have done amazing in the last six months. They’re changing things a bit as well, bands have not done that, they’ve taken themselves very seriously for the last 15/20 years. We’re still under the influence of the Roses and Oasis, you’ve gotta have a bit of a swagger, you’ve gotta be a bit aloof and cool and it’s probably getting a little bit tedious now. So when you’ve got someone like Cabbage who are just the daftest bunch of rockers, it’s just so fucking refreshing to see it and hear it. I just think they’re gonna shake things up in the city, I think they’re gonna just throw off some of the shackles. Some of the limitations people place on themselves cos they’re in a band I think that’s gonna go out the window now. If people see what Cabbage are doing it’s like, you can have a laugh, you can fucking dress up a bit on stage you can climb up the light rig, proper how rock and roll should be. Some people have done that well over the years (look cool) it doesn’t mean every frontman should think they’re Liam Gallagher when they stand in front of the mic. Liam was an amazing frontman and he will be again, but don’t emulate him, create something different. Move your goalposts a little bit like Cabbage are doing, they’ve got 2 frontmen, they’re both just fucking bonkers, they’re lovely people, if you meet them they are lovely people but when they’re on stage it's just fucking absolutely nuts.
What do you make of Liam Gallagher coming back? I’m excited because I believe there will be an Oasis reunion announced pretty soon I think it’ll happen. This films coming out in October and I think off the back of that the interest it’ll create around the band, I think there’ll be an announcement. They might just get together for a weekend of gigs or something just to celebrate it again. I know that Liam’s making some music again in the background and I know that him and Noel are both contributing to this film, they’re both behind it, they’re both excited so if there was any deep rift or there was never going to be any reconciliation they wouldn’t be getting in bed together on that. I’m convinced that by the end of this year there’ll be an announcement and I’m hoping as a fan, there’ll be a picture of them both at the premiere, it’d be a lovely moment that. They’re one of the greatest British bands of all time, get it working again. What the lineup would be I’ve no idea, whether it’d go back to being Oasis version 1 or whether it’d be Beady Eye with Noel. Maybe the way to do it is start off like that (original lineup) and bring the others through the gig. As a fan the ideal vision of it would be something like that. It might not even happen, I think as long as the brothers become friends again that’s the main thing. They are brothers, they’ve got kids, the mother’s still around, that’s the main thing that they can start being mates again. What I’ve always said, the rifts between the boys , it’s nothing too deep that’s gone on, they’re just throwing toys out the pram really, nobody fucking got murdered, there’s no blood shed it’s just a couple of boys, a couple of brothers having a spat and it will blow over, like I said the mother’s still around it’d be nice within her lifetime if they can start talking. Was there ever a point where you thought music might not have been for you? No, never, it was always as far back as I can remember as a child, music was always the path that I wanted to take and any opportunity I could I made that happen. Seeing the Sex Pistols, now was the time for working class kids like me with not a lot of musical talent could get in bands. After seeing the sex pistols and the buzzcocks they didn’t have much more talent than myself really and they’re on fucking top of the pops. Yeah my journey has always been about music and even now when people say to me what do you see yourself as in terms of career, cos I’m known more now as a broadcaster aren’t I? I’m still a musician, I’m still a songwriter it’s the main thing I have inside me, this desire to make music. Having said that I’ve not made any music for quite some time but tonight I’m going into the studio with the Inspirals to start working on new ideas. Tonight really? Yeah it’s the first time we’ve done it for a few months. That’s the idea this year to start working on the bones of a new album. There’s a few basic ideas knocking about which is how we did the last album and between us we created a brilliant album that came out 2 or 3 years ago, just something to be very proud of. Hopefully the new album will be as good or better. We’re not rushing it you know we don’t need to, it’s not like our lives depend on it we’ve all got other jobs. It’s more leisurely it’ll be the first time I’ve been in a room with the boys this year so it’ll be nice to have a brew and catch up, make some noise and see what comes out. Will live dates be on the card? Yeah, probably not until late 2017. We don’t wanna just go out and keep doing the hits all the time, it’s nice to bring in some new music. Last time we brought this album out and it meant when we toured with Shed 7 at the end of last year we were doing 4 or 5 maybe 6 new songs in the set in between all the hits. It’s a nice feeling really rather than just doing the hits all the time. Does the new stuff get as good a response? It did because a lot of those new records were written in the style of that classic garage music so even though it wasn’t Saturn 5 or whatever, it had the same feeling, some of the tracks have the same sort of atmosphere, that’s why people liked it. The reviews for the album were amazing from fans and critics, everybody loved it so we were quite proud of it. It’s good that after all these years you can be writing new music and still producing stuff as good as that yeah, I think we just went back to basics, nothing too clever with it. We just went back to the 60s inspired garage music that we started making in the 80s, we just went straight back to that. That’s probably what we’re doing with the next album. We haven’t even thought about the style of it, we’re just gonna do what we do best, which is basic R'n'B, 60s garage sort of vibe. There’s nothing wrong with experimenting occasionally, if you fancy it, but I don’t think we’re, I don’t know, I might speak to you this time next year and we might have done the most experimental album ever. But at the moment I don’t think that’s what’s gonna happen. Just bang out some more classic Inspirals music.