Alex Nicol is a Montreal-based singer-songwriter; Guy Chadwick is the frontman of the beloved English alt rock band The House of Love. Alex just released his EP, Been A Long Year Vol. 1, so to celebrate, the friends (and former tourmates) sat down for a cross-generational chat.
— Annie Fell, Editor-in-chief, Talkhouse Music
Guy Chadwick: You know, as you get older, it is hard to motivate yourself sometimes.
Alex Nicol: Yes. That’s the other thing I wanted to ask you — you have this drive and this vision.
Guy: Yeah. Well, I’d lost it about four or five years ago. Or not lost it, but I was not feeling comfortable in the group surroundings. I still had the instinct to write, but I was wondering how I was going to ever make a decent record again. Because I’d made two records with the guys, with Pete [Evans] and Terry [Bickers] since we reformed — which was 2005 — and they weren’t very good. I had to admit it, they just weren’t good enough. The energy wasn’t there.
We announced the new line up and said, “Look, I’ve parted company with the other guys, this is why.” It did cause a backlash with hardcore fans, but I just knew that I wasn’t interested in playing with them anymore, so it was a no-brainer for me. And because I was so determined, and I knew that it was the right thing to do for me, I wasn’t scared.
Alex: That’s amazing. I have to say, I feel so lucky to be talking with you. I have to pinch myself because — well, for two reasons. First of all, I was around for that US tour and I heard the band. I saw the chemistry, and I totally know what you’re talking about. The level of enthusiasm fed into the live sound, and from what I saw and what I heard, it seemed like everyone was loving it. So you made a very good decision there. But the second thing is: I have this song coming out soon, called “Hollywood,” and in it I say, “I’m never going to be a star/I’m washed up and my home is here/Between the highway and the corner store.” It was a song I wrote a couple of years ago when I was like, Man, I’m I’ve lost it. I’ve lost the drive, I haven’t done what I wanted to do, and it might be over. And here I am talking with you! I have a lot of respect for you. You’re a fantastic songwriter, a legend of the of this scene that I love. I can’t imagine that I’m here now based on how I felt before. And I wonder how you feel about all that — navigating all that different stuff. Because for me, I have a hard time tapping into my artistic intuition and just driving with it, sticking with it.
Guy: It doesn’t sound like that from your recordings — there’s a conviction that’s really, really impressive. So it’s strange that you should say that. Having said that, you were talking about a song you wrote two years ago, and you may have been feeling differently then. I actually wrote — you know that song, “Beatles and Stones”?
Alex: Yes.
Guy: Well, I wrote that song because I just felt so alienated. I mean, they’ve always been my favorite groups, and I just used to listen to them and just go, How am I ever going to get anywhere? That’s what that song was about: insecurity and not feeling very special. And it’s, you know, one of my most popular songs.
Alex: Yeah. I think you’re touching on something very true there about songwriting. As songwriters, if we can go to those vulnerable places of insecurity and take up the space to express it, other people hear that and feel that.
Guy: Oh, god, yeah. I mean, my early House of Love songs, and the whole of the first album that came out on Creation, was a direct response to my first marriage breaking up. I was married for nearly ten years — I got married when I was 19 — and we split up and got divorced, and it was the most awful time I had for a year. I wrote all those songs that are on the first album, and they are very angry and they’re very honest, and a lot of metaphors and stuff. The confusion and everything is there.
And the album just took straight off. It was a really big album at the time, and I used to get letters from kids who were sort of, you know, absolutely obsessed with my pain. [Laughs.] I’ve always tried to express whatever emotions I’ve got — and I actually look for anger. I look for the darker things. And I’ll invent it, you know. But it’s always there somewhere in you, isn’t it?
Alex: It is. And yet you can write a song like “Light of the Morning” and just have this beautiful shift in the middle, with the most beautiful harmonies. And that’s what makes you, I think, such a captivating songwriter, is that you’re able to introduce things within a song that elevate the original message. I don’t know how you do that, but it’s definitely something that inspires me because it’s not always only the one energy; it’s not always only darkness. You’re able to introduce something to contrast it within the song sometimes, and I think that’s quite hard to do. I’m learning how to do that more and more as I write more songs.
I have a question: Were you writing songs after The House of Love disbanded, or did you take a break from songwriting?
Guy: I tried to. When The House of Love broke up originally, it was 1993 and I was in a really bad mental state. I ended up being pretty depressed for quite a few years. At first I wrote quite a few songs, but my confidence was shot. And they were good songs, but it was hard to work with them. Eventually I recorded them about five years after the group had broken up as a solo album, and it wasn’t it wasn’t as good as it should have been. Although I did it with Robin Guthrie from the Cocteau Twins — he produced it and he’s kind of a friend of mine — it just wasn’t quite good enough. And then I packed it in.
Alex: Interesting. Yeah, I’m trying to think back to years when I was really unstable and really not in a good headspace — I was writing songs, but I wasn’t tapping into the anger or the authentic emotion that I was having. I was just writing songs that were ambiguous, that just weren’t very good. And I think it’s because I wasn’t present enough and intentional enough about what I was doing.
Guy: Focused.
Alex: Yeah, yeah. I think that has to be operating in the background. You can go through a lot of tough stuff in life and translate it into music, but if you’re not focused and present while it’s happening or after… Anyway, I’m just speaking about my own experience. How long have you been writing songs?
Guy: I started writing songs as soon as I started learning to play the guitar. When I learned my first three chords, I wrote a song with three chords. That’s always been my thing — I’ve developed a few little technical ability things;I can play guitar in a studio OK. But originally the guitar was always a vehicle just to write songs. And they were very simple.
I didn’t start playing in a band until I was about 22, 23 I think. Then I moved to London from the Midlands and got a record deal with RCA, and I got the publishing signed by CBS, and that lasted about two years. People could see that I had real potential as a songwriter — that’s why I got signed. But I just couldn’t focus it into something really good. I got dropped by my publishing company and the record company, which was pretty depressing and time. I was probably about 27 then, and then I saw The Jesus and Mary Chain and it was just like, Yeah, I get this. I can hear the music in them that I liked — I could hear The Velvet Underground, the Rolling Stones, Sex Pistols, everything. I just went, I’m going to do this. And that’s how The House of Love happened. For me, it was it was totally inspired by this Jesus and Mary chain gig.
Alex: Wow. Just just one gig and the connection was just there.
Guy: Yeah. I mean, I didn’t want to copy them. But that’s where I got the idea, and I suddenly became incredibly focused. I knew exactly what records to focus on, what bands to — not copy, but, you know, quote.
Alex: Yeah. And so then from there, you just knew, OK, this is the sound I want. I can write songs in this way and it’ll feel good.
Guy: Yeah, right down to the point of tracking down Alan McGee and just bombarding Creation with music. And they didn’t like it at first, then eventually he got it and he signed us.
Alex: What was that scene like at the time, the Creation records scene?
Guy: Well, Jesus and Mary Chain had been on Creation and they’d left. They’d sacked Alan McGee and they’d fallen out. The groups that were there when we joined were Primal Scream and The Weather Prophets. It was a very close, quite snobbish sort of scene. None of the groups, I don’t think, liked us. I remember someone describing us as sounding like Hawkwind — which was a strange analogy, but it was meant as a putdown.
Alex: How did it feel touring the US for you? I was lucky enough to open for you guys on the tour and I saw you after the shows talking for hours with the audience members like you were you were out there every night.
Guy: Yeah, I felt it was a really good opportunity to meet people, to make a connection. I don’t normally do that; I haven’t done it since. It helped because, you know, we had Sydney who was selling merchandise for us. I used to go out on the merchandise desk and sign autographs and stuff and people would just talk. And it was very tiring, playing a full set and I knew that I had to go out quite quickly after. I’d have a beer and then go out there.
Alex: You were out there right away and you were there until the last person left, almost every time.
Guy: Yeah. I really enjoyed it. I met so many nice people out there. I’d be in a bar before the gig and someone from the audience who bought a ticket would be in the bar, and I’d just get given a beer. “Guy, have a good go.” [Laughs.] It was really nice. It was good in America, wasn’t it? Was that the first time you toured America?
Alex: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I played little shows here and there, but never in a coherent routing like that. And first time in California for me — first time in a couple of those cities. I like American people that I meet. I was looking forward to it; I had a really good feeling about it. And in terms of the audiences, for me, it went very well.
Guy: Yeah. Mr. Agent!
Alex: Mr. Agent Man, yes! He sent my music right to you, didn’t he?
Guy: Yeah.
Alex: And he was like, “OK, Guy, which of these acts do you want?”
Guy: I remember it wasn’t a difficult choice, because I wanted to have someone that was atmospheric and was setting a mood. I didn’t really want a noisy band or someone similar to us, you know what I mean? We were looking for someone that was a direct kind of contrast almost. And I thought it worked brilliantly. You’re comfortable on stage.
Alex: Well, thank you. I mean, I was comfortable because of the whole atmosphere. I think I just gravitate towards people that are friendly and nice and open and warm hearted. And because you guys were like that, it went really well for me.
Guy: Yeah, well, to me it’s a no brainer — if you’re touring with two acts and they don’t get on, it’s not going to be good news. I’ve had some terrible experiences opening for groups, even doing tours, where they’ve been so unpleasant and absolutely wanted nothing to do with the group and been openly almost hostile. I remember years and years ago — I don’t know whether you’ve heard of the group called Spear of Destiny.
Guy: No.
Alex: They were a little bit gothy They’re still going; they were popular. And my group Kingdoms supported them and they were horrible, and we were on tour with them for a month. We paid the — we paid them to be their support — and the singer. Kirk Brandon didn’t even look at me once. I’d pass him backstage and he just completely blanked me. It was so weird.
Alex: Wow.
Guy: Yeah, it was very unpleasant.
Alex: Yeah. Well, you’ve figured out a way to avoid that, I think, especially with your own group. I’ve been in bands before, and it’s tough. I think the reason I’m a solo artist is because I didn’t want to do that anymore — I didn’t want to have to argue over every little thing. I didn’t want to have to feel this tension. It’s interesting because the role I’m trying to play, there’s a bit of a control freak element, right? Because you want to you want to be in control, but you also don’t want to be so in control that other people don’t feel like they have the right agency or they don’t feel enthusiastic. So that’s what I’m trying to navigate. And you’ve really shown me how to do it, in a way. So that’s a huge weight off my shoulders, just to see how it can be done.
Guy: Yeah, it’s that balance of making sure that you hear what you want to hear, but you also want to get the maximum out of your other people.
