Liverpool Music Week: Seal Cub Clubbing Club interview

Posted on 10 November 2010
By Ash Williams
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Purple Revolver caught up with Seal Cub Clubbing Club’s Nik Glover on Saturday ahead of their Liverpool Music Week performance in Never Records.

Purple Revolver: So you have just played at your album launch at Never Records, how was it? Did the night go as planned?

Nik Glover: It was brilliant, the venue turned out to be perfectly sized for us, and people were relaxing and forming little circles, sitting cross-legged on the floor, so there was a nice communal feel to it all. We even got people dancing, which is a rarity for SCCC crowds. All in all, we had a great time.

Purple Revolver: Good turn out for you?

Nik Glover: We got exactly the number of people we needed to cover all our costs, so we were very happy with the result.

Purple Revolver: Tell us a bit about the album, when you start writing, recording and where did you get your inspirations for the songs?

Nik Glover: We started writing the album before our first one came out, technically. The first was in limbo for a while as we changed record companies so by the time we got to starting to record the new one late 2009 we’d already written and discarded a load of new songs. We recorded it in three studios, one in London, one in West Kirby and we did a two-day stint in a place in Liverpool. It’s all been done on an incredibly small budget, and we split production duties with our long time collaborator Rich Hurst and up and coming producer Mike Page. In terms of the songs themselves, there’s stuff there about literature (which is always referenced in our songs), particularly 20th century writers like Joyce Cary, Hasek, and Gunter Grass, then there’s comic book references, lots of songs about the Wirral and one in particular which deals with our split with our first record company, and with the arts scene in Liverpool.

Purple Revolver: When is it out and whats the first song to come from the album and why this song over the others?

Nik Glover: The album was released to download on November 8th, and on CD on November 15th. We’re running a poll for fans to vote for the second single to come from the album (the first, Made of Magic was released earlier in the year). We thought it’d be nice to let the people who regularly come and see us and buy our rubbish to choose the single.

Purple Revolver: Any tour plans in the near future coming up and which festival would you like to play at the most?

Nik Glover: We’ve played at most of the big ones over the years, Glastonbury, Leeds, T In The Park… It’d be nice to play at an All Tomorrow’s Parties because it’d chosen by other musicians and artists so it’d be an honor to be asked to join their bill.

Purple Revolver: In terms of clothing, what look do you think is emerging? (The whole grunge thing seems to be having a renaissance at the minute.)

Nik Glover: Every few years people start shaving one side of their head to bring back the early 90’s Sonic Youth look. It’s depressing, and it’s pushed by the art-rock movement which puts a huge store in how you look, and in what kind of tea you drink, and drives fashion magazines as if the music you make can be driven directly by what clothes you wear. Band’s who choose how they’re going to dress before they write a song tend to collapse after one album. I don’t really follow fashion trends; the people who tend to come to our gigs are not usually the ones with coiffured hair like Roy Orbison and dungarees tucked into Dr. Martin’s and fake reading glasses. We tend to attract the sort of people who just throw on something warm. That suits us fine.

Purple Revolver: If you could make a time capsule, like on Blue Peter, what would you put in that really represents this age we live in today? Any personal messages for the future?

Nik Glover: I would put in one of those 50’s style greetings cards in black and white with a picture of a bloke looking under a car bonnet and a woman standing next to him saying ‘You just poured oil in the screen wash you f**kwit’.

Purple Revolver: Christmas is coming up, what is the worst present you have ever received or given to someone?

Nik Glover: My brother bought me Kasabian’s first album. Record Collector wouldn’t take it off me.

Purple Revolver: Best and worst Christmas song off the top of your head?

Nik Glover: I like Stop the Cavalry, and the Pogues one. I still have nightmares about Chris Rea singing Driving Home For Christmas.

Purple Revolver: Thinking back to your school days, were you a rebel or a book worm?

Nik Glover: I read a lot of books, but I did tend to hang out with a dodgy crowd. I suppose I hung around with the people who I considered were intelligent and slightly rebellious. Most of them were just easy to get along with. I’m much more of a nerd since I finished education.

Purple Revolver: Any run ins with the law?

Nik Glover: Not really, we got chucked out of a hotel in Cardiff but it wasn’t anything to do with guns or throwing round electronics. We tend to have run-in’s with promoters more than anything.

Purple Revolver: What were the fads that swept through your playground when you were younger?

Nik Glover: Football stickers, Boglins; there was a time when getting the most sour sweet possible, jamming a protractor-needle into a shook-up can of coke and trying to destroy as many tastebuds as possible by combining the two was popular.

Purple Revolver: If you could make a super group, adding one artist dead or alive, who would it be?

Nik Glover: Dana Colley, Doseone, Tom Waits… too many to name.

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