It’s funny how a lack of mainstream success can be a good thing. Supergrass was one of the titans of England’s Brit Pop scene in the mid ‘90s, but while their peers went on to varying degrees of stardom in the States (Oasis had the big album, Blur had the big single, Elastica had the big beer jingle), the closest Supergrass got to mainstream success in the US was the inclusion of “Alright” on the “Clueless” soundtrack.
Call it a happy accident, then. Where those other bands have either imploded or become a shell of their former selves, Supergrass are still going strong. Their newest album, Road to Rouen, is one of their best yet. Bullz-Eye had a chat by phone with ‘Grass drummer Danny Goffey, who was at his home in merry old England, making dinner for his kids.
Bullz-Eye: Well, let’s get right to it, and talk about the new record. This is the album that I expected you to make the last time around.
Danny Goffey: Uh huh.
BE: It just seemed like a more logical progression from the third album than the previous one.
DG: We weren’t really too sure what we were doing (when making Life on Other Planets, the band’s previous album). Maybe if we didn’t have a producer last time, we may have been more accustomed to making an album like this. Um, we just wanted to do another kind of pop album rather than a straight-ahead album.
BE: That’s interesting, the comment about the producer. Was he forcing you to do more I Should Coco kind of stuff?
DG: Not really. I think at that time, we were more up for playing some hectic songs, the faster kind of songs, you know. I don’t think he forced us to do anything, we were just in a certain frame of mind.
BE: The songwriting on this album seems a lot different to me. Your songs have always been really direct in the past, but the song structures on this album felt a little more exploratory. Was that a conscious decision on your part, or did it just kind of happen?
DG: It was a kind of conscious decision to make an album that didn’t have a three- minute single, something that had more of a mellow vibe about it. There have been those obscure tracks that have been on the album that no one probably had heard, because people just buy our singles or see just what’s on the charts or on the radio. So yeah, we wanted to make sure that that side of us come out of us a bit more, you know, and that we didn’t just pick some radio friendly song to release.
You can read the rest of the interview with Danny Goffey here.
