JULES NORMINGTON TALKS ABOUT THE VANILLA CHAINSAWS
JULES NORMINGTON TALKS ABOUT THE VANILLA CHAINSAWS
I-94: Where did you find the Vanilla Chainsaws and what made
you sign them to Phantom?
I received a demo tape sometime late in '86 with 3 tracks...out of the blue...had
heard very little of them beforehand...just whacked it on my old stereo in the
office one night while working late and remember thinking after the first few
notes "Mmmm...this is good....mmmm...very good...and then the melody kicked
in....this is VERY damn good".
I was a huge fan of Husker Du, TSOL, and Social Distortion...they were my fave
bands at the time
(all three would still be in my top six or seven) and I was very used to hearing
bands' demos influenced by either the early UK punk scene, or the US hardcore
scene of the early to mid 80's, but my bag was the SoCal skatecore bands like
the latter two I mentioned above (and M.I.A.!) and the East Coast emo-core stuff
like Gray Matter....and NO-ONE out here seemed to me to be playing that sort
of stuff.
A nd then this tape landed in font of me...I couldn't believe it when the next
track was as good as the first, and then the third one as well. I can't quite
remember how I contacted them, I guess I just rang up Simon and arranged to
meet - I always wanted to meet up with bands a couple of times to see if I could
click with them. The way I saw it, there was no point to me in spending my time
(which was never likely to
be reimbursed monetarily, not that I minded that) on dealing with people who
weren't of a jolly nature or didn't know how to have a laugh at themselves...i.e.
that I couldn't connect with and have some fun with.
I remember going to see them for the first time, and the only two covers they
did were Husker Du's "Don't
Wanna Know If You Are Lonely", and TSOL's "Flowers By The Door"...I
was sold! Kate Stewart (now co-manager of You Am I) was their manager back then
and we went to the Native Rose Hotel in Chippendale to sign the contract which
was, from memory, just two pages which I'd written myself after going through
one of those ridiculous 30-page major label things and writing down a few relevant
points and then replacing any words over five or six letters long, and turning
the whole thing into layspeak so nobody would need to see a lawyer...
For a 'signing photo' we took some salt shakers from the pub, went out into
the back and 'lined up' in the middle of the lane on the asphalt and then all
lay on the road while some of us pretended to be snorting up these massive lines
with drinking straws while others would be signing the contract...I'd always
hated those daft industry signing photos you'd see in mags of record label types
and band crowded around a table and grinning inanely as they scrawled away,
knowing all along that behind those smiles both parties had completely different
agendas.
(Our Deadly Hume signing photo was of the band, their manager, and me sitting
on top of an old burnt-out car, with a gorgeous transvetite prostitute on her
turf in Premier Lane, shaking up a bottle of champagne, and tearing up the contract
that we'd just signed and throwing it in the air...made for a far greater set
of pix in my opinion.)
I-94: There's a real sense of UK punk colliding with hard-edged powerpop
on their earliest recordings, so how did they fit with the rest of the Phantom
roster at the time?
At that time the label was just coming out of a three-year hiatus and Dare (Jennings,
he of Mambo clothing fame) was pretty much out of the label - that first phase
was over, and I all of a sudden had a label that could go anywhere I wanted
it to. I wanted to maintain Dare's and my original credo of only
releasing things we'd actually go out and otherwise BUY, so I'd just signed
the Deadly Hume who were the only band on the label at the time, and then came
the Hummingbirds...all three were bands that played with absolute passion and
commitment and were blessed with such a strong sense of melody.
That Simon had that early 20's male affliction of needing to satiate as many
'chicks' as possible (not unlike about 90% of other bands around at the time...or
any time) seemed a bit off-kilter with the ideals of the other bands which contained
some gentler souls (not to mention the fact that it seemed in conflict with
the fact he was well-read, very bloody intelligent, capable of some hefty conversation,
and was a deep thinking character with the ability to write some pretty strong
lyrics). Mind you, he's a bloke after all.
These three bands never seemed to play with each other much, other than the
10th Anniversary of Phantom gig in 1988...I remember the Chainsaws being awesome
that night. They did a stunning version of the Machinations' "Average Inadequacy"
which they'd recorded for that comp. we gave away that night.
I-94: How did the first few releases sell, both here and overseas? (How big
was the export side of the business for the Phantom label in those days?)
At this stage the label was just me alone in an office above the shop working
very late at night after the shop had closed (sad image, isn't it?) but people
hadn't forgotten the label from the years before and once again each new release
was met with orders of between 10 and 50 per store (which was BIG by the way,
for indie bands with bugger all exposure), so we sold out the first thousand
pretty quickly of both their 45s. I started making up very elaborate promo packs
for every release about then...I'd do 70 of each in beautiful printed folders
(or box sets) with posters and stickers and bios and photos and the record,
and mail them off to the most influential folk I could think of in radio and
print worldwide...and people took notice and I started getting reviews in important
overseas mags...and then a distributor from that country would contact me for
stock.
I sold a lot of Chainsaws to distributors in Germany, USA, and the UK...but
I still don't recall their pressings doing more than 2000. Getting an order
from Germany for 200 copies of the first single was a huge commitment from an
indie distributor...but on the strength of the exemplary reviews we got there
and in Finland and Sweden particularly, they came back for a reorder. It was
pretty exciting. I never profited a cent from the label over that period of
time but I had a great time and made some decent friends.
Simon's still a good mate of mine. And those recordings he's done in Brazil
recently show he still fires with that same passion and intensity...wait till
you hear his version of Razar's "Stamp Out Disco".
I-94: Did you have much to do with them on a personal level? Were they as
volatile a band as it seems?
As I mentioned above it was important to me to connect on a personal level,
and I got on very well with Mark and Cameron as well at the time (I had less
to do with Peter Kelly and Duilio but we still had some damn fine times and
I liked them). Simon became part of my circle of friends and came to birthday
parties, dinners, etc. I must admit I wasn't aware of any volatility..like any
bunch of guys in a band they'd have their disagreements followed by a period
of sulking, but they seemed to rise above all that from memory. Maybe they just
behaved nicely in front of me.
I-94: Do you think the Vanilla Chainsaws could have made the cross over into
mainstream success, or was the time simply not right?
Being that the Church and U2 and the Smithereens were getting such accolades
at the time and the whole Boston guitar pop thing was happening, I figured that
"Wine Dark Sea' might have given them a chance at something bigger...in
my opinion the ringing guitars, passionate, anthemic vocals, and catchy-as-all
hell melodies on that record, were such a perfect mix of those three bands....but
radio play just didn't happen...and by the time we did "Red Lights"
in '91 the name meant absolutely nothing to those at Triple J, and not a whole
lot more to the public out there.
I'm not sure the time was ever right after the first two singles...we needed
to follow them up with a strong album of similar style immediately after "Like
You", but I had no adequate budget to record them....nor the guts to take
out a loan to do it either. I made a lot of naïve moves back then in regard
to label business but I had no grounding in smart business moves, I just wanted
to put out good records, and was carried along on a wave of passion that screamed
at me "Do it!" the minute I first heard their demo's.