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	Interview with Manfat Voodoo page 2
	Dav: I can't remember who told us you were, it may have been someone out of This Garden said you were widdly. Or someone from The Talbot said you were a bit widdly. And you turned up, and we thought, alright, and Ste was next to you, and we were playing along and we were doing stuff, and then you went into something, and what you played was really good, but you'd hit something, you'd hit a pedal, and you'd go "Widdley widdley woooo" or whatever you were doing. And Ste went, "NO!" like that. And you went, "Right." And it was top, because it was straight communication. You know what I mean? And nobody was offended by it. It was, "Right, spot on." Because that's what it was about, it was about communication between four people, and how we're going to produce the sound that we want. And off it went, and it was top. We'd never had that before, and it was top. Damo: I remember that, it was very strange. Pete: Influences. It's already been noted that Manfat Voodoo, which is partially your input Dave, and largely a collective input and so on, your songs have some originality to them. What about you as a songwriter, what about influences as a songwriter? Dav: Er, songwriters I like. Pete: People you like. Dav: People I like ... I read a lot and stuff, so there's writers and artists that have an influence in how you create something, how you paint something, you know what I mean? So, I don't know. Musicians - I like Tom Waits, I like his lyrics. Lou Reed - "New York Album", and "Songs For Drella" is fucking brilliant. I like some of Beck's lyrics ..he's a fuckin' nutter. I don't know. Just like good lyrics and stuff. And books, Henry Miller ... Pete: What about that? Literature and poetry and stuff. Dav: Bukowski, I read a lot of Bukowski and I read a lot of Wilhelm Reich. Damo: Who's that? Dav: He wrote a book called "Listen Little Man", and the way that he writes stuff is brilliant. Just reading it is really nice to read. Pete: The flow of it. Dav: Henry Miller's like that, just really nice stuff to read. And I want to write like that. I want to write….. a bit like the Beats, but I've never really read Kerouac or Burroughs, but I know what they were doing and stuff. It's from Dada…. art and Expressionism. Instead of doing something linear, you're doing something a bit different, coming at it from a different angle. Woodie Guthrie. I like his stuff a lot. -------------------- And then you can deal with things like this fucking idiot. And it all works, it's alright. As long as you're doing something, if you're on the right thing, everything's got its own little input. I like writing stuff about stuff that's going on. We've just written something called "Direction Airline". He wrote a really nice lyricy riff, a couple of riffs together. And we didn't have any lyrics. So I wanted to read something, and when we went to Cambridge to do this thing, (mastering Erasmus Darwin) we were given all this fucking stuff to get on the British Rail thing, and all these bits of paper of where to get the train and where not to get it, and how long it was going to take and stuff like that, and all the lyrics are just read from that. And it's top, because you listen to it, and it's got so much meaning to it, but it hasn't - because it's been generated by a computer. You know what I mean? Trying to find these different meanings in something that's been made by something that's not alive. Damo: Yeah, it's got no substance or feeling to it at all, has it really, when you just look at a train ticket or whatever. Pete: DDM. Dav: Yeah, DDM. That's written on the back of something ... Damo: Was it Polos? Dav: No, it wasn't Polos ... yeah, that was from a Polos thing but most of it was from a Club Biscuit, that I was reading in the back of The Harbour Bar in Sandside, and I was reading that, and then when I came out of Sandside after reading that and writing it down, the Post Office collared me for being off-route, drinking a cup of tea when I shouldn't have been. That made the fucking papers! (laughs) Damo: Illegal tea-drinking. Dav: I popped in this thing for five minutes, and I wrote a couple of things down because I like to keep busy, and I came out and they collared me for being off-route. But I thought, a postman's been off-route for fucking sixty years everyday in here! And I thought, "I'm only getting a cup of tea, you bastards". And it hit all the fucking press, the national press, Radio 5, The Times ... "Postman denied cup of tea!". (laughs) ------------------------ Pete: Could you do it again tomorrow? Dav: I could do. So then, have I got anything written down for that? No. No, I got it all. [Checks his notes] Yeah, bollocks. Next. (laughs) Pete: Guitar styles. Again, sort of revisiting what we've already just touched on, when did you feel like your own style was coming through? Damo: I don't think I have yet. Because I played electric guitar for so long ... Dav: Don't you? I think you do, I think you have. I know what you mean, but ... Damo: I sit down every day and play something different but because I played electric guitar for so long, and because I'd always either played along to a tape or as part of a band, I was always one of a collective, and so I always took stuff from what everyone else was doing. Even when we had the full line-up in Manfat Voodoo, I'd just write quite a specific guitar part, and then bring it to everyone else and say, "What do you think of this?" But that initial idea wouldn't have been ... it might have been something that I'd heard on the radio that made me do it. It was never just me playing the way that I should do. It's not until just recently, when I've started playing acoustic more, where it's just been me and Dav, that I've started to take stuff that I've done ten years previous, and tried to put it all together. And now it's just me trying to tie everything up, and it becomes some kind of style….. I think I'm maybe getting there at the moment, but I don't think I'm quite there yet. If I do get there, I think it will become boring. Everything we do is different. I think you've got to step back, haven't you? I can't say that I've got a particular style. Maybe someone listening to me might have a better idea of what ... Dav: I think you have. From straight away, I thought that you'd got a certain sound. You were playing in a certain way, but I thought you can see past that kind of stylised thing and know what you were doing. Damo: It's always changed, it changes with who you meet and who you talk to and who you listen to. You can play blues for years, and then you'll meet someone and they'll say, "listen to this, this is really cool". And so it's just trying to take in as much as possible, and trying to translate what you hear into something that you think is cool. Pete: Basic skill, that, listening, isn't it? Damo: Yeah. You've got to be a listener first, I think, before you can be a musician. If you stop listening to stuff, then I think you're done for, really. I like the idea of being economical with stuff. If you've got an idea, try not to go over the top. If you've got an idea, just stick with it, and just try and get that idea across. And whatever it takes, really, if it's rock and roll, or blues, or country, or whatever, just as long as you can get your idea across it doesn't really matter what kind of style you're playing. It's a funny one, that. Pete: Let's talk a bit about the Manfats. How did Manfat Voodoo start? Dav: I re-met Ste …. me and Ste had a band in sixth form, where I met him. He's from Thornaby, I'm from Thornaby. Pete: Ste the bass player. Dav: Yeah. And then we had a band called One Big Onion, and that kind of split, but only because we were going from sixth form to university, which is the thing that you do, isn't it. Then we re-met up in Scarborough, and then we decided that we wanted to get another band together, so we got Sperm of Zeus. And the same thing with Ste - I stuck with Ste, and just kind of wrote things to his bass, because I write things to basslines. I felt I could only write things to guitars, but it's not, you can write things to bass. I was writing stuff to bass with Ste. So a lot of his basslines works with the melodies…. that kind of thing was going on. And what he was doing was, we'd get a guitarist and we'd get a drummer, and he'd fall out with them. Of course he'd fall out with them, because they were shit. How else was he going to get rid of them? So he'd either shag their girlfriends, or just tell them to fuck off, or whatever. And it just went on like that for a bit. And then that kind of changed ... I can't remember why we changed, we changed the name. We changed the name and it was Manfat Voodoo. And we started doing the same thing, trying to get a guitarist and a bass player, and we had a guitarist called James Frost, who was a top guitarist. Damo: He was fantastic. Dav: He was, he was a fucking top guitarist. But he was moving away, so we kept having to change guitarist from James Frost to Dan Tucker, and then Dan Tucker, after he'd had enough - Ste pissed him off - (laughs) we got Damo involved. But Ste was always working with a drummer, because bass player / drummer. And I don't know he'd done it, I don't know how he found James Potts, I don't know how he'd done it. But there he was. We lived in various holes in Scarborough, and then out of the complete fucking - God knows how he did it, but there was something in the paper and it said, 'cottage for rent'. "Alright then". Cottage - same fucking amount of money as a fucking shit hole flat…. So we went to see this cottage, and we were like, "Fucking hell, this is beautiful." A cottage by the sea, on the edge of Mulgrave Place, (which is where the cliff later gave way). That's where this cottage was. Pete: Was that South Bay, North Bay ...? Dav: It was in the North Bay. That's the hotel you're thinking of. It's more recently this kind of bit of the North Bay gave way, and it was under the cottage. That was after we'd moved out. But we got this place to live, so we lived in this place called the Cottage-by-the-Sea Damo [belches]: Pardon me. Dav: Ho ho! What are the chances of that happening. Then James Potts arrived, and we just set up in the front room. There was nobody about for miles, and we just played for two or three years. Damo: Do you remember where James came from? Dav: Yeah, he came from the university, but I don't know how Ste knew where he was, I don't know how he got in contact. Damo: James told me once he just put an ad up, saying "Drummer seeks band". But I don't know who got hold of him. Dav: I know that the old drummer had left because he wasn't that arsed, but Ste shagged his girlfriend. Damo: That's fucking rum, that. Dav: And then he told me later on that he did it just to get him out of the band, which is even better. But anyway. (laughs) I don't know if you should put that down. But that was dedication, because she was a dog. (laughs) So that happened and then off he went, and then James turned up. Pete: When you said James was at university, was that Scarborough? Dav: Yeah, he was at university, but the university again was changing into something else. Damo: I think it was York Uni, when he was there. Dav: He was in a music course. It was an exclusive teacher training thing, and then it just started changing. Pete: Like a lot of them do. Dav: As it started changing, along came James. Damo: What was he doing? He was doing Drama with Music or something like that. Dav: Yeah, Drama with Music, something like that. So he had access to all the recording studios up there. How interesting. So he put up an ad, said Damo, and along he came, and I said, "I don't know. Can you rimshot?" Just shit like that, I don't know. And he went, "yeah! PANK!" "Fuck!" (laughs) Of course I can. I'm a fucking mint drummer! That kind of thing. And he just kind of clicked with Ste, and off we went. It was top. So there was the three of us, and we were the band. And then we just changed guitarists, as guitarists came and went, and then we ended up with ... Damo: Me. Dav: Cunto. (laughs) Damo: Anyway James phoned me, that morning, because Paul Steer was working with him at the theatre, wasn't he. And he said, "I know someone who plays guitar. He can play guitar for you" And James had rung me and I wasn't there, 'cos I was out getting shitted. And James was like "When's the best time to ring him?" And he went, "Oh yeah"… my dad, my dad's a bastard. "He's an early riser. Give me a ring in the morning." (laughs) So I get a phone call the next morning, I'm completely blind still. I'm just about to go to work and operate heavy machinery and I get this phone call. "Hello. I hear you play guitar." "What? Nobody I know would phone me at this hour." (laughs) And that was that really. I came down to meet you in a pub. You drew the directions to Mulgrave Place - Mulgrave Plac - on the back of a beermat for me. And that were that. ------------------------- Dav: And people kept saying, "No, don't lose your old guitarist," because ... Damo: Dan makes Voodoo. Dav: Dan makes Voodoo ... like that at the end of thingy. But no, because we're going to do what we think we want to do. We have our own ideas. And we were right. Pete: So the four of you then meet up. How do you progress it then, rehearsing-wise or working material together? Dav: Steady place to work. When you have a good place, a steady place to rehearse, then you're all together, and you're all under the same roof, and it's once or twice a week. And it was mint. Damo: It was good, wasn't it. Really good. Dav: It was fantastic. Drinking tinnies, and then we'd have ... Damo: Walks on the beach. Dav: Walks on the beach, it was top. We were living it. We were doing it. There was nobody to stop us, and off we went. It was top. Damo: It was good, it was easy. Dav: It was all set up, everything was just kept in the house, and when we wanted to play we would set up and play. Damo: At the cottage. Dav: It was top. Damo: It was centre of operations, wasn't it. Dav: Yeah. It was all about rehearsing it, and communication. Damo: That was the best bit though wasn't it, just rehearsing. Just writing the songs. Turn up for rehearsal and it's like, "Let's write another song." And every now and then we'd go and do a gig and play all the new songs. Before we knew it we had a bunch of songs, and we were doing gigs just down at the Talbot most of the time. Pete: Tell us a bit about the gigs, your first gig. Was your first gig there, if that's at all relevant? Dav: My first gig? Pete: As Manfats. As Manfat Voodoo. Dav: The first gig as Manfat Voodoo was stopped by the council, because we were going to play at West Riding, because we knew the landlord and he was a top guy, but he didn't have a music licence. He didn't tell us. And then on the night of the gig, we turned up and he said, "I don't think you'd better. I've just had a letter." (laughs) That kind of thing. So that got stopped and then ... I don't know. I had a mate called Nigel, and he was ringing round, because I didn't want to, I wasn't that good at phone work, and Nigel was good on the phone, so he was getting us gigs and stuff. So we played different places. Then he phoned the Talbot. I don't think we got a gig at the Talbot, because the demo we sent, we thought it had loads of tracks on it, but it got recorded wrong, and it only had one song on it. And it was "Fly Like a Budgie". And nobody…. they just heard it, and thought "What the fucking hell?" So it was all umming and ahing. And this is where Paul can actually start talking, because he got us our first gig at the Talbot. He said this is Davey White. So what happened? Paul: The first time I heard Dav performing was in the crew bus on the way to work. Dav: In the Post Office. Paul: Going down to Eastfield. Dav: I played him "Stop Bluffing Davey White", and he thought I was a fucking insane lunatic. Paul: And I loved it. I thought, "I've got to get this feller on the stage. So I dragged him down to the Talbot, and said, "This feller needs a gig. Mr Tooley meet Mr White". Dav: And he gave us ... it was the Scarborough Music Week, and we supported Julia Ray's band, who was Jive Spirit. We'd been in the dressing room with Bob Scott and all that, and thought, "What? Weird " And Julia Ray wasn't talking to us of course. (laughs) Don't put that down! She wasn't speaking not to scum like us, but all the rest of the people were mint. Later on they admitted, they were saying we were a big pile of shit and stuff, and everybody in the bar that overheard her disagreed, and said, "No, I think they were mint. I think they were a bit ropey, but I like what they're doing - Beefheart meets the Beatles." That'll do. And off we went. Damo: You see, I heard all this because I wasn't playing with you at the time. I remember just popping in at the Talbot and seeing these posters up. There was these posters that Dav had made, just bits of cut out magazines, and everyone was talking about them behind the bar. That's what perked up my interest. So I did hear of you before I got that phone call. Dav: That's what's in a lot of the CDs is like, pictures of the posters that we do. Because Tooley just said "Do what you want". Pete: This is Paul Tooley at the Talbot. after the Stage Door. Dav: Yeah. That's been the interesting thing that I've learnt, because you'll be talking about the music business later on…. it starts very small, putting posters up, and doing your own posters, making cut out posters. Pete: You were cutting up mags. Dav: Cutting up mags and sticking them together, and having about twenty or thirty posters that were all originals. They're not art, but they're suggestive and things like that. And you take them round places, and you find out who's into your music and who isn't into it. Because people that are into your music and are into that stuff go, "Fucking hell, yeah, that's really funny." And then you get other people who go, "Fuck off." Pete: Don't get it. Dav: "I'm not putting that up here!". And that's come to this week - advertising this gig in Vivaz, putting posters up and that. And I thought, "This is going to be interesting, because I could do with a load of posters in town, what posters am I going to get away with?" So I've got a load of - I don't know if you want to pause it. But I got a load of posters off…. like vintage seaside posters off ebay, and off certain websites. They're beautiful 1920s, 1930s paintings of, I don't know, Costa del Sol, just lovely seaside paintings. And then you get all that and put "Manfat Voodoo Summertime Special at Viva's". And I took it to the Tourist Information, "That's beautiful, that's a lovely poster." (laughs) "Thanks very much. Can I put it up?" "Of course, sir, that's lovely." Things like that. (laughs) And it's the same thing, it's exactly the same thing. You're getting somebody else's thing, and you're perverting it into your own gubbins. Pete: Converting. Dav: That's what fucking Saatchi was doing, wasn't it, with his Silk Cut adverts. You know what I mean? It's the same kind of thing, but on a nicer, local level. Can I just go for a piss? Pete: I'll just pause it. [pause] Damo: You're in aren't you, you. Paul: I am. I'm happy as Larry. Pete: Right, where did we get to? Oh yeah. You mentioned this guy, Nigel Bainbridge. Dav: Yeah. Nige Bainbridge. Pete: Because this is the first thing that we ever got from you when it just came out of the blue one day, and I assumed you were from Darlington because all correspondence, 40 Brougham Street….., and we both thought, "What's that like?" Jabba the Hut, Parental Advisory. -------------------------- Dav: That was pre all this Star Wars re-hash, that was when it wasn't cool. So it was alright. But it was all that, we weren't any good on the phone and Nigel was better on the phone. He just rang round and got us gigs. He got us a couple of gigs in Darlo, and he got us some places in Northallerton. Pete: Where did you play in Darlington? Dav: We played the Tap and Spile in Darlington. I don't know, it wasn't his fault but they were pretty .…. Yeah, we did stuff like that. We didn't publicise it right because we didn't know how to do it really, we just presumed we'd got a gig and that they'd do their own publicity, which they didn't do. Pete: Which they don't do. Dav: And we turned up, and nobody came to see us, or people just drifted in and drifted out, things like that. And people would criticise us, but we'd say….. what did Nigel say after that? Or was it his brother? His brother Chris had said, "Oh, a bit ropey". But we'd do stuff like, we'd make a song up there and then, and just play, and make a song up there and then. With lyrics and music, and just do it. And play, and make a new song up. And people would go, "Oh, a bit ropey." And we thought, "Fuck off. What do you think you're listening to? We're making stuff up as we go along". If you're all together playing stuff, and if the opportunity comes around, let's make a new fucking song up, why not? Whether people are listening or not. And we like that - provoking the audience. They think you're shit, but you're not. I don't know. Does that make sense? (laughs) Pete: It reminds me of Ron Aspery, up at Blakey when launching the Back Door thing. He picks up the microphone, he looks at the audience, and he's got this hat on, and he looks at the audience and he says ... "It's not easy, you know. It's not easy." (laughs) Damo: It's not. Dav: It's not. It is… well, in a way. Pete: I've just mentioned this first tape that we got through, and then there were subsequent ones like "Bandito Diavolo", and "Bring Me the Heads of Manfat Voodoo"... Dav: "Io" is in between, which is the one that we all liked. You got different things with it, but "Bandito Diavolo" was recorded - they were all recorded in the same place, "Bandito Diavolo" was recorded by a guy that recorded The Manic Street Preachers, and it's shit. I don't know if you've listened to it. Pete: Just this afternoon. Dav: But it didn't matter at the time, it was just a way of recording the songs in a different way. Because we had a Tascam little four-tracky thing, and we'd just record it in the front room, and that's what we had. And that's what we were sending out. Pete: What, to venues, do you mean, or what? Dav: Yeah, to venues like that. The one with Jabba the Hut, that's the original… that's called "Original Strain". And that was all done on a Tascam. There was one after that called "Nigel Frost". After the people we fell out with that month. me and Ste fell out with Nigel, and we fell out with James Frost, so we called the next EP "Nigel Frost". Because this is what we do, we're just documenting our fucking relationships with people, (laughs) falling out with people. And they were all recorded on Tascams, and I loved it, because it was just a case of saying, "Right, fuck it, we'll do what we want for better or for worse" And it was simple. We did another EP after that called "Thunderbird George kept under the stairs gelly woofters drink cream soda." Damo: Cream sodas. Dav: Cream Soda EP. And it never did anything with it, It wasn't for sale type thing, but there was stuff on it that were mint. And I wish we'd done something with it, but we didn't do anything with it. And then we went straight onto "Bandito Diavolo", because we'd met ... James had managed to get us into this recording studio that they'd just plumbed into this North Riding College. And nobody knew how to use it, and 'Bandito Diavolo was the result of it. But it didn't matter at the time, it was ways of recording songs that we'd never heard back to ourselves. And it was like that, it was just faffing about. And that went on to, after that was the "Io" EP, which was some live stuff that was recorded at rehearsal rooms at the Talbot, through the Talbot mixing desk and stuff that was recorded there, and then the one after that was "Bring Me the Heads" which was the one that Damo was on. ---- Pete: Who engineered that Dav: No, that was just us… that was James. Damo: It was James, weren't it. He knew how to work the gear, so he looked after it. That's why the drums are too loud. (laughs) Dav: There's about a year between "Bandito Diavolo" and "Bring Me the Heads", and you can see James has gone through different courses to learn how to use it. And by the end he knows how to use it and it sounds better, that's basically what happened. And I like that. I like that kind of learning process… putting things down. But it still sounds a bit too clean ----- Pete: How did you manage to distribute it? You found us somehow ... Dav: Selling things at gigs, we had a certain amount of stuff that went off straight away to people that were close, people that were far away. It was all random stuff. It was, "Right, we've got something coming out. Buy certain music papers or whatever, and just at random, see what comes out of it". It was like, "Who do we think could be into it?" And off it went. Ten, twenty, off in the post. You never heard anything, off it went. And that was it. And then the rest of it was selling it all at gigs, which was cool, because we got rid of them all. Pete: There's something about it on your site, isn't there, about how you're listened to in various places around the world. Dav: Yeah. There was people who'd come to gigs, and stuff like that, and that was cool, that meant a lot to us. People who were taking it on holiday, there were some people that had gone down the Ganges and listened to "She's Coming Home" and laughing, and I thought, "That's fantastic. That's mint". And Coney Island and places like that… LA, just people took it on holiday, or sending it to people. We sent something to somebody in LA, and we got a letter back saying, "Oh..No thanks". Well, duh. (laughs) It's mad, isn't it. It's a strange old business. (laughs) Damo: It's a shit business. Pete: You look at the packaging of it, and it's all from the outset, quite unusual, isn't it. Damo: It's what you can do with a photocopier and a bunch of Letraset. ------- Dav: It's what you can do. It was all stencil stuff you can get. Pete: It's a nice little touch sometimes. Dav: You can put nice little things in like that, Damo: Glossy photos. Dav: But that came as an accident as well. You'd go in and say to somebody, "I want some black and white photos". "I can get you them this big." "Can you? We're doing a cassette. Can you get one of them this size?" "Course I can." "Can you get me about two hundred?" "What?" You know, as if you'd called their bluff. (laughs) "Yes right. Two hundred please." "Alright then". Just go in like that, put in little bouncing moons and things. Going into a shop on Forshore Road and say, "I want two hundred bouncing balls please". And then sticking them in bags and glueing faces on them. It's mint. (laughs) People call it work. DNA samples. Pete: I was going to say, this came with a DNA sample and a badge, didn't it? Dav: Yeah, Bring me the Heads of Manfat Voodoo came with a DNA sample and a badge. (laughs) No, it didn't come with a badge, it came with a DNA sample and Singalong a Lyrics sheet. Pete: "Bandito Diavolo" came with a badge. Dav: That came with a badge, yeah. And "Io" had a bouncing moon. Damo: Value for money. Dav: It is all value for money. Damo: That's what it is. Dav: That's what they want. Damo: It's what the kids want. (laughs) Pete: You said a little bit about it, and Paul did, and more actually when the machine was stopped. But the question says here, "Describe audience development." You've got a real enthusiastic fan base, if you like, for want of a better word. Damo: Half a dozen very enthusiastic people. Pete: How did it happen? Because you haven't done masses and masses of gigs. Dav: We haven't done masses and masses of gigs. But it builds up, doesn't it? Things build up naturally. So there's that. And you just keep plugging away at what you do. It's word of mouth, I think. It is based around the Talbot, which isn't there any more. Pete: That's where it kicked off, I guess. Dav: Yeah, it did. We did well there, so that was kind of ... going from five, six seven people in the audience, going to ... it's been alright there. Pete: I suppose some of it's down to people who get it. Damo: Yeah, the few people. I don't know, does anybody get it? Do you think anybody gets it? Dav: I think they think they do. Paul: You'd like to think you're in on it, but then you're not too sure. Dav: And then like they move what it is and its not it anymore. Paul: You'd like to think you're that clever. Dav: But then it becomes really scary. And then you don't want to know what it is any more. Damo: A lot of people think it's pure comedy, don't they. But it's not, at all. Dav: Somebody said that at Cornucopia, when we played Cornucopia in the Boro Damo: That was my first gig, wasn't it. Dav: Yeah. He (a bloke) goes, "I get it! It's comedy rock!" (laughs) I went, "Right. We're going to come back and play fucking Leonard Cohen." But we didn't. Damo: You can't blame people for thinking that, though, can you. Dav: No, you can't.
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