THEM'S FINE YOUNG CANNIBAL'S THERE!

THEM'S FINE YOUNG CANNIBAL'S THERE!

FEATURES

Karen Schlosberg

“We’re the hip uncles, that’s what we’re going for,” says Roland Gift when asked to describe the Fine Young Cannibals’ image. “All the kids can come ’round and talk to us because we can listen with an objective ear. We treat them like human beings and not like sons or daughters.”

While vocalist/songwriter Gift is speaking strictly extemporaneously, his casual depiction of the slightly removed, timelessly hip persona does fit the trio, with its smartly thrift-shopped ’50s sartorial style and fresh mix of classic soul and contemporary pop. The band’s eponymous debut LP, a truly mournful collection of emotionally powerful songs dealing with social, political and romantic loss and betrayal, has been a solid success practically everywhere (England, Germany, Australia, Italy, Finland, Yugoslavia, not to mention Canada, France and Japan) except the States— yet. But since the band isn’t too keen on massive touring, they’ll have to make or break the States on their own terms.

Two of the three have at least some experience at States-breaking, though it’s not something they look back on with any great affection. Guitarist Andy Cox and bassist David Steele were last seen this side of the pond as members of the (English) Beat, who, some would say, were ground-breaking members of the British Two-Tone movement, attaining a degree of commercial acceptance here that eluded most of their colleagues. And they were about to move to greater heights when they broke up late in 1983, with three albums under their collective belt that achieved, with varying degrees of success, a marvelous mixture of social commentary and irresistable dance music. Abiding fondness for the Beat makes it difficult to accept the degree of disparagement with which Cox and Steele now talk about their ex^group (and a word of friendly advice, given with all due respect, to those two chatty and amiable musicians with excellent dry senses of humor: indiscreet biting remarks tend to reflect worse on the speaker).

“It’s sort of like we were ill with a really embarrassing disease and now we’re better and we don’t like to discuss the symptoms,” Cox says happily enough, admitting that “the first LP (/ Just Can’t Stop It) had its moments.”

Steele is considerably less sanguine about his former employment. “I’m kind of embarrassed about it. It’s like if you went out with this dodgy girlfriend and then you see her three years later and think, my God, how did I go out with her! There’s a couple of really early things that I think are OK, but I think after the first LP we did a lot of crap, really, for four years. I was very young and naive in those days. I had just left school—I was only 18 when the Beat started. We weren’t doing anything for the right reasons, I don’t think. I’m happier now so I don’t really think about it.”

With the Beat -truncated, Cox and Steele spent time writing, relaxing, “eating proper dinners and going out to see movies,” says Cox, and trying to find a singer for their new group. After many desperate attempts in the U.K. to enlist a singer, and one comically futile try in the States via an MTV “Help Wanted” ad, they recalled a member of a band that had opened for the Beat, traced him and landed him. Roland Gift, whose evocative voice brings back echoes of great soul singers such as Otis Redding and Sam Cooke, was also able to write lyrics and melody lines to Cox and Steele’s inventive rhythmic blend of soul, ska, pop and rock.

The trio not-so-seriously nicked their name from an obscure—probably deservedly so—film called All The Fine Young Cannibals (“It sort of stuck and we can’t change it now even if we wanted to,” says Gift just a tad ruefully). After managing to disentangle themselves from a near-disastrous pairing with an unsuitable producer, they finally released their nearly flawless FYC LP, nine original songs and one striking cover, that of “Suspicious Minds,” first made popular by Elvis Presley back in 1969. The decision to record that wasn’t really theirs— it seems that Elvis appeared in a dream to Steele and told him to record the song and it would be a hit.

“When you have that happen to you,” asks Gift, “what can you do? You can’t refuse the King.”

And the results haven’t proven him wrong: the band received official approval from the song’s author, who said it was the best version since Elvis’s, and the single has been a hit wherever it’s been released worldwide (see aforementioned countries).

Most of the mood of the album, agree FYC, is miserable. This from a band voted “In” in the magazine Women’s Wear Daily’s official Who’s In and Who’s Out list for 1986?

“I like to think that all our music’s fairly depressing,” Steele says quite cheerfully. “I just like really emotional stuff. All my favorite films are depressing; all my favorite songs have always been really miserable. Maybe it is a way of getting it out. I feel happy at least half of the time,” he says, laughing, “or reasonably.”

“I think it’s good that it’s miserable,” Cox says earnestly, still retaining the undercurrent of desert-dry wit that supports both his and Steele’s faintly singsong Birmingham twang. “I don’t really think of it as catharsis, although it might be therapeutic in some way; I’m sure it is.”

Steele theorizes that great art is only created from misery, that it is tragic.

“From suffering?” says Cox. “Well, if you look at Switzerland, where they’ve had 800 years of stability and peace, and they come up with the cuckoo clock. Italy had the Borgias and poisoning and suffering on a massive scale and they come up with the Renaissance. It’s an argument...”

“I like to think that all our music’s fairly depressing. ” —David Steele

So which FYC tracks are most successful and make him the most miserable?

“‘Funny How Love Is,’ that’s a pretty miserable one, and ‘Couldn’t Care More.’ But I don’t dislike any of them,” Cox says, then pauses. “Not necessarily miserable. It’s like if you hear a really good one from Billie Holiday, your back goes all a bit funny and you just feel affected by it. I think that’s good. I think that’s a test of good music; if you can hear it 20 years or even 50 years later and it still makes you feel a bit weird, then obviously the right stuff was put into it when it was done. That’s what you try for, really.”

Misery may love art, but the Cannibals don’t want to have to be miserable while showcasing their art as well as while creating it, hence their recent abbreviated tour of the States with only tentative plans to return.

“I wouldn’t say I’m a life-on-the-road man myself,” Steele says, chuckling. “Two-and-a-half weeks is just about OK. That’s probably why we won’t crack it big in the States for a long time. I don’t think you should do things all the time just because they sell records. You can either lose your mind and get big, or try and keep a bit of sanity and don’t worry about it so much.”

“I can worry about most things, given enough time to think about them,” says Cox.

But, adds Gift with a practical tone, “I never liked the idea of being a suffering artist—being skint until you die and then 20 years after you die people rave about you. That doesn’t really appeal to me. I quite fancy enjoying my time here.”