Tom Withers’ music career in the late 80s and 90s seemed to be synchronised with my own teenage musical proclivities. From drummer/vocalist in UK hardcore band The Stupids (who had a reunion tour last year following the reissue of their back catalogue by Boss Tuneage) to becoming a maverick purveyor of drum n bass’ more purist strains, it seemed like his name could always be found somewhere in my music collection.
This was the second interview I did with Tom, the first occurring last year before one of The Stupids’ reunion shows. This one was done in May on what was to have been the eve of the release of the sixth Klute album ‘Music for Prophet’, now pushed back to 26th July 2010 on his label Commercial Suicide.

Last I spoke to you was backstage at Bristol Bierkeller for one of The Stupids revival gigs….

I wouldn’t want to call it a revival tour, nothing much was brought back to life. If you remember there wasn’t much life in the venue…I wouldn’t call it a revival!

So what’s happening with The Stupids now?

Things are on hold. Well actually, we’ve got a gig tomorrow; we’re playing some festival in Manchester. But otherwise everything’s been put on hold for some personal reasons; one of the band members has got some family stuff to sort out and I’m really busy with the Klute album.
We’ll probably pick up the loose ends towards autumn time and get back to work then.

The Bierkeller has a locally infamous ‘oompah band’ night on a Saturday; sort of like a wedding reception on acid. You might have gone down better playing to all the drunk stag and hen parties in their lederhosen.

I think we went down fine. I think it was just that we were booked into a venue that holds about 15000 people, whereas if we’d played at somewhere else…there’s another pub somewhere in Bristol that’s more in touch with the punk side of things

Yeah, The Junction, which sadly closed down. There were loads of Junction regulars at the gig that night.

Would’ve been better there.

So on to the real business which is the Music for Prophet album. First of all the title, what does it mean? Where’s the definitive article gone? Why not ‘Music for a Prophet’ or ‘Music for the Prophet’?

That’s because it’s not directed at a prophet, which as its spelt is a term for a deity or whatever. I believe in recent years that its been appropriated by some people as a name to represent their prophet so I purposely didn’t put capitals on there.

There is no ‘The Prophet’ in my eyes. So it’s not referring to anyone or anything in particular.

But it’s a play on words too, you know – ‘Music for profit’. Everything’s gone awry in the advent of consumerism; it’s served us quite well for however many decades but I think we’re on the brink of it no longer working. A lot of things in life these days are judged by commercial success rather than any other way.

So it’s just a play on those words. Most things nowadays are done for profit, things that didn’t used to be. If you think about the railways and possibly soon the post office; they were national interests but now they’re run it the interests of profit and profit alone.

So, it’s a play on words… made me chuckle at the time.

That continues into the song titles, for example in the collaboration with Dom & Roland: ‘Buy more now’. You also recently did the DNBTV set with him; is this going to be an ongoing collaboration?

Well it already is; I mean we’ve been friends for a long time. Dom was one of the first people I met when I came into the scene. We did a tune a couple of years ago called ‘Maximus’ for Dom’s label. We get on really well; we have a similar sense of humour and have done a few back-to-back DJ sets. So yeah it’s a casual mutual affection [laughs].

Can you talk us through the process of collaborating on a track; are you both in the studio, or do you just send each other parts; how do you decide on the direction of a track?

Well in the two instances we’ve worked together so far we’ve gone to each other’s studio and basically sat there and made the music. Dom’s a bit of a bossy soul so he tends to elbow you out of the way [laughs] and gets on the mouse or whatever. He’s very good with Logic, and I’m a Cubase user so we’ve used both; Cubase when he’s here or Logic when I’m there. So yeah we’re both present.

Keeping on the subject of the creative process; this is your sixth album, and fourth double album. Do you make tracks with an album in mind or do you just accumulate tracks and then fit them together into some kinda of coherent order?

I definitely accumulate tracks. I think things change over the course of the months that it takes to write something, so that you can’t direct things. You just have an idea when the tracks finished that you go ‘yeah, I’ll save that’. A lot of tracks don’t make sense as a 12” single; sometimes those tunes are quite obvious to me, those that you know will be a single.

Recently Commercial Suicide put out the single by Nymfo ‘Matchstick’ b/w ‘Bionic Fingers’. The press release said you worked quite closely with him on this; how did you feel about taking on the mentor role?

Well in terms of working closely it a case of …2 or 3 years ago I was talking to him and reflecting my interests in wanting to work with him, and get some stuff released by him. It was a casual process, it wasn’t strictly as case of ‘here, I’ve made this for you, here you go’; it was a slow casual process of weeding out things. We had the B-side ‘Bionic fingers’ for a few months and we were waiting for the other side to come. Lo and behold Matchstick came and it just fit like a glove. So I’m really glad I waited rather than just go for any old thing, not that he makes any old thing!

Having a strong A & B side is a rarity in dance music in general I think…

12-inch singles for me are the same sort of thing as a 7” 45 single; you only get a certain amount of information on them. They are 12” to serve a mechanical purpose of playing music at a louder volume in a DJ setting. Otherwise if it’s a listening experience, I prefer 6 tracks a side, so I can put the record on and listen to it.

Of course; extending into an album setting…

Yeah It’s funny because if you’ve got a properly weighted turntable – as in not a Technics with a brick on top of the cartridge – it wont play through a drum n bass 12” because its been mastered so loudly the grooves would kick the needle out.

I realise this is an old, ongoing debate but do you foresee vinyl maintaining its reign in drum n bass?

That’s a very difficult question to answer because it’s still my primary medium. But when it comes to a lot of what I play its unreleased music; I ‘m not a big believer in dubplates so I’ll end using CDs as the format to play the music. But in terms of appreciating the music and ultimate sound quality and stuff like that, yeah its vinyl for me. Its whether drum n bass can justify all those releases belling released on vinyl.

It’s all but vanished in other genres of dance music, certainly in house and techno…most of it is CDs; well, mp3 and CDRs for DJing.

Yes which is the ultimate disposable format!

Do you think it has a bearing on quality control?

I think so, but that isn’t why the quality of music has gone down. I think the quality of music has gone down because there’s too much. You’d think that with there being more music there’d be more access to better music but the better music just gets lost; swamped.

There’s more music being released. Whereas before everyone could make music, but it was harder getting it out there. Now getting it out there isn’t a problem; you can sign up with a digital distributor and bobs your uncle.

That’s right, or you can upload it yourself and say ‘go at it’, and it’s effectively a release. It’s a funny debate because there’s a lot of people that think it’s justified that it should be free; I don’t. Perhaps if a car mechanic would take the same stance, you know. ‘I’ll give you some tunes if you repair my car’, but unfortunately that’s not the case at the moment.

Of course. Music for profit!

[laughs] But I don’t make music for prophet – that not my paramount concern.

Ok; music to get by?

Yeah I think people take exception to that, in that’s commonly seen as living the dream, the life of riley; it’s anything but to be honest! There’s days when I wake up and wish I had that kind of routine. You know, talking around the coffee machine and stuff. But then I’m not going to complain and say I don’t enjoy what I do, because I do.

Last time we spoke I mentioned the airport music thing, which seemed to be shrouded in secrecy. Black Dog recently released their own take on Brian Eno’s Music for Airports; can you foresee Klute ever do something similar? Will the airport music ever see the light of day?

Not really. I thought that topic of Black Dog’s was pretty weak really. I’m friendly with the original founding members – the guys who went on to become Plaid – and they’re the kind of people who never look back. They’re not particularly referential in what they do. They’re out to create their own thing whereas Black Dog is now something quite different. What is the point in making any comment on something that was made back in the 70s.

Back to ‘Music for Prophet’ and all the promotion behind that; you’ve got an official tour for it. A lot of your tour dates seem to be down under?

Yeah I m off to Australia on Tuesday, and I’ve just been to New Zealand. I just have a good connection with people down there, especially with New Zealand. I’ve been going there routinely every year for the last 8 or 9 years.

Its just one of the most consistent countries; and Australia is really building as well. I’d say in the more distant past it was one of my weaker destinations, and that’s definitely not case now; its just building and building and I’m finding myself in the last 3 or 4 years going out there every year.

OK cool. We’ll wrap up the interview with an obligatory “what’s next after the promotion for the new album’s done?”

There’s a bunch of stuff coming on the label; more from Nymfo, more from Mindscape, Amit, The Upbeats, something from Dom & Roland, Vicious Circle.
Keeping it ticking over, really.

I’ll probably be electing an artist for an album; just keeping my eye on who would be the best person to elect for that.

Big thanks for chatting to us, best of luck with the album and tour.

Cheers!

http://esp-agency.co.uk
http://commercialsuicide.wordpress.com
http://www.bosstuneage.com