Jez Williams (Doves)
February 2001
Manchester

The Doves are about to hit America for the first time, but it isn’t like they’re new to the music scene. Guitarist Jez Williams, twin brother Andy (drums) and Jimi Goodwin (vocals) reached the top of UK charts in 1995 with the hit “Ain’t No Love (Ain’t No Use)” as the dance act Sub Sub.  But that phase of their careers went up in smoke (literally) a year later when a fire consumed the studio containing their second album. This misfortune became an opportunity for reinvention, and after quietly evolving over a couple of years, the Doves were unleashed.

Their debut album Lost Souls was released summer precipitating a hailstorm of applause from critics, garnering the Doves a respectable fan base worldwide as well as a nomination for the UK’s esteemed Mercury Music Prize. In a demonstration of just how small the music world is, the Doves lost the Prize to childhood friend Damon Gough, a.k.a. Badly Drawn Boy.  Coincidentally, the Doves collaborated with Gough for a 7” project called “Road Movie” as well as tracks off his album Hour of the Bewilderbeast, long before either act was a flash in any critic’s pan.

Jez Williams called in prior to setting foot in the States with his bandmates. He revealed a bit behind what brought the Doves into the world, and why they won’t be going the way of Sub Sub anytime soon.

Where are you right now, both geographically and as the Doves?

We’re in a place called the Lake District, recording the next album – or trying to, you know, just make headway. We’re just north of Manchester, basically in a cottage.

So it’s nice, quiet and conducive to creation.

Very nice, very quiet, very secluded just so we can get our heads down and get on with the new album.

How much do you have down for the new record – actual tracks or just ideas?

It’s a bit of both – we’ve got like seven sort-of songs. We’ve already recorded three, but we’re just working our way through the second one at the moment.  So it’s going according to plan.  It’s very early days, and we’re thinking it’ll take the majority of the year to finish.  It’s a long thing; I suppose we’re all quite perfectionists, really!  (Laughs)

So the pressure to follow up Lost Souls soon comes from within the band, not from outside forces like fans or the record company.

Oh, it’s completely within the band, because we haven’t exactly been prolific in the last ten years, so we were really keen to sort of have lots of material now that the band’s new.

What was it that turned you from what you were doing as Sub Sub into what came out as the Doves? A lot of people would say the two are very different, but do you?

It depends on what people’s perception is about Sub Sub.  I mean, if they’re talking about the early Sub Sub, I’d say yeah. But in late Sub Sub you can hear this sort of transitional call, as in we were getting a little bit more into seeing live bands; we were going to less clubs and you can hear that in the music.  We did a collaboration with Tricky and Bernard Sumner from New Order and you can hear the sort of the liveness, more of the band kind of influence coming through. It’s not that different – you can hear the way we evolved into Doves, it is recorded on the records.  But if people are comparing us to our hit, “Ain’t No Love (Ain’t No Use),” then yeah, it’s completely different.

Manchester keeps turning out all of these amazing musicians – have you personally ever thought about what it is about the water or the air or what’s going on in your environment over that keeps churning out these incredible bands?

(Laughs)  I think it’s definitely environment.  I get asked that question quite a lot and I think what it is is that it must be down to the weather, really, because it’s such crap weather.  It rains probably pretty much three-quarters of the year, and everyone’s indoors.  When you’re indoors you either watch telly, read books or try and learn something.  Everyone in Manchester…most of it’s a shithole so everyone wants to get out of Manchester and try to make a better life for themselves.  The way that they can do that is either music or football.  And it rains a lot so you’re indoors practicing your instrument. I don’t know; if it was a really good climate, you’d just be chilling in the sun, you know?

How did you personally come to pick up a guitar?

I think my mum and dad bought me a real crappy toy guitar when I was about three.  I just seem to remember…I think I smashed it up, actually.  (Laughs)  But I remember liking the shape of the guitar, and it looked cool, so, it was slowly from then, from that point, that I started getting into the guitar and I started playing it by the time I was seven.

And then later you realized you could pick up chicks with it and that was the end of that, right?

(Laughs)  Yes, something like that.  It sort of symbolized coolness for me – that was the instrument I wanted to learn.  And that sort of transcended into songwriting and from there on… It was the start of everything really.

Speaking of getting out of Manchester and getting on to bigger and better things, you’re about to hit American for the first time.  Is that like, “Oh, shit, we never thought we’d get to this point and what are we going to do?”

No, no!  We always knew we were going to go to America as a band.  It’s great, you know!  The tour’s doing quite well. What I think we’re pleased about is that people are actually responding to us in America – on a very, very small level, but at least there’s people out there digging what we do.  It enables us to come out there and play for three weeks, and we’ve sold out quite a few cities now so we’re pretty chuffed, you know.  There’s 3,000 miles between us but obviously we’re making some kind of connection out there – even if its quite small, it’s still there, which is great.

How about all of the acclaim that the album received, like getting nominated for the Mercury Prize – was that a bit of a shocker?

No, it wasn’t a shock, no – it was nice.  It’s quite a compliment when you get nominated for something.  A compliment, you know, that’s all it is, and that’s what people like, compliments.

So do you feel at all that you’re under any kind of pressure after having achieved such attention so quickly?

Any pressure that’s on us is from ourselves, and to be honest there is no pressure at the moment.  I think if we had no songs to follow up, then we’d feel pressure, but because we’ve got loads of ideas for new material for the next album, you don’t feel pressure as much because you know that you’ve got a brilliant song here, a brilliant song there.  So the only pressure is to find the time for yourself to record these things, you know?

Do you have any plans to go back to the dance thing in terms of DJing or remixing?

We’re not into remixing at the moment; it’s just purely about the band.  The next album’s going to be a bit more experimental anyway – messing about with new sounds, a bit more electronic-based.  We’re never afraid of anything that’s going to reinvent ourselves; it’s all good, you know?  We don’t have a closed mind that we’ve got to stick to this guitar stuff.  That’s not the case at all.  It’s whatever: if we want to experiment, I think we’ve got the freedom to do that.

In finding out that the Doves worked with Damon Gough and hearing your philosophy about experimentation, it seems to make sense that you got together.  But how did that happen?

I lived on the same road as him!  We knew him before he even got Twisted Nerve together, when he was just doing demos.  He played us these demos and we couldn’t believe it – we thought it was just magical, you know?  We’ve watched him go through that stage with ourselves, just rise and rise and rise.  It’s really good – we kind of started at the same point and we both flourished.  It’s great to see him do well, because he’s a mate, you know?  I think we share some of the same ideals, yeah, definitely.

You mentioned Sub Sub having worked with Tricky and Bernard Sumner, so might that be a possibility for the Doves, bringing in guest vocalists or musicians?

Uh, no, not at the moment.  I think now we know what we want and we’re going to stick with the Doves, really, for now.

What are you guys passionate about outside of music that we might hear about in your lyrics?  A lot of artists have causes and whatever…

Basically, our lyrical content is pretty much… (Laughs)  It can be quite introverted and stuff, but I mean we haven’t got any, like, cause.  It’s all mainly… In all our lives, at the moment, there’s nothing but music, you know?  It’s a permanent thing, you know, and takes all our time up at the moment.

What are Doves fans like from your perspective? Have you talked to them after gigs?

Oh, yeah, we meet plenty, and from all age groups.  But it’s quite a young crowd we get – which means we’re quite old.  (Laughs)  You know, we’re talking fifteen-year-olds to about nineteen-year-olds, which I find quite surprising because we’re not your archetypal sort of crowd-surfing band.  We’re quite mellow, you know, and I was quite surprised with the need that young people have for the kind of music we do.  It’s actually very, very encouraging, because the mainstream crap in England is just awful – it’s just plastic pop, you know?  But for all those kids that are buying that crap, there’s all the kids actually buying decent stuff.  It quite puts your faith back that there’s always going to be an underground.

Yes, or maybe the crap gets bought because these kids feel like they don’t have any other options.

Yeah, it gets pumped into their heads twenty-four hours a day. There are a lot of young people out there who recognize the crap, which is encouraging.

How do you guys feel about the revolution occurring within the music industry online?  Has the Internet at all helped you guys to reestablish yourselves or help the Doves take off?

Yeah. There’s two trains of thought, isn’t there?  There’s that Metallica side; but people getting a hold of your album for free ain’t gonna harm them as much, really.  Then there’s bands that are still in the red with the record companies, still in debt yet people are downloading their album for free, and it’s probably going to harm those bands more than those bands that are already multi-millionaires, you know?  That’s the way I see it. 

To be honest, I think it’s all promotion at this stage anyway.  If you sell a lot of records, then bands tend to get greedy.  I don’t like what Metallica did – I think it’s awful.  You can’t try and control things like this. It’s a natural technology; it’s going to happen whether you like it or not.  It’s just an extension of home taping, you know? You can’t stop it so there’s no point in having a point of view about it anyway because whatever you say doesn’t matter – it’s just going to happen.  The record companies – they’ve put all their money into stopping Napster when in fact there’s another company that’s making software for people to automatically download music files anyway. 

But I think why people will still buy albums is because people want to physically hold something and have the information there – have all the information on a CD, not some real crappy photocopy of something. They want the genuine article.

Have any of the three of you been to the States before?

Yeah, I went to New York for a holiday in ’96 or ’97 – but that wasn’t a taste of America because it’s New York.  (Laughs)

Are you kidding?  That’s quintessential America!

Do you reckon?

Yeah!  It’s the best parts…and the worst.  What are you looking forward to most about coming over here?

Generally just talking to people, really, meeting people, and seeing if it is that violent.  (Laughs)  That’s what everyone keeps saying!  You’re in LA?

I’m in LA and it’s not that violent.

You’re not lying?  Is that sarcasm?

No, not at all!

No?

Well, there is violence, but it’s like any other big city. It gets blown out of proportion.

Yeah, honestly?

Honestly.  Yeah.  You guys are playing in a venue that’s in a part of town that’s seen better days, I guess, so you’ll get to see a little bit of the dubious side of LA.

Well, it’s probably like Manchester, then.