As promised (once upon a time), here is the 2nd Connells interview that
I pulled out of an old Record Exchange Music Monitor. (The other was
from Dec. 1990, and if you want a copy, just e-mail me.) Enjoy!
Breaking Out The Fifth: The Connells
by Rick Cornell, Durham {NC}
The Record Exchange Music Monitor, October 1993
Over the past nine years or so, The Connells have gone from being a three-
piece more than happy to play the occasional frat party to a quintet with
truly national and international popularity, sharing stages and convertibles
with everyone from The Replacements to Nick Lowe along the way. During this
time, the band--guitarist/primary songwriter Mike Connell, bassist Dave
Connell, guitarist/vocalist George Huntley, chief vocalist Doug McMillan, and
drummer Peele Wimberley--has logged many, sometimes rather reluctant, miles
and recorded four albums (all for TVT) with a fifth, Ring, just being
released. The first two, 1986's Darker Days and '87's Boylan Heights, found
reviewers conjuring up images like "somewhere between The Smiths and R.E.M.,"
while the release of Fun & Games in 1989 and One Simple Word in 1990, led to
the repeating of the mantra "harder edged" ad nauseam.
When I arrived in North Carolina six years ago, I celebrated my move by
immediately rushing to the nearest music store and buying three records:
Robbie Robertson's first solo album, The Replacements' Pleased To Meet Me,
and, wanting to bone up on my newly adopted area, Boylan Heights from (as they
were invariably listed) "Raleigh's own" Connells--putting Raleigh's own in
some pretty stellar company. I've been hooked ever since (not to mention
that, as a Cornell, I'm only a consonant away from being in the band), so I
jumped at the chance to talk with co-founder and older band brother Mike
Connell. On a Chapel Hill back porch over a couple of (conservative estimate)
Labatt's and Thomas Point ales, Mike and I talked about the band's origins,
their new album and the great lost cover of "Living In The Past."
RC: Same five guys for five albums, that's fairly rare these days.
MC: Yeah, we've managed to keep the lineup intact these nine years. I guess
that's an accomplishment in itself. We've had periods where things got a
little tense, but we managed. We know how much latitude to give one another
now.
RC: How did you all meet?
MC: I was in law school here [UNC] and started writing songs. My younger
brother was an undergrad. Once a week, I'd get together with my brother and a
friend of his, our first drummer. The three of us would just practice for a
couple hours. Our original drummer had grown up with and was good friends with
Doug, who was, at the time, a swimmer at ECU. He got Doug to come try out with
us because it was becoming evident that none of the three of us could handle
vocal duties very well. The four of us continued to work up songs throughout
that summer [1984]. Then toward the end of the summer, we weren't really
getting any better. When we went looking for a scapegoat, I guess we decided
that it was John's [the drummer] fault.
Peele, at that time, was playing with Johnny Quest. We just asked him to
sit in for a practice or two. We really didn't intend to steal him away from
those guys. A few weeks after the initial practice, we started playing out
opening for Johnny Quest, the sort of thing where he could play a few songs
with us and then get to the task at hand, playing with those guys. But after
a while, increasingly, there were conflicts and Peele, for whatever reason
decided to stay with us.
RC: Either that, or I guess you become the permanent opening band for Johnny
Quest.
MC: Yeah, something like that. Maybe three months after we'd been playing out,
we decided to add George--David and I had known him since we were kids--so the
lineup was in place by December 1984 and it's been the same since.
RC: What were those early days like?
MC: For the first few years that we were playing, it was just a matter of when-
ever we could get a show. Our first manager, a guy named Tom Carter, who I went
to law school with, was really responsible for making us get out when we didn't
necessarily want to and play in parts of the country that we never played. At
that time, it was a lot easier to get into the clubs. You didn't have to have
a CD, or even a tape for that matter, so on the basis of cassettes or demos,
we were able to get some opening spots in clubs as far away as California
even. It was definitely not a break-even proposition. We'd sleep on floors
and that sort of thing. We rationed out food. That kind of coincided with
the release of Darker Days, which we put out over here and it came out on
Demon Records in England.
RC: Demon's been pretty good to people around here--Don Dixon, The Woods...
MC: Exactly. They got pretty interested in Southern bands, Southern pop bands,
around that time. They might have signed Dixon, but with us it was more of a
distribution agreement.
RC: I bought Boylan Heights when I first moved down here, figuring I'm a real
North Carolinian now.
MC: It's still my favorite. I definitely like [the new album] better than the
last two. I'm not convinced I like it better than Boylan Heights.
RC: What's it called?
MC: Ring. We thought we wouldn't try to be too clever this time--go with the
one-word title. It has nothing to do with the fact that I'm getting married
[laughs].
RC: Mere coincidence. Who produced the album?
MC: Lou Giordano.
RC: Five albums, five producers. What do you do to these guys?
MC: Yeah, we scare 'em off. It only takes a few weeks of working with us and
they want no more of us.
RC: I've seen Giordano's name all over the place lately--the Metal Flake Mother
albums, the Bats...
MC: ...Dillon Fence, Sugar. Actually, I think Bob Mould pretty much produces
his own records. Lou, I guess, served as an engineer and probably had some
input.
RC: On the last two albums, there have been more keyboards--3 or 4 songs on
Fun & Games and 6 or 7 on One Simple Word--and a few songs with horn parts
even. Is this a continuing trend?
MC: On this record, there's a good bit of Hammond organ, you know the way
Hammond just sort of beefs things up. The keyboards don't make themselves as
evident as they do on the last record--they don't call attention to themselves
quite as much. They're more for texture, I would say. Not in the way
[producer] Hugh Jones employed them on the last record. It's more just filling
in gaps and beefing things up, which is really what we were after.
RC: The keyboards really made their presence felt on One Simple Word.
MC: There was even one song where it might have been a Hammond, some keyboard
was like a solo part. At the time, we had questions about it because we weren't
using anyone live to play keyboards. Now that we do have someone playing
keyboards with us, it's not as much an issue. We wanted this time to have
Steve Potak, who now plays keyboards with us, to come up with the parts, make
it a little more "real" with what's going on live.
RC: For the first two albums, I read things like "vaguely Celtic" and "Southern
jangle meets sensitive singer/songwriter," things like that. Then I kept
hearing about the power chords that kicked off "Something to Say." And the
last album I kept reading "harder edged."
MC: Yeah, I don't know. I wasn't thrilled with some of the guitar tones on
that last record. In some instances, I think Hugh Jones [felt] each song had
to be distinct, you know? There had to be a different sound. To me, that's
not a great thing. I like albums that blend together a little better. That's
one of the things I like about [Boylan Heights]. It was a little more seamless,
where songs kind of flowed one into the next. The effect on the last record
seems a little jarring at times. On this one, I think there's more
continuity. There are just a few guitar sounds that we use and so it seems to
hold together a little better. And to me, it makes a little more sense anyway
than the last record.
I enjoyed [making the last record] because we got to be out in Wales and
that was a nice experience, but the whole time we were out there, I wasn't too
thrilled with what was going on in the studio itself. But the Pogues were
there making Hell's Ditch with Joe Strummer, so that was great. I mean, The
Clash were one of my favorite bands of all time and then getting to meet him,
and The Pogues were pretty great as well.
RC: Did you write most of the new songs?
MC: Yeah. I wrote the majority. There are 13 songs; I wrote 8; Doug wrote 3;
George wrote 1 and David wrote his first song.
RC: My favorite line of yours is "I teach what I am taught/Filter in a
fact/Confuse it for a thought."
MC: It's easy, I guess, to be cynical and sometimes with songwriting I cheat in
that direction because I'm worried about songs sounding too sentimental or
something. I know with that song, we demoed "Upside Down" and sent the tapes
to TVT and the lyrics were really incomplete at that time. They wanted a love
song because they thought it was like a guy flipping over a girl and they were
a little dismayed when they got the final lyrics for "Upside Down." They
were, "This is not what we'd anticipated and would you consider rewriting the
lyrics and making it more of a love song? More radio-friendly maybe?" This
album, TVT was really good. They didn't offer any helpful lyrical
suggestions.
RC: When you write songs, do you start with a thought or a lyric sometimes and
work from there?
MC: Only on a couple of occasions have I had the lyrics in mind. More often
than not, it's having a melody and then the lyrics more or less conform to the
melody. Typically, it's music and vocal melody first, and then the lyrics. I
mean, it's not unusual to have an idea for a song in mind, but then I'll wait
for a melody to make the lyrics concrete. The lyrics really do come in at the
end of the process for me, which often means scribbling something down for
Doug when he's about to go in and sing. It's like "Forget what you've been
singing. This is what I want you to sing instead," which is not a great way
of doing things.
RC: I really like the cover of "I Got You" that you did on the Freedom of
Choice compilation. Have you done anything else like that?
MC: Yeah, we did a version of "Living In The Past," which TVT, unbeknownst to
us, sent to Chrysalis Records. I never know how much of this to believe, but
according to Steve Gottlieb [TVT's president], Ian Anderson heard our version
of it and was flattered that someone was interested in putting that down on
tape, but apparently liked the version and had agreed to add some flute to our
version of it. The tape would be sent up to him. Yep, that's the word, so I
don't know, you know. I'll believe it when it happens. I think our version
of "Living In The Past" is much better than we did to that Split Enz song. I
just shudder a little bit when I hear the original and think, "If those guys
could hear this, what would they think?"
RC: What's their label? I'll send them a copy--maybe they'll add some sound
effects of something.
MC: [Laughs] Get the Crowded House guys to do something with that, the Finn
brothers.
RC: I've only seen you play at Walnut Creek. That's probably not the ideal
place to see you.
MC: I don't know how much of this stuff I'm supposed to say. I get in trouble
sometimes in interviews, but I think it's still a little overwhelming for us
to play in a place that size. You're sitting there trying to figure out what
to do with all that space. The couple of times we have played out there, it
did go better than I figured it would.
RC: I read that you could tell a lot about someone from his or her album
collection. What would we find out about you from yours?
MC: Let's see [turning around]. It's mostly British--The La's; the obligatory
Led Zepplin CD or two; The Kinks, which I listen to a lot; Tull's all mixed in
here. You're more than welcome to look.
RC: It's not even alphabetized. That's a sign of some kind, too.
MC: Actually, it was until I moved. It started out being alphabetized--the
Allman Brothers, then Bach, the Beach Boys, Beatles, oh yeah, Big Star, Billy
Bragg. I'm missing a couple of his that usually sit right here.
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