For a real album to have a true heart, it must have started somewhere, but where that is can be hard to know, and fascinating to track down. LOVERS AT THE GUN CLUB started its life in unusual circumstances, as I discovered when I began to think about its source (I only work here!).
I was recording for a Sir Vincent Lone album (my alter ego) at the studio I nearly always use, the brilliant Bryn Derwen on the edge of Snowdonia, Wales. It had been decided that I, co-producer David Wrench and studio owner Laurie Gane would go to the Douglas Hotel in the nearby town of Bethesda after the day's recording. The 'Dougie' is one of the world's truly eccentric pubs – we were due to meet some Super Furry Animals there and drink Marston's Pedigree.
On my own in the recording area of the studio, about 7pm, I dropped a tennis ball which I had brought with me to amuse my white terrier Basil. It rolled under the Hammond, so I crawled under it to get the ball back. I heard Laurie open the door, quickly look around, step back out and lock the door. Before I could shout out he was gone, and I then heard the car start and knew he and David were on their way to the pub. That part of the studio had no phone, and I had to face up to the fact that it was unlikely Laurie would return to the studio that night.
Down at the pub, David and Laurie assumed that I'd decided to walk to the pub, down through the silver birch woods and across the River Ogwen bridge – I love this walk, but they've done it a million times. When I didn't turn up they assumed I'd been waylaid by another pub (a reasonable assumption). Thus it was that I spent the night on my own in the studio – luckily, a serene and beautiful space. I began to think of dear departed friends, in particular, an Irish Canadian transsexual professional killer called Shannon Doyle with whom I was close friends for some years (see tribute page to Shannon on her death in the CD booklet of my album FAIRYTALES FOR HARDMEN).
Shannon was a formidable personality with a simply sensational turn of phrase: once she picked me up from an event in West Virginia, USA, to drive back to Washington DC with me. As we drove on a warm evening through the Shenandoah Valley, by the river, we passed through a hamlet where a group of boy teenagers were having their arms, outstretched in awkward fascist-style salutes, adjusted by an older lad who was clearly regarded as an authority on such matters. Shannon slowed the car to a near stand-still and the group looked over at us suspiciously. Loud enough so they could hear and with a look of regal disdain, Shannon said, in a hillbilly sneer:
'teenagers practising fascist salutes
They got the tattoos but they don't got the boots'
As the lads looked doubtfully at their footwear Shannon laughed and we drove off.
Shannon told me some terrible tales of twisted sexual betrayal and revenge which took place at a gun club she used to belong to in Louisiana. These hideous stories were recounted with the amused nonchalance of someone talking about an off-colour remark made in the bar of a Surrey golf club. (Not that I would know personally, but you can imagine...).
As I quietly remembered these times, I took out my guitar and wrote the song LOVERS AT THE GUN CLUB honing it through the dark hours. When I finished it I noticed that the song had a feminine tone but a masculine voice, that the voice needed to be one of raw menace and dark amusement – only my friend Johnny Dowd would do it justice.
I think that song sets the tone of the album – I can't talk about all the songs – life's too short! But there are two songs about one car – THE DENT IN THE FENDER AND THE WHEEL OF FATE and WOMAN IN A CAR. When my father died, I asked my mother one day what had become of dad's car, an old yellow Lada which he loved.
'Oh, it's still parked round the corner' she said.
I suggested we should perhaps think about getting rid of it as neither of us drove.
'Well, actually, I sometimes go round there and just sit in it for a while' she said quietly.
Eventually she DID get rid of it, and, a year later, walking on my own in rain through St Leonards on the south coast of England, I was stunned to see it crumpled in a car scrapyard. I went to a nearby pub called The Rocket, and wrote these two songs – that's how songwriting works - sometimes.