FINE YOUNG CANNIBALS’ ROLAND GIFT | INTERVIEW
As both hit albums from these 80s UK smart-pop icons get the fancy pre-Christmas reissues they deserve, David Nobakht takes a deep dive and speaks to FYC vocalist Roland Gift about his life and times.
Re-released by London Records just in time for the Christmas stocking, both albums by 1980s hitmakers Fine Young Cannibals have been newly remastered from the original analogue tapes, and both sound amazing. Available on coloured vinyl or bonus-crammed CD editions, FYC’s self-titled 1985 debut album adds 29 BBC sessions, demos, remixes and live tracks; The Raw And The Cooked, released in 1989, a mere 22.
The story of Fine Young Cannibals is one of defiance, massive success, mismanagement and implosion. It left us with two much-loved albums from a band many wish had stuck around for a bit longer. On a wet and very windy December day, on the phone with an annoying intermittent signal, FYC ’s Roland Gift spoke about his time in the group.
Karl Whitney’s Hit Factories: A Journey Through The Industrial Cities Of British Pop makes the strong case that some of the best British music of the past few decades came from places that suffered the most from government policy. Gift vividly remembers the damage the Cod War did to the fishing industry in Hull in 1975: “There were many people on the streets drinking. It was grim.”
His father having been part of the Windrush generation, Gift’s family and siblings moved to Hull from Birmingham at the start of the 1970s. His English mother ran a second-hand clothes shop in Grafton Street; his father was a craftsman. Otis Redding’s Otis Blue is an album the young Roland cherished, yet as a teenager, punk came to town at just the right time for him – it’s sometimes said he was the “first black punk in Hull.”
“I saw The Clash in Leeds in 1978 and at the Music Machine in London,” Gift remembers. “I got to know their road manager Johnny Green, who asked me to do backdrops for them. What drew me to The Clash, was that they played reggae. They covered [Junior Murvin’s] Police And Thieves and those pictures taken of rioting in Notting Hill on the sleeve of their first album resonated with me as well, as I went to Notting Hill Carnival at that time. What I got from punk was the attitude. If you want to do something, just get up and do it.”
When not attending a drama group at Hull Community Theatre Workshop, Gift sang with punk band Blue Kitchen, then Rock Against Racism-affiliated ska-punks Akrylykz, on vocals and tenor sax. John Peel gave Akrylykz’s debut single Smart Boy airplay, and they supported The Clash, as well as Two-Tone favourites The Specials and The Beat. “In the drama group that I had attended I had sang on stage. I initially played sax with Akrylykz. It was a promoter that suggested to the band that I become the singer,” recalls Gift, who worked hard with his voice to get the unique combination he is now known for: the emotional vocal range of Al Green meeting the powerful delivery of Elvis.
Circa 1983, in Birmingham, The Beat split in two when vocalists Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger packed their bags and formed General Public, leaving guitarist Andrew Cox and bassist David Steele without a band. Deciding to carry on, an ad on MTV for a singer whose voice could “affect you” found the pair flooded with hundreds of demo cassettes of varying quality and suitability. Cox and Steele then remembered the guy who had sung with Akrylykz, themselves now defunct, and in due course they had their singer, Roland Gift.
The name Fine Young Cannibals was taken from a similarly-titled film from 1960 in which Robert Wagner plays a Chet Baker-like character. FYC would draw more on soul and jazz than the reggae and ska that had influenced Akrylykz and The Beat. “There was nothing contrived, it was just the different combination of people within FYC that made us sound different to what had come before,” Gift says.
London Records and Sony became interested in signing the band. “We were keener to get a deal with London than Sony – London was less corporate. Everything was on one floor, doors were open, and there was also Roger Ames.” Ames had a passion for music, nurturing The Redskins, Bananarama and Bronski Beat (plus Jimmy Somerville’s solo career) around this period, and later signing New Order and Asian Dub Foundation. A video of FYC playing Johnny Come Home was shown on youth TV show of the moment, The Tube, nudging London into giving the trio a deal; on being released as their debut single in 1985, it was a Top 10 hit.
Not only were the band musically meticulous, they backed this up with their image. An era stylistically dominated by mullets, stonewashed denim, shoulder pads and different variations of Mr Byrite Michael Jackson-style leather jackets, most bands cringe when looking back at what they wore in the 1980s. FYC, though, have escaped any sort of sartorial embarrassment as their classic 50s style has never dated.
From early on, it became apparent that Gift, Cox and Steele didn’t suffer fools gladly, or especially enjoyed the jumping-through-hoops rigmarole of promotion. Their live TV performances were energetic and confident; being asked questions by glove puppets was clearly less their bag, likewise award shows. Gift thinks back to a flashpoint incident, attending the MIDEM Festival of Hits in 1986 for Johnny Come Home.
“We had been cooped up in our dressing room all day with no food at all, just loads of beer. The organisers thought that we would just walk out after eating, so no food was provided and the event was unexpectedly changing into something like a Eurovision Song Contest kind of scenario. I think it was Andy’s decision to custard pie the winner.”
After some yogurt was thrown at the singer of Matt Bianco from close range during a stage presentation, things turned ugly. “We were called animals and had people running a finger across their throats. We made it back to the dressing room in one piece and had to get tooled up with chair legs by breaking a chair for our own protection.”
When it came to making their debut album, Robin Millar – who had worked with Sade on Diamond Life the year before – was called in to help produce. Fine Young Cannibals was released against a backdrop of race riots, mass unemployment, football violence and ongoing conflict in Northern Ireland. Album opener Johnny Come Home is a Ken Loach drama condensed into a soul-infused pop belter about alcoholism, runaways and homelessness in Britain: this was the era of ‘cardboard city’, the colloquial name for the Bullring underpass near Waterloo Station on account of the sheer volume of homeless people.
Move To Work reflected on the difficulty in finding and keeping a job in 1985, Like A Stranger addressed prison rehabilitation and Couldn’t Care More was a dig at those hungry for war as long as it was not on their own doorstep. Blue, the LP’s second single, transmits unalloyed disdain with Thatcher’s government, then halfway through its second term. “Government has done me wrong, I’m mad about that / And it makes me feel like I don’t belong, I’m mad about that … Would be better if I never ever had to live with you, Blue.” Eighties political pop on par with The The’s Heartland or Tramp The Dirt Down by Elvis Costello, Gift now ponders: “We were ‘singles band of the year’ on one of the bigger radio stations – they never played Blue though!”
It was not all social commentary on this album, with a cover of Suspicious Minds – by American songwriter Mark James, and best known for being sang by Elvis Presley – also featuring, and also a hit single for FYC. On A Promise and Time Isn’t Kind relate to love and loss, with the group’s seamless and timeless fusion of Stax and pop continuing on Don’t Ask Me To Choose and Funny How Love Is, featuring ex-Beat saxophonist Saxa. Soulful, sociopolitical pop is one way to describe the first FYC album, and its success started the ball rolling for a level of fame that later proved a double-edged sword.
Filmmaker Barry Levinson approached FYC, via their US manager, to appear in and write songs for his 1987 comedy Tin Men. The results – Good Thing, Tell Me What and As Hard As It Is – feature Londonbeat on backing vocals, and would appear on the forthcoming second FYC album. Next up for one-time drama group attendee Gift was a part in Sammy And Rosie Get Laid: Hanif Kureshi’s screenplay, brought to the big screen by Stephen Frears and swiping at Thatcherism as London imploded. “I had liked Frears’ earlier films, especially Gumshoe. There was the political aspect of Sammy And Rosie Get Laid too,” Gift says.
Cox and Steele stayed busy by scoring a dancefloor hit: Tired Of Getting Pushed Around as Two Men, A Drum Machine And A Trumpet, given the remix treatment by Detroit techno legend Derrick May. Steele and Cox also produced songs for Wee Papa Girl Rappers and Pop Will Eat Itself, and contributed I Can Take Anything to the Planes, Trains And Automobiles film soundtrack. Gift played Christine Keeler’s ex-lover, jazz scenester Johnny Edgecombe, in Profumo Affair fictionalisation Scandal. Says Gift: “Being in Scandal was comparable to being a session musician. I turned up, did my bit and went – there was no hanging around on set. It was different to Sammy And Rosie Got Laid.”
For their second album, Fine Young Cannibals wanted Prince as producer, and discovered he was not available for hire. “It’s a bit like asking for Elvis or Phil Spector. Obviously, Prince is too busy, and we are not really beautiful girls,” is how Cox described the rejection to Rolling Stone. A more than worthy associate was willing, though: Paisley Park Records producer David Rifkin, aka David Z, and a former member of Funkytown disco hitmakers Lipps Inc. This meant FYC got their trip to Minneapolis after all. Lest one think overly fondly of Prince’s Paisley Park, like a psychedelic pop version of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, in reality it is “just a normal looking building. We didn’t get to meet Prince, just saw some of his guitars in the studio where we were recording. It was good working with David Z.”
I’m Not Satisfied, It’s OK (It’s Alright) and She Drives Me Crazy were worked on there. The latter was a huge hit in the UK and US alike when released as a single in January 1989, a falsetto/guitar/beat combination adding up to something Prince might have been enviable of. Chosen title The Raw And The Cooked was taken from a book by cultural anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, perhaps also relating to the initial songs recorded for Barry Levinson and those devised later in Paisley Park.
Released in early 1989, The Raw… enjoyed number one status in Britain, America, Canada and Australia, stayed in the UK chart for many months and sold millions worldwide. The subtle use of modern beats mixed in with the bands soulful edge was a deadly combination. After She Drives Me Crazy, five further singles were released from the album: Good Thing, I’m Not Satisfied, I’m Not The Man I Used To Be, Don’t Look Back and It’s OK (It’s Alright). A cover of the Buzzcocks’ Ever Fallen In Love, first recorded for Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild in 1986, also appears here. The doo-wop vibed Tell Me What and As Hard As It Is could have easily been hit singles as well, not forgetting the futuristic Detroit techno-meets-Curtis Mayfield sound of Don’t Let It Get You Down.
Arthur Baker, Mark Moore of S’Express, Prince Paul, Smith & Mighty and Soul II Soul’s Jazzy B and Nellee Hooper have all deconstructed and reconstructed FYC tracks. “This was very much Andy and David’s department,” says Gift, who cites the Todd Terry version of Everything But The Girl’s Missing as a rare example of when the remix is actually better than the original.
The cliché of an album playing out like a greatest hits collection is very much the case with The Raw & The Cooked, which prioritised songs of love and regret over social commentary compared to FYC’s debut. Still, I’m Not Satisfied reflected on the relentless daily grind of being stuck in a dead-end job to survive and Don’t Look Back has escaping to a better town with more opportunities at its heart. Though the trio won Brit Awards for Best British Group and Best British Album in 1990, Margaret Thatcher’s on-video appearance at the ceremony – not forgetting her rendition of How Much Is That Doggie In The Window – was more than enough to make FYC give back their trophies.
Most bands have to release six albums to break America, on average, and tour relentlessly too. Fine Young Cannibals had done it with their second album, hitting the American circuit once on each occasion, without breaking a sweat. Yeah, you could now have dinner with Madonna and Hollywood stars wanted to hang out with you, but with this huge amount of success came problems.
“The label and management were not prepared for the level of success that we had,” says Gift. “We all lost our minds,” is how Steele described the band’s eventual demise to the Guardian’s Dave Simpson in 2004. Their UK manager left after discovering Ocean Colour Scene, who he thought might be the new Beatles, and his US counterpart took overall responsibility – he was struggling with drug addiction, however, and had a divisive management style. Could things have been better with a different style of management? “I think it could have been,” Gift thinks. “It would have been good to have done a third album. Divide and rule is all about power and control and it can kill off something that is good.”
By 1992, the band was pretty much over, having relocated to New York to try and make a new album. “We became obsessed with selling more copies of the next album than what we had done with The Raw And The Cooked,” Gift says. “That enjoyment of just making music had gone.” A final single was recorded in 1996: The Flame, released to help promote best-of collection The Finest and the sound of a band going out with a bang rather than a whimper.
Gift, though spending more time with his family, continued to take film and TV roles, and in 2002 released a self-titled album that measured up to any of his previous work. That same year, Andrew Cox collaborated with Yukari Fujiu for an album, Volume, as Cribabi, and in 2004 David Steele hooked up with New Orleans singer Jonte Short for the R&B-flavoured Fried, who released one album. Of late, both seem to have disappeared off the radar.
Roland Gift’s recent musical radio drama Return To Vegas, about a successful musician who ends up falling on hard times, is the first taste of the projects – new music and more radio drama – he has in the pipeline. As for the legacy of Fine Young Cannibals, Gift says: “We wanted to make music that would still be listened to 25 years later, inspired by music that came 25 years earlier.” They succeeded.
words DAVID NOBAKHT photo GRAHAM TUCKER [colour band shot]