NINE BLACK ALPS
Sam Forrest - he of Nine Black Alps and about a zillion other things - is one of my favourite living songwriters. During my time on staff at NME, there were few bands I liked more than his, and as the years have passed, so has my appreciation for the evolving craft of his songwriting. I think he’s writing better songs than ever, which, by-and-large, isn’t something I think is the way it goes with most musicians.
Nine Black Alps’ inclusion in ‘Indie Heaven’ is a bit of a cheat. The band still exists, though it’s been six-years now since fifth album Candy for the Clowns. Still, I wanted to know more about the window in which so many thought Nine Black Alps would be the biggest band in the world, and shine whatever light this website is capable of shining upon a good man and a great songwriter…
Hey Sam. I grew up in Doncaster. You grew up, a train stop away, in York. How did you find your way to grunge, indie rock, punk and ultimately writing and performing songs?
“Most of my time growing up in York was spent either climbing trees or pretending to be in The Beatles. Then my older brother introduced me to the world of metal. This meant that I spent my early adolescence with a mullet while wearing a denim jacket with lots of Metallica and Iron Maiden patches. From there I slowly realised that most metal music was slightly bro-heavy, so I ended up getting into ‘weirder’ bands like the Pixies and Sonic Youth. Most people in my school liked Nirvana, but I preferred bands like Hole and Babes In Toyland. I never considered myself a punker. The closest thing was probably buying a few records by Huggy Bear and Slant 6. Seeing Babes In Toyland live in Bradford when I was 16 gave me the first real desire to be a performing musician. I ended up learning to play bass because my brother chose electric guitar first.”
This is all well and good, but more importantly, did you ever go to Jorvik Viking Centre?
“I don’t think I’ve been to Jorvik Viking Centre since I was about seven-years old. I was probably underwhelmed as it didn’t have any battles. But I have nothing against the Viking culture in general.”
Too many peasants and chickens, not enough bloody battles. Tell me how you came to Manchester and ultimately forming Nine Black Alps…
“I left York because the band that I was in - The Halcyon Band - split up. This meant that I decided to go to a bigger city where there might be more ‘alternative’ music. I couldn’t afford London, didn’t want to go to Leeds, so I went to Manchester. I arrived in the middle of winter and lived in a tiny flat by myself with no job and no money. But I had an eight-track cassette tape machine, so I made up lots of songs. One day I went to a Yeah Yeah Yeahs show at Manchester Academy and was asked by an old friend - Gaz - from York to join his and his friend Ilana’s ‘punk band’ as a guitar player. It turned out that the band didn’t have any songs so I volunteered some of mine. This band fell apart, but the people that were left ended up forming the group that became Nine Black Alps. We all used to go to the Star & Garter in Manchester which was the indie place to go if you wanted to hear Cat Power or The Flaming Lips rather than Oasis or The Stone Roses.”
As someone who has been to Manchester plenty, that’s not always the easiest thing to do.
“We didn’t have any definite ideas of what music we wanted to make. Later on we were given the Nirvana tag, but in the early days we’d be using more contemporary bands like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, At the Drive-In, Queens of the Stone Age, Dandy Warhols and even Interpol as reference points.”
From the outside looking in, the Akoustik Anarkhy stuff seemed so exciting. You had a close association with those dudes. What was working with them like?
“We used to practice in a room next to some of the people from Akoustik Anarkhy and they promoted gigs around Manchester. They heard us through the wall, liked what they heard, and gave us our first show. We’d only been together a couple of months. Akoustik Anarkhy held lots of parties at their house in south Manchester. The first time I went round, the house was full of people sat cross-legged, smoking weed, listening to Neil Young’s [1978 classic] Comes A Time very loud through a knackered record player. They were very supportive of Nine Black Alps, and I don’t think that we would have had any of our early success without their support. While many ‘scene’ people can be creepy, Akoustik Anarkhy were always hyper-friendly, fun and totally about the music.”
Nine Black Alps had a lot of critical attention pretty much from the off. I can say this as someone who worked for the big music magazine of the age - we thought you were going to be an extremely big and popular band. Why do you think people took to you so quickly?
“I think the support that we had in Manchester was a big factor in how we got signed. Everybody from Akoustik Anarkhy to Dave Cooper at Melodic really championed us. This meant that we didn’t have to do anything ‘uncool’ like sending out demo tapes. Plus we were doing something different from most UK bands at the time. It felt like bands were either doing the la-di-da Libertines thing or the pseudo-angular Franz Ferdinand thing. But our music was more influenced by less perky bands that fit in anywhere between Black Sabbath and Teenage Fanclub. There was still a bit of a post-Radiohead hangover at the time, and I think that a lot of bands were guilty of over-thinking things. The fact that we were all pasty, ill-looking young men with alternative haircuts also fit in with a ready demographic of certain music publications too.”
Speaking of which, what are your memories of dealing with the music press at that time?
“It was mostly embarrassing when music journalists started saying nice things about us. I never felt comfortable doing interviews. I was a very unconfident person, and I got defensive talking about myself. I quickly learned that sarcasm never works in print. Our reviews went from cautiously favourable to witheringly negative quite fast and I tried to avoid reading them. I remember an album review that focused more on our Facebook page than the record. This made me realise that I’d been doing the whole music thing completely wrong. But I’m being a hypocrite here as I spend 99% of my time slagging off other bands, so I shouldn’t be too harsh about those lovely music journalists.”
Can you talk about 'Cosmopolitan', your first single after signing to Island in 2004? I love that song, but it also felt like an extremely introspective, thoughtful song within an era where men weren't always willing to expose themselves like that.
“Thanks! I came up with the guitar idea when I was trying to write a Sleater-Kinney song. The lyrics were written after flipping through a copy of Cosmopolitan magazine. The magazine seemed to make endless demands of its readers about how they should lose weight, look prettier, earn more and be healthier. I tried writing a song that included these themes and brought them to a nice suicidal conclusion in the chorus.”
Rob Schnapf recorded your debut album, 2005’s Everything Is, out in LA. How was that? And did he tell you any good Elliott Smith stories?
“I was a massive fan of records that Rob had recorded, like Elliott Smith’s Figure 8 and Beck’s Mellow Gold. We had the freedom to pick which producer to make our first record with. I spent a day listening to all the recent modern rock records, and Rob’s production of the first Vines record sounded rich and heavy without being glossy. He was great fun to work with, and he was very protective of us all too. I didn’t ask him about Elliott Smith. Our recording session was so soon after Elliott’s death [on October 21st, 2003] that I didn’t want to create any more pain by being too much of a fanboy. I met up with Rob recently and he’s still a lovely man. Not only is he recording lots of cool stuff like Dilly Dally and Kurt Vile, but he also has an automated fart machine in his studio.”
A band I must get onto ‘Indie Heaven’ are your old mates The Longcut. Do you know what they’re up to these days?
“I recently emailed Lee [Gale] from The Longcut to see whether my record label, Desert Mine, could digitally release the band’s recent rarities album. Still not sure if this is happening. But they are all doing well I think. Mine and Hayley Hutchinson’s band The Sorry Kisses were lucky enough to have The Longcut being our backing band for a Marc Riley 6Music session a few years ago. Plus both Nine Black Alps and The Longcut were slagged off by that div from The Courteeners, so we are clearly doing something right.”
Oh man, I love Hayley Hutchinson's art. Can you tell her for me? Thanks.
“I did and she said thanks. I’ve known Hayley from when we were both ‘on the scene’ in York thousands of years ago. We’ve got two bands together - The Sorry Kisses and Howling Sludge. I would be extremely grateful if you could inform your readership about this fact.”
Getting back to NBA, with the hindsight of age, how do you view signing with Island?
“Going with Island Records gave us the freedom to work with excellent producers like Rob Schnapf, plus I’ve now got a house full of broken guitars that I wouldn’t have been able to afford otherwise. By the time that our second album came around [2007’s Love/Hate], everything got very complicated. It seemed to require at least 20 people to make a simple decision, and I ended up feeling very alienated from our music as a result. To be honest, I think our experience at Island would have been similar if we had gone to any of the other big record labels. Plus we weren’t cool enough to be on any of the independent labels.”
You made Love/Hate with Dave Sardy. What was that like?
“I wanted to work with Dave as I liked his band, Barkmarket, and we had a good conversation about The Beatles’ White Album before we started recording. But we started working with Dave at the point where things started going against us. I was also feeling fairly jaded after two years of touring. Some of the tracks on the Love/Hate album like ‘Heavier Than Water’ turned out great, but others, like ‘Happiness & Satisfaction’ for example, strayed from what I had imagined. I’ll take most of the blame for what ended up being a fairly divisive album. At that time, I was mostly listening to Judee Sill and didn’t want to make another straight-ahead rock record. It’s a shame as Dave was great at getting the sonics right, but I wasn’t in the right headspace by the time that the album’s sessions were over.”
When you left Island, did you ever consider calling NBA a day? I know the answer already, obviously. I know few people who are as consumed by music as you are, but try answering the question anyway…
“If anything, I felt better about doing music after leaving Island. I’d felt so alienated and embarrassed by the whole experience of being a ‘rockstar’ that I wanted to be able to create music in freedom. This obviously came at the cost of having no kind of promotional power. But all that big record deals really get you are slightly larger dressing rooms and marginally more polished records, so it’s not that much of a loss. I’ll keep doing music whether I want to or not as it’s free, invisible, environmentally-friendly and you can do it in your sleep.”
Which leads nicely onto… You're in so many bands and have had so many projects. NBA have always been the fulcrum of it all. How do you decide what's a Nine Black Alps song and what isn't it?
“If it’s loud, simple and direct, then it’s usually a Nine Black Alps song. This was the original idea of the band, as I just wanted to have a powerful 30 minute live set. Plus any song that is slightly out of my vocal range and gives me a headache to sing is also a Nine Black Alps song.”
Do you keep in touch with Martin [Cohen, bass]? He left the band in 2011. What's he up to these days?
“I saw Martin last year at an Amusement Parks on Fire show. He’s now a nutritional therapist or something like that. He lives in Manchester, while I live over in north Yorkshire, so we don’t really get to hang out or anything. It’s the same with the rest of the men from Nine Black Alps. James [Galley, drums] lives in south Manchester and I email him about once every two months to ask for the Nine Black Alps Twitter password. David [Jones, guitar] lives on the edge of Manchester and we have regular WhatsApp messaging sessions where we discuss bands like Maximo Park and The Pigeon Detectives. Karl [Astbury], our new-ish bass player, never responds to my messages. I should note at this juncture that we’re not a ‘defunct indie band’, as we’re actively at work on our hugely anticipated next album - tentatively due for release in spring 2047.”
Oh yes. Not quite in ‘Indie Heaven’ yet, but I don’t have the time to run a website called ‘Indie Limbo’ as well. Okay, real talk. You love the Beatles. What are the ten best Beatles songs, according to Sam?
“‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ - My preferred song to play when soundchecking guitar."
‘All My Loving’ - 100% proof that Paul McCartney was last century’s Mozart.
‘Girl’ - Squashed Lennon breathing anti-chorus sigh.
‘And Your Bird Can Sing’ - A nightmare to play on bass and sing at the same time.
‘I Need You’ - Hyper-sad George song that still has the perky Beatles swing-thing.
‘Sexy Sadie’ - John’s spiralling piano chords.
‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ - Fairly sure that I don’t need to say anything about this.
‘Anytime At All’ - What the bass does in the verse against the guitar chords.
‘For No One’ - My preferred song to play on piano.
‘I Feel Fine’ - Makes me feel like I’m five-years old.”
A great selection. Before we return to our tedious lives, tell me about After Tomorrow, the home recorded album you released this year. There's some lovely songs on there…
“I recorded the album as soon as lockdown came into effect. I’d been playing in a band called Sewage Farm with some handsome men called Danny [Trew Barton, bass] and Danny [Hirst, drums]. As such things are no longer allowed, I decided to record some of the old songs I’d never recorded. I have thousands of songs that have to be recorded before I die, otherwise future generations will never know my true genius. I recorded, mixed and even mastered the whole of After Tomorrow in about 20 days. That’s the extent of my sales pitch.”