MCLF - I was reading someone talking about the unfashionable status of football amongst musicians in the 1980s, I can't remember who it was* - anyway, they were talking about seeing David Gedge and the Wedding Present tying football scarves around their guitars and being like 'fucking hell! a band who admit to liking football!'
*I remembered after the interview it was former NME editor and football broadcaster Danny Kelly
JR: There was few, but if they talked about, no one was that interested! - What people used to say about it was 'When I grew up, I used to be a fan of such and such' and that was how the conversation would go. There was very rarely anyone who would say 'I still watch the games.' I think it was the football fanzines really, that began to change it, When Saturday Comes and all that, because it started to join the two cultures together - It wasn't Gazza and Italia 90, or New Order - there was a grassroots thing going on...
MCLF: Yeah, that was the mainstream take up of something that was already there?
Yeah, I think the cultures around the time of punk seemed totally opposite, but as time went on it got more blurred and seemed to join up again.Now what's really weird, is the footballers, all have punk rock haircuts don't they! Only took 40 years! (laughs)
MCLF: Beckham and the Crass t-shirt was probably the most absurd example...
JR: I get the feeling he probably knows who they are...
MCLF: really?
JR: he's a bit more tuned in... I used to laugh at that but I think he knows they're a cool punk band - he knows who they are but not what they are - To be fair, you'd see him at gigs, when he was living in Manchester, he would go to gigs, but the one you'd see at most gigs was Gary Neville, Red Nev - he'd be turning up at gigs all over the place.
MCLF: He seems quite switched on does Gary Neville...
JR: He's a pretty cool guy, he's doing stuff now, with the virus and that, Obviously, he's super-loaded and lives out in Cheshire somewhere, but he seems to understand people a bit more than some of them...
MCLF: I was going to ask you about that actually - Are there any footballers who you've admired for their ethos? Any footballers who you think stand for a bit more than the average player? It's quite hard to think of many when you compare it to music...
JR: It's not their job though is it?!
MCLF: No, but some people would argue that it's the job of a musician to play a nice melody and sing in tune, but there's plenty of musician who stand for a bit more... Joe Strummer and so and so on...
JR: I don't think musicians have to be social commentators either, but when you get one, it's fantastic innit? When you get a Joe Strummer, who didn't present manifestos, he wasn't telling anyone how to live, he was just admitting his own confusion about the world, about how he wished it could get better, but he didn't have a clue how, he never said he knew how to make it better, and that I think is the best kind of politics, I think when people do songs that are earnest manifestos, they seem a bit fake to me sometimes, but when someone says 'the world is fucked but I haven't got a clue how to fix it' that's probably close to the truth - I mean, there ARE some super smart musicians, who are really clued up and listen to people...
Footballers though, 80% of them are basically working class lads who happen to be really good with their feet and have no idea how that happened and end up getting paid stupid amounts of money -how can they have an answer to the world? Saying that, there are some - I met Cantona, he's a switched on guy. The Farm did the Hillsborough 96 tour and they got me in to compere it with Mick Jones from the Clash - We did a gig in Lyon supporting the Stone Roses - who were great, even though they're Man United fans, they were totally into the Hillsborough 96 thing - Cantona turned up, to be a guest and he was really switched on. His favourite band is the Clash, he loved the Roses too and as you'd expect, you could tell, he was far smarter than the average footballer, he was really into all this stuff and wanted to try and make a difference.
I think probably the saddest thing about Cantona is, he's just gone into this...sort of... he just doesn't do very much at all these days....
MCLF: Yeah - He's sort of an eccentric recluse now it seems...
JR: ...yeah, and I like it, he's entertaining, but I think for one thing, he would have made a great manager, because, maybe he wouldn't understand about how to set a team up, but like Ferguson, he'd walk in the dressing room and no fucker would argue with him, he's about 6'6 - he's enormous and he has a real presence. Or, he could have gone into a political or social role, fronting things, without, y'know, going round, looking like a saint - that's the thing everyone who's got any kind of celebrity status is scared of, that virtue signalling thing, where you have to pretend you're a saint, going around looking like the better person - which is why I say the Joe Strummer thing, admitting your own confusion is better, because no one has any answers - even the fucking people with the answers haven't got the answers (laughs)
There aren't many in football - there's a few, Pat Nevin was always cool, good on his music - I don't expect them to have answers. I thought that thing they did did the other week, putting their hands in their pockets, paying for stuff, was brilliant. I thought they were unfairly picked on as well. I thought it was a deflection from the likes of Philip Green with his yachts bigger than the whole of Blackpool put together and his stinking wealth, they were just trying to avoid people like him, the Richard Bransons, getting the criticism, 'lets pick on the working class lads who make money' -what about the golfers, the rugby union players? And credit to the Liverpool captain, he was already doing it, they'd been speaking already, the week before, saying 'we have to do our bit'
What is their job? - It's to stay fit, be ready to entertain, give people something to get impassioned about, something that connects people together and gives them something more to think about than misery and death. You don't expect footballers to be down the local hospital! People I know who are nurses say 'We don't want a load of fucking footballers in the corridors (laughs) or pop stars... they've got their job, we've got ours but there are things they could do to help' - and one of them was using their wealth to help buy PPE so I thought that thing they did was cool and they deserved credit for it.
Most footballers don't earn that sort of wealth, Blackpool players don't!
MCLF: I wrote about that recently, it's like it's something we never talk about - in all the time I've watched sport, the only time I've ever heard someone say it clearly was on Channel 5 baseball in the middle of the night and the presenter is saying 'Don't you think it's insane that someone gets paid 58 million dollars to hit a ball with a stick' and the analyst replies, 'don't you think it's even more insane that paying a man 58 million dollars to hit a ball with a stick is hobby, a bit on the side for the people who own the team?'
JR: Yeah, it's that deflection thing again, Nobody's asking why the people who own Man United are worth billions of pounds, they're just pointing at the players and the players are just getting paid what they're given. I don't think it's right, I think the nurses should get paid more, the front line workers, the lorry drivers, everybody - I've always thought that, society should be far more equal but if someone's offered more money, they're going to take it, it's the person offering the money, that's where the problem lies, those people are so rich, it's sick innit?
MCLF: You've written really eloquently over the years about the changes to the music industry and the challenges new bands face getting paid in a digital era - do you see any parallels with the football world? Do you worry about the financial future of football?
JR: Firstly, post virus, I think we're going to be in a very different world, I think there's two things going to happen - there will a be a move to try and make the world better and that'll be the same battle it always is... and the Trumps will still win and it'll be really frustrating, I think the big companies that can survive the crash, which will include the big football clubs, will be fine, they've got the money, the international reach - they'll be dented, but not too affected. The smaller clubs... it's going to be difficult, you won't get the big wages in division 2. It's going to become, much more semi professional, maybe, like we were talking about earlier, some of those smaller clubs are going to have to become more part of the town, run by the council, as more of a town facility with a semi professional team that plays in whatever league until they can build it back up again, because there's going to be an almighty recession after this - It might not last that long, because money moves in a circle - it's not disappeared, it's just all frozen - people are going to have to be patient, it's not going to be the same.
In terms of parallels with music, it's going to be more or less the same - but I've never been one of those people who thinks, just cos I've made a record, I should get paid a huge wage - I realise my music has a limited appeal - people should pay for music, because it costs us to make the music, but I don't try to make a profit out of it, I try to survive making music, I'm talking as someone who's probably at an average level as a musician, I'm in a cult band, there's enough people who like what I do to sustain it to make another record and of course, I'd like to have more money to make my life easier, but I don't see it as an expectation, I don't see that society is duty bound to support me as a creative person - there's so many people creative now, I think everyone should be creative, but you can't have a society where everyone's getting paid to make music or paint, it's too fucking difficult! - Maybe what what people realise now, in this situation is it's people on the frontline who should be getting paid properly.
We have our role to play as musicians, I'm not demeaning that, some of the people who've bought our records will be using them to escape from the misery of the moment, but I don't think we should be expecting handouts, there's far more important things for a society to do about than paying me to sit around writing weird songs.
MCLF: Have you found this an interesting time creatively?
Well, weirdly... because I'm forced into my backroom in my flat, I can't rehearse, I can't go into a room with other musicians, we're doing it all online. It's really odd. I'm co-writing songs with people all over the world, I send someone a piece of music, or they send me a drum loop and I'm building bits of music out of it, we go back and forwards, I've got about 12 projects on. It's not a band. I can't tour, I can't go anywhere, I'm just doing all these different things, and it's interesting creatively. Bands are great, but it's not the only way you can make music - on this laptop we're talking on now, I've got software that's like a 128 track studio and I've got a really good mic - I can't make any music I want, in a tiny little room and this is the way music was going anyway... We've been forced to go ten years into the future in ten days!
MCLF: I'm not being sycophantic, but I really liked the arrangements you did on the album with Patrick Jones - that kind of orchestral style is not something I'd heard, it's very different from the Membranes...
I'm doing a lot of that now, I've got a whole set up for it, I mean, I don't know how to play strings! I'm a punk rock musician, I can hear the music in my head and I do everything with two fingers to work it out, like Clint Mansell does, who used to be in Pop Will Eat Itself - he's one of the top paid film score writers in the world and he's fucking brilliant. He can't play keyboards, he plonks it out with two fingers and gets a string section to play it but he makes amazing music. That's what punk rock was, punk rock was about ideas - I'm not running down people who CAN play, when you watch someone who's a brilliant cello player, or violin player, it's mind blowing and I appreciate their talent, but I will never have that talent to play like that cos I'm too clumsy, but I can hear the music, in my head and if I can hear it in my head, I'll be able to work it out and plonk it out, with two fingers, very slowly but I'll get it done - that's what punk rock taught me - you don't have to be scared, you can create, without the hurdles in the way, virtuoso musicians are amazing, but it's not a barrier to create stuff if you're not one.
The stuff with Patrick was like that, I wrote a lot of that on an iPhone, I can write that music and it's amazing to have that freedom to be able to do that. I'm writing stuff with him right now... It's odd, I hadn't met him till after that record came out... He's exactly like his brother (Nicky Wire, Manic Street Preachers) same mannerisms, same passion.
MCLF: Yeah, them clapping us off?
JR... yeah, they all stayed and gave us a standing ovation! It was amazing really when you think about it.
MCLF: It was.... I suppose it makes it all the worse the multi millionaires who run that club putting their staff out to furlough and then, to be fair to their fans, having to row back on it, because the Liverpool fans rose up and said 'fuck that, this is not what we do!'
JR: Well, it's that idea of 'what we do' or 'what we are' - and the fans see the club as something quite different from the owners, the fans see it as almost some kind of socialist football utopia don't they (laughs...) which it isn't, cos it's a big business. I don't think the American owners really got that bit, but they did, to be fair to them, as soon as they saw the response, and they could have carried on, it wouldn't have affected their business, people would have bitched about them, but they'd have still gone, they'd have still made their money when football started up again, when they realised it was not in the spirit of what they owned, they reversed their decision...
MCLF: The cynical version would be that when they realised it would save them £1 million but cost them £2 million in PR, they reversed it!
JR: (laughs) I think to be fair, they'd have saved more furloughing the staff....! I see Spurs have gone back on it as well and maybe, some of the lessons are being learned, for the 'post virus world' - it's maybe an utopian vision, but maybe we are realising we can't have some people with all this money, I know it won't be nice afterwards, but maybe some lessons will be learned, y'know, people saying to Richard Branson 'you didn't have a very good war did you Mr Branson?' or Philip Green, those kinds of people. Even Boris Johnson, even though I don't trust him an inch, going on about the NHS, talking about a Portuguese and a New Zealander nurse stood by his bed and all that... Maybe it's lessons being learned. I don't know how much these people lie, but maybe, next time the nurses ask for a pay rise, they won't be laughing about it in parliament, maybe they'll get the fucking wage rise, imagine it... how dare they not give it them!?
It's funny, I was talking to Pete Byrne, the Farm's manager the other day - we'd had this idea to put together a tour in support of the NHS and we couldn't get it together, we went down to London, we'd met Andy Burnham a few times in Parliament, he was going to get Labour right behind it, but then the unions were squabbling, over who was going to be the main union behind it, and then they asked us 'why are you doing this? What's in it for you...?' and we were going...'What do you mean? We don't want any money out of it, we just like the NHS!' It was a stupid, naive idea, but we were going to make the Farm in 'the Justice Band' and get guests to come and play, we were going to gigs where the nurses get in free, the other half of the crowd pay and we give the money back to them. I know it's not a spectacular idea and it was easy for us to do, so we're not great saints for thinking of it, but the amount of suspicion we had to put up with! - Then we started asking bands and nobody wanted to do it, this was about 7 or 8 years ago, so it wasn't really a trendy cause, the only band who were interested, was the Manic Street Preachers, so when the other day, they announced their gig for the NHS and people were going 'oh yeah, that's a trendy cause' and being cynical, I was thinking no - they were always going to do it anyway.
MCLF: If there's one thing you can't accuse the Manics of it's being trendy! They're anything but trendy!
JR: They believe. They're switched on. They're not doing it so people think they're nice, they just believe that's how musicians should function - that's the thing, you don't have to sing political songs, you just conduct yourself in a political way. You could be David Bowie, doing Ziggy stardust, coming down off his cloud to do a gig for the nurses, it would be great. You don't have to say anything about it, or do interviews about the nurses, just sell 20,000 tickets and make some money for it and get the fuck out of there. Just show that your there, with people. That's what nurses are saying, on the front line, they don't want Ziggy Stardust, sweeping the corridors, or giving out masks, that's not his job.
Ziggy's job is raise morale, raise money, raise awareness and the footballers are the same, no one wants Ronaldo taking pulses in a care home, his job is to put some magic so the people watching, in the care home can say 'wow - did you see magic' - It's an energy and energy makes people feel better. That's what they are there for innit?
Part 3: Can football save itself from itself? What would you do if you were Simon Sadler and 'Oyston Out' the movie!
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