They may have been part of the Creation Records scene in the early 90’s but The Telescopes are a band who have led the way in psychedelic swirling indie for over thirty years. Now very much the solo project of Stephen Lawrie, The Telescopes have a new album on the horizon, ‘Songs Of Love And Revolution’, and it’s a beautiful beast. Part noise, part space rock, part dream pop, “The Telescopes can’t be tied down” says Lawrie.
When you first started, there weren’t many bands doing what you were doing. Now there’s loads, do you feel that the world has finally come round to your way of thinking?” It’s strange, because say like between 2000-2010 when people were asking us what we do, I would say basically we’re a psych band, because it was just easier to say that at the time, as it covered a lot of stuff. But then this psych genre started coming back (laughs), and I’m like, ‘Whoa, whoa, I’d better stop saying that, because I don’t want to become tied to that’, as they all very much had a certain sound. I can hear a lot of Brian Jonestown Massacre in a lot of these bands and a lot of Black Angels and stuff like that. The Telescopes can’t be tied down to anything like that.”
The power of Telescopes’ enduring appeal can also be found in the remixes which appear in the special ‘Dinked’ edition of ‘Songs Of Love And Revolution’. A limited release of the album only available from independent record shops, the special ‘Dinked’ edition has remixes from a whole host of musicians as Lawrie explains: “We’ve got people like Lloyd Cole of Lloyd Cole & The Commotions, doing a remix of ‘Strange Wave’, Anton from the Brian Jonestown Massacre doing ‘Come Bring Your Love’ And Matt Elliot from Third Eye Foundation, there’s a whole bunch of them.”
How did you come to work with these people? Did you pick people who were already friends or did you have a list of people who you’d thought’ I’d like to hear their take on my songs’?
“Well, Matt Elliot from Third Eye Foundation, I’ve liked his music for a long while, but we didn’t meet until a few years ago but then kept in touch. He was in mind. It was actually the record label’s idea to do the remix album, and they presented a few artists that wanted to work on it, and then I chose a few myself. Lloyd Cole had done some work on the same label or their sister label, and I was really happily surprised that he wanted to work with us you know. We’re absolute opposite ends of the 80’s spectrum really (laughs), and Anton I’ve known for quite a while now, as people out of his band play in my band.”
Another sublime psyched up noisy gem is ‘The Train’ with its mantra of “This train keeps on going” a call to persevere regardless of what’s happening around you as Lawrie explains: “I was travelling between my own place, where I record, and my support bubble with my fiance. The first time I went on a train after that first lockdown was a very strange experience, with a mask and seats blocked off, and the stations were ghostly and stuff like that. It’s kind of a play on words a well, this train… this strain’, but also the first thing I would hear every time I got off there was “ This train is for….” you know, insert destination. I was constantly hearing it, and then it just sounded even more Orwellian in a way I guess.”
There’s also the brilliantly titled ‘We See Magic And We Are Neutral Unnecessarily’ which climbs into the musical stratosphere, the words lifted from a conversation Lawrie had with friend “talking about life, music and art and stuff like that and the natural order of things and surrendering to that.” Then there’s the comforting album closer of ‘Haul Away The Anchor’ a traditional folk tune which pays homage to Lawrie’s fiance’s father-in-law as he reflects: “My father-in-law to be caught the virus at the end of the first lockdown, and that was music that was chosen as the exit music at his funeral so it’s a very emotive departure song. I mean, my partner and I were just sitting there chatting away about it and I said ‘what if I did my own version of that, tried it out as a closer of the album’. I sat there thinking about it, and thought I’ve got an organ that would make the right sound for that, so I got this Italian Antonelli wind organ out, and switched it on, and one of the keys was jammed and it was jammed in the exact tuning of that song. It was just droning away, and so with my right hand I just started playing the melody of the song over it, and thought, ‘that’s just meant to be’. Listened back to the recording and it sounded lovely. He’s from Cornwall so we recorded some Cornish harbour sounds and added those”.
Now receiving much more recognition for their influence on countless guitar bands, it’s hard to believe that for a time in the early 2000’s Lawrie became so disillusioned with the music industry and The Telescopes place in it, that for a while he took a much needed break as he explains: “Well, I felt I didn’t have a choice really. After the second album, things became so hit orientated and it’s coming at me from all angles, and I just kind of lost focus. You sit down to write, and I’ve never sat down to write a hit record in my life. I get inspired by something and I write a song and it makes me feel better as a human being (laughs). I got to the point where I wasn’t getting that anymore and I had to down tools for a while and then after a while you start finding a new way of working, when the dust settles you start getting the bug again. For me it was technology, because one of the problems we had was that our first album was so vastly different to the second, and I think that shocked a lot of people as well, but after a while I found that it gave me a lot of freedom, like the third album could be anything I wanted really, as long as it was good!”
You mentioned the second album and the pressure you felt to write a hit. Around that time you were on Creation Records, and there’s so many myths and stories about that label, did you manage to still enjoy your time as a musician on that label back then?
“Yes, very much so. They were all massive music fans there and worked hard and played hard!”
Defiantly doing things your own way, and following your own vision is what runs through the core of The Telescopes, and why they’ve remained an integral part of the UK music scene for so long. If he could look back on his career and give his younger self any advice, that’s the message to adhere to, as Lawrie reflects: “Trust your instincts. Never forget why you started doing it in the first place. Be true, no matter what, just hold your ground. If you think you’re right about a decision and you feel really passionate about it, then go with it no matter what, if you lose your record deal, or you get slagged off by the whole media, or if everyone stops buying your records or burns them, stand by it!”
Grand musical visions can sometimes be hard to convey to others, which is why these days Lawrie mostly writes The Telescopes material on his own, however collaboration can also yield surprising results ”Some of the stuff I’ve done has been improvised so that’s like dealing with a map of coordinates, we’re going from A to D to B to E then back to A or something, or it can be much more vague. We did an album ‘Harm’ (in 2013) and on side two of that, I basically said to the musicians, ‘think of the last song of the first album by Suicide and keep it in your mind but never play it!” (laughs). For ‘Songs Of Love And Revolution’ there was less of the Brian Eno abstract instructions vibe, with Lawrie forced to work on his own ”I was really trying to replicate what we’ve been doing live in 2019.. I originally intended to record it with that line up, but ended up having to do it all by myself, and it was a very different way of doing it in some ways.”
Although the tours have had to be put on hold, Lawrie seems to be making the most of his time at home, working on various projects in his studio, and revealed two new works on the horizon. One of them being a film score he has been providing the lyrics for: “I am working on something at the moment for a friend of mine who’s working on some music for a film, and he’s done the music and he’s got titles for all of these pieces, so I asked him for brief descriptions of what he was thinking, I said it can be as abstract as you like just give me some clues, some ways in, and that’s been a fascinating way to write as well. Then I go away and come up with some lyrics to his music.”
Then there’s an acoustic album also in the pipeline, which may be a surprise to some who consider The Telescopes predominantly a ‘noise’ band, which is a misconception Lawrie hopes to challenge: ”That’s going to be called ‘Absence Presence’, that’s very much like the acoustic shows I do, just me and the acoustic and occasionally a bit of a Casio keyboard or an organ of some description….There’s some of the tracks from this album, there’s acoustic versions of some of those. It’s just basically as I write things, it’s a glimpse within the noise to show that there’s songs going on there. I’ve had people in the past, Richard Formby (Telescopes’ producer) told me years and years ago when ‘Taste’ first came out, a friend of his was a bit of a singer-songwriter type and he really didn’t get The Telescopes. Richard turned round to him and said, “Well you know Stephen writes all these songs on an acoustic guitar…”, and the guy just couldn’t get his head around it. Once he got his head around it, he started enjoying the music.”
Yeah, because people often focus on the noise element first, then often miss out on the subtle melodies that are going on underneath.
“Some people, even reviewers, have said that it’s just some kind of jam or something and it’s not! (laughs). It’s an orchestrated song. To me it doesn’t matter how it’s made, it’s what you hear, if you like what’s coming out of the speakers then that’s the end of it you know.”
The Telescopes: Songs Of Love And Revolution – Out 5th February 2021 (Tapete Records)