Gordon McIntyre

How many superlatives should we use when talking about Gordon McIntyre? The Ballboy genius, the man who gave us the woderful irony of "A Guide for the daylight hours" as well as the sick love stories of "The Royal Theatre" and the sweet acustic nostalgia of "the Sash My Father Wore", is what you may call a reinassance man, putting his meaningful lyrics on centre stage while the music retains the best of what the indie scene had to offer in the last decade or so. But if in the space of four albums Ballboy have had little occasions to repeat themselves constantly taking people by surprise (there are hundreds of comparisons to be found on the press. To no avail), for his new project - an outlet for his spoken word tracks layered upon electronic music - he has chosen to go solo and to adopt a new moniker: Money Can't Buy Music. With a single already out and an album coming out next spring, we took the occasion for a little email interview with Gordon, and of course ended up talking about Ballboy as well.

I feel one of the main features of your music is change. Every Ballboy album is a surprise, as this new electronic project is no exception. Do you feel the need to push your music towards its next step at all times or is there anything else at work?

I think that there are always two main themes at work. One - what can I do with the writing and Two - what can I do with the music. I don't necessarily feel that the work has to be pushed onwards. I think sometimes it needs to go sideways so that you can explore other things. I think that this is where the Money Can't Buy Music project came from and also where The Sash My Father Wore acoustic album came from.

How would you describe MCBM to someone already engaged to Ballboy?

That's hard for me. Someone else said that the lyrics were similar, but the music was different. I'm not sure about that though. To me the MCBM project is more experimental. Although there is much more technology involved the approach is much more lo-fi than with ballboy. I think the songs are maybe not as immediate as ballboy songs. It would not necessarily surprise me if a lot of ballboy fans didn't like MCBM and a lot of people who don't like ballboy did like MCBM.

"The Sash My Father Wore" was already kind of a solo record. Why did you choose to make music under a different moniker this time? You've done some spoken words bits with ballboy as well.

The songs for the Sash were written as ballboy songs. We perform some of them live with the full band and they fit into the overall feel of what ballboy do. I think that the MCBM songs and outlook is very different from ballboy and it wouldn't feel right to use the ballboy name for that. In short I think that anyone who buys 'The Sash' will think it sounds like an acoustic ballboy album. Anyone who buys MCBM stuff won't really think it sounds like ballboy. So I guess I didn't want to mislead anyone. You make a good point about the spoken word songs. I wanted to do more of that and take it in some different directions and I wanted to use different techniques and technologies and that's not always easy or fun to do with a band so I pushed it into the new project.

Is there any difference in approach from recording a pop album to recording an electronic album? Do you feel that different styles of music can alter the way the songs and the lyrics are perceived by the listener? It may be a stereotype, but electronic music isn't expected to have meaningful lyrics

I think there is a big difference - for me anyway. My electronic songs are built up layer by layer and you can try out ideas and keep or reject them as you go. And what you have at the end is what you want - for better or worse. Even in the most dictatorial band the music is still written and played by all the band members so you lose some of your original vision and gain some of the other members' ideas.

As for the lyrics - one of the few 'rules' I have for MCBM is that the lyrics should still be meaningful and the stories should be interesting. Stories are the beginning of 90% of my songs. I don't think it is a stereotype - there are not that many electronic acts with decent lyrics (or lyrics at all in many cases)

Do you listen to any electronic acts? Are you interested in the possibilities offered by PCs and new technologies?

I listen to a fair few electronic acts. Bands like Psapp, 4-tet, Park Avenue Music, Stereolab etc. But also I'm a huge fan of the "part-electronic" bands like New Order, St. Etienne and maybe The Go! Team (I may have that wrong because I'm not sure what the Go! Team are classed as, but at least some of their sound or maybe their writing process sounds electronic to me). I also love Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, but I'm not sure I should admit to that!

My new found grasp of computer technologies has also been a big factor in starting MCBM. I've always been interested, but I think the computers and software of the last few years have at last reached the point where recording at home is a pleasure and not a pain. At home and for MCBM I use an iMac G5 with Pro-tools and Reason for most of my computer-based recording. Live for MCBM I use a little ibook. Apple computers absolutely rule - especially the new generation with OSX Tiger. However - no home studio set up is complete without a dictaphone.

Are there any basic elements you feel are indispensable for your music when writing a song, be it acoustic or electronic? What's your relation to melody, for example?

The most indispensable elements for me are all lyrical. You have to be very very careful with lyrical cliché when you are writing. Some clichés are acceptable (there will always and should always be songs about broken hearts), but you have to be very careful about writing something which sounds a wee bit profound, but is actually brain- numbingly awful. I have thrown away lots of songs for this reason.

As for melody - I'm an untrained musician so I don't formally understand melody. I understand it only in the way that it feels to me and the way it matches up with the lyrics and the harmony. However I like this approach because this is where new and unthought of melodies come from. I feel like I don't know what will work until I hear it, but that's quite a nice way to work.

The Scottish music scene has always been kind of magical and mythical for us (I mean "us" as "italian and indie-loving"). How was growing up in Edinburgh with all that music and ideas surrounding you, and what it's like playing in a band in Edinburgh now?

To be honest, the Scottish Music Scene pretty much means the Glasgow Music Scene. Edinburgh is not such a great place for bands and live music so when we were starting off it felt like we were a little bit outside of the great scene that Glasgow had. That has it advantages though. It means that you can just get on with things in your own way. Sometimes too much influence from your peers can be a bad thing. It does mean that you have to work harder to get shows and radio appearances etc, but again that is good for a band. You have to work hard or you die.

I'm curious about "A Europewide search for love", that is one of your best songs ever and probably the most atypical. You have never used strings in that way anymore. How did it came to be?

It kind of grew and grew in the studio that song. We had string players with us and we just kept adding layers until it became this huge dream of a song. We have used strings live and on John Peel sessions, but it can be very hard to organise string players for practice and recording and sometimes it is much more fun to just have the four people in the band and stick with that. Also - there is a very lovely keyboard part for that song which you don't hear because of the strings. It makes the song very different, but also works very well I think so sometimes you lose something when you gain something else, although I do agree that that recording came out very well.

Do you get any inspiration from other media, like literature or movies, when writing your lyrics? Is there any author you feel you've learnt something from?

Absolutely. Much more than from other bands or music. Authors I have learnt something from? Take your pick - Charles Bukowski, JD Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, John Fowles, Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sylvia Plath, George Orwell, Armisted Maupin, Irving Welsh, Martin Millar, John Irving, Bernard Malamud, Kate Atkinson etc etc etc.
(and that doesn't even include the genius of 'Calvin and Hobbes')

I think that you can learn something from every good author. And from every bad author you learn what not to do.

It seems to me "The Royal Theatre" was confronting the difficulties of relationships, but I may be mistaken. Do you write songs because you have stories to tell?

I write songs for lots of reasons. Sometimes for fun, sometimes because I feel I need to, sometimes to share something I find interesting or funny. You are right that The Royal Theatre is all about relationships. I was trying to look at them from lots of different angles - real relationships, imagined relationships, secret relationships etc. I am a little bit pre-occupied at the moment with the idea that our secret and imagined relationships are the ones that are most true. This started with the songs on The Royal Theatre and has continued with the MCBM song "The Ghosts"

What's your excuse for being in a band after what, 6 years? Having fun, making money, making friends.

Having fun - absolutely. Making friends - absolutely. We have met so many great people and collected so many amazing memories that we will bore our grandchildren endlessly when we are old!

Making money? Ha Ha - I can only presume you are joking! But this band was never set up to make money. Anyone with 6 years to spare who wants to make money should consider working in a coffee shop before they consider starting an indie band.

Most of all though my excuse is that this gives me a reason to write and something to do with the things I have written. It's writing that's at the heart of all of this.

What's in the future for MCBM and ballboy? Do you already have an idea of how the next ballboy album will sound?

I do. My plan is that it will be a little bit poppier and a little bit less dark than the last album. I think The Royal Theatre had less humour in it than Club Anthems and A Guide..., but the next ballboy album will be brighter. It will also be more lyrical. I intend that it will be quite a breathless album - there will be no pauses - idea will follow idea will follow idea and the songs will generally be quite short - 3 to 3 1/2 minutes (although I have a song called Clown School which is 4 1/2 so I might need to make an exception for that one). That's the plan anyway.

For MCBM the plan is to release the album in March and play some shows. I think there will be less live shows for MCBM than ballboy because it is not as much fun playing live with just a computer to help. It's much more fun to play live with the ballboys.

Salvatore

Links:

Money Can't Buy Music Website: www.moneycantbuymusic.com
Ballboy Website: www.ballboymusic.com