Roger Quigley
Roger Quigley's albums, alone or with
the Montgolfier Brothers, are always absorbing and painful
experiences. They're so close to home that you end up thinking
about your own experience and reliving things you don't like
to think about. In this interview, Roger himself explains
why: every word, every phrase of "Quigley's Point",
his wonderful album published under the "At Swim Two
Birds" moniker, relates to something he has lived, and
we can only wonder how much this has costed him. This is only
one of the many reasons why Mr. Roger Quigley from Salford
is one of the deepest authors of this era and why his albums
are small masterpieces. And in this interviews he ends up
saying even more than our clumsy questions had asked him...
We have the impression that your music is a question of
vital importance, even though everything is already happened
and the only option left is to gain awareness of it. How much
you, as a person, depend on the need to write music and to
sing your life through it?
I think, hope, that I am making a diary of events. I have
a very bad memory....perhaps I should learn to forget these
past things & move on, but I have some need to remember...
i'm sure I don't learn from my experience, but I make sure
I make a note of it.
I hate to think: but perhaps its true, that I force experience
in order to comment on it.
I come from a long line of family that doesnt discuss things
too much. I hope I am at the very least opening my mouth....
I am beginning not to worry what comes out of my mouth: that's
the important thing to the writing.
Can this need to make music hamper real life, by anticipating
what has yet to happen? Is life already a song inside you
even before it happens?
I sometimes feel like I am on a plane that is destined to
crash: I look forward to the journey, but once I am on board
I am scared. it's only when they offer you the drink that
you begin to enjoy yourself again.... at that point you become
resigned to anything.... you sometimes wish for a crash: for
only to stop the "journey"......
I am not immune to evenings of love, intimate stories of childhood,
swimming in wine & stinking of cigs, but I sort of second
guess mornings of avoiding eyes & apologetic goodbyes.
I sort of reckon that I missed out on my chance to love a
certain someome properly & wholely & perhaps can never give
myself the chance to love anyone that much again.
 Quigley's
point seems to be concentrating on the dissections of dead
relationships, something not new to your songs. But you always
observe these things from a distance, with the subsidence
of feelings matching the slowness of the chords progression.
How much do you need to let these feeling lie on you before
being able to put them into songs?
I think its important to remember the 'dissections' of the
songs are performed by an immediate family member of the freshly
dead: so I'm always going to have my side of the story: my
council for the defence. im not the only person that was present
at the scene of the crime. I am as much to blame as the other
in the demise / death / murder of the relationship as the
other. maybe less or more so. It's just that I'm the one whoose
chosen to speak publicly about it.
I suppose its up to the listener to fill in the gaps. to place
themselves within the story. perhaps they are the ones who
have been done wrong to, or it may be that they are the wrongdoers.
Although written over a lenghty period of time, the songs
on "Quigleys point" feel like they have a strong cohesive
feel. Were some adjustment necessary or did everything and
every feeling just fit into place?
They are written about a beautiful girl who was hurt a long
long time before she came to meet me. and when she met me,
well perhaps she thought I could fix her broken soul. but
I think I may have made her heart split once more.
I want her to be happy. because thats what everyone deserves.
she decided that one of my best friends could make her happy,
over me.
We found that Quigley's Point has a strong autumnal feeling.
Would you say your music has a seasonal component?
My favourite season, so im glad it does that for you....
The season where the trees are stripped of their leafs. not
in a nasty revengful way, but in a need to make space for
the spring & new life, new love, not before spending the winter
remenicing over the cold emptiness & lonliness you feel.
Who has been involved in the making of Quigley's Point
beside yourself?
Richard o'Brien (old man Vespertine)
I'm curious about the fact that you choose a Flann O' Brian's
title as your new namesake. Although I haven't read that particular
book the rest of his work that I know of (The third policeman,
the poor mouth, The Dalkey Archive and some collected Myles
na gCopaleen works) seems quite bright, and impossibily funny,
although often in a kind of desperate way.
My childhood vision of ireland, with its impossible magical
quality, as a child staying 2 months a year in the republic,
crashed into my adult life with its absolute mundanity.
Flann swings inbetween the two like no-one I know, apart from
Magnus Mills.
Can you explain us in which way the surrounding of Salford
affects your songs? What does living in that place and with
your circle of friends (Mark Tranmer, David Sherman, Richard
O'Brien), means to you and your music?
Quigley's point was an 'escape': apart from Richard (the captain
of the ship) it was a million miles away from anyone: we went
back home: we made an album for both me and him; we haven't
done that since the first cd ("a kind of loving") we'd produced.
We sat down & said. "right, we are going to put this out.
if no one likes it, then so what.... "
'Salford' is a word. it is a place, yes. but so then is everywhere
else.
My favourite phrase: " you can travel as far away as you can,
but you are always going to be there when you arrive...."
 Apart
from the sparser arrangments, are there any differencies in
terms of composition between your solo works and your records
with Mark?
It is a completely different way of writing. it doesnt have
the complications of 'compromise' that a relationship brings
with it. With the montgolfs Mark writes 70% of the montgolfs
tunes. I react to what he feeds me. we are a relationship...
I wake up to find that he's brought me breakfast, in the shape
of instrumentals I garnish with lyrics.
Are there any artist (not necessarily in the music field)
with which you feel affinity?
The man who wastes his life in the pure enjoyment of wasting
his time in Magnus Mills' "all quiet on the orient express"
The three things that makes life worth living for.
Georgia & Alex Quigley (my brothers kids)
Richard o'Brien.
Tomorrow
Your project with Mark shows a great deal of research and
a constant musical progression. What's your relation with
technology, and in particural with digital technology?
I am not related. full stop. the way you record is just that.
like the way it's presented to you: m.peg, j.peg. book. album.
calendar...... the way you take it, infuse it.....live it.....
cry over it..... regret it..... that's what's important....
I have no interest in the way it's made at the time, as long
as there's a 'play / record / pause' buttons, I'm happy.
Salvatore,
Fabio, Alessandro
Links:
Vespertine and Son Website: www.vespertineandson.com
The Montgolfier Brothers Website: www.montgolfiers.co.uk
At Swim Two Birds@indiepop.it: bands/astb.htm
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