Interview with Gerry Laffy
May 5, 2013 by Christian Sellers
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Along with Phil Lewis and Phil Collen, Gerry Laffy’s first taste of fame came in the late 1970s as one-fifth of the glam rock group Girl. Having disbanded after only two albums, Collen went on to join Def Leppard, who were set for world domination with their breakthrough album Pyromania, while Lewis would eventually front L.A. Guns with former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Tracii Guns. Following a short period with ex-Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock in London Cowboys, Laffy contributed to early demo sessions for the Duran Duran album Notorious, and through his association with the band he was introduced to music video director Russell Mulcahy.
A prolific partnership formed between Laffy and Mulcahy, resulting in an Australian-based company called Le Bad, with Laffy assisting Mulcahy during the director’s most productive period, in which he progressed from music videos to feature films with the cult classics Razorback and Highlander. Despite being fired from Rambo III early in the shoot by star and co-writer Sylvester Stallone, Mulcahy continued to shoot promo videos for such artists as the Rolling Stones, Elton John and Ultravox. Laffy would also work with the latter as a musician, playing guitar on their 1993 album Revelation. Another creative partnership that would evolve from his friendship with Duran Duran was through his work with bassist John Taylor, resulting in such overlooked offerings as Feelings Are Good and Other Lies, Meltdown and The Japan Album.
Alongside his numerous collaborations, Laffy formed the group Sheer Greed (named after Girl‘s debut album) with brother and fellow Girl graduate Simon Laffy. In 2001, eleven years after his first solo release, Gerry Laffy produced his sophomore effort, All Day Long, while a third, The Icebox Studio Sessions, followed six years later. Laffy’s latest solo album, Just a Little Blurred, was released in April 2013 on his own independent label, Die Laughing Records, and features original material written and performed by Laffy.
Gerry Laffy discusses the recording of his new album and his memories of performing with Girl over thirty years ago.
How does Just a Little Blurred differ to your previous solo work, both in terms of style and your method of writing and recording?
I haven’t written or recorded anything since 2007 (The Icebox Studio Session). Those fourteen recordings were done at a mate’s house on an ADAT machine; just me writing, producing performances. A bit late in the day I know, but it was my first realisation that you could make decent home recordings, sans studio, VERY low cost. This time I had a 16-track digital studio, in my own house. A beatbox for tempo and a Yamaha drum machine to play over it. My playing or writing style hasn’t changed much over three decades; I never practice or jam, I just pick up a guitar and what comes out comes out. In the past year I had three songs written, the rest came out when I sat down at the machine, one at a time. Pop-pop-pop, out they came. In two weeks I had eleven songs. Without any effort really, just pleasure.
Did you always intend to record the album by yourself or did you consider employing session musicians?
Well, a day after I bought this machine, a Girl fan and FB online mate, Craig Bundy, was coming to London, he asked to meet me (first time since Girl gig days). I agreed, I said over to my pad. He duly arrived, fine Rioja in hand. As he’s a bassist I thought it would be a laugh to record a Girl song together. So we did My Number, being a track he would know. It took honestly about an hour; later that evening I put on a vocal. Then next day I thought, that was fun. I’m gonna carry on, alone. I’d always wanted to try and play drums on an album one day. And I had a couple of ideas. I’d start with that premise.
Having started out as part of a band and recorded two albums in a studio, do you feel that, while recording by yourself allows you complete artistic freedom, it also lacks the excitement that comes with collaborating?
In Girl, as in all my other music projects, I was in a band situation; we all chip music, thoughts, ideas, some demands into the consensus pot. Doing a solo album you dictate more, but players still do it their way. So they should. This is my twenty-ninth album or EP release; apart from a few live ones ALL were done as a democracy, so this was very freeing. On Icebox, I played and wrote it all but there was still Glenn Gillard (who owns The Icebox Studio) as engineer/tape op/drum programmer. Someone else in the room. I really enjoyed doing this album alone, totally comfortably, in a studio right across the hall from my bed. When I got tired I went and rested up a while, it was great. Anyhow, I’m pretty pleased with the results. It was kind of an impromptu experiment that worked, for me at least. Right now I don’t feel the need or want to collaborate, I’ve had several musos get ‘in touch’, since this went out, mostly guitarists, of course. Like I need a singer/guitarist. For now my only interest would be a great drummer/programmer who’s looking for a writer/singer/guitarist, and who lives in London. Not much to ask… anyhow, for now I’m cool. I like no agenda.
How personal are the lyrics that you write, and do you ever compose an album with a specific concept running throughout?
Some are very personal; three or four on here are about my lover, some totally vague. One track on this album I kind of did Bowie-style, his cut ‘n’ paste nonsense trick. I had a title, Karmic Gangster. I had the first two lines.. “I’m a specialist, Karmic Gangster, luckiest man on earth”… then I had a blank. I went into my bedroom, 42″ on wall, searched Snotr…smoked a spliff as I flicked through. I took a theme from each clip, wrote a line, next clip, next line, etc… until the verse was done. I liked the stuff that came up… “I can set the chimps to freedom”… “I see the silos falling, fall into the breach”… “a drummer with three sticks, I’ll be a bore I’ll be a hero”… stuff I’d never write. I liked this one in particular. There is no theme here lyrically, I certainly wasn’t trying to create a central theme. The album title this time is simply a reference to my eyes. A aged fifty-three, for me everything IS Just a Little Blurred.
Do you have a particular writing method that you favour; such as starting with lyrics or a melody on a piano or acoustic guitar? How do your songs develop from that initial idea to what you eventually record?
It tends to be me sitting down with a guitar. Sometimes keyboards (like with the song Liar). I will noodle around till I find a second part to join it with, maybe a third (mid 8), but not always. Then I will hum, or sing a melody that comes into my head, roughly work out the melody on guitar, then I usually go into a quiet space and write lyrics VERY fast. Ten minutes, roughly. I have NEVER laboured over a lyric, OR playing even. I like it to just come out, unworked, un-laboured. Once I have written a song, it’s rare that I rework it. I don’t use computers in my music, so I DO NOT use flying, editing parts, samples. I PLAY everything, SING everything on this. On the GL & Simon Laffy album Lying With Angels, we had a great sampler, did excellent B/Vs, but it all sounded the same, so I’ve never done that again. I like to hear fallibility, the musicians minor imperfections, I love all that. Def Lepperd-type perfectionism totally isn’t me. Something I found out many years ago; the track you love everyone goes ‘heh’, then picks what the artist thinks is weak. So I don’t edit myself now. I am just selfish in my decision and with the track order, cover, etc. But know then that it belongs to someone else once the songs go public. Only they decide what’s good or not good for them.
You cover My Number, the most well known song you recorded with Girl, on your new album. Why did you decide to revisit your earlier material and why this song in particular?
I always loved this song, of course. I was nineteen, I had written a released song, Tommy Vance played it on the Friday Rock Show. People were calling me, our band was starting to ‘happen’. Soon our album was coming out. It was all very exciting to us. Unknown really to us then, it REALLY affected some people; Girl, Sheer Greed, Hollywood Tease, My Number, ALL that. There’s a magic time when a teen discovers their first ‘really cool’ band. They’ll love you forever. For me, it was Bowie/Ronson. One of said impressionable Girl fan teenagers was Craig Bundy. Thirty-three years later, he’d become a good, trusted Facebook mate; he set up Sheer Greed, the Girl FB page, we chatted and interacted regularly. He is a bassist, he was coming to my home with his adorable daughter, Amanda, what nicer way to welcome him to invite to record a Girl classic. He was more than a little open-mouthed as I stuck John Taylor’s bass in his hands and said ‘B, G, D, B’. He did it great, did it straight off, we had the backing tracks done in about one hour flat. He then took his daughter to see the Queen’s horses and I finished off. It was a great laugh. I have this loathing for the Vatican an all its scandals; somehow I fused My Number and the clergy for the opening. NO point in trying to redo it the same.