27th July 2011

Text reblogged from -fuck yeah richard oakes- with 8 notes

SUEDE INTERVIEW WITH ROLLING STONE INDONESIA (TRANSLATED)

fuckyeahrichardoakes:

Finally. Sorry this took so long, I’ve finally had the time to do it properly.

Still, some things are translated literally so may sound a bit strange. Also, people may know some of the stuff already, but the bit about their Jakarta concert was nicely written (at least that’s how it sounds in Indonesian).

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Thank you so much! This must be the first interview in which Neil talks about his health status, glad to know he’s finally better.

Tagged: !!!ArticlesBrett AndersonMat OsmanNeil CodlingRichard OakesSimon GilbertSuedeInterviews

5th March 2011

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Headliner Music (Melody Maker, 19 July 1999)

So what would chic urbanites like SUEDE be doing in a field with a bunch of crusties? Taking on the elements, the food and even Bob Dylan, apparently

“I don’t think bring two coats was strictly necessary,” admits a sweaty Richard Oakes, as he slumps himself on a polite hillock in London’s secluded Hampstead Heath and casts aside one of several thousand layers. Today marks The Maker’s kind-hearted attempt to wean Suede back into the festival vibe - a bit of grass, some nice trees, fat, shirtless men wandering in and out of bushes - in preparation for their bound-to-be triumphant return to the festival scene for V99 this summer.

“I need a piss,” declares Simon.

“Go in the bushes!” is the universal and instant response.

Seems we’re already on the right wavelength…

Suede’s festival CV is already rather impressive. By their own admissions, this year’s headlining slot at V99 was chosen “because it’s the only festival we haven’t played” , but perhaps Suede’s seminal appearance was at the (now defunct) Phoenix Festival in ‘96 when, after winning a long-winded row over whether doddery old witch Bob Dylan should be headlining, the band were subjected to a torrential downpour of biblical proportions.

“There was just so much shit against us that year,” Brett begins with a defiant smirk. “But it was just so good.

“We were getting this real kicking, it was a really bad time for us, we’d just done ‘Dog Man Star’, and it was just bad luck. All the way. So we got onstage and literally as soon as we were there, the heavens f***ing opened. Just the heaviest f***ing rain you’ve ever seen.

“And I just looked out and thought, ‘For f***’s sake. Someone up there doesn’t like us.’”

Or us a Bob Dylan fan, perhaps…

“But the crowd!” gushes Mat. “The best thing about that Phoenix was the crowd. I would have f***ed off if I were them, Horrible, Truly, truly horrible.”

“We just gritted our teeth, and I think we ended up giving even more. One of those things. Something happens to f*** you up and you think, ‘No, I’m not going to let it f*** me up.’ It was smashing.”

It can’t be said that weather alwyas has a positive effect on one’s festival experience, though, can it, Brett?

“Oh, God no, weather completely influences the ambience of a festival. Phoenix is an example of when it made us better, but we did play [Euro fest] Roskilde once and there were 80,000 people watching us on the main stage. I was like, ‘This, is going to be the best gig of anyone’s life, eve!’And it just pissed down for the two days. Awful!”

Did you get caught at the Glastonbury mudbaths?

“Didn’t one of the f***ing stages collapse? Ha ha ha!” is Brett’s response. Might we assume that Suede were not on site? “Yeah, we were abroad, but we were hearing these reports from the radio. To start with we were, ‘Oh, ooh dear’, and by the end of it we were just pissing ourselves laughing!”

So remember, kids: when you were up to your arse in mud, your wallet lost in a ditch, your friends struck down by E.coli, you were at least providing entertainment for Brett and co. Nice.

That Suede make such an essential, visceral, scorching festival act may be no surprise, the band having followed the familiar, gig-based, Maker cover-starred path to indie superstardom, but Suede are no average indie superstars. Not only is their line-up one of the constant reinvention and evolution; not only are their fans the glammed-up negative of the archetypal festival-goer; but the band’s favoured themes of urbanisation are also at odds with the freedom, rurality and supposed “vibe” of the festival scene. Is it precisely that contradiction that works so well at festivals?

“Oh, I don’t know if there’s any mismatch there,” muses Brett. “And I suppose I don’t really equate festivals with rurality, to be honest.”

“Yeah, that’s cos we go home,” guffaws Mat. “Harghwa ha!”

“Well, yes and no,”Brett considers, tapping his fag. “I mean we do go home. But while we’re at the festivals what it comes down to is a load of kids just listening to music, and I think we work in a big field simply because a lot of our songs are quite anthemic.”

Simple as that?

“Yeah. That’s the main thing. Big choruses. When you’re standing 100 metres away with the wind blowing… Like I saw The Go Betweens at a festival last year, and they’re one of my favourite bands, but they really weren’t right. Music’s got to be quite bombastic in those conditions and I don’t think you can afford to be subtle. It’s good just to stand up there and broadcast yourself. Know what I mean?”

Is it the repeated concept of entrapment that makes escaping to the country so inevitably seductive? The “She’s in Fashion” video tells a similar story…

“Maybe, yeah. The imagery in some of the songs is quite urban,” Brett understates.” And I suppose with festivals you get on a bus and go there. It makes a nice change, doesn’t it?”

It certainly does. And what about your fans, those “thin with good hair” hordes whose levels of hygiene will plunge earthwards like a dump into a festival sewage tank?

“Get a nice crop!” advises Brett, running his hands through a barnet infinitely more festival-worthy than the wiggly quiff that brought Suede to fame. “That’s my festival advice: keep your hair short, keep your songs short.”

“All in all, the hygiene thing is just a case of throwing people into a field and letting them get on with it, to and extent,” concludes Neil. “Isn’t it?”

Of course, essential to festival survival is sustenance in its every incarnation. The food! The booze! The drugs! So to take each of those, strictly in order…

“I might have a bit of nosh sometimes,” Brett teases. “I’ll pop out, get a veggie burger, something like that. I quite like all that grub.”

Euuuurgh!

Neil is less convinced of the value of festival food. “I seem to get the slop that’s left over from the curry van,” he mourns. “Anyway, I’m an on-off vegetarian, so it’s ‘on’ at the moment, so I’ll probably go for the noodles. But the problem there is that you have to be quick, because they get cold quickly. And they congeal.”

“Anyway,” Brett interjects, “we can’t talk about food for legal reasons. It’s in our contracts. No talking about food. We wouldn’t want anyone thinking that we actually ate, would we? That would ruin our whole persona!”

Quite. Far better to nurture the piss-head aspect of Suede’s being.

“F***ing hell! Those European festivals are the worst for that! God!” squeals a clearly-quite-shocked Brett. “It all seems to come down to the fact that they brew their own, and as a consequence you see people just wandering around with Castrol GTX cans full of moonshine gin.”

“There was one moment in Finland when they filled a water cannon with this home-brewed booze,” chuckles Mat, “and everyone was just standing there going, (mouth open hands aloft) ‘Arggagaga’!”

Delightful, we’re sure. And if booze is out of bound, isn’t that just one option left?

“I think drugs are probably a bad thing, actually,” states Brett. “I wouldn’t mix drugs with festivals to be honest.”

What, not at all? Surely that’s the point?

“Well, it’s probably badly advised for punters, but in terms of performing, then it has to be none, full stop.”

Brett!

“No, I’m always completely straight when I’m onstage, not so much as half a lager inside me. No, really! I just think that’s when my performance is best, and I can always focus myself properly. Ultimately, the problem with getting high and going to a festival is that the comedown is too grim. Basically, I wouldn’t want to come down in a load of hippies’ piss.”

“I think,” Mat points out, “the idea is that you don’t come down at all.”

”
Oh. Yeah. But I suppose it depends how much of a stash you’ve got, or how hardy you are. But my advice to Melody Maker readers is this: don’t do it. No.”

Our readers’ mums are going to love you, Brett.

“Oh, ha ha! ‘Yes,’ they’ll be going, ’ that Brett Anderson’s such a nice young man after all.’ Ha ha! ‘You can tell whether he’s a boy or a girl and you can hear all the lyrics. It’s got a good beat.’”

Neil has the concluding word on the issue. “I mean, people go to festivals for different things, y’know? You’re going to do what you do, just go and do it. I mean the dance tent, well… You know.”

Oh yes. We know.

So, a soggy test versus a nice train home and comfy bed. Mad hippies jumping on you versus polite fanzine-sellers. Horse burger versus slap-up grub. The question needs asking: are festival better than “proper” gigs? And if they are, just what is it that makes the festival appearance so thrilling?

I think it’s good to get into that rock frame of mind, and just rock out,” Brett declares. “You can be really energetic, you can show that side of the band, and it all makes perfect sense. And even though they may not have paid exclusively to see you, the crowd are really into it.”

Suede have already cut their 1999 festival teeth, with a number of dates on the European festival circuit. Do you see those as “warm-up” festivals, away from the glare of the British media, or are they as important in their own right?

“Definitely it’s healthy to get away from the glare,” Brett nods.” But the thing is that at the moment we’re selling a hell of a lot of records in Europe - the last album sold probably three quarters outside Britain. It was platinum in Scandinavia, for example. So we don’t go out their and just trudge around. It’s quality stuff, y’know!”

How do the foreign festivals compare to our own?

“Roskilde’s a Glastonbury with no drugs,” Mat Shrugs.

Hmm.

Part and parcel of the often grim festival experience is the canvas-topped rigmarole we all know and love as camping. Presumably Suede were all in the boy scouts?

“No chance!” splutters Brett.

Pah! So camping’s not in your blood?

“Well,” says Mat, ” that’s kind of the thing. I spend my childhood camping - like every family holiday for the first 15 years of my life was spent in tents.”

“Too right!” Neil trills. “If you’ve been forced to camp when you’re young, it’s just something that brings back dreadful sense memories, waking up in a tent, regretting stuff(!?! - Ed). Retrogression. Ooh, it brings back horrible memories…”

“I got bitten by a sheep once, ” Mat chuckles. “Through a tent! I woke up with this thing brushing against me, and the next thing -argh! Fortunately it was just gently chewing on my hand. Basically all the people I know who love camping are the people who spent their childhood holidays in hotels. No, I’ll take a hotel any time. If you spend your holidays like that, then it’s hardly like, ‘Ooh! A tent!’”

“The rest of the band are a right load of tenters,” mutters Brett with the kind of contempt one might reserve for Vanessa Feltz.

“No way!” refutes Neil. “I just clear off! Whenever I’ve got to festivals it’s been just for, like, a day.”

“Mmm,”mmms Brett, ” we do normally try and drive back the same night. Richard’s the camper among us.”

“And Simon! His family’s house was only about five minutes away from the Phoenix site, and he still stayed in a tent!” Brett fumes. “No, Richard’s fine - he just puts his glasses on and nobody recognises him. Then he takes them off and he doesn’t recognise anyway else.So it’s all right! We’re going, ‘Richard! Richard!’ And he just wanders off. Ha ha ah!”

Any final word on the evils of camping? Yes. Brett: “You get to 31 and you need your creature comforts.”

As we head away from the Heath, Suede well and truly festivaled-out, just one question remains. What we really need to know is this: which songs are you playing? Tell us now and tell us all.

“Errr…” Brett states, as he negotiates a pile of poo.

“We’re going to have work out what to do,” Mat translates.

“We’re doing three nights at this year’s Roskilde festival,” Brett continues, “and we should really do a different set every night. We should be like The Grateful Dead!”

Blank faces.

“No, seriously! That would be fantastic!”

“Well,” Mat huffs. “You’re going to be doing a lot of rehearsing!”

Brett has already given this some consideration. “No,” is his riposte, “you lot are! I can remember it all! Ha ha!”

You must be one of the only bands appearing this year, whose entire back catalogue - singles, B-sides, album tracks - is good enough to wheel out in a festival set.

“Yeah, it’s true that we can draw on anything. Thing is, since we’ve been playing ‘Head Music’, we haven’t performed a single song from the first two albums. We kind of see ‘Suede’ and ‘Dog Man Star’ as out of our bounds, really.”

Is that at the expensive of the fans’ own enjoyment?

“Yeah, we could have vibed up even more, I suppose, but it’s a good discipline. I don’t even think we’re the same band any more, and it’s good because you don’t get lazy, don’t get complacent, don’t just chuck out ‘Animal Nitrate’, y’know? And the thing is, we’ve been going down a storm as it is.”

But you’re not tempted to let loose one night and wheel out the early hits?

“Well, it’s partly out of respect for Neil and Richard, as well,” Mat explains. “They didn’t have any part of those songs from the first two albums. I remember when Richard first joined, we did the whole ‘Dog Man Star’ tour, and I think by the end of that he’d had enough of playing someone else’s songs.”

“We’ve always been like that,” Brett trumpets.” We’ve always looked forward rather than at the past and rest on our laurels or any of that shit. We’ve debuted a lot of new stuff at festivals, and we always make it a little difficult for ourselves.

“It gives us an edge, doesn’t it?”

Festival crowds aren’t as dedicated as those at bona fide Suede gigs, though, I suggest, as the band disperse to tend to their newly acquired tans.

“A lot of bands our size get through on recognition alone, and Suede isn’t about that,” concludes Brett. “Sometimes you play all this new stuff and there’s a sea of people standing there going, ‘Hmmm’, but I quite like that. It takes us back to when we started out. Basically, the idea of being a party band is probably as un-Suede as you can get. We just go out there and kick it. I mean, at the end of the day, what is it? Five people banging a plank of wood.”

Tagged: ArticlesInterviewsNeil CodlingMat OsmanRichard OakesBrett AndersonSimon GilbertSuede

2nd March 2011

Text with 6 notes

Article from Uncut, May 1999

On January 26, 1996, the faithful who turned up to suede’s gig at the Hanover Grand had a couple of treats in store. First, hey heard an entire set of non-Buter tracks. Second, the band had grown a fifth member. At the front of the cramped stage, an impossible skinny creature of indeterminate gender was playing keyboards, shaking tambourines and singing falsetto backing vocals. ” Who the hell’s that?” the audience asked as one, ” and is it a boy or a girl?” Brett made a formal introduction. “You may not know this bloke. He’s called Neil.” 

The Codling, Simon Gilbert’s cousins, lived across Stratford in the more affluent village of Tilling. Neil Codling, the younger brother of Paul (simon’s fellow victim in that queerbashing incident), was born in 1973, the son of a retired citil engineer. After an “uneventful childhood”, he took music aged 14, initially playing the bass in a Fall-influenced band called Strangelove (not that Strangelove) and quickly became a versatile musician.

Like Simon Gilbert, he felt suffocated by Stratford’s smalltown mentality. “These things emerge during the night, these nocturnal energies - spraying cats and setting fire to them. You can see them boiling under the surface.”

Codling left the King Edward V school in 1992 to study English and Drama (what else?) at Hull University, where he joined a number of semi-serious bands, and, like the other members ofSuede, had his fair share of miserable employment.

in 1995, he graduated and moved to London to sign on, in the vague intention of finding acting work. Codling was, if not a fan, then a Suede admirer, having seen them just twice: first at Birmingham Civic Hall in 1992, then at Phoenix’ 95. Suddenly, by osmosis and stealth, he found himself recruited as Suede’s keyboardist. “He literally hung round till he was in the photos!” laughs Mat Osman. “The phrase sounds rubbish, but he was a Suede person.”

* * *

… As the tour resumed in January, `1997, Brett became incresingly aware of a sudden preponderance of “`12-year-old girls who only know the singles from the current allbum”. this could be explained in tewo words: Neil Codling.

Cod-mania quickly swept the Suede fanbase, before spilling over into teen magazines, becoming the Thinking Girl’s big of Trouser. “He’s like our fashion member!” Brett told me at the time. “all those teeny magazines like Just Seventeen and Smash Hits love him.”

“I don’t have a problem with being objectified,” Codling says now, “if it’s not at the expense of other things… I took it with a pinch of salt, and i did play up to it a bit. But it’s no a preening, posing thing.”

Tagged: ArticlesInterviewsNeil CodlingSuede

2nd March 2011

Text with 5 notes

Through the Arch Window (Select, May 1999)

Striding precisely across the bare boards of an East London photo studio, flares flapping, ectomorph rib-cage thrust out, Neil now seems an intrinsic part of the Suede landscape. Without any apparent hint of self-consciousness, he removes Underworld’s ‘Beaucoup Fish’ from the studio CD machine and keys up one of his instrumental happy-house demos.

  His current listening includes Mercury rev, the Super furries, Serge Gainsbourg’s imperious ‘Histoire De Melody Nelson’ album, Belle & Savestian’s ‘Seymour Stein’ and “various banding techno”. To complement this, the current Suede fanclub magazine includes an ebullient handwritten greeting from Codling.”Sell your television,” it goes. “Secure all removable objects and lock up Fluffy. Sued are back. Love, Neil X.”

  Neil’s initial interviews included reports of nervousness. It’s difficult to imagine this self-assured, he talks very earnestly of his distrust of television, treats silly questions with quiet disdain and outlines his chemical regime during the recording of ‘head Music’: “No drugs at all, just salt and pepper.” the album not only features such Anderson/Codling credits as ‘Elephant Man’, but also an image of Neil(along with Brett’s girlfriend, Sam) on the album’s front cover. Comeback single ‘Electricity’ features a further example of Codling expansionism - - his hesitant lead vocals features on the self- written B-side ‘Waterloo’.

  “’ Waterloo’ is part of our convert Abba theme,” he explains. “The other B-side on the CD is called ‘See That Girl’, which is a line from ‘Dancing Queen’. For the album, all my demos were named after the London Underground. ‘Waterloo’ was one that stuck. It’s a good song, because people say to me, ‘Is that Abba’s waterloo’?’ and I say, ‘No, it’s my waterloo, my final battle.”

The New Generation Game

What’s the last book you read?
”I’m reading two books at the moment - one’s My Idea Of Fun by Will Self and the other’s Possession by AS Byatt.”

Do you drive?
”I don’t drive, but if I did I would problably get a Triumph Spitfire or Stag. It’d be nice to drive off into the country.”

Do you have a favourite painter?
”My favourite painter is Magritte, but I have very poor visual sense. I don’t think in terms of pictures.”

Your favourite building?
”I do like the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao. There’s no one building in London that really lodges in my mind, just the skyline as you come over the river.”

What’s your favourite TV programme?
”I’m not a fan of television. In fact, I recently read a book by White Dot, the anti-TV organisation, which I thought made a good sense. I find TV has less and less to recomend it - apart from John Shuttleworth.”

How many pairs of trainers do you own?
”I have two pairs - these Converse I’m wearing today and another pair. So I do have some, but I think Suede are, spiritually, a boot band.”

Tagged: ArticlesInterviewsNeil CodlingSuede

2nd March 2011

Text with 10 notes

Codling Rivalry (Select, February 1996)

Brett and Little Dick? Oh no. The star of Suede’s winter campaign was Neil Codling, the ‘Lizard Man’ with the revolutionary ‘doing sod all’ stage presence. Just what is he playing at?

Neil Codling looks bored. So far he’s smoked half a packet of fags, sorted out the contents of his trouser pockets and devoted a considerable amount of time to just running a hand through his 70’s meta-public-school mop and staring off into middle space. Seemingly laughing at a half -remembered joke, he doesn’t’t even flinch when a sweat and beer-soaked Brett Anderson, bathed in green light, slams his microphone into the stage and cries, at full volume “I’m aching end I need more heroin!”

It may be nearly halfway into Suede’s performance at Liverpool Royal Court, the whole venue might be rattling down to it’s post-war foundations and Brett Anderson may well appear on the point of physical collapse but Neil Codling, Neil Codling doesn’t even appear to have touched his keyboard yet. In short, he looks a complete star.

“When Bernard left a of people lost confidence. A lot assumed we were over “Brett Anderson

‘He just had this absolute confidence…the confidence of being good “Mat Osman on Richard Oakes.

If there was one overriding preoccupation of Suede’s November interview in Select it was ‘with that word ‘confidence’. It had been lost and now, not surprisingly, they wanted it back. While ‘Coming Up’ was one of the outright albums of the year, exuding both chemically-enhanced arrogance and bold pop immediacy, for many people, Suede were still the band who, since the departure of Bernard Butler, had spent two awkward years in a wilderness of ‘difficult’ tours, endless drug accusations and ‘gayanimalsex’ T-shirts - a band with little real sense of unity and a dwindling fanbase.

Those who had witnessed January 1996’s fan club gig at London’s Hanover Grand and the later October dates at Kilbum National, however, knew that something had changed. It was evident in Richard Oakes’ new-found assurance, in the band’s choice of a Bernard-free song-set and in the barely concealed violence of Brett’ s performance. But, most of all, it was visible in the presence of the reptilianly-handsome fellow on keyboards and backing vocals - the one who appeared to do nothing at all, very well indeed.

Still, despite word-of-mouth assurance that the new-look ‘Coming Up’ Suede are a frighteningly good live proposition, it’s not surprising that a large majority of tonight’s capacity Liverpool crowd are made up of many who are “just down for a look”, the curious, the sceptical and a fair few for whom ‘Coming Up’ is the first Suede album they’ve ever bought. Nevertheless, despite a reluctance to call themselves fans, a large number of tonight’s audience will stay behind, calling for encores long after the main lights have gone up and the band have retired to the threadbare Painteresque surrounds of the lounge bar.

“Do you know Neil Codling?” enquires one of a gaggle of beatific Mersey teens extricating themselves from the still-applauding stagefront scrum, “Is he a mysterious man?” Her pal, equally in awe, is only capable of a small whipser. “Neil Codling. Very handsome.”

As Simon Gilbert and Neil natter quietly with friends and fans and various glum members of Liverpool City Council enquire after the whereabouts of “the singer”, an elegantly wasted Brett Anderson lurks in the corner of the ‘function area’. He is studying a fan-bought copy of Patrick McGrath’s The Grotesque, musing on the band’s turbulent history and why Suede now feels like a completely new band.

There’s a sense of unity now. Richard and Neil, they’ve restored a sense of balance.”
What do fans think of the new look Suede?
“We’ve got different types of fans. Each member of the band now has his own fanzine. Simon’s got one called Simply Simon, there’s Little Richard, Mon Petit Mat, and Neil’s got one called New Boy, and some fucking Neil Codling and Geneva fanzine. Actually, d’you now that I’m the only member of Suede who hasn’t got his own fucking fanzine?” Suede’s keyboardist, has 22-year-old Codling decided to adopt the role of the grand poseur, a man who spends more time smoking tabs and staring into space than actually playing his instrument? Not since the mid-’70s art-school conceits of such wacko performers as Sparks’ Ron Mael and all of Kraftwerk has a musician placed himself arrogantly at the front of a stage and ably demonstrated an aptitude for doing very litte indeed. And not since Richey Manic has there been a figure who, through image and style alone, so aptly represents the ethos and confidence of one band.

“I’ll agree,” nods Codling, barely interested, “it’s a weird thing.”
Offstage, Neil Codling cuts a far less self-assured dash than he does on stage. He’s still annoyingly handsome in the fashion of some cold-blooded Left Band gamin, but in his awkward shifting and genial Midlands burr, he’s quite a regular guy, a fact well
hidden from all those craning necks down the front row. Gone are the steely glances, the regal posture - he appears almost normal. Almost.

Fittingly, for a band who’ve always courted an image of decadent glamour, Suede now have an onstage presence that perfectly matches their recorded tales of bohemian drug excess. Complementing Anderson’s ongoing transformation into a handsome laudanum-ravaged cad, Oakes now takes the part of his precocious artful-dodger sidekick, while Codling as their Dorian Gray figure, the nonchalant young gentleman caught in the midst of a gentle opium revelry, elegantly bored by the whole thing. Significantly, the role of Mat and Simon in all this seems to have become that of the workhouse slumkids, pushed to the back of the stage, providing probe bass-and-drums power for the dirty three’s immodest pop pleasures.

How exactly does the ringmaster feel about all of this, young Neil replacing the old guard at the front of the proscenium arch? “Part of it is logistical,” asserts Brett, “Matt needs to be at the back, close to the drums. If Mat was at the front of the stage it’d look ridiculous. Then, on the other hand, Neil’s a show-off. Neil needs to be at the front.” Why, as

So what is going on in his head when he’s up there onstage?

“The thing is,” he drawls, “you can over-analyse anything. With the fan club gig none of us thought, ‘What shall we do with Neil?’ When we set up the stage, there I was, squeezed to the front. I guess it’s quite fortuitous. I get a lot of breathing space.” Ah yes, breathing space. Exactly what does Neil Codling do during those moments of dead time when Brett Anderson is wrapped up in microphone cable and attempting to throw himself off the top of Simon Gilbert’s drum-riser, except kick back, put his feet up and stare out into the audience?

“I enjoy communicating,” he grins, “I could stare at my shoes or gaze at a certain spot at the back of the room, but I’m in front of these people who’ve paid money to see us. I can’t dance, so I’m usually just listening to the songs and looking at everyone. It’s quite funny. When you stare out at people, sometimes they just stare back but sometimes they’re quite unsure of what to do.” There are even occasions when Neil simply pushes his microphone stand away, rests his head on his hands and watches the rest of the band perform. Why doesn’t he just go offstage?

“I revel in that situation. It’s a perfectly natural thing for me. With songs like ‘So Young’ they’re playing that and I think ‘Right, I’ve got a contribution to make,’ but if not, I can just relax for a bit. There’s a real strength in silence. It’s got presence. Once you’re confident about how the music’s coming across you can pretty much do anything.”

The following night, in an X Files-wash of purple stage light there can be seen the bobbing glow of Mat Osman’s fag tip at the back. As white light breaks through and Simon Gilbert starts up a roisterous glam drum intro, enter Neil Codling, taking time out to light up a tab as he strolls acrossstage. He sits down just in time to hit his first keyboard cue and hear a manic Barbie-waisted Brett Anderson belt out the start of the sneering, arrogant ‘Filmstar’ - complete with that etirely apposite line, “Elegant sir / In a terylene shirt / It looks so easy.”

By the time of ‘She’, the band outlined in banks of red light, Brett has, once again, slammed his mic stand into the stage and is whirling the microphone around his head in an enormous arc that barely misses the heads of Oakes, Osman and Codling. In their neo-beatnik costumes of black shirts, black hipsters and black leather jackets, the image is one of not-quite-right rebellion, a pill-popping ad copywriter’s notion of mid-’60s New York Cool.

Only Richard Oakes, pristine in blue denim, playing the guitar almost apologetically as if it were a nervous twitch, looks in any way out of place. Last night, in Liverpool, Oakes was like an afterhought, as if someone had brought him in at the last minute to replace the stingy black-clad guitarist who’d croaked the previous night..

Tonight, however, Suede are faultless. There’s a bit of unnecessary lighter action during the unearthly lament of ‘By The Sea’ but thankfully, ‘Animal Nitrate’ is up next and such a Bic-related nonsense is ditched in favour of proper rock-pit scrummage. Similarly, Brett can’t help but slip back into hisold mannerisms - holding the mic out to the audience and encouraging all to join him in an hilarious chorus of “Over twentywu-uh-urn, wu-uh-urn.” The experience is only enhanced by the sight of Neil sitting for the duration of the song with legs crossed, fag in mouth, like some bored checkout girl at the end of her shift.

Next up it’s ‘The Wild Ones’ - another one that’s got nothing to do with him - so Codling simply rests his head on his hands and watches the rest of the band, seemingly in awe of the sepctacle in front of him. This carries on into ‘So Young’ until, about halfway in, he decides to make a contribution. Flicking his fag away, mid-smoke, in an arc of red sparks, he taps out single plink-plink piano notes on the keyboard, notes that add a certain hilarious bathos to the sight of a frantic Brett Anaderson, again wrapped in microphone lead, his black shirt oily with sweat, singing “Let’s chase the dragon” like a man possessed.

With the whole venue now joining in on the “lalalala” refrains, show-closer ‘Beautiful Ones’ sounds uncannily like some off-the-rails ’60s Health Authority jingle exonerating excessive drug use. Codling, only joining in on backing vocals after another leisurely drag on a fag, finishes his performance by crossing his arms, shirvering, delivering a small bow and exiting stage left, still smoking. “I dunno, I guess he feels less connection with early songs…” Backstage, and Brett is failing to convince in his attempts to rationalise Neil Codling’s performance in terms of things like musicianship. So he gives up.
“You know that walk that he does from the side of the stage?” grins Brett. “He times that walk, times it so that he sits down at exactly the right time, just as he plays his first note.”
It’s very Neil. “Everything he does is like that, very Neil. He’s a professional. Neil Codling is a 24-hour job.”

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