Tone Glow 043.6: Alison Statton (Young Marble Giants)
An interview with Alison Statton for a special midweek issue. Plus: Statton shares 20 of her favorite albums.
Alison Statton
Alison Statton is a Welsh singer-songwriter who was part of the minimal pop trio Young Marble Giants. In the years since, she’s released music in Weekend and with Alun Mark Williams as Alison Statton & Spike. This year marks the 40th anniversary of Young Marble Giants’ landmark LP, Colossal Youth, and Domino is marking the occasion with a limited edition reissue. Joshua Minsoo Kim talked with Alison Statton on the phone on October 29th, 2020 to discuss Young Marble Giants, the importance of communication, and how she thinks about death daily.
Joshua Minsoo Kim: Hello!
Alison Statton: Hi!
How’s your day been Alison?
It’s been good. I’m in Wales so we’re on another lockdown which is slightly different from England and other parts of the UK. We’ve got our own minister and government which has some control over Wales itself, so it’s been pretty quiet because there’s not so much you can go out to do. We’re going into autumn and it’s a pretty wet, grey day. I did go out for a walk, but it’s been quite a quiet day, really.
How has this year been for you in general with the pandemic?
I’ve been lucky in that my health stayed good. There’s been a lot going on around me. I know people who’ve had the coronavirus and it’s not been any delight. Myself and my partner and my kids, we’ve stayed well. My son’s over in Australia and that feels like a really long way away at the moment, knowing that it’ll be a while before we can visit each other again.
I’m glad that you’re safe. I also know people who’ve gotten the coronavirus and it’s always scary. And it’s hard to see an end in sight for all this.
Yes. We’re really having to live with uncertainty, aren’t we? And having to look at our mortality. That’s been a big one. It’s been hard on a lot of people, even if they haven’t actually had the coronavirus itself, it’s affected them economically. And it’s affected a lot of people’s mental health. It’s been a struggle for many people in all walks of life with wherever they’re working. Some people are on the frontlines working and getting burnt out, and there are others who are wondering where their next piece of work is coming from. And it’s not just a few countries, it’s a major world shift.
Right, it’s just been a lot for everyone. You know, I wanted to ask about your childhood. Did you have a close family?
Yeah, we were a very close family. My brother and sister were a lot older than me so it was a little bit like being an only child in terms of home life. They left home when they were 17 and went far away, but they still kept in touch. I have the bonus of having an older brother and sister but I spent a lot of time on my own and with friends obviously. This was in the days when you could play out in the street and didn’t have so many restrictions as we have now. We were a very close family and continue to be, really.
I know in the past you’ve talked about foundational musical experiences, like with you being in church and hearing the church organ. Do you recall the moment when you realized that music was something you wanted to pursue, to devote time and energy to?
Music was always something I cared about but it was never something I envisaged making a living from doing professionally. Even when I was in bands, it was for fun and it was for just the whole creative get-together with other people rather than feeling like I would go on to make a living from that. It felt far less accessible in those days. Now you can put stuff online; there are lots of ways you can promote yourself or your music and get people to hear it. Even right up to the point Young Marble Giants got offered a deal from Rough Trade, I never really thought that was going to be a way to go—it was just something I was doing on top of my life. There’s no moment where I thought, “Right, this is it.” It was a bit like it was handed to me on a plate.
Were your parents really into music?
My parents both loved music, my father in particular. My brother, sister, and father—they had quite a wide music collection. I used to listen to music from the crib, really. Apart from my mother, who played piano when she was younger, nobody played any instruments in the family. It was just everyone enjoying music. My father used to whistle and sing, but there was no creative process; it was just an indulgent thing of listening to people.
Do you remember the sort of music that was playing around the house? Do you remember anything your family members loved that you loved?
It was a really wide range. I also had a friend who lived down the road who had brothers and sisters and they all listened to different things. I listened to Motown, country, there was obviously The Beatles, Roy Orbison, The Everly Brothers, a lot of ’60s pop. Motown is one that I really enjoyed. The thing I listened to least was probably classical. It didn’t feature largely at the time when I was younger, but every other genre, you can guarantee somebody was playing it in my surroundings.
I know you were a dental nurse for some time.
I studied at a local hospital and then I worked for a year as a dental nurse. I just got a post in the hospital and then we got this deal, so that’s when I abandoned that vocation.
What initially led you to pursue that?
To be honest, it was just something that I could train to do. And I was kind of interested in biology. It was an exit out of school for me and a way to be independent. It was something I enjoyed and I learned a lot of skills from it but it wasn’t my dream job. Everything was so different then. You could try out all sorts of things in terms of work or training; you didn’t just decide on your one dream. Well, I didn’t anyway (laughter). There was more available—there were more jobs available, there were more options. Unless you were seriously focused on one thing, there were a lot of things you could try and see.
I don’t regret for a minute having trained as a dental nurse. I learned a lot from it and I enjoyed the experience of working because it was in a hospital, it wasn’t just in a clinic. You go into local aesthetics, [pediatrics], orthodontics, even watching surgery. There was major surgery for a cancer I saw. It was all very interesting while I was there. But I didn’t miss it enough to go back into it, so I moved on.
What’s one thing you feel like you took away from that profession?
Oooh. (pauses). Communication. And that was verbal and nonverbal in terms of communicating with the patient and with a person that you’re working with. Being able to anticipate what somebody needed. It’s a difficult one to put into words but I would say communication, just seeing the step ahead before you get there.
Communication is not about how you talk, it’s about how you listen. Hearing what the patient is saying and the dentist is saying. And nonverbal communication—just reading the signs, really. Once you were well-trained, it was knowing what was needed next before it was asked. It was a challenge, if you like, to be one step ahead so you could be really efficient, and I enjoy that challenge.
I like what you’re saying, about how communication involves careful listening, attentiveness, the ability to be one step ahead… do you feel like any of those things translated—and this may not be direct—to being in Young Marble Giants or just as a musician in general? This could be with writing lyrics, how you sing, the way you performed. Do you think there’s a link? And there may not be.
Not strongly. I think communicating with crew and promoters—that side of things—but not hugely in the creative process. I went on to train to be a chiropractor, and that’s where I brought all of that back in, and that’s when it was really useful. In terms of music, I would just say it was useful with interactions with other people, but not so obviously.
Just from what you’re saying, it seems like you really care about the way other people feel when you’re with them. Would you say that’s true?
Absolutely spot on, yes. That’s very important to me. That could be just sitting on a bus next to someone, or someone you buy a newspaper from, as well as people who are more directly in your compass.
Did you ever think about how Young Marble Giants’ music came off to listeners?
Initially, I suppose it felt like such a surreal world, playing to larger audiences. Once we left the local gig setup, I got quite nervous because I’m much better on a one-to-one. I didn’t have a rapport with the audience, but if someone came up with at the end of the gig I would enjoy talking with them on a one-to-one or one-to-two basis. I’m not a natural at communicating in terms of performance, I would say. At least to a large group. When it came to talking in between songs and having a whole chat with a mass audience, that wasn’t so easy. Does that make sense to you?
It makes sense, yes. Are there any memorable fan interactions that you’ve had?
When we started playing again later on, I remember hearing of couples talking about how they’d met and they had gone on to have children. They started out as fans of YMG. In the younger days it was just a whirlwind because we were playing with other bands and meeting crew and people who hosted us. We weren’t staying in hotels; we were staying on people’s floors or their spare living room. We were on the road roughing it, really.
I remember one girl saying to me, even before we made a record and were just playing locally, that she had seen Debbie Harry [of Blondie] and thought we were better than Debbie Harry (laughter). I just thought, “Wow, really?” (laughter). But you know, just silly little things like that. We met loads of lovely people and it was very genuine. We were all just young and finding life together.
And you were in this band at a young and formative age.
Very.
This is a hypothetical so it’s hard to pin down, but what do you feel like being in YMG taught you that you wouldn’t have learned if you weren’t in the band? This could be about music, about yourself as a person, or about people in general.
(thinking) What did it teach me… (pauses). It taught me a lot in hindsight. I said how important communication is and when we were all together as a trio, there were things that I should have been more proactive about with opening up. This is in terms of discussing any difficulties within the band without being timid. I was too weary of accepting my feelings or my ideas. In hindsight, I could’ve been clearer but I didn’t have the confidence.
Do you feel like now, decades later, that you have the confidence to share how you’re feeling with people?
Absolutely. I’ve learned that lesson, definitely. We all have a natural tendency of being one way or another, of holding things in or blurting everything out. I have to manage myself so I don’t hold too much in and so I can speak out. It’s not my natural platform to go to that place, but it actually is far more useful to share what you’re thinking or what you’re feeling instead of having it all locked up inside.
Do you feel like when you sang any of the songs, that they helped you express things that needed to be expressed? And this could be with YMG or with anything after.
With Young Marble Giants, for most of the songs, I was doing my interpretation of Stuart’s lyrics and stories.
Right.
My creative role was just to have my own take on it, just as anybody who listens to any song will have their own movie that runs along the side with an interpretation—and that interpretation might be a million miles away from what was meant when it was written. When it comes to later on with Weekend and Alison Statton & Spike stuff, that was a way to just be a little more open.
Is there a song from the Weekend or the Alison Statton & Spike material that was meaningful to you in that way? That helped you to express things that you really wanted to?
It would be really hard to pick one. With most of the songs I’ve written, it really is for processing something. It’s about communicating what I want to communicate rather than something that doesn’t mean much; they all mean something quite important. I can pick one that didn’t do that because it was far more lighthearted. It was a throwaway and I had a few lyrics and we had to get it written really quickly and everyone was just chucking in a line here or there. That was “Summerdays”—that was the exception to the rule.
Do you remember any songs being difficult to write?
There were a couple on the more recent Bimini Twist album. I touched on some areas I had been meaning to write about.
Do you mind sharing about that? It’s ok if you don’t want to.
I probably mustn’t (laughing).
No worries at all. It’s interesting to hear you talking about things in hindsight. I know the band has talked about Cardiff not being a place you had positive memories of—
I’ll actually step in there because I think that was more Stuart’s take on Cardiff. I grew up in Cardiff and I would say I didn’t have any dislike for it at all. Like many cities, it was quite industrial, and by the late ’70s, there were a lot of problems in terms of poverty. It wasn’t the most advanced in terms of music but there was still a little underground counterculture in the ’60s pushing through. Most of the venues were rock ‘n roll and rhythm and blues in terms of getting gigs, but overall I was happy with Cardiff. I didn’t have a great aversion to it and I didn’t have a great desire to run away and never come back again, and I suppose that’s partly because my family was there, my school friends were there, and all my connections were there. And all of that was so important to me.
I’m living just outside Cardiff now. I did move away to London for a while and then moved back to Cardiff and now I’m just outside of Cardiff. The reason for that is because I like living nearer to the sea, a little bit further out of the city. Where I’m living is almost like a seaside suburb of Cardiff. But yeah, I have no aversion to Cardiff or Wales (laughter). That’s the trouble: something gets said and then it becomes a group opinion when it wasn’t necessarily the same for every member. I would say Stuart had the greatest desire to be out of Cardiff and out of Wales maybe.
I’m happy we’re talking individually because you and Stuart are different people—you have different thoughts and opinions and everything.
I think that was one of the things that made things difficult to communicate, really, early on in the band life. And now it is easier to discuss those things—those differences—and not be afraid to put your two pennyworth in. Not that you’re right and you’re wrong, but that we have different experiences. It’s about opening up the differences instead of closing them down if there’s not an agreement.
If you were to go back in time, what would you say that you didn’t back then?
I would’ve just opened up the area of where there was any unhappiness rather than just sensing it. I would’ve seen if there was a way that it could be changed without totally disbanding (laughs).
So this is in terms of the band breaking up?
And the lead up to that as well. There was too much silence in the lead up. Stuart and I have done lots of talking since then and we really have opened up things since, and probably haven’t gone to every corner but we’ve made amends to some of the differences. I’ve got a great respect for the Moxham brothers and the other brothers who weren’t in the band—they always felt like family to me and family’s not always easy, is it? (laughter). It was quite natural that we had our struggles.
How do you feel like you’re all different? Like, who is Alison? And how are you different from Stuart and Philip?
(laughs). We’re all different from who we were then, that’s for sure. As we’ve got older and hopefully a little bit wiser, we all actually have become similar, more aligned—there are more similarities than differences. That’s definitely how I feel now when I’m with them. I suppose I was less ambitious, I was less driven. I was a little oversensitive, maybe. Those were some of the things that I would say were my foibles or my weaknesses but maybe weren’t present in Stuart.
I think Phil, when he was my partner, was always in the middle somewhere. And Phil is very quiet, and sadly his voice rarely gets heard in interviews because he’s not that forthcoming for them. It’s a shame, really, because he is a really important third dimension. It tends to be that you don’t hear that third point on the triangle, that angle.
What do you feel like Phil brought to the group that you or Stuart didn’t or couldn’t bring?
In terms of any technical issues he was very focused and patient. He was quite a perfectionist in some ways. That’s not the right word but he really saw it important to get things right. There was a steadiness there which you can hear in his basslines.
I definitely can hear that in his basslines. What do you feel like you brought that the other members didn’t?
I don’t know what the word is… but maybe a softer quality. I don’t know. I can’t find the words for that (laughter). That’s an interesting question. I suppose everything was quite choppy, quite rhythmic, quite electronic, so I brought a slightly more human touch to the actual sound, something less controlled, less automated.
How do you feel like you’ve grown as an artist throughout the past decades? You continue to make music, you had Banini Twist a couple years ago.
Certainly, I’ve grown in feeling more confident about writing. To some degree, it was working with other people, though I always worry I don’t have enough knowledge or expertise. But in terms of how I’ve grown, I’ve certainly become more confident in putting ideas forward. And being part of the creative process. And I didn’t have that confidence in Young Marble Giants, which is why so much of the songwriting quickly fell into a role of myself being a vocalist and Stuart writing most of the lyrics. I was writing, but I wasn’t putting things forward. We got into the pattern really quickly.
Do you feel a distance from the album at all?
No. It being such a journey during formative years… it feels so long ago but it’s all so close to my heart. I have a great respect, even more respect as time goes on, for Stuart’s ability and songwriting and for Phil’s creative input and some of the drum rhythms and basslines and his putting things together.
Is there a particular song that resonates with you the most?
That’s changed over the years. “N.I.T.A.” was a big one for a long time. “Final Day” is another one. They all have a little place. I would say “Final Day” at the moment, if I were to pick one song. It’s hard to say. At the time, we were going through the threat of the end of the world at the press of a button. Nuclear power was a huge issue and so there was this fear. I suppose it’s like coronavirus right now—there’s always some big global thing. There’s climate change. There’s always something out there that reminds us of our mortality.
“Final Day” looked at everyday actions—trying to get a baby to sleep, for example—and presented them in an atmosphere where at any point, it could all be ended in the blink of an eye. I’m going down a bleak alley here, but I’m just being realistic (laughter). I thought “Final Day” just addressed the major threat at the time and what most people were focused on.
Do you often think about your own mortality?
Yes. Yes, I would say so, possibly on a daily basis. And it’s not just about getting older. I can remember worrying about mortality as a very young child, worrying about my parents’ mortality, all my loved ones’ mortality. You become a parent and you worry about your children, your friends… I wouldn’t say a day goes by where I’m not aware of it. And that’s not because I’m living in some great hole of depression—it’s reality.
When I’m working with patients as a chiropractor, they’ve got people who are terribly ill in their families, or it’s their carers, or they’ve lost their friends. People open up in those situations and they talk about the things that people don’t feel comfortable talking about. It creates its own physical patterns in the body, so often it’s where these things are unlocked. It is part of the everyday—somebody’s struggling or dying. It is part of life and wherever we’ll end up.
The big scary thing is not knowing when and where. And in reflecting on that, you want to make the most of every day. And again, it means it’s very important to say what you need to say and not keep things in, because one day you won’t have the opportunity to say it. That doesn’t mean expressing all your venom, it just means it is useful to communicate, to even tell someone you love them. It’s an important thing to say. And it’s better than regretting not saying it because they’re no longer there tomorrow or whenever.
Thanks for sharing that, I really appreciate it. I’m wondering now—do you feel content with your life? Like, if you were to pass away right now, God forbid, would you be content with what you’ve done with your life thus far?
As with most people, there would be time I felt I wasted. How I feel now, though, is that I wouldn’t have any regrets about what I have done; I would [have regrets] about not doing just that little bit more. And in that way I don’t mean wanting to achieve more, but spending time on more of the important stuff. It might be wishing that I had really followed up on that email instead of just leaving them hanging (laughter) because I was too busy. Or that I should have made more effort to see that friend. Just those sorts of things. Just being a little bit more proactive.
I like being with people but I really like to have quiet time. That’s partly why lockdown hasn’t been too traumatic for me, but I think sometimes I should put myself out there a little bit more. Just sometimes instead of just going into my little lockdown for a while.
What are some things you want to make sure you still do and accomplish within the next few years. This isn’t to say you’re going to pass away soon, but what would those be?
If that were the case, I’d want to do things that make it easier for everybody I left behind rather than saying I want to write another album. But that would be nice (laughter). It would be fun to do another collaboration with somebody and just have some fun like that. In terms of important things, it would be putting my life straight and making sure it was easier for the people left behind that there’s not so much crap to sort out (laughter). Not just piles and piles of papers to go through, or just an unanswered question that they won’t be able to ask me later on. That’s why everyday communication is good because they can just refer back to that conversation we had on a walk or a phone call or what have you and remember, we were okay.
I love this idea of you wanting to make sure you say the things you want to say before it’s too late. But you’re also talking about making opportunities for people to say those things to you. It goes both ways.
I suppose it’s just asking questions, because you might communicate but other people might not. It’s about making yourself available and not hiding anywhere.
Have you and Stuart and Phil ever talked about playing together again?
No, no. Our last gig was the Meltdown Festival. If you look it up that’ll give you the year, and the month, and the day (laughter). That was our last time playing together. We weren’t going to reform in the first place but we kind of got tempted into it. It was at the Hay on Wye Book Festival and we just thought, “Okay that’ll be great, it’s just books—we’re not coming out trying to do rock ‘n roll or make a comeback.”
With a book festival it’s all very middle-aged and respectable and fun and different. It was just lovely to see the people who turned up there. There was a couple who just got married, another couple who met—as I mentioned earlier—through our music. People were bringing their kids to the gig and like how I had grown up listening to The Beatles, they had grown up listening to Young Marble Giants.
We slowly got to do that but our lives weren’t rock ‘n roll anymore, we had jobs and families. It wasn’t the plan, although we did have this one show in Spain where we all had our family and it was fantastic. We were like aunts and uncles to each other’s kids and all the kids were like a bunch of cousins. It brought the extended family together again, which was fun. But I really don’t think that we would play as Young Marble Giants again.
Is there something you would like people to know about yourself that people wouldn’t know about you?
When I write, I write from my personal experience but I always feel that my personal experience isn’t unique and there will then be things in there that people can identify with. I wouldn’t say anything I do is that original, it’s just that I have a desire to do it sometimes and share it. If people can relate to that, that’s great. I don’t think I’ve got any big secrets to share with anyone (laughter).
And I have one last question that I ask everyone: do you mind sharing one thing you love about yourself?
That I care. I’m not about myself; I care about others. That’s what’s important to me.
Is there anything that you wanted to talk about that we didn’t get to?
This interview was interesting because we just talked a bit more about life in general, and it was more like a conversation than just answering questions. You’ve asked me questions that I can’t answer straight away, and I might go away and think about those (laughs). I’m giving you some answers, but you’re giving me some things to think about as well. It’s good. It’s an exchange rather than just rattling some answers or some anecdotes.
Purchase Colossal Youth at Domino.
Alison’s Picks
I asked Alison to create a list of her favorite albums. The following 20 albums were what she sent to me. Discogs pages are linked for each record.
Miles Davis - Sketches Of Spain (Columbia, 1960)
João Gilberto & Stan Getz - Getz / Gilberto (Verve, 1964)
The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground & Nico (Verve, 1967)
Neil Young - Harvest (Reprise, 1971)
Joni Mitchell - The Hissing of Summer Lawns (Asylum, 1975)
Brian Eno - Before and After Science (Polydor, 1977)
David Bowie - ”Heroes” (RCA, 1977)
Tom Waits - Foreign Affairs (Asylum, 1977)
Augustus Pablo - East of the River Nile (Message, 1977)
The Congos - Heart of The Congos (Black Art, 1977)
Kraftwerk - The Man-Machine (Kling Klang, 1978)
Robert Wyatt - Nothing Can Stop Us (Rough Trade, 1982)
Tom Zé - The Best Of Tom Zé (Luaka Bop, 1990)
Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (Merge, 1998)
Fania All Stars - Our Latin Thing (Nuestra Cosa) (Fania, 1972; Strut 2011)
Fela Kuti - The Best of the Black President 2 (Knitting Factory, 2013)
Bill Callahan - Dream River (Drag City, 2013)
Sun Kil Moon - Benji (Caldo Verde, 2014)
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Skeleton Tree (Bad Seed Ltd., 2016)
Nils Frahm - All Melody (Erased Tapes, 2018)
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