This is a compilation post, featuring interview snippets and links from one of my favorite bands: Portishead. Gibbons, Barrow and Utley were a formidable force in the 90s UK trip hop (Bristol) scene, boasting two massively influential albums (plus a really excellent live album). After a long period of silence, they came out with the album Third in the late 2000s with a totally fresh and new sound.
A notoriously reclusive band, any Portishead interview (especially with Beth!) I can get, I will take. This post is mostly for my own reference, to go back and read when I feel like it.
*DISCLAIMER: I CLAIM NO OWNERSHIP OF THESE ARTICLES AND INTERVIEWS*
This interview is an illuminating look at Portishead's early years, including Utley's introduction to the group.
"'Just hearing the sub-bass and Beth’s voice – it was unbelievable. Like a whole new world that was really exciting and vital....It was a really exciting time, because there was this amalgamation of ideas and a lifetime of separate discovery with all of us. And the fact that we brought it to each other…' Utley beams. 'It was like a new love.'"
I love this interview, where Geoff seems very affable after the released of Third. He talks in depth about the creation of the album:
“It was this thing about beats. Through the last ten years I’ve not been very interested in beats at all. I actually tried to find another side of my creativity rather than just programming because everything I touched I was not into at all. It just sounded shit. So to kind of get out of that I started fucking around with keyboards and music and a lot more playing drums really, but in a non-traditional kind of way, and still trying to maintain some points of hip-hop and interesting music. So I ended up playing it on the back of an acoustic guitar. I just turned the guitar around, stuck a mike on it and just played that groove. So it’s a live groove from start to finish.”
03. Unknown Interviewer || 1995 || Author: Unknown
This is a video interview with Beth (a rare sighting!) I was unable to find anything on this interview, except for a YouTube video, uploaded in 2017.
Beth is clearly out of her comfort zone, but we get some great information and she powers through.
She talks about how she met Geoff in Bristol. It really illuminates how hard it was to get the group started (thank GOD they didn't give up).
She talks about how she used to sing in her bedroom; humorously, the interviewers ask if she has any bootlegs they can listen to!
It's a short interview; Beth is very shy, and was generous to speak at all. Love her.
Listen to the full interview HERE.
This is another interview missing Beth, after the advent of Third. Again, this is a retrospective look at the very early days of the band. Geoff puts a humorous tilt on Portishead trying to get government approval:
"(Geoff Barrow) In the UK, you could do a year being unemployed, and the government would pay you the same amount of money you would get as being unemployed, but you could set up a business. So the idea was I was going to set up a music production company. We had to go for this kind of one day where you sit round and learn about the fact of how to do."
"Personal humiliation day for the government. It was really awkward. We were sat around this big kind of table in this hotel in Clifton, and there was a mobile hairdresser. There was a guy wanting to sell chocolates at the back of a van like a sheep shearer. Then, Beth kind of said she wanted to quit and just do singing as a career, and she wanted to concentrate on a song and so on. It was like, "Oh, she's a professional singer," and she's looking at us going out there like a music production company. This is amazing. We could have been, well, absolutely terrible, but we were just like, "Let's work together!"
On their unique music production methods: "Even though we were making our own records, we had to make stuff that actually sounded like it was taken from full records and then sampled that. If we had made it too, "That's the baseline. That the beat. That's that," it would have sounded too much like a real record here."
05. The New Music || 1995 || Author: Unknown
Another rare Beth interview. At 1:24 she talks about her first small gigs. There's a lot of great Portishead material playing throughout from their first album, Dummy, including footage I hadn't seen before. I particularly love the rendition of Numb.
"The eclectic sound of Portishead" *laughs*
Beth remarks that initially she thought their sound was too "slow and unsellable".
Lots of great moments scattered throughout.
Listen to the full interview HERE.
Comments
Post a Comment