Alfie aim for the big time

2004 was not the best of years for EMI. The delay of Coldplay’s album caused the record company’s share prices to fall dramatically, which led to a drastic cull of bands. One of which was Manchester’s very own Alfie. Just before last Christmas, things were looking decidedly frosty for the city’s favourite nearly men. Lee Gorton, Alfie frontman, reflects: "We almost didn’t make another album. We had to prove to the record company that Alfie are a band of real value. We had to really convince them to let us make this record. EMI knew the last record was really good, but they just didn’t know how to sell it.

"But with this new album, we’ve got something that we’re really proud of. It’s the album a lot of Alfie fans have been waiting for. It’s good to be back."

Sat in the back room of a bohemian Manchester pub, Gorton is all boyish smiles (remarkably, he turned 30 recently) and basking in the completion of a difficult journey that really tested the resolve and strength of his four bandmates. But the good news is, they’ve come out of the experience with the album of their career.

Gorton smiles: "It’s all about surviving. It’s about getting better and better and making sure you’re in a position to make more albums. No one thought we were gonna make four albums - not even you!"

City Life indignantly responds: "Yes, we did!"

"Give over! You’re lying if you say that! No one thought we had it in us to get this far. Everyone thought we were slackers, everyone thought we would just bum it. And look at us now: four albums and getting really good. Getting better with each album. I always said we would take time."

It’s taken them six long and winding years to be precise. Gorton, Ian Smith (guitars), Matt McGeever (cello), Sean Kelly (drums) and Sam Morris (bass) formed in the late ’90s and were quickly snapped up by hip local independent label Twisted Nerve, home to Badly Drawn Boy (there, that’s this week’s City Life BDB name check out the way).

Their relationship with the label lasted for two albums before they parted ways (very acrimoniously, but let’s not rake up that dirt again here) and Alfie were soon picked up by major record label Parlophone, owned by EMI. Coincidentally, the person who signed them was a man called Dan Keeling, the very same A&R man who signed Coldplay and Athlete.

"It’s weird innit? In some ways, I still can’t believe Parlophone even signed us!” says Gorton. “We’ll never be a big stadium band like Coldplay - I don’t think we’ve got it within us.

"But we’ve never compromised yet. There is a certain pressure being on a big record label, but you’ve just got to be yourself. You listen to what they tell you, but you have to keep your own integrity."

This month, Alfie release what they consider to be their major record label debut proper. Their first official record for Parlophone, 2003’s Do You Imagine Things?, was considered by many to be a commercial and critical flop - an album even Gorton concedes was, "Not very palatable. Very few people understood it. It was very schizophrenic.

"But it’ll be a lost classic. People will rediscover it, I tell you."

Collection

Conversely, new album Crying At Teatime is a collection many people are likely to understand straight from the starting pistol. Produced by themselves with the help of their live engineer Andrew Thornton at the Big Mushroom Studios in Middlewich (the studio owned by The Charlatans), it’s their most realised and crafted pop vision yet.

There’s still lots of the off-kilter and cheeky intricacies that make Alfie the most idiosyncratic guitar band in the country, but finally, in songs like the infectious title track (written by bassist Sam) and the heart-melting ‘Where Did Our Loving Go?’, you can sense that Alfie’s pop map is more widescreen and insistent than it’s ever been before. Not that Alfie care overly, but EMI shareholders are probably jumping with delight.

"We had nothing to prove to anyone,” says Gorton. “We were just writing pop songs for fun. I really wanted people to understand these songs on one listen and say, ‘It’s all right this!’"

Barely a week into the recording sessions and Gorton began to realise that this would be "Alfie’s album of hope". After a year of incessant professional grief with his record company and also personal turmoil (he broke up with his long-term girlfriend), Gorton was quietly beginning to question his own faith.

The result of all this hardened self-reflection is new single and future Alfie signature anthem ‘Your Own Religion’. Luscious, intelligent and a definite musical step forwards, the song is ostensibly Alfie’s ‘devil-may-care’ worldview condensed into a five-minute pop mantra. And in context of current gloomy world events, it is a definite ray of light.

"‘Your Own Religion’ sums us up as a band perfectly. It’s a metaphor,” explains Gorton. “But I also wanted it to be a positive, hopeful message for everyone. People have a hard time being at ease with themselves.

"There are all these moral codes around the world dictating how people should behave. People should just create their own moral guidelines - not necessarily a religion, but just live by your own standards. Make your own decisions and values. You’ve got all these fundamental believers in different things and they all end up arguing. Organised religion is such a short-term answer."

But then again, the life of Alfie has been so protracted and strange that the conventional route was never really an option.

Gorton concludes with a flourish: "We’re such an anomaly - this band shouldn’t work! This band contains two lads from the Midlands who come from a classically trained background, there’s a couple of lads from Salford who’ve been in bands for 15 years, then there’s me. Me who knows nothing about music whatsoever.

"But I’ve got guts and instinct. Between us all, it works. And the best thing is, we’re getting better with each album. The best is yet to come from Alfie - just you wait and see."

source: morover