The Wormholes interview (1997)
In June 1997 I interviewed Dave Carroll (1970-2019) of The Wormholes for a a one-off mail-order zine I produced for the band (cover above). I thought I’d transcribe the interview and publish it here as it hasn’t been online before. At this time they had released Scorpio:The Album (1997) so I asked Dave about recording it with Stano, other recent recordings with Stan Erraught (these would later be included on Parijuana in 1999), playing with The Fall in London (March ‘95) and their experience of touring in the UK (’95-’97).
Q: Tell me about recording Scorpio:The Album.
A: We originally met Stano in town and went to Graham’s house that night with Shane and Francis (of Chunkin’ Bronchii). We didn’t know Stano or even really know him when he was leaving that day. He said nothing and just sat there at a four track. It was him who suggested to get us into a studio. He was good to work with, we’d record anything and everything we wanted and he wouldn’t say a word about it. He had maybe three or four mixes for each song. All the music was recorded in one day. The whole Pulse thing was two days and then the day we spent in Graham’s house. I mean I’m sure people will listen to it and go, ‘Yeah, I can gather it was done in 3 days.’ (laughs). It’s just the way we were heading, we knew we didn’t want to do another Chicks. Whether people like it or not, it is our second album. When you pick it up it may look like a mini album because there’s only so many songs, but when you think of it, ‘Kontinental Kop’ is 18 minutes long, ‘Bee Mee’ is 10 and ‘Freak Franco’ is almost 11 and that’s just three songs. We were surprised when we actually played ‘Kontinental Kop’ on the Play Station, it was like, wow, there’s a track on our CD almost 20 minutes long, I thought we’d knocked all that shit on the head. But then even on Parijuana, if that tape didn’t run out, I don’t know how long ‘Drive Dead Slow’ would have been. We were going at it full ahead from this sort of build up and Mark Carolan had to tell us the tape ran out.
Q: What about working with Stan Erraught (ex The Stars of Heaven and The Sewing Room)? These recordings with Stan at Sun Studios, plus other recordings would be used for Parijuana in 1999.
A: When we heard Stan wanted to work with us we were blown away, we couldn’t get over it. This guy had done so much, I mean he was releasing records in the 80s. It must have been a really weird and difficult time to release anything, but this guy was doing it then when we were all still in school dreaming about what it would be like to own a guitar, let alone put out a poxy single. Same with Stano, he could have fobbed us off like, ‘Oh these little shits they think their doing something different, making a bit of a noise’ (laughs), but he just thought the way we done out stuff was right up his street.
It was strange going into the same studio and the same desk as well but with totally different vibes. I hadn’t even talked to Stan or Mark (Carolan), I’d just walked in off the street and we did ‘Turkish Prison Dance’. We were just buzzin, the DAT was there, used just the one mic, Stan played the saz, Mark played guitar, Graham played drums, Anto just stood there and shook the maracas and I played the bongos. Everyone was jammed into this one room and we just banged it out there and then. None of us even realised when we were doing it, it was only after we thought, you know we didn’t play anything really, we just picked up some stuff and rattled it alongside what was being played and it was the first time we’d ever done that. When we heard it back none of us could even talk to each other, we were so chuffed with it.
After that Mark finished putting up the mics and left. So we’d go in, start recording, Stan would be getting levels say and then he’d run in with his guitar and jump in with us, it was brilliant. We’d definitely work with him again. Stan just totally changed our whole outlook on what it’s like to work in the studio. He was giving us records by Faust and Can. I mean, these are records he’d bought 15, 16 years earlier when he was only a nipper. He told us a story about when he bought The Faust Tapes, it was on sale for 49p. He brought that particular record home when he was about 15 years old and he was eating his dinner with his Mum and Dad playing The Faust Tapes and them wondering what the hell he was listening to, they couldn’t get their head around this record that was chopped to bits.
Q: How has your experience of touring the UK been? First 1995 tour dates above (there was at least one that is not listed, Bristol’s Loco on 30th April with TW).
A: The first UK tour with Trumans Water was amazing, we only had to turn up and play, there was no pressure on us and any time we played with Cornershop it was the same deal. Even if there wasn’t many people we didn’t get so downhearted seeing as weren't the headline band.
On the second UK tour we tried to say to Roadrunner, it’s like this, putting us on a headliner is madness, try and get us on with not even a big band, just a band that 50 or 60 people will turn up to see. There were offers there to play with The Supreme Dicks but Roadrunner wouldn’t front us the money, they said it was pointless bringing us to London for 2 or 3 shows, but then they funded the British tour where we played to no-one for two weeks, apart from the Cornershop gigs. Cornershop were saying it was a bad time of year to tour as students were on holidays.
We went to Hull and played with Trumans and it was amazing, the audience were animals, just wrecking the place. We go there two months later and its dead, drive into town and it’s a ghost-town. I’m not making that as an excuse because even if the town was all hustle and bustle we still would have only got about 20 people cause no-one knew us.
At least when we went back the second time, even to have three new songs to bring back to England, we had ‘Marshmallow’, we had ‘Riotman’ and ‘Hotel Cash’. To us that was like bringing gold in your pocket, these aren't off Chicks, these are just new songs.
The second 1995 UK tour dates.
Q: Tell me more about playing with The Fall in London.
A: In March 1995 we played a beautiful little gig (The Forum) supporting Mr. Mark E. Smith and The Fall on his request or so we were led to believe and we were honoured. That was like the icing on the cake for us and when they came to Dublin (Mean Fiddler) in December they asked for us again. I mean what can we say. We were all too chicken to speak to him. We all had this idea that he was the most arrogant, most unbelievably difficult person to even get two words out of and that’s what scared us off. We were like we wanted to say hello and I wanted to tell him I though This Nation is one of the best records I’ve heard from any British band. That’s the sort of stuff I wanted to say to the guy but when I approached him I think I mumbled, ‘How-a-yi’ in my worst Dublin accent and scurried up the stairs, hoping he wouldn’t say something sarcastic. When I caught up with Anto and Graham I was hanging out of them saying I’d just met Jesus Christ, like I’d had tea with John Lennon or something. Mark E. Smith said hello to me was my claim to fame for the rest of the day. The gig was great. We were real nervous before. If there’s any band you need as role models it’s The Fall, keep their ethics.
Q: Talk about your UK dates with Scotland’s Pilotcan in Jan/Feb 1997. Pic from Scotland above, by Kieron Mellotte.
We played 6 gigs in 11 days. The better shows were in Edinburgh and London (Camden Falcon). We’ve never really been able to get it together in Scotland, the gigs we played there in ‘95 were bad, both tours. We played with Pilotcan, we knew them from the first tour when we slept on Keiron, from the bands, floor. He puts on gigs, we slept on the same floor as Jon Spencer. He was telling us that Deus had stayed in his flat before us and that they were mad. They were all real quiet, if they weren’t out drinking they’d just be sitting around or you’d find them reading a book. They all kept talking their own language and then laughing. Kieron and all his mates would be sitting there freaked, up the wall, he’s got a bunch of Belgians having their own private jokes in his flat (laughs).
Stuart from Mogwai got up at the Attic in Edinburgh and played a Smog track, ‘I Break Horses’. He did it amazing, just him and guitar, he did one or two Mogwai tracks as well, the best thing that happened that night. That was the Pilotcan single launch, it was a mad night. We were all on magic mushrooms and we were going back the next day. We fell asleep listening to the Modern Lovers, amazing album, like the Velvets.
Live review from Melody Maker for first UK tour
A: Any more thoughts?
We never thought in a million years that Cornershop would work with us or even Lo Recordings wanting to put our stuff out on compilations and that. It’s staggering to us, it mightn't mean a great deal to a lot of people but it’s what we always wanted to do. Our aim is to bombard the planet with as much stuff as we can.
A few more live adverts
Wormhole and a few other Irish bands played at the 1995 Phoenix festival (get your glasses out to find them all!)
I travelled to see them play at The Garage and then joined them on the road for the next show the following night at Bristol’s Loco supporting Trumans Water. We travelled back the same night to the comforts of The Florence aka Hotel Cash in London’s King Cross.
Stephen Rennicks
