UK cult (anti?) heroes David Cronenberg’s Wife returned this week with their fifth LP Department of Biology (out now via the ever excellent Blang Records), and those familiar with their oeuvre might not be surprised to find them within that faculty, lingering particularly around seminars on anatomy and reproduction.
Through ten surreal, darkly humorous story-songs that veer from macabre to sordid to lovelorn, via moments of profundity and profanity (occasionally at the same time), DCW take us from Biblical incest to 19th Century Russian brothels to a mermaid’s lair to a seedy hotel room in New York in the 1980s, and leave us feeling both soiled and edified by the experience come the final chimes of album closer ‘If You Think About It’.
We caught up with frontman Tom Mayne to find out about some of the songs that had guided his musical path. Listen to his full playlist here and read about why they were chosen below.
What is your earliest music-related memory? What do you remember being played at home when you were a child?
I was on holiday with my parents and my dad had a Walkman with what seemed like only two cassettes. Two albums – one by the American jazz guitarist Barney Kessel and Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’.
Strange that when I was looking at how to write this article, I first read the ‘10 Songs’ by Hater’s Måns Leonartsson and he said the same thing – that he had a cassette tape of ‘Born in the USA’. I guess it was peak cassette, and peak Bruce back then.
But some of the lines from those songs – ‘We learned more from a three-minute record than we ever learned in school’, ‘There’s a war outside still raging – you say it ain’t ours anymore to win.’ Come on! And that’s just from the same song.
Years later when I was learning Czech in Brno I took a cassette player with me even though the technology had moved on. Had the Barney Kessel with me, though not the Bruce.
What was the first record that you ever bought? Where did you get it and do you have any recollection of the experience?
I was a bit of a shut-in as a teenager. I didn’t go out apart from to the park near my house to watch the bowls. I remember asking my mum to buy my first record. She would have bought it from WH Smith in Stockport Shopping Centre.
Pre-teenage years I would go there to look at the Amstrad CPC464 games (also on tape) while my mum was doing other shopping. WH Smith has a unique smell – I think it’s the paper of the magazines. Marks & Spencer’s too – maybe the fabric of the clothes? You could bottle either – give me one sniff and I’d tell you the shop.
Anyway, the CD she bought was Nirvana’s ‘In Utero’. Kurt had just died and I remember listening to that CD over and over and over. Wondering why some of the songs had strange, incomplete endings. I’d turn the listening into a competition, where each time I would play the CD I would eliminate a track at a time until I got down to one. I think ‘Radio Friendly Unit Shifter’ won.
When did you really start to develop a passion for listening to music? How did that come about and what were you into at the time?
I was inspired by my dad. He bought me my first guitar when I was 15. His interests were predominantly jazz, but he was also a big Bob Dylan fan. I remember him buying for me four Dylan CDs soon after he got me the guitar: ‘Highway 61 Revisited’, ‘Blood on the Tracks’, ‘Blonde on Blonde’ and ‘Bringing it all Back Home’. ‘Blood on the Tracks’ is my favourite. Later I’d learn about the stripped-down weird-tuning original version which is even better. That version of ‘Tangled up in Blue’ has a weird perfection to it, even with Bob’s sleeve buttons hitting against the guitar. The lyrics attracted me and I wanted to attempt to try and match even a tenth, a hundredth of that.
What was the first gig that you went to? Where was it and what was it like?
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds at the Brixton Academy in the late 90s. I went with my friends George and Graeme, first time in London. I remember buying a tube ticket with cash, shovelling coin after coin into the machine – it seemed expensive.
George had got me into a lot of amazing music. Everything from Leonard Cohen to Lambchop. So, it seemed right that the first gig was with him. We grew apart over the years and it was fitting that one of the last times I really hung out with him was also a Nick Cave gig, but unlike the swirling madness of the Academy gig when we were close up at the front, this one was an all-seated affair and we were on the balcony. George almost got thrown out of the venue for lighting a cigarette.
What are your memories of starting out making music? What was the first song that you learned to play?
It was also with George. I remember going to his house one night with my guitar (the 15th birthday present). I just had a bunch of really stupid ideas – our relationship was basically just trying to make each other laugh. There was one song about Neil Young and Neil Kinnock meeting in a church called ‘Kneel to Neil, Neil’. We were writing songs until the early hours, until George’s neighbour came up from the floor below to say that we were being too loud. We probably had four or five songs at the end of the night. Ridiculous stuff. And that led to the band Mangina, in a way, an early prototype of David Cronenberg’s Wife, though I wasn’t in it, as I was in Brno at the time. Mangina even blagged a gig at the Roxy in Los Angeles by having a professional looking website, as Tom Pounder, Mangina’s bass player, had great web designer skills. Plus, they said they’d supported Elvis Costello, which wasn’t true of course.
What was your first band/musical project? What music was influencing you at that time? What are your memories of playing your first gig and are there any recordings out there?
With George, I started a band called Cactus Jack – named after our favourite wrestler. Our first show was just a couple of songs at a local open mic. All of that stuff that I was listening to back then – Patti Smith, Lou Reed, The Fall – was feeding into the music. But a lot of it had an intentionally sarcastic edge – music should always be dangerous but not necessarily serious. I was living in a warehouse in Arcola Street in London for a couple of months with songwriter JS Rafaeli and a bunch of artists. I wrote ‘Runaway Pram’ there. But George had moved on.
What are your memories of starting DCW? What was your first release and what do you think now when you listen back to it?
The first gig proper was a little while later. I gave a CD with three songs on it to Joe Murphy from Sergeant Buzfuz, who ran the Blang night at the 12 Bar Club on Denmark St in Soho, London’s equivalent of New York’s Sidewalk Cafe. He gave me a gig, so I had to form a band quickly. So I got my friends Jon Baines and Pog Colin – who used to be in the girl band Fluffy – to join on drums and bass.
The show was actually recorded from the sound desk but the drums weren’t miked because the 12 Bar was so small. I have a minidisk of it, with a very weird mix of acoustic guitar and bass with the drums barely heard.
Some years later we recorded our first album. Half of it was recorded by ex-Death in Vegas and all-round top guy Ian Button. The rest was just me and the band in the basement of my parents’ house. My friend Danny drove us up to Manchester, arriving at about 1am.
I still like the lo-fi-ness of those early recordings. Not all those recordings have been released yet, but we hope to do that, maybe next year.
Back then, we played any gig that we could, but just in London really. Whenever we went outside of London it seemed to go disastrously wrong. I remember playing the bar of an indoor ski slope in Milton Keynes where the only audience was the promoter. They had a smoke machine and everything. So, it was like being on a very weird episode of Top of the Pops but with no audience.
Which band/artist do you think has had the biggest influence on your music over the years? What is it about them that inspires you?
There’s too many to mention. But let’s go with Jeffrey Lewis. And not just because we’ve been on tour with him recently. It was George again who gave me an MP3 of his ‘The Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song’. I loved the way he was recording basically into a cassette recorder – just pressing record, and that was what was released. It was an early 2000s version of the of the punk ethos. I didn’t matter how well you sang, or what equipment you had, or how well you played guitar: the Antifolk way. What was important was what you said in the song, and Jeff taught me that.
Who are some of your favourite current artists? What do you like about them?
My Pussy Tastes Like Microplastics. Pure artistic freedom. Chaos! I love the fact that some people are keeping the spirit of live performance alive. Also, that I can’t see how they can really take the band on tour? There’s at least seven of them, often two drummers, or a guy just hitting some metal beer barrels, a mandolin, other weird instruments, and the show tends to descend into a mass mosh pit. That’s hard to take on the road night after night. I’d be dead after 4 shows. Maybe they know that. Maybe they’ll burn out in a few short blissful months. But I hope not – I hope they make 10 records and I’m still around to hear them when I’m 78.
You have a new album out soon, how has your approach to making music changed since you started out, and how has your sound developed over that time? Is there a particular song on the record that epitomises what you’re aiming to achieve or that is particularly special to you for any reason?
It’s more collaborative now. The earlier songs were basically 2 chords, or even just 2 notes over and over. I am still doing that! But now there are some more complex ideas. The other members of the band bring a lot. And I think the group is stronger than it’s ever been. The sound has become more sophisticated over the five albums that we’ve done.
In terms of this record, ‘Mermaid’s Tale’ probably epitomises what we’re trying to achieve. It may be the best thing I’ve ever written. The perfect distillation of a DCW song. And ‘Suli’s House’ from the last album. That has some of the sophistication. We’ll be playing those a lot I’m sure when we’re on tour May/June.
Department of Biology is out on 1st May via Blang Records. Order now on vinyl or digital download on Bandcamp
Catch DCW live at the following venues:
28th May – David’s Music, Letchworth
29th May – Bingley, Bingley Arts Centre
30th May – Sheffield, Mary St Live
31st May – Nottingham, The Grove
2nd June – Edinburgh, Sneaky Pete’s
3rd June – Newcastle, Little Buildings
4th June – London, George Tavern
David Cronenberg’s Wife: Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp
Article by Paul Maps
Photograph by La Staunton
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