Mother and the Addicts Biography
History has known many great mothers - Mary, Teresa, Victoria Beckham - but only one of them has been a twenty something male from Glasgow via Brighton, whose children are a motley conglomerate of artists, eccentrics and genial something abusers, and who's just made the finest ramshackle doo-wop pop n' soul record you'll hear all year. Who he? He is Sam Smith, one half of Mother's psyche, and (for tax reasons) his alias. But just who the hell is the fantastical, pansexual rock n' roll dervish they call Mother? What are the addicts hooked on? And what is this CD you hold in your hands? Read on and all shall be revealed.
"Mother is who I would like to be, but real life won't allow, (he pauses), yet." explains a plain-clothes Mother, in a Glaswegian bar over several pints and a plume of cigarette smoke. “My current situation lends that persona impractical, in every day life. Frankly, my partner finds him very difficult to live with. Mother is a relative of mine, a little slimmer, madder, and a little less well behaved. Some could say my manic side. I guess Mother is the part of me I can’t sustain all the time, because I get worn out. When does Mother appear, you may ask? Well, I sit at the tape machine press record and Mother emanates out of the speaker.”
Arriving in Glasgow from Brighton in March 2003, Mother completely disconnected himself from his previous life, and, armed only with three completely different demos by three completely different artists he'd invented, set out to make a fresh start. When the first three-song demo by Mother & The Addicts - Sam's outlet for the side of him that loved Dr. Feelgood, The Ramones and Roxy Music - began attracting attention, Mother made a resolution: "This was the way to go. I could of been seduced by the ego known as Duane Ready and his backing group the Robots, but deep down I knew it was Mother & The Addicts demo that was closest to my heart. I'd become tired of samples and programming - which I was doing a lot of before - and wanted to get back to playing real drums, hitting something, making really up music."
After inking a deal with legendary Glaswegian label Chemikal Underground - home of The Delgados and Arab Strap, amongst others - in December 2003, Mother set about the task of actually finding his Addicts; an experience which proved more arduous than expected.” I sent out CD's to various people around town who'd answered ads I'd put up," recounts Mother, "But invariably I'd end up with someone who wanted to be in a speed metal band, or someone who'd say something like "Oh, I'm really into meat and potatoes guitar blah and you kind of went ho hum, next.”
It wasn't until Mother heard tell of a disgruntled drummer ready to broaden his horizons and find a new band that he began to make headway. His name was Ian Cronan, and Mother can recall the exact moment he met the man. "Some one pointed him out to me saying he was the ‘spare’ drummer. He was lying on the floor, in what I would term as a state of advanced intelligence, rolling from side to side laughing and groaning. A little wary of this unknown entity I ushered him into a bedroom, sat him down, explained my intentions were honourable, looked him in the eye and said 'Right old chap - I need a band, I've got a record deal, fancy getting hitched?' So I played him the tape and he just said: "Aye, alright."
With those two words, The Addicts were born. The floodgates opened; soon after, Peter Vallely, a long time friend of Ian's, joined on bass. Douglas Morland, an acquaintance of Mother's via his Thursday night residency on the decks at Glasgow School of Art's Vic bar, became second guitarist, and the extravagant Kendall Koppe - half-Brazilian, half-Columbian, raised in New York - became 'Visual Counterpoint' to Mother, and was placed in control of an MPC sampler. "Kendall's an exotic creature," explains Douglas. "He'd never even touched a musical instrument before he joined the band, but he just took the whole thing in his stride. He goes mental. He brings so much to the band - he's so much more than a guy who hits a sampler." "If you met us," continues Douglas, "You'd think - what the hell are these five guys doing in a band together? We're all very different, and did very different things before being in a band together. It really works though, there's definite chemistry."
Undoubtedly so - between their off-kilter understanding of melody and song craft, hyperkinetic stage personas and Kendall's hair, Mother & The Addicts began to be whispered of as - groan - 'Glasgow's Next Big Thing', when in fact they were much more. And so, band now in place, Mother & The Addicts set about recording their debut album, the record you've just put into your stereo and is about to bowl you over like a skittle obstructing a subway train. Locked away behind the crumbling Victorian walls of Chem19, Chemikal Underground's studio in deepest, darkest Hamilton, Mother served his apprenticeship by sitting in on the recording of The Delgados' 'Universal Audio' and began working on his own opus.
"I don't like things that are too sugary-sweet," explains Mother. "I like pop music, but the sort that’s a little bit darker and grittier. There is a great deal of ‘prettiness’ in life, nice things etc. I don’t deny that, I’m not a pessimist, but if all you get is gloss things begin to ring a little hollow."
The long process of recording the album began in summer '04, set to a back drop of metal and club bands that used the studios next door, not to mention packing up gear under cover of night from the local delinquents. "Somewhere on the record," laughs Mother, "you can hear a gentle fusion of local metal gods, smashing glass, thanks to local youth throwing their bottles against the back wall and me, cursing because of the bloody racket, I guess you’d find it to be a kind of ‘a provincial Friday night’ themed form of music concrete.”
Wanting to make a record that evoked the spirit of the original demos done on Mother's eight-track, Chemikal Underground gave Mother free reign to make as 'un-glossy' an album as he pleased. "It's a pretty raw album," says Mother, "But I think that's certainly to its credit. This really wasn’t an attempt to make a retro album. It's not like I'm recording on pre-1965 equipment or anything like that but it was important the album had its own sound that captured what I’m about."
You'll have noticed by now, from the very first manic spin of 'They Don't Even Like You' to the final notes of 'Even Time Will Destroy Me', the album is chaotic but never sloppy, heartfelt but relentless, mind-boggling yet somehow as comfortable as a well-worn pair of Cuban heels. At its heart is the sense that a little too much weight in one direction would send the whole thing spinning down a flight of stairs and into something else entirely, and yet there are genuinely great pop moments on the album, from debut release 'Who Art You Girl?' (released last December to widespread acclaim), to the brilliantly titled future single 'Oh Yeah...You Look Quite Nice'. It's a sugar-rush of skewed sexuality, frantic melody and bloody brilliant doo-wops.
"Most bands," says Mother of his band's unconventional genesis, "Gig for years and years, release an album, spend the next year and a bit playing it at people, and then release another one. With us, it's all been fairly chaotic. Things don’t follow a logical progression but, I like that haphazard sort of thing. We’re an upside down band.”