Saint Etienne: Sarah Cracknell on 35 years of music, Glastonbury chaos and saying goodbye.
Interview by Paul Marshall
Tonight, I had the absolute pleasure of talking with Sarah Cracknell, the unmistakable voice of one of the UK's most enduring and influential pop groups. And there is something rather special about the timing of our conversation because Saint Etienne are finally coming to New Zealand.
For the first time ever.
On 20 November, the band will walk onto the stage at Auckland's Powerstation as part of what they have promoted as their final ever tour. And if that wasn't enough of a reason to be there, the tour follows the release of what is expected to be their final studio album, International.
So, for New Zealand fans, this really is a case of first time and potentially last time.
You'd better get a ticket.
But before we get to the final chapter, I wanted to go back to the beginning.
I always try to steer my interviews away from the predictable promotional questions and instead look for the stories hiding between the lines. With Sarah, that meant going right back to Chelmsford in Essex, where she was born, a part of the world I know particularly well myself, having been born just 30 minutes away.
Like me, Sarah left Essex at a young age, moving to Burnham-on-Crouch. And it was there, at just 14 years old, that she joined her first band, the brilliantly named The Worried Parachutes.
There was even a little family business arrangement involved, with Sarah's mum taking on the role of what we might now call the band's "mumager."
I asked Sarah what she remembers most fondly from those early days.
"I think it was just such fun. I just loved it. I loved doing gigs. It was a complete hoot. I mean, it was amazing. What fun for someone of my age."
Those gigs took the teenage band around the London circuit, playing legendary venues including the Half Moon in Putney, the Fulham Greyhound and the Rock Garden.
And remember, these weren't seasoned musicians with tour buses and road crews.
Sarah laughs as she remembers the reality:
"There was no one over 17, and no one had a driving license. So yeah, my mum used to drive us around in a big yellow Transit van."
From a yellow Transit van to one of Britain's most recognisable voices is quite some journey.
FINDING THE VOICE
Sarah's voice has become one of the defining ingredients of the Saint Etienne sound, delicate when it needs to be, conversational at times, euphoric at others, and always unmistakably hers.
After more than three decades of recording, touring and performing, I wanted to know whether her relationship with that voice had changed.
The answer begins with an admission that, from a very early age, she knew she wanted to make the voice her own.
"My voice has changed. I kind of decided to make it my own sound from a very early age."
Her early inspiration was Siouxsie Sioux, before another vocalist completely changed the way she thought about singing.
That was Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins.
Sarah was fascinated by Fraser's ability to treat her voice almost like another instrument, something that could exist beyond conventional lyrics and melody.
It is an influence that makes perfect sense when you listen to Sarah's own work. Her voice has never simply been about delivering lyrics. It is part of the atmosphere.
And perhaps that shouldn't come as a surprise.
Saint Etienne have always made music that feels cinematic.
Their songs often seem like miniature films, populated by characters, locations, memories and fleeting moments. So I asked Sarah whether, when recording a vocal, she creates a character in her head or simply reacts instinctively to the music.
The answer reveals another piece of the Cracknell family history.
"It is very much sort of character-based, and I like that."
Her father worked in the film industry and her mother was an actress.
"I sort of grew up around that kind of atmosphere."
Suddenly, Saint Etienne's cinematic quality makes even more sense.
THE ART OF THE UNEXPECTED
Over the years, Saint Etienne have never been particularly interested in musical boundaries.
Northern soul, house, indie, disco, electronica, orchestral pop and spoken word have all found a home within their world.
But who is usually responsible for those moments when somebody throws an idea into the room and says, essentially, why the hell not?
Sarah says that in the band's earlier days it was often Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs.
"Bob would come up with an idea, and Pete would go along with the idea, and they'd collaborate on the idea."
But International was different.
This time, the initial idea came from Sarah herself.
"The current album was very much my idea to make it a party album to finish with, to go out on a high."
Then comes one of the most beautiful descriptions of the album's place in the band's history.
Sarah says she likes the fact that International is reminiscent of the band's first album.
"So it's like a sort of bookended career."
A career coming full circle.
Not many bands get the opportunity to consciously design their final chapter that way.
THE SAINT ETIENNE SONGBOOK
Saint Etienne have accumulated an extraordinary catalogue along the way.
"He’s on the Phone."
"You're in a Bad Way."
"Only Love Can Break Your Heart."
"He's on the Phone."
The list goes on.
So I asked Sarah a question every artist eventually has to confront: are there songs in the catalogue that she believes deserved to be much bigger?
Her response is almost incredulous.
"Wow, um, God. Yeah, I mean, I don't know."
Then comes the statistic that is genuinely astonishing.
Saint Etienne have had numerous Top 20 singles but, as Sarah points out, never had a conventional Top 10 single.
"Come on!" she laughs.
There is, however, an interesting footnote to that story.
The band did have a UK Top 10 hit under another name, with "7 Ways to Love”, the 1991 electronic dance single released under the alias Cola Boy, a pseudonym of Saint Etienne.
Sometimes chart history has a funny way of hiding in plain sight.
GLASTONBURY, 30,000 PEOPLE AND ONE MISSING BASS PLAYER
Then there is Glastonbury.
Saint Etienne made history in 1994 by becoming the first act to be broadcast live from the festival.
Thirty thousand-plus people.
Live television.
Glastonbury.
Saint Etienne.
It sounds like the sort of moment that would be carefully documented in every official history of the festival.
But I wanted to know what happened that day that wouldn't make it into the official history.
Sarah delivers exactly the sort of story I was hoping for.
"It was quite fraught with peril that day."
The problem?
Their bass player Jack had disappeared.
The band were waiting outside Sarah's flat in West London, ready to head to Glastonbury, but there was no sign of him.
It turned out that the previous night, while the band had been in Scandinavia, Jack had met some rather gorgeous Scandinavian girls.
And apparently decided that Glastonbury could wait.
Sarah recalls:
"Jack who'd just disappeared, gone missing. Basically, we'd been to Scandinavia, and he'd met some really gorgeous Scandinavian girls, and he'd gone out with them the night before."
Eventually, the band resorted to banging on his door until they managed to get him into the van.
They were horrendously late.
Sarah remembers that nobody was particularly happy with Jack during the journey.
"I think nobody spoke to him the whole way to Glastonbury. He was so in the doghouse."
And when they finally arrived?
"We arrived at Glastonbury, like, half an hour before we actually had to go on."
Ironically, that may have helped.
Sarah says:
"In a way, it was quite good, because it meant that I didn't have time to get nervous."
Half an hour after arriving, Saint Etienne were on stage in front of more than 30,000 people, while being broadcast live to the nation.
Some bands meticulously prepare for moments like that.
Saint Etienne apparently just needed their bass player to turn up.
WHAT DOES A PRODUCER BRING OUT OF SARAH CRACKNELL?
Over the years, Sarah has worked with an impressive array of producers, musicians and collaborators.
But what does a great producer bring out of Sarah Cracknell that she perhaps can't find on her own?
One particularly important collaboration came with producer Tore Johansson in Malmö, Sweden, during the making of Good Humor.
Sarah explains that the attraction was partly about escaping the increasingly sample-driven world around them.
"We went to him because we loved the sound, and we wanted to make a record that was completely organic, you know, all real instruments, rather than samples."
It was another example of Saint Etienne refusing to stand still.
THE ARCHAEOLOGISTS' QUESTION
I always like to throw one completely left-field question into my interviews, something that hopefully an artist hasn't been asked 50 times already.
So I asked Sarah this:
If Saint Etienne's entire 35-year career were discovered tomorrow by archaeologists who had never heard modern music, which single song would you bury in the ground for them to discover first?
Sarah pauses.
"Wow, um, God, well, that is a really difficult question."
Her choice is "Glad", from International, a collaboration with Tom Rowlands of The Chemical Brothers.
And her reason is perhaps the best answer she could have given.
"It sums up Saint Etienne."
Three decades of music reduced to one song.
That's quite a recommendation.
THE FINAL DANCE
And now, after more than 35 years, the end is approaching.
Saint Etienne are bringing their final tour to New Zealand, giving local audiences their first and potentially only, opportunity to experience the band live.
So what can we expect?
Sarah doesn't hesitate.
"We're playing tracks that have spanned our career, a lot of fan favourites."
And then comes the word that tells us everything we need to know.
"It's very upbeat. It's very up-tempo. It's quite banging."
Banging.
That's the answer.
After 35 years, Saint Etienne aren't quietly walking away into the sunset.
They're going out with the lights on, the volume up and the dance floor moving.
For New Zealand, there is something particularly poignant about this show. We have never had Saint Etienne here before, and now, remarkably, our first chance to see them could also be our last.
So on 20 November, I'll be at The Powerstation to witness Saint Etienne finally arrive in New Zealand.
The first time.
And possibly the last.
Will you be there?
Don't miss out.