Debut issue 8/9
November/ December 1984
Strawberry Switchblade: CUTTING A DASH
I’ve just been summoned by the SS, and I’m worried about it. In this case SS stands for Strawberry Switchblade, but it sounds almost as menacing as that other SS of 40 or so years ago.
It suggests not merely danger, but danger couched under a veneer of sweetness and benevolence designed to ensnare the unsuspecting victim. Positively sinister in fact.
The photo I’m given on my way into the WEA offices hardly helps either. Dressed in disturbing black and white costumes, one is not sure whether these two young women look like Satan’s molls in the local priory or, even more nightmarish, the female sex’s answer to The Ballroom Blitz era.
Suddenly, my nerves are calmed. Memories of Strawberry Switchblade’s music come drifting back. Those poignant late-night melodies piercing over the John Peel airwaves. Those plaintive voices singing those haunting, enticing lyrics. Their music is incisive but not threatening, sinuous but not sinister.
Then – cue fanfare – the duo appear in person. The interviewer wonders what in heaven’s name he was worried about. True, their appearance is, to say the least, a little outlandish (post-punk, but with a sort of Barbara Cartland grandeur), yet two more charming people one could not wish to meet. This pair, talk enthusiastically and garrulously, and laugh loudly and regularly. So what are nice girls like Jill and Rose doing with a name like Strawberry Switchblade?
“James Kirk of Orange Juice thought up the name,” explains Rose. “At the time he had written a song called ‘Strawberry Switchblade’ but hadn’t done anything with it.”
Perhaps it’s supposed to signify sweetness on the surface hiding deep, cutting lyrics?
“Hopefully.”
Jill Bryson and Rose McDowall met seven years ago in their native Glasgow at the height of the punk era. It was this music that brought them together. Having known one another for four years, they formed as a duo in the summer of ’81.
With encouragement from Postcard Records, the Scottish indie label responsible for the early recordings of Aztec Camera and the aforementioned Orange Juice, Jill and Rose decided that the music business was their career. The duo proceeded to enlist the help of two fellow female musicians, who quickly decided that the music business was not their career and continued instead with their teaching and office jobs, respectively.
Down once more to a two-piece, then thought it best to keep it that way. After their first Peel session they signed a publishing deal with Zoo Music, owned by Bill Drummond (manager of Echo and the Bunnymen) and David Balfe (a former Teardrop, now the duo’s manager).
In July ’83, Bunnyman Will Sergeant released their first single ‘Trees and Flowers‘ on his 92 Happy Customers label. With Jill and Rose both being singer/guitarists, the track featured an all-star back-up group consisting of Bedders and Woody from Madness, Fun Boy Three girl Nicky Holland and the Aztecs’ Roddy Frame. The record found 10,000 happy customers, a very respectable total for a debut indie single.
A recording deal was clinched with Korova, the Bunnymen-famed subsidiary of WEA. Their single, ‘Since Yesterday‘ was issued in October. The first Strawberry Switchblade album is due early in the new year.
Now that we have brought the story up to date, I ask Jill about their forthcoming LP. Possessing only two voices and two guitars, they presumably use session musicians in the studio?
Jill: “No, for this album we used a producer called David Motion and worked as a three piece. He programmed the drum machines and played a lot of the keyboards. You can work very closely with just one other person, as opposed to a lot of people. We found we could get through it more quickly and make more definite decisions.”
DEBUT: So do you find you have more control that way?
Jill: “It makes it more clear-cut, with just three opinions. The fewer opinions you have, usually the easier it is!”
Strawberry Switchblade cite their major influence as Lou Reed and Velvet Underground. Their version of ‘Femme Fatale’ will already be familiar to night-time Radio One listeners, and a reading of ‘Sunday Morning‘ appears as the extra track on the 12-inch of ‘Since Yesterday’. What do SS find so appealing about the Velvet archives?
Rose: “They’re just great songs, poppy but with really great lyrics. They can write really soft songs, but the lyrics aren’t mundane, they’re interesting. You can find a lot of nasty lyrics in Velvet Underground songs. It can seem like a really nice, pleasant song, but underneath there are all sorts of nasty touches.”
DEBUT: Are there any other artists who have inspired them?
Rose: “Orange Juice are a really big influence, having known them when we lived in Scotland. We also like people like Simon and Garfunkel, The Lovin’ Spoonful and Love – they’ve written some great songs – but they’re just artists we like, we wouldn’t call them influences.”
When it comes to current music, Jill mentions The Farmer’s Boys, and Rose likes Blancmange.
Talking of ’60s stars, however, the press handout states that their quiet, haunting ballads are sung in the best harmony voices since the Mamas And The Papas! This typical piece of PR hyperbole is, surprisingly, welcomed rather than rejected by the two women.
Jill: “We should hope whoever wrote it meant it!”
As well as remaking Lou Reed/VU songs, The Strawbs (woops, better not shorten it – somebody’s used that name already) also do plenty of their own material. ‘Trees and Flowers’ dealt with the subject of agoraphobia. Jill explains that she used to be a sufferer, but is easing out of the condition and can now get out and about to a considerable degree.
Jill: “We’re pretty introverted in our songwriting. We tend to write about things we’ve experienced ourselves, rather than, say, political songs like ‘Nelson Mandela‘. It would be great to write a song like that, but it’s much more difficult. Hopefully one day we shall move into that area.”
Now that Jill (plus one man and three cats) and Rose (plus one man, one five-year-old daughter called Keri, but only one cat) are resident in London, where did they choose to record the LP?
Rose: “We went from studio to studio. The producer thought it would be a good idea to try out several, so we spent a week in each studio! It’s a very good idea, great fun.”
DEBUT: Sure, but wasn’t it expensive?
Rose: “You get better deals if you’re going to be in a studio for a long period, so we lost out on those. But it was worth it because at the end of the day, it’s come out so much better, much fresher. It felt like a holiday at times.”
DEBUT: So obviously you enjoy recording, but what about touring?
Jill: “We love it, it’s brilliant. Britain’s such an interesting country. We went to big places in England that we’ve only heard of and have never been to in our lives, like Bristol, Colchester and Brighton.”
That’s the first time this writer has ever heard anyone go into raptures about Brighton. But how much touring have the duo actually done?
Rose: “Two weeks with Orange Juice, two years ago. We’re seasoned tourists! It was just the two of us, two guitars and a reel-to-reel tape machine. We didn’t even have amplifiers, we used Orange Juice’s. All we had was a car, two guitars, a tape deck and all our clothes piled up. It was fantastic.”
DEBUT: Will it be the same story next time around?
Jill: “Don’t think so! Last time it was carefree, we weren’t signed to a record company, we were just having fun. Now we’ve got the deal, we’ve got the singles behind us, people will expect more.”
Vagueness abounds about the prospects for a tour. It’s all down to the usual financial constraints and the degree of success of the album and its singles.
What is already well organised, however, is the video department. The clip accompanying Since Yesterday is directed by Tim Pope, and includes some unusual animated effects. As for the song itself, it’s a hooky pop track with a brighter feel than typical Strawberry Switchblade material. The intro is borrowed straight from First Class’ 1974 hit ‘Beach Baby’ but let’s not quibble about that.
Talking of borrowing, have Jill and Rose employed the talents of any superstars on this single, as they did with Trees and Flowers?
Jill: “No, as we said, it’s just us and the producer, just the three of us.”
DEBUT: Maybe David Bowie dropping in to do the odd backing vocal?
Jill: “Well, he did but we cut him out!”
I believe you girls.
Words: Bob Macdonald
Photography: Peter McArthur
Note: Debut was a short-lived UK music magazine that came with a vinyl LP featuring bands that were interviewed