The New Cue #265 February 27: Shame
Good morning campers,
Hopefully your weekend was at least an 8/10. Today we’re chatting to Charlie Steen from South Londoners Shame about the band’s new album, Food For Worms. Among other things, Charlie reveals how the band managed to rope in Phoebe Bridgers to sing backing vocals for one song (and got a bottle of The Rolling Stones’ champagne in the process). We’ll leave him to tell you the story though. Today’s edition is free so please tuck in and share among your friends, but if you want to enjoy the full New Cue experience including Friday’s bumper recommender edition featuring interviews, star picks and a feast of new music bounty then just click down there to subscribe and join the club.
Enjoy the edition,
Ted, Niall and Chris
Start The Week With… Shame
Last Friday, South London’s Shame released their third album, Food For Worms. Following the more angular experimentation of second LP, 2021’s Drunk Tank Pink, it’s something of a pivot back towards the riotous post-punk volleys of their debut, Songs Of Praise. Chris called up frontman Charlie Steen last Monday to talk about the album, partying with Phoebe Bridgers’ mum and Shame’s new sideline as a karaoke band…
Hello Charlie, how are you?
Hello mate. I’m very well, thank you. Very well.
How was your weekend?
It was good. It was pretty busy, actually. I’m trying to remember what I did… I know I definitely did things. On Friday I went to the Polish Club off Exhibition Road and then yesterday the guy who produced our first record, Dan Foat, it was his kid’s first birthday. Friday… I can’t remember what I did Friday.
Do you feel excited about the album coming out this week or nervous?
I was saying this the other day, actually. I went for a drink with my old art teacher – oh yeah, that’s what I did on Friday. We were making the video for our next song, Adderall, which is coming out tomorrow – so I was speaking to her about it, and she was asking if I was nervous. I’ve gone through waves of being nervous. This is the third record that we’ve put out. Obviously with the first one everything is new then our second one came out in Covid but now your emotions have a bit more to compare it with. I’m just really excited to get away to be honest. We’ve haven’t toured on campaign since Songs Of Praise, so a long fucking time. It’s fucking crazy. I just want to get it out now.
Like a lot of bands, your second album came out during Covid which must have felt like an anti-climax.
It came out in peak lockdown. Do you remember those four months that the pubs closed in January? That was the period it came out in. The harshest winter one. With Drunk Tank Pink it was just complete lockdown, we couldn’t see anyone. We were just at home counting down the days so it’s much nicer with this one.
Did you try to play some socially distanced shows back then?
We did a socially distanced tour which was definitely not a money maker. We lost a lot of money on that. But the whole point was that we wanted to play independent venues and places we hadn’t played in before like Milton Keynes, Blackpool… all the hotspots.
This album sounds a lot more live than Drunk Tank Pink.
We wrote it like we wrote the first album, we wrote it for the live shows so we’ve been playing it for a year now in embryonic stages. We recorded the album over summer while we were doing festivals so if we were finding a song tricky in the studio, that weekend we’d be playing a festival, so we could try it there to see what the crowd reaction was like, see what needed to be done and then come back in. It gives you a confidence in the songs. It was so much better. With Drunk Tank Pink we went in having never played the songs before. With this one we could play them at the drop of a hat. Everyone knew the songs inside out. You don’t have that doubt in the studio to the same extent. You’ve played them live so you know what works. You can see if something works because people are moving and if it doesn’t they all go to the bar.
Was that the idea from the off?
No. We spent the whole of 2021 trying to write and nothing came. We had like three good ideas, but no songs. We had this studio and all this time so we thought we’d go in and be like bang bang bang and have an album, but that didn’t happen. We tried so many techniques, but nothing worked. We were pretty down, especially because we felt like we’d been given that year to do stuff. We started last year and our manager said, ‘Right, you’re going to go to this studio in Rugby and write and in two weeks’ time you’re going to play two shows at [Brixton venue] The Windmill and it has to all be completely new songs.’ We got there and the first song we did was Adderall, we had the core of it in 30 minutes. In a few days we’d written six songs. When you’re writing for live, you’re not over thinking it. You’re like, fuck transitions or whatever, it needs to go verse chorus verse chorus and we can deal with that stuff later. We did those shows and two months later we were in the studio making the album.
You should have just done that in 2021.
I know! Hindsight is 20/20 but I think you need to get to a stage for something to happen, you need to be at a crossroads for something to happen. This is my favourite album.
Do you think that on Drunk Tank Pink you maybe moved a little bit too far away from your first album?
Yeah. Everything is a gamble in this line of work so there’s no way to asses these things but there were elements that we took out on that record, like backing vocals and harmonies that were great, but we took them out. I think everyone had gotten that out of their system now. You can retrace your steps, but it doesn’t mean you’re going to walk in a different direction. There are some overdubs on this record but there’s nothing that we can’t play together in a room which is the best way to be.
It says in the sleeve-notes that Phoebe Bridgers sings on Adderall.
Yeah, that’s true.
I can’t hear her. What bits is she singing?
I’ll tell you: all the backing vocals in the chorus, that’s her, and if you listen at the end that line “you’ve got nothing at all” that’s isolated, that’s her.
How did that come about?
Because it’s called Adderall, it’s an American drug so we thought it would be good to have an American on it. When we were recording Catherine who works in the studio downstairs said, ‘Oh Phoebe Bridgers is coming in today…’ She’d just played with The Rolling Stones the day before. She came upstairs and said hello. We were like little schoolboys too nervous to ask. [Food For Worms producer] Flood was the one who asked. Her manager came into the room, if you were to draw a caricature of a big shot manager that would be him.
Was he smoking a cigar?
No, but he probably had one in his pocket. He goes [gruff US accent] ‘Sorry to bother y’all but are you Flood? I’m such a fan of your work…’ Flood asked if she could sing backing vocals and he was like ‘Let me see what I can do…’ She had seven minutes before a car came to collect her to play a show. We played it to her and she said it was in a key where she would just blend in to what we were singing. We were like fuck it, it doesn’t matter. She did it and then left. She gave us a bottle of champagne that The Rolling Stones had given her and I gave her a bottle of Vinho Verde I had – ha!
Vinho Verde is nice!
Yeah, and about 700 pounds cheaper. I think that’s what we liked about it. It wasn’t DM-ing on Instagram or WeTransferring demos and making it into such a thing. It was very low pressure. It was just seven minutes.
Have you seen her since?
We saw her in LA, she invited us to a party at her mum’s house.
What was her mum’s house like?
It was great. There were vegan tacos, a tarot reader, a tequila cocktail mixer. She was having a party for the end of her tour.
Did you get your tarot read?
No, I didn’t. We haven’t gone that far yet.
Other than the record coming out, what else have you got on this week?
Hopefully the video for Adderall is coming back, as we did it on Friday that’s a pretty quick turnaround, then on Friday we’re doing a karaoke thing.
Karaoke?
We’re playing some in stores and sometimes they can be a bit dry so we’ve learned all these covers like Lizzo and the Foo Fighters and shit like that so people can come up and sing. We’re going to give everyone who gets up free drinks. We’ll be the karaoke band.
That’s a great idea. Thanks for taking the time out this morning to talk to us, Charlie.
That’s alright mate. It was a pleasure.
CC