Sarah Cracknell Is Proud Of Saint Etienne

Sarah Cracknell, singer if British band Saint Etienne spoke about 18 years on stage, the band`s early years and pleasant experience.

Saint Etienne is a British indie band that successfully combines this type of music with pop and dance rhythms. Band members are Bob Stanley, Pette Wiggs and singer Sarah Cracknell. Plavi radio host Alen Balen interviewed her for the Backstage show.

Hi Sarah. Why did you decide to release a best of album now?

Sarah: I can’t think of any really brilliant reasons as to why we’ve decided to do a best of now, apart from to sort of tidy up some loose ends, singles that haven’t appeared on best ofs before. We wanted to add extra tracks that we felt were important or relevant or something in some way. And with us also is any excuse to do some more packaging and you know, sleeve design.

Is there an element of reminding people of how good you are?

Sarah: To be honest we don’t have that kind of confidence to think something like, we just wanted people to know how good we are. But having said that, when we did decide to do it, and we did the cut and everything, I was quite proud of our body of work over eighteen years. You know, did feel a sense of pride.

When you look back 18 years, do you feel like a different person?

Sarah: I don’t really feel that different to how I did eighteen years ago, which is dreadful isn’t it?  You know I should do. But I’m still quite childish in a lot of ways, and I’m still quite sort of wide eyed and you know, a certain amount of enthusiasm for things which some people lose over time. But I think we’ve always made every situation as much fun as possible. So like when we go on tour or do gigs or anything, we’re like sightseers.

Musically, how do you think the band has developed over the years?

Sarah: I think that we’ve developed our kind of production values are higher than they used to be.  We’ve learnt about things like production and also song writing craft. You know, we’ve learnt a lot.  But the actual writing and recording process is still basically the same you know, we all chip in ideas it’s very instinctive, spontaneous.

What sort of things are you writing about now, compared to what you were writing about when you first started?

Sarah: Well I mean the last kind of collection of songs I think we wrote were for a film that we made about the Royal Festival Hall and the Southbank and everything. So they’re very sort of London centric kind of lyrics, lyrics about architecture. All those pop greats written about architecture you know. We’ve always written very much in the sort of third person. We don’t sort of write songs, autobiographical songs, emotional songs, about how we’re feeling about things. Or if we do, we tend to disguise it by making different characters you know.  So that hasn’t changed very much.

Tell us about how you perceive the changes in the music industry you’ve witnessed over the years. When you look back, was it a better place to be when you started out?

Sarah: I think when we started out, there was a period of change shortly after. We were one of the first bands to sort of embrace pop, and go we think pop’s great, it’s not a dirty word. And then, also to make very sort of pop records that actually got played on you know, national radio. That hadn’t really happened very much. And then there was a big wave of that, you know, so it’s changed very much in that way. You know, there’s no sort of hidden little indie bands that nobody knows about because as soon as they appear they’re immediately on the radio and everyone’s heard of them.  It’s quite a shame in some ways, I don’t want to be elitist you know, sort of saying I want my own little thing that no one else knows about, because I believe in sharing music that you enjoy.  But, just anything and everything’s on the radio. So it’s really changed in that way. But I do find the question about how you get your music to the people or to your fans quite confusing at the moment. I find it very confusing. I keep getting asked, you know, are you gonna do another album? It’s like well I don’t know. Is that relevant, do people want to go and buy a physical thing in a shop, that’s an album worth of material. You know I don’t… it’s… I’m confused.

You’ve been with Heavenly for many years now. Why do you feel like the label is your spiritual home?

Sarah: Heavenly is very much a meeting place of very liked minded people. There’s a spirit to it that runs through all the bands that they’ve signed, whether that comes from them and they instil this sort of spirit in their bands, or whether the bands arrive like that I don’t really know, but for instance when they had their eighteenth anniversary celebrations, at the Southbank, it was just brilliant fun. And there were bands playing that were dropped years ago. You know, so there’s obviously, they still love the label and they love what it stands for. And it is a label that is about finding brilliant music and wanting to share it with everybody which is a nice thing.

Do you think the label has changed much over the years, or have they kept their original ethos?

Sarah: No I think Heavenly have always remained very very true to themselves. I mean sometimes to their detriment and whatever, you know. You could say perhaps they’ve shot themselves in the foot sometimes, bit like us really. You could say that about us. But, I’m a great believer in that, that you just have to stay true to what you think is right, and what you think sounds good. And be enthusiastic about it. 

Tell us about the other artists that were signed at the same time as you. Was there a lot of camaraderie between you?

Sarah: Prior to me joining Saint Etienne, let me see, they put their first record out in 1990 with Heavenly and I joined in ‘91. But Flowered Up were on the label, and a group called East Village and the Manic Street Preachers were all on the label. And I remember once I came along, Flowered Up were still around, and I had lots of funny memorable times with them, things like presenting Top Of The Pops when we did an EP of Right Said Fred songs, covers. The Rocking Birds of another label mate band, they did Deeply Dippy. Flowered Up did Don’t Talk Just Kiss. And we did I’m Too Sexy.  Which Pete spoke or sang, whatever you want to call it. And yeah, having to introduce the Rocking Birds on Top Of The Pops with Liam, I’ll never forget that. We did about fifty takes. 

You recently released Burnt Out Car as a single. Tell us about the track.

Sarah: Burnt Out Car, I think we recorded it around the time of He’s On The Phone, I’m not very good with dates, but we did it with Brian Higgins who now has Xenomania, but I think he was Motiv8 then. And he now has Xenomania, and he’s like a hit factory, and he writes all the hits for Girls Aloud, Sugababes and various. And I always had a strong feeling, that it never came out a single, can’t remember if it came out at all, I think it came out on a compilation somewhere or something. And I didn’t think it had ever been given a proper, you know, airing basically. And so we talked to Brian about it, and he said well why don't we just bring it into the now, you know, and it didn’t really change very much at all. They changed a couple of sounds, and that’s about it.  And yeah, I just thought it deserved a chance!