on the record with...
TV Smith
The Adverts
By Christopher Duda
(SugarBuzz Toronto)
SugarBuzz Magazine
Out of the first wave of the British Punk, bands arose The Adverts. Perhaps, wrongly overlooked in the grand scheme of critics spouting out the history of U.K Punk (sans The Clash, The Pistols etc). The world of course has taken 30 years to catch up to Punk and possibly TV Smith. The Adverts music has stood the test of time and sounds neither dated nor redundant and just as relevant in the society we live in today. TV Smith from the Adverts has never put down his guitar or his pen and is continuing to fill our heads with observations, intelligence, and good rock and roll. I had the opportunity to talk to TV over several emails and this is what transpired.
1. How did the Adverts initially form?
TV: I’d had a couple of bands before – first at school, then during my one year at Art College. Both bands were pretty much a vehicle for my song writing, which I’d started on when I was in my mid-teens. The problem was, I was living in the Westcountry, 200 miles away from London, and no one there wanted to hear people playing their own songs – all that was happening in the clubs at the time was cover bands of Free or Deep Purple, or dreadful disco-type bands. For those of us who were into Iggy Pop and the New York Dolls it was a hard time and a difficult place to live. While I was at Art College, I met Gaye and found she had a similar taste in music to me, and that she wanted to learn to play bass guitar. We moved in together, and when the college year ended – and my band with it – we decided to form a new band. By now the first rumours of the Sex Pistols were starting to come out of London – that was exactly the sort of music we were interested in, and we realised that if anything was going to happen with our new group, we would have to move to London.
2. Musically who inspired or influenced The Adverts initially? Who inspires TV Smith today?
TV: It’s hard to say that we were “inspired” by anyone. Certainly there were bands we liked – Iggy and The Dolls, as I’ve already mentioned, and early David Bowie, Roxy Music while they were still doing something different and exciting and out of the mainstream – Velvet Underground…actually there were loads of good bands out there. Gaye loved Frank Zappa….we were music fans! However, I always tried rigorously to not be influenced by anyone else. Song writing was my chance for expression – I didn’t want to copy what other people were doing, even if I admired them. I still feel the same today.
3. The Adverts have diverse subject matter for song choices. What was the process of picking subject matter and composing songs? For example- “On Wheels has to be one of a few songs written about life from a wheelchair.
TV: The idea of song writing for me then – as now – is that there is no barrier or formula to dictate what you can write about. The mainstream music business then – as now – says you have to be bland and formulaic and that lyrics shouldn’t actually stick out, they should be some sort of comforting blur that you can fashion some music around and it shouldn’t ruffle any feathers. Punk tore down that whole idea. Suddenly there was an explosion of bands writing about the world around them and how they interpreted it. I don’t know if there’s been a time before or since when song lyrics were so diverse, so creative, and so valued as a vital part of the song.
4. What has kept TV Smith playing and recording music for 30+years?
TV: I can’t stop. Even in the really bad years after the Adverts and The Explorers when the record business shut me out I found I needed to write, even though I knew I could never get it released. These days I’ve found a new audience for my live gigs and when I play I see the reaction from the people in the crowd and know that they’re understanding and appreciating what I’m doing – that’s what keeps me going.
5. Will there ever be an Adverts reunion in some form?
TV: Never. Why would anyone want it? The Adverts were a product of their time and everything’s different now. I can make a much more relevant comment on what’s going on now by playing solo. It’s more honest, more flexible – and I don’t want to join the rest of those old punk rockers reforming their old bands for the cash. Anyway, our guitarist Howard is dead, Gaye hasn’t picked up the bass guitar since the band ended, and I haven’t seen our drummer for thirty years – what kind of band would that be?
6. The Adverts proper releases and compilation discs have been released and re-released countless times. Do the Adverts still own the rights and distribution to their music?
TV: Like most of the ’77 punk bands, we were cheated out of our rights by the music business and didn’t get paid for years. I spent a long time trying to get some justice for the band, and a few years ago Fire Records offered to help get our copyrights back. We then remastered the albums and put them out with good packaging, new photos, and sleeve notes as the “Ultimate Edition” collection.
7. Of the early Punk scene who do you feel never got his/her/their due recognition?
TV: I can’t think of anyone in particular, but I find it strange that there’s always so much emphasis on the Pistols and Clash when people talk about punk. I loved them too, but what made the London scene so interesting and creative was the profusion of smaller bands. The biggest two or three bands were great figureheads, but the rest were just as important and they’re the reason it became a “scene.”
8. Initially “Cast of Thousands” was seen as an abandonment of the Adverts prior sound. I always felt that early Punk celebrated difference and not formula. However, that gave way quickly to many individuals jumping on the bandwagon. Do you feel that the Adverts were forward thinkers and were merely experimenting and growing with the release of Cast of Thousands?
TV: We didn’t “abandon” the sound – we’d done what we set out to do with “Red Sea” and now wanted to investigate new ground. I’m the first to admit that the end result was not what anyone expected but that was the whole point – not to get stuck in a rut. I was very disappointed when the album was lambasted, not just, because it led to the end of the band, but because of what it said about the punk scene. Any scene that can’t accept experimentation and creativity is going nowhere. If you can’t experiment all you can do is repeat yourself, and repetition is boring.
9. Do you feel the Adverts music has stood the test of time?
TV: I think it holds up, it’s not “stuck in ’77” – the songs and sound are pretty timeless. Nothing pleases me more than hearing some 16 year old come up to me at a gig and say he or she has just discovered the album and loves it.
10. Why did the Adverts break up?
TV: We just lost the will to carry on. The strain of constant touring was affecting us and we started arguing and going through a series of line-up changes until it didn’t really feel like a band any more. Then when the critical reaction to “Cast Of Thousands” was so terrible, there just didn’t seem to be any point in putting ourselves through all this pain any more.
11. Some are of the opinion that you (TV Smith) were the Adverts. Do you feel that you were the known leader or were The Adverts an actual unit with equal input?
TV: It was my project, from first conception to the decision to break up the band. Nevertheless, it couldn’t have happened with just anyone – the first line up in particular had a very special chemistry that gave us our unique sound.
12. Who are your fan base primarily made up of now? Are the same people that saw you in ‘77 still attending your gigs?
TV: I’m getting more people from 77 on board in the last few years. Originally, the solo gigs attracted a mixed crowd, among them a lot of young people who didn’t know anything about the Adverts. Also, people started getting interested in what I was doing in Germany before they did in the UK, so I was over there a lot, and that was a whole new crowd. Then word slowly started getting around, and I started doing more in the UK, playing the punk festivals and putting a lot more Adverts songs into the set.
13. What prompted “Not in My Name” to be written?
TV: For a long time I’d wanted to write a song that encapsulated everything I thought was wrong with the state domination and manipulation of the individual. When it became clear that the US was going to invade Iraq the song just kind of exploded out.
14. In one of your tour diaries, you mention that in Central Park squirrels apparently have become addicted to crack cocaine by leftover residue left behind. Did you ever meet a drug-addled squirrel? Would you ever write a song about a crack head squirrel and lastly do you have this problem in the UK?
TV: I write the tour diaries so I don’t have to fill my songs with this kind of rubbish. UK squirrels are very well behaved and don’t take drugs. Some of them have an occasional puff of a joint but they don’t inhale.
15. What is the reception or reaction to you when you tour America?
TV: It’s been great. The first time I went I was worried because there’s a lot of criticism of American politics and culture in the songs, but of course that’s exactly what the people coming to the gigs want to hear.
16. Would there be interest in your part in coming to Canada (hint hint- Canadian promoters take heed)
TV: I can’t wait. It’s long overdue.
17. How did Wim Wenders end up choosing your song “Expensive Being Poor” for his new film “Land of Plenty”? Were you surprised?
TV: Campino from the Toten Hosen had given him a copy of the “Useless” album and I guess he just thought the song would be right for the film. I was knocked out when I heard he wanted to use it, it’s an honour.
18. Is there anything that has not been plundered from the vaults that you would like to see released or re-released?
TV: Nothing from the Adverts, but there’s a lot of songs that I wrote and made demos of in the 80s that never got released, at least thirty songs. I really like some of that period – it bridges that gap between Channel Five and the start of Cheap. A lot of it was recorded with Tim Cross and Tim Renwick, who I still work with now, and there are some really good songs among there. I’ve started putting new versions of some of them on the latest albums – “Carrying On” on ‘Not A Bad Day” was one of them, and I have a couple more on the forthcoming album.
19. At the rise of The Adverts, were you able to keep a level head and see through the bullshit that comes with fame and recognition unlike many that have tread before into this Narcissistic trap.
TV: We didn’t really have the chance to be seduced by it – within a year; it was all turning against us. That pretty much exposed how hollow the fame thing is.
20. Would you have done anything differently in your musical journey?
TV: At the risk of spouting out clichés, I wouldn’t want to change it because it led to me ending up where I am now, and I like where I am now. I’m sure it would have been a lot more comfortable to have an unbroken line of success after The Adverts, but most of the interesting things in life happen outside your comfort zone.
21. What transpired at your first Belfast gig? Have you played there since?
TV: Hmm. We played after local heroes Stiff Little Fingers, got showered with spit as soon as we got on stage, Gaye walked off, the rest of us stood around for a bit but she didn’t come back so we walked off too. We’d only played a couple of songs. Our manager got on stage and told the audience we’d come back on stage if only they’d stop spitting –so he got showered with spit too. The next day we drove to Dublin, the drummer got hospitalized with hepatitis and the first line-up of the band broke up. I’ve never been back to Belfast.
22. Do you subscribe to any organized religious beliefs? Is there a God? Can rock and roll save your soul?
TV: I don’t subscribe to organized anything. Only you can save your soul. Rock and roll can help.
23.How important is it to you to feel the energy from an audience thus enabling you to give 110 percent?
TV: It’s vital, The energy at a gig is absolutely a two way thing – as long as the crowd are with me and giving me feedback I can play for two or three hours. If they weren’t there, I’d be exhausted after thirty minutes.
24.Who is “The Bombsite Boy”?
TV: It’s me. I hope it’s you too.
http://www.myspace.com/tvsmith