Adorable Interview
CFNY 102.1 Toronto Transcript

Interviewer Kim Hughes (Live In Toronto) - summer 1993
K.H. - Adorable is making their Toronto debut here in Toronto of course, at Lee's Palace. We are joined now by three members of the group, two of which are speaking, we've got Piotr here and we've got Wil. Guys, hello and thanks for coming by.
Piotr - Hello
K.H. - So we've got quite a few fans out front.
Piotr - Yeah, we paid them well.
K.H. - Did you?
Piotr - Yep.
K.H. - And I have been handed the list of fan questions. So shall we begin in this way?
Piotr - O.K.
K.H. - Alright first question. What types of bands influence your style of music?
Piotr - (laughs) The oldest question in the book. Ummmm... well we've all got different tastes in music. and we always, there's not one band who we all love. Umm...so we...whenever we're touring around, there is always a big argument whenever we're in the...ahh...in the van over what should be played. There's always three people shouting, "hooray" whenever we get a cassette out and one person sitting in the back going, "ohhh no not this one again". But I really like a lot of early eighties English bands, I was a big fan of the Psychedelic Furs, of the Jesus and Mary Chain, Julian Cope, those are the sort of bands that I grew up on.
K.H. - Right. And it's funny to me that your band seems to get a lot of comparisons to Ride in the British press. That's one I find...
Piotr - not a lot, only one as far as I can remember, for the first review we ever had was a... and even then it was compared... we will be as big as Ride I think as opposed to we sound as big as Ride.
K.H. - Another one of the happy British things to make you feel so good about what your doing right?
Piotr - yeah.
K.H. - oh O.K. Question number 2, this is a good one considering where you are playing tonight, why don't you play all ages shows? Which I don't think is really your fault, I think that falls...
Piotr - To be fair to us, we didn't even know this existed. No such thing exists in England. You only have to be eighteen to get into a gig and then the laws are very lax. I've seen gigs where thirteen year olds have been at our gigs. Ahh..we didn't realize that such a thing happened, and we'll definitely mention it to our booking agency when we see them...
Wil - In England the only comparable thing we have is certain universities won't let people who aren't students in but we don't even do those gigs. So it's a new concept to us that certain people, certain of our nearest and dearest fans that we love aren't allowed into our shows.
Piotr - So I think we'll definitely try and see if we can resolve that problem next time around, but it often happens that you come to a town and there may be only one venue that you can play in, and they as principle they won't do all ages shows cause they want to sell beer.
K.H. - Right.
Piotr - So you know there's nothing you can do, it's the different between playing the gig and not playing the gig. But ahh...
K.H. - Right. But we can atone somewhat because you are going to be performing here live in a couple of minutes.
Piotr - and you can be five or you can be ninety-five to listen to that.
K.H. - One final question from the fans before we'll go to a song from your CD. What do you think about the recent bands coming out of the UK? Who do you hate and who do you think...
Piotr - no we don't hate anyone, we're really nice people and we love everyone. There's the new band...one...two new bands who we really rate, who no one's ever heard of, there's a band calledthe Bardots (?) who we're...I might be slightly prone to because I've got an older brother who plays in them. At a... he always gives me really nice presents at Christmas so I stand by him, but they're a really good band regardless of whether a blood relative strums the guitar for them and um... there's another band called Strangelove who've only released two singles in England but I think they're a band worth being obsessed with.
Wil - In terms of records that you can buy at this moment in...in the North of America, the new Blur record is one that we stand quite strongly by. Probably one of the best things that has come out of Britain this year.
K.H. - It's quite good considering what they have had to come away from too.
Wil - and there's a little factory going on too. Damon, the singer, lives with this girl called Justine who's got a new band called Elastica that are excellent as well but you probably won't hear of them for a few years.
K.H. - Did she not used to go out with Brett Anderson too?
Wil - Indeed she did, she used to be a member of Suede, but her band Elastica are excellent. So there's a little sort of music factory going on in their living room at the moment. And their producing some excellent stuff, so they're a little household to watch out for I think.
K.H. - cool. cool. We should mention that our questions came from Alex and Pascal they're outside, they're waving and we are speaking with Adorable and we are going to speak with them a little more, we're going to have a performance, first we are going to go to something from their CD, this is Adorable from CFNY 102.1.....
(Sunshine Smile)
K.H. - The Leading Edge, CFNY 102.1. Adorable and they are performing tonight at Lee's Palace it is a licensed show so unfortunately people who are under nineteen can't go to this one but we know that's going to be a whole different story when you come back the next time.
Wil - Well I can't guarantee it (laughing).
K.H. - Well we hope so anyway.
Piotr - They should picket the place.
Wil - They should riot it.
Piotr - The bouncers aren't that big.
K.H. - umm...I don't know....
Piotr - if there's enough of you, you can do it. Well, like what's one bouncer going to do against like one hundred people? You could all run past him.
K.H. - Something to ponder, something to ponder.
Wil - Do it!
K.H. - Well we'll think about it, we're speaking to Wil and Piotr of the group and of the many experiences you've had since you've arrived in North America on of them was the New Music Seminar last week and our own music director John Jones happened to catch your set in New York and umm... said you ruined an absolutely beautiful guitar at the finish of the set, true?
Piotr - Yup.
K.H. - Any particular reason, just your move into the rock hierarchy or what? (everyone laughs)
Piotr - Ahh.. well maybe it is just a sad homage to rockdom. But uhh..it...
Wil - The reason was our record company just bought it for us, so we immediately destroyed it in front of them. Just in order to upset them. Good enough reason I think.
Piotr - They bought me another one as well so it didn't cost me anything.
K.H. - not bad.
Piotr - I'm not complaining.
K.H. - So how was the whole experience for you, was it good? was it bad? Did anything come out of it that you can see benefiting the group in the long run?
Piotr - It is difficult to say because everyone is always nice to you and I am sure as soon as you walk away they are maybe not so nice. But it's for the industry, anyone who's never been there it just involves shaking a lot of peoples hands and uhh... having a conversation with everyone for about a minute. Everyone wears a suit and a tie, and everyone's got a little tag on to tell you who they are. So it's all a bit false you know but it was enjoyable.
K.H. - right. Now one of the things that is interesting to me, particularly since this tour seems to be going so well. I mean we have the evidence of the fans standing out front, that obviously the record has gone through and really reached a lot of people, but back home in Britain the press hasn't been quite as kind to you. Ahh...we've sort of touched on that, do you think going back there's going to be that element of, "yeah well we succeeded regardless". Do you think that there...that they might turn around in their view of you?
Piotr - I think there's definitely ahh...recently there's been signs that the press. Ummm...that we're perhaps coming back in favour with them. We played the very prestigious Glastonbury Festival just a couple weeks before we came out here, and that was a big hit with a lot of people from the press, a lot of people who went there expecting to dislike us came away pleasantly surprised. And ahh...so... you're asking me to delve into the psyches of slightly strange people, so I don't know. When we talk about journalists and DJ's here.
K.H. - I can take it. Maybe we can switch gears in the fact that we're here at a radio station, we're playing your records and talking to you, what has British radio been like? Has it been supportive, because I mean if you are not really at it on Radio One I mean...
Piotr - Yeah, we ahh... Radio One is the only national station that plays pop music, and ummm...it doesn't ahh...it has an alternative section which is in the evening where we've received an awful lot of backing from, Mark Goodyear is the name of the DJ there. And I think three of our five singles have been his singles of the week. Umm... and ahhh... so we've had a lot of backing from him but obviously we haven't really crossed over into what would be described as the mainstream, which is the daytime radio, which... where you're rubbing shoulders with the Michael Bolton's and the Michael Jackson's of the world.
K.H. - You don't seem terribly upset about that.
Piotr - Well I wasn't expecting to, to immediately cross over into the world of Bolton and Jackson's. It might be nice, umm.. it's not my primary concern.
K.H. - Right. So you are going to play us a song.
Piotr - Yup.
K.H. - And we're going to turn it over to Wil at this point to set up the tune.
Wil - This is a song called A To Fade In it's probably my favorite song that the band does and it's going to be performed acoustically, one little guitar, one little voice and here's Pete and Rob to give it to you. And it better not be bad.
(A To Fade In)
K.H. - Adorable from CFNY 102.1. Well see they did you justice, that was pretty good.
Wil - That's your opinion.
K.H. - (laughs) So we should mention again that tonight the gig is at Lee's Palace, there is an opening band Cadillac Bill and The Creeping Vent, they're local, you may want to catch them and it's twelve bucks at the door and do you know if you are going to be coming back at some point later in the year again, do you have any plans further down maybe for fall?
Piotr - Umm...there's no specific plans at the moment. In our dreams we'd be back here everyday, but unfortunately our record company has only so much money to send us on these lovely holidays, so ahh... we don't know.
K.H. - Well I assume that North America has been a pretty good experience for you so far, the last time we spoke I remember you were pretty excited of the fact that CD's were fairly cheap to buy here and ahh... lots of choices on TV. and liquor is fairly cheap to buy in the States so....
Piotr - The one thing I have been disappointed by is the TV. so far, fifty channels and not one program to watch.
K.H. - (laughs) Has the been anything that you have particularly disliked apart from that?
Piotr - The beer is a bit weaker in America but I have just tasted some in the bar over there, and it was... Canadian beer is much better. But umm... no apart from that the long drives not so keen on them, and I wasn't to keen on the Canadian consulate yesterday either. We had to spend five hours in the waiting room trying to get our Visas there.
K.H. - Oh well...
Wil - Chocolate and the Brady Bunch have been a revelation I think in America. They'll keep me happy for another few years.
K.H. - Have you discovered the Partridge Family yet?
Piotr - no haven't watched it.
Wil - I've seen them as well...
K.H. - Have you?
Wil - and they're even bad.
Piotr - Oh it was on TV. the other day in the hotel wasn't it?
Wil - Yeah.
Piotr - Yeah. They're the kids who all dress up, they're all in a band aren't they?
K.H. - They're supposed to be a family with this really wacky manager named Rueben Kincade and Shirley Jones is the mom.
Piotr - Yeah I caught it, it looked quite good, good with the sound down yeah. Without their irritating voices.
Wil - No, I've decided to base my life on their story, and we'll try to stick to it for the near future anyway.
K.H. - And which character would you be?
Wil - I'm all of them at the same time.
K.H. - (laughs) I would have had you pegged for Danny Bonaduce, and (to Piotr) you're definitely a David Cassidy, it's just my own opinion. We are speaking with Adorable, they are performing tonight at Lee's Palace, twelve bucks gets you in at the door, the album is out it is called Against Perfection, and I thank everybody for coming by.
Piotr - Thanks so much for having us.
Wil - Indeed.
K.H. - It's been great. We have to take a short break we'll be right back.
(break)
K.H. - Hello I am Kim Hughes, Dave Bookman has returned to the hotseat. And the guys from Adorable still wandering around, seems to be... it's going to be an exciting show I think.
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