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Back to: Archive · 2006 Alex interviews Dave from BBC 6 Music, 10 November 2006. Download the interview here. Alex: Dave Rowntree is in the building, he's coming up the stairs, he's imminent. And, er, here's something for you in the meantime: ['Herculean' plays] A: Cor I've got no idea at all what that is but it's brilliant, don't you reckon Dave? Dave: [laughter] It's fabulous, darling, fabulous! A: He's here everybody! It's... Dave Rowntree... [weedy fanfare plays] A: Dave, thank you very much for coming in. D: Absolutely my pleasure. A: So we're gonna be talking a bit about everything I guess. D: Yeah, well I've actually brought something to talk about. I've brought some information about - A: Is it politics? D: - bauxite. A: Really? Bauxite? I know what that is - it's a mineral ore mined mainly in South America for its aluminium content. D: Do you know, I just knew you would know what that was. Bauxite. So I brought some facts about bauxite, and also I have an amusing bauxite-related story. A: Really? D: Yeah. A: An anecdote? D: An anecdote. A: Suitable for radio? D: A true anecdote suitable for radio featuring yours truly and some bauxite. A: Well, I think we'd better hear it Dave. D: Well, what do you want first? We can have some bauxite facts? A: Bauxite facts. Hit me. D: OK. So... A: Bauxite spelt B-A-U-X- D: B-A-U-X-I-T-E. The main production seems to come from Australia - A: Oh really? D: Funnily enough, yes. It's made of two minerals, smelted, as you say, into aluminium. Bauxite, as well, ah there we are, 95% of the bauxite production is processed into aluminium. Makes you wonder what they do with the other 5% doesn't it, really? A: They have to make it into Wiggles records. D: Also, a byproduct of the bauxite smelting process is germanium, which is used in... A: Computers. D: Computers, diodes and transistors. Fantastic, isn't it? Absolutely amazing. Unfortunately a lot of the, not unfortunately, but a lot of the bauxite comes from Eastern Europe, and so the trade over there is controlled by some less than savoury characters. A: Do you think Blur will get back together and Graham will join them, and it'll be brilliant? [laughter] D: I think you're, it'll certainly be brilliant, but I think you're in charge of the Graham situation. A: I'm in charge of making friends with Graham at the moment. I'm gonna have to beg him, he's made it very clear that I am absolutely going to have to beg him. But, no, it's nice that we've all sort of been talking a bit more recently, haven't we - D: Yeah. A: And it's been good. I've got a nice letter here actually from somebody, I thought I'd save it for you. "Hey Alex, 'Think Tank' is one of my favourite albums of all time. Can we expect a new Blur album any time in the future?" That's one for you Dave. D: It's a question I get asked a lot. A: Do people think you've left? A lot of people think I'm Graham. [laughter] D: Well, people used to think our head of security, Smoggy, was me, so that was always quite good - A: He was me once when I missed the plane. I got in big trouble for that one. D: There's a lot of interest for a new Blur album 'cos people are constantly asking, the first question they ask me is "Have you split up?", or "What happened to that band you used to be in?" A: Yeah, that's the most annoying one. D: I'm still in that band! I'm still in it! A: So rather than plugging Blur, let's plug your Ailerons thing, because I saw the other day that it had "Single of the Week" on iTunes. And it was free downloadable. I must say I was surprised by that, with a man of your kind of copyright control knowledge and views. D: I'm on the "free it all up" side of the copyright argument. I'm against copyright term extension and I'm for alternatives to copyright and of course I'm for the extra 5% of bauxite. I'm for having it. [laughter] A: I was reading the New Statesman, 'cos I like to keep abreast of intellectual high-faluting stuff. D: Absolutely. A: And there was a big picture of you saying some copyright protection - D: Ah yes, I took part in this big high-faluting industry debate about copyright stuff, Babylon copyright and ting. And it was good actually, I blurted out in kind of very uneducated language my opinion, then they sent me a transcript and I actually amended it to what I wish I'd said. A: If only life was like that. D: I know! Imagine if you had a kind of "Erase" button for life. Graham would still be in the band for starters. [laughter] A: So here's the one that you were giving away on iTunes. I think we'll listen to that. Is that a good idea? Do you want to introduce it? Without swearing. D: It's called 'Dig A Hole'. ['Dig A Hole' by The Ailerons plays] A: That's The Ailerons and 'Dig A Hole'. I don't know why I'm saying that, you could be saying that Dave. D: It's The Ailerons and 'Dig A Hole'. A: Very good. D: Thank you. A: You got any questions for me? D: No, I've got a passage of a book to read you though. It's a book called 'The Art of Cross Examination'. A: That's a bit high-faluting for me. I'm reading Jilly Cooper. D: Seems like the kind of book that might have something interesting in. But anyway I'm up to page 72 and I haven't - A: How long has it taken you to get to page 72? Is that on the way here? D: Four or five years it's taken me so, no actually I bought it at the weekend. So it says here, "If purgered testimony in our courts were confined to the ignorant classes, the work of cross-examining them would be a comparatively simple matter." A: Do you ever read the NME? [laughter] D: But then I realised as I was reading that, I mean it's a very offensive thing to say, isn't it? Who are the 'ignorant classes'? I mean, me obviously, but who else? Then I realised that if you read that in a kind of '40s voice it makes complete sense. [laughter] D: [adopts old style radio announcer voice] "If purgered testimony in our courts were confined to the ignorant classes, the work of cross-examining them would be a comparatively simple matter." You see? A: Well everything sounds, you know, it all sounds right if you say it in that kind of voice. [laughter] A: So erm, so erm, listen, you've been doing a, I heard you describing it as a toilet tour. D: Yep. A: With your Ailerons machine. D: Ailerons in the toilet. A: So it's been like a bit of back to basics? D: It's been weird, actually, I mean I don't know if you remember much of when Blur were doing a toilet tour, but I've been doing pretty much the same places, like the Leicester Princess Charlotte - A: Really? Dudley JBs, is that still there? D: It is still there - A: Is it? D: - as far as I... I don't think I've done it, but er - A: Happy days. D: Anyway, all of those kinds of places, and... I don't remember them at all! And some of them have still got Blur posters on the walls - A: Really? D: - from back then, or kind of reprints to show, you know, that it all started there. Walk in the door I just have no idea what these places, I don't, you know, could be the first time I've ever been there, like the Princess Charlotte we must have played ten times in our early career - A: Yeah. D: We were so... pissed. [laughter] D: I don't remember any of it at all, we would get pissed on the way up as far as I can remember. A: Yeah, mm, happy days. It was great. D: It's just bizarre, it's like a hole, years of my life have kind of disappeared down a murky hole. But it's nice to go back and play. A: I look at it as an investment. D: Yeah. [laughter] A: So, the Princess Charlotte... is real. D: It is real, I know, it seems like a vague memory, did that exist, did it not? Did I actually play it, did I dream it? A: And where were you last night? 'Cos I had breakfast with our esteemed manager this morning and he said it was the weirdest gig. D: Ah, good morning Mornington. A: Erm, the weirdest gig he'd ever been to. D: Yeah, well it was basically a lot of people getting very drunk and eating chocolate for charity. Always a bizarre thing. I have to say I was a bit rude to them. A: Were you? D: Yeah. A: Well that's good. You've gotta break minor taboos, as our record label used to tell us. D: Yeah. A: Any more dates coming up? D: Yes, er... Another one on next Thursday, I haven't actually brought the dates with me though, because I'm not that much of a professional unfortunately, but if you wanna find out look at the MySpace page which I promise I'll update when I go home this afternoon. A: And what's the MySpace address? A: And, er, are we gonna have another Ailerons track? So what's the, are you gonna make, did you produce this album yourselves? It's a really good sounding record, I must say Dave I'm impressed. D: Thank you very much Als. A: I'd better get my finger out. I'm the only one in Blur who's not having hits. D: Well, it's hardly a hit, 'cos it's not actually a physical - A: Front page of iTunes and stuff, you know, it's all good. D: But, yeah, it's a grower. So, no, Damian LeGassick, who you may remember was - A: I do. D: - William Orbit's right hand man. A: Worked with him on a Sophie Ellis Bextor record not so long ago. D: As you did, completely, so, yeah, he's got a tiny studio in Shepherds Bush that's about, I dunno, it's about the width of normal people's corridors going into their living rooms. And it's an absolutely bizarre place. It's tall, really really thin - A: Like William Orbit. D: Like William Orbit. So yeah. A: So we're gonna hear 'Roll Over'. Have we got time for a quick bauxite anecdote? D: Ah, see anecdote makes it sound like it's something small, it's more like an after dinner speech, I have to say. A: Is it? D: I'll give you it in a nutshell, alright, so the girl I used to go out with, still a very good friend of mine, her dad, in some kind of Edwardian way, wanted to check out that I was okay before I was allowed to go out with her. So he arranged this dinner with a friend of his, and her, and a few of this guy's friends. And I said "Do I really have to go?", and she said "Well, you don't have to go, but you don't have to go out with me either. If you want to go out with me you have to go," so I said "OK then." A: Wow. Just like Jilly Cooper. Jilly Cooper's like that. [laughter] D: Bauxite, as I say, there's an Eastern European connection to bauxite. So some of these people around this table were less than savoury characters, as you can imagine, there was er - A: Not to cast aspersions on - D: Not to cast aspersions on the bauxite industry or Eastern Europeans, but there were some Eastern European bauxite industrialists around this table, let me tell you, with suspicious-looking lumps under their shirts - mind you, I've got suspicious-looking lumps under my shirts these days - but anyway, that aside, so I went in there and I sat down and I... I can normally handle myself reasonably well in a social situation. A: I'd say so. I've seen you in action. D: Absolutely. I sat down and I just melted in front of these people, it was petrifying. They had these kind of shark eyes, unblinking staring shark eyes, and they were just giving me the look, and I just sat down and I went [scared voice] "Don't kill me. I don't want to die." So I thought, one of the ways you can get by, you know, in that kind of situation is you just pick somebody and just talk to them, so I thought, right, I'll just grab this bloke next to me and I'll talk to him about bauxite, it'll be fine. So I turned around to him and I said, you know I thought I'd start off with a little jokey aside, I said "So, what's new in the world of bauxite then?" and he went "Nothing." [laughter] A: Oh my God. D: So I sat there, it was the most uncomfortable hour I've ever spent, shifting in my seat, these people glaring at me. And the conversation seemed to be getting more and more hostile and there was one bloke who only spoke Russian who just, I swore, hated me. He kept on giving me these looks and then whispering to somebody next to him and giving me these looks again. And er, oh my God, and then finally the hour was up, and the guy, the friend of my ex-girlfriend's father, grabbed my hand, he said "Give me your hand." Grabbed it. [scared voice] "Oh no, please don't do anything, don't do anything!" And he picked up his fist and he went BANG! on top of my hand. And he said "Do you know what that is?" I said [scared voice] "No!" He said "That's the stamp of approval." [laughter] D: And of course it turned out that all these people were whispering because they were going "Isn't he that guy in Blur? Isn't he that drummer?" A: So it was a big success? D: Big success. They loved my bauxite gag. Fabulous. A: Dave, thank you very much for coming in. D: My pleasure. A: Playing your music and telling your stories. It's been very nice. And let's not leave it another three years before we make a record. D: OK. A: This is called 'Roll Over', right? This is the fourth track on The Ailerons' 'Left/Right' EP. D: Which you can get on iTunes and you're gonna have to fade it out at the end. ['Roll Over' by The Ailerons plays]
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