Picture The beautiful are a new name to me and I would have thought a new name to you. If their demo is anything to go by, they are going to be a new name to everyone because, believe me, they are going to be huge!
Within 15 minutes of hearing the aforementioned demo I was sipping coffee in drummer Chris’s house interviewing three stars to be. Bassist, another Chris, was sadly absent.
Guitarist Stuart lay comfortably in an easy chair; drummer Chris sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the fire place (frequently telling his pet budgie to ‘shut up!’); and vocalist Damien sat neatly perched under the window.
I have to be honest, and confess that I never knew the band existed, something I should be ashamed of as the band live on my doorstep. They are going to be the most famous export since Porth’s last world-adored product…coal!
Porth and coal parted company decades ago, so I guess we’ve waited a long time for Picture The beautiful to arrive.
For a group who’ve been together for a such a short period of time and played only three gigs to date, they display a maturity in their material is unsurpassed. One of those three gigs took place at the Legendary T.J.’s in Newport. I asked the lads what they thought of the place as a live venue, “Poor” came the unanimous reply, “the audience can escape!” they added despairingly. Explanation please Chris, “Well the bar’s around this corner, and if they don’t like you, you’ve had it.” But surely they didn’t all head for the bar when you were playing? “To be honest, we didn’t notice, we were so tired by the time we went on stage we didn’t care. We’d been there since mid-afternoon and we took the stage at around midnight.” I could see the exhaustion on Stuart’s face.
While we’re on the topics of gigs, have seen any lately? Chris breaks into a laugh, “We all really like the Power of Dreams album so we thought we’d travel to Bristol to see them play in the Bierkeller. We’d never seen any photos of the band, so we’d conjured up images of what we thought the band looked like. We couldn’t believe when this fat, ginger-haired person led the band on stage (not that we’ve got anything against ginger-hair). We were devastated, it ruined it for us.”
So do you place a great emphasis on your image? “No, not really, we’ve never really thought about it, we totally concentrate on our music. Our image hasn’t occurred to us”, said a thoughtful-looking Damien.
So what are your musical influences? “I guess they’re mixed really”, Chris continued, “I like Jane’s Addiction for example….we’ve all got a soft spot for Emotional Fish I suppose, but saying that, they don’t really influence our music to that extent. We like a heavy bass sound and write what flows.”
So how long have the band been together? “We’ve always messed around in each other’s houses, but as a band somewhere around August to September ’91 to give you a date…..we really enjoy it!”
I can assure you it won’t be long before you’re enjoying Picture The Beautiful too.
Interview by Darren Jones