Tag: Rustinman

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PAUL WEBB, FROM TALK TALK TO… RUSTIN MAN: “NO, MY DAUGHTERS DON’T CONSIDER ME AS A LEGEND…”

The band’s former bassist left Talk Talk in 1988 after the release of the masterpiece Spirit Of Eden, and has since recorded or produced several albums including the monumental Out of Season with Beth Gibbon (Portishead) in 2002. A bit mad scientist, isolated and confined with his wife and daughters in the English countryside, he has just published the twilight Clockdust (Domino Recordings), an album of rare delicacy which owes as much to Jacques Brel as to Joy Division, even to Cab Calloway. How is it possible ? Explanations with the person concerned, as caustic as English can be.

So, like that, according to your Instagram account, you DJ for your daughters during confinement and you play them electro with Speedway by The Prodigy to challenge them. And you don’t last until the end of the piece! After being part of Talk Talk and recording an album with Beth Gibbons, do your daughters know that you are considered a music legend?

Paul Webb (bursts out laughing): No, and you could say they don’t have much respect for the old man that I am! They know that I have made music and that I still do since I have a studio at home, in a barn, but I have never forced them to listen to the records that I recorded with Talk Talk or Beth.

I looked everywhere and couldn’t find why you chose this pseudonym Rustin Man. What is he hiding?

Paul Webb: I didn’t want to make music under my own name. When I was in Talk Talk, I could play a role, hide behind the image of the group. It’s the same approach for what I do solo, I hide behind a character. I am just an illusion, a kind of mark. So it’s both me and someone other than me that you hear on this record. The name Rustin Man came to me while playing on “rusting man”, the rusty man that I am gradually becoming (Paul turned 58 at the start of the year). I am decomposing, I am gradually falling apart.

You know that in French, the word “patch” makes you think of a bandage that you put on a wheel that has just punctured…

Paul Webb: I didn’t know but I like that idea too.

Two albums in a row, one in 2019, the other in 2020, while the first with Beth Gibbons dates back to 2002. What’s happening to you? You’re in a rush ?

Paul Webb: It took me a while because I built my own studio and I wanted to take the time to experiment, to learn to play certain instruments that I didn’t master. I also wanted to find my voice, my singing voice (Paul did some backing vocals in Talk Talk but mainly played bass). And then I wanted to give time to time. I use it as an instrument, a filter to sift things. I recorded the songs for Drift Code (released in 2019) and Clockdust at the same time, then I spent two to three weeks deciding which track I kept for which record. I first published Drift Code, and so I gave myself time before listening to the Clockdust tracks again to refine them as I saw fit.

You said that Clockdust was designed under the assumed influence of Jacques Brel. But how did you discover it? Via English covers by Scott Walker or Marc Almond, or in the original French version?

Paul Webb: I really like listening to music sung in a language I don’t know. It creates a strange feeling, you can fantasize about the meaning of the song much more easily. On the French side, I was very interested in Serge Gainsbourg and Jacques Brel (Belgian, obviously, editor’s note). One day, my brother brought me back from Paris a box set dedicated to Brel which I wore out from listening to it on my turntable. I also knew the fabulous English cover of Jackie by Scott Walker which left a lasting impression on me.

Did you already have in mind the emotions you wanted to convey with Clockdust’s songs?

Paul Webb: Yes, and no. I wanted the songs to come from the heart, to have soul with an atmosphere that was both “claustrophobic” and naive. As if they were shy songs. I also wanted them to be sung as if by an actor in these old films from the 40s and 50s. A sort of narrator. For the title Old Flamingo, I am the voice in the head of a little girl. His father is one of those old school gangsters. He knows he is reaching the end of his road. He wants to protect her and tell her that he loves her. I wanted the singing voice to be soft, quiet. Even gangsters have children…

When you were a teenager and you met Lee Harris (future Talk Talk drummer) in Southend-by-the-Sea, were you listening to this very cabaret type of music, or the Cab Calloway-style jazz that Clockdust sometimes refers to?

Paul Webb: No, I was really into reggae and electronic music of the time (Cabaret Voltaire, The Human League, etc.). But when I was younger, when I was 5/6 years old, I remember that we listened to Frank Sinatra or the fabulous Mills Brothers at home. The microphones used had, and still have, incredible sound. Some are worth fortunes, up to 20,000 Euros. I have a sort of nostalgia for that era, which was not at all rock’n’roll. No, not nostalgia… Let’s say that the voices of this era give me sensations, emotions. I can’t say that I’m nostalgic for that era since when I was with Talk Talk, I wasn’t thinking about that music at all and I’m someone very anchored in the present. For example, I have a lot of trouble remembering specific things with Talk Talk… For me, it’s a thing of the past.

Do you still remember playing in front of 75,000 people in a stadium in Greece in the early 80s as the opening act for The Clash?

Paul Webb: Yes, vaguely. But I don’t think it was The Clash, more like The Cure. You know, when I was on stage, I was really into the music. I didn’t pay much attention to what was going on around me.

You mentioned microphones from the 1940s, but you use a lot of them yourself. Up to six to record in your studio…

Paul Webb: Yes, I use it creatively to multiply sound recordings with an instrument, a guitar, a bass. Then I work a bit like a painter by choosing which take I’m going to use in a piece. Each microphone gives a different color, a different nuance. It’s a process that I find very organic. That’s how I worked on Drift Code and also on Clockdust.

If you went back in time and met the kid you were at 13, what would you say to him? What advice would you give him?

Paul Webb: Not much. Maybe make more music, record more songs, write more songs. But youth is first meant to be wasted, right?

How did you start making music? With Lee joining a reggae group called Eskalator?

Paul Webb: I started by taking piano lessons, then I joined a marching band like a lot of kids. Then, I started playing bass because in all the bands I went through, there was a guitarist, a drummer but there was always a bassist missing. With Lee, we started doing concerts very young. To tell you the truth, we were even too young to be allowed to drink alcohol. Then, I went to an art school. And I met Mark (Hollis, editor’s note). I always wanted to be a musician. But before Talk Talk, I was pretty obsessed with a band like Joy Division, the Doors too. I was very attracted to a certain darkness in the music.

Many British critics compare Rustin Man’s music to that of Robert Wyatt or to pieces by David Bowie. Is this a good or bad interpretation?

Paul Webb: I like both. I must say that if I compare myself on the vocal side with these two singers, it is something that completely escapes me. I would rather say that I am very influenced by a certain atmosphere, that of Berlin in the 30s or 40s, cabaret music. I’m a very visual person, and I remember a lot of old black and white films, and a certain lost innocence that showed through in the images of the time.

You say that you are not nostalgic, but you still seem very anchored in the past. Do you have any regrets about Talk Talk? A detail, but is it true that the group was first called 300 Cubs?

Paul Webb: How do you know that? Yes, it’s true, we were first called 300 Cubs but we only had to keep that name for one, two, maybe three weeks, before renaming ourselves Talk Talk. On regrets… how could I have any? Talk Talk remained honest until the end. The group stopped right when it needed to stop. A perfect trajectory that I accept and which I like.

With time, and the sudden disappearance of Mark Hollis at the beginning of last year, speculation has been rife among fans of the group. So I just ask: do you know if there are any unreleased Talk Talk tracks somewhere, perhaps buried in a trunk, under a tree in the English countryside?

Paul Webb (amused): No. I’m sure that it’s not the case. There is no treasure to be found. If there is one, it’s on the records we recorded. Nowhere else.

Regarding Rustin Man, what directions do you plan to take for the rest of this project? You mentioned your taste for electronic music…

Paul Webb: I just know the next record should take less time. I’ve already started working on a few pieces. What I want, what I’m looking for, is to be surprised.

When the confinement is over, will you tour with a group in Europe? Possibly with Lee on drums (he participated in Rustin Man albums)?

Paul Webb: With Lee, I don’t think so. He is busy on his own project. I plan to do some shows with Rustin Man. For now, we have three dates in November this year but none in France. It is planned that I will go on stage with a band in which there will be the bassist of the group Dez Mona (Nicolas Rombouts), a Belgian group whose album Hilfe Kommt I produced in 2009. I can’t wait to play the pieces of Rustin Man on stage and see how they evolve.

Comments collected by Frédérick RAPILLY (April 2020)

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Rustin Man: The origins resonate in the present – 2020

The story of a musician who once conquered the world with Talk Talk. Paul Webb aka Rustin Man then took a lot of time for his solo career. Now he inspires as a singer-songwriter.

A xylophone is not just a xylophone. At least not in a Paul Webb recording. With a blissful look, the perfectionist tells how he tried out ten different microphones in different positions until he found the right timbre.

Paul Webb lives with his family in a secluded country house in Essex. He also records his music there. “The whole house is often laid out with cables and blocked with instruments,” he grins. «But every evening when a session is over, I pack everything up nicely. And even this work makes me happy.”

The Times of Talk Talk

Meticulousness and passion take time. Seventeen years elapsed between the album Webb aka Rustin Man released with Portishead singer Beth Gibbons in 2002 and his debut solo album, Drift Code, which was released last year. Now comes the next beat with «Clockdust». Webb says he knew early on that his song ideas would last for two albums. He worked on all of them at the same time in order to bring them into a coherent sequence at the end.

Paul Webb’s career began in distant times. And it’s also an example of how badly artistic integrity and originality align with the market analysis of record majors. Webb and his pal Lee Harris are from Southend. Webb initially played bass, Harris drums. The guidance counselor said Webb had “zero talent for anything.” But he ended up at art school, where he met Depeche Mode singers Dave Gahan and Alison Moyet in the same class.

In the summer of 1980, Webb, now eighteen, drove to London with Harris to audition for singer-songwriter Mark Hollis. Hollis was a few years older and needed a band to make his ideas sonically palatable to the record companies. He liked the enthusiasm of the two younger musicians so much that he formed the Talk Talk trio with them.

“I left home with a promise to be back for dinner. But I never came back.” Soon Talk Talk was under contract with EMI and celebrated their first hits. “It was incredible,” Webb is still amazed. Then, of all people, the career counselor in question got in touch to hire Talk Talk for a benefit concert. But the band was already commuting between London and New York by Concorde. “With the best will in the world, we didn’t have time for the careers adviser. I hung up the phone and yelled, ‘Hallelujah! Life is sweet!’»

In 1988 Talk Talk had produced their fourth album: «Spirit of Eden». The recordings lasted a year. The sound should sound like “a night in 1967”, wrote producer Phill Brown in his memoirs. Only instruments and equipment that had existed in 1967 were used, the lighting in the studio was psychedelic, the atmosphere euphoric. In the end, everyone involved was convinced that they had created a masterpiece.

With their sound, to which the Chelmsford Cathedral Choir contributed in addition to oboe, violin and harmonium, the six songs of “Spirit of Eden” tended towards contemporary orchestral music. On the other hand, they are reminiscent of the romantic-melancholic tradition of John Martyn or Nick Drake.

The list of musicians who cite the album as a source of inspiration today ranges from Radiohead to Placebo and Steven Wilson to Divine Comedy and Ghostpoet. “But when we played the album to our manager,” Webb recalls, “he shook his head and complained: What have you done! He knew that the music would hardly please the EMI bosses.” In fact, EMI even took the band to court for not delivering “a commercially satisfactory product” with the album. After all, the verdict was in favor of Talk Talk.

The death of Mark Hollis in February 2019 brought back old memories. Webb, who was no longer in contact with Hollis, didn’t bother too long: “I’m not a nostalgic person. What counts for me is the now and the future.” After Talk Talk, Webb, Harris and Phill Brown formed the trio O’Rang. Brown soon got out again, the work process was too tedious for him. Webb, on the other hand, remembers spontaneous improvisations “and a lot of fun”.

Your own voice

For the last few years, Webb has apparently been working on his own music without any financial pressure. At eight o’clock he took the children to school, then they played music, at 12 o’clock the late riser Lee Harris showed up in the studio, they worked until four o’clock when the children were picked up from school. During this time he not only developed his own style, but also his voice. Today, Paul Webb’s singing is remarkably similar to that of Mark Hollis, although his voice is reminiscent of Robert Wyatt here and there. As with Talk Talk, the instrumental arrangements range from autumnal brass parts to swinging jazz rhythms and shimmering guitars to spooky marimbas.

Thirty years after “Spirit of Eden”, Paul Webb has emerged from the shadow of that epochal work, but at the same time created an album that sounds a bit like a somewhat sunnier counterpart to it. “My record company never gave me any rules,” says Webb. “I sometimes wonder what would have happened if Mark Hollis had been allowed to work under similar circumstances.”