Clive Langer - Interview

  by Eoghan Lyng

published: 1 / 2 / 2025

Clive Langer spent decades producing bands, often in conjunction with Alan Winstanley, but as a songwriter of some note (he co-wrote ‘Shipbuilding’ with Elvis Costello), he’s here to talk about his new music. The resulting album, 'New Clang', features many of the idiosyncrasies of his craft, done with the gusto of a live gig. Penny Black caught up with the songwriting produc'er to talk about the past, the present - not forgetting Langer’s immediate future. PB: Congratulations on the new album. CL: I don't know about congratulations about the new album..[mutters inaudibly] Whether or not anyone will ever hear it [is another thing]. But, thank you. PB: Well, that's alright. The end product is the most important thing. CL:Yeah, yeah. PB: Did the record take long to complete? CL: It was done in bits and pieces. I mean, it was done in demos, and those turned into masters. I started it in Domino, because I have a little writing room, and I'm still published by Domino. So, I use their writing room which is also a demo studio, and since I've worked there pre-pandemic, they've moved to much nicer premises. I started recording probably about a year ago, and I didn't know what I was doing or why. But it felt like time to start the band again, and after the pandemic break I found a bass player in Jamie Reynolds, who used to play for The Klaxons. We were rehearsing, and we worked on about five songs: 'What are we going to do?' I knew I could record four or five tracks, and then we moved to another one of the rooms. PB: That's promising. CL: I was always trying to make them sound like masters, but they were always good demos. Then, I played those demos to the people at Domino, and everyone suggested I make an album, but I didn't know who with, because I'd kind of exhausted my time with Domino Records. Then someone suggested Fretsore Records: the chap there,Ian, said he liked what I was doing, and said he'd like to put out an album.I took the demos out to Pony Studios, and recorded them there. We did 'Page 1' and 'Fourteenth Floor'; 'Southend' was one we did there. So, being in a proper studio, it was easy to make them equal to the new recordings that we were doing. PB: Your album reminded me of The Beatles debut Please Please Me.Is that a fair comparison? CL: Haha, thank you! I hope I go on to have as much success! I think after decades of producing and trying to make records sound good and tight; that's easy these days. Easier to make a tight one, and one in time and tune, than it is to make a rough one. It didn't use to be; used to be a lot of effort. I was harking back to Neil Young records, and enjoying mistakes and rough edges. Enjoying them, instead of knowing something has been artificially placed in time. That's very easy to do these days. PB: Drummer Phil Collins has called The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway one of his favourites because of the rough edges. CL: I was brought up with 1960s and 1970s music, and it was rougher, and had a lot of character. There's a lot of homogenisation that has happened since. I get pleasure from rough edges; I like old blues records. I like hearing the room,and the fingers on the fretboard.I like the human touches, like people talking in the studio. Hopefully, that's conveyed on this record. PB: I interviewed Kevin Rowland in 2020,and he loves putting in pieces of dialogue in his songs. CL: Yeah, I worked with Kevin. In the studio, he was quite the taskmaster: all done live, but really well rehearsed. Everything was very tight, and he ran it like an army; very disciplined! PB: There are fabulous songs on Too-Rye-Ay. I love that introduction: 'Ladies, and gentlemen: The Celtic..' CL: The Celtic Soul Brothers! Yes, that was the first track we did with them, and I thought that was going to be a hit record. But it wasn't when it was first released, so when we did 'Come On Eileen', I wasn't sure that was going to be a hit because 'The Celtic Soul Brothers' hadn't been, and that was the one I thought was a hit. After the success of 'Come On Eileen', 'The Celtic Soul Brothers' was re-released and it was a hit. I've had a lot of experience with records,and they don't become hits until the second or third time they were released. It can be frustrating, until they're a hit, and suddenly you were right all along. PB: Hats off to Rowland for writing such an Irish sounding album at the height of Thatcher and IRA bombs, but he put his songs out there. CL: He's quite purist in his ideals, and the way he works. He's very focused, and he knows what he's doing. I felt a bit guilty: 'Come On Eileen' came out, and it was so successful, and I hadn't really worked much on the arrangements as I normally do. It was so well arranged already, so a lot of my work was leaving things as they were, compared to 'Our House' with Madness, where I pulled it to bits. I added bits, backing vocals,and percussion to 'Our House'; took bits out. I'd done a lot of work with Madness, so it was interesting that the two records that were hits at the same time were done with a different work ethic. I was totally dedicated to the 'Come On Eileen' record, but it was a totally different approach. PB: I'm sure that keeps us young and healthy. Can you comment on whether or not 10cc guitarist Eric Stewart was involved with Too-Rye-Aye? CL: I've never heard that; ask Kevin! PB: Eric Stewart worked with Paul McCartney, as did Elvis Costello. 'Shipbuilding' is one of Costello's enduring songs; did you co-write that? CL: I wrote it after Robert Wyatt singing 'Strange Fruit' on the Nothing Can Stop Us album.I really loved that, and in my mind I thought: 'An impossible task, but I'd like to write something as beautiful as that.' So,I wrote the music, and I 'la-la-la'ed the melody to send to Robert, but I couldn't think of any lyrics that matched. I met Elvis, who I vaguely knew, and asked if he'd like to write a lyric with Robert Wyatt in mind. It was an incredible lyric. PB: Superb words. CL:I've said it before in interviews: I was working in America,and he was in Australia, and he called me up to say he'd written the best lyric he'd ever written. I said: 'It's the best tune I've ever written,so let's hope we're onto something." Elvis sang his lyric on the demo I did, and we sent it to Robert, who agreed to sing it, and sang on the original demo I made. On later pressings of Strange Fruit, they added 'Shipbuilding' [laughs]. From being inspired by a track on that album, I now had a track on the album. Bizarre! PB: Costello's words are fantastic; he punched up McCartney's work. On that note, did you ever work with McCartney? CL: No. I used to bump into him at AIR studios. He was recording with George Martin, and I was there with Madness, and Teardrops,and various others. Before we had our own studios in London, we used to work in AIR on Oxford Street. So, I knew McCartney to say hi. A very friendly man, but I never worked with him. PB: In my notes,I see that you worked with my fellow countrymen: Hothouse Flowers. What were they like? CL: They were amazing. I was [affects a Dublin accent] 'tirtee three and a turd' when I worked with them, so it must have been 1987. They were very young: eighteen, or nineteen. London Records thought we could work with them,so they sent us to Dublin. We ended up getting on well, so I worked with them on a couple of albums. Madness had finished,and they felt like my brothers. But now I had new brothers from Ireland. There was another song called 'Don't Go' that wasn't a hit, but then it was used for the Eurovision Song Contest, and it became a big hit. Hothouse Flowers were amazing,and they've got magic in the band. PB: I've met Liam Ó Maonlaí; a very nice man. CL: Very! He came to the last Clang gig. I speak to him about once a year, and he said he'd come over to see me. Liam came to see me at West Hampstead; an honour. I'll go see Hothouse Flowers next year in London. PB: I'd like to ask you about another band you were in: Big in Japan. CL: I played on one record, which was 'Big in Japan' by Big in Japan. Bill Drummond was away, so I sat in for him. I was in a band called Deaf School,and we signed to Warner Bros.and toured America. When we went to America, we were based in Liverpool, and we left all our equipment there. Our road crew started a band, which was Big in Japan. So, they were all friends of mine from art college, or Eric's, which was the club in Liverpool. Eric's was a happening thing then. PB: Indeed. CL: I sort of suggested that they started a band. They had a band called 'Clive's in America',so they were sort of my ‘Second Band', but I wasn't really in them. PB: Look at the pedigree: Holly Johnson, Ian Broudie. Virtually everyone went on from Big In Japan to greater success. CL: Yeah, yeah. It was the Eric's scene: all the kids that hung out at Eric's [turned into] Teardrops,and The Bunnymen, and Big In Japan. They were there every Friday; all hanging out together. PB: What is your primary instrument: guitar or piano? CL: Guitar! Like most kids in the 1960s, I dreamt of being a pop star. [In fact], I still am; that's why I'm putting out a record. But the electric guitar was the thing that fascinated me, and as soon as I heard The Shadows, and the TWANG of the guitar, it got me.So,I was the guitarist in Deaf School. We started when I was about eighteen, but I'd played in bands in primary school. We started a group when I was eleven. A couple of bands in secondary school: a jazzy band, a hippie band. Then we started Deaf School when I went to art college. PB: Returning to my notes, I see you worked on one of Morrissey's most underrated albums: Kill Uncle. CL: I'm glad you said that! It's kind of getting known as that now. But you have to remember the Madchester scene at the time. It was the scene of Happy Mondays, and it was Tony Wilson, and I remember him slagging it off.It was a totally unfashionable Morrissey record. It was brilliant: we were putting music to his poems, little vignettes because there was no real band at the time, which gave me a lot of freedom as a producer. We could create the tracks that spoke to each song, and illustrate the song.I'm really proud of that album, even though I think even Morrissey slagged it off. PB: Oh no! CL: But I'm kind of used to that, as I've made albums with artists, and they've slagged it off. As time passes, people realise whether the album is good or bad. PB: Well, it's a scapegoat for the artist to blame the producer. Look at McCartney, who put the blame of Let It Be on Phil Spector. The production is the least of the album's problems! CL: No [laughs]. Elvis Co0stello did Punch the Clock, and when we did it, we were specifically asked [stops himself to think].. His popularity was waning a bit at that time, and we were asked to get him a hit in America. We got him 'Everyday I Write The Book'. PB: That's a hit! CL: It was a very 1980s sounding record, which didn't really fit in with his sound ethic, because Elvis is all roots, really. The Nick Lowe production sound was rougher, but we did what we were supposed to do. We had the American Top 10 hit that we were supposed to do. PB: Success begets success, and all that. Back to your album: Who were some of your influences? CL: Oh dear....[hums] I was brought up with Ray Davies and The Beatles, and later it was Bowie and Roxy Music. I just write... PB: Yes? CL: With 'Page 1', I'd just heard a new Wilco track, and it sounded like they were trying to be Velvet Underground. So,I was copying Wilco who were copying The Velvet Underground, so I wanted simple; punky, I guess. All "Duh duh duh", and straight ahead. Something like 'Southend' is quite a complex arrangement, and I'm used to that. But 'Page 1' is quite simple, even if the chords go in quite a complicated way; they are repeated, and repeated. The Velvets probably did it with two chords, and I probably did it with five, but for me that's simple. PB: If you're familiar with Genesis, keyboardist Tony Banks jokes that he puts in too many chords: 'A Chord Too Far'. CL: I'm afraid I'm not a very big Genesis fan [chuckles]. I always thought they put too many chords in, and some bands,I feel, try to be too clever. I love 10cc, and they're clever. But I didn't get Genesis. PB: Bassist Graham Gouldman denies 10cc were prog rock. CL: They weren't prog rock, [but] they were clever. The nearest I got to prog was a band like Family, and I liked the first Yes album, but I didn't like them after that. I liked The Nice, but I didn't like ELP [both bands featured Keith Emerson]. I was a bit fussy, and by the time prog got in, I was listening to Miles Davis, and Weather Report; I was a snob. While I was listening to these jazz rock fusion things, I was also listening to The Kinks, and Ian Dury was a tutor at my art college. PB: Was he? CL: Yeah, I heard Kilburn and the High Roads before he was in The Blockheads. I liked simple English pop, so I listened to a lot of Soft Machine. With Soft Machine, you had Robert Wyatt's simple, funny songs, and the most complex jazz rock going on at the same time. Soft Machine were proggy, but they were more jazzy. When those clever bands got too clever, they annoyed me[chuckles]. But, I do like some clever music; I don't know how you break it all down. Some things you go for, but I think there was a lack of roots in Genesis, and ELP.There was a lack of blackness [sic] to it all, if you know what I mean? PB: Sure. The first two Beatle albums are effectively black American music set to English voices. CL: Exactly! Look at Motown: what amazing fucking pop music came out that, and from gospel, basically. And then listening to The Beatles, and The Beatles listening to Tamla.It was a great, healthy scene going on there in the 1960s. PB: Was Julian Cope inspired by Motown? CL: Ha - I think he was more inspired by mushrooms! He didn't mention Motown much, but I think my influence might have made his music a bit less white. We got James Eller to play bass on Wilder; he was a bit funkier. Julian probably did like all the English prog bands, and really liked the German bands, didn't he? PB: Yes. CL: Krautrock, and everything. He was more influenced by all that. The Doors too; West Coast. PB; 'Reward' sounds like a modern day Motown track; brass licks etc. CL: It has got a-kind-of-soul beat: gah gah gah gah. And the brass... PB: The brass? CL: I didn't put that in; we featured it because it sounded so good! We just had one trumpet player,and the trumpet player at the time was playing more 'Penny Lane' lines [imitates the sound of an English brass: 'Bep be bep be be bep']. But 'Reward' was a real riffy song, wasn't it? And it was going to be a B-side.. PB: Seriously? CL: I can't remember the name of the song that was going to be an A-side; a sort of romantic ballad. But 'Reward' turned out so well - so exciting - and the sound of that trumpet; a banger! So, that was the obvious A-side. Again, we did 'Treason' with them, which wasn't a hit, but then 'Reward' came out,so 'Treason' was re-released, and it was a hit! PB: 'Reward' is a fantastic number: easily a dance classic at Northern Soul nights. CL: It's a rare one where the backing track is bangin', and the only way this isn't going to be a hit is if you fuck it up. But if you work on it a bit, it'll be really good. I remember that a bit with 'Lost Weekend' by Lloyd Cole: it didn't have the lyrics, but we had the backing track. The song sounded a bit like 'The Passenger', so it was a bit like, 'We've got right here.' And that was even before he'd written the lyrics. So, he wrote it, and it was a hit. PB: You're not from Liverpool, but evidently spent a lot of time in the scene there. Talk to us about that time period. CL: Well, it was dead when I arrived in Liverpool. It was quite a long time after The Beatles, and nothing had happened. The Merseybeat thing was out of date; uncool. Kids were wearing flairs and long hair, smoking spliffs, and things. Sitting on cushions in Virgin Records, Bold Street. So, it was time to start a group where the trousers were tight, and the hair was short [chuckles].And that was Deaf School, and we were very lucky because there was no competition. Nothing was like a 'New-Wave-Feeling' thing, because it was before the new wave. We came out after Sparks and Roxy Music, and I was influenced by Kilburn and The High Roads, and pub rock. I used to go back to London a lot, and I'd see all those bands: Dr. Feelgood, Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers. So, we were the first band in Liverpool that was like this new wave, and could create a scene. Eric's opened, and we were like 'The Kings & Queens of Liverpool.' We had an audience from art college, and after a few months, there were queues around the blocks from the local pubs to see us. We kicked off a scene: they do those family trees of rock & roll ,and there's one of the Liverpool scene . The one from the mid to late 1970s starts with Deaf School, and breaks into Broudie, Teardrops, Frankie, Big In Japan.. But it all started with Deaf School, and I'm very proud of that. PB: The Godfather of the Liverpool Scene! CL: Well [sounds bashful]..I wouldn't say that myself. PB: Returning to 2025, do you hope to tour the record? CL: I'd love to tour, but I don't think anyone would come see us. We're doing a couple of small dates in West Hampstead on the 21st of February; that's release week. We're playing Liverpool on the 26th, and Hackney on the 28th, and we're supporting Ian Prowse in May. I'd love to do more dates, but we'll have to latch onto someone else's gigs to justify getting on the road, man! Plus, members of the band have different jobs, so it is quite hard to get everyone together. PB: What is the core lineup; two guitars and a rhythm section? CL: No, it's guitar, keyboards, and drums; all from Deaf School. Greg plays drums, and the Reverend Max Ripple on keyboards. It's myself on vocals and guitar, with Jamie from Klaxons on bass; the youngster. Eugene McGuinness did all the backing vocals on the album,so it will either be him or Ade doing the backing vocals with us. Ade did all the backing vocals with Amy Winehouse [sic]. Ade's also recently been with The Gorillaz. PB: The Damon Albarn band? CL: Yeah, that's the one. PB: That's a pedigree. CL: We do our first rehearsal Monday; I'm nervously excited. PB: I know a lot of singers are allergic to this question, but what the hell: Do you have a favourite track on New Clang? CL: I quite like 'Page 1', and 'Bullodozer',I really like; it's Hendrix-like and rocking. And '14th Floor' is the sensitive side of me, the side that wrote 'Shipbuilding'.Those three I'm really pleased with. Some of them I'd redo now,a year after writing some of them. I'd probably lean less heavily on the addiction side of things, but that was me at the time. PB: Perspective changes. CL: It's a normal thing to think: 'If only I could tweak that mix'. PB: Well, one of my favourite albums is All Things Must Pass, and I remember watching an interview with George Harrison ruminating on the excessive reverb! CL: I know what he means, as it was Phil Spector! But it's a great record, and I really like the 'Apple Jam'. PB: Superb. I rate it higher than most Beatle albums. CL: I'd never say that, [because] I can't fault The Beatles.They're difficult to fault. PB: I'll leave it with two more questions. Are you producing another album? CL: No. I did a tiny bit on the last Fat White Family album, but not much. I don't get offered things, but if I do,I normally turn them down.I'm much more interested in doing my own stuff these days than producing another band. If something knocked me out, or changed my lifestyle, then I might be tempted. After thirty years of producing, it's a relief to do my own stuff. PB: Funnily enough, [The Police producer]Hugh Padgham doesn't seem too interested in producing much either. CL: It can be tedious at times! You have to hold hands a lot, and be a different person: a mother, a dictator, a therapist,and a teacher all in one. PB: Are you writing another record? CL: I've just written one song since doing the album. I think after you finish an album you need a breather, and I don't like writing to order. I write when I get excited when I play something on the keyboard, or I'm walking down the road and get an idea. So, that process is beginning again. It's ok to take quite a few years between albums. PB: Kevin Rowland can take decades between albums, and they're always superb. CL: I quite enjoyed the last Dexys album. PB: Thank you for your time. Remind me when your album will be out again? CL: The 21st of February. And thank you; very nice of you to help me. Photos by Chris Griffiths

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