++ Hi all! Thanks so much for being up for this interview! How are you? Are you still involved with music?
John: Well thanks. Yes, I still do stuff from time to time. Since Southville there has been Metrotone, Landshipping, Ojn and Tonfedd Oren with Rhys. My work rate is very low though.
Rhys: I record covers and things for my own amusement, but I need a sparring partner to motivate me for anything serious.
++ So is Tonfedd Oren still going? What would you say are similarities and differences between Southville and Tonfedd Oren?
John: We wouldn’t rule out doing some more. Life gets in the way though! Similarities? Not sure.
Rhys: Southville is lo-fi jangly indie guitar pop, while Tonfedd Oren is playful synth-based electronica with cut-up vocals. Both have made good use of short-wave radio noises.
++ Let’s go back in time. What are your first music memories? Do you remember what your first instrument was? How did you learn to play it? What sort of music did you listen to at home while growing up?
John: For me, the house was always full of the Beatles and Bowie.
Rhys: I’d developed a slow-burning obsession with the electric guitar since an early age. Most of the stuff I listened to early on was Welsh-language rock and pop – the Welsh Rare Beat compilations on Finders Keepers will you give you a good idea of that kind of thing. When I was 14, my friend from across the road started playing his mum’s old nylon-string acoustic and he taught me a few chords. We plotted to get electric guitars and form a band, which we eventually did! We were into rock and metal at the time, but later on I discovered the Smiths, The Cure, Jesus and Mary Chain, and read the NME religiously when I went to university.
++ Had you been in other bands before Southville? If so, how did all of these bands sound? Are there any recordings?
John: For me, there were a couple of home-recording projects, notably a track under the name The Locations on a cassette compilation called “Something’s Burning in Paradise Again”. Rhys was a legit pop star though!
Rhys: I wouldn’t go that far! I’d been in a few bands since I was 14 or 15 – not particularly successful, but I’d played live on stage regularly, writing songs (well, just the music part) and made a couple of tv appearances.
++ Where were you from originally?
John: I’m from Staffordshire. Rhys is from Ynys Môn.
Rhys: It’s the little island off the top of Wales.
++ How did you two meet?
Rhys: We were both postgrad students in 1990 and after the department’s Christmas meal there was always an unofficial party in the lab of one of the research groups, everybody would turn up in the afternoon and have a drink or two. I overheard John talk with somebody about recording songs on cassette so I butted in and asked him what kind of stuff he wrote. We had similar tastes so we made big plans but I didn’t expect anything to come of them. John turned up at my flat the next day with a Casio keyboard under his arm! I played him a song I’d written the music for my band which had just fizzled out and that became Looking From A Hilltop.
++ How was Aberystwyth at the time of Southville? Were there any bands that you liked? Were there any good record stores? Or what about the pubs or venues to go check out up and coming bands?
John: We saw loads of bands, both English and Welsh-Language. I remember seeing Y Cyrff and being very impressed…. We saw a lot of pub rock at a place called Rummers too. Andy’s Records was a really good record shop with a knowledgeable owner.
Rhys: John thought Cyrff sounded like Echo and the Bunnymen. Cyrff had been my favourite band for a few years and were a great live act. Mark and Paul from the band went on to form Catatonia. The Welsh language scene was very lively at the time. The Students Union used to get some good bands now and again – I saw The Stone Roses and The House of Love there. The Sea Urchins played there as well but I missed them. Rummers was more pub-jazz though! Andy’s Records is still going strong, and I pop in when I have a chance. There was also a good record fair at the Students Union once a term, and I picked up a lot of good albums there for not much money.
++ I am aware of only a few fantastic Welsh bands of the early 90s but not that many, so I wonder if you have any recommendations for obscure bands that didn’t get a chance to make it?
Rhys: I introduced John to Datblygu, who were hugely influential, and Ffa Coffi Pawb – one of Gruff Rhys’s early bands. There is some great stuff around now as well – Mellt, Los Blancos, Adwaith, Papur Wal, Melin Melyn, Gwenno… You don’t have to understand the words to enjoy a good band.
++ How was the creative process for you? Where did you usually practice?
John: We’d usually come up with a tune and share it on cassette, and the other would go away and think of a way of adding to it.
Rhys: What we did quite a lot was once we’d sorted out the music and lyrics, and what we wanted it to sound like, we’d record all the parts and produce the finished song quite quickly – then over several weeks or months we’d refine the ideas, decide we could do a different guitar part, better vocals, a nice keyboard sound or something. So we’d go back and record a much better version. Quite a few songs exist as a rough version and a better version.
++ What’s the story behind the band’s name?
John: The cassette compilation “Somethings Burning in Paradise Again” was put out by woman called Christina Williams who lived in Southville, Bristol. We thought it was a cool name, like a kind of name of a band who might support Uncle Tupelo or one of the Northwest USA indies we listened to… I actually ended up living in Southville years later, which is kind of an odd thing.
++ Who would you say were influences in the sound of the band?
John: The Smiths, REM, a lot of the Sarah bands. I remember listening to the Rockingbirds and the Go-Betweens a fair bit at the time.
Rhys: The Smiths and early REM were the big influences on how I played guitar and wrote songs, and John introduced me to the Go-Betweens and the Sarah bands. I loved the NME’s C86 compilation a few years earlier but I hadn’t realised that Sarah (and a host of others I’d come to know) was releasing that kind of stuff still.
++ I was surprised to see a compilation of your songs being released this year by Harriet Records. I didn’t know there was a relation with Tim from Harriet. When did it start? Was it for this compilation or does it go further back?
John: We sent him a demo in … what?… 1994? And he said he couldn’t do a single then. Maybe a compilation. 27 Years later he bought a Tonfedd Oren download on Bandcamp. We wrote to him to say thank you and he said “By the way, are you Southville?” and asked us if we wanted to do a CD!
++ I’ll come back to this compilation in a bit. Let’s go in order. Your first release was the “Looking from a Hilltop” 7″ on Pillarbox Red. This is a fine label with great releases but I know little about them. Who were they and how did you end up working with them?
John: Andrew from Pillarbox had heard the Locations track on “Something is Burning in Paradise Again” and said he liked it and did we have anything else? By that time Southville had started so it was very serendipitous.
++ Speaking of the title song, “Looking from a Hilltop”, was the song inspired by any hill perhaps in Aberystwyth, or not really?
John: Kind of – I always think of Constitution Hill in Aberystwyth.
Rhys: The view from there is the background on the inside of the CD booklet.
++ Before this release, had you already released demo tapes? Or were the songs on the 7″ your first recordings?
John: They were our first songs.
++ On the sleeve there’s a map, is it Aberystwyth? Or another place?
John: Yes its Aberystwyth, with the town name Tippexed out!
Rhys: We were concerned that we’d get into trouble with the Ordnance Survey (who publish maps)! It was all done with photocopiers, razor blades, glue, and Letraset.
++ There’s a song called “16th of April” and I was wondering, is this day an important day for you? Or why this date?
John: I was thinking of the 16th April 1989, just a very odd day when no-one was at their best, against a backdrop of awful national events. I also thought that “16th April” was a cool title.
++ I also was wondering about the sleeve of your next record, the “Inside and Out” 7″. Where was that photo taken?
John: My colleague Richard Bambrey, who is an excellent photographer, took the picture of a wave hitting the shore at Aberystwyth.
++ The “Inside and Out” 7″ has the same song on both sides. Was this on purpose? Why?
John: It was cheaper, and allowed us to sell the song, including postage, for under a pound in the UK. I love the fact there is only one song on it. No need for a b-side.
++ And do tell me about the new version of this song that is on the compilation. It was recorded many years later, in 2013. What made you rediscover and rework your song?
John: We’ve both always been proud of Inside and Out. When digital recording came along it Rhys did a new version of it. I put a new vocal on one day when I came over to do some Tonfedd Oren vocals.
Rhys: The original version was recorded very quickly… I think we did it in a morning after the weekend we spent recording Hilltop and the other songs for the first EP. At the time I don’t think we knew it was going to be coming out on record so it was kind of rushed, just to get the idea down and I made at least one glaring mistake trying to play the bass line I’d just written. Years later I have much nicer guitars and a much better recording setup, and I thought the song had more potential than the one we’d hurriedly recorded on a 4-track with a cheap microphone.
++ So only these two 7″s were released even though you had many more songs. How come? Was there any interest from other labels at the time?
John: No! There was a plan for a split LP on Pillarbox, and a single on Meller Welle. It was so expensive to do vinyl then. We were very keen to get on Sarah Records, and still have some quite inventive rejection letters from them!
Rhys: We though the Meller Welle EP was our best opportunity yet so decided to spend a weekend at a real studio to get at least a couple of songs recorded well. Neil the engineer managed to get a great sound from us, so it was disappointing that it didn’t come out at the time. There was also a cover of a Field Mice song we did for a tribute LP that didn’t happen either.
++ You did appear on tons of cassette compilations in the 90s. One tape label that released you a lot in your compilations was Grapefruit. Again if there’s anything you could tell me about them, that’d be great.
John: It was always good to do cassette compilations. Grapefruit was done by a chap called Simon Minter. We are still in touch – we follow each other on Twitter. He’s an excellent graphic designer and you can see it even then in these photocopied cassette inlays.
++ Your songs appeared on compilations in the US, Italy, Germany… How did it work in those pre-internet days? Did you ever meet the people behind these tapes?
John: No – in fact we weren’t aware of some of them! We send tapes out to people. It took a long time to get responses, and was quite an expensive and time consuming process to buy a cassette, record onto it, write a letter, send it out. I bumped into Karen White, who ran Pillarbox Red with Andrew Austin a few years ago and she described the whole letters-tapes-fanzines scene as “incredibly slow social media”!
Rhys: It was a good way to get some exposure. We had a load of songs recorded by then, so we were happy to “donate” one to a cassette compilation so that more people could get to hear us.
++ I am looking at the new compilation called “Across the Airwaves” and something that caught my attention is that you recorded many songs in Edinburgh. Did you move to Scotland at some point? Or how come you were recording that far from Wales?
John: Rhys had a job at the University of Edinburgh and, by accident, a year or two later I got one too. So there was a year or so when we overlapped there, and of course we met up and recorded songs.
Rhys: Ironically, we became very productive in terms of writing songs when were living far away from each other. John lent me his 4-track for a while and I recorded the music, then we’d met up for a weekend now and again and finish a couple of songs.
++ On the compilation there are 18 tracks. Are these all of your recordings or are there still unreleased songs waiting to be released?
John: There are others but I think these are about the best.
Rhys: I’m a bit of an archivist, and I think we have about 40 recorded tracks, plus a handful of unfinished ones. A lot of songs were recorded twice or even three times though. We’d record it quickly to get the idea down, then we’d think of more ideas and record it again more carefully, with more effort to get the right sound. There are a couple of others which could easily have made it onto the album, but between us and Tim I think we agreed on the best selection.
++ Lastly the CD includes the original Harriet rejection letter! How did you take it at the time and how did you take it now that Harriet is finally releasing all your songs?!
John: We have many, many rejection letters, Harriet was only one. Hearing from Tim was amazing though. Its excellent that these songs are having a second life.
++ I think my favourite song of yours might as well be “Inside and Out”, wondering if you could tell me what inspired this song? What’s the story behind it?
John: It is about a very specific incident, but its many years ago, and… all’s good now and I will say no more.
Rhys: I had some nice sounding jangly chords which I’d been playing for weeks but couldn’t work into a complete song. John cajoled me by suggesting random chords and it quickly came together. We’d also discovered how to program a cool new beat into the drum machine, which worked perfectly with the guitar part.
++ If you were to choose your favorite Southville song, which one would that be and why?
John: “Inside and Out” – I love the fragility and the vague grooviness. I also like “She Says” and the four tracks on the first single. “Sometimes…” as well.
Rhys: I quite like “Underneath The Sky” at the moment because I think it marked a point where my songwriting had progressed, I was arranging more varied guitar parts and programming the drum machine in a more realistic way. The sound and the lyrics just takes me back to carefree summer Saturday afternoons in my flat in Aberystwyth in the early 90s.
++ What about gigs? Did you play many?
None
++ When and why did The Southville stop making music? Were you involved in any other bands afterwards?
John: We moved apart, we had other priorities. I did Metrotone, Landshipping, Ojn… Tonfedd Oren has been lots of fun.
Rhys: I only really played for my own amusement, so I was glad when John sent me some demos of his electronic stuff that became Tonfedd Oren. A totally different way of working for me, but yes, a lot of fun creating the tracks.
++ Has there been any Southville reunions?
John: We have been out for a pint together on occasion if that’s what you mean?
++ Was there any interest from the radio? TV?
John: We got on the radio in France and Belgium. I think that kind of sound made much more sense there than it did in the UK.
Rhys: I remember a small college radio station somewhere in the USA playing us as well, but the radio play was quite sporadic I think. And of course at the time, we couldn’t hear it! The new CD has been picked up by a couple of blogs already so hopefully it will get some radio play.
++ What about the press? Did they give you any attention?
John: None whatsoever!
++ What about fanzines?
John: Yes, quite a few. We were very pleased to have a long piece in a beautiful zine called “Soft White Underbelly”. There were odd bits and pieces in French zines and “Swinging Ruislip”, the Pillarbox in-house fanzine.
Rhys: We made a demo tape to send to prospective labels and it ended up being reviewed by a publication called Sun Zoom Spark, which was much glossier and substantial than the usual photocopied fanzines.
++ Looking back in retrospect, what would you say was the biggest highlight for the band?
John: The first single arriving in the post!
Rhys: Andrew and Karen had sent them to John and he came round to my flat. I went to make coffee and he left them on the table, waiting for me to notice! It took me a couple of minutes because I was expecting the covers to be black and white, not red.
++ Never been to Aberystwyth so I’d like to ask a local about what you would suggest checking out in your town, like what are the sights one shouldn’t miss? Or the traditional food or drinks that you love that I should try?
John: Just walk along the sea front on a sunny evening.
Rhys: I’ve had the opportunity to spend time in Aberystwyth regularly again. It’s kind of completely different to how it was, but still the same, if you see what I mean. There are are a few interesting restaurants there now, hidden away. And of course Andy’s Records is still going strong.
++ Anything else you’d like to add?
The text from the CD booklet, in case you find it useful:
So: Rhys and John, grad students in Aberystwyth, on the coast of Wales, six hours from London, but in a different country. It’s Christmas 1990 and at a party we start talking about music. We agree on the Smiths, Jesus and Mary Chain, and bands who became Catatonia and the Super Furry Animals. Rhys had been in a couple of Welsh-language bands, had made an album, been on the television; John had some home recordings and a pile of rejection letters. Maybe we could try recording something ourselves?
One of John’s solo tracks on a cassette compilation (based in Southville, Bristol) attracted a DIY label in London called Pillarbox Red, run by Karen White and Andrew Austin, one of many small labels producing cheap, short run 7”s made in newly-open Eastern Europe and selling them at gigs and by mail order in the UK, Europe and the US — new, relaxed customs rules in Europe had recently made this cheaper and easier. Fanzines and home-duplicated compilation tapes spread news and music, loosely clustered around a group of bands, writers, fans and labels inspired by the DIY ethic of Sarah Records. John met Karen 20 years later. She succinctly encapsulated the scene as a “kind of extremely slow social media…”
A demo followed, recorded on a hired 4-track, which led to two Pillarbox Red singles, and more compilation cassettes. The songs reflected the time and our situation: set in the kitchens of shared houses; concerning letters that are written or not, received or not; (phone calls were expensive, email a rarity); the yearning to join in with a different, wider world, yet a preoccupation with the psychogeography of the quietly amazing place we lived in (“Before you go, think of me, looking from a hilltop to the sea”). The singles got on a small, syndicated Belgian radio show. We sent out demos to labels and fanzines. People began to write from abroad — French women, German men… we never did understand why things split like that.
New influences came: the beginnings of Britpop and shoegaze, dance beats. Tapes of US bands via Pillarbox Red. Political and environmental concerns. Together we watched Welsh music TV, Rhys filling the gaps in John’s understanding of the language. We moved out of Aber to respective jobs across the UK, swapped tapes in the post, recorded some demos over a few weekends, overlapped in 1996 by accident in Edinburgh and recorded three tracks for a German single that didn’t happen, in a real studio.
Our lives diverged. Music kept us in touch despite working on our own musical projects. In the early 2010s we worked together again on some tracks as Tonfedd Oren (tonfeddoren.bandcamp.com) which resulted in a single on orange vinyl which still gets regular radioplay, and we revisited “Sometimes…” and “Inside and Out”.
So this was Southville. Thanks Tim at Harriet Records, for this chance to listen again and put it in context. I think I finally know what I was singing about: “A feeling of joining a silent tradition without knowing quite what it meant.”
