(巻頭引用キャプション) I didn't see myself as overtly heterosexual, but then again I didn't see myself as gay. I sort of saw myself as some sort of sexual being that was floating somewhere.
(次頁) THE CRYING GAME(大見出し)
Never say never. The years of side-swiping and back-biting made the reconcilation of Britpop pioneers Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler the most unexpected reunion of recent times. The Suede survivors discuss tantrums, tandori's and new project, THE TEARS
You can accuse him of many things, but Brett Anderson was never boring. In his first year of university (at Manchester, pub-quiz fans), he was once chased by a pack of ravenous, burly blokes pissed off with him for playing The Smiths in a club. "I had to a hide in a wheelie-bin," he laughs. The die was cast. As frontman of Suede -the band that spearheaded Britpop- the camp crusader is a 'From The Creators Of Footballers' Wives' series waiting to happen, with cans of Red Stripe replacing the Crystal. Romantic three-way relationships Laced with pique? Check! Famously, Elastica founder and former Suede bassist Justine Frischmann left Brett for Damon Albarn at the drop of an 'H'. Problems with drugs? Bingo! At one point, Brett was crammed with so much crack'n'smack that he could have been strung up and used as a novelty Columbian Pinata. (Pinataのnの上に~あり)
Still, what's forever scarred on the Suede legend is the rancorous break-up
between Brett and guitarist Bernard Butler, labelled 'the Morrissey and Marr of their generation'. Hoisted out of pub-gig purgatory and splashed all over the cover of the Melody maker as 'The Best New Band In Britain!' before they'd even released a record, things soon went Libertines-up. In 1994, Bernard walked out of recordings for the band's sophomore album, Dog Man Star, feeling that his work was being mercilessly torn asunder by producer Ed Buller. Trading insults in interviews, the pair didn't speak to each other for the best part of decade.
Set the Tardis to 2005, and Anderson's here to promote his new band, The Tears, which sees the pair's much-heralded rapprochement. He's 37, and still dashing in a few-drinks-and-you-would way. The Tears takes its name from the lesbionic Philip Larkin poem, Femmes Damnees. (最初のeに上に'あり) "Although at first, I couldn't see how it could be called anything other than Anderson and Buller," says Brett. "But that sounded like an insurance firm."
A couple of years ago, it would have seemed impossible to have Brett and Bernard in the same room without first removing anything pointy. After Suede played their final gig, Brett bit the bullet and phoned up his former compatriot.
"You have to remember that I'd been intending to call Bernard for a long time," he explains. "We split up the band, played the last gig and then I called him straight away. I was half-prepared for him to tell me to fuck off."
"It was just time," he sighs. "It had been nine years since him leaving Suede and me picking up the phone. And I realised that the breakdown of a relationship isn't one person's fault. For years and years, in my mind, I just blamed Bernard. And I suddenly realised that, actually, I behaved pretty badly as well."
The dynamic duo went out for a curry. Was there a strained undercurrent of 'Don't mention the war!' about the night?
"Actually, no. It was strangely okay. It didn't feel odd and we, bizarrely, got on. The relationship I have with Bernard is like family and it has all those emotional ties. If I didn't see my father for nine years and then I suddenly saw him again, there wouldn’t be any weirdness."
Even so, considering Bernard Suffered a breakdown because of his departure, you must have had taboo cards. Or, at the very least, paramedics on standby.
"I think there was an unwritten law that we didn't want to open up cans of worms about the past, and we still haven't really talked about it. I think there was feeling of inevitability that we'd work together from both of us. I think he'd done a couple of interviews where he'd said as much."
Despite this, you can't help but feel that with such history, watching The Tears unfold is a bit like playing Buckaroo! They were, after all, like two contestants from Blind Date who'd hated each other before slagging each other off on the Cilla Sofa. Surely that means the relationship can never be what it once was. Can they still be friends?
"Friends' is too shallow a term to apply to our relationship. I mean, am I friends with my father? Not really. But I'm not enemies with him. There's more of a depth to our relationship. We didn't have an agenda. There were no provisos like 'I'm only going to work with you if,' but the main thing we agreed on was that we were only going to do this if it was absolutely great. We weren't going to make one of those 'middle-aged guys paying for their children's education' albums."
Fortunately, debut album 'Here Comes The Tears' is a peach.(どゆ意味? 桃て…)Tracks like the swooning Apollo 13 and Ghost Of You represent a creative watermark for both men. Debut single Refugees is perfect pop, at a don't-bother-putting-the-kettle-on-I'm-not-staying two-and-a-half-minutes (何でハイフンで繋がってんのかわかりませんが原文ママ)long. Plus, it demonstrates Brett's new Question Time panellist interest in politics.
"I came up with it in Suede, but bizarrely the title's become more politically loaded. It's almost as if I've jumped on some kind of zeitgeist bandwagon! The way the Right have used refugees as a political football, I find it disgusting and irresponsible. What I want to know is how do refugees influence the lives of Daily Mail readers in middle- England? How many refugees do they see in Cheltenham? It's an abstract concept for them."
For a while, it's fair to say that Suede were the gayest indie kids on the block, despite only one member, drummer Simon Gilbert, being a de facto bummer.