Totally Wired

by Andy Wired (Part two)

So what happens when you play the songs live, because you've recorded them, do you feel limited in what you can do with them because the audience expects to hear them as they are on record?

M: Not really, even old songs we change them al the time. Also, I've got a really bad memory and I forget the words and the stuff I make up usually turns out better than the stuff we've recorded. It stops it getting boring.

L: Once it's recorded it still doesn't always feel right and we often add things and take bits away and we might even record things again at another stage.
We've not actually recorded anything yet but there are a couple of things now that we'd like to rearrange and redo for a new album, whenever that gets done, so it's quite possible the lyrics will change again and certainly on stage they're always changing. The only thing I'm quite conscious of, though, is that people do like to get to know the words and sing along at gigs and if the person on stage is doing different things in the song, it loses the familiarity, and that's important. But I do feel it's important to change things that don't feel right cos otherwise I'd just get bored with doing that song.

Because you're all living in different parts of Britain, does that make rehearsals a nightmare?

L: We don't get together as much as we should but I don't think we're reluctant to rehearse. It's kinda difficult to organise. Also, we're not really about, y'know, this song always has five chords and this is how it always sounds. That's not us at all. Some bands like to practise every couple of days so they're really tight but we find that boring. We do play gigs where we come off and say we were really tight, but our tight is everybody else's all over the place!

Each instrument is doing its utmost to be heard above the others and the result is a brutal cacophony of freeform anarchy

D: I think we'd be a different band if we practised a lot. You can overdo things. Someone at our old record label said something really strange along the lines of 'you have to work at improvisation'. That's really paraphrasing it, but it's difficult to see that when you've not practised in ages and then the first thing you do when you get together is bloody amazing.

M: I don't really find it exciting. It's like, if I'm gonna make something up, there's no audience to get into it, but if you're doing it in a recording studio or live onstage, it's like your mind ticks over faster and you get more into it.

Prolapse live are an unbelievable experience. No two gigs are the same and you're just as likely to see Linda and Mick fighting one another in an extremely real, completely unrehearsed bout of hysterical anger release as you are to watch them perform a rigidly tight set. The thing you are guaranteed, though, is huge excitement. It's not just the well-publicized occasional rucks between the two vocalists. Each instrument is doing its utmost to be heard above the others and the result is a brutal cacophony of freeform anarchy that will have you twisting and turning, like watching a tennis match on fast forward, to keep up with the myriad of onstage happenings.

How hard is it to keep that air of surprise in the live shows now that the onstage fighting has been well documented?

M: Not very. Every time something gets a bit static or expected, we make subtle changes. Like the way everyone expects me and Linda to have fist sights. We had one in Germany and we hadn't had one in ages and it seemed really fresh again. Things are always twisting and turning and there's always a lot of exuberance, so while we've still got that then it's exciting. I don't think we have it in us just to do nothing, so we're always twisting things. Who knows, maybe we'll start pushing each other around in prams or something. I'm sure it'll keep changing and hopefully there's always gonna be that air of surprise in it. You've always got to make an effort and be different without forcing it.
Who knows, maybe we'll start pushing each other around in prams or something.

L: The gigs are just naturally different, that's just the way we play, probably because we don't have this tightness or whatever that others aim for. A far as the way me and Mick move about onstage, when we first started we had a lot of different props onstage and we'd smash things up, or throw things at one another and the audience, and that was great. But then the press started going 'go and see Prolapse, they throw things' so we just thought no, that's completely not that it's about at all, so we stopped doing it. Now the press say 'go and see Prolapse, they fight onstage' and that's completely irritating. What they should say is 'Go and see Prolapse, they do whatever they wanna do' because we never rehearse or plan any outbursts but to some it probably seems as though we do.

The stage is a massive playground and we use it

D: I think maybe it's time to move on. It's been a natural thing to change things when they become expected. If it doesn't look forced, that's all right. The one thing that a lot of journalists miss is that the whole band are arguing within the music. It is very repetitive and we like to build things up into a real cacophony live. There is a lot of discipline, the messy bits are just superficial. There's definitely two lines of attack to Prolapse.

Does it ever feel like you're going through the motions?

L: I think some people do go along with the specific idea of seeing us fight. There's nothing more boring than thinking oh no, it's that song, here comes the fight, from my point of view. It would be so crass and boring if it was staged. It's not put on and shouldn't be perceived as such. Sometimes we do irritate each other and it'll kick off. We don't really care what we do onstage and we use that. The stage is a massive playground and we use it depending on how we feel at the time.

M: Every now and then you feel like you're going through the motions. A really important thing about our live shows is that it all depends on how you're feeling on the night. You're always playing a part really, I don't ever really feel like I'm me when I'm on stage and you can get into your characters and you don't have to be the same pissed off person who was wandering around drinking beer five minutes ago. I feel like I'm a serial killer onstage.

Despite the frequent onstage arguments, tantrums and general disintegration into physical violence, Prolapse seemingly get along very well offstage. The band recently went on a lengthy European tour, and the question had to be asked, were the band as amenable after being stuck in a van for hours on end? Despite having formed when some of the band were at poly/uni/college in Leicester and were all close friends, the fact that they now live scattered around the country and self-admittedly rarely meet up for rehearsals, was bound to take its toll, wasn't it?

L: Well, we're all very different people and we're a strange group in that we've got together in Leicester on the basis that we were all friends, but I don't think we'd all be friends now if it wasn't for the band really because we're all very different people with different ideas and strong personalities and I've been around other bands and it made me realise what a strange concoction of people Prolapse are. One minute we'll be absolute best of friends, a really tight group, and the next minute everybody hates each other. There's been a couple of fights between various members of the band, not including the ones between me and Scots MIck and it can go up and down from one day to the next. There's a couple of people in the band whose moods swing quite a lot.

I feel like I'm a serial killer onstage

M: Most of the time, if we can get away from each other, it's probably a good idea. When we're in the van, it's quite tolerable, everybody does get on, but you have the inevitable arguments that are fuelled more when the van breaks down in the middle of nowhere on the continent and somebody on the other end of the phone is telling you that you're not actually in the AA.

D: We do get on amazingly well. We didn't pace ourselves very well with two heavy nights in Hamburg, but it was really the van that caused the most problems.

Linda, do you ever feel isolated because you're the only woman in the band?

L: Sometimes I do. It can get a bit laddish and if we go away for long periods I really do feel the effect of being the only girl in the band because, even though I know it sounds quite naff, girls do like the company of other girls. On a tour situation, the lads have all got each other and although we're all mates it would be nice sometimes to have some female company. It wouldn't be nice to have another female in the band cos I might not get on with her, but yes sometimes I feel isolated.

I wondered what happens if on of the guys gets off with some girl and drags them along on the tour?

L: That's never really happened! We don't do that sort of thing. We're very well behaved. There have been a couple of occasions when one of the lads will latch on to some girl and disappear for a while, but we've never pocked someone up along the way and taken them with us. Nobody's asked us that before, that's an excellent question.
When we got onstage, everybody left.

How did the European tour go?

L: Well, some of the gigs were excellent, others awful. The last gig on the tour was an Elvis tribute night, which we didn't know about till we got there and we were playing with this appalling band called the Gay City Rollers who the boys tell me were shagging each other in the toilets. When we got onstage, everybody left and that was such an anti-climax for the last night of the tour, that really did us in. We also found ourselves staying in a freezing cold house, all seven of us in one room with no bathroom and that's really annoying. Small things like that get to me a lot.

M: The venues were really strange. In Holland we played this strange bar, drink everywhere and the toilets were onstage so the people had to walk through the band to get to the toilet. In Munster we played with Unsane and we sold more merchandise than them. We sold all our shirts, records, CDs, everything. In Hamburg, we played this derelict building that the council agreed to give a low rent to for putting on gigs, and there were sofas and standing lamps all over the place. It was like someone's front room. It was great. We ended up playing two nights.

So what was it like playing Reading Festival?

M: Brilliant, one of my favourite gigs. It was so loud. The whole weekend, I hardly saw one band, I just sat around backstage, y'know, nine hours in one chair just meeting people I'd not seen for years. We even got free food, it was only meant to be for those bands playing the main stage but they accidentally gave us free tokens.

We've never been a band that's got to grips with the rock 'n' roll lifestyle

D: I did enjoy Reading. On the night of the gig, just to compare myself with the way other bands prepare themselves for a gig at a festival... you know, they'll maybe have a few drinks, a bit of speed... but I was actually changing my daughter's nappy in the tent, covered in shit. We've never been a band that's got to grips with the rock 'n' roll lifestyle, especially me. What usually happens with us is the van breaks down on the way to the gig, we get there with 20 minutes to spare and go on without a soundcheck, make a lot of noise and go home again. It isn't particularly glamorous, but the music keeps it interesting. Norwich is always excellent, it's a real ghetto for Prolapse fans.

The sound was brilliant at Reading.

L: Well this is it. When we play smaller venues we have masses of problems with the sound and we argue with the soundmen and end up just getting exasperated. I think, as you've said, it's usually my vocals that are harder to hear and that's just subconscious sexism really because some people think smaller woman - backing singer, large Scotsman - lead vocals, and everybody in the band is completely equal. But it is a constant problem and I've got in some stormingly angry moods when you can't hear my vocals. That's why it was such a treat to play Reading, that's how we should sound.

In the current climate, with the rebirth of the real underground scene as a direct reaction against the stale, formulated, superficial cosiness of today's boring Britpop scene, surely there's a place for Prolapse - we need mavericks like these more and more as the 90s continue their extension into a brave new millennium.