Oh, that’s right: we were chatting with the one and only Francis Reader, frontman for the Trashcan Sinatras. If you tuned in last week (and you really should have, you know), then you’re already aware that the conversation between Frank and myself was one that was a little freewheeling in its form, but the end result seems to be well appreciated by fans of the band…and, indeed, by members of the band. Our own David Medsker spoke with Paul Livingston a few days later – look for that interview on Bullz-Eye.com in the very near future – and remarked that I really seemed to have caught Mr. Reader in a talkative mood. Well, all I can tell you is that the decision to make it less of an interview and more of a conversation seems to have worked in my favor, and I’m glad that it seems to be going over well. Now, mind you, I did hear from one friend of mine who, after praising the piece, noted that it perhaps wasn’t the kind of interview that the band’s manager would want, given that there was zero mention of the band’s latest album, In the Music.
What luck, then, that there’s quite a bit of chat about the record in the second and final part of our conversation.
Popdose: So what’s Davy Hughes’ status with the band? Did he drop out? Did he just not want to participate anymore?
Frank Reader: Well, Davy’s still involved, but he’s…you know, he’s got a family, and it’s just not the kind of thing, really, where you can give your all your time to it when you’ve got a family and kids to support. Neither me or Paul or Steven or John have got kids, and although three of us are married, John’s married to another musician, and me and Paul are married to very understanding, beautiful women. (Laughs) For Davy, it was just a case where we had to work out a different way of having him involved, and that was…what we kind of do now is that we keep in touch, obviously, and every now and again, he’ll say, “You know, I managed to get ten minutes’ peace from the kids…” (Laughs) “…and I sat down and did a bit of writing, and here it is. If there’s anything you can do with it, do something with it.” So he contributed to In the Music in that way. And it’s great, because it feels good to have him involved, because he’s a touchstone in my life. He was there in the very beginning, although he didn’t play on Cake. He was actually playing with us once or twice before we made an album – when we were just doing covers, he was around then – so it’s good to have involved. It’s kind of “once a Trashcan, always a Trashcan” with him, you know? (Laughs) And the keyboard player we have, Stevie, has been with us off and on since ‘95, so he’s more permanent now, too.
There are no two ways about it: were it not for the Trashcan Sinatras, I would not be where I am today.
This is in no way an overstatement. The facts are these: many moons ago, I joined the E-mail list in support of a highly underrated band from Irvine, Scotland, where I proceeded to become friends with many of the other individuals on the list. One of those friends was Popdose’s own David Medsker, who pitched me to the CEO of Bullz-Eye.com as someone who was worth bringing on as a contributor. The end result was that, after almost two decades of looking, I was finally in possession of one of the rarest positions in all of journalism: a full-time, work-at-home writing gig. And if I hadn’t been writing for Bullz-Eye, then I wouldn’t have been able to tell David about this awesome column called “Captain Video in the 1980th Dimension,” which made us both laugh so hard that he was inspired to ask its author – one J. Giles – if he’d be interested in becoming a Bullz-Eye contributor as well, a decision which ultimately led both us to become members of this wonderful world that we all know as Popdose.
You can imagine, then, just how important the Trashcan Sinatras are to me.
One could easily argue that any of the band’s albums would be worth of a spotlight within “Hooks ‘N’ You,” since none of them have ever really achieved what you’d call tremendous success. Their debut, 1990’s Cake, certainly came the closest, with “Obscurity Knocks” and “Only Tongue Can Tell” earning enough airplay on college radio and MTV’s late, great “120 Minutes” to leave the band’s name cemented even now in the memories of those who heard them at the time. Sadly, the follow-up, 1993’s I’ve Seen Everything, came out in the wake of grunge’s arrival and didn’t get the kind of notice it deserved, but at least the video for “Hayfever” managed to earn momentary fame when it turned up in an episode of “Beavis & Butthead.” By the time the Trashcan Sinatras released their third album in 1996, however, their stock in the States had dropped to a point that A Happy Pocket didn’t even manage a release on these shores. This has always seemed more than a little ironic to me, as it was this album which really made me love the band unconditionally, with songs like “The Main Attraction,” “Twisted & Bent,” and “How Can I Apply?” seeming easily as iconic to me as any of the singles which preceded them. Of course, I realize that the biggest reason for this is that the album was released when I first joined the aforementioned Trashcan Sinatras E-mail list, but I think you’ll find that almost everyone who’s ever heard A Happy Pocket will gladly tell you that it really is one of the best albums you’ve never heard…and, yes, that includes the cover of Lulu’s “To Sir, With Love.” (Hey, my 3-year-old daughter swears by it!)
Unfortunately, the fact that no one heard A Happy Pocket meant that it would be eight long years until the band finally put out a follow-up, but when Weightlifting finally emerged in 2004, at least it showed up in the U.S. as well. It wasn’t really what you’d call a hit (though lord knows that, with songs like “All the Dark Horses,” “Freetime,” and the title track, it certainly deserved to be one), but it still managed to raise their profile far higher than it had been in more than a decade. Bad luck, though: the label – spinART Records – filed for bankruptcy a few years later, leaving the band once again without a home.
Fortunately, the band has never been described as a bunch of quitters, so they’re still plugging away, and the release of their latest endeavor, in the music, is decidedly imminent…so much so, in fact, that the Trashcans are embarking upon a US tour. As a result, one of their greatest supporters – Joe DiMaria, who’s been a mate of mine ever since I joined the list – asked me if I might able to find it in my heart to chat with someone from the band in order to help spread the word about these upcoming events.
Yeah, like I really needed to think long and hard about an offer like that.
Here’s one bit of fair warning, however: this is a fairly free-flowing interview. It has on at least one occasion been suggested that, as a journalist, I have a tendency toward becoming inappropriately comfortable with my interview subject, thereby finding myself prone to making decisions within the conversation as if I was talking to a friend rather than a professional musician. I can’t really argue with that, but with one notable recent exception, this tendency has rarely steered me wrong, and when talking to Frank Reader, the lead singer of the Trashcan Sinatras, it must be said that I do feel like he is a friend of sorts…albeit one I’ve never actually met in person. It’s also worth noting that I quickly learned that Frank is a man who, all things considered, would be quite happy talking about almost anything but his own music. Not that we didn’t do a fair amount of that, but as you’ll see, there were many tangents throughout the course of our conversation. In fact, we spent the first five minutes barely talking about music at all, chatting about what I do for a living, how I’m going to try to make it the show at the Troubadour on July 29th, where I’m staying when I’m visiting California (the Langham), and how he and his wife stayed at the same hotel for their anniversary. Eventually, though, we got down to brass tacks.
