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MUTE
SPEAK
[NME,
2nd May 1981. Words: Vivien Goldman. Pictures: Jean Bernard Sohiez.]
" But that is precisely the glory of Mute. The incongruity of a professional drop-out from a media-conscious middle-class immigrant background, a man who looks more like a messy college lecturer than a pop star, setting the controls for a swathe of svelte synthesisers. "
Summary:
Daniel Miller's CV in
article format. The Mute founder and Depeche Mode godfather is interviewed about
his many musical activities (and disguises), taking in The Normal, Silicon Teens
and Depeche Mode, with incidental mentions of other bands. Comparatively little
is said about Depeche Mode, but while other articles of the time explain what
drew them to Miller, this explains what drew Miller to them. [2726 words]
Try
also: "Daniel
Miller Interview" [Bong 5]
"Staying Mute" [The
Face, August 1990]
"The Meaning Of Mute"
[Bong 14]
"Interview: Daniel
Miller" [The Independent Catalogue, April 1993]
"Ask Daniel" [Bong
24]
“When I’m introduced to people they all look in horror at me, and say – that’s
Daniel Miller?!?
“Which suits me perfectly. That’s what I like. They all expect some kind of
Steve Strange character. That,” continues Daniel, gleefully chopsticking at
the seaweed on his plate, “makes me very happy. That I’m still Normal. Not
quite right.
“I’ve never fitted in, I suppose.”
His smile works better than underfloor heating.
Daniel Miller, also known as The Normal. Also known as The Silicon Teens. The
earmaster behind the various works of Fad Gadget, DAF, and now the
chart-enterers Depeche Mode. Founder and pilot of Mute Records. Grace Jones
covered his “Warm Leatherette”, the flip of his epoch-making “TVOD”,
positively the first synthesiser weird pop single, released in ’77.
The strangeness of that sound is difficult to conceive of now, with synthesisers
almost as common as electric typewriters (both keyboard instruments). Daniel’s
newscaster evenness, the accent plummy after months of yobspeak, rattling
through a terse morse code of images, all ominous as the froth on bursting pods
(really, they’re human clones…).
The rhythm was all machines! If things carried on this way, regular human
musicians would be redundant!
They were to become clichés in their turn, but moments like the growing entry
of random radios, coupled with the teen-appeal of lines like “I don’t
need no TV screen, I just stick the aerial into my vein” were shiny new
currency then [1], suggested a
marginally less bourgeois origin than Daniel’s bedroom in Golder’s Green.
But that is precisely the glory of Mute. The incongruity of a professional
drop-out from a media-conscious middle-class immigrant background, a man who
looks more like a messy college lecturer than a pop star, setting the controls
for a swathe of svelte synthesisers.
At the time Daniel made “TVOD” he wasn’t in contact with any other
musicians. He basically worked in complete isolation, with only the early works
of Neu, Kraftwerk, Can and Klaus Schulze pointing vaguely in similar directions.
And they weren’t making independent pop singles, either.
He’d just got back from working as a disc jockey in Swiss clubs – this was
before the synthadisco boom, so it was down to Abba and Schlager music; heavy
metal.
Daniel had already scored some Normal musical credentials; “I played with
groups when I was at school. I suppose that’s what decided me to work alone.
“I was really frustrated. I couldn’t play guitar” – I flash on hearing
Daniel and Fad Gadget condemn a record with their ultimate insult: “Ugh!
They’re a guitar band!” – “I couldn’t express myself musically.
“When I was 14 I used to play noise alone in my room, using metal objects to
hit the guitar with. I was always arguing about music with my friends, people in
the band. I had very strong ideas. Everybody always thought I was nuts. Our band
was terrible. We used to play at dances and parties. That was the best thing
about it – we were the worst musicians from all the bands in the school (King
Alfred’s in Hampstead) so there was no pressure to be good musically…”
Which helps explain why, when Daniel returned from his Swiss DJ excursion in
’76, he yelled “What the fux this?” with great glee on hearing The Ramones.
He loved the noise. He adored the lack of guitar solos.
“Guitars? Well… they have their place. I like Keith Levene, and Marco when
he was with Rema-Rema. They’re not using the guitar in the traditional way. It
used to play along and provide a rhythmic backing for the voice, then play a
melody in the middle, but its function was becoming circular. It was just
repeating itself, not leading anywhere in music.
“The good guitarists now are the ones that have been listening to
synthesizers. Guitarists used to think they were getting better because they
were playing more notes to the minute, playing longer solos, jazz-rock riffs,
meaningful classical influences. In fact, it was the same with keyboards and
drums too – quantity is quality.
“Not to mention the sexual role of the guitar… I’m not clear on my ideas
about this, but it’s – the guitar as truncheon. Why women in bands play
guitar, I think that’s really strange. In many ways it’s a very offensive
male instrument…” [2]
All of which is in contrast to the synthesizer, which Daniel sees as one of
those instruments you can play best when you can’t play at all.
Thus, inspired by the new-found punk do-it-yourself philosophy, Daniel decided
to go back to work in the “crushingly boring” field of editing TV
commercials, freelance, to raise the money for a £200 Korg 700S synthesiser in
early ’77. Then he bought a TEAC four-track, 7½” per second, with small
reels, and started mucking about for fun at home – again, without realising
that Cabaret Voltaire, Human League and Throbbing Gristle were up to the same
japes. Then he decided to make a record, after hearing about The Desperate
Bicycles’ self-production.
“I never thought of approaching a ‘major’ label. I didn’t like them
because they’d ruined quite a few of my favourite bands – like Can, Faust
and Klaus Schultze with Virgin. May be the companies just thought it was cool to
sign those bands, and didn’t have much judgement of what was good.
“The idea of being an independent appealed to me because if I’m working with
someone else I just tend to put the load on them, it’s more personal than
ideological” (more power then to Mute’s doughty Hildy Swengard who carries
her load like a feather – even down to sneaking the workaholic Daniel off to
surprise holidays to prevent total collapse) “So I rented an echo unit for
three days…”
Daniel pressed up 500 of “TVOD” / “Warm Leatherette”. “It was just the
same process as film – you cut, process, approve… I thought nobody would be
interested at all. The only thing remotely like it was Kraftwerk. Punk was big
then, and getting very boring. I’ve sold 30,000 by now – and that’s just
from England. It’s also been released in America, France and Australia.
“When I took the test pressing into Rough Trade, they just loved it and said
they’d help me press 2000. I was dead chuffed. Although I didn’t know any
music people, I’d heard of Rough Trade, and I knew they were supposed to be
– quite cool.”
Since the unprecedented success of his single as The Normal, Daniel hasn’t
released anything as a solo artiste. Officially, that is. Why?
“I was taken aback by the good reviews. It made me a bit nervous. Does that
make sense? I thought I was making a record no one wanted to listen to or buy. I
didn’t even want it to be liked all that much. Then I thought – what’s the
point of making another record?
“But I was besotted with electronic music. I felt that this was what people
should be doing, or listening to, there was so much you could do with it…”
Flash back to Stiff Little Fingers’ first big tour, when “Inflammable
Material” had just come out. Daniel and Robert Rental performing on the same
bill.
All the black leather’d pogo puppies staring bemused at these two unlikely
figures, unglamorous in all the ways expected of people that get up on a stage
before a young audience. Quite a polite response, considering so many people
seemed to dislike it…
What of the established idea of the musician as poser, extrovert style-setter?
Where do you stand with that one?
”I feel like I’m in a different world, musically and
ideologically. I don’t feel that I have anything to do with rock and roll
music or ideas – not then, anyway. Now I’m more realistic. For example –
the Mute night that John Curd’s putting on at the Lyceum. [3]
Life is so full of contradictions.
“It’s hard for a band that if they want huge chart success they still have to follow the old routines, like touring. Some bands, like PiL, get away with it – great band. They should be on Mute, then they’d really go places!
[1] - The line just quoted is uncannily similar to a lyric in Television Set, a track Depeche Mode used to perform in 1980/1 but never recorded or released officially - correct me if I'm wrong here, someone - "You can have me babe if you want me / Just plug me into your wall / And I'll give you sex if you want it / Or I'll give you nothing at all." Maybe the band were familiar with TVOD, maybe not, but it helps explain Miller's attraction to them, as it's a track they would certainly have been performing on the night he saw them perform and approached them. [continue]
[2] - Before you laugh too hard at this theory, The Face in 1985 mooted the same point, ending off its article with the question "If Joe Strummer started dressing in frocks and dealing with emotions other than anger openly without shouting and without the protection of a guitar swinging round his crotch, would you take him seriously?" [continue]
[3]
- That night was reviewed in the same issue of NME.
[continue]