Lora Logic : The John Robb interview (live at Rebellion festival 2024)

good afternoon everybody round of applause please for Laura Logic the beginning where where did you grow up I grew up in Wembley near the stadium which was quite good because a lot of bands used to play there and um yeah I was I was just surrounded by big band concerts from an early age David Cy the Osmond um and then later Fleetwood Mac and David Bowie and sometimes I I don't remember how I did it but when I was a teenager I used to somehow another get inside without buying a ticket and uh just have had an obsession with being around bands cuz you you were like a a Glam Rock kid weren't you um well I think the First music I started listening to was musicals like South Pacific um I always love Melodies Sound of Music Jesus Christ Superstar God spell and I used to go and see some of those in London and then the nearest theater to me was Watford um and they put on a medley of rock and roll quite a lot of rock and roll like a rock and roll music with a saxophone in playing simple rock and roll Rifts and I really like that um but yeah musicals probably and plus my dad always played Jazz at home so along with that that was probably the first music I heard yeah and that and was it your dad that bought you your first Sachs yeah was he trying to get you to play the Jazz that he loved is that the idea yeah um I think I've been through quite a few few instruments I'd been through piano guitar um my parents never had the luxury of learning music when they were younger my mom was from a farm and they did they didn't have running water they didn't have electricity and this this is in Finland was it in Finland yeah so um playing music was an unheard of dream so yeah she wanted me to learn instruments but I got really bored of the way that you learned them in school um and then I started listening to David Bowie and Roxy Music and the sacks as well both of them use sacks yeah C different amounts but the both using that was that an influence as well yeah I I think it must have been yeah so how old were you when you got the saxs I was um 12 13 so you'd only been playing a couple of years when you actually went to the audition weren you for xray SP yeah I was 15 because before that you actually tried to play in the folk band but that didn't really work did it no I I didn't play with any folk bands um no I didn't I thought he did for a couple few weeks or something where was that from some interview of yours already somewhere maybe you just made that up maybe I made it up yeah so you looking to join join a band and and you saw the famous advert that poly new used to play along to records and I was Fed Up of playing my saxophone into a cupboard because the neighbors it was too loud for the neighbors and um and then I looked there was only three music papers at the time there was sounds and enemy and Melody Maker and I looked in the back for adverts um there was hardly any adverts they were sort of Pub rock bands and nothing really caught my eye but then there was this one advert young punk SW spell with an ex I had no idea what the word Punk might mean I thought this looks good looks subversive yeah um and I rang it up and was my first audition what was it like the audition because they weren't actually looking for a sax player were they they're just looking for people to put a band together with weren't they no Polly Polly had quite a strong idea what she was looking for she wasn't looking for another girl and she wasn't looking for a sax player um but the manager had other ideas and when I turned up I didn't even play any saxophone he just kind of took a look at me and thought you know this will look good next to Polly so it's a good job that you could actually put the sacks on top of that as well yeah yeah now and was it like instantly from the first rehearsal was it was there like well not really a formula but a way of creating the songs um well Polly yeah Polly had her Melodies and she had the lyrics and um she played them to Jack the guitarist he came up with some chords and then it all happened so quickly and then the Bas and we we just played pretty much as a full band from the first rehearsal yeah she did she used to sing her lyrics at Jack and he just put the chords in behind Melodies W it yeah she had she had some basic some basic kind of monotone Melodies and um yeah then we just kind of jammed them out in a few rehearsals it just happen so quickly you know people always ask me about the process and how did it come together but it was it was just very spontaneous because within weeks you're playing your first gig aren't you yeah yeah oh actually the other thing that was interested about that first rehearsal as you both had the same style as well when you turned up you're wearing sort same kind of gear aren't you yeah that that was that was really quite unusual I mean when I first met Polly and she opened the door I I I did seriously feel like I'd always known her we were wearing very similar clothes she had sort of 50s secretarial jacket on with a pencil skirt and some stilettos low stilettos and I was wearing the same thing and people didn't wear clothes like that in those days we just was it kind of a Roxy Music kind of thing possibly yeah yeah so was was there a sense what the band was going to be you know the idea of it you know stylistically musically or again it was so fast it just kind of made itself Falcon the managers was was always there in the backgrounds and um he was into sort of rock heavy heavy rock music um maybe like the New York Dolls and American Heavy so he liked it he liked it that the specs music naturally took on a sort of heavy power he didn't want he he just said don't get don't let it get too complicated he'd be there hovering in rehearsals don't complicate it just keep it raw and simple but I didn't I just played what I wanted no one ever said you know oh don't play here or don't play there and it was nice it was very organic and what I heard in my head I just played mean did you have to change the way you played the sacks to make it fit in with the band or is it just how you played anyway well I wasn't that great when I started playing an x-ray spe but you rehearsed a lot didn't you oh at home yeah yeah but what I rehearsed was I mean I was rehearsing to Bowie and Roxy Music and the specs wasn't so complicated technically but I yeah I wasn't really trained technically it was more by ear I just always played by ear what was what were those first gigs like I mean I guess this where you find out what punks with an X is the first Roxy gigs the first x-ray specs gigs yeah they were incredible I mean um this is raw raw energy um completely uninhibited but I just everything about the Roxy was that same energy um I think the specks stuck stuck out more than a lot of the other bands obviously they had polystyrene as a front lady um and she was incredible she was just so Dynamic um um she totally became poyan on stage um at the same time she's very natural what what was your sort of Friendship with her like was it very close friendship right from the start well it was in the beginning yeah yeah like I said i' we both felt like we'd always known each other we were just giggly and had a lot of fun together in the beginning just to I think what people forget is how young you were you 15 I think you joined the band when I went to the audition I think Paul was only about 16 one of the Bas player um yeah yeah he was 16 Jack was 17 uh our first drummer Rich T who ended up playing in essential logic he was way too old so he had to go what was he 20 oh he was he must have been about 30 his hair was too long he couldn't stay oh yeah yeah I was reading that yeah cuz uh Polly try and cut everybody's hair apart from hers yeah she cut my hair off as well one one time in rehearsal no warning she just got some kitchen scissors and and started cutting our hair our hair everyone's hair Jack had lovely long Ginger hair like early Bowie and she cut that off and then she to cut mine off in a really horrible way and um Rich T refused refused to have his haircuts so he had to go that's how brutal it was in punk rock wasn't it yeah it was a bit so did you have pretty well all the album everything written in those early days sorry did you have you know all the songs for the album all the parts they're all written in this very brief period aren't they yeah yeah they were all hammered out in the in the first few weeks really of rehearsing and you played with the band for about a year didn't you that's no no I played from um about November 76 to but about May um about May yeah so did you wear the plastic raincoat because of all the spits was that true it was yeah it was true um um we were Gob no one gobs anymore do they let's find out later I mean maybe in America they go I don't know no no that was a stupid thing that died out a long time ago it's probably all stuck on your raincoat yeah I think because the God would go down my sax spone and it was most unpleasant so would the sax stop working because of all the sort of Gob inside it he didn't like it very much yeah sppy you know it would get really slippery and then oh when when you put your hands on the keys your fingers would slip yeah that's disgusting is it yeah Polly hated it she hated it she thought it's disgusting well it is was so so he's all going really really well and then you got that review in sounds from Jane suck who said that the the Sachs was the best thing in the bound and then it all went a bit funny didn't it yeah the story has been told it's and paully got a bit paranoid about that or yeah she became very insecure I I think that's when her um her bipolar it wasn't called bipolar then it was called schizophrenia but I think that's when the bipolar kicked in um you'd been quite confident up to that point but I didn't know any of this I didn't know what was going on all I knew was I wasn't called for a gig or rehearsal after that review for a couple six weeks couple of months I that's really strange because we were on the up and up and everything was taking off so fast um so I called up the manager and I said IA said what's going on how come no rehearsals no gig and he said oh didn't you know we found another sax player pretty so um it was bit yeah yeah especially somebody's in the first band who's by then still only about 16 I guess at time yeah yeah I was heartbroken and then they do the album and use your sax Parts as well didn't they yeah later on yeah when how much recording did you actually do with them recording I only recorded um a bondage out yours so there's no versions of the other songs that was recorded with your sax Parts on them apart from bondage well there is a live at the yeah I mean not Studio Rock no yeah no so what was that like to hear I mean did they say anything about using all your parts you think at least they would have made up their own Parts no I never heard from them again um until I met Polly a few years later in a very different scenario um no it would have been nice just to have even if they weren't going to pay me anything would be nice just to have a little mention on the album yeah I mean I put in six seven months well your parts aren't they so U understandably that put you off being in a band didn't it yeah yeah it did yeah I put down my sacks and I didn't want anything else to do with the stinky music business um so you went to art school I went back to school had finished my exams and then I didn't really I just drifted really but I like photography so I got accepted in an art school to do a foundation course and I thought maybe I'll study photography but I didn't stay in the art school very long because um there was a chat called Jeff man and his father had just started an independent record label called Sals um and he would just wait for me when I came out of the art school um and say oh you're the best thing about x-ray specs um come and record a single and I just tried to avoid him I I don't have any songs and um he said we'll go and write one then so art school was getting a bit boring uh I thought okay I went home wrote aerosol Burns in half an hour and that was it so initially I imagine this wasn't actually a band it was just you and a couple of other people was it yeah it was Stuart action who'd been a fan of X-ray specs and a friend of his called Tim Wright who was also a fan of X-ray specs um so we I just sent them a cassette and we didn't even meet we didn't even meet to play the song except at the studio the recording studio and Rich T who had also been kicked out of X-ray but I rang him up said will you come and drum so he came so it's a collection of people who been in x-ray space the recks and aerosol Burns was is it true that that was almost like a not completely but slight pasti of X-ray specs yeah yeah like lyrically and even musically as well in a sense yeah yeah it was in that mood I mean that was my training ground really x-ray specs so I I like I always like words I did English for a level and um yeah you could say it was a bit of a pasti and at that point you decid put a a band together because obviously that's a pretty good track to start with as your first track isn't it so you thought this thing actually works let's put a group together around it yeah what happened was we recorded it on the sales records and then Jeff man he said this needs proper distribution so he said let's go and see Jeff Travis at rough trade and Jeff Travis heard it and um he thought it was really good so he said yeah we'll distribute it and then I struck up a really nice friendship with Jeff Travis and got to know something about rough trade records completely different ethos to the experience I'd had in x-ray specs very much like a family and really nice people working there so Jeff just said why don't you put band together make an album and we'll get you some gigs so just carried on from there what was it like um not just playing Sachs but also singing as well was this your first experience of singing yeah yeah it was was that nerve-wracking at first or did that just seem quite natural or even an extension of playing Sach in a way and yeah I never really saw myself as a singer I never really thought about it I just saw myself as a saxophonist um but it was ju it was just punk I didn't think about it I I just thought well I've got a song so I have to sing it and um the words always came first when I was writing more songs well I have to sing them and uh just start say but I was so uninhibited I didn't think when I listened back to album you know that beat Rhythm news album for instance and I just think how how could I've have done that how could I have sung like that why didn't I consider people's ears um I kind of see it differently now but I thought like that for a long time but it was just the whole mood just to express yourself without without getting mental about it well that was always the best way when especially in that period that people didn't think about anything just made stuff one it it didn't matter you bought it or what the reaction was you just did it yeah yeah that that was totally it just do it and that was very much part of that scene that you in round rough trade that little Post Punk wasn't called Post Punk then but that kind of squat scene a lot of creative people like a several different bands it's an interesting little space isn't it yeah it it was just there was so much opportunity when I think of rough trade and Jeff it was like an open house if you want to make music yeah come we'll put it out um and he didn't screen things like after we'd finished recording beat Rhythm news he didn't come in and say well this is okay but you know maybe it should be a bit more like this he just left bands to do things how they wanted to do so it was a great start really it's was a great start not to have to worry about any music business things any expression restrictions any boundaries of any kind and I think I was very fortunate to grow up in that era in that at because he trusted you and you could trust him he could TR you could trust him in the business he could trust you with the music W it I guess so yeah yeah I think the other interesting about uh the band you had two saxes was that because you could obviously you can't sing and play sax or do you actually like the sound the two saxis playing together well I did like the sax B and um I auditioned for some members for ental logic um one of whom was Phil leg who I believe is going to join us tonight um yeah and Dave turned up I didn't actually advertise for another sex offness but he turned up anyway um they Flash and yeah I thought would be great we can do Duets we can really go to what other band has got two saxes in what other sort of modern rock band so it was great yeah and he was great because he didn't he wasn't like some mad egocentric sax soloist you know he was happy just to do simple nursery rhyme riffs those kind of things so was it a very different kind of vibe to be in your next race specs essential logic yeah very different yeah we didn't have some manager hovering over us and um yeah very different as you know as I've described because of the awesome atmosphere of trade it's you'd go in at lunchtime and there'd be a meal you could just join in with the staff there and have a nice vegetarian meal with them and they were there to serve you like well what can we do for you not the other way around how can we exploit you was 5050 and um they were there to help you and it wasn't so much about having hits either was it it's just about you know making the music getting out in the road and playing it yeah wasn't no yeah there was no pressure on any level and Jeff really wanted he wanted to push he wanted artists to fulfill their artistic potential uh so sometimes he'd say to me um do you want to go and play saxophone on Dennis Bell's reggae album or do you want to go and do a tour with red Crayola or do you want to play sax no actually he didn't arrange the Strang thing Jean jaac just sent me a postcard about that but other things he um here the rain coats yeah because you did a lot of session work didn't you at that time was that good for your playing as well I guess it's got to be good for you playing cuz you're playing with different people I call it session work I'm not really a session what's the ter I hope they paid you oh yeah I did get the pocket money yeah I mean the strangers one is uh rise the robots off the Black and White Album which is fantastic uh and the sacks and that is probably for me one of the high points that Alburn I me what was that day out like CU you you have to go all the way up to Northampton go and record it yeah it was full of surprises um J ja sent me a postcard first they were on tour in Japan and he said it was some sort of cryptic mystical message on the postcard um let's meet up when we let's meet up when we get back from Japan and then and then he called me and he said um we're sending a Land Rover around to pick you up bring your saxophone and we went off into this Farmhouse somewhere in Buckingham sh um with the sort of Hell's Angel type driver driving the Land Rover um and I took my best friend from school as a chaperon and uh we were pretty we pretty out there by the time we arrived um yeah and there was a barn and we just we just played I don't remember what we played we played songs in the barn and jet black I remember he made these amazing jet Burgers we had a nice meal and yeah was when you did the track was it it's basically free form they just played the track and you just could do what you wanted yeah they gave me a cassette I think it was a cassette would have been and said can you work out a part to it and then I just turned up at um London studio and it was just recorded quite quickly but I think they sped it up or did they because I'm trying to play that riff now and it's so fast it's really really fast to play so I don't know if I'm allowed to mention anything about tomorrow but I have to play very fast yeah I we'll just leave that open yes we'll leave it open to one's imagination yeah and when are you playing here this weekend we're playing tonight what time um I think it's about 7 8 o' something like that 8 o' yeah I should know the time shouldn't I not necessarily you have to know exactly now well it's about half seven eight yeah excellent we looking forward to that and we've run out of our half an hour so thanks to Laura logic thank you thanks for listening [Applause]