indieheadz

Interview with Pete Bain from Spacemen 3 and the Darkside
By Martin Boe

Spacemen 3 were an English rock band who formed in 1982 and consisted of the core of Jason Pierce and Peter Kember (Pierce sometimes credited as J. Spaceman and Kember usually known as Sonic Boom). They formed the group in Rugby, Warwickshire, having met at art college. Other members of what would become a fluid lineup over the years included Pete Baine (Bassman), Natty Brooker, Sterling Roswell (Rosco), Will Caruttcher, and Jonny mattock (Slipstream).

The Darkside were one of several bands to emerge following the break-up of Spacemen 3 and adhered to a dark psychedelic yet more overtly pop-orientated template than their progenitor. The band formed in the Spacemen's hometown of Rugby and was led by Pete Bain (AKA Bassman), who had left Spacemen 3 just before their 1989 LP Playing With Fire.. Bain was then joined in the new outfit by his former bandmate, drummer Sterling Roswell.

How did you become part of spacemen 3?
The Spacemen came out of a social scene that i had been a part of for sometime , i had two groups of friends, over a period of time both groups began to intergrate and socialise together, my friend Stick had a band called Indian Scalp , i played drums in a garage band with Tim Morriss and Gav Wissen.

Pete Kember met Jason Pierce at Rugby art college and began to hang out at Scalp rehearsals from that point on things began to change and our happy scene began to fragment .
Jason left Indian Scalp to play with Pete Kember ,the early Spacemen were very inept, by the time i joined they had managed to get Tim Morriss on board on drums , since they lacked a bass player i nominated myself , Jason and Tim were the only proficient musicians, Kember and myself were novices.

I loved the music but hated certain aspects of the band, i ceased playing with the band for a period then rejoined around 85, at this point they were beginning to write some decent material and a potential career was developing .

When you played in Spacemen 3, did you ever wanted to be more involved in the song writing?
There was a total monopoly on song writing , this was mainly due to the finantial rewards , Jason in my opinion was the singer songwriter in the band but was challenged by Kember so they adopted a Jagger/Richards approach to song writing .

I began writing back in the indian Scalp days ,one of my songs was used by Indian Scalp , i wrote stuff with Gav for The Push , by the time i was in the Spacemen i had little interest in contributing anything to the band , Pete Kember had a firm grip on every aspect , i had no intention to challenge the Kember/Pierce song writing partnership but i found it hard to accept the blatant greed and egotism , it soured things quite dramatically.

They began to recieve critical acclaim for heavy handed blatant plagarism , towards the end they both ended up squabbling over song writing credits for material which was adapted from other artists ,i wished i could have been involved more but the reality was it was a suffocating and very negative and disheartening enviroment to be in .

How was is leaving Spacemen 3 and start up The Darkside? Where you ready to write your own music.? Do you think there are any similarity between the Darkside and Spacemen 3?
The transition from the Spacemen to the Darkside was quite difficult, it left me in a highly unstable state of mind prone to irrational behaviour and self destructive impulses , i was quite aware of the situation , as time went on i began to regain a hold on myself but leaving the Spacemen created some deep wounds.

I had ideas and people in mind to play with but i met Nick Hayden one day in the towns shopping precinct and accepted an offer to play bass with him in his band The Darkside.
I was never ready to write music , there were definate limitations to my abilities, Nick Hayden and Jason Pierce were great natural songwriters who i respected , i was always more happy to be a contributor , i harboured no secret ambition to be a singer songwriter but i always wanted my own musical project , it was fate that propelled me into the position i found myself in with the Darkside as Nick our original vocalist dissapeared, leaving us holding the baby.

I think there are no similaritys between the spacemen or the darkside, early on when i joined the darkside i tried to push them towards a more minimal sound but we ended up with a monotonous spacemen like dirge, we had to steer away from any spacemen influences to avoid accusations of plagurism , so the darkside musically took a different direction.

Which Spacemen 3 song and Darkside song do you think is the greatest?
Walking with jesus, waiting for the angels.

The Darkside only released 2 albums. Was it hard keeping the band together or was it any other reasons the band broke up? Vocalist Nick Hayden left The Darkside before recording the first single 'Highrise Love' . What happend?
The Darkside had problems right from the start, when i began to hang out with Nick his life began to change , he moved in with his girlfriend and they bought a house together , initially things were good but gradually his relationship disintergrated , he did not cope well with the responsibilitys and sought refuge in drug use.

I had an optimistic view and hoped that Nick would over a period of time grow up a bit , adopt a more mature attitude and lose his doper naiviety but it never happened .
Eventually Tuesday his girlfriend left the band , they had a fist fight during a practice and that was the end of thier relationship and her role in the band , from that point on things got very difficult.

We recorded the first single Highrise love ,that was and still is the only record Nick wrote and sang on , by this time Rosco was beginning to undermine Nick because he wanted to be a front man, Nick did not like Rosco and the animosity grew.
We had a major record deal , an agent , a manager , things were looking good if we could stay the course .

First of all there was a break in , then drug busts , a catastrophic chain of events , it was a tragic and shitty period , my suspitions could never really be proven but i was convinced that we had been set up by somebody we knew who could not accept that we had landed a big contract.

Nick was bust by the Police , he grassed on himself and everybody he knew , he cracked when they applied the pressure and for his sins got a stay in the big house, the fallout was bad, real bad for everyone when he came out he was bitter , difficult and damaged beyond repair , he eventually disappeared unable to function or exist in a town where he had caused so much damage, he was also consumed with guilt for his betrayal .

They were very sad tragic times , the writing was certainly on the wall, Nick dissappeared to Oxford and i became the stand in for Nick until we found a singer.
There was trouble all the time, Rosco wanted to be a singer front man, Kev Cowan was stubborn and uncommunicative , our manager was a drug addict with no idea how to manage his own life let alone ours, the band was a meal ticket for the rest of them, we were certainly living life on the darkside .

Our manager who was appointed without my consent had previously been a van driver for the Spacemen 3 , he had created havoc working for the Spacemen but Rosco still asked him to be our manager , it was a fatal mistake.

As well as taking a percentage of our earnings our manager was embezzeling money from the band he went to America on a record industry trip and behaved appalingly , he blew our chances of touring America , he ruined our relationship with our agent and record company and ultimately he lost us our record contract which was the best anyone had got from Beggars Banquet, he completely ruined our lives ,eventually i walked out on the band, it had to end.

Where drugs and importen ingredient while making the sound of Spacemen 3 and the Darkside?
Drugs were a big part of our lives back then , they had a positive and negative effect but mostly negative.

What kind of music inspired you in the Spacemen 3 period and the Darkside period, and what inspires you today?
It was a predominantly sixties vibe , Spacemen; Velvets, Stooges, Suicide,Stones ,13th Floor Elevators,60,s psyche , Blues, the Darkside influences were similar but a little more eclectic and less obvious, i still find inspiration from similar sources .

What to you think of the music produced in Britan today?
Any new bands you want to recommend?
Very little of the music made in Britain interests me, i believe the conditions that once existed that helped make great music are gone, a higher standard of living and no working class youth movements has meant the only kids making music are from rich backgrounds and they are horrible, landfill indie as the press call it, looking for a decent band is like searching for water in a desert , some do exist but i cannot name one band i have seen in the past 10 years that i can really say have that awesome quality. In my own locality we have many great bands and musicians and i hope eventually some will acheive sucess despite the dilapadated state of the record industry.

What kind of projects are you involved in today?
Today i work on two musical projects, The Urgz which is a garage punk band and Alphastone/Bassman which is electronics and breakbeats, over the years i have unsucessfully tried to launch new bands, usually my efforts are undermined by lethargic band members.
My only hope is i can get to play some gigs before i get too old.