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Interview with Adam Devlin in America:(c. April) 1996
After winning over audiences in Japan and making every British music magazine cover in the wake of their debut release, Expecting to Fly, the Bluetones are set to have a go in America. "We've no desire to conquer the world like Oasis do," says Devlin. "We'd just like to be able to go anywhere and have an audience to play to." The Bluetones' non-arrogant attitude is something of an anomaly within the world of Brit-pop, but then the band does have relatively humble beginnings. Devlin and singer Mark Morriss spent almost three years on the dole, receiving UB40 unemployment checks. "It wasn't very exciting because you haven't any money, just bags and bags of time," says Devlin. "We started rehearsing all the time because there was nothing else to do. That's how most bands do it. I don't know if we could have done it if we'd had real jobs." Five years later The Bluetones have had one Top 40 single, one Top 20 single, one number 2 single, and a number one album in the U.K. "When `Slight Return' entered the charts at number 2, we knew things were going to happen," says Devlin of the song that sounds mysteriously like it could have been lifted from the Stone Roses' first album. Some critics have pegged the band as blatant rip-offs of the Roses in the same manner Oasis nicks the Beatles. "The Roses are definitely an influence, but they're just one of many," says Devlin. But with all the similarities between the both bands debut albums, can fans expect as drastic a stylistic shift from the Bluetones as from The Stone Roses sophomore effort? "There'll be no second coming for us. We're going to carry on writing great songs," says Devlin, who mentions that the band will save any experimentation for B-sides. "I guess their problem was having too much time between records. They lost it somewhere. They just played the Reading Festival with their new line-up and my friends told me it was just awful. I couldn't go, I didn't want to see them like that. I'll just remember them as they were." The question of the moment is whether anyone will remember or even care a few years down the road about any of the bands in the supposed "Brit-pop Revival" that's currently being lead by Oasis. "The pop music arena is probably a bit flooded with bands at the moment. There's a lot of mediocrity," says Devlin. "The media have built it up a scene, but it isn't, it's a coincidence. Only time will tell if any band is remembered." Even before sales skyrocketed, Oasis' Gallagher brothers were making headlines as sibling rivalries. The Bluetones have their own family connection between singer Mark and bassist Scott Morriss, but without the Kinks-like confrontations. "They get on reasonably well. It's not the sort of volatile relationship the Gallaghers have," says Devlin. Not only do "second wave" bands like The Bluetones have to rise above increasing numbers of U.K. pop bands, they also have to contend with the escalating popularity of dance music from groups like Orbital, Prodigy, and Massive Attack. "The British press is pretty hung up on dance music and beginning to turn on pop," says Devlin. "There's a lot of banging of fists on tables saying we've got to move on, but people vote with their feet. We listen to dance music ourselves and I think there's room for all avenues of music. It's out there, have what you want, right?" Indeed, but The Bluetones don't even see themselves as part of the same crowd they've been lumped in with. "We're not mad about it, but no band likes to be put in a little box with a label on the side of it," says Devlin of the Brit-pop tag. "We do what we do, they do what they do. I mean, yes we're British, and we have guitars in our band, and we play pop music. But that's where the similarities end."
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