SPILL FEATURE: REWIND, REMIX, REIMAGINE – A CONVERSATION WITH ROLAND GIFT OF FINE YOUNG CANNIBALS

REWIND, REMIX, REIMAGINE

A CONVERSATION WITH ROLAND GIFT OF FINE YOUNG CANNIBALS

The person who unwraps a copy of the Fine Young Cannibals’ recent release FYC40: A Definitive Anthology on Christmas morning this year might be a vintage-minded teen or a nostalgic adult. Both individuals would have a lot in common with Fine Young Cannibals’ frontman, Roland Gift, who despite a multifaceted and medium-hopping career, has never lost touch with his roots as a music-obsessed youth in Hull, UK.

His new Christmas song, “Everybody Knows It’s Christmas,” has a decidedly retro sound, reminiscent of Slade, Wizzard, and other British rock acts that were popular in Gift’s teen years. “My fiancée is always criticizing me for my love of the ‘70s,” he laughs, “But that’s when I really would have paid attention to a Christmas song.”

Christmas songs tend to evoke nostalgia because they get replayed every year. With lyrics like “Another year gone by/Did you do what you promised/Did it turn out right?” there’s a bittersweet tone to the track. “Well, that’s life, isn’t it?” sighs Gift good-naturedly. “It is bittersweet. When you get to my age, you think, ‘I’ve got more time behind me than I’ve got ahead of me. The inevitable is on its way.’ But as you get older you can revisit a film or a song again and again and again, because you can see things you didn’t see before, when you didn’t have the maturity or the experience.”

It’s this attitude that gives him the ability to reflect maturely on his time in the Fine Young Cannibals.  Although they only had a relatively short stint as a band, the group’s impact on the music scene was clearly felt, with hits like “She Drives Me Crazy” and “Johnny Come Home,” now considered all-time classics.  Says Gift, “We were listening to music that was 25 years old, or older, and we wanted people to listen to us 25 years later.” Perhaps it was the short length of the band’s career that makes the music still feel immediate. What’s more, because the band ended on a high note, Gift was able to channel his talents into a wide variety of artistic projects. Gift is as much an actor as he is a musician, having performed in such films as Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987), The Island of the Mapmaker’s Wife and Brakes (2016). But he’s also a writer with a deep appreciation for narrative.

“EVERYBODY KNOWS IT’S CHRISTMAS” SINGLE REVIEW

He cites kitchen-sink dramas like Billy Liar (1963) and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) as early influences on his understanding of character and social commentary. He also reminisces on one record that grabbed his attention as a kid, The Who’s “Pinball Wizard”, saying, ‘I was amazed that this was a figment of somebody’s imagination made real.’

It’s this love for storytelling that influenced his foray into writing. His BBC radio play, A Punk’s Progress, chronicles his time as a young roadie for The Clash, hopping with them from club to club around England. ‘All of us in the Cannibals came out of punk, and the best thing about it was the attitude that you can do it yourself– in all kinds of ways.’ He shared a story about a young woman in his local punk scene named Lynn, known as ‘the long-haired punk’. She refused to cut her hair to look like other punks, which in his opinion was truer to the punk spirit than anyone who jumped to adopt a shaved head. Gift compared the current hyperfocus on aesthetics over ethos to ‘perfectly shaped apples in the supermarket­.’

We talked about growing up working-class and having to piece together your own sound and look from whatever you could find. According to Gift, the thrill of the hunt made the result more special. “As kids we used to meet in town at the record shop on Saturday morning before strolling around town. And there was something good about that, the discovering of things.”

“In England it used to be hard to get things like American bomber jackets or 501 Jeans. But there was a shop called Flip in London, and people would come down to London to go to that shop and get that gear. In some ways it did make you more creative. Because you might not get the thing you wanted to buy, so you had to try and make it. There was something good about not having it all on a plate.” He laughs and sips his coffee. “People want to do things very quickly nowadays. I mean, instant coffee– what’s the rush?”

A Punk’s Progress has been re-imagined into an upcoming graphic novel. Gift is very pleased with the look of it and is anticipating its release. He says that transforming this narrative for a new format allowed different characteristics of the story to emerge, which deepened his understanding of the project. The same goes for Return to Vegas: A Musical Drama, a story about a washed-up rock star that he originally wrote for the stage and subsequently adapted for radio.

FYC40 ALBUM REVIEW

This blending of the past and potential future into something new and distinct was most apparent when Gift spoke of being a father to his two sons, who are now grown. He talked about taking them to back to the street where he was born and introducing him to a family from the old days that still lives there. “In a way, that was more important than playing them my records, because they were able to get a good idea of where I’ve come from and my surroundings.” There was a sense that although he wanted them to know his roots, he didn’t expect them to turn out exactly like him: “I wanted to look at my kids and see what they already arrived with from days old. They weren’t a blob of dough that had to be moulded or conditioned.”

In a way, revisiting one’s childhood home is a bit like replaying a favourite old record or rewatching a film. Each time we do it, we bring something different to the experience. And that’s really what keeps us coming back to these things. They’re not time portals to the past– they’re mirrors, both permanent and ephemeral.

Gift also loves the ephemeral quality of the stage, whether that’s as an actor or as a musician. He’s recently returned to touring, with several upcoming UK gigs in May with his band The Blacks. This tour sees him revisiting ground he covered in the very early stages of his career with his ska band, the Akrylykz. He explains that even before he was in the Akrylykz, he was in a punk band, Blue Kitchen. “In fact, the Akrylykz were more ska-punk, and as ska became more popular, we just played our songs faster, basically.”

The life of a creative is about revisiting, re-examining, and re-evaluating, but always re-mixing and creating something new. Whether that’s playing one’s old songs in a different tempo, re-styling second-hand clothes, adapting a story for a different medium, or remixing classic hits, Gift says that thinking about something in a new way will always deepen one’s outlook of the art. He’s excited about his upcoming projects and is eager to something different on the stage every night on tour this spring.

It seems appropriate that the lyrics of Gift’s “Everybody Knows It’s Christmas” blend melancholy (“let’s have a drink to absent friends”) as well as simple joy (“kiss your girl ‘cause you love her so”). The song invites listeners to reflect on past regrets, but also look forward to the future, because according to him, there will always be new perspective to be found.

Fine Young Cannibals Links

Roland Gift Links

Main Photo Credit: Linda Nylind | Background Photo Credit: Graham Tucker