Savoy Grand
Nottingham four-piece release debut album. A bit like Travis, but even more miserable apparently...
Despite only having released one 7" single to date - the double-A-sided 'Millions Of People'/'The Moving Air' Savoy Grand are already known as 'that band who play long, slow songs that are incredibly miserable'.
Predictably, their opinions of themselves differ.
"I don't think we are miserable," singer/guitarist Graham Langley insists. "I know what they mean. You could say that what we do is miserable, but I think humour's probably a big part of what we are. And I suppose there's part of me that thinks being miserable's really funny. So the 'miserableness' is part of the humour, rather than the other way round."
One thing they can't deny is that live they play unbelievably quietly - so much so that venues have been known to stop using their tills and turn off their fridges so as not to break the spell. Again, Graham's not so sure.
"It doesn't sound quiet to me because - and this is going to sound really pretentious, but I'll say it anyway - I think the emotion in the songs has a volume of its own, and maybe you can't actually hear it but it fills rooms. I suppose we have hope that what we do is sufficiently entertaining for anyone to like it. I'm not interested in being in any kind of purposefully elitist position - I would be appalled at that."
These notions are what drives the band toward one of their burning ambitions: to play Top Of The Pops. "Yeah, that would be brilliant, I'd really love that," beams Graham. "If a band like Travis can make it, then I don't see why we couldn't. If you sit down and work out their music, and what the constituents of it are, then I don't think we're that far apart."
Whatever the similarities to Travis, one thing's for sure: Savoy Grand make beautiful, sparse, intimate, deeply affecting music. Their songs are about the tiny things in life, but reach out to almost everyone that hears them. It's unlikely, despite all their top-of-the-pop-tastic dreams, that major labels will be giving them a call any time soon, as to corporate ears they must be the anti-Steps.
A shame, really - if one of them did, Savoy Grand's TOTP ambitions might just be realised...
Savoy Grand's mini-album, Dirty Pillows, is released by Narwhal Recordings on May 1st, 2000.
WORDS: Mark Spivey
