Heavenly played live at Le Gibus in Paris on the 15th January 1994, supported by the Lollypops and the Carousel. A few hours before the gig, Jon Cole interviewed them about France, Sarah and, well, everything else.

Have you played before in France?
Rob: We've been to France before but not for a while. Once we played the Locomotif and did a tour of Brittany which was good fun but they were little venues in little rustic towns.

How do the French audiences differ from the British ones?
Rob: Can't understand them.
Amy: When they say "Crap, get off!", we don't understand!

What about Japan and the States?
Amy: Japan's ridiculous, we have little pop girls chasing us down the street. It's extremely pleasant but strange. In America, it's pretty much like England.

Do you like France as a country?
Amy: I like the patisseries!
Cathy: I used to live in France when I was two and the best thing was we had a rubbish chute and I put the cat down it one day!
Mathew: I like the buildings.

Sarah won't sign a French band unless they sing in French. Is this a good thing?
Mathew: It amazes me how few bands outside England sing in their own language, it'll sound better if they did.
Amy: It's ridiculous when Stereolab, the trendiest band in England, sing in French, but the French refuse to.

What do you think of Sarah?
Cathy: They've been extremely good to us. They work hard and we like their ethics but not all the bands.
Mathew: We don't like any of the bands! They're not good enough! But I can't think of another label I'd rather be on.
Cathy: Even As We Speak were upset 'cos they came to Britain to be famous and it didn't happen. They're good enough to be famous. But if you don't care about being famous, Sarah's the perfect label.

Any Sarah bands you like?
Amy: Even As We Speak. I really liked The Field Mice, Sea Urchins and The Golden Dawn. Another Sunny Day...
Mathew: I like The Wake, I think they're great!
Cathy: Sugargliders are good as well...
Amy: No they're not! They have beards! Retract that statement!
Cathy: Listening to them on record, their beardiness doesn't come through!

And dislike?
Cathy: My worse are Brighter!
Amy: I liked Brighter a lot.
Mathew: The Sea Urchins, they're despicable people and so crap! Delta are rubbish, really bad! (Lots of laughter)
Peter: Pearl Jam! (More laughter)

Boyracer have described you as the Dire Straits of indie pop.
Amy: No we're not! We all have our own hair and don't wear headbands!
Mathew: Do you want to know why Boyracer split up?
All: Why?
Mathew: When they were doing the vocals to their new LP their manager said "Look lads, it's just no good, you're crap!" (Lots of laughter)
Amy: Sarah gave them lots of money to do an LP but they spent it all, split up and there's still no LP.

Will Talulah Gosh ever reform?
Cathy: The Razorcuts are reforming!
Mathew: Greg's only in it for the money!
Amy: It'll be really tacky, it's like something you do when you've given up music and you reform whereas Heavenly's still a perfectly ongoing concern and so to reform Talulah Gosh would be a negation of Heavenly.
Peter: It wouldn't be any good anyway. What was fun about Talulah Gosh was that everyone was spontaneous and rubbish and now we can play quite well.

What about the Velvet Underground reforming?
Peter: Very sad (yeahs all round)

Do you like riot grrrl bands?
Amy: Yeah, Bratmobile, Lois, Linus.

Huggy Bear?
Amy: They've apparently gone downhill but I haven't seen them for a while.

What really happened on "The Word"?
Amy: The whole thing was incredibly funny, something which the Melody Maker didn't point out. They just made it out to be political. A girl from Wiiija was taken out and looked after by a female security person and she was screaming at her "Why are you doing this, we should be fighting together" and then she realises how absurd she sounded and burst out into hysterical laughter! Also Chris from Huggy Bear was shouting "You're fucking scared, you wanker" at Terry Christian and he said "Come over here and say that" to Mathew, thinking he'd said it! It was really amusing!

Any other labels you'd like to be on?
Mathew: Creation! (Lots of laughter)
Amy: I like Too Pure.
Cathy: Maybe Heavenly. My granny went out to buy a record by us and ended up buying some shite on the Heavenly label! She listened to it and said "It's quite nice, Cathy..."

Is it true you were in "Inspector Morse"?
Amy: Yes, cycling past. Star for the first five seconds!


SOME COMMENTS BY ME...

This was an interview that Jon and Rachel Cole let Chris Lam use for his fanzine Scholarship Is The Enemy of Romance. Unfortunately there wasn’t enough room so Chris let me use it for my fanzine instead. Thanks to everyone involved with the interview (Jon and Rachel Cole, and of course Heavenly, and especially Chris Lam for the transcript and for letting me include it in this fanzine).

I must say that I don't agree with certain quotes in the interview, those concerning The Sea Urchins, Delta and Boyracer. I feel that describing a band as "crap" or "rubbish" when they can actually play is completely unjustified. All The Sea Urchins' records were really good, not at all amateurish, including the first one, which was released when The Sea Urchins were all about eighteen years old (if not younger!) Someone I knew a while ago could play all these dead fast guitar solos from various heavy metal songs and suchlike, but couldn't work out how to play any Sea Urchins or Delta stuff. Doesn't that tell you something? And, Delta have never seemed "despicable" to me (I can't speak for the rest of The Sea Urchins as I have never met them, but they probably weren't despicable either).

As for the reason Boyracer supposedly split up, well, you can read more about this in Issue One's Boyracer interview... Also, I've been told by Stewart Boyracer that Boyracer were never given any money to record an album for Sarah!

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