Page 82 - Classic Rock (February 2020)

THE

ODD COUPLE

They’re the masters of ambient, melancholic alt.rock, with roots in disco records and NWOBHM

pub gigs. Tim Bowness takes us inside the surprising world of No-Man.

Words: Polly Glass

im Bowness used to sing so loudly own way, bonded over NWOBHM, obscure and but respected career. “Because it actually gave us an
he’d cough up blood after shows. classic disco, jazz pioneers… audience,” Bowness reasons.
Long-haired and aggressive of voice, “I could tell Steven I’d seen Witchfynde or Still, in the midst of the aforementioned chaos
the no-man singer’s formative live Ornette Coleman and he’d be jealous [of both],” the disco epic idea was shelved, as further No-Man
T experiences – as a performer and Bowness says. “I guess that’s one of the reasons albums interspersed their respective solo careers
punter – were fuelled by much heavier, shoutier why we’re still in touch.” over the coming years.
material than he’s known for now. Sneaking into “When you’re making an album, you’ve got to
gigs as a teenager in the north of England, the oday we’re catching up with Bowness in be obsessed with it, you’ve got to be in love with it,”
similarly underaged Diamond Head would smuggle light of No-Man’s new album, the Bowness reasons. “I’d always kept a lyrics folder for
him backstage to chat about… prog classics. T“melancholy progressive disco” record it, and I was continually refining the words or
“They were very nice. They loved [Yes’s] Tales Love You To Bits. Comprised of two side-long writing new sections, so the folder was expanding
From Topographic Oceans,” he enthuses brightly. tracks, and confidently walking the line between until about July 2019. In some ways it’s nice – to
“Where I lived in the North-West the only music we brilliant and batshit crazy (think Pink Floyd use that dreadful word – to get ‘closure’ on it.”
really got was NWOBHM, so all my early gigs, crossed with Tears For Fears and Chic), it’s He winces audibly. “I might even use the word
when I was about fifteen, it was going to see No-Man’s first album in 11 years. In that time, ‘journey’ next…”
Diamond Head and Iron Maiden at the local pub. Wilson has moved from his ‘other old band’ The project was rekindled in earnest during the
It was fantastic to see about three hundred Porcupine Tree into solo work, while Bowness making of Bowness’s 2019 solo album Flowers At
northerners chanting: ‘Am I evil?’ And of course has developed his own solo career. The Scene, which he was co-producing with
we were. Completely evil.” Much of the new record came together over the Wilson. Lyrically documenting the break-up
This was before he became the Bowness we past year, but its roots stretch back to 1994, when of a relationship, from both perspectives, it was
know today: the man with the melancholic, Bowness and Wilson conjured up vague notions of informed by the ending of Bowness’s own 19-year
crystal-clear croon (a distinctive tone, somewhere a ‘disco epic’ – part Donna Summer’s I Feel Love, relationship. The end result, however, is bittersweet
between Scott Walker and Peter Hammill at rather than downright depressing.
their bleakest; you probably adore it or loathe “It was something that Kate Bush said
it) behind No-Man’s innovative, avant “I liked the idea of electro-pop about Pink Floyd,” he says. “She said The Wall
cocktails of ambient rock, pop, trip-hop and was possibly her favourite album of all time,
more. In conversation he’s chattier and songs with visions of grandeur, but she really wished there’d been some light
funnier than you’d expect from the in the gloom. So I sort of forced myself to
unsmiling photos and highbrow, often with ideas above their station.” write about the positives: ‘Why were you
heartbreaking music. Then again, subverting Tim Bowness there in the first place?’ ‘Why were you in
expectations has always been part of the love in the first place?’”
No-Man deal. part Pink Floyd’s Shine On You Crazy Diamond. Seven albums and more than 30 years down
Growing up in a turbulent household in working- “All we had at that stage was grand ideas,” the line, it’s this mix of grand ambition, intimate
class Warrington, Bowness’s first tastes of music Bowness explains. “I liked the idea of electro-pop storytelling and lack of concern for commerciality
were through films and singing in the choir at his songs with visions of grandeur, with ideas above that makes No-Man compelling. Two friends with
“very strict” grammar school. When he was 11 he their station.” different lives, united by a mutually idiosyncratic,
fell in love with, among others, Pink Floyd’s Echoes At the time, they were about to show No-Man’s free-spirited approach to music.
and Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir through a friend’s second album, Flowermouth, to execs at their label. Asked what’s kept him and Wilson coming back
father’s cassette collection. In his late teens he Knowing that they were expected to produce to one another all these years, Bowness replies:
started writing “awful poetry” and singing songs something commercial – and that their ideas “I think it was the first relationship for both of us
into a tape recorder. Then, in 1987, his band Always absolutely weren’t – they decided to accept that where anything was acceptable. I’ve had a lot of
The Stranger were reviewed as Demo Of The Month this might be their last release to have label muscle really good musical collaborations, but Steven is
in Electronic Musician magazine. It read: “An emotive behind it, and make exactly what they wanted. the one person I can mention absolutely anything,
crooner sits atop a mad computer bastard.” First-class musicians were hired. The first track from Archie Shepp to Journey to Soft Cell to Kate
Down south in Hemel Hempstead, a similarly was 10 and a half minutes long. Bush, and he’s not going to be remotely turned off.
nerdy, aspiring musician called Steven Wilson was Chaos ensued. The label heard the record, and A lot of musicians I work with are very good, but
intrigued, and wrote to Bowness to see if he’d be immediately dropped the promotion budget. they have much more set musical tastes and much
interested in contributing to an album he was Within about three months, No-Man had been more set areas that they’re prepared to work in. But
compiling. A long, involved phone conversation dropped by their American record company, their I’ve never found it embarrassing to name what I
and the pair’s first meeting later, at Wilson’s studio, English record company and their publishing like, and neither has Steven.”
they’d written an extremely raw piece of funk- company. Their manager left soon after.
punk called Screaming Head Eternal and become firm Somehow the album sold more than their debut, No-Man’s Love You To Bits is out now via
friends. The two teenagers, both misfits in their and effectively forged the basis of No-Man’s quiet Caroline International.

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