Prefab Sprout’s Martin McAloon On ‘Steve McQueen’ Turning 40 And Going Solo

Hollywood & EntertainmentPrefab Sut’s Martin McAloon On ‘Steve McQueen’ Turning 40 And Going SoloByDavid Chiu, Contributor

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David Chiu is a freelance music writer based in New York

But he will tell you that he knows the Prefab songs very well because he’s performed them throughout the band’s career

So the idea of McAloon now playing the material as a solo artist on stage with just his voice and guitar doesn’t seem that out of the ordinary. “I was asked to do something on a Facebook group in the middle of the pandemic, where I played some songs,” McAloon recently recalls. “I didn't know that I could play the guitar

I didn't know that I could sing

But I did that and I quite enjoyed it…So I figured I'd be daft not to spend more time playing these songs. ” This October, McAloon will be playing dates in the U

He will perform that record in its entirety as well as other songs from the esteemed group’s catalog. “All the singles and things that,” he says the upcoming tour. “And some things from B-sides that turn up

A few people have had demo requests

I don’t know how they’ve heard them, but they’ve got their hands on things

According to Martin, Paddy first found out what his previously non-singing brother was planning to do from an sent by a friend (“'But you can’t sing,’” Martin remembers of his conversation with Paddy)

But Paddy has since become supportive

Says Martin: "He wishes me luck, and he does say, ‘How's it going out there. ’ He wants to know where I’m playing. ’ He does think it’s great

So he's thrilled by it

MORE FOR YOU “At the same time, I do remember it being nerve-wracking [being on stage at first],” he continues. “But it's been good

More Conti. (Photo by BSR Agency/Gentle Look via Getty Images)Gentle Look via Getty Images Steve McQueen, which turned 40 last month, has since become Prefab Sut’s signature work: a collection of dazzling and exquisitely crafted sophisti-pop and jazz pop that draws from Tin Pan Alley, American soul music and Steely Dan

The quartet’s lineup was more than the sum of its parts: Paddy McAloon’s cryptic and clever lyrics; Wendy Smith’s lush and angelic voice (arguably the secret weapon of the group); and the tight rhythm section of Martin McAloon and drummer Neil Conti

A lot of those songs — “Faron Young,” “Johnny Johnny” and “Bonnie” were from that era

They'd been the staple songs of our performance when we were doing our early gigs

So when it came to doing an album, we thought, ‘What if we never get another chance to do an album

We don't want to waste our time doing these songs that are old

Let's do the new, interesting stuff. ’ So when we went into Swoon, it was all kind of the recent stuff that Paddy had been writing

During an interview with Forbes last year, Dolby recalled his introduction to the band. “I was a guest on BBC Radio one day reviewing new singles, and most of the singles I hated,” he said. “This one [from Prefab] started up and I just loved it from the first opening salvo, of mad harmonica

And I said very nice things the band, “They happened to be listening

So they ed me and asked if I was up for ducing

I took a train up to County Durham, and I sat in Paddy McAloon's tiny bedroom while he played me 40 or 50 songs on the acoustic guitar that he'd accumulated over the last 5-10 years

I picked out my favorites, and we went into the studio and recorded them

There was something very magical that Steve McQueen album. ” “I knew his background,” Martin McAloon says of Dolby. “He'd worked on punk records, but I also knew he'd worked with Foreigner and the ducer Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange

He was always talking in an interesting way lots of things

When Paddy was singing his vocal lines, Thomas was very good at taking the best elements from each dery of a line, not just the notation, not just the phrasing, but also the meaning

And he had a great sense of not just rhythm, but of being laid back on certain songs

Neil Conti, our drummer, was great at playing at the back end of the beat

I was always ahead of the beat

I was more of a punk, and Neil was more of a soul guy. ” From the chugging “Faron Young,” through the elegant “Hallelujah” and “Moving the River,” and to the exuberant finale “When the Angels,” Steve McQueen is filler-free pop at its finest

Asked whether the album had a thematic concept, McAloon says it was a collection of tracks that Dolby felt he could work on. “There were certain songs that Paddy had brought which were new, things “Appetite” and “When the Angels. ” He’d written those on keyboards

So there was a certain element of he’d set up a sequencer himself on his JX-3P [synthesizer]

And he had a sequence running and he worked those things

It wasn’t recorded by Thomas [but] by another guy Phil Thornalley

It was recorded at Mickie Most's studio in London

That would have been in the late summer/early autumn of '84

When we went to make Steve McQueen, “When Love Breaks Down” was kind of the elephant in the room, ‘Oh, at some point, we're going to have to do that

We got, and then the question came up, ‘What “When Love Breaks Down”

And it was kind of, "Oh, okay

So we went back into the studio at the end of January for a day or two

We did a remixed version of it

Thomas wanted to redo Paddy’s vocal because he wanted it to fit more in with the style of the vocal on the album

So that's the only real change. ” With its addictive chorus and jazzy atmospherics, the brilliant “Appetite” should have been Prefab’s breakout hit in America. ““Appetite,” yeah, it’s a great one,” McAloon says. “I really that

I remember the bass being particularly syncopated

I it because it grooves and its great lyrics and good chords

I do playing it. ” Another standout song from Steve McQueen, “Goodbye Lucille #1,” was released as a single under the title “Johnny Johnny. ” “I can't remember whether it was on all of the songs or just on “Johnny Johnny” — Paddy’s guitar was having an earthing blem

So there was a buzz every time you touched it

At one point, I think I had a bit of wire tied to the tuning fork, which I held to the earth whilst he played it

It was just the only way that you could cancel out the hum from it

And I remember him going for the vocal screech. ” Steve McQueen was released in the U

I think I said, ‘Two wheels good, four wheels bad. ’ And Paddy went, ‘Two wheels good. ’ And that was it. "I was in touch with Steve McQueen's widow many years later

She'd been involved in a photography book

And I knew the publishers, and I got in touch, and she was very lovely

There wasn't a threat or anything that

We just changed the name to not have that worry over our heads. ” McAloon says he never really thought of Steve McQueen as the potential breakthrough album around the time of its release “I was still caught up in why Steve McQueen hasn’t sold as many as Thriller

I knew it was good, but I don't even know whether it did break through for us

Revisionists might think it broke through more than we did

I'm very ud of that. ” Prefab Sut continued to release subsequent albums after Steve McQueen, including From Langley Park to Memphis, Jordan: The Comeback and Andromeda Heights (Compared to the U. , commercial success had always eluded the group in the U. , a territory where they never toured)

Credit; Feliks Culpa “I don’t think I’m carrying the torch for the band,” Martin says in response moting Prefab’s legacy by playing. “But it is absolutely astonishing when you feel the love coming back from the audience

You see grown men and women in tears, and they come at the end of the night and tell you, ‘That one meant the world to me. ’ And everybody's got a song that means the world to them

It's heartwarming, heart sometimes

It's absolutely astonishing the effect that those songs have

And I can't get enough of it. ” Martin McAloon’s Two Wheels Good tour in the U

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