Q – Besides Lost Weekend, are there any other LC songs that started out as a direct homage to somebody else’s tune?
A – Well… that one didn’t. It just went that way in rehearsal and while we were aware that the rhythm part was the same, the chords and everything else was different, so we weren’t bothered. Gosh, I wish it owed more – The Passenger is a fantastic track, Lost Weekend, to my ear, is a decent tune done overly quirkily.
I don’t think there has ever been a song which in its essence was a direct deliberate homage. There have, of course been numerous doffs of the hat (see Rich, Mercy Killing, etc). Speedboat owes an awful lot to What Presence by Orange Juice and that must have been me stealing the bass line. I didn’t realise until it was too late (and that’s why I stopped listening to music when I’m working on my own) and it’s not like the finished song owes anything more than a thank you for the bass idea…
On the new record there is a song which was called Rod The Mod as we worked on it because I wanted it to have an early 70’s Rod / Faces feel and there is definitely a nod in there in the drumming and verse two (to You Wear It Well). But if it sounds like us just doing the Faces, then we got it wrong. It should sound like us, just a little looser than you might expect. I always liked the Picasso quote – “Good artists borrow, great artists steal”. I encourage my son to emulate his heroes. I think if you develop a voice of your own then you don’t need to worry, and if you don’t – well, then – you won’t need to worry either, you’ll just need a day job.