Typical Boy: Robert Sekula

Listen along to some of the songs and artists mentioned while you read

In the second edition of Typical Boy, Robert Sekula from 14 Iced Bears and I discuss growing up in London, childhood music lessons and the brillianace of Echo and the Bunnymen.

L: That’s perfect. So, where abouts were you born ,Robert?

 

R: Camberwell, South London.

 

L: South London. So, what kinda area is that?

 

R: It was like council estates more or less. Near Peckham, Camberwell. Do you know London much?

 

L: No, I’ve never been.

 

R: Oh, right it’s, I’m not sure the equivalent in Glasgow, but it’s sorta just outside the centre not quite suburban. It’s still the city but there’s loads of estates and stuff.

 

L: So quite a working-class area then?

 

R: Yeah. I mean, ironically it was right behind Camberwell art school where Syd Barret went and John Cale and that. When I was like eighteen, I would go to the pub and I would see these arty people there and I would be like ‘wow this is brilliant’. It wasn’t what I was used to, I was more into that though.

 

L: So, your surname…

 

R: Sekula like the English word Secular.  Me dad, he was Polish descent. We didn’t find out until close to when he passed away that he escaped from the Nazis. He never spoke about it. Cliché not to talk about it, but I would have bloody told people. He met my mum after the Second World War, and she was from the East End of London. For some reason she decided, because she made the decisions about that sort of thing in our family, that we were called Sekula.

 

L: It really is something people don’t talk about and growing up you’re like, ‘Why don’t you talk about it?’

 

R: Yeah, and the weird thing was, I was obsessed with the Second World War. I did a history project when I was about twelve and I drew all the soldiers from the uniform books. I was obsessed with it, I used to paint soldiers sitting in front of him and he never said once, ‘I escaped from them.’ You’d have thought it was slightly relevant but there you go.

 

L: So, you’re from quite a working class kinda area but was it quite well to do? You know you’re saying the art school was nearby or was it quite rough at times?

 

R: Nah, that’s what London’s like. It’s quite hotchpotch. You get rough bits, and the next street is really big posh houses. There was a street near me that I loved to walk up. It was all big Victorian houses and that was just off the main road. That’s what London was like. 

 

L: A big mish-mash?

 

R: Yeah.

 

L: That in some ways is good. If you’re more sort of arty you have somewhere to go. 

 

R: Exactly, you’re not stuck in this massive jungle.

 

L: Did you have an interest in music growing up?

R: When I was about 4 or 5, we did a music thing in school and I was playing the xylophone. The teacher said to my mum ‘He sounds like he’s got a natural ability’ and even though we were poor, my mum was really into education, so she paid for me to have music lessons. So, I grew up playing Bach and all that. In-between playing football with my mates on the estate, I’d be doing twenty minutes classical music on my recorder every night. Hating it, by the way but doing it still.

 

L: It’s always the recorder is the most hated instrument.

 

R: Yeah. Then I managed to get onto the piano, but I still didn’t really like it that much. It was a chore, music for me, but I did love pop music. I remember watching the Monkees growing up and I’m old enough to have seen a little bit of the Beatles on telly on Top of the Pops.

 

L: The sixties guitar pop…

 

R: Yeah, more or less, but I loved 70’s pop. David Cassidy and T-Rex, all that sort of stuff. I had an older brother, and he was really into Led Zeppelin, T-Rex and bands like Yes. I’m not trying to be cool, but the only one out of that lot I really got into was Marc Bolan. I absolutely loved him. I was thinking about this today – Why don’t I like Led Zep? Nothing against them, but I just found it a bit histrionic in a way. A bit too theatrical with all the ‘Yeahh Alrighttt’ It seemed a bit far-fetched, a bit odd.

 

L: Yeah, I get what you mean. Bands like that, there’s almost a sort of macho, cock-rock…

 

R: Yeah, it was sorta proto-cock-rock.

 

L: It’s something I never quite understood myself either.

 

R: Nothing against Robert Plant, I see him walking around now and then. He seems to be a really cool bloke and some of his music is really cool, he’s not just some idiot or anything. The only one I really loved was All of My Love by them. One of my favourite bands, Ween, did a cover of that.

 

L: When did you start to get into more sort of indie scene?

 

R: The first things I started listening to when I started getting my own records it was like post-punk. I got into like Boomtown Rats, Police, UB40. This was for a few months and then, a mate I used to play guitar with, he was into the Jam and the Clash, so I got into the Jam more. From the Jam I got into the music papers from around early 1980. That’s around when Ian Curtis died so the music papers were full of that, so I started listening to Joy Division a bit. The first time I heard When I Dream by Teardrop Explodes, I just thought that was brilliant and then I just became obsessed with the teardrops and the Bunnymen basically.

 

L: Both great bands, I had hair like Ian McCulloch for a bit.

 

R: Me too. I found a picture of me from about 1983, got the long grey mac and the hair. Also, Postcard and all that from around 1981.

L: How did people round about react to you dressing like Ian McCulloch, with the almost outrageous hair?

 

R: Surprisingly, I really didn’t get any gip for it. I was in London, and I was going to clubs and that a little bit. It wasn’t like the provinces, central London you didn’t have that so much. Maybe other people had different experiences, but I never really got attacked for being indie. After that I went to Brighton, to be a student, and it was part of the culture there more or less. It’s quite a liberal place.

 

L: I suppose London had been inoculated to it after punk.

 

D: Exactly, it was used to it by then. It was three years after punk and the counterculture in London was quite strong at the time. A lot of it was getting political at the time. It didn’t feel like hippies getting attacked for having long hair, there was nothing like that going on indie people near me anyway.

 

L: Yeah…

 

D: Sorry to interrupt, but I’ve just thought of one occasion, maybe around 85, 86. I used to be friends with Tim from McCarthy, and we were all at this club when these guys with this soul boy look sorta thing came in. Around five, or six or seven blokes came in. We’d just been having a good laugh, then they came in and started beating everyone up and then ran out. We were all like, ‘Oh fuck’. We weren’t strong enough to fight back which was shameful at the time, but we just didn’t expect it. These people were fucking – looking back, these people were just idiots, narcissistic wankers really.  

 

L: It certainly seems like living in London was an advantage since there was so much going on. Especially compared to the likes of Glasgow where the music scene was just taking off.

 

I know you said you played recorder and piano growing up but how did you transition into playing indie music?

 

D: I don’t know really. I suppose my interest in the music made me think, let’s try the guitar. So, when I was 16, I dropped the piano and just started playing guitar and it was a lot better. I found I could make up tunes when I was just strumming along. I was always writing songs from around 15, 16. I remember always walking around thinking up songs.

 

L: I think that’s how most people do it. Going from there, did you find people similar to you round about and start bands?

 

D: Yeah. I was in sixth from and my mate who was into the Clash and the Jam and that, we started a band. I was sort of going more Joy Division-y. That was when all that stuff was coming out, round ’81. All the goth stuff. We weren’t really goths; I was into the Bunnymen more. It wasn’t punk, we were going more that way.

 

L: Sorta goth adjacent if you will. Not quite there but with gothic influences, I suppose.    

 

D: I suppose in the sense the Bunnymen were mysterious. It was a bit moody and atmospheric a lot of it. I suppose that’s got tinges of goth.  Heaven up Here, I love that album. Even today Heaven up Here is like a new form of music to me. It was really rhythmic and almost dancey but it’s ridiculously powerful and atmospheric at the same time. I just think it was genius.

 

L: The thing I’ve always loved is their sound. The sound is just so big it really blows you away.

 

D: Everyone is doing something special themselves. Pete de Freitas was a genius drummer, Pattinson and Sergeant they’re just all doing amazing things on their own. It just all came together and it’s brilliant.

 

L: Everything just slotted into place quite nicely.

 

D: Maybe that was down to producers, but it was amazing yeah.

 

L: How did people react to you starting a band? Did people think it was something weird, your family or anything, did they think it was a weird thing to be doing? Or were they quite supportive?

 

D: My mum and dad were quite into music. They weren’t particularly musical themselves, but they loved music. They were obsessed with the Crooners type generation. I suppose I grew up listening to Perry Como and Bing Crosby. And they weren’t too harsh on me having to get a proper job. I was quite lucky in that way. And as I said, my mum paid for me to have music lessons as a kid. They probably didn’t want me to become too rock and roll like most parents would. But I really didn’t have any problems with anyone.  No one really had a go at me or anything, I was lucky really.

 

L: When you’ve got that environment it’s quite nice and you can just go for it.  

 

D: They weren’t like hippies or anything. They were just normal parents, but they were quite supportive for me to do my own thing.

 

L: So, you started 14 Iced Bears when you went down to Brighton, is that right?

 

D: When I went to Sussex University, the first thing I wanted to do was form a band basically. I wasn’t that bothered about getting a degree. In those days it was more like that, you could get a grant and hang out. It was bloody brilliant. Obviously, there’s not enough money for that now, we have to pay for more nuclear warheads.

 

L: Obviously.

 

D: Just in case we get invaded just like every other country has been invaded since the second World War cause they didn’t have nuclear weapons.

 

L: You were saying Brighton was quite a liberal place, I think it still is.

 

D: It’s got a green MP. Only one in the country.

 

L: That’s a pretty good atmosphere for writing music and doing creative things.

 

D: It was, it was. Waking up and being able to see the sea every day and looking different every day. I would write songs on the beach quite a bit. I don’t know if you know our song Surfacer, but I wrote that one on the beach. You can feel that in the song. There’s lots of things about waves in it.

 

L: Brighton’s always had this kinda draw. I don’t know if it’s been mythologised by the mods though.

 

D: Yeah, definitely was. That was the draw of it. By the eighties – I got there after the mod revival of the early eighties, I got there ’83. The big thing was alternative rather than indie, no one really talked about indie in those days. It was alternative music.

 

L: I think indie started to come later; it came with the press.

 

D: Yeah, ’86 more maybe. It became more of a look. I don’t know when it really changed, you’d have to ask the press about that.

 

L: There was a change towards indie as it started to get later. It came across from the early days in the music press there was a sneer towards indie music. It wasn’t seen as fashionable or cool before it started to change in the nineties. That the impression I’ve gotten.

 

D: Yeah, especially the C86 stuff. That used to get slated all the time. A lot of journalists were more into Nick Cave and things like that. They just weren’t interested in this scene. Sarah Records used to get a lot of crap all the time.

 

L: It wasn’t until the nineties and Britpop that indie became a cool term.

 

D: Cool in inverted commas. I think Britpop and that almost killed indie in a way. It became so diluted, mainstream and then you end up with Coldplay. Can’t blame people for trying to make it. R.E.M. made it but more on their own terms but you feel with other bands it’s more following what you’re supposed to do.

 

L: I suppose in some ways that was contrary to the ethos of Sarah Records and stuff. They were very D.I.Y, almost anti-capitalist in a lot of their ideas.

 

D: Yeah, they were very into that. It was all about not dealing with the corporates at all, keeping away from them. We don’t need them. That came from the punk thing didn’t it.  

 

L: There was that left-wing sympathy amongst the indie scene.

 

D: Definitely. It was in that whole era, after punk, Anarchist movements, Feminist movements, Gay Liberation movements, Black movements. It was all over the place. It was pretty strong; you had the Red Wedge and all that. So, by C86, most of the people were quite left-wing as well. Women weren’t seen as less or as glamourous side-effects to the music. It was more that they were in bands and that didn’t matter so much. You’d have to ask some women about that, more than me, but it seemed that way.

 

L: There was quite a lot of women involved. It wasn’t as much of a ‘boys-club’ as other musical movements.

 

D: It didn’t seem to matter really. If someone had girls in the band then so what? Like, the Shop Assistants, they’re not seen as some mainly girl band, are they? They’re not discussed like that, they’re just one of the bands. And Tallulah Gosh, they’re just the bands. Nobody talks about the sexuality thank god.

 

L: I think it was quite liberating, for some people, to have that. It was a lot more open and more people could get involved.

 

D: It was democratic, wasn’t it? Anyone could join in if they wanted to.

 

L: Regardless of ability as well…

 

D: Which was liberating in its own way. That was sort of a punk thing as well. Like, ‘Fuck you, we’re not going to play just how were supposed to.’ I always liked that idea when we first started of not being technically good but trying to blow people away with the actual melodies you do. It would add to the charm, it was more human. My favourite singer of all time is probably Gram Parsons and people, sometimes if they didn’t know him, would say ‘He can’t really sing.’ It was all part of being human I suppose.

 

L: I suppose one of the big influences for that would be the Marychain who were slated for not being very good but blew people away with their sound.

 

D: Yeah. You get people going, ‘Oh no, they’re only playing twenty minutes. They can’t even play their bloody instruments,’ and all this sorta stuff. It was part of the appeal. It was something that happened that was weird.

 

L: It was its own thing. I know the anorak has almost become symbolic, but in terms of the fashion, there was an almost anti-fashion element to it. Anoraks and stuff like that they were seen as uncool.

 

D: If you think of mainstream fashion, it was the antithesis of that. It was like shoulder pads and slicked back hair. It was the opposite. Not trying to fit in with some 50s mould of what a sexy person should look like. That bullshit.

 

L: Do you think that, for some men, was liberating? You know they could have more effeminate fashions and have long hair. Do you think that was a factor as well?

 

D: Oh definitely. That comes from at least the sixties and maybe the fifties. People were just rejecting what you were supposed to look like and just wear what you want. That’s the whole idea of rock and roll I suppose.

 

I started wearing beads like a lot of people were in the late eighties. I remember walking round, I think he was a bit of an alcoholic always around the streets, and he saw me and pulled the beads off my neck. Pulled them straight off. It was quite sad really that he had to do that.  But I never really had any crap for anything. I was really lucky.

 

L: Yeah, you seem fortunate to have had that environment.

 

D: Yeah, compared to what you hear. I know people who grew up in Brighton and I imagine they got more shit off their mates or from people where they grew up. If they changed, they probably got more stuff. But since I didn’t grow up in Brighton, I was alright.

 

L:  I know you’re a really big football fan yourself, do you think that was an advantage? Did that act as a bridge so you could go between crowds?

 

D: Thinking about it, at that time, I really didn’t mingle with anybody who wasn’t that indie. I was a student, and all my mates were into music, and we didn’t really go to mainstream pubs or clubs. We had our own bubble really. Everyone was into cool things. I didn’t ever have to talk about football. Once I was about 16, I lost interest in football, and I didn’t get back into it until I was about 30. I got into music and the lifestyle.

 

L: I think that’s quite common. You lose it then get back into it.

 

D: Yeah, when life becomes dull again.

It did help later on in life. When you got the odd job and that you could talk to normal people. It makes it a lot easier when you’re male.

 

L: It’s sort of a go to topic.

 

D: That’s it. Just saying something like, ‘Dele Alli is crap,’ and suddenly everyone knows what you’re on about.

 

L: It’s a useful safety net to have.

 

D: It stops you from appearing so alien to people.

 

L: Going back to you being in the indie bubble, to me that seems like a great environment for creative ideas. Not even just music but for creative people in general. Was it just the musicians you hung around with or was there a bigger scene?

 

D: It was mainly around music. Music journalist like Johnny Dee, he was there. Thinking about it, it was all about music. I don’t know how much of a connection there was in the eighties between music and art.

 

L: Have you got any reflections to add yourself?

 

D: At that time, it was in the politics. The masculinity thing, it wasn’t as polarised as it was in mainstream society.

 

L: The liberation movements of the eighties they all fed into it.

 

D: If you were a fairly intelligent kid growing up in the seventies, you’d read this stuff and pick up on it. It was the latest cultural thing coming through and that was the background to a lot of the music.

 

L: It does come through, particularly with bands like McCarthy.

 

D: Yeah, they were explicitly about it. It was like the default position really to be like that. When Britpop got massive, the politics didn’t really matter anymore. It all became about this hedonism as opposed to trying to change anything.

Once again, I'd like to express my graditude to Robert for his great chat and kindness. I cannot thank him enough to agreeing to this interview.