Updated: 08/9/2003
Caught up with Lead Vocalist Rob Dickinson to talk about Catherine Wheels past albums Chrome and Happy Days.
What's been happening for the past years since your second album Chrome was released?
Rob D: We finished touring for Chrome at the end of 1993. We spent the rest of the time making Happy Days. This was our longest time making a new album. We aimed pretty high with this record in terms of what we were trying to achieve. I though we were honestly capable of doing better and giving more onto this record than what we had been putting onto our records at this point. The band was better than it had been ever at the end of the tour for Chrome. We spent time writing for about six weeks to make the songs for Happy Days. We then spent about four months recording Happy Days. We took this time because we wanted to make sure it felt right. There were a lot of things that we wanted to capture on this release. We wanted to capture our depth that we had arrived at the end of touring for Chrome. At that time we were heavier and more stripped down. We wanted to capture how we sounded live. We also tried capturing the melody that is part o our band. We wanted to make sure that we captured the whole gamut of what we do onto one record.
Production wise do you feel that Happy Days is your best achievement to date?
Rob D: We feel that it's our best record. I think it's our record which for the first time represents truely what this band is. I don't think that it sounds like anybody else either. I think that we thought we started influencing ourselves out of the shackles of what we thought we should be and what we think we sounded like and kind of dropped away and looked at what we had come through with this relentless touring. We were quite excited with what was going on when we got started and when we got done. This is where we were when we started writing Happy Days. We had at that time had an enormous amount of confidence which made it easier to develop with.
Since you are feeling so confident right now, are your attitudes at performing going to get better at live concerts?
Rob D: Yeah! Part of our confidence has come from our ability to perform and to protray our songs for the way that they were written at the intimacy that they deserve. These new songs have within them a vetain passion and spirit to them. The new songs have to be performed that way or they are just flat. We have gotten very powerful. There is an extreme edge now and there was this edge to us at the end of touring for Chrome. It was essential that we captured just that on Happy Days. So these new songs are going to be a couple of notches up. Going into making this new record I was more ambitious than I had ever been. This record will do something big in this bands history, whether it will kill the band and stop us, make us or it will sell many copies. This record, Happy Days, will some how be a turing point for us.
Let's talk about some of the songs that appear on Happy Days. Artistically, was it done on purpose or why do your vocals sound so predominant in the song Heal?
Rob D: We didn't try and sit down and think we needed a song that had good guitar work to highlight riffs and my vocals with. I mean I really think that it is one of the best songs on the record. It is also one of my favorites. We actually kind of arrived at a song like the way Heal is. That song sort of spilled out of us. What is evident in Heal is also evident in the song Little Muscle. The music is more direct. I wanted to have it where I could have my own little platform where I could get up and do my thing and be a little bit more heard. I feel that I am singing better. I also feel that I am writing better words that are also more understandable. We worked harder at making our music more sipler and less layered on Happy Days. The vocals on Happy Days are left being more on the top technically this time around.
There seems to be this constant theme on the album and that is you are so pissed off. So what are you so pissed off about?
Rob D: There is a certain amount of frustration in all of the songs. For example, the song Eat My Dust You Insensitive Fuck is about frustration about not being where you really want to be. Being taken a bit more seriously than what you are being taken for right now. They are not all about me and my frustrations but there are song songs here on Happy Days that are also about universal frustration as well. There are some hopes and truth that I have revealed as well on this record. Some of the new songs might seem biographical but I do not feel that I am more vulnerable because of it though. However, if I have written a song that had made someone feel better from the songs off of any of our albums I as sure glad.
In the song Judy Staring At The Sun, who is Judy and why is she staring at the sun?
Rob D: Judy is a fictitious character who is out of her mind on some kind of substance. It's not about one person in particular, though it is about people that I have seen or have read about. This character has lost control of reality.
Catherine Wheel is clearer about where they are going and what they are about. Maturity wise, this band has come a long ways and it sure shows. Catherine have left Mercury and are planning a new record for another big label due out soon.
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THE OFFICIAL CATHERINE WHEEL HOME PAGE: All the news on Catherine Wheel! INTERVIEW WITH CATHERINE WHEEL: Another interview I did with Catherine Wheel! COLLIDEOSCOPIC - THE UNOFFICAL CATHERINE WHEEL SITE: A cool Catherine Wheel page! LITTLE MUSCLE AND INTRAVENOUS LIVE MP3's: Recorded in San Francisco! THE WRIGHT STUFF AT HIGHWIRE DAZE: Return to the Main Page! 
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