Copyright 1989

Friday, July 14, 1989

SCENE

Godfathers: Rock for the working class
New Times Magazine

"IF YOU'RE a rock 'n' roll group and you're not influenced by bands like the Stones and the Sex Pistols, you shouldn't be playing rock 'n' roll in the first place."

So says Peter Coyne of the Godfathers, an English band most assuredly aligned with the rowdier elements of rock. Indeed, with its snappy clothes and snarling guitars, the band encapsules much of the punk/mod/glam energy that lit up London back in the late '70s. That's the way Coyne comes off on the title track to "Birth, School, Work, Death," the Godfathers' American debut LP.

Lead singer Coyne and his bassist brother, Chris, started the Godfathers three years ago. The band grew from the wreckage of the Sid Presley Experience, a promising group handcuffed by constant internal bickering. Take the time producer Trevor Horn showed up to scope the band: Horn was nosing about for the Next Big Thing after choreographing three No. 1 singles for Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

"He came down to the show," says Coyne, "but the band had had a big argument before going on stage, and then there was a fight on stage. And then there was a big fight afterward." Horn "was looking for something provocative, but I don't think he wanted the real thing."

Rampant egotism was the main problem with the Sid Presleys. Coyne says once the band got on British TV and radio, heads started ballooning to the point that some of the band members "wouldn't show up for rehearsals, interviews or concerts. So we had to sack them. It's turned to be the best thing we ever did."

The brothers Coyne signed on three new members and the band immediately flew off to America for what was billed as the Sid Presley Experience.

Once that was out of the way, it was back to London to officially retire the Sid Presley moniker and introduce the Godfathers.

The band has gone on to release a string of hard-boiled songs marked by a strident proletariat angst -- songs like "I Want Everything" and "I'm Unsatisfied," both of which appear on "Hit by Hit," an import collection of the group's previously released singles.

"I Want Everything" is especially effective with its anthemlike feel of first-wave punk. Coyne explains that the song's opening demand for "instant coffee and instant sex" comes from a response the Beatles once made when asked what they liked about America. Another line -- "Someone to love, someone to talk to, something to do, something to look forward to" -- was lifted from an Elvis Presley interview. "It was his philosophy of life," says Coyne approvingly.

Coyne figures he gets most of his ideas from watching TV or reading newspapers. Indeed, one of the band's new songs, "If I Only Had Time," consists almost entirely of newspaper headlines strung together. Coyne points with particular pride to the headline "We're living in a false economy," which rendered the Godfathers especially topical when the stock market went south last fall.

"If I Only Had Time" is the high-water mark of the new album, along with the rollicking "Tell Me Why." Both numbers churn with enough melody and verve to fill a week of programming on MTV.

UNFORTUNATELY, the Godfathers' first single off the new LP is neither of the aforementioned killers. Instead, it's the title cut, a relatively lame exercise in punk posturing. Sample lyric: "I've felt torture and I've felt pain. Just like that film with Michael Caine." Huh? Here's another one: "I've been used and I've been abused. And I've kissed Margaret Thatcher's shoes." It's one thing to be sophomoric, but here the Godfathers sound like they're really working at it.

Still, Coyne has no apologies for aiming at lowest common denominators. And he doesn't mind the Godfathers' personae as working-class heroes, though he says, "There really isn't a working class in England anymore. You'd have to call it the 'unemployed class.' " He adds, "We're not trying to write directly for the deprived, underprivileged people. We just make music. And we want our music to make people aware of what's going on."

Apparently, people are listening. The "Birth, School, Work, Death" single has toyed with the top of the U.K. charts, and the new LP is creating enough of a buzz to support the band on this, its fifth U.S. tour. The success is a little surprising, especially in England, where groups without synthesizers and disco beats are often relegated to the underground.

Coyne says there's "no scene at all in England -- it's all rubbish." He says he's fond of American acts -- Prince, R.E.M., the Smithereens -- but otherwise he doesn't see much musical difference this side of the pond: "Five years ago you could look at the charts and it seemed like there was a world of difference between the Top 10 in America and the Top 10 in England. But not now. Tiffany's very successful, so is Debbie Gibson. We get the same rubbish you get."

Which would seem to give the Godfathers an open lane to the big time. The band could be viewed with one eye as yet another crowd of Englishmen with a fashion virus (Coyne claims the group's sartorial splendor -- white shirts, dark jackets, nice ties -- is nothing more than the "way we'd dress when we go out for an evening on the town"). But the Godfathers deserve more credit than that. These guys can crank it. They play loud, hard, melodic pop reminiscent of a more stable Lords of the New Church or Hanoi Rocks.

In short, the Godfathers are a show.

And while the band's hard-edged workmanship is an anomaly when considering current U.K. acts, the Godfathers may well be a harbinger of rock 'n' roll's next retrograde motion -- a return to the stepped-up chords and ear-slamming idealism of punk's halcyon days. Listening to the Godfathers, you can almost feel it coming.