Interview with Picture The Beautiful from Issue 8 of Welsh Bands Weekly, spring 2000

We don’t often do questionnaires, as you may well have noticed. However, sometimes a band comes along that you just have to interview, but you never quite manage to bump into them so a questionnaire becomes necessary.

Picture The Beautiful are one of those bands. Since reviewing their demo a couple of issues back, and falling head over heels in love with it, I’ve wanted to do an interview with them. However, they’re rarely in London and I’m rarely in the valleys, so something had to give.

So I emailed them a bunch of questions – some silly, some serious – and here’s what we managed to find out about them.

Who are PTB?

A Rhondda Valley based, indie, four-piece and consist of Damien Scott Owens (vocals), Stuart Anstee (guitar), Christian 'Elvis' Perry (bass) and Geraint Evans (drums). They were formed in mid '97 and they spent the rest of the year writing new material.

1998 started with a string of well-received gigs at various venues around south Wales. Encouraged by the response to their live performances, the band entered the studio in late March and recorded three tracks ('Just above the Earth', 'An Affordable Tragedy' & 'Franklin'.).

April saw the boys audition for the BBC drama A Light in the Valley along with 17 other bands from around south Wales. PTB got the job. May and June was spent filming, culminating at The Stereophonics concert at Cardiff Castle. Come August and Picture the Beautiful were playing with Melys, The Crocketts and Topper at the Rhondda August Fayre.

Just above the Earth got its first airplay towards the end of September when it was included on the playlist for The Adam Walton Show on BBC Radio Wales.

The band went back into the studio in Mid November to record another three songs, Super Model, Freeway, & Heroine; the latter was used as the theme to the aforementioned A Light in the Valley drama. The programme itself was screened on Tuesday December 8th on BBC1 Wales. Reaction to the drama was extremely positive, to both the music and also the boys acting ability.

December the 8th was quite a busy day in the life of the band! Apart from the TV drama, Christian and Geraint were interviewed by Lisa Barsi live on Radio Wales' 'Four Star' programme. Heroine had its first airplay on the same programme. Later on the same station, Adam Walton was heard singing the band's praises when he played Super Model. To coincide with the programme the band played two, sold out, local gigs. The crowd response was phenomenal!

Super Model also made Adam Walton's Hot Top Ten on December 14th. The song was in good company, the Top Ten included tracks from Brit Award winners, Belle & Sebastian plus bands such as Fatboy Slim, Mercury Rev, The Crocketts, and the Llama Farmers.

1999 has also been an extremely busy year. January saw the boys play four live shows including a well received, A&R showcase at Cairo Jack's in London. During the same month, 'Supermodel' went Top 30 in the CMJ Radio Airplay 200 Charts in the States.

With two successful gigs completed in February, the band played The Bull & Gate in London on Monday, March 8th. Two days later and the boys were giving a live interview on Glamorgan University Radio, Fusion 106FM. The station also played tracks from the 'Supermodel' CD and songs from the boys' favourite artists.

Picture the Beautiful returned to London on Monday, 12th April when they played another A&R Showcase, this time, at The Borderline. It was during April that the band heard that 'A Light in the Valley' had won Best Regional Programme at The Royal Television Society Awards Ceremony held in London.

The summer was largely spent rehearsing new material in preparation for a visit to the studio. During September the boys headed for Le Mons in Newport and recorded two new tracks, "Blue Car Riot" and "Hey! Mr. Jones" and for the first time in the studio "As Seen On TV".

Picture the Beautiful signed a publishing deal with West Pacific Music during September and the new label are going to release the bands first single, “Hey! Mr. Jones” in early November. The four track CD will include the aforementioned song plus “Blue Car Riot”, “As seen on TV” and special bonus track “Supermodel”. Initially it will only be available from the label’s website, www.WestPacificMusic.com.

What are your day jobs?

All incredibly glamorous I’m afraid! Damien is a toolmaker, Elvis is a youth worker, Stuart works in a factory making various forms of packaging and Geraint is a site agent for an engineering company. All very rock and roll!

Why start a band?

Well, Damien and Elvis have always been in various bands together right from their early teens. Stuart has also been in some of those bands plus he’s played in various bands with Geraint. We all pretty much want the same thing, to be successful and we’re are confident that we’ve got the ability to get there. We thought that we’d have a better chance of making it if we pooled our talents, and so Picture the Beautiful was born.

Describe the music you make

God, we hate questions like this! It’s always difficult to categorise your own material. We usually leave it up to others to do that. From our point of view we tend to write songs to reflect how we feel at the time. One of us will come up with an idea and we’ll all have an input in forming and developing the song.

We’ve had lots of positive press reviews. Here’s a sample of the bands we’ve been compared to: Suede, Smashing Pumpkins, James, The Cult, U2, Feeder, the Sterephonics, Manics, Divine Comedy and Morrissey! Quite a mix, which we tend to think is great. People are obviously having trouble pigeon-holing us, therefore, we guess we must be quite individual sounding.

Why should our readers love PTB?

Because we produce original, sexy music of some quality. We’re serious about our music and we always try to entertain. Quite frankly, if you love us we are going to love you. We’re nice like that.

What’s happened this year so far for you? Best and worse.

The best thing is probably the “Hey! Mr. Jones” single. We guess it shows we’ve something to offer because West Pacific Music thought we’re good enough to plough several grand into us!

The worst thing was probably playing an open-air gig in Pontypridd Park on August Bank Holiday. We went on stage at about 8.30pm just as it was getting dark. There was a problem with the lights and we played the gig in the dark. It just got darker and darker by the song, until finally we couldn’t see our instruments! A crazy situation to be in, we just felt really sorry for the band on after us. We were told a couple of car headlights did the trick!

What do you hope will happen next year?

Like every other band, we want to get signed to a major label and have our music listened to by the widest audience possible. A couple of really big gigs would be nice as well, perhaps headlining Glastonbury 2000 and then off to New York to play Madison Square Garden!

Who’s cool?

Geraint: Ricky Tomlinson from the Royle Family. Damien: Mork from ‘Mork & Mindy’. Stuart: Lara Croft. Elvis: Bobba Fett, the Star Wars dude who just looks good and nods his head occasionally!

Who’s not?

Geraint: William Hague. Damien: Mindy of course. Stuart: Thee Royal Family. Elvis: David Beckham – the ultimate in ‘uncool.’

Did you see that programme about people who shag animals on C4 ? What did you think of it?

We thought it was quite funny, - can these people really be serious? We’d do a frog if it stopped hopping long enough!

What’s the best bit of advice you’ve ever been given?

Damien: Don’t wear your slippers in the shower. Stuart: Never put yourself down. Geraint: Don’t eat yellow snow! Elvis: Go and buy a Playstation!

I have Scooby Doo wallpaper in my kitchen... what cartoon character wallpaper would you have?

Elvis: The Pink Panther. Geraint: Tom & Jerry, the coolest cartoons ever. Damien: Transformers. Stuart: The Magic Roundabout.

What should we really be asking you?

When’s the album out? We wish!

Any other comments?

Keep reading Welsh Bands Weekly!

It would be great if our single sold really well, check it out at WestPacificMusic.com.

If anybody reads this and comes to our gigs, come up and say “Hello”, we’re really friendly people, honest!