Interview with Keiron Melling

On his musical upbringing:

Music has been a big part of my life from as far back as I can remember. My dad had a record shop in Colne called Planet Records. He constantly gave me different music to try out. All the kids at school were listening to pop or happy hardcore, which turns out to be the worst shit I ever heard, whereas I would be listening to Frank Zappa, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Richard, James Brown, Captain Beefheart, Jimi Hendrix, Stooges etc. It took me quite a while to work out that I had a different taste in music compared to other kids. I just presumed everyone listened to the same as me.

My dad bought me a Hohner drum kit to start out on when I was 5. My parents had split up when I was a baby, so I have a mountain of respect for my Mum allowing me to play the drums in my bedroom!

I’d just attempt to bash along to my collection. I also play guitar but wouldn’t consider myself a guitarist! I just use it to write songs.
I actually played my first gig on harmonica when I was 12 with my dad’s band, The Outsiders, which strangely enough is what Mark was going to call the group before settling on The Fall.

I was 13 when I started my first band. We were called Bleach, until we realised it was a Nirvana album, so changed the name to Pigeon Smith. We started out playing covers, then progressed to writing our own stuff. A good friend of mine, Tony Cutler who sadly passed away this year, gave us some free time in his studio. That’s when I found a love for recording.

At 16 I had a taste of professional work drumming for Aziz Ibrahim (Stone Roses, Ian Brown) playing some big venues which was a great experience. I was also in a local Rockerbilly band called Walter Mittys Head. College is where I met Dave`The Eagle’ Spurr, but I call him Dave for short!

We started Motherjohn with my mate Dan and stuck it out for 8 years until joining The Fall. Me n Dave have been a rhythm section for 19 years and have never had a cross word.

On songwriting and songwriting credits:

Out of that list, I’d say “Brillo” and “Couples” are my favourite because I had almost full control over them, which had never happened before. I’d say I was credited for about 10% of the songs I had a hand in writing.

On Fall lyrics:

We didn’t really talk about his lyrics to be honest. It never seemed appropriate to ask. There were quite a lot of in-jokes hidden in the songs which always made me laugh, but I’m not telling.

On working with Darren Garrett:

I had a lot of fun with Daz on and off stage. He’s a top bloke! It was a lot of fun but I found it harder to lock in with Dave, having to split my attention with the rhythm. Good times though, just different.

On how he winds down after gigs:

What’s kip? I think I could count on both hands the amount of hours sleep I got in the last 11 years with The Fall. We would drink until there’s nothing left, then sleep!

On unreleased material:

We have 8 roughly recorded rehearsal room tracks that Mark wanted to do properly in the studio, but sadly we didn’t get there. He did do vocal tracks but I don’t have them. They exist but can’t see them ever being used any time soon. I really don’t know what will happen to them at this stage. Maybe we’ll sit on them for a while, but we definitely won’t be releasing them as Fall songs.

On the future:

The future for us is with the new band Imperial Wax. Dave, Pete and I all agreed to keep making music together under the new name and we hope it all works out. It seems a shame to just give up. It’s not how we operate! Mark drilled that into us. Always move forward.

We have studio time booked for our debut album, so we’ll see what happens after that.

On Mark E Smith:

Mark was a one-off! We loved him! He was the funniest man I’ve ever known. He’d have the three of us belly laughing every time we got together.

I honestly thought he was going to beat his illness because he was a hard fucker!

It was very distressing seeing his body fail him, but he was as sharp as a knife right to the end. We asked him to rest up and not do the shows but he was adamant about doing them. We wanted to back him up whatever he decided. That shows everyone what kind of man he was, to get up on stage in his condition and still blow the roof off! The courage and tenacity was breathtaking.

The physical version of Mark has gone, but he will always be with us. I’ll never forget him.