Former Gene frontman Martin Rossiter opens up about the state of music

Meanwhile, Britpop is about to explode in the wake of US grunge and music is teeming with guitar bands: Radiohead are knee-deep recording The Bends, Blur are promoting Parklife, Oasis are gearing up for Definitely Maybe and Pulp have just released their breakthrough album His ’N’ Hers.

And Gene, an indie-rock four-piece from Watford, released their first single. In doing so, they entered an era which labelled them Britpop by default.

The band’s singer, Martin Rossiter, remembers, “We were like four huskies going in slightly different directions to each other – roughly in the same direction but always kinda pulling at the reins, someone wanting to turn right or left, somebody else, usually me, wanting to stop and have a p***. And that created some lovely records at times but it also meant we were a little harder to define.

“With the first Gene album [Olympian], I was... [he pauses, thinking] almost happy from the first note to the last. The other albums had their moments.”

The band’s second studio album, Drawn To The Deep End, was released a few weeks before OK Computer, the Radiohead album which, in 1997, pretty much had the last word on guitar music that millennium.

Regardless, Gene reached a highpoint, with the album peaking at number eight in the charts.

Rossiter says, “I struggled to listen to [Drawn To The Deep End] because of the production. It was a little bit too hi-fi and I didn’t like my voice on the record.

“With our last album, Libertine, we’d made our best record. Someone neutral having been played our four studio albums would think that was our best.”

It was really nothing

As Rossiter thinks back, This Charming Man by The Smiths strikes up in the background. His eyes dart upwards briefly; “He always follows me around this guy,” he says, referring to Morrissey, the singer of The Smiths.

Gene were often compared to The Smiths, in part because of the confessional nature of their songs and guitarist Steve Mason’s (pictured above) intricate melodies.

More than any of the above bands, it was the Morrisey comparison that dogged Gene the most.

“Yes a little but, y’know what, I’m 43 years old and I don’t care either way,” he laughs.

“I won’t lose sleep over it.”

Following the end of Gene in 2001, Rossiter moved into music teaching, all the while telling his friends how he was going to write an album he could truly call his own.

So he set about writing the songs which would make up The Defenestration Of St Martin, a debut solo album of haunting, almost hymnal, offerings comprising just vocal and piano, drawing on the grade eight attained in his youth and only casually displayed in Gene.

The single from this album, Drop Anchor, is the lead-off track.

He says, “I want to be moved. I am more concerned with the melody and the words than anything. The performance is secondary.”

It was detailed and honest lyricism which earnt Gene a fanatical fanbase in the 1990s and it remains a feature of Rossiter’s work now.

He adds, “The standard of lyric writing in popular music [now] is, at best, dreadful.

“Most writers hide behind the greater mythology that you need to be special to understand their words, that only the true fan will have the ability to delve deep into them when the truth is they’re just writing s*** because they’re not very good.

“It would dent the carefully constructed artifice of magic that surrounds so many artists. To suggest they spent three months writing a song and had to learn skills to do so is the antithesis of the myth of pop music.

“Lyrics aren’t valued. Ask most self-proclaimed music fans – too many people say, ‘Oh, I don’t really listen to the words’, at which point their ears should be ripped off and ritually burnt.”

It’s not just the lyrics but the way they are sung nowadays that Rossiter takes issue with.

“I was listening to this commercialisation of Plan B, I can’t remember the artist’s name, but I wanted to rip his thorax out. There were vowel sounds being made which were not of this Earth – most strange, deeply affecting and disgusting.”

More than anything, he longs for people to sing in their own voice and tell their own story. Yet, for him, they don’t “because they’re scared”.

“Inevitably, when you’re young, you become a victim of your own influences. There has to be a period where you grow beyond that.”

He can't help himself

Rossiter focuses on similar themes to those he articulated in Gene: love, loss, being lost, isolation, sex – it’s a wonder he didn’t feel like a break from these things...

“What else is there?” he asks, before answering himself, “They make the best songs.”

“I want a voice coming out of the speakers that understands me, and I understand them.

“I want to write a Carole King song or a song from Oliver! They’re the heights I’m aiming at.”

With three children now – the youngest born three months ago – you would think he has softened somewhat, but not a bit of it.

“I don’t view this record through a Gene prism. I don’t write this record comparing it to what I’ve done in the past.

“I’m angrier and more determined now than I have ever been.”

The Defenestration Of St Martin is out now, including the single Drop Anchor. See the related event for details on Martin Rossiter's show on June 14, 2013.

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