Cousteau are : Liam McKahey - vocals Davey Ray Moor - vocals/piano/acoustic guitar/horn Robin Brown - electric guitars/vocals Joe Peet - bass/violin/vocals Craig Vear - drums/ percussion
On rainy afternoons in a fading century, on no budget, Cousteau made a first album which was "more guerilla campaign than recording session. It was a patchwork of blind faith, against all good advice, hand-turned in dodgy bedrooms and bedsits too sordid to detail, in East London and Somerset".. When it was finished, they said, "Send lawyers, guns and money - this thing might fly."
Whether anybody instantly elected to comply with those demands will remain a mystery, but this thing flew like a souped-up songbird. The eponymous Cousteau debut, jump-started as an indie, then re-released in late 2000, sounded like a million dollars. Songs such as "Your Day Will Come", "Jump In The River" and "One Good Reason" drew purple, impassioned acclaim from strangely diverse quarters: underground, overground. A single, "The Last Good Day Of The Year", found itself championed by both indie kids and Dad-radio.
Everyone except (inexplicably) Terry Wogan seemed to love it. All kinds of human beings were moved to give the album a listen. And were moved. And gave it another listen. And another one. Critics couldn't help but use the words "deep" and "treasure" as the music's silvery charms oozed, bruised, seduced....
THERE was/is something heroic, something noble, about this record, which saw Cousteau catapulted into everybody's "Top Tips for the 21st Century" lists.
Its strain of romantic, epic ballads is increasingly hard to come by in a pop world of boy hoofers and Ibiza pizza. Sure, some said it reminded them of Tindersticks or Nick Cave, but were compelled to add "if those acts had more than one trick". Others compared them to "the Bee Gees' finest moments if they'd had sinister twins locked in the attic for decades". The most frequent comparisons of all were Scott Walker, for the singing, and Burt Bacharach, for the tunes. These are high accolades. They were justified.
That must tell you something.
DAVEY Ray Moor, songwriter, was born in Beirut. He grew up in Canberra and Sydney, before moving to London. Here he wrote soundtrack music with Robin Brown, the guitarist, and got a band together, in which he sang his own songs. The band were to be called Cousteau. No other name would do. It " was aromatic with intrepid romance ", to do, clearly, or perhaps foggily, with remembered films of the great Jacques' underwater world.
"I was doing these laid-back jazzy things to please myself", Davey says. "Liam originally joined as a harmony singer ( Art Garfunkel style ) if you can believe that! We had quite a "buzz" about us and word got around that the new David Bowie was in town. Then all the A+R bozos turned up expecting some Insect-Hero from Outer Space. When they found some maudlin Australian at the piano, they stampeded for the door. And there's nothing worse than an ex-"buzz".
Then we had the brainwave: to call it Cousteau and shift the focus onto Liam's deeply idiosyncratic and wonderful voice. I'm now quite happy to sit in the passenger seat and help drive. I spent an appaling period of my early life playing piano bars and restaurants, which, thankfully, led to an understanding of why certain songs - Jimmy Webb, Burt Bacharach - are so damn special. I kept on with this inkling while all my mates were into beats and gadgetry."
LIAM McKahey, from Cork, Ireland, originally wanted to be a comic illustrator. His hero was Jack Kirby, the man who drew the darkest legends .
Liam reckons he spent his own teenage years singing for "every kind of band, from lowdown psychobilly ones to big shouty ones with crap musicians." Then he met Cousteau. He knew "this was the one. It'd always been my ambition and dream to be a crooner, but I'd never been allowed to be what I'm meant to be. Now I am. You don't necessarily need an orchestra and tuxedos."
Nevertheless, the intensely tattooed Liam, like the rest of the band, wears a suit well. As The Independent On Sunday put it, "if you're going to wear a suit, it helps to look as if you're capable of administering some serious damage in a back alley brawl should the need arise...the band make up a chiselled young Rat Pack, exuding nonchalant charisma."
"The music business has aways found it difficult to imagine where we might fit in. There's a misconception that follows the presence of a piano- it kind of implied that we were loaded, twee, and slightly middle class. This put us out of step with a music industry desperately seeking the next revolution! "
"But now we all kinda realise that there are people who just really want to hear an emotionally resonant sound. They don't necessarily want a fashion item. It's more like getting into a good book, and getting a deeper level out of music", he continues. " The groovy thing is that we can do this till we look like Muddy Waters - a dignified way to mature!... What you hear is music made by music fans for music fans, not a reworking, or a homage...when a relationship breaks up, or something poweful happens in your life, you're dying for that song that'll say it to you. I wanted to write the songs that I've been wanting to hear."
Citing E.E. Cummings, Milan Kundera and Tim Winton as recommended reading, Davey adds that he and Liam figured they could alchemise the polar influences of their record collections. "Maybe there'd be a slinky groove, but the lyrics weren't very engaging or tactile. You either get Leonard Cohen, whose lyrics are fantastic, but doesn't really get funky, or Sly And The Family Stone, who are the other extreme.
In the end I think we gathered up all our limitations and called it a "style"...
"I've got a notebook, and I do my best writing on trains or buses. I seem to have this muzak pumped into my head, and it just goes round and round and round getting better...now, with this band, there's the machinery to start rolling the songs off. I find our songs optimistic and uplifting. Far from miserable. Harmonically and lyrically, I think we're very hopeful."
It is easy, within all this, to overlook the deft and tender touches of the other musicians, Messers Peet, Brown and Vear. It is the generous sensuality of their playing that allows the songs their focus- after a while you realise that the singer glides upon a slinky feel that never declares itself too loudly. These guys were mates for years before all this started- it's a London thing, and it's obvious that this is a tight gang.
"AS far as those Scott Walker comparisons go", says Liam modestly, "I'd be delighted if I had a smidgeon of what that guy has. Then again, our first album was done very, very fast, which I think says something about the type of musicians we are. When Davey gives me a song, it's just pure luck that I seem to be able to crawl inside them. It's just like his songs were made for me, and vice versa..."
Most people hearing these songs, if they have any kind of interior emotional life, will feel they were made for them. Songs that possess, but can't contain the yearning. That must communicate, with great tides of romance, both heartbreakingly thwarted and joyously fulfilled.
Songs that must tell you something.
