Portishead’s Geoff Barrow has produced two of the most exciting records of the last couple of years: Portishead’s „Third“ and The Horrors’ ‘Primary Colours’. Now he is back with even more feedback noise, Motorik-beat and synths: His new musical lovechild Beak> has just released its self titled debut album on Barrow’s own label Invada Records. Christine Franz talks to Geoff Barrow, Billy Fuller and Matt Williams aka Beak>.

How did it all come together? How did the idea for Beak> come about?
Geoff Barrow: Both Matt and Billy play in Bands for Invada Records, which is a label that I have got with a guy called Fat Paul, based in Bristol. Matt records under the name of Team Brick and Billy records in a band called Fuzz Against Junk. Two years ago Invada Records had a Christmas Party and we all jammed together. So Matt was playing the clarinet, Billy was bass and I was playing drums with lots of people playing weird instruments and not so weird instruments. Initially I said to Billy: Let’s do this again. Matt played on the Portishead record. So we worked closely and got to know each other and then we decided to get into the studio just in the last January and recorded the album. So we basically set up the instruments, started playing and the first track that is on the album is the first time we played together. The album was written in 12 days with no overdubs. It’s very enjoyable. And now we gonna play it live and we are out here doing interviews.

So what was it like to actually sign yourself?
Geoff Barrow: I had some really really outrageous demands when I signed. Like naked Geisha Girls, trifle – it was a difficult deal to pull off really. It took me months to convince myself to sign (laughs). But no one else offered.

Did you get any offers or is it all part of the Beak> concept to release the album on your own label Invada Records?
Geoff Barrow: The idea of signing Beak> to anyone else, unless it was like a Million quid, seems a bit ridiculous. It just doesn’t seem right really when we’ve got our own set up.
Billy Fuller: And Beak> getting a Million quid wouldn’t seem right either. (laughs)

How is it different to work with these guys compared to Portishead and multimillion tours and record deals?
Geoff Barrow: Matt’s not Beth and Billy is not Adrian.

Matt Williams: Billy is Beth and I am Adrian.
Geoff Barrow: Well, yeah, that’s right. So it’s just different people. It’s our first record together, Portishead has got a long history. We’ve been very lucky with Portishead with the success we’ve had. So when we play ginormodromes, that’s one world and when we are carrying our synths on Easy Jet planes in Beak> that’s another. But I think even in Portishead there’s no kind of bullshit superstardom kind of stuff. And I am not saying: Yeah, we are just normal people. Cause I don’t clean toilets for a living. But people who love music generally don’t really care about anything other than the music. I actually find the more money gets involved the people you deal with care less about music. I am not saying the band or people we work with but you meet people along the way promoters, lawyers or whatever it is. So yeah this is really grass roots music.

So was there any strict recording policy for Beak>?
Billy Fuller: We started recording just live in the room. We go into the studio put the faders up and it just sounded like us in the room. And we were like: well this is everything that we need to do. We don’t need to be sweating over these songs for weeks and weeks and months and months. And we’d basically record and mix the track in the same day in most cases, wasn’t it?

So how was this recording process and the live set up different from recording “Third”?
Geoff Barrow: It’s in the same studio, on my same drum kit and it’s still part of my brain, I am one third of Beak> really, the same as I am one third of Portishead but the difference is that I produce Portishead where Beak> kind of produced itself a little bit. Stuart our engineer put the faders up so it wasn’t intensely produced, which was really refreshing. We had the facility with Beak> to finish a track within an hour. If it sounded alright that was kind of cool. It just doesn’t work that way with Portishead. So it’s a different process.

When I was listening to album for the first time, it really reminded me of Can, Neu! and all this Krautrock stuff. Was that your intention?
Billy Fuller: Not an intention, but yeah inspired. We all love those records, for me definitely and these guys. But I don’t think we intentionally went into the room going: We are going to do something that sounds like “Hallogallo” by Neu! or whatever. We just went into the room and started playing. I think just the fact that we are into that stuff, maybe it’s part of our playing and it was always there anyway. It was only the fact when the three of us came together some of that sound might become a bit more prevalent. It was January in England, it was raining. You know what it’s like in Berlin.
Geoff Barrow: It ain’t Barbados, is it? (laughs)
Can you tell us a bit about Invada Records?
Geoff Barrow: Myself and the historical figure in Bristol which is Fat Paul set up Invada in 2003 and just released music from Bristol bands and non-Bristol bands. We were more like a dog and cats home really, taking in strays and releasing them. We released music without particularly an awful lot of thought at the beginning. So we ran up a massive dept that we are still paying off. But now we’ve got a label manager called Reg who rides a bike and it started to actually work. So it’s been really positive and we are just releasing Thought Forms album, Matt’s record Fuzz Against Junk, Crippled Black Phoenix, Gonga, Rosie Red Rash and just more interesting stuff as it goes on. We are a tiny little label that can’t afford any advertising. But generally we’ve got a good policy of doing deals. We haven’t got lawyers, so if any band wants to walk away they can do. Which will more likely happen. We will find a band that will sell some records and then they’ll get snapped up. But that’s good for them really. We don’t stop anybody. Malakai is a good example. We did a deal with them and now they got signed to Domino. Now we are trying to work out, trying to balance up art an commerce. And struggling. (laughs)

So what’s it like for you as a musician to run a label, that must be a bit weird?
Geoff Barrow: No, it’s good fun. I have always liked it. I have always produced music, I have always helped bands, I have always liked A&R as a concept. Sometimes I actually like the business more than I like the music. But at the moment I don’t really like the business and I like the music. But it swaps over you know.

Christine Franz

Beak> play Capsules 10th Birthday along with  Einstellung & Thought Forms at Vivid, Birmingham Wednesday 16th December