Can’t stop the music

JIM Bob Morrison wonders if it was all a dream.

“We had a number-one album, a top-ten single and headlined Glastonbury,” says Morrison, quietly spoken frontman of 1990s alternative-rock band, Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine. “When I remind people of this, they’re astonished. The one that really stands out for me was Glastonbury. Nobody believes that happened. I must say, at the time it was an unpleasant experience. We had a row with the organiser because our set was cut short. We were pretty mad. But we did it all the same.”

This was 1992, the year their record The Love Album was number one and they had a massive radio single with ‘The Only Living Boy In New Cross’. That track summed up everything great about Carter: an impassioned cross between Pet Shop Boys and Billy Bragg, it was groovelicious but with heartfelt lyrics.

“Having all that success didn’t feel strange at the time,” says Morrison. “It had built quite quickly and this just seemed like the logical next step. When you’re in the middle of those things, it doesn’t strike you as odd. That only occurs later, as you look back. You tell someone, nowadays, that you achieved all of that stuff and they gawp at you like you’re mad.”

Enormously popular in the early ’90s, Carter USM’s ragged, confessional style fell out of favour in the middle of the decade. They were a victim of Britpop. In a music scene dominated by Oasis and Blur, Jim Bob and Fruitbat didn’t fit in.

“What was it Noel Gallagher said about us? ‘Because Oasis had come along, Carter were more pointless than ever’,” says Jim Bob. “With Britpop, we pretty much lost our audience. It was very different to what we were doing — just in terms of the lyrics and stuff. We were square pegs.”

The group had started as a duo, Jim Bob singing and playing guitar, long-time friend Les ‘Fruitbat’ Carter on synthesiser. With Britpop in the ascendence, they expanded to a six-piece to beef up their sound. The hope was that this would revitalise their fortunes. It didn’t.

“It’s funny — we’d always sworn that, when things started winding down, we’d call it quits,” says Jim Bob. “And, then, things did start winding down — and we stayed at it for another three years.”

As often happens with a group on the slide, in-fighting broke out. “Me and Fruitbat never fell out,” says Jim Bob. “What happened is that we started to not get on with the rest of the band. They were not very nice. If anything, that drew the two of us even closer together. It was a good thing we called it quits when we did — I think that saved our friendship. We are close to this day. Had we slogged on, it might not be the case.”

After Carter drifted apart in 1998, Jim Bob went solo. When that failed, his ambitions drifted beyond music. In 2003, he published a rock memoir, Goodnight Jim Bob — On the Road With Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine. The book was a success and he was encouraged to write another. In 2008, he rote the satirical novel Storage Stories, which posed the question: what happens to boy-bands after they fall out of fashion?

“I’ve stopped writing songs,” he says. “Since I started the books, I can’t seem to come up with any lyrics. They’ve all gone into the prose. Maybe if I stopped writing books, I’d have a greater desire to be a lyricist.”

Though they haven’t released new music since 1998, Carter USM aren’t for the annals yet. Several years ago, Jim Bob and Fruitbat reunited for a one-off gig. Ever since, they’ve come together intermittently, playing beloved smashes to a surprisingly large and loyal fanbase.

“We don’t want it to be a cabaret thing,” Jim Bob says. “Which is why we do it sporadically, every two or three years. That keeps it fresh, for us and for the audience, I think. Certainly, we have no plans to write or record together again. It’s nice that it is something we can dip in and out of. You wouldn’t want it to be your entire life.”

Jim Bob flies to Cork on Dec 29 for an anniversary concert with Frank and Walters, celebrating the 20th birthday of their debut album, Trains Boats and Planes. With ’90s indie band The Power of Dreams completing the bill, Jim Bob will be dipping into his repertoire of Carter smashes for what will, you suspect, be a night heady with nostalgia.

“I’ve been friends with the Franks since the ’90s,” he says. “In a way, I was jealous of them. Their songs were so uplifting and mine always seemed dark. I admire them tremendously as a band. But they’re also great guys and good friends.” He has mixed sentiments about his past incarnation as a pop star. Most of the time, he is happy those days are behind him. Every so often, however, he’ll experience a pang of regret it had to end when it did.

“There’s a lot of bad stuff about being on tour — I quite like having a bath at the end of the day and sleeping in my own bed. You don’t get that on the road a lot. Then, I’ll stumble upon a documentary about a band as I’m flicking channels and, yeah, I’ll feel a bit envious. It comes and goes.

“I’m glad I did it back then. I would not like to be starting out today. It’s so much tougher for young bands. It’s impossible to sell albums, so you have to do sponsorship deals and things like that. Whereas, we sold millions of records. Not tens of millions, but millions all the same. If a group were to do that in the current environment, it would be a really big deal. We sort of took it in our stride,” he says.

* Jim Bob plays Savoy Cork, Dec 29, as part of the Frank and Walters 20th anniversary celebrations