THE PERFORMANCE ENHANCER - 90S EDITION
ALBUM REVIEW :
THE PRODIGY - THE DAY IS THE EMENY
INTERVIEW :
MACKENZIE GORDON-SMITH - THE NOVATONES
WORDS BY: COREY-LEIGH JOHN
" THE MOST INFLUENTIAL PERSON OF THE 90S FOR ME, WOULD HAVE TO BE PETE DOHERTY BECAUSE HE EPITOMIZES EVERYTHING I LOVE. HE ALWAYS MANAGES TO FIND THE BEAUTY OUT OF A SHIT SITUATION "
"IN THE 90S YOU HAD LIAM GALLAGHER, YOU HAD EVERYONE FROM BLUR & JARVIS COCKER FROM PULP WHO JUST SAID 'FUCK YOU' TO THE SYSTEM"
He says in a very patriotic and proud way, it almost felt like there should be a British flag waving in the background while a choir of people sing the national anthem. “Walking past all the people who are fresh as daisy’s on a Sunday afternoon and I just think that’s not the life for me. If I’m going to live my life on a Sunday morning when I’m not working then I’m going to still be hanging from the night”.
A lot has changed over the decades and there is a big difference between then and now, and there’s one part which Smith expressed the most about, “ The thing that was better in the 90’s than now is the whole fuck off attitude, now we have the whole arse licking, if it gets me somewhere I’ll do it, attitude”.
He overpoweringly talks down on the subject of the use of auto tune, that was used by most pop groups in the late 90’s ‘“It’s insulting to me because there are musicians who work their asses off and learn their trade by heart, they learn to sing and play guitar but it doesn’t get them anywhere. Then there’s people who cant play anything, cant sing and don’t have any talent but if they have a pretty face they can be famous and I think the late 90’s spurred that generation into our own generation”.
He constructively compares, “Where as in the 90’s you had Liam Gallagher, you had everyone from Blur and Jarvis Cocker from Pulp who just said ‘fuck you’ to the system and just say we’re going to do what we’re going to do and this is what’s going to be big and it helped them so much”.
It’s safe to say that Smith definitely is a fan of the more original artists over the decades and strongly disagrees with today’s pretty faces and auto-tuned songs that were started in the 90’s. Looks like we wont be seeing The Novatones in any ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ competitions any time soon.
Paul Weller hair cut. Check. Green parker coat accompanied by tight jeans, top buttoned shirt and a pair swanky leather shoes. Check. McKenzie Gordon-Smith, guitarist of Southampton’s very own ‘The Novatones’, reeked of the 90’s style and looked like he had stepped straight out of an Oasis album cover.
Founded in 2012, his band The Novatones are successfully up and coming and have done extremely well within the last year. They have played such festivals as Isle of White, opened for indie pop band The Ordinary Boy’s and even recently they’ve announced that they are on the bill to play Rob Da Bank’s Common People Festival. They’ve been described as ‘Hard grafting, hard hitting well dressed punk with a sound that smacks you in the face and leaves you thirsting for more’, what more could you possibly want from a band.
Sitting in the famously known pub The Hobbit, in the heart of Southampton I wanted to know more about the music inspirations in Mackenzie’s life. We got to talk about the good, the bad and the ugly of the 90’s decade.
Within two-minutes of talking he passionately speaks about his main musical inspiration, “ The most influential person of the 90’s, for me, would have to be Pete Doherty because he epitomizes everything I love. He always manages to find the beauty out of a shit situation and I absolutely love how he romanticizes the working class”. With this, he gently lifts up the sleeve of his shirt and reveals a set of lyrics tattooed on his arm read ‘If you’ve lost your faith in love of music, the end won’t be long’ from The Libertines song ‘The Good Old Days’.
With Doherty inspiration in mind, the working class is a subject that the band thrives upon in their music. Speaking on The Novatones newest single ‘Sunday Romance’ he expresses, “it is all about the romanticism of waking up on a Sunday morning and being absolutely fucked from the night before”.
THE NOVATONES
LIVE @ ISLE OF WIGHT, 2014
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