Follow that cab: an interview with Michael Roberts of The Bridewell Taxis, Louder Than War, 2024

 

For Michael Roberts, the one-time frontman of Leeds indie scallywags The Bridewell Taxis, songwriting is in his DNA. Here he looks back at his strike for the big-time in the early ’90s and tells us why he’s not finished with the music business yet

Louder Than War

Interview: Lee Gale

“You know he’s deaf as a post, don’t you?” says Andy McVeigh, aka Burley Banksy – a Leeds-based artist in his fifties who’s built a reputation round these parts for decorating green electricity boxes in the colours and motifs of Elland Road’s finest. McVeigh, in paint-splattered Nike hoodie and trackie bottoms, is eating a lunchtime wrap in his pop-up shop in Leeds’ Merrion Centre. A drummer, he’s on nodding terms with Mick Roberts – Michael these days – the former frontman of The Bridewell Taxis, who, it would seem, has developed hearing problems.

The Bridewell Taxis were a big deal on the indie scene in the late 1980s/early ’90s, even appearing on TV music programmes including Saturday-morning staple The Chart Show. At this time Leeds was at the centre of a fantastically robust Yorkshire music scene. You had The Wedding Present, Cud and Pale Saints on the alternative rock circuit, while on the dance side were ribcage-rattling bass merchants LFO and their funky Warp Records stablemates Nightmares On Wax.

But The Bridewell Taxis stood apart, a White Rose response to the Madchester acts with – and this is important – a brass section. ‘Spirit’, ‘Honesty’ and ‘Rachel’ have that anthemic quality about them that made sense to Northern teens who were slipping into a Chevignon T-shirt and baggy jeans for a night round town. The Taxis should have had the arena-sized success of the Happy Mondays, ought to have had the longevity of Inspiral Carpets and possibly, just possibly, might have challenged Oasis to the crown of British lad-rock gods. So what went wrong?

Michael Roberts arrives at the Roundhay Fox gastro pub, on the outskirts of Roundhay Park, in an unzipped hoodie, blue T-shirt with abstract pattern, jeans and a wide smile. He’s bald now but the face is as recognisable as when he was on stage at the Leadmill, Haçienda and nearby Town Hall back in t’day. He orders chicken, bacon and avocado salad with Rekorderlig mango and raspberry cider. And yes, it is instantly apparent that Michael has hearing difficulties.

[Said loudly] What bands were you into pre The Bridewell Taxis?
I’ve always liked The Icicle Works. Liverpool and Scottish bands. Don’t really like Manchester bands that much. I was a big, massive Smiths fan and I liked Joy Division and New Order. But as far as The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays go, all them bands, not really. We used to play International; Haçienda a few times.

What was it like to play at the Haçienda?
A bit chaotic. Nobody really knew what was going on. They used to spike my drinks. It was a bit sad. John Keenan, who used to run The Duchess of York [in Leeds] and other venues, my sister, who is five years older than me, used to work at these places. Queens Hall in town too. That’s how I saw Black Sabbath live and AC/DC. I like everything. All types of music. So when I were younger, I used to go from being a mod to a rocker from one week to another, but it was always about music for me. I’ve always been interested in music from being a young kid.

Is that because of your parents?
Sort of, sort of. When I were a kid we didn’t have the TV on. I grew up with my dad blasting out music all the time. He liked Beatles and Stones, Moody Blues. All sorts of bands like that.

Did you buy records?
I started when I was nine – 7”s, albums. The Pretenders. I loved Talk Talk. Massive fan of Talk Talk. The The. We had a good record shop near us in Cross Gates and there was Gerol’s in the Merrion Centre. The crowd I started going around with, a lot of them were musicians. We liked similar stuff – art, films, music. Not so much sport, although I was into gymnastics as a kid and running and swimming. Not football or rugby – I was crap at them. When you’re young, if you’re not good at something straight away, you’re pushed to one side. Kids who were playing out in the street, kicking a ball about, I’d be inside. A bit strange, really.

There was a singer before you in The Bridewell Taxis, wasn’t there?
Carl Murphy, yeah.

And the group was called Morality Play.
That’s it, yeah. There were some problems within the band. Simon [Scott], the bass player, I’ve known him for a long time. In Cross Gates there was this lad, Croft, who was absolutely brilliant on guitar. I got in with him because I could ad-lib to music.

Ad-lib – like a rapper would do?
A little bit, yeah. So I started to do that. He played all these songs and I’d ad-lib. He’s like, “How can you do that?” That’s when I started thinking about being a singer. Simon had heard about me. So he had this band, but they were having problems with the singer cos he was letting them down all the time. So I come along. Remember Fforde Grene, the pub? I had to audition there. “We’re going to change the name of the band,” they said. We were little scallywags as kids, having trouble with police, so we became The Bridewell Taxis. Bridewell was the name of the lock-up in town.

And the ‘taxis’ were the police vans.
That’s right. We’d all been in trouble with the police for drunk and disorderly, stupid things like that. Leeds in the Eighties, police used to make up their numbers. If you were around at a certain time you’d be in the back of the van. I got nicked about 40 times but I was only drunk twice. We had a big problem with police and bouncers. We were going round with some bad lads. I got myself away from that by getting into music – I left all that behind. I were a little bit different to the rest. I was involved in shoplifting but every kid gets involved with shoplifting. But we got involved in shoplifting in a big way. We did. We did. We just did.

What do you mean “in a big way”?
Well, just take everything you want. And we could get it, you know. Crowd I was going around with, it was like Fagin and Oliver Twist. We stole things to make money. But everybody did same thing. First idea that came to mind when we’re coming up with a band name was The Bridewell Taxis. But we didn’t realise how serious the band was going to get. We thought, “We’ll play a few contests and have a bit of a laugh.”

So you were no stranger to a Bridewell taxi…
Well, if we’re going back to my mis-spent youth… I was at a place called Gringley-on-the-Hill, a young offender’s unit, for theft. Margaret Thatcher’s short, sharp shock treatment. I was 17. I did three months. Where I learnt to sing properly was in the prison choir – ha-ha! Everything was catching up with me. I thought I was going to be in an out of prison for the rest of my life. So I came up with a plan: “I’ll change.” It was Christmas and they were doing carols. I knew I could sing a little bit. A woman who worked there said, “Do you know what, your voice is OK – you can hold a note.” When I come out of this place, instead of going back to all that rubbish, I changed.

The impression in the late Eighties and early Nineties was that The Bridewell Taxis were a musical wing of Leeds United supporters.
The rest of the band liked football. I never did. Well, I did but only for a while. It all changed by the time I were 17.

Do you look out for Leeds’ results?
No. I wouldn’t know one Leeds United player.

People thought you were hooligans.
Ha-ha-ha – yeah! It’s quite funny. I know plenty of them. I’m not that myself. Violence and stuff like that. We were supporting a band called Avarice, who did Queen covers, at Astoria [in Leeds] and 500 turned up. Five hundred Leeds lads. That’s how it all started. But we didn’t want that. I didn’t want that. But I wasn’t gonna moan because they were buying tickets. What happened was, it stayed with us. It stayed with us for too long and it got us into trouble. Police started turning up to our concerts but only because the kids who was coming to these gigs. You could have said same thing about Happy Mondays or Stone Roses.

Leeds is a big music city. Did you ever mix with other local bands?
I liked a few Leeds bands. I liked Cud. Cud were an excellent band. I’m still friends with Carl [Puttnam] now. And Pale Saints. Excellent band. I’ve always liked Leeds bands going back to The Three Johns and Dorian Gray. We used to go to a place called Phono [Le Phonographique] and the Duck & Drake and watch bands there. Wedding Present for some reason just didn’t like us. We never really got on with them. At the time it was all Manchester, Manchester, Manchester. It caused us a few problems.

There were The Bridewell Taxis, Blur and Flowered Up who were respected non-Manchester bands on the baggy scene.
I loved Flowered Up. Them brothers [Liam and Joe Maher], they used to come over and we’d take them out. We were always friends with them. Same with Shed Seven. But with Manchester bands there was always animosity. Strange, strange, very strange. They’d give us a hard time. It’s the same as Kaisers. Kaisers can’t stand us. What people don’t remember is that The Stone Roses had six or seven years to perfect their act. We had six or seven months. But because we didn’t have a record label it was quite hard for us.

Why were you not picked up by a label?
Back then, in ’91, ’92, we was waiting to get the biggest amount of publishing we could get, which was £350,000. It would have sorted us out. What happened was, we had a concert at Camden Palace in London. It was a disaster. All these men came in and started sieg-heiling us on stage. We had seven or eight record companies there and we were waiting for the biggest offer. Then one of my friends, who isn’t with us no more, started fighting and the A&R men saw that too. We lost a deal that night.

LFO remixed The Bridewell Taxis’ “Spirit” in 1990 – a crazy but brilliant collaboration.
I knew Gez [Varley]. He was from Harehills – not far from Cross Gates. Gez went round in the same circles as what I did. We liked dance. We liked raving. I loved garage. Steve Williams did our first remix – “Whole Dance Nation”. Steve Williams was a great DJ – and he was a trained chemist. Gez did the second one, “Spirit”. Gez has got back into it again now. He’s living in Filey in his mother’s old house. Nightmares On Wax – George Evelyn, I’ve known him since I was a kid. He used to be in a body-popping band. He’s based in Ireland now.

Have you kept in contact with the other members of the group?
I still speak to Simon. When The Bridewell Taxis finished, they wanted me to finish as well, which was never gonna happen. I started working with the manager again, Alaric Neville, to create the Cage album [1992]. But they got jealous about me doing that. They didn’t want me to do it.

Were you working in day jobs when The Bridewell Taxis were on the up?
I was working as a forklift-truck driver at the time. I had a pretty good job. What was decided was that we’d have a sabbatical from our jobs and we’d do a year out to see how it went. We hired a house in Chapeltown, which was funny in itself. Kids living in the area, they’d be coming round every night to try and mug us.

Why did you cover “Don’t Fear The Reaper”?
That was from watching Halloween as a kid. I like horror films. I’m a massive film fan. “Don’t Fear The Reaper” actually killed us. We put something like £18,000 into it. That was us last bit of money.

Did it get into the charts?
No. It didn’t do nothing apart from take every last penny we had. It didn’t do nowt.

What happened to your hearing?
It was a virus in 1992, which I think was a result of me getting glassed in Leeds one night. The fight didn’t involve me – I was trying to calm people down because it was getting out of hand, and I got glassed. I lost a lot of blood. Lucky to be alive. With the virus, with some people, it blinds them; some, it makes them go deaf. I was in the studio doing Cage. I put these headphones on and I was, “Your headphones aren’t working.” And that’s when I could tell. But Cage, it’s one of my best performances. My hearing hasn’t got any worse, it hasn’t got any better. They said at the time, “Within six months, you’re going to totally lose all your hearing and you’ll need an implant.” I’m lucky, really.

Phil Manzanera from Roxy Music was a fan of yours. He was executive producer of Cage.
He was trying to sign me, on my own, to his label. I’d reached the point where I was writing above my age. They were telling me I’m going to be the next Peter Gabriel. Manzanera said, “Right, you come with me and get rid of that lot [the band]. I’ll sign you alone.” But I was with the band; that’s what I got offered. He was a lovely bloke, was Manzanera, but I couldn’t do it.

What happened after The Bridewells?
Art college, Leeds Metropolitan. They’d go away on these trips to New York galleries. What happened was, I bumped into some friends in New York. One was from Scarborough, the other from Whitby. When I should have gone back to Leeds, I stayed on – for 17 months, like you do. I had a good time. You could buy Basquiat then for ten grand. I liked him. I love all stuff like that anyway – Jasper Johns and Lichtenstein.

Is there going to be a Bridewell Taxis comeback?
In 2005 we did something with the band. I went back in the studio two years ago with a producer, Chris Dale, but to record with someone like me, you need a lot of patience. It didn’t work out but we’re trying to get together for a second time in the next few months. I’ve never stopped writing full songs. I’d like to do something now because I’m a better songwriter than I was in my 20s. We’re talking about doing the music that I’ve wanted to make for a long time but it’s totally different to what I’d done back then.

But there are no plans to get the band back together?
No, I’ve tried that. Simon Scott hasn’t played for a while and wouldn’t know what to do. He’s packed in. He hasn’t picked up a bass in years. He’s a DJ now. It’s never going to happen again. Guitarist Sean McElhone, Chris [Walton], I don’t see them. Carl [A Finlow] has a bad chest from sucking up all that dry ice at gigs. Scully [drummer Glenn Scullion] is just massively to do with Leeds United, which is not something I’m interested in.

When you started what was your dream?
To be known as a songwriter. It wasn’t for the money.

Have you thought about writing an autobiography?
Thought about it, yes. If I wrote it, it would turn the music industry on its head. It was all fake bastards – money grabbers. If you had coin you were laughing. If skint like we was, it was very tough.

Do you still make money from The Bridewell Taxis?
A little bit, yes. We get royalties but there’s been some dispute about that. We still get our music played.

Why aren’t The Bridewell Taxis as big as U2?
Well, we are. We’ve become a cult band. I actually like where we’re at. I’d rather be in a cult band than a popular band. You’ll go to a charity shop and find an Oasis album for £2 but you can’t buy a Bridewell Taxis album for £2, can you?

Bridewell Revisited by The Bridewell Taxis (Stolen Sound People Records, 2013) is available now, £50. Enquirie to michaeldarrenroberts@gmail.com