Success these days means having more than just songs. Scots soulsters Hipsway preach the packaging of perfect pop

If you can't come from Chicago, come from Scotland. With a history stretching from The Sensational Alex Harvey Band to Orange Juice, to Lloyd Cole and The Commotions, this most northern of Northern Soul scenes has a lot to boast about.

The latest blue-eyed boys to break through are Hipsway, a four-piece outfit founded by Glaswegian singer Grahame 'Skin' Skinner and drummer Harry Travers in December '83. Ex-Altered Images bass player John McElhone and (later) guitarist Pim Jones completed the line-up, as the band single-mindedly set about making it. And make it they did. Signed to Phonogram on the strength of demos and one gig, Hipsway released two singles last year, finally cracking the charts this year with The Honeythief. It's happening for Hipsway...

The day I went to speak to Johnny and Pim at Phonogram London, blue-eyed soul was looking decidedly black, on account of a cup-final crazed Liverpool supporter who'd head-butted the astonished Pim outside his hotel.

"He probably thought I was a Londoner," he muttered from behind Raybans, for once worn for more than pose value.

No surprise, then, that neither he nor Johnny have any desire to move to London permanently. Nor, as their spectacularly swift rise to success has shown, do they hold with the theory that says you have to come to London to make it:

"If you play your important gigs in your home town, you can count on your local fans turning out for you." explains Johnny.

"It makes more sense than coming to London where you're unknown. We played our first gig at Strathclyde in front of 900 people: it made a big impression on the A&R men."

Was it hard persuading the record companies to come up?

"No. Most record companies have talent scouts going round the country, and if they hear that you're good, the A&R people'll come...

But how do you get word to the scouts in the first place? Johnny smiles:

"Ah well, it helps to have a good manager..."

So is the old route of slogging it out on the road finished now. Pim?

"It's still important to play live — but it helps if the companies know that you're out there in the first place."

"We also made sure that our demos were very strong," adds Johnny.

"...we've got a good relationship with our demo studio (Park Lane in Glasgow.) There's rehearsal rooms there, and a 24-track Soundcraft studio. We can go straight from one to the other, and get good results — we still use it for recording B-sides."

In fact, as Johnny and Pim freely admit, Hipsway are emblematic of a new attitude of bands to the record business. The smart money these days takes on board the positive elements of the indie revolution of a few years ago, and in a classic compromise between Art and Commerce, presents the record companies with complete packages of band, management, and direction, done the way the band wants. All the A&R people have to do then is decide which package to bankroll, promote it using their considerable resources — and wait for the return on their investment. So it was with Hipsway:

"We made it clear to the record company that we wanted to take the long view. We're not interested in just releasing a handful of singles and then disappearing," explains Johnny.

"We signed, went away, and started recording in the studios we wanted, on their money. It was 10 months before we even had our first photo session!

...You see, we don't want to sell just in Britain. It's only a tiny percentage of the world market. If you want to go beyond Britain, you need someone pushing you — and that means a major. An independent couldn't give us that kind of support."

"We don't want to sell just in Britain. It's only a tiny percentage of the world market"

As the demos promised, the band had a clear idea of the sound they wanted — and how to get it. Johnny again:

"A very clean, sparse feel... There's a lot going on in our songs, so it's important that everything has room... My bass for instance. I like a lot of bottom end, almost-Reggae feel, but with enough top end punch so that you hear every note. Back with Altered Images I found that analogue recording can become quite messy at times, so we decided to go digital — Mitsubishi 32-track, first at Jacob studios, and then at Sarm West. It really cuts through."

This concern for clarity also prompted the choice of Art Of Noise member Gary Langan as producer on the first three singles:

"He's really great with reverb."

But the liaison was not a happy one. Some of Gary's AON motifs stand out strangely against the classic Soul sound Hipsway were working towards, and differences over production credits led to them casting around for another partner. A young engineer called Paul O'Duffy had come to the band's attention through his work with some friends of theirs, a meeting was arranged, and everything clicked:

"It's great working with someone the same age as us, we've got a lot of rapport," enthuses Johnny.

Paul subsequently co-produced the remaining seven tracks on the album, as well as overseeing re-recording and remixing the first three. The whole process took about five months to complete, with the band taking breaks to work on the material at Park Lane.

Although Johnny and Pim obviously take a lot of responsibility for the writing, they insist it's a democratic process, as Pim explains:

"Everyone contributes ideas, we play them through, swap them around... Arrangement is an important part of the writing, so we try to develop it early on — the clearer your ideas of how you want it to be at the end, the better it'll be when you actually go into record."

To preserve that all-important live feel, Skin opted for singing through a highly directional snare mike, actually in the control room, so he could hear the band behind him on the monitors, a much more natural approach than the usual clinical feel of vocal booth and cans. Yamaha REV7 is the preferred vocal reverb for the 'hard edge' it gives to the sound. Drums on the album were recorded in Air Studio's famous live room, again with clarity in mind. In keeping with this general drive to clarity, Johnny resorts to the barest minimum of effects, both live and in the studio:

"I've got an active stereo Musicman Stingray bass, so I can plug straight into the desk. The only effect I use is a chorus, to broaden the sound. Live, I use a 300 watt, 1x15" Dynacord combo, which has got to be the most compact and lightweight combo I've seen that packs any punch. It's got a great graphic on it too, so I use that to boost the bottom and top end, and to cut out the middle. You can get a really warm sound with that. I also use this custom Fender Jazz live, made by a guy called Jim Moon, who's just about the best luthier in Scotland. The neck plays like a guitar."

Speaking of which, Pim is still using his battered Tokai Strat copy for both live and studio use, though he'll soon be taking delivery of a Moon Strat which duplicates the customising he's already had done to the Tokai:

"About the only thing that's original on it is the wood — it's got a Kahler Trem, and EMG and Seymour Duncan Pickups. I'll still use it for bottleneck because it's got such a good action — that is, if the neck doesn't snap off! It's really not a guitar designed for the rigours of the road."

Complementing the guitar is an equally aged Marshall 100 watt combo, though for this album it was replaced with a stereo-linked Fender Twin reverb and a Fender Dynasonics:

"Close-miked, with another ambient room mike — always have a room mike! It really makes a difference."

His small assortment of effects: "All pedals — I can't afford anything else yet," include an Ibanez Tube Screamer and Stereo Chorus, and Boss compressor and DDL: "Subtle stuff, nothing too obvious."

The same might be said of the album Hipsway have produced. Along with acts like Fine Young Cannibals and It's Immaterial, Hipsway strive for a timeless, stateless (and hence worldwide saleable) Pop classicism. And come close to achieving it.

Should we feel inspired by their example? Or cheated because it is all so calculated? Ultimately, such questions are irrelevant. At the end of their short British tour, Hipsway are off to the continent and it's pan-national satellite Pop TV shows. As I take my leave, Johnny and Pim speculate eagerly on the potential offered by Richard Branson's rumoured MTV-style plans. Whether we like it or not. The Global Village has becomes Global Supermarket, and Scottish-born Soul is on special offer this month.