The Press Article
Interview with Mick Quinn
At the City Life Hotel, Auckland, New Zealand


Q: Where did the name Supergrass come from?
A: We spent about a year before we had the name Supergrass. We did a gig as Theadore Supergrass and realised it wasn’t that good but had a really good review from it. We thought we’d better keep the name so people would come back. So we just trimmed it down to Supergrass.

Q: What did Supergrass do for the millennium?
A: Not a lot. Danny went to Caribbean and swanned it about. I went to Gaz’s house and we got really drunk on the beach and I went to bed about 12:30am!

Q: On this tour, are you going to play mainly the new album with a couple of classics thrown in?
A: No it tends to be a mixture of all three (albums) really. It’s just essentially the ones that we can play well really. At the moment our set list is incredibly strong and it tends to be a bit of the greatest hits.

Q: What sort of relationship do Supergrass have on tour?
A: We’re fairly close to the crew. It’s just twelve people out abroad basically, having a good time. There are a few squabbles where people get pi**ed off or whatever and don’t talk but we all get on. It’s not a problem.

Q: What music do you listen to?
A: (Mick produces a bag of CDs). This is no representation of my own style of music listening. I have David Gilmore’s Solo Album from 1971, Hosé Callisiano and ‘Family’.

Q: Did you expect the reaction you got to the ‘Mary’ video?
A: To an extent. I didn’t expect them to go completely overboard. Obviously we were aware that it wasn’t going to appear on kid’s TV but we thought after the 9pm watershed it would be fair enough to watch it. We didn’t make that video to be banned but it was supposed to have some shock value to it.

Q: You’ve played very large gigs in Europe. Is it nice to come to countries like New Zealand and play to smaller crowds?
A: Yeah. It’s a lot easier. Obviously, we’ve played a lot more smaller gigs than we have big gigs. It’s nice to play to 400 people. I wouldn’t do it in my sleep because I’d enjoy it too much. That is so much fun because you can look in to everybody’s eyes.
It took us a long time to learn how you play to more than 1000 people.

Q: What’s next for Supergrass after the World Tour?
A: I’ve got to paint the bathroom. Just take it easy. Reacquaint myself with my children. There’s never any hard fast rules about when we come back with a new record. It takes as long as it takes. As long as the cash doesn’t run out and I can still pay the rent.

Q: Are your children used to their dad going away for periods of time?
A: Well, as much as someone who worked on an oil rig would be. It’s not the most pleasant thing but I do ring them up a lot when I’m away. They don’t take what I do very seriously, which is good. They just take the pi** a lot. They’re more interested in listening to Robbie Williams than Supergrass and good luck to them!

Alan Travers, - 03 March 2000