Young Marble Giants…. The legendary post-punk band from Cardiff, Wales. Inspiring many artists including Kurt Cobain, Galaxie 500, Belle & Sebastian, Lush and Hole, the band’s music is constructed around the unique and minimal instrumentation of brothers Philip and Stuart Moxham along with the naive vocals of Alison Statton. Thirty-three years after its release, Young Marble Giants’ cult album ‘Colossal Youth’ remains a landmark in post-punk music.

Stuart Moxham wrote the majority of the band’s songs, and his writing was often deceptively simple-seeming, giving YMG’s classic work a uniquely fragile yet powerful quality. They split in 1980. Reunited in 2007, the band has been since playing some rare shows around Europe, including All Tomorrow’s Parties, Primavera Sound, Villette Sonique among others.

Last month I had the chance to interview Stuart Moxham…. Here is the great interview :

First, thank you so much once again for accepting this interview. Riding The Bang/Horizon is released in January 2013 following the releases of 'Alright' by Tree and 'Retread Your Head' by The G!st late last year. Young Marble Giants is busy with shows in Dingwalls, London 10th Feb 2013 and Festival A Vaulx Jazz in Vaulx-en-Velin outside Lyon, France on March 16 2013. How are you and how has 2013 started for you?

Thank you. Well I'm busier with music than I have ever been. I have expanded my activities by releasing the never - dreamt of second album by The G!st; I have been doing solo gigs and lots of studio work, sometimes with guest musicians and singers; I have collaborated on writing songs with my friend Ken Brake (the first one released is " East" on "Six Winter Mornings") and also began to work with my daughter, Melody, both live and recording; (our first release is "Alright") and I am also in a new songwriting duo, Moxham & Halliday, with my friend Derek Halliday. We have several gigs lined up, including two in London and are recording at the moment - our first release is "Other Birds" on Bandcamp.

Everybody knows you with your solo work and as the songwriter of Young Marble Giants but let's start with the early days. After your return to Cardiff from Germany, you and your brother Phil spent time in cover bands and then formed your first band called True Wheel. Can you give some information on the music of True Wheel and how long was it active?

Actually my plan to live in Berlin never happened, because YMG began working with Rough Trade, but the project before that, True Wheel, was a successful Cardiff covers band for a time - a year perhaps? It was formed by our friend Matthew Davis and he chose the repetoire; things like Stevie Wonder, Black Sabbath, the Doors, the Stones, The Velvet Underground.

You learned guitar at a young age and convinced your younger brother Phil to do the same. What type of music were your family members listening to when you were a kid? Which bands were your favourites back then? And in means of influence how much of those showed their reflections into your music?

Actually I only started to play the guitar at the age of twenty. Growing up we heard church music; hymns, carols, etc. Also classical and light operatic because our father is a singer and then everything in the British pop charts from the 60's onwards. I loved The Beatles, KInks, Stones, and later on Progressive rock like Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin. Hendrix, Eno, Neil Young, Cat Stevens, Joni Mitchell, The Beach Boys, Motown, Lou Reed, The Velvet Underground, early Roxy Music, early Ultravox - the usual endless list.

I think everything influences us - perhaps it was songwriting and studio production which caught my ear most - Abbey Road, Good Vibrations.

Young Marble Giants formed in 1979, got the name from a book on Greek architecture. The description of the Kouros statue (a ''colossal statue of a youth'') read : ''...Young marble giants greeted the sailor as he entered the home stretch to Athens. Two basic intuitions of Greek art -- tensed vitality and geometric structuring -- are as yet disunited; the sculptor partly carves, partly maps an abstract concept of human form onto the rectangular block." Were there any other alternative names thought on naming the band?

Actually we formed in late '78; I remember The Clones was a possibility and we used to laugh at The Lumps!

Young Marble Giants existed for about two years and released two singles, "Final Day" (four songs) plus the Testcard EP and of course the legendary album, Colossal Youth. After 30 years the album still stays very influential and original. What was the main inspiration behind the YMG music and are there any Young Marble Giants songs from those days that hasn't seen the light of the day yet? If so, are there any plans to re-record them someday?

I think Kraftwerk and Eno and Devo and all the previously mentioned people were main influences. There is no unreleased material.

After the band broke up in 1980, you continued with the band 'G!st'. Your home recordings were compiled in 1992 under the name Signal Path. You also released four additional albums between 1992 and 1995 (Random Rules, Cars in the Grass, Barbara Manning Sings with the Original Artists, and Fine Tuning). You produced tracks for Lois, Beat Happening, Marine Girls and The Coctails and appeared on the 6ths Wasps' Nests album. Your collaborations include names like Ana Da Silva of The Raincoats, Louis Phillippe and Etienne Daho. Can we expect other new collaborations from Stuart Moxham in the near future?

I have also released the album "The Huddle House" with Louis Philippe and the album "Personal Best" and mini-album "Six Winter Mornings" both on my own label, hABIT records. I don't have enough time for any more collaborations - I can't get everything done as it is!

Your songs has been covered by great artists like Galaxie 500, Lush, Barbara Manning, Hole, The Magnetic Fields, Belle & Sebastian and many more. You are in the music scene for more than 30 years now and you are a founding member of one of the most special and unique bands in the music world. If you were to create your all time dream band, who would you choose to be the members?

What a difficult question; I think the YMGs, as we are now with our brother Andrew involved, have immense potential and could not be better if and when we begin to write new material. However I feel the same way about TREE and M&H, in their own way, too.

I'm very lucky to know so many super - talented people.

Your new project 'Tree' features the lovely singing of your daughter Melody Moxham. You also have another project called Moxham & Halliday. Can you give more information on these projects?

TREE began when I needed a female backing vocalist for some of the songs on "Six Winter Mornings" (notably "Autumn Song" which also features my father, Terence.) I had seen Melody singing at a performance given for parents, in a small room at her school, when she was fifteen and asked her if she'd be interested in having a go. The rest is history. We subsequently performed live at a solo gig I did in London: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwGLWnKResU

Which bands are you listening to nowadays? Are there any unknown treasures that you like and recommend us to check out?

I haven't listened intensely to music, every waking second, for many years - I'm too busy making new stuff!

There are lots of good people out there at the moment; we're in a golden patch again. I've loved Prefab Sprout; The La's; Fleet Foxes; My Morning Jacket; Flowers.

Also rediscovering people from decades ago in a fresh way and hearing albums by them which you didn't know at the time: The Beach Boys are a good example of a group of whom I only knew the singles, but luxuriated in for many years when I first explored their catalogue and got to know almost all their output. Same with The Kinks. It's wonderful discovering such treasures through the internet.

Stuart, I'm sure you're proud of all the songs you've written and enjoyed all of your albums, but which song is the most special for you or the one that you will never get tired of singing of?

Actually there are some things which make me cringe, for one reason or another, but they're all my babies and I have to accept the things i don't like as being part of me. I'd still say "N.I.T.A." is quintessential of much of my best writing; atmospheric, sad, evocative, nostalgic, personal. I love it when singing a song of mine makes me cry and "N.I.T.A." can.

Kurt Cobain of the band Nirvana was a big fan of Young Marble Giants. Did you meet them and do you have any favourite songs by Nirvana?

I didn't meet them and I didn't really like their music at the time - it seemed like yet more shouty, distorted, punkish stuff. Since then it has grown on me because the songs are good; "Smells Like Teen Spirit " says it all.

The YMGs played the entire Colossal Youth album at All Tomorrow's Parties in 2009 and appeared again at All Tomorrow's Parties festival (curated by Jefff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel) in March 2012 in Minehead, England. The band continues to play live in 2013. What are the plans for the rest of 2013? Are there any plans of recording a new Young Marble Giants album soon and what other surprises can we expect from the legendary Young Marble Giants world in the near future?

No plans except for the two gigs you mentioned. Surprises are unknowable by definition!

Last question. There was a teen boy called Stuart Moxham in the late 60s who was ready and excited to share his musical ideas with the world and would influence many new artists with his songs in the following years. If you met or saw that young man today, what would you think of him and what would you like to tell him as today's Stuart Moxham?

That's another corker of a question; I'd think he was rather sad and isolated; living in his own world. I would tell him that he was unhappy because he was depressed and to talk about his troubles with a counsellor.

Any last words for Punk Globe Readers?

Life begins when you stop trying to do it on your own.

* You can follow much more about Stuart Moxham and the other members of Young Marble Giants from the following links:

http://www.stuartmoxham.co.uk/
http://stuartmoxham.bandcamp.com/
http://julietippex.com/roster/young-marble-giants/
http://www.youngmarblegiants.com/
https://www.facebook.com/YoungMarbleGiantsOfficial



*Punk Globe would like to thank Stuart Moxham and the Young Marble Giants family for this rare and great interview.

(March 2013 – Ozgur Cokyuce )