Still Alright! Supergrass

It’s not surprising that these positive feelings, including Goffey’s second coming - charted on the track ‘Ghost Of A Friend’ – make up the majority of the lyrical content of ‘Diamond Hoo Ha’. The album was written for the first time in pairs during the opening three months of 2007 and sees the Coombes brothers, Goffey and Quinn recall their shared and personal memories from the previous two years – from the fuzzy magic of a night in Beijing (‘Whisky And Green Tea’) to explosive riots on the usually peaceful streets of Reykjavik (‘Bad Blood’). “We were kind of really flying then, writing a lot in that period,” Goffey enthuses has he discusses the writing phase, which took place at each other’s houses around Oxford. “I think we wrote about sixteen songs to a pretty finished standard of songwriting, which was a really good creative period.” From there they took their work to the Hansa Studios in Berlin and producer Nick Launay, whose previous collaborators include Nick Cave and Arcade Fire. “As soon as we met him we kind of got on with him straight away and I think that we were pretty confident that it was going to work out in the studio,” Coombes reveals. “I think most of the times it’s like you’ve just gotta get lucky with the person and for them to be on your wavelength and have similar sense of humour if anything and he had all that.”

One of Launay’s greatest attributes – as highlighted by his recent Grinderman project with Nick Cave – is the ability to extract the best from each individual. As ‘Ghost Of A Friend’, which features an emphatic Queen-like guitar solo, shows, he was able to do the same with Supergrass. For Coombes, who is the member responsible for that solo, Launay’s ability triggered memories of Sam Williams, who recorded Supergrass’s debut album ‘I Should Coco’, which was released in 1995. “It’s like, you know, we’re all kind of quite capable now obviously and really good with our instruments, but being able to just see something, a part, or the way that someone is performing it, and be able to transform it, and I think that’s really valuable as a producer and he did that really, really well,” he says. “He was quite ruthless in some ways,” adds Quinn. “In a good way.”

Perhaps inevitably for Supergrass, after a prompt three week recording period and summer support slots for the Arctic Monkeys - which, for the first time painted them as the slightly elder statesmen in British music - something had to go wrong. Rather surprisingly however, it came in the shape of Quinn, the group’s eldest and arguably most responsible member, breaking two vertebrae in his back and smashing his heel during a family holiday in France at the end of August. What Quinn thought in the early hours was the entrance to the bathroom actually turned out to be a first floor window. “Weirdly enough I think it all worked out OK,” Coombes says, drawing laughter from Goffey and a painful smile from Quinn, who narrowly avoided paralysis in the incident. “It worked out kind of beautifully,” Goffey adds, with even less sympathy. “Once we knew Mick was going to be alright and was on the way to recovery…” Coombes interrupts him, “We kind of relaxed a bit then in a way, it gave me the chance to give up beer properly actually, it was good.” Confusion suddenly descends across the faces of his band mates.

“What did?” Goffey asks. Before Coombes can answer, Quinn points to an empty pint glass with a stubbed cigarette fizzing at its base. “What about that?” he enquires. “Yeah, that was then though,” Coombes responds, struggling to defend himself. “No that was because you were getting really fat,” jokes Goffey. “Yeah, but then we weren’t touring so I thought actually I don’t need to, I’ll stop drinking lager,” Coombes insists.

Goffey, who still looks gobsmacked, adds, along with all the necessary hand gestures: “When I went round your house…crates of beers.” “I haven’t drunk a beer for weeks and weeks,” Coombes replies. 

“What did you drink last night then?” enquires Goffey, still not convinced. “Champagne and Wine,” replies Coombes, after some thought. Goffey falls reluctantly silent.

Joking aside, if every cloud does have a silver lining then the reality is that Quinn’s fall has had an enormous positive impact on Supergrass, most notably in the relationship between Coombes and Goffey. A friendship that existed initially as teenagers in a band called Jennifers, and one that had, Coombes admits, over recent years “lost its thing.” He continues: “I think we lost a bit of what makes us sort of tick together but I think that came back, like Danny was saying, a lot more in touring and as a band, when we got closer again as a band, then me and Danny got a bit closer again.”

The pair have also spent the last few months rekindling their friendship as Randy and Duke - the Diamond Hoo Ha men from Berlin whose travelling circus comes complete with Elvis inspired white jumpsuits. While Quinn has been recovering, they’ve been playing impromptu gigs at inconsiderate hours previewing tracks off Supergrass’s new album. Coombes looks wistful at their mention. “It reminded me loads of when we started out; kind of how everything is really small scale,” he says, smiling at Goffey. I ask him if that was because there was no pressure to supply crowds with singles and no expectation to live up to the billing of Britain’s second favourite band, “Yeah, cause this was a new thing,” he replies, heartedly. “It was a great feeling doing that.”