ANGELIC UPSTARTS This interview originally appeared in the NME 31st May 1986. Adrian Thrills writes.

IT'S OBVIOUS

When you witness a band like The Mighty Lemon Drops, you begin to wonder why most people make it all sound so bloody difficult.

Like all the finest exponents of the art, they make it - creating classic pop, that is - sound easy. They make it sound obvious. They make it appear as natural as breathing.

So what is their secret? How can it all be so simple. Maybe it's that they started to pick up the tricks, from an early age.

Singer Paul Marsh - a gaunt, high cheekboned moptop who exudes a calm, almost sullen appearance on-stage - was barely seven when he ventured into a Wolverhampton record shop and bought his first single. The record was 'Cum On Feel The Noise' by hometown heroes Slade.

Guitarist Dave Newton - a Rickenbecker Kid who is easily the most forthcoming Lemon Drop in conversation - was only ten when he hitched down to London to see The Clash and Sham 69 at one of the rock against racism carnivals.

And the pair of them were just on the threshold of their teens when the release of the early Zoo label singles presaged the dawn of a new Mersey Beat.

Now, pubescent males are notoriously impressionable types, but the effect of the latter stirrings on Dave and Paul were particulary significant. Though they weren't to The Mighty Lemon Drops with bassist Tony Linehan and drummer Keith Rowley until six years later, the music of Merseyside's post-punk 'crucial three - Echo, Teardrop, Wah - was to prove a lasting, if not sole, influence on these Black Country boys.

"When those bands first started playing, they were a real breath of fresh air," says Dave " I can still remember the first time I heard records like 'Sleeping Gas' and 'Pictures On My Wall'. You could tell that the bands had come through the punk thing, but there was something else there too the 60's influences and the brilliant tunes - that took them on a stage further than punk".

"It would be stupid for us to deny that those bands were an influence on us. But if there is a comparision, I don't think it is with the Bunnymen. That's the one we always seem to get, but Wah heat is probably more accurate, the power of Wah and the tunes of Teardrop Explodes."

"There are even some records that were released then that sound better today than they did when they first came out!"

SPIRIT OF '79 (WITH SINCEREST APOLOGIES TO THE ALARM)

AH YES, the summer of '79! If the punk tornado had more or less blown itself out, its reprecussions were perhaps at their peak around the turn of the decade. The whole of Britain seemed to be burning with brilliant new bands. The spread of safety-pinned idealism from the capital to the provinces had produced a proliferation of new sound supported by a network of visionary independent labels - fast, factory, Zoo, Postcard, 2-Tone - each with its own distinct musical character and identity.

If these bands and labels had anything in common, it was a shared attitude, an honest commitment to making music that was exciting on stage, inventive on record and often underpinned with an ingenious streak of ironic wit. If they retained much of the hunger of punk, they also pushed the boundaries out that little bit further.

For a period, however, that produced a plethora of truly great records - far more classic singles, in fact than the punk era - it was also a shockingly, short lived spurt of a halcyon activity, its vitality soon sucked dry by an avaricious music industry.

The tragic death of Ian Curtis in 1980 seemed to mark a symbolic watershed. Within a couple of years, most of the prime movers of the class of '79 had lost something - Wylie his fury, the Bunnymen their edge, the Gang Of Four their perspective, Orange Juice their charm, Dammers his band, The Beat their ebullience and Cope his marbles. Or so it seemed.

But outside forces were at play too: the vibrancy of independent rock and pop circa '79 and '80 was terminated as much by the rise of glossy videofied new pop as by any dulling of vision within its own ranks.

But if the end result has been five relatively barren years in pop's middle ground - that amorphous region between hardcore and Top Of The Pops - there are signs at last that the pendulum has swung back.

Picking up the shards of a tradition that dates back to the post-punk period, there now exists a spirit of optimism and activisim in the fringe world of the independents that the mainstream is once again finding it impossible to ignore. Any talk of new 'scenes' and 'movements' - not to mention the obscenely patronising 'shambling' tag - is misleading. Things are too diverse for that. There is, rather a loose aggregation, an upswing that is amply sampled and reflected on NME's superb C86 cassette.

And The Mightly Lemon Drops are at the heart of that swing.

DUDLEY'S ANGELS

The Sherbert Monsters, as they were called initially, formed almost exactly a year ago from a group of friends who met at JBs, a club in Dudley, just outside Wolverhampton. They played only locally at first until a tape sent to Dan Treacy - singer in the TV Personalities, the black cap behind Dreamworld Records and the promoter of Saturday night gigs at the Room At The Top in London's Chalk Farm - brought offers of work further afield.

But if the group were quick to accept their London dates, they did not consider rehearsing specifically for them.

"It can kill a band if they rehearse too much early in their career," says Dave. "It can be stifling if you get too familiar with the songs, it takes away any edge that they might have. When we don't rehearse, it keeps it exciting for when we play live."

Like New Order, the Lemon Drops also consider live performance a natural, unforced method of communication and shy away from any gestures that might be construed as too patronising or showbizzy. They have been known to complete an entire set without uttering one word between songs to their audience.

"I hate the idea of us being up on stage for people to gawk at", says Tony. "I've only recently started facing the audience when we paly. I hate the idea of catching someone's eye while we are on stage. I don't really like people looking at me."

So what of the group's dress onstage? All four members wear black, from their matador jackets to their neatly ripped jeans. Surely such a monochromatic match is at least contrived? It appears not.

"I think we all just dress the way we would anyway when we go onstage," says Keith. "Anyone in Wolverhampton would tell you that we've been dressing this way for ages. We've always looked this way. We're not a typical Wolverhampton group. Your typical Wolverhampton group have a mohican on guitar, a heavy rock bass player, a skinhead drummer and a new romantic singer, or at least some mix of those ingredients..........."

"But we're more of a group," interjects Tony. "We're carrying on the great tradition of groups like The Beatles and The Shangri Las. All our songs sound the same too!"

Do not be misled by that last throwaway comment, however. Songs are very important to the Mighty Lemon Drops, with Dave and Tony the two principle songwriters.

"It might sound cliched, but we want all our songs to be potential singles. Sometimes it will take us weeks to write a song. If I get an idea, but can't complete the song, then i'll leave it buzzing around my head for weeks. Sonner or later, all the missing links fall into place."

The band's debut single, released on Dreamworld in January, bears out their fastidiousness fully. A three-song 12" featuring 'Like An Angel', 'Something Happens' and 'Sympathise With Us, it contains not one filler track. Their high standards are maintained by 'Now She's Gone' - the B-side of the recently-issued seven-inch version of 'Angel' - and 'Happy-Head', the group's contribution to the C86.

Lyrically, a typical Mighty Lemon Drops song tends towards the unspecific. The imagery is loose and impressionistic, phrases like 'breaking on through the other side' and 'saw her in the sky' abounding. They are basically love sopngs, although it has been suggested that 'Like An Angel' verges on the psychedelic.

"I thought that it could be taken that way," says Dave. "But it's more about someone needing someone or needing something. I've deliberately left it open. I don't like songs that are too blatant. Some songs are obvious lyrically that there is no fascination in listening to them. I like lyrics that can conjure up pictures in your mind."

Mention of C86 leads to talk of the general upsurge in the profile of vibrant new bands. Do the Lemon Drops feel part of any wider re-awakening?

"As far as live bands go, things have certainly got a lot better," says Dave. "It's nice to have bands coming through at the same time that we enjoy listening to. But I don't think we've got a lot in common musically with many other bands. We want to be successful on our own terms, not because people see us as part of any movement".

BUT, DADDY, THEY'RE SO DERIVATIVE...

Sometimes it's not what you play, it's the way that you play it and The Mighty lemon Drop, for all the obviousness of some of their unashamed influences, are easily the most dynamic live group I have seen this year.

Their sound is essentially a melodic one, although the jingle jangle mornings of the Byrds-Velvet axis are not for them. Dave Newton;s guitar playing possesses a muscular, physical quality that is occasionally quite awesome and there is an edge to their stage performances that hints at the epic resonances of a New Order or Mary Chain - theirs is a sound that will transfer impeccably to the larger halls when the time comes.

Those who begrudge them their brilliance will point pedantically to any echo of a foreign riff in their set. In doing so, they miss the point entirely. Sometimes there is a nagging doubt that the Lemon Drops merely juggle some novel musical cliches - Morrisoneque vocal infections, Bunny baselines, jagged Wilkoesque guitar licks, a relentless insistence on the on-beat of northern soul - into a new and appealing puzzle. But, if thats the case, why hasn't someone struck on something so simple and effective before? And where does that take account of the raw ebullience that periodically surfaces in their playing?

The jibes of their detractors - the same people who maon that the Mary Chain sound too like the Velvets, the Soup Dragons too like the Buzzcocks ad nauseum - are reminiscent of the attacks that jaded rock bores would make on punk in 1976.

Bands like the Pistols, Clash and Jam were frequently dismissed for sounding like bad versions of The Stones, The Kinks and The Who. On the surface - and it really went a little further than the odd powerchord or two -this was the case, but it conveniently ignored all the strengths, the true significance, of the groups in question.

As is the case with the Lemon Drops. One of their virtues is the fact that they are so open about their influences, their roots and the tradition from which they spring.

Another, incidently, is that they have the potential to standcomparison with practically all of these influences. The Mighty lemon Drops could be that good.

ALL MOUTH AND (NO) LEATHER TROUSERS

At the moment The Mighty Lemon Drops - whose single deal with Dreamworld was a one-off - are probably the hottest unsigned band in Britain. With practically every leading label in the country falling over it's chequebook in a bid to sign them as "the new Bunnymen", they are caught momentarily in the twilight zone between receding cultdom and a beckoning mass market.

With no particular interest in being a cult band, it looks like as if they will eventually sign either directly or, more probably, indirectly to a major label. Like The Shop Assistants, Primal Scream and The Bodines, they too want to get into that chart.

"We've never said that we don't want to sign with a major label," says Dave. "If a band has a really good-selling independent single, they are only kidding themselves if they say they don't want to take things further. We want to be heard by as many people as possible".