Creep Show: 'We were never going to write a folk album'

Debuting new songs such as Moneyback and Steak Diane live amid a “really complicated set-up” of midi lines, the 68-year-old from Sheffield admits it was “all a little bit a wing and a prayer”.

Nonetheless with a background in groundbreaking electronic music dating all the way back to the early 70s with synthesister pioneers Cabaret Voltaire, it seems to have been a challenge he enjoyed. “It went really well, particularly the Brighton one, so fingers crossed for the rest of the dates for the summer,” he says.

Fronted by American singer John Grant, whose solo albums regularly make the top 10 in the UK, Creep Show also includes Benge, the Cornwall-based producer and musician, and Phil Winter of folktronica outfit Tunng – the latter pair having also worked with Mallinder in another group, Wrangler.

Their audience, Mallinder says, is a “composite” of fans who’ve liked one or another of their previous endeavours – something “highlighted” at an in-conversation and signing event they recently did at Rough Trade East in London. “All the people who came down to have records signed were also bringing Cabs and Wrangler records, not as many John Grant, but they’d probably been to a John Grant signing already so they didn’t need to get those done. It was nice, it means we speak to a different audience, and John speaks to a slightly different audience, although I think there’s an understanding on all sides that we’re all coming from the same place.”

In the five years since Creep Show released their first album, Mr Dynamite, the world has significantly changed. Mallinder says their second album was “massively impacted” by Covid, with all of them contracting the disease during the two weeks they’d set aside in spring 2022 to “pretty much make the album” from a collection of 20 “pre-production sketches” that he, Benge and Winter had created. “I think there was only one and a half or two days where we could all work,” he recalls. “John and I were in like the plague house, in a cabin next to the studio; we were in there for about a week and couldn’t come out. So Covid had a real impact on this record, not in terms of the sentiment, but certainly in the making of the album.”

Grant and Mallinder completed the vocals and some of the arrangements in Iceland, where the US singer has a house.

The themes on Yawning Abyss, Mallinder says, were shaped by the fact that “there’s been a reality take since Covid, particularly now”. “We were aware even 12 months ago because of the Ukraine war, all these kinds of things were starting to foment, so we were writing in a backdrop of (how) Covid had made everyone reassess where they were at. It was there and it did filter through, not so much to the music but lyrically it did impact subconsciously. But at the same time, we do tend to write with an awareness of the world around us and the people around us. We were never going to write a folk album.

“I think the fact that Yawning Abyss became the title track, what that imagery may bring to people is a certain moment in time, so there is an existential theme to the record, but it wasn’t contrived and it wasn’t intended. It just happened while we were working. I think the world drew closer to our idea of (a) yawning abyss than us actually going towards it.”

Mallinder describes the band as a democracy, saying: “John is a far more accomplished musician than me so therefore he’s good at constructing our ideas in a songwriting kind of way, whereas we’re good at constructing the music in terms of the sonic and rhythmic kind of way, but there’s no set rules. We all play on the record, we all do different bits. John is a very active direction kind of person in the band – and you can see that, some of the tracks are built out of John’s voice – but there’s a lot of different things in there, we don’t just dial it in, we’re all present and we’re all involved in it.”

At the heart of the band is friendship. Mallinder and Winter had known each other for years before Winter introduced him to Benge and they formed Wrangler. Mallinder and Grant stayed in touch after meeting at a Chris and Cosey gig at Sensoria in Sheffield in 2014. The fact that the American singer is big fan of Cabaret Voltaire only strengthened their bond.

Simon Dell, the Cabs’ archivist, says Creep Show song Steak Diane is similar to Cabaret Voltaire’s 1975 track Do The Snake. “John will be made up that we’ve done a track that was pre-empted nearly 50 years ago by the Cabs,” Mallinder laughs.

It’s half a century since Mallinder formed Cabaret Volatire with Richard H Kirk and Chris Watson. Kirk sadly died in September 2021 aged 65, but Mallinder says he is still in “close contact” with Watson and is planning a show to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the band’s first gig, which took place in 1975.

“Chris and I are trying to create something that recognises the legacy, particularly in regard to Richard,” he says. “It’s all been a bit weird since he passed but...we also look to the future. I’m just sorting out Chris coming down to the studio, we’re going to help Benge put together one of his albums of disparate things. Yes, I’m still very literally connected with the past, but we’re still shaping into the future.

“But we’re of that age,” he notes, adding that the previous Sunday he’d been involved in a memorial for Mark Stewart of The Pop Group, who died in April aged 62. “Mark was a good friend and I’d just been working with him as well. It’s a bit strange now people are passing, but musicians are no different from anyone else, some of us pop off a bit younger.

“But luckily because of (music journalists) and the media and because of the shows, we do have a framework of connecting with everybody from the past. We’re all aware of the past but we’re all doing new stuff.”

Mallinder is also hopeful that Creep Show may continue in some shape or form once the current tour dates are completed. “John was talking to me the other day about the next record. He’s got his (own) new album to do, but (Creep Show) will fit in,” he says. “John’s a kind of force of nature and force of good, also he’s reaching this point where things are going really well so there’s always a consideration of how it fits in. John asbolutely loves coming to the studio in Cornwall and always says it’s one of his most important places in the world, so there’s no way that he won’t (go there again). I think he’s popping in there to do the electronic stuff for his (solo) album, so there’s always connections and whenever we’re able we will make another record.”

Yawning Abyss is out now. Creep Show play at Hebden Bridge Trades Club on Saturday July 22. https://www.creepshowmusic.com/