We're Great

Written by Steve Hillier
Date written September 2006
Place written Hove, Sussex
Originally sung by Steve Hillier
Featured instruments Yamaha CP-70B

“We're not good, we're great"

The Yamaha CP-70B changed my life, in the middle of the naughties this was my instrument.

I’d fallen in love with the sound of this piano working with Keane in 2002. A hybrid between a piano and an electric guitar, it looks like a box made of Tolex and sounds like nothing else. The Keane boys made it theirs on their first two albums, and pretty much have the final say on what you can do with this electric grand.

I bought mine from Gary Numan in 2006. He’d had it stored away in his garage for decades, and when I came to take a look, it stank of mould and neglect. Truly. But it was a wonderful moment…two keyboard fanatics setting up an ageing bit of kit on a driveway in Sussex, a piano that hadn’t seen the light of day in decades…and it worked perfectly. No need to remind me to smile eh?

Many of the Dubstar recordings from this era are dominated by the sound of the CP-70B, with We’re Great being a prime example. You can bash away for hours on this instrument, and as long as you have the sustain pedal down you’ll probably end up with something worth listening to. We’re Great is another example of my writing inspired by the work of Vini Reilly. He’d released what would be his best album in Keep Breathing and was an inspiration on many levels, that an artist could release so many records and yet still have his best work within him almost thirty years into his career.

This song was completed between Chris and I but Sarah never managed to sing the vocals. It was abandoned after the whole Client kerfuffle, so the only surviving recording has me on vocals, just like The Joans. I imagined it could be the opening song on the new album. Sadly not.

INSIDE OUTLINES, the first collection of solo piano pieces by Stephen Hillier is out now:

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Swansong

Written by Steve Hillier

Date written February 1999

Place written Hove, Sussex

Released When August 2000

Originally Sung By Sarah Blackwood

Features Roland S-760, Roland VG-8

Spotify Link

“Those were the days my friend, we thought they’d never end”  Mary Hopkins, Those Were The Days  

And so we arrive at Swansong, the final song Dubstar would officially release on an album. This is the sound of the end, two people who despise each other and will separate forever. It’s spiteful, it’s bitter, and it’s exactly what I wanted say. This was the last act of an act that began as a stoned daydream to become a 4AD records artist… but instead had taken three people around the world on a crazy and rather wonderful escapade. Not a bad swap really.



And with a farewell reference to the 4AD dream, there’s a nod to the Cocteau Twins as this song fades out. I had to get this in, they were the reason Dubstar existed.


Swansong features a wall of guitar from Chris right at the very end. We created this by him playing the same part in various places on the neck of his Fender and using the Roland VG-8 to ‘retune’ his strings. Sounds tremendous, and we returned to this idea a couple of times on the United State of Being sessions too.

INSIDE OUTLINES, the first collection of solo piano pieces by Stephen Hillier is out now:

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Cathedral Park

Written by Steve Hillier

Date Written January 1991, Refined in 1993

Place Written Jesmond, Newcastle Upon Tyne

Released When August 1997

Originally Sung By Steve Hillier

Features Roland S-760

Spotify Link

“Her words are lame, like her life”

It was a January day in Jesmond 1991, and I was listening to my grey promo CD of My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Loveless’. There was a floppy disk on a tall pile next to the Roland W-30 sampler. On the label was written three words: ’potential number one’. I loaded it up, unsure what I would find. It was a simple melody, a chorus and I’d managed to include some text…’it feels like I’m living without you’. Could it be a number one? Would it?

My optimism was misplaced, Cathedral Park is the only Dubstar single, in fact the only Dubstar release* that failed to make the UK Top 40. Released on the week after Diana Princess of Wales died, there was simply no way the jolliest song we had recorded was going to be on the radio and TV. At any other time it might have, It did reach number 41 after all. Neneh Cherry and Youssou N'Dour took our place on the radio playlists with Seven Seconds. Now that’s a potential number one.

Cathedral Park was named after the Red House Painters song ‘Grace Cathedral Park’, and although that winning chorus melody was another written staring out of my window at the rain, the lyric was inspired by an afternoon I’d spent in Jesmond Dene years later, reflecting on the recent demise of my first serious relationship. And when I say reflecting, I mean being thoroughly miserable and trying to make sense of it all as Mark Kozelek sang about his own relationship woes. Red House Painters helped me through a difficult time. I’d like to think I paid them back by repeatedly playing their CDs to everyone I knew in 1993.
Sarah did a superb job of singing this song, especially as like so many on Goodbye the melody wasn’t written with a vocalist in mind, at least not a human vocalist. It sounds fabulous on a piano, and the huge leaps in pitch make sense when all you have to do is hit the right keys. But hitting the right note when you’re jumping nearly an octave in the middle of a phrase is asking too much. We never played this song live.

It was the experience of writing the songs for the Goodbye album that made me change my approach to vocal melody writing. Until this point, and simply by chance, writing melodies on piano had translated perfectly for mine and Sarah’s voices. But Cathedral Park sounded strange, strained, and definitely did not fit in with the ‘back to basics’ approach of melody writing that was being used by the Britpop pack. Consequently I sang all the melodies on Make It Better as I wrote them. 

And as I’m writing this, I’m listening to Highasakite, and noticing they use huge leaps in pitch in their choruses. They also seem to use a lot of Melodyne to achieve this. Flamboyant melodies are back.

*that qualified for the charts

INSIDE OUTLINES, the first collection of solo piano pieces by Stephen Hillier is out now:

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Disgraceful

Written by Steve Hillier

Date Written September 1992

Place Written Gosforth, Newcastle Upon Tyne

Released When October 1995

Originally Sung By Steve Hillier

Features Roland S-760, Yamaha DX100

Spotify Link

“Two people still looking for something else” 

The things you shouldn’t do when love breaks down, but do just the same.

Disgraceful featured on The Joans cassette Gear, and is another song that was straightened from 6/8 to 4/4 for the first Dubstar album. You can hear the original 6/8 version straining through the first few bars before Sarah sings. It’s been pointed out that this song has more than a passing resemblance to Bizet’s ‘Carmen’. This was not intentional I promise, but I’ll take it. It’s a French thing…

I moved from Jesmond to Windsor Terrace, South Gosforth for a brief period in 1992 following the end of my relationship (a different one), and shared a house with two freshly divorced strangers more than twice my age. One of the men I only saw on a couple of occasions which led me to speculate that either he was getting back with his ex or was an undercover police officer. The other chap let me know he hated my music. To be fair to him, I was playing a lot of Hoover Sound Techno, an acquired taste at the best of times. Unsurprisingly this was one of the most miserable times of my life and led to the writing of many songs. Disgraceful was one and encapsulates that moment of ‘Hey! You there… Let’s do a selection of things we’ll regret’. My favourite line in the lyric, on the entire debut album is ‘imagine us now, talking tomorrow’. I like the way it plays with language and leaves the debauchery to the imagination.

The time signature change which featured in the original version of this song was inspired by this beautiful song by Kitchens of Distinction. Their album Death of Cool got me through this miserable autumn and remains one of my all time favourites. I had the privilege of seeing the band play at Middlesbrough Arena that year and loved every ear-splitteringly loud moment of it. Of all the bands I followed in the 90s, it’s these guys I truly believe should have achieved more recognition if for no reason than Patrick Fitzgerald’s lyrics are outstanding. And the walls of guitars. The drums are great too.

The main beat in the Disgraceful album version comes from a sample CD by Norman Cook called ‘Skip To My Loops’. He was present at the second Dubstar show in Brighton at The Pavilion and I have no idea what he made of us. After the first song my Brighton friends, of which there were around twelve in the audience, put on cutout Steve Hillier photo-masks and starting dancing around like lunatics. Sarah burst out laughing, any sense of artistic mystique was lost, and the first of many questionable Dubstar gigs descended into befuddled bemusement. Quite a moment, sorry Norm.

Goodbye To You was originally to be the closer on the first album, but due to a cock-up on my part Disgraceful took its place. The album is much better for it.

INSIDE OUTLINES, the first collection of solo piano pieces by Stephen Hillier is out now:

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Hit

Written by Steve Hillier

Date Written April 2011

Place Written Hove, Sussex

Originally Sung By Sarah Blackwood

Features Roland Jupiter-6 & System-100M, Yamaha CP-70B

“I made you”

I didn’t have much to write about in my own life in 2011. Things were pretty solid, I was about to move house, I’d reduced the amount of work I was doing outside of making music to nearly nothing, the second Dubstar reformation was drifting along, so…

I wrote about Sarah. I’d done this before, notably on I’m Conscious Of Myself, but this time felt different. There was plenty to write about, plenty to say. And it felt important to say it.

Hit was written at the very tail end of me working as a pro-writer, the Scandinavian influences on the music are clear and present for all to hear. I’d been listening to the electronic pop emerging from Eastern Europe and incorporated that into the arrangement. There’s also an Ultravox reference in the melody and vocals. I’d been a huge fan of the band in both incarnations and finally got to meet Midge Ure in Copenhagen last year. Strange it’s only now in 2020 that I can hear their influence on my writing for Dubstar loudly and clearly.

There are several versions of Hit. The Tim Mason version, my original demo and a further refinement I’d made in 2013 to update the sounds a bit. Plus I wanted a reason to use my Roland Jupiter-6 (for the last time, sadly) and Roland System-100M. Sounded awesome. I’m confident this song will see the dance floor in some form one day, if not through Dubstar.

Say The Worst Thing First

Written by Steve Hillier

Date Written September 1996

Place Written Arts Centre, Newcastle Upon Tyne

Released When July 1997

Originally Sung By Sarah Blackwood

Features Roland S-760, Roland JD-800

Spotify Link

“…my words were knives that broke our lives”

I broke up with my girlfriend after Dubstar headlined the NME tent at Reading Festival in 1996. I spent the next day wandering around Pink Lane, alternating between the The Forth Hotel bar and our studio in the Arts Centre trying to work out what on earth I was going to do next (a familiar feeling). On that long day drinking Guinness in the Forth Hotel I made a decision. Inspired by Ewan McGregor’s monologue in Trainspotting, I decided I would choose life… I chose to be happy rather than be a suffering artist. I chose that I wouldn’t feel this bereft, that I was such failure at relationships ever again. Next time would be the right time, next time would be the last time.

But like St Augustine before me, I had to do a little more suffering and drinking first.

I hadn’t appreciated until many years later how privileged I’d been at this moment. A broken hearted songwriter splits from long term partner and gets to metaphorically open his heart in songs that will be heard by thousands of people across the world. There are worse ways to recover from the end of a relationship, but few more self indulgent. I don’t regret writing this song, but I know I couldn’t write something like this now. It’s profoundly unfair. It overlooks the other person’s position in the situation in order to express just one person’s hurt.

So I wouldn’t be comfortable doing this in 2020, but I am torn. Isn’t this self indulgence exactly how artists have behaved down the ages, landing themselves in the middle of a situation involving loved ones…and then telling their own audience how they feel about it? I suppose a writer has to decide what’s more important, their art or their life. I chose the latter.

I love everything about this song except the version on Goodbye. I had too many things going on in the arrangement, like a collision of a hundred ideas for what should have been a stripped back ‘dagger through the heart’ Dubstar song. Still, the bridge with the instrumental mandolins, a reference to For Ever and Ever by Demis Roussos is my favourite moment on the whole album.

INSIDE OUTLINES, the first collection of solo piano pieces by Stephen Hillier is out now:

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Anywhere

Songwriters Steve Hillier & Chris Wilkie

Date Written November 1990, Revised In January 1994

Place Written Jesmond, Newcastle Upon Tyne

Released When October 1995

Originally Sung By Steve Hillier

Features Roland W-30 & JD-800, Casio CZ-101, Yamaha DX100

Spotify Link

“Even persistination couldn’t stay”

Pardon?

The sound of looking out of Jesmond windows at the rain. The song Anywhere began as an attempt at a ‘classical’ melody that I wrote on the Roland W-30 using string samples featured on the factory floppy disk. The original chord sequence was very different to the version that appeared on Disgraceful. You can hear it on the last moments of the remix album, and now on this piano version.

Like so many of the Dubstar songs, it was an idea that had been kicking around in my mind for years. It’s impossible to predict when inspiration will hit to complete an old idea, but when it appears I feel compelled to run with it, no matter what else I may be working on. What I was doing when Anywhere reappeared was DJing at Planet Earth nightclub in Newcastle. I wrote “I’ll be around…any time I’m free,” on a sheet of paper covered in song requests from drunken revellers. It was a cold Wednesday night in January, I wasn’t quite in the nightclub mood. So I wrote a sarcastic message to the crowd: “I’ll be around, any time I’m free” and felt rather smug. There’s a pervasive cattiness to the idea that you’re promising something and taking it away simultaneously. That was also the night I invented the word “persistination”, a portmanteau of ‘determination’ and ‘persistence’. I hope it sounds like it means something. So far only one person has noticed, I’m amazed I got away with it. And of course, persistination is now in common usage in my imagination.  

The version of Anywhere on Disgraceful was influenced by One Dove and The Other Two, both of whom Stephen Hague had worked with (although we hadn’t met Stephen when I put the arrangement together). Not only was this the first song we completed after Sarah joined The Joans (the precursor to Dubstar), but it remains my favourite from the Disgraceful sessions. What a bass line! Thank you, the Roland JD-800.

INSIDE OUTLINES, the first collection of solo piano pieces by Stephen Hillier is out now:

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Window Pain

Songwriter Steve Hillier

Date Written February 2010

Place Written Hove, Sussex

Originally Sung By Sarah Blackwood

Features Yamaha CP-70B, Telemark, Moog Little Phatty

"You don't need to lay me down, I'm ok"

The comeback single! That was the rest of the gang’s plan. And why not, it had a great chorus, a strong melody, meant something, you could dance to it, it had a minor Danish ending, and it sounded like Dubstar had woken up in the twenty first century. Finally.

And inevitably… 

I’m not a big fan of Window Pain. I’ve had this feeling before. The one where you know something’s good but you’re not feeling it… your head says “yes” but your heart says “come back later”. This had happened with Stars, and I couldn’t have been more wrong. My inability to spot or even like a hit means I will never make an A&R person, and Andy Ross’s ability to spot one at a thousand paces is one of the reasons why he is one of the best. He came to the comeback show at The Lexington in 2013 and told me “that Window Pain song, the new one, sounds like a single”. Or he may have said hit. I’m not sure because I was too miserable by the end of that gig to listen to anyone. I know he was being positive, whatever he actually said.

And ultimately I think Andy was right. So did the others. Stephen Hague produced a version of this song and there was even a video made in a camp site in Dorset (in which I ended up being dressed as a gimp lying in a wood on a dark and cold November evening. Nope… me neither). But this piano version is the first time the song has been released in any form.

This original unreleased recording of the song features the debut of two modern analogue synths in my collection, Analogue Solutions Telemark and the Moog Little Phatty. I’d not bought synthesizer hardware in years, instead using software whenever I wanted something my collection couldn’t provide. Tom from Analogue Solutions had met Sarah at an event somewhere and given her the Telemark and Oberkorn sequencer to try out. She and Paul had not been able to make head nor tail of them, and that’s no surprise, you really need to know what you’re doing with modular gear. So I bought them off Tom and put them to work. The Moog was for the bass of course, but I sold it a few years later. I loved the look of the synth but never warmed to its sound. Sacrilege, but I did an A/B comparison with Native Instrument’s Monark and preferred the software Moog to the real thing. 

I still use the Telemark though. It has a reputation for squeaks and squawks, but it also has a unique bottom end. It’s ideal for solid sub bass with a rounded edge, and it’s one of my three ‘go to’ synths for analogue bass (the others being the Korg MS-20 and Roland SE-02).

INSIDE OUTLINES, the first collection of solo piano pieces by Stephen Hillier is out now:

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