Steve Mason interview: Everyone is on some sort of path

The Beta Band can lay claim to being one of truly influential bands of the last 20 years. In a post Britpop world, they seemed to offer a way forward for alternative rock music with their brilliantly unique melding of folk, hip hop, electronica and harmony-driven '60s pop.

Those who got it loved this group of mysterious Scotsmen and with the likes of Noel Gallagher and Thom Yorke singing their praises, the stage looked set for the Beta Band to reach the kind of mass acclaim that was achieved by those who took their ideas and ran with them. 

It was never to be of course, with the early brilliance of the classic The Three Eps soon forgotten as the Betas rush released a follow up which the band themselves described as "fucking awful" (it wasn't).

Coupled with a reputation for being difficult and with a major label deal breathing down their necks in terms of sales, the band never really recovered their momentum and despite the flashes of inspiration on follow up Hot Shots II and final album 2004's Heroes To Zeroes, the Beta Band fizzled out with only a rapturously received farewell tour for their loyal fan base to remember them by.

With front man Steve Mason opting to go solo and the rest of the band morphing into The Aliens, there were high hopes for the Beta's influence to maintain its way through the sound of post-millennium rock but with Mason struggling with mental health problems, a pair of albums released under both the King Biscuit Time and Black Affair monikers, did little to improve the songwriter's standing.

Fast forward to 2016 and everything has changed, with a fully refreshed Mason releasing the Meet The Humans album to overwhelmingly good reviews and the kind of radio play and subsequent publicity that his former band never enjoyed.

Confident and upbeat, Meet The Humans may not be as experimental as the Beta Band at their best, but such is its pop nous, you suspect there could be a whole new audience out there waiting to rediscover this brilliant artist and a body of work that is never less than fascinating eclectic. 

You've been all over 6Music and even Radio Two with the singles taken from Meet The Humans (watch the video for 'Planet Sizes' below). It feels like this could be your moment in the sun after years on the margins? 

It's a funny thing when this happens to you. This is probably the most attention I've had since the Beta Band and it's amazing. It's made me really happy that people are really feeling this album, but half of you is thinking 'well what about the last two albums? They were just as good'. 

Did you deliberately try and make an album that was more accessible and appealing to an audience that might not have been familiar with the Beta Band or some of your other solo work? 

 It wasn't a conscious thing to try and go mainstream. Everyone is on some sort of path and you're constantly refining what you're doing but the more I think about it maybe these songs are a bit more accessible, Coupled with that and the fact they still retain 100% of what the fans like about what I do anyway, it's obviously appealed. But's it's just luck really. 

You've really thrown yourself into the whole publicity machine around the album's release too which was something that might surprise some of the journalists who interviewed you back in the Beta Band days when the group weren't the easiest band to work with? 

I've spent the last few years apologising to quite a few journalists I have to say. Some of you still won't speak to me now. We were all really young and naive and to be quite honest we were shitting ourselves.

Once I started getting radio support, I realised the effect it was having on ticket sales and festival slots and to be honest the only place a musician can make any money these days is from gigs. It's such a big help and it sounds like such a stupid thing to say after I've been doing this for 20 years, but because the Beta Band never got any radio play, I'm only now seeing the difference it makes. 

You even appeared on Soccer AM! 

I'm the only man who's been on it who knows nothing about football. They've been massive supporters of everything I've ever done and they used to play the Beta Band a lot and King Biscuit Time. It was a good laugh - I don't know anything about football and I can't kick a ball, but apart from that it was a great experience. (watch the video for 'Alive' below)

Your playing loads of festivals this summer including Bluedot and Electric Fields. Do you like playing them? 

 I enjoy festivals. They're quite sociable and the only thing that annoys me is that the the first couple of songs are always a bit of a worry because you don't get a sound check. You're thrown onto the stage and off you go, but that does add a bit of tension which I quite enjoy every now and then. There are so many festivals these days it's really good. You can really fill out your summer. 

How do you look back on the Beta Band these days? They're still very fondly remembered by the fans and their influence on so many people who saw them can't be understated. 

I look back on it as something I couldn't really be more proud of. We made exactly the impact I wanted to make and we never gave into commercial pressures. We always stayed 100% true to what we wanted to do and to be anything other than proud of it would be really stupid really. It was a beautiful to be involved in. 

You seemed to constantly be under pressure to sell records and have that breakthrough hit at a time when so many lesser bands were having success.

The landscape of the music industry has changed 100% since the Beta Band. I'm very lucky as I'm on the biggest independent label in the UK in Domino who don't sign anyone without knowing they can commit 100% to give it its best shot.

With that in mind they're great to work with. I'm on first name terms with everyone I work with, they've got my phone number and they can call me any time they want. I really enjoy going in there and seeing them and even enjoy socialising with them which is very strange for me.

Are there any downsides to the changes you've seen in the record industry? 

I still think there's a lot to be said for mystery. That's the one thing wrong with the social media thing. It hasn't destroyed it but people now accept a certain level of access. I'm reasonably interactive on Twitter but I do like my artists to have a bit of mystery about them. You don't want to know everything about an artist. What I've realised about mystery is that it doesn't pay the bills! I've consolidated everything now into one easy to pay lump sum payment. 

For someone who's always gone under different names was it a hard decision to go back to being plain old Steve Mason for this latest release? Does it mean your music is a bit more honest?

It was always 100% honest. The difference now is that everything is a lot less laced in metaphor and hidden. A lot of the time it was probably only really me who knew exactly what I was talking about. Now that's changed and it's a lot easier to understand what I'm going on about. That's probably just an age thing - you change and you change the way you produce your art. It's just a natural development. 

The Beta Band's gigs always struck me as a real coming together of the tribes - it was hard to define who was a Beta Band fan as you'd get all sorts of people there (watch the Beta Band play 'Dry The Rain' at their last ever gig in 2004) below).

I still think there's a bit of that going on. We could certainly do with a few more women at the gigs though. As I've gone on I've certainly attracted a male dominated audience but with this album that's definitely changing - I think women are finally managing to connect with what I'm doing.

I wouldn't want to say what my typical fan was because that would probably be quite insulting to most of the people. There is still a real mix of people because everything I do has a real mixture of influences and I'm one of those people that attracts others who are into almost any kind of music. 

What are you listening to at the moment? Your influences have always seemed so wide and varied I can't imagine what's on your playlist.

For a long time when I was in living in Scotland I was mainly listening to talk radio. I honestly didn't really listen to much music. I've started again now but a lot of what I listen to is older stuff - I've got into Frank Sinatra and it's quite strange because I just knew him from things like 'My Way' and 'New York', but when you look through his back catalogue he pretty much invented the concept album. A lot of his stuff is pretty fucking good and really interesting.

I've also been listening to Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb - I'm getting a bit worried really. Maybe I need to put on some HI NRG disco or something. I listen to a lot of mates of mine too - Charlotte Marionneau put out a great record under the name of La Volume Courbe and I've been listening to that a lot.

There's a two piece band from Canada called She Devils who I really like. It reminds me of the Beta Band although I don't even know if they've heard of the Beta Band. I'm terrible with remembering what I'm listening to.

It's interesting that your listening to people like Sinatra and Glenn Campbell because your voice sounds in fine fettle on the new album.

I've considered stopping smoking for a while but then people keep saying that my voice is sounding really rich. It's not helping my health when people say my voice sounds brilliant - I just think 'great, I'll have a fag to celebrate'. 

Do you have any other vices? The Beta Band crowd always looked to enjoy themselves at the gigs but did the band do the same? 

 To be honest during the the Beta Band I was doing a lot of kung fu training and I used to train with the Shaolin Monks in London so when we were on tour I wasn't really drinking or doing anything. I was super fit and just trying to sort my head out.

I'd done all my stuff well before the Beta Band. I was trying to get my mind back on track rather than be this kind of cliched rock thing. The Beta Band were totally against all that rock n roll bullshit. 

A friend told me he worked on a gig with you where you asked for a bottle of Issey Miyake perfume on the rider?

It was really expensive but I liked the smell of it so I thought I'd try and stick it on the rider. Once when when the Beta Band were touring America, John decided to put Courvoisier on the rider, but he'd end up having like one shot of it a night.

By the time we finished the tour, we had about 20 bottles of the stuff left and we did this gig in New York where we ended up flogging a load of them out of the back door of the venue and we made a couple of hundred dollars selling it super cheap. I thought if I could get some Issey Miyake on the go maybe I could do the same. I'd forgotten about that. 

Steve Mason plays The Glee Club in Birmingham on Monday 17th October - find tickets via the box below. 

Like this? Read our review of Meet The Humans.