When I heard Stephen Burns, leader of The Scruffs was living here in Portland I immediately became curious. I had liked what little of their music I had heard and definitely wanted to hear more. I really liked the band’s debut, WANNA MEET THE SCRUFFS and the little bits of the demos record, ANGST (1974-1976). But, to be honest, I was really blown away when I’d heard their new record, POP MANIFESTO (Scruffsville) . A majestic pop record with some of the best songs Burns has ever written. He took the time to sit down and chat with me at the Bagdad Café in beeyooteeeful Portland, Oregon on 1/27/07……

D Were you born in Memphis Stephen ?
S: Yes, my grandparents came over from England and Scotland after the first World War and they settled in Hartford so I was actually born there. But by the time I was 5 and after my father had done a stint in the Korean War he had met my other in Nashville and then decided to move to Memphis.
D: Did you move here from Memphis ?
S: No, I actually haven’t lived in Memphis since 1998. My parents still live there so I go back to see them and we finished this record at Ardent so I do go back there often.
D: I always hear about Ardent…why is it so legendary ?
S: It’s legendary because the owner John Fry ….well, they just had their 40th anniversary so to exist as a studio that long is a big deal. Plus it’s a real nice studio….it’s like the Abbey Road of America. John began when he was like 16 or 17 mixing Stax stuff…..Stax was doing dos much business back in those days that they had to farm it out to other place cos’ Stax is a pretty small place. Stax did stuff like Al Green, Willie Mitchell, Steve Cropper, Booker T and the
MG’s, etc. Stax may not have had as many hits as Motown but it’s just as important.
D: Did you get involved at all ?
S: Well, after my 2nd year of college I got a job as a small studio learning some stuff and that’s where I put together a good part of ANGST (the early recordings cd, 1974-’76). Being that it’s a r & b town I had a difficult time finding pop players. There’s many great guitar players in town but not many of them were into the pop sorta thing.
D: What sorta stuff were you listening to at the time?
S: I loved a lot of Brit pop stuff….i also like The Doors, Aretha Franklin, Motown sound like The Supremes and The Temptations, Dusty Springfield, Burt Bacharach,
D: Back then did you know Alex Chilton ?
S: Well, he ‘s about 4 or 5 years older than me. I guess I met him when I was about 20 so he was like 24 or so…and it was right when they were finishing (Big Star’s ) RADIO CITY . I wasn’t around for #1 RECORD ..but there was this little bohemian café in Memphis back then called The Prokapeg (sp. ??) ..don’t ask me what that means cos’ I don’t know (laughs) ! Anyway, Jim Dickinson would hang out there and other people who weren’t in the mainstream party of Memphis. So back then we would play quite a bit…probably a few times a month…..like 60 songs a night! We would do cover of like The Who and The Kinks plus more punk stuff like The Damned and The Clash. Then we began to get this sorta wild following, this would have been in like 1976 or ’77. I liked some of the punk stuff…I didn’t really subscribe to the philosophy of it all but I liked some of it …what we were doing was sped up stuff but still real melodic.
D: What else did you like ?
S: I really liked the Elvis Costello’s stuff….Nick Lowe . I like their lyrics and the song structures. I liked The Modern Lovers….i never met Jonathan Richman but I have seen him play a lot….last time was probably in New Orleans about 5 years ago.
D: Then you moved to New York City ?
S: Yeah…a lot of people thought we were going to get a big record deal so we moved there and we played all the places; CBGB’s, Max’s Kansas City…..we lived there for about 3 years. I then just got sorta disgusted living there…I just wanted an easier environment. Looking back now…I wish I’d spent those years in California….better weather ! When we were in NYC we were pretty naïve’ kids ….we weren’t real well prepared . (assorted chat about NYC, Dwight Twilley, Shelter Records, etc. )
S: …one thing about The Scruffs is we were really good live. We got so good is because we practiced every day (laughs). These days we never practice !
D: After that what were you doing in the 80’s ? I didn’t hear much about you guys ?
S: I then moved back to Memphis in late 1982 and I did keep on recording up until like 1989 or so. And that is the MIDTOWN collection./ I would go in with different groups of people and record batches of songs.
D: Did you have a day job then ?
S: Yeah….i went back to school and got a 2nd degree. I went to the University of Memphis and got a degree in Liberal Arts and then went back and got a 2nd degree in Business/Accounting and I went into business with my father. It was an insurance business that we still own. Then got married…and divorced ! (laughs). “ I’m single and I wanna mingle ! “ That was from an old James Brown clip …actually it was pretty recent. He was on CNN doing an interview and he was on something….he answered every question with a line from one of his songs ! It was hilarious …I mean the guy was like 75 and ready to drop dead.
D: Did you end up moving to Glasgow Scotland at some point ?
S: Yeah….i was getting divorced in Memphis in like 1997 or ’98 and I was going to move to Santa Fe, New Mexico and then Alex (Chilton) invited me down to New Orleans and I moved down there, like 5 minutes from Alex. He was going to be doing some shows in Glasgow and he invited me along …I had been to Scotland a number of times but I had never been to Glasgow . After a few days of hanging out there I was hanging with folks from Belle and Sebastian and Teenage Fanclub. I ended up getting along with everyone there so well…and I was wondering to
myself where I was going to record the next Scruffs record and I narrowed it down to Vancouver, BC, L.A., and Glasgow. So I decided on Glasgow plus there is a great studio there Cava (pronounced Sa-Vah) and everything fell into place. The right studio and the right group of people to record with. I then ended up getting a house there and living there but then realized it was cheaper for me to stay in hotels in Scotland . I’vebasically been living there off and on since 1999.
D: What is Glasgow like ? I’ve never been there ?
S: To me it’s like a mini London. The west end has Glasgow University and it’s very gothic. It’s a lot easier to deal with than London…..London is so expensive and so tough to get around. Just go get out the door in London to go
to a practice space would probably cost you twenty quid and take you an hour. Glasgow is much easier…..plus , it will take you only an hour to get to Edinburgh, which is the capitol and you have another 2 million people over there. I mean, all of Scotland only has 5 million people….Oregon itself has like 3 million. Most people in Scotland are either in Glasgow or Edinburgh and maybe Aberdeen and Stirling too.
D: Did you ever meet Stuart Murdoch (Belle and Sebastian) ?
S: Yeah, I know Stuart….he’s a great writer and a very interesting guy. I really admire him. The guy I have worked with the most is Bobby Kildea (bassist in B & S ) . He, myself and Frank McDonald, who was the original drummer in
Teenage Fanclub, and the 3 of us and a guitar player from LA was the band for LOVE THE SCRUFFS. I know Stevie Jackson real well too…he’s a lovely guy.
D: Is Scruffsville an official label or just a name you put on the records ?
S: NO, it’s an official label. It’s like Last Train to Clarksville….i just thought I’d call is Scruffsville. Actually what happened …..John Fry from Ardent took us over to the Stax Museum , which I thought was great cos’ a lot of the
equipment in there is his original equipment. The museum was an old movie theatre and on the outside ..on the marquis is says Stax Soulsville USA so that is where I came up with the name Scruffsville. I thought we should have a town named after us ! (laughs).
D: How did you come up with the name The Scruffs?
S: Well, I had several ideas for names and …it was my English grandmother she would always call me “Scruffy” when I wouldn’t shave so I thought of it then. It seems to be a very catchy name.
D: How did you end up in Portland ?
S: Well, I really needed a change and I’ve always been interested in Portland. I had been here a few times and the music scene is really terrific here. I lived in Vancouver BC for about 6 months in 2005 and I think there are a
lot of similarities between here and there. I think musically Portland is a much better environment and I met Barbara Mitchell (publicist, Deluxe Media) and she had worked with …it was just happenstance that she was here. Then, on the distribution end of it Burnside Distribution picked the record up. I guess I could have gone back to Memphis but there isn’t much going on there anymore.
D: What do you think of Portland so far ?
S: I like it here a lot…there seems to be a lot of vitality here . Like people really want to ….it’s not like they’re blinded by illusion or anything, they just really want to do something. They’re just doing things….they’re involved in things and putting things out and not everyone is running around thinking they’re going to be the next big thing.
D: Who had the concept for the new record (POP MANIFESTO ) ? I think it’s real neat.
S: That was my idea. …thanks. I’m glad you mentioned it….i mean, it’s obvious very intentional and very posed. We were finishing up the record last year and one night we all went out to dinner. And we’re all friends…we just don’t only talk about music…I mean, we’re friends so we talk about politics , food, girls, and other things. We were thinking about what we wanted to call the record..and we’d had a few drinks. Sp Paul came up with the idea of campfire songs..like Meinkampfire….like German songs (laughs) and then I came up with out of the blue…I thought the word “manifesto.” In this country everyone thinks of Karl Marx…like THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO but in the UK politicians use it as part of their party platform . So I thought it was a pop manifesto…an then I came up with the Chairman Mao idea. It’s called THE LITTE RED BOOK by Mao ….i mean, everyone had to have this in China so there were millions of copies around. The front of the cd came directly from the cover but I put my face in there. The hats we’re all wearing are the real hats and shirts they wore in China…I got them in San Francisco. At the time it seemed like a little bit of a Sgt Pepper idea….plus the red in the cover might pop out on the shelves (laughs). It took a month to put that cover together.
D: I think it’s a great record. Really….
S: Well, thank you. It seems to be doing pretty well. AMPLIFIER magazine did a nice review of it so we’ll see.
D: I’d have to say my favorite track on the record is “September’s Lost.”
S: Yeah that one and also “There’s a Girl I Know” seems to be everyone’s favorite. ….it’s the bands favorite. I write that (“September’s Lost”) with all of that in mind. I love the Johnny Cash-type mariachi horns and I told the arranger Peter Shand that I really wanted that. I wanted to make it a total jangly pop song. I mean, it sounds big but we made the record in small studios with people….BBC players coming in on off hours. I mean, we still have to pay them…..there were 16 different classical musicians on the record. On “Don’t You Go There” wanted to capture the 3 of us playing acoustic guitars live. So the three of us was one track and Zack on pedal steel and we had a Euphonium on there too which is like a smaller tuba. We also had a harpsichord start off on “Carrie Anne.” I do have a soft spot for …well, instead of bashing out something on a guitar, instead drifting off into a psychedelic mode. While living in Scotland I got really acquainted with Arthur Leeand Love and that stuff is great. I can’t believe I didn’t discover it earlier.
D: Yeah, my favorite record of all time is (Love’s) FOREVER CHANGES.
S: Yeah, it’s a terrific record. I love it.
D: What’s next for The Scruffs?
S: Well see…I want to do another record with the Scottish guys, Simon, Paul and Mark and maybe we can get them over here for some shows.

The Scruffs on the web