A Conversation About Cardiacs, with Aaron Tanner and Rob Crow (Pinback)

Cardiacs are an English band that formed in 1977 and were mainly active until lead writer Tim Smith’s passing in 2020. They released numerous records and performed throughout the UK and Europe, yet they’ve received little recognition in the United States. In fact, despite the notable influence they had on popular bands such as Blur, Faith No More, and Tool, and gaining the fandom of potential influencers like Dave Grohl, Steven Wilson, and Shane Embury, few people in the US have even heard of the group. (I reported my own late 2023 discovery of them previously for Talkhouse.)

The music coffee table book publisher Melodic Virtue hopes to bring more attention to the group and its legacy with their book Cardiacs: A Big Book and a Band and the Whole World Window. Owner Aaron Tanner was approached by his friend Rob Crow (Pinback, Heavy Vegetable, Physics, Goblin Cock, Thingy) about the idea for the book, and the result is a compelling visual and sonic statement. Sourced from the band’s and their inner-circle’s personal archives, the material in the book will impress both longtime fans and introduce newcomers to the powerful, mind-bending, and beautiful music of Cardiacs. May their torch be carried forever!

I spoke with Rob and Aaron about the book, the band, and their experiences with the music. Here is our conversation.

Jon Mueller: I want to start with the first question with Rob, because I believe Aaron said that you prompted him to the idea of a Cardiacs book. What caused you to bring this up to Aaron?

Rob Crow: Oh, because I’m always trying to get people to understand or get into Cardiacs because they’re this great thing that nobody, in the States anyway, knows about. I have still have never seen Cardiacs records over here and generally am met with confusion whenever I would ask a record store about them, whether it was Amoeba or anywhere else. I was at the premiere of the Residents documentary and I was very excited about it, went to LA for it because if anything, you could meet like-minded people and talk about weird shit. I was in line and people struck up conversations about things and I was like, “Have you guys heard of Cardiacs?” The people I was talking to had not. I turned to the folks watching us in line and I was like, “Have any of you people heard of Cardiacs?” Nobody knew what I was talking about. So, since then, I was like, OK, I need to figure out ways to, without being annoying, try to turn people who would want to enjoy this music onto this music, at which I’ve been more or less successful.

Jon: Yeah. Well, thank you. I also share that mission and really, truly, Rob, thank you for pursuing that with Aaron, because, we’ll get into Aaron’s side of it, but these kinds of things might not happen. And if they didn’t happen, what’s the effect of that? A great loss for those in the unknown, which I was one of until very recently. 

After looking at the preview of the book I realized the normalcy of them as a band. I think I built them up so much in my head in terms of the videos, the production of the recordings, etc., that I didn’t really have a true sense of the origin story. And so, it was fascinating to just see that they were kids with an idea and wanted to start a band. 

So, Aaron, I wanted to ask: going through the archive, and even being in the space where this material is housed, how did that affect your ideas about the group?

Aaron Tanner: I sort of started this project blind, somewhat intentionally, just so I wouldn’t go into it with a lot of preconceived ideas. Rob turned me on to the group right before the pandemic. I obviously loved the music, but I hadn’t done a deep dive on them yet. And unlike most fans, I got to come at it from a place where I got to see the more human side of Tim Smith first, going through all of his notebooks and seeing all these ideas — some of which never came to fruition, but most of which did. In that way, I have a bit of a unique perspective there.

Jon: Rob, tell me about your experience after seeing the book. How did that affect your ideas about them?

Rob: Oh, I mean, I’ve been long entangled in the Cardiacs camp for a while now. So, it was great to see a lot of things shown in a way that could make sense to the average human being. As far as going through the archiving of it, because Cardiacs aren’t just one guy, they’re like a series of collaborations, whether with Bill Drake or John Poole or whomever, with a ringleader who did most of the heavy lifting. But, just getting to know all the people and the disparate psychological bents of all the players involved made me realize that the largeness of the character needed to herd those particular cats had to be completely ridiculous. I don’t know, hopefully respect is the word for being able to do that and not, you know, blow a gasket in some way or another.

Jon: Right! It’s interesting because in the book, it seems Tim has an openness to people. I mean, I’m generalizing and I’m purely understanding it in terms of what I got through the book. But it seems like he did have an openness to other musicians and other people and their ideas about music, even if they were different than his. But still, clearly the people that he worked with were on a very certain level. I don’t even know how you would find those people, let alone in a town in England. It’s incredible!

Rob: Well, it’s crazy that, like, these three kids in school, Tim, Adrian Borland and Colvin [Mayer] were like, you know, the beginnings of so much crazy stuff. Like Adrian going on to do The Outsiders and The Sound. The Outsiders, I believe, had one of the first punk LP ever independently released. But yeah, it’s even more crazy than just the Cardiacs part of it, with Colvin being in both Cardiacs and The Sound.

Jon: Aaron, what was it about the idea of doing this book that spoke to you?

Aaron: So, one of the reasons I started this business, creating coffee table books on underground bands, was that there were a lot of pictorial history books on bands, but they were largely huge groups like the Beatles and the Stones. There weren’t any books on the bands that I grew up loving. And for me, Cardiacs are the ultimate underground band. They’re probably one of the best bands in the world, but literally no one’s heard of them. And I wanted to do what little I can to help raise awareness about the group.

Jon: It’s so incredible that nobody knows about this band, but there did seem to be this concerted effort to do things themselves. We’ve seen a similar approach with things like Discord Records here in the US, where a label or group want to do things on their own terms. There’s certainly something validating about the work with that approach. But by doing that, it may be one of the reasons why people like me never heard of Tim or the band during his lifetime. What do you guys think about that kind of trade off? 

Rob: Well, there is that story of how they did try to sign with a label that had far reach, which was Rough Trade, and which went out of business the day their record came out, I believe.

Aaron: Thanks to the Butthole Surfers.

Jon: Oops.

Rob: Yeah. The mission statement with them — and we keep saying it over and over again — is to try to get it out there. Whether it meant doing it themselves, or some other way, but trying. They created all these different universes within their own universe where there was the evil, bad people, you know, the evil corporation that was trying to keep them down [Alphabet Business Concern], but it was really just themselves and their friends under a pretend mythos. And when you start talking about them with people, it’s like you’ve got to try to figure out how much the person you’re talking to about Cardiacs knows about Cardiacs to figure out which kind of speech to use.

Jon: Right, right. That’s one of the nice things about the book too, is that it’s very visual. So, it’s not an overwhelming amount of information that you’re going to have to commit to learning about. You can easily take it in. There’s a lot of great information there, but it’s just not overwhelming. Rob, do you remember the first song that you ever heard by them? 

Rob: Somebody had sent me a link to the song, “Tarred and Feathered,” and I was like, “Oh, that’s interesting,” but it doesn’t really do much for me. And that song still doesn’t do that much for me. I mean, I like it. I don’t dislike it. In fact, it’s funny, their big hit [“Is This the Life?”], I still don’t get that one.

Jon: Yeah.

Rob: I like the stuff that moves around and does things. And that’s the cool thing about them is they have so many different ways of going about creating their music that, you know, I don’t love 100% of it, but I don’t dislike any of it.

Aaron: I feel like there’s a lot of different entry points for a lot of different people.

Rob: But then somebody sent me the “R.E.S.” video and I was like, “That’s the shit I’m talking about!” That’s exactly what I want to know about. When I daydream about what bands or general creative artistic output there is throughout history that I’ve yet to and hoping to discover, that video and that song is like a best case scenario.

Jon: Yeah. Their song, “Is This the Life?” — that is an anomaly. Yet at the same time, it sounds like them.

Rob:  It sounds like them pretending to be something that other people would like. Also, that was Bill Drake’s entry into the band, hearing that on the radio and going like, “Oh, I think this is great. I want to find out about this.”

Jon: Wow.

Rob: Well, that’s one version of his entry into the band.

Jon: Aaron, what about you? Do you remember the first song you heard?

Aaron: Yeah, it was “R.E.S.,” and it was all because of Rob. He didn’t show me “Tarred and Feathered.” I had to find that one on my own. [Laughs.]

Jon: It’s like we’ve mentioned, you have to sort of choose what conversation you’re going to have with people. Like, what is the best intro song to share with a particular person? I feel like I’ve missed a couple times with people that I’ve tried sharing the group with. And it’s so frustrating because you have that one chance to convince them, and then it misses and it’s like, “Oh no, wrong choice, I guess.” I don’t understand why people like the three of us can have the profound experience we’ve had and then others are just like, “Eh, whatever.” It’s crazy!

Aaron: I don’t think they were trying hard enough. [Laughs.]

Jon: With Cardiacs, the music was the initial draw for me, but eventually you find out more about the band — how they worked, the peculiarities of them, the general aesthetic — and you start to build this understanding over time. Does any of it share any similarities with what Melodic Virtue does?

Aaron: Yeah. It kind of comes down to two words: integrity and tenacity. I have a pretty clear vision of how things should be, and if someone disagrees, that’s fine, but I’m still going to do it anyway. And when I was setting up this business and trying to establish relationships with vendors and things, a lot of people told me I couldn’t do it a certain way because it’s never been
done like that. And I’m like, “Well, that’s not the correct answer.” So I just kept at it until I figured out a way to actually get it done the way I felt it should be done. And whenever I was spending some time with Clive, he recognized that in me and said that Tim, who was a close friend of his, was the exact same way.

Jon: Yeah, I can imagine. Was it an intense situation working with people there?

Aaron: There are a lot of people that are very protective of the band. Several of which were saying, “How can you do this?” So, we had to be very open and transparent that the book has been authorized by Jim Smith, Tim’s brother. And then people started to open up more.

Jon: There’s a line in the book from Ego Plum: “This is religious music.” I have to say, I’ve had similar kinds of feelings listening to them, but I can’t really explain it. What do both of you think about that statement? What does that mean to you? 

Rob: I’ve written before about that topic for a booklet for one of Tim’s benefit shows I played. “As I became committed to spreading Tim Smith’s ‘gospel,’ I realized that there were several elements in his music that are what helps attract some to a religious lifestyle. I believe their psychodramatic persona carries this out. He writes hymns for the common man, as opposed to some hive-mind’s deity. I am not, as yet, unconvinced that this is all just a manifestation of my spiritually-exhausted unconscious.” Well, that’s what I wrote anyway.

Jon: What do you think, Aaron?

Aaron: I mean, Christians wear cross necklaces and Cardiacs fans wear daisies. I talked to Mary Wren [from The Alphabet Business Concern] about this, and she said that it’s no coincidence that the recent tribute shows are called Sing to Tim. You know, replacing the word God with Tim.

Jon: Interesting.

Rob: I mean, it’s very, very, very close to a cult. I don’t know what the pure definition of a cult is, but it’s a pretty fun one, I guess.

Jon: Yeah, I can feel that. But it also feels very positive, which maybe all cults do initially. [Laughs.]

Aaron: Yeah, if you’re in the cult, it’s great. [Laughs.]

Jon: How did the selections for the 7” come about? 

Aaron: Clive has a rather large collection of material. And at some point, he wound up with the original master tape for the first 7” that Cardiac Arrest had made. There was a song left off of that record simply because they didn’t have the space to include them all. And so, Clive was willing to generously donate it to this project. Typically, when I’ve done books in the past, getting one unreleased track from the band is like pulling teeth, so I didn’t even bother asking for a second one. However, when I presented that song to Mary and Jim, they suggested adding another one to the single as well, which was great! But unfortunately, all of their material has been released already. And we didn’t want to use anything from LSD [an unfinished record at the time of Tim’s passing] since it’s not covered in the book. But “Faster Than Snakes with a Ball and a Chain” is only on the Greatest Hits album, and it’s never been released on vinyl. So, we opted for that one.

Jon: Yeah. I was, excited to see that. It’s a great track.

Aaron: One of my favorites.

Rob: Yeah, man, the direction they were going to be going in is pretty substantial.

Aaron: While that song was written during Sing to God, it wasn’t recorded until Guns. So, you have a song recorded during the sessions for their very first 7”, and then it bookends with a song left off of their very last record.

Jon: I’m hesitant to ask this, but is there any hope of anything happening with the LSD stuff or is that just still in oblivion? 

Aaron: Yeah, it’s coming out next year. I think Jim did mention it coming out next year in an interview [BBC Radio 6]. What it’s going to be when it’s done is still anybody’s guess.

Jon: Right. I’ll take whatever it is.

Aaron: I think we all will.

Jon: I want to talk about this quote that Sean Kitching has in the book where he’s quoting something that Tim stated, which is, music is much too cosmic a thing to become a fashion accessory. Which is a great sentiment, but yet look at how often music does become a fashion accessory. I mean, that’s a major component of it for many people, it’s just part of a lifestyle thing. What kind of responsibility do you think this makes for us that are now trying to spread the word about them? 

Aaron: I kind of read that quote maybe a little differently than you. I look at it in terms of being disingenuous. We’ve all seen the punk kids with spikes on their jackets hanging out at Hot Topic in the mall. But when you get to talking to them, it’s clear that it’s all for show.

Jon: Right!

Aaron: I just follow my own path. I don’t follow trends or anything like that.

Rob: Tim obviously did use fashion because the Pondies, as Cardiac fans like to call themselves, a lot of the time that’s how they find each other. Just like punks used to be. You could identify another punk kid and go, “Oh, cool, here’s somebody I could finally talk to about where to find cool records.” They still do that, just wearing the daisy shirts and stuff. But it isn’t boiled down to just the fashion of the daisy shirt, obviously. As for what I think of fashion in general, I’m fond of saying that all non-utilitarian clothing is narcissism. My old band Thingy’s only merch was a t-shirt that said, “The revolution will not have a dress code.”