‘In 1994, I was doing Top of the Pops - by ‘95, I was signing on…’

Clint Boon, keyboard tickler with Inspiral Carpets, DJ, raconteur and radio presenter, is now an author, with his new book The Manchester Chronicles, True Tales of Music, Madness and Mayhem 1976-2006.  It’s part autobiography, part Manchester music history lesson and part self-help lessons in positivity. Cult Manchester’s David Nolan talks to Clint about making the right decisions, following your dreams and the art of ‘croddying’…

Cult Manchester: It might sound an odd question, but what is this book? Is it an autobiography? Is it a Manchester music book? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? 

Clint Boon: I think it's a bit of a hybrid, isn't it? It starts in 1976, which is when I saw the Sex Pistols at the Electric Circus in Manchester, then roughly a 30-year period after that. It’s basically my journey through Manchester's music scene, as a fan of other bands and as a musician with the Inspirals. It's that story alongside the city changing at the same time. When I started writing it, I was thinking… autobiography. But the publishers said, rather than being autobiographical, let's make it more about the Manchester journey. That made a lot of sense because my view of what happened in those years is completely unique. Nobody else saw that from my perspective. It made it a bit simpler to write it, rather than it being… I was born in Oldham blah, blah, blah. We've packaged it as a Manchester music story.

CM: Was it hard work?

Clint: I thought the actual writing was easy. Although, this is me typing (mimes typing with one finger). All the book was done with one-finger typing. But, one of my big issues was that once you get deadlines in place, there's pressure. You've got a little time constraint that you need to work towards. Then trying to do this alongside being in a band that are doing really well again. So, I've got that going on. I've got a lot of DJ work. I'm a family man, so there's always stuff going on in the family that you can’t budget for. So, it's trying to write a book as well as that. That was where the stress kicked in really. But yeah, the actual writing, I loved it. I do like writing and I like reminiscing and going through my memories and putting them into words.

CM: When you walk into Waterstones in Manchester, there’s a wall of Manchester music books there facing you. You’ve got a lot of competition, haven't you?

Clint: Yeah, I understand that… but it's my book. I'm chuffed with the fact that I've done it, because I've been aware for years and years that this needed to be done. It gives you a bit of immortality, doesn't it? We're not here forever, and having the book there, it's a little piece of me that won’t ever go away. What'll make it more unique? Nobody else has seen that music scene from my viewpoint. Including being on the arse in the mid-90s. What a unique and grounding moment in my life. In 1994 I was still doing Top of the Pops and we were playing Glastonbury. We were sharing the stage with Oasis. By Spring ‘95, we'd split the band up and by the Summer of ‘95 I was signing on in Rochdale. I was getting income support, I was getting free milk because I had two little kids, two little babies. So, a lot of people will have never seen that side of a musician going through that and talking about it. I think a lot of musicians would probably sweep that to one side and not mention it.

CM: Because it's all showbiz and Rollers and champers…

Clint: Yeah… success! We had success in the early 90s, but by summer of ‘95, I was a failure at that point. So that's why I think my book will be different. I'm not scared to share the dark moments alongside the success stories. But there’s some really funny anecdotes too, I think. So, it's everything that I wanted the book to be. I wanted every page to inspire somebody, give somebody a laugh - usually at my own expense - make feel make people look inside themselves and think, what would you do in this situation? I wanted it to inspire people as well as entertain people. I think a lot of people, when they come to write a book, they'll do it as revenge; they want to set the record straight. I'll get you, you bastard. I don't want to write a book that upsets anybody, really. I certainly don't want people jumping off the top of buildings because of something I've written. You see some books that, in this day and age, you can imagine having a negative effect on people and it's not what this book's about. I wanted it to inspire people and make them feel good about life, despite the darker moments in it.

CM: Who's someone in the book that people wouldn’t know about who was just… fantastic. What an amazing, beautiful person they were. Because that's quite unusual in a music book.

Clint: There's a lot of them in there and I don't mind giving them credit. I talk about a guy called Keith Chadwick, who was a fine art teacher when I went to [Hopwood Hall] college in Rochdale. He was somebody that was a great example of the type of teacher at the college. I'd gone there from grammar school in Middleton. That was one of the least enjoyable five years of my life. It was an all-boys Catholic grammar school, so they didn't mind whipping you every day if you stepped out of line. So, to go from that ultra-discipline, to being at art college where anything goes… and the lecturers really got me. They really understood me. They encouraged my creativity. So, I think Keith Chadwick was the teacher that really inspired me.

Then there's a guy called Gordon Biggins. He was the head of A&R at EMI. When I was signing on - and on my arse - I was still making music all through that time. I was doing demo tapes and trying to get people to listen to me and maybe throw me a bone or whatever. Gordon gave me £2,000 quid of EMI's money as demo money. Knowing that he wasn't going to get a decent demo and he wasn't going to sign me. He was working with The Spice Girls at the time. So, I wasn't going to come along and give him any hit records, but he gave me a couple of grand of EMI’s money to literally just live on for a bit, to get me through the next few months, which I'm eternally grateful for.

Then there's the obvious people that helped me, people like Tony Wilson and John Peel. They didn't just inspire me as broadcasters; they helped me on a quite personal level as well. And I always say my dad, as well. He was a massive role model to me. He still is. He's not around anymore, he passed away in 2011. I can hear every time I talk. I can hear him now… You going on about yourself again, are you? Bloody hell, you can talk you, can't ya?  Then you look at your hands sometimes - when you’re doing a bit of DIY - and they look like your dad's hands.  

CM:  Was there anything where the publishers said …you can't put that in. No, no, no, no… we can't have that.

Clint: There's a great story about one time in the early ‘90s, I was in London doing Top of the Pops. I was off me tits, drunk in a hotel and I shat in the teapot. And the publishers said, do you really want that in there? And I thought about it and figured; I'll save that for another book… But they didn't tell me to take it out. They just said, do you really want people to have that image of you croddying over a teapot in an hotel in Swiss Cottage trying to get your shit into the teapot?

CM: Croddying? I'm from South Manchester. I’ve never heard that one.

Clint:  That's an Oldham term, I think. To squat down over something.

CM: I’ve learned something… So, that lad who went to see the Sex Pistols in 1976, what has he learned since going to the Electric Circus?

Clint: He’s been totally proven right. There was a college trip to London a couple of weeks after that gig. It had been organised by the college to go and visit the museums and the art galleries and all that. Some of us wanted to go see Malcolm McLaren’s shop on the King's Road in Chelsea. We wanted to go to the Roxy Club to see The Damned. So, I got that trip out of the way and the Monday after I went in and told the head of the year that I was leaving the art college so I could go off and chase this dream of getting into music and being in a band.

So, I think that kid in the Electric Circus… he was right to do what he did, really. Because it's now 50 years later and I'm still making records, still doing gigs, still DJ-ing and I've written a book as well! I wouldn't change any of it. I feel really satisfied that I've done the right thing and I've still got a lot of creative stuff in me that I need to get done before I pop off. So, this book is the first of several books. I've got a few other ideas…

CM: Go on, give us a hint…

Clint: This is the Manchester Chronicles. There's a lot of stuff that I wrote that I've pulled out of this book, about growing up in Oldham and Shaw, with outside toilets and all that. So, I like the idea of maybe the Oldham Chronicles, which also references the big newspaper up there. And then the Radio Chronicles. I started doing bits of radio in ’95, standing in for people. But I could probably write a good book about my time in radio. And the Parenting Chronicles. I like the idea of doing a book with my wife, about our journey through being parents and all the stuff that we've been through, because we've had a fucking tough ride at times. There's a lot there that we could really talk about. We've home schooled since 2011. We lost a child, many years ago. (Clint became patron of a charity supporting parents who’d lost very young children after the death of his daughter Luna Bliss, 34 days after her birth). But I think I think we've got a good book in us - together - that we could write about our journey through parenting.

This has given me a real taste to get more books done. Still making records, obviously. The Inspirals have got a new album coming out in January. And I think there'll be another album, not too far behind that. I've got some plans of like solo projects that I want to work on, music- wise, that I want to get out of there at some point. So yeah, there's no letting up yet. I'm just one of those little Manchester bees, aren't I? Just firing these little creative things out of me.

CM: Would your dad have said… when are you going to get a proper job?

Clint: Totally, yeah. But you know what? Towards the end of his life, he knew that I’d followed my dreams and achieved what I wanted… more than I wanted. I knew he was proud, even the night he died, I knew he was so fucking proud of me. I went to see him in hospital. I could see in his face how chuffed he was for me. So, yeah. I wouldn't change anything that I've done. I'd keep it all the same.

The Manchester Chronicles, True Tales of Music, Madness and Mayhem 1976-2006 will be published by Octopus Book on 3 September 2006. Clint is doing a book tour to coincide with the book’s release, including dates in and around Manchester. Details here.