“My dream is of locking myself in a room with two big speakers and all my equipment…” A Guy Called Gerald on Manchester’s rise [February 1990]

Back in early 1990, A Guy Called Gerald (aka Gerald Simpson) was riding the crest of a musical wave, with a recently signed deal with CBS that would lead to the Automanikk album the same year.

Thirty years ago this month, the Liverpool Echo caught up with the then 22 year old, to discuss the emergence of Manchester on the musical map.

“I suppose I should be talking in a broad Mancunian accent and wearing flares, but it’s not really me,” he says.

The interview, with the paper’s Penny Kiley, finds him in somewhat nonchalant mood about the work that he has contributed to other titans of the Manchester scene, without necessarily getting the credit – Specific Hate, on the FX EP, is a clear diss to 808 State’s Pacific State, for example.

“It’s just my style of writing,” he says. “It wasn’t a dig as such. I thought it would be the funny side of it.”

And while work with his new label has led to a few lengthy commutes back to Manchester, he has his feet on the ground when it comes to his nocturnal activities.

“I get back from London at 11 o’clock and try to get in the front of the queue for the Hacienda before I go home,” he says.

The full article (which was published on 13 February 1990) can be found below – also note the reference to Guru Josh as a ‘1990’s Jerry Lee Lewis’ in the accompanying article beneath it 🙂