Black

Colin Vearncombe calls himself "Black" and writes songs like "Sweetest Smile" while he's out jogging. "Very interesting, but what about that time you had your strawberries nicked?" asks Sylvia Patterson.

"I wanted Black to be my favourite band, the music that I wasn't hearing from anybody else and I wanted to be proud of it. And I am very proud of it - proud as a first-time father, I think. I've been talking to fathers about it! I really... like it..."
Colin Vearncombe has gone distinctly misty 'n' delirious around the "gills". For he is the one-man pop group, Black, whose rather brilliant tune "Sweetest Smile" is currently snirfling woefuIly up the nation's charts - causing all in its path to wimper and blub. How strange, then, to find that Colin is actually a very jol1y Liverpudlian pop person who began "life" playing guitar for a grizzly punk rock "style" group called The Epileptic Tits (aherm aherm). But! the lead singer left and Colin bravely decided to try a spot of warbling himself.
"I thought I could sing. I was very wrong! Ruddy dreadful in fact ..."
But not for long! He changed the group's name, thankfully, to Tilt and then finally to Black in 1981, by which time they were a mere threesome. By 1982 they were an even merer twosome -Colin and a keyboard player called Dave Dix, "a talented so-and-so" - and now they're an even more mere onesome, with Dave Dix eventually becoming Colin's full-time producer.
Since Black became a one-man band, they have released numerous not-very-successful singles - mainly due to either being skint or "record deal disasters" - until February last year when their independent tune "Wonderful Life" got to number ...72!! Thus they were swirled off by a new record company to make "Everything's Coming Up Roses" - which was largely ignored - and now "Sweetest Smile" - "which someone on Radio 1 the other day said was 'divine'! Ha haaah!" Qulte. And apart from that...

HE USED TD PlAY MAZIN' "RIFFS" ON HlS CRICKET BAT!
'I'm just 25, just- I was born on the May 26 which makes me a Gemini. That means I'm a spook-persan? Ha haah! Er ...so I had a very standard, white middle-class upbringing until I saw Elvis Presley in Jailhouse Rock - and started playing me cricket bat in front of the bedroom mirror. These things happen you know! 'I'm a star!!' and all that rubbish. And me and me friends actually made cardboard guitars before head-bangers! Then when I got a real guitar I gave up. I thought 'this is impossible! Me fingers just can't do that!' I learned eventually though, but it nearly killed me."

HE ONCE GOT HlS STRAWBERRIES NICKED!
"I picked strawberries once for a day - I couldn't stand it. And same bloke behind me robbed all me strawberries anyway! I'd been warking far two hours and all me punnets were behind me -and I turned round and someone had robbed them! I was fuming! I couldn't even go home 'cos we were miles from anywhere. I painted trailers once too and delivered Christmas hampers and I hated that too! Your brain just disconnects, you know, with the boredom. I mean, there's loads to do if you're on the dole and you've got the right attitude you know. Yeah! Get the UB40 - that'll do nicely, sir! - and you get reduced rates at the swimming baths, the library, the cinema and you've loads of time to cultivate friends! Obviously you get cheesed off sometimes but.. well, I just didn't get much of the work ethic instilled in me obviously! Basically I'm a lazy person -I like to get up around 11. I'm not a very good riser!"

HE'S AN OPERA SINGER!
"I'm not a opera buff, but I have been doing it - lessons and stuff with a teacher - cos she says that once you can sing opera you can sing anything and she's right! Do I feel like a bimbo singing it? No! I mean, the good song could have been written now - apart from all the 'thees' and 'thous', of course. I can't stand all that (adopts deep 'n' "meaningful" operatic tone) 'I'm going to the toileeeeeeeet!' 'Are you reeeeeeeally?' 'I think soooooo!' stuff"

HE WRITES SONGS WHEN HE'S JOGGING!
"I go running round Sefton Park in Liverpool where me flat is. I thought it'd be really boring and horrendous but it's not - I've actually written a few songs whi:e I've been doing it. Yeah! You're running along and suddenly there'll be a thought or a tune... besides it helps to have something to think about so you don't notice the pain. I really enjoy it now and get a bit restless if I haven't done it for a few days - and you don't get knackered, you just get more energy which is amazing. And when you stop your body produces all these...er, enchephines or something to kill the pain. Endorphines, that's it! "

HE'S GOT MILLIONS OF FAMOUS FRIENOS (not strictly true)!
" Well, all the Liverpool people sort of know each other I'm quite pally with It's Immaterial and I once met Paul from Frankie Goes To Hollywood ha ha ha! I have a nodding acquaintance with Pete Burns but he's a bit of a hermit really - he couldn't go out in Liverpool because of the way he looks anyway, you just get hassle. He once had these black contact lenses which covered the whole of his eye and he used to go around the streets terrorising people! I don't really know him though. I certainly don't sit around talking about music with musician pals though.
There's far more weighty matters to talk about -like football and women. "

HE THINKS HE'S GOING TO OIE IN A JIFFY!
"I've got this recurring horror of... just when I'm about to succeed, I find I out I've got some terrible terminal illness or something. Me manager's the same! We've spent so long, like. trying, going 'Aaaaarhrhgh!' and then - it'll be 'BABOOOM!' the bomb'll drop! And we'll be going 'Fffffff! Not now!' Aw, there's just so much I want to do, you know, things I haven't even thought of yet, like ...astral projection ha hahaha! I suppose I'm just an eternal pessimist ha hahaha!"

HE'D MAKE A USELESS MILLIONAIRE!
"If I make music and it sells, I want what's coming to me. I definitely fancy being a millionaire. And if I was, first I'd grve me family whatever they wanted, then, being fairly sensible I'd find a way of making part of it make some more. And then I'd have a bit of a blow-out. Er... I'd probably learn to drive, I think. Ha hahaha! Vou know, when we got some money trom this last record deall went out shopping in Liverpool determined to spend some money. And when I came back all had was a tube of superglue, a door-stop and a corkscrew! And I still haven't got a settee! I just haven't got time to buy all that stuff!"

HE THINKS "SWEETEST S MlLE" IS V. V. SAD INDEED!
"It's me singing me story of everything that happened to me in 1985, whlch was a rotten year. Basically my heart was broken. I was... erm, I'm technically married. Er... I've got an imminent divorce - I've been separated for two years. Er... I've never told anyone that, I shouldn't have said it! Er... yeah, so that was 1985, along with lots of other things, me family falling ill and me friends going through all sorts of stuff... I'm alright now, though. Just about."

HE LOOKS LIKE BILLY BRAGG BECAUSE OF THE VIKINGS!?
"Do you really think I look like Billy 3ragg? Usually I get the 'young Danny Kaye' bit- I don't mind that one so nuch. Er... I'11 take Billy Bragg as being something I'm not particularly into the idea of! It must be the Viking blood, you know. It probably is. They got around a bit, the Vikings. (?) This is getting ridiculous! I've had enough stick about me nose, anyway. And it upsets me! If people turn against me I'll be a very upset man! "

HE LAUGHS LIKE A LUNATIC ALL THE TIME!
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha hahaaah!"