ROLAND GIFT: Roland Gift (Universal Island)
HAVING abandoned music to pursue his film career when the Fine Young Cannibals split in the mid-Nineties,ex-frontman Roland Gift returns with a solo album which sticks faithfully to his old band's style. Gift no longer sports the most pronounced widow's peak in pop but his soulful voice and gut-wrenching songs are intact. New single It's Only Money, with its dramatic orchestral stylings,is unrepresentative of the album. The best tracks,including ballads Flown and Superhero, plus the yearning Looking For A Friend, hark back to the sparse musical backdrops which took FYC to the top in the Eighties. GIFT OF THE GA Former Fine Young Cannibal Roland Gift is back with his first solo album .By GAVIN MARTIN
Roland Gift was one of the most distinctive and successful vocalists of his generation.
His band, the Fine Young Cannibals,created an innovative blend of Two-Tone, soul and electro funk,producing hits such as Blue and Drives Me Crazy.
Their classic second album The Raw And The Cooked sold 15 million copies worldwide and spent an incredible three months at the lop of the American charts.
But at the height of their fame in 1990, Birmingham-born Gift shocked the music establishment when he refused two Brit Awards on the band's behalf; claiming the event had become a photo opportunity for the Tory government.
Not long after that,he angered his colleagues, former Beat members Andy Cox and David Steele, by joining a travelling theatre as they were set to record their third album.
"That certainly created tensions", admits the cucumber-cool Gift,39 "But it was something I hat to do. Even now I feel I don't do more drama there's part of me not being fulfilled".
The Cannibals continued in name only and after a six-year wait for a third album they finally admitted it was over. "We slopped functioning really".
Roland admits. "Marriages fail although people may have great houses, lovely kids and a good job,it was like that I think we got afraid. The management and record company were saying the next album had to self twice as much and that horrible idea took root. So there was a concentration on trying to write hits. which wasn't the way it worked for us. We never wrote for a specific market.
Now, after nine years away from the limelight raising his two kids - splitting his time between London, Hull, Birmingham and a place in New Zealand - he is back with his debut solo album, simply called Roland Gift.
He looks as strikingly handsome and debonair as before. For years he's been a keen competitive swimmer, and the exercise has kept his voice as soulful and melancholy as ever.
Though he hasn't spoken to Steele for years, Andy Cox plays on the album. Made with the group's old producer. David Z. the new single It's Only Money picks up where be Cannibals left off.
"It's the sound I know and feel comfortable with," he says, "I was aware of hip current aounds we could have sed but I didn't want that because it really dates it. The idea was to be sensitive to what the song needed."
Despite it's title, he denies that the new single is an any way antimaterialistic.
"Definitely not." he says. "I think I'm actually quite a materialistic person, I value what it takes to make a car or build a nice house. Money does change things, but how it changes people depends on how they react to it.
"Out of everything I've been able to buy with success, the thing I really value is a ghettoblaster I bought years and years ago when I was recording with a group called The Acrylic Victims and we got to make a record with Desmond Dekker who was a hero of mine, It doesn't really work any more, but I've kept it because it's a symbol of the first money that I made from music."
Thought the Cannibals had a reputation as hearty drinkers. Gift says drugs didn't feature in their beak-up. His wild years had been spent years before in Hull where his family moved, when he was 14.
He was one of the first punks in the city and earned himself the nickname Guinness because of his combination of dark skin and dyed blonde hair. "It was a preparation for becoming famous", he says, "Then I was in a local drama group and had girls calling out 'Roland, Roland, Roland! introduction to that world, and what followed was a gradual progression, I was never fazed by it. It was all I ever thought of doing, music or drama."
Gift still intends to combine acting - he notably starred in the movie Sammy And Rosie Get Laid - an singing when he goes on tour with his album. His next film appearance, The Island Of The Mapmaker's Wife, should be ready for release at the same time.
But doesn't it feel a bit odd coming back to a music world ruled by Pop Idol and record company marketing departments?
"I don't think it's really changed" he replies. "There's always been manufactured groups. I have a book from the '70s with a producer saying how terrible it is
with only three big labels controlling everything. That's the way it is now. It's come full circle but the good stuff will always get through in the end." He's proved it once, who's going to bet against him proving it all over again?
The single It's Only Money is released on Monday. The album Roland Gift is out on March 11.