Cast

Tripping in Liverpool

My First for NME: Liverpool… but pretend it’s not

Me first ever feature for NME and where do they send me? Not Paris, not New York – oh no straight to Liverpool to photograph Cast, the band everyone and their nan was banging on about.

They were a friendly enough bunch, but you’d think I’d asked them to pose outside Greggs on their day off the way they were stressing about being snapped in Liverpool.

I'd had my heart on making them look like a cool, working class Northern band and took them to a typical Liverpuddlian street, but the band were not impressed. You’d think I’d taken them to a bin round the back of Kwik Save.

“Can you make it so we don’t look like we’re in Liverpool?” John Power asks, all serious.

Trouble was – and I double-checked just in case – we were in Liverpool.

Then one of ‘em pipes up with, “Can you make it trippy?”

Trippy?! I didn’t have a clue what he meant. Thought he might’ve dropped something dodgy in his tea. I was too shy to ask – didn’t want to look a total dork before I’d even got the lens cap off.

They took a shine to this one wall – Very “trippy”, apparently. I didn’t have the heart to tell them the whole spread was going to be in black and white.

I don't think we really clicked as a whole. As a newcomer, the band probably were disappointed someone more notorious like Roger Sargent, Martyn Goodacre or even Kevin Cummins had not been sent. Not me – with a camera bag bigger than my confidence.

I wanted them to look a bit like The Who or The Kinks – 60s cool, bit of attitude. They looked at me like I’d turned up with a mullet and a Bay City Rollers tee.

Still – can’t deny it – they did look cool. John Power had that Northern swagger down to a T, and the fact they clearly weren’t impressed with me? Well, it actually helped the whole “we’re dead bored and cooler than you” look I was going for. I liked this shot in the end.

Did NME run it? Course they didn’t. They picked the moody street shot in the end. Number 10 on the contact sheet.

Light: Standard Mersey drizzle - over'cast' lighting, Northern edition.

Camera: Nikon F90x – shutter faster than me running from confrontation.

Lens: Nikon F2.8 28–70mm – posh but flexible, like a yoga teacher from Leeds.

Film: Kodak Tri-X – proper vintage, like your gran’s curtains but cooler.

Location: The trippiest, back-alley bits of 90s Liverpool

That's the one!

Liverpool but not