Mojo - The Music Magazine

“Verse, chorus, random stupid section...”

Regular listeners to BBC 6Music will already be familiar with the sly genius and off-the-cuff invention of Adam Buxton & Joe Cornish’s Saturday morning radio show, particularly their Song Wars slot in which the presenters pit their musical talents against each other by composing and performing one song each - based around a common theme, such as public transport, climate change or James Bond - and then asking the listeners to pick a favourite. When Song Wars Volume One went straight to the top of the iTunes Comedy Chart at the end of June (knocking Flight of the Conchords from the Number One spot) MOJO’s Andrew Male popped round to the BBC to quiz the duo on the art of songwriting [see below] and ask whether they could compose a song for MOJO.

After the BBC’s impartiality laws were explained to us (the duo wouldn’t be allowed to broadcast pro-MOJO tracks on the BBC) MOJO subscriber Adam Buxton offered to write a song exclusively for us for use on our website. In the end he wrote two, in his own inimitable style (with some help from The Fall and Beck).

You can check out the songs below, but first have a read of Mr. Male’s encounter with the duo. Some of it’s quite funny.

When you started did you think Song Wars would be quite easy?

Adam: I did, but Joe was quite sceptical. I said, it’s easy. I’d started tinkering with [Mac OS X music software] GarageBand and I’d had lots of fun singing songs off the top of my head over the thirty second jingles they provide. I thought, this is great. You don’t have to make the music, there’s no copyright and that’s why I suggested we do it. We were covering for [6Music DJ] Shaun Keaveny and he had a feature on his show where unsigned bands would battle it out and we hijacked it and did our own songs. They were supposed to be lame and I was a little bit miffed that Joe went to town and constructed a proper song whereas I just sang over the top of one of the GarageBand jingles. So very quickly, within about three weeks we got very ambitious and competitive. Also, it was good to have something in the show that wasn’t an actual competition because there was all this stuff about you not being able to do any kind of contest in the post-Blue Peter scandal world.

Joe: The weirdest thing in that talk was that they said that they’d banned competitions across the board at the BBC, but nobody misses them. They realised that they were often just a crappy crutch to fill in radio airtime.

So what have you learnt about the art of songwriting from doing this?

Adam: The fact that I can’t do it. I always end up falling back on production tricks because I haven’t got any songwriting chops.

Joe: I don’t think either of us have ever had bridges. I tend to go chorus, verse, chorus, verse, end.

Adam: I go intro, verse, chorus, first random stupid section, second random stupid section.

Joe: It is amazingly fun. It’s the modern equivalent of tinkering in the garden shed. You go up to your room with your computer, put your headphones on and just spend hours. It is incredible that you can produce stuff that sounds professional and it’s pre-installed on your computer.

Adam: Nigel Godrich was kind enough to sort out all the levels for us for when we released the Song Wars album and he was really impressed. He said, ‘I can’t believe you do this on GarageBand. The music industry’s fucked’.

Joe: I don’t even have a microphone. I just sing into the condensed mic on the Mac. And there’s no excuse for not knowing how to play anymore as it’s all loops.

Adam: Punks thought they were doing nothing by learning three chords, but that’s seen like quite a lot now.

Comparisons have been drawn with the success of Flight Of The Conchords…

Adam: I wouldn’t put us in the same category. Not only are they incredibly accomplished musicians, but they’re doing a different thing. They’re doing funny songs. Maybe a few of ours might be good enough to stand alone as comedy songs but, no, that’s not what we’re doing…

Joe: It’s what I’m doing! No, it’s just pure coincidence. But I think there is this generation of more muso comedians, like The Mighty Boosh, and also, indie music has got stupider. The division between real music and comedy music has got smaller. A lot of the stuff we play on the show, like Noah and The Whale, people text in and ask ‘was that a Song Wars song?' Production values are the same and because there’s been years without comedy songs there’s a treasure trove to take the piss out of, like Flight Of The Conchords doing the Pet Shop Boys twenty years after. Is there twenty years of pop that hasn’t had the piss taken out of it yet?

Adam, with your greater love of and knowledge of music, did you think you’d win every week?

Adam: I did think I’d have a better run than I initially did and I got fucked off because I felt that the listeners were performing to a voting pattern…

Joe: Wow, this is new, ‘performing to a voting pattern’, go on…

Adam: …that you’d get on I’m A Celebrity…

Joe: They had a herd mentality, you say? They weren’t clever enough for you?

Adam: …and they zone in and they pick on someone and ignore the quality of the songs and carry on with this joke about Adam always losing and I thought, I can’t believe this, I don’t want to be part of this joke! This is my life! I’m spending more and more time on these fucking songs to the exclusion of other things I’m supposed to be doing, I’m not just going to lose every week because you’ve decided it’s funny, listeners!

Joe: [To MOJO] I’m sorry, I didn’t realise how deep that ran.

What song are you most proud of?

Adam: Meatballs. Because I constructed my song from scratch and that was the week that Joe just went in and just sang over a jingle. So I phoned in the next one because I thought I’m not going to try anymore and I promptly lost again.

Joe: And I wrote The Right And Wrong Song which has now been inducted into the Rock’n’Roll Hall Of Fame…But you know, Adam, winning is no reflection of quality… the Oscars, the BAFTAS…

Adam: Well, that’s true in a way but in another way it’s not in any way true… but anyway, we took a break and I hope I’ve come back with a slightly more positive attitude.

You also started Video Wars, where you asked your listeners to make their own music videos for two of the Song Wars efforts, Jane’s Brain and Meatballs. What did that reveal about your listeners?

Joe: That they are amazingly creative and inventive. I think we’ve got the same kind of audience who used to watch Vision On or Blue Peter. They aren’t afraid to get practical. We got 143 entries and a really good standard of effort. You can see them all on YouTube and we’ll put the top six on the 6Music website. It’s a shit prize. All you get to do is come in and meet us.

So, it’s like I’ve won, really.

Joe: Yes, or not even as good.

So, who’s the winner?

Adam: It’s a guy called Chris Salt. He chose Jane’s Brain

Joe: It’s polished and good and beautifully light and full of ideas and we worried that we should be giving it to some 15 year-old, but I think this guy is the equivalent of us when we were starting out.

Any famous fans?

Adam: I sent a copy of the Song Wars CD to Charles Thompson, aka Frank Black and he and his children have been enjoying them. Colin and Jonny from Radiohead enjoy them…

They just have to cover one of them now…

Adam: That has occurred to me since...that would be amazing. I also sent a copy to Britt Daniel from Spoon. If any of these people decided to cover one my life would just implode.

Joe: I’d be indifferent. I don’t know who these people are.

Interview: Andrew Male

Listen to Adam Buxton’s solo Song Wars MOJO tributes below!

MOJO (Beck)

MOJO (The Fall)