ShareDave McCabe, an English singer, songwriter, guitarist and front man of indie rock band The Zutons, chats with Kevin Cooper about Mark Ronson and the late Amy Winehouse covering Valerie, working with Nile Rodgers, their latest album The Big Decider and their 2025 tour of the UK.
Dave McCabe is an English singer, songwriter and guitarist, and the front man of The Zutons, an English indie rock band formed in Liverpool in 2002.
He was a member of the Liverpool band Tramp Attack with Brookside actor Kristian Ealey. The band released their debut single Rocky Hangover in 2001.
McCabe left to form The Zutons, who released three albums before quietly disbanding in 2008. Their debut album Who Killed The Zutons? was released in 2004. They released their second studio album Tired Of Hanging Around in 2006 with the singles Why Won’t You Give Me Your Love? and Valerie, both of which reached number nine in the UK singles chart.
In 2015 he launched his solo career with the release of his debut album, Church Of Miami, which was compared to the likes of Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode.
The Zutons reformed to play several one off gigs between 2016 and 2023, when the band announced that they intended to release their fourth studio album. After a sixteen year gap between studio albums the band released their forth studio album, The Big Decider in 2014. The album was produced by Nile Rodgers and Ian Broudie of The Lightning Seeds.
Whilst busy preparing for their forthcoming tour, he took some time out to have a chat with Kevin Cooper and this is what he had to say.
Good afternoon Dave, how are you today?
I’m fine thanks Kevin, how are you today mate?
All is good thanks and before we move on let me firstly thank you for taking the time to speak to me today.
That’s alright mate, thank you.
And just how is life treating you at this moment in time?
I have to say that life at the moment is pretty good. I’ve been up since five o’clock with the baby and my eyes are slowly shutting but that’s alright (laughter). Apart from that its all-good mate.
I have to tell you that the last time that I caught The Zutons was last December at the Motorpoint Arena when you opened for Paul (Heaton).
Ah right, okay.
And I thought that you were absolutely brilliant.
Thanks mate, thank you.
Being totally honest with you, I had forgotten just how good The Zutons were live.
(Laughter) to be honest with you, that’s alright, that is kind of what we are currently trying to do; we are trying to remind people of just what The Zutons are all about.
We must talk about your latest album The Big Decider.
Must we (laughter) alright, go on then.
I can’t stop playing it; I think that it is a brilliant piece of work.
That’s cool to hear, so tell me, what songs do you like?
Well at this moment in time I have got four go to tracks. They are Creeping On The Dance Floor, The Big Decider, Rise And Best Of Me. I think that they are absolutely fantastic.
That’s great. Well thank you very much.
And there are no McCartney’s on there, there are no fillers (laughter).
There are no McCartneys?
That’s right; there are no fillers on the album. Paul was great at putting two good tracks on an album and then the rest were fillers (laughter).
Do you mean with Wings and stuff like that? I don’t like to shoot people down, but I know exactly what you mean (laughter). When you listen to John Lennon’s albums, there’s a bit more going on isn’t there. It’s funny how this conversation has gone onto the fucking Beatles straight away (laughter). You just can’t help it, they are everywhere aren’t they (laughter).
There must be something in the water because Liverpool simply produces band after band after band.
I don’t know, I’m from Mosely Village which is kind of the outskirts of Liverpool, and we get called woolly backs which refers to a non-Liverpudlian person who travels into Liverpool. So, you would have to ask a real scouser about all of that stuff (laughter).
Coming from Nottingham all that I have got to gauge the success of both cities on is Paper Lace and Jake Bugg (laughter).
Who the fuck are Paper Lace? (laughter).
Right, here goes (laughter). Paper Lace is an English pop rock band formed in Nottingham in 1967. Their claim to fame is that they achieved success in 1974 when they had three UK Top 40 hit singles, including the number one hit Billy Don’t Be A Hero. There you go, you know now all that there is to know about Paper Lace (laughter).
Thanks for that, I think (laughter). That is going to bug me now (laughter). I’m going to have to Google Billy Don’t Be A Hero and find out just what I am missing (laughter). In answer to your original question, the simple answer is, I don’t know why that is the case, I really don’t. I feel like Liverpool sometimes gets a bad rep and sometimes it creates a bad rep. It seems that if you want to be a footy player or you want to be in a band, Liverpool is a good place to go for it, if you know what I mean. People want to go for it, whether they are dealing drugs, or they are doing whatever it is that they do, robbing banks some years ago, the people of Liverpool simply go for it. I think that is the thing with Liverpool, or more to the point, the thing with scousers.
I recently interviewed Andy McClusky (Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark) and I asked him why he thought there were so many great bands in Liverpool and he said that it was because “we all want to get out of Liverpool”.
(Hysterical laughter) he’s most probably right in what he says although he is from The Wirral, so he probably doesn’t have a fucking clue what he is talking about (laughter). I love OMD they really are great aren’t they.
Getting back on track, your latest album, are you happy with the fan’s reaction to it? A lot are saying that it is your best work to date, would you agree?
I have to say that I feel that the latest album is as good as our first album. The first album is still most probably the songs that you play as much of off any other record that you do, if you know what I mean. Our first album seems to be the standard, and I think that you can say that for a lot of bands. There are only a few bands, and they are usually massive, massive, massive bands, bands like Fleetwood Mac or The (Rolling) Stones who would never play any of the stuff off their very first record. As a record I really do like the latest album.
I have actually put it on and listened to it a few times, and I have to say that I really like the second half of it. Don’t get me wrong, I love the first half, but the second half goes off into this acoustic thing and rather than it going off into a big, massive crescendo, it does, but in a different way, and I am really proud of that. It shows that you don’t have to rock hard in order to get attention if you know what I mean.
The first time that you play the album, the first track Creeping On The Dance Floor, grabs you by the balls and takes you on a trip.
Yes, I feel that it does but for now, that is for you to say. For me, I know everything about the album, and I have been inside it, and I have also been outside it, so if you are saying that then it is basically job done. That is exactly what I wanted this album to do. It is very much meant to be a record because there were other songs that were upbeat, that we never put on this record. We were looking at it going, ‘oh right, there is this, this and this’ but because we saw the album as a total record then those nine songs ran the best. We could easily have put another three or four songs on it
But it just felt right to end it where we did. I personally feel that people these days, even people like Pink Floyd and Talking Heads, a lot of bands don’t seem to have twelve songs on every record, but they have seven or eight songs which are really good. That is what I want to aim for in the future, I don’t want to feel that because we are signed to a major label that we have to put twelve songs on an album in order to fulfil my contract. I don’t have to do that and I’m not going to do that.
If I put you on the spot and asked you to choose one, do you have a favourite track on the album?
At the moment I would have to say either Rise or Best Of Me. To be totally honest with you, I could have picked any song from the second half of the album.
Who or what is The Big Decider?
The simple answer is I don’t know (laughter). I never even wrote that line. It was our keyboard player, Neil Bradley who wrote that line so I will have to ask him and when I find out I will let you know (laughter). That song is all about taking chances in life, and sometimes they pay off and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes you feel better for it, while you sometimes regret the choices that you have made in life. So, that is what it is, The Big Decider, it is a maze in order to get where you are going. That’s what life is all about isn’t it, if you know what I mean. Sometimes you have to take the long way round, whilst sometimes it just all falls in your lap.
How long did the album take from writing to recording?
Oh god, that would have been about ten years (laughter). Being serious for a moment I think that it was about two years, but that was because lockdown happened. We started writing for the album back in 2019 and then lockdown happened. We could have carried on writing but we never because it was like we were all trapped in a house. Because of that writing became a chore. I went into rehab in 2019, came out, and then 2020 started. To be honest with you I wasn’t in the greatest of moods; let’s be honest because I was battling my drug addiction. So, it was at that point that we seriously started writing for the album.
I had a load of songs scattered here there and everywhere but it was then that lockdown happened, so I started drinking again. I was battling with myself. I think that the other two members of the band at that time simply didn’t want to be around me much. So, I would say that lockdown together with my personal issues are the two main reasons as to why this album took so long. At that time, you couldn’t physically get into a studio anyway as they were all shut. So, let’s blame lockdown as it sounds better doesn’t it (laughter).
Without delving too deeply into things, since coming out of rehab, has your style of writing changed; are you now seeing things in a different light?
Wow that is such a fucking great question. Yes, my writing style has changed because I actually write songs now. I no longer write a bit and then leave it for a year and then go back to it. I actually try to finish them now, if I feel that I can’t finish a song I will ring other people up and ask them if they want to finish a song for me. I now see writing songs as a hobby rather than a chore that I have to do and getting off my tits (laughter). I have to say that for me, writing is once again fun. It’s an exercise and the more that you do it, the more you get used to it and the bigger the chance that you have of writing a really good song. The more that you have got a guitar in your hands the more chance there is of you getting it.
Are you writing all the time?
Pretty much, yes. I can’t say that I write lyrics all the time, but I definitely write melodies. Lyrics change such a lot, because that’s the one thing, when I was younger back in 2003, I would be writing lyrics just because you would always be writing the first thing that came into your head. You don’t have any kids, you kind of have loads of energy, you are running around, getting into all kinds of trouble, trying to get out of trouble. So, I think that at this age now I don’t even know what I write about, you tend to make things up to reflect what’s going on deep inside you. Sometimes you write stuff that is really personal, but you kind of sum it up in two sentences. Its like, ‘I can’t do this because of that’ (laughter).
Then it’s, ‘what am I going to write about now’ (laughter). You have to get into character in your brain, where you have to find a way to do it. Don’t get me wrong, I still haven’t mastered it. No one master’s it do they really. I don’t think that I am particularly good at it, but I think that I am now in a better place to be better at it than what I was. What I would say about it is that I don’t think anyone ever turns around and says, “I’m a good songwriter” until they are many years down the line. And I have to say that a lot of those years, for me, I wasn’t even playing the guitar. I was just being reckless so, that’s why I have spoken about it a lot.
I once read that Bob Dylan writes a new song every day. All that I can say to that is that he must write a hell of a lot of bad songs (laughter).
(Laughter) I totally agree with you on that. But what I would say is that it is good to do that and the person who wrote that comment most probably does not know Bob Dylan personally. Dylan most probably writes more than one song a day; I imagine that he writes lyric upon lyric upon lyric. That really is writing songs. Having said that, it all depends upon what you want to class as writing songs. To me, a song is words and music, and within that there is such a big scope; there are no rules. Look at The Prodigy, they write music, they write songs, they write songs but what are the lyrics (laughter). They can write it in one sentence. They have mastered that, or should I say they did master it. So, I take my hat off to people like that who can really do it.
I feel sorry for songwriters in general because they are always trying to reinvent the wheel.
Yes, we are, I totally agree with you there, but you don’t have to look at it like that. I never look at it like that. I say that because we are not in Kraftwerk, so you are not a brand-new thing with synthesizers everywhere. To me that doesn’t exist. I have to own up and tell you that I don’t listen to that much modern music together with modern production. So, for me, I am not trying to reinvent anything. I am just trying to do my version of the music that I like. In fact, I am not even trying to do that, I am just seeing what happens. If you have got a song that you think sounds like Lynard Skynyrd, I can definitely tell you that it is not going to sound anything like Lynard Skynyrd by the time that you are finished.
For a start, you are not in Lynard Skynyrd nor are you from the South of America (laughter). So, in reality it is not going to sound anything like that. It is always going to turn out like how you are, and if you are trying to reinvent yourself, that really is tough and I feel that you can get obsessed with it to the point where if you want to change your style then why not start singing in a Cockney accent or start singing like you are from Nottingham (laughter). All of this is what goes through your head. So, in the end, you just have to discover new chord progressions and new melodies, and I think that’s how you reinvent yourself.
Sometimes you have to do that and then you get back to whatever it is that you were doing. It’s like Neil Young; you don’t really want him to stray too much do you, because otherwise that is not what you want, that is not what you signed up for. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying whether that is good or bad, it all depends upon who does it. U2 have been going for years but they still sound very much like U2 in a good way. When Bono starts singing; that is the sound of the band, so as soon as he starts singing that’s what it is, similar to Oasis.
Do you know the difference between God and Bono?
No, tell me.
God doesn’t walk around all day thinking he’s Bono.
(Hysterical laughter) that is fucking brilliant by the way (laughter). That really is fucking funny isn’t it (laughter). I really do love U2 but if you are that famous, and Bono is especially that famous, then you are going to have jokes written about you. That is all part and parcel of the deal. I’m not saying that Bono has to find it funny, but I can’t help but find that funny (laughter). Anyway, enough about U2 lets fucking talk about something else (laughter).
You are about to go out on tour here in the UK, how many of the new songs will make it onto the set list?
I reckon about six simply because if you start playing the whole record in a set of fifteen or sixteen songs, you can very quickly and easily alienate people. I have always wanted to do that, play an album in its entirety but the reality is about five or six. We will most probably play them all on individual nights, but if you play all of the new songs, it depends really. What we will most probably do is ask the fans through social media which of the songs they want to hear. That is most probably the best way of going about it.
Do you still enjoy touring, or has it become a necessary evil?
I love it. For me that is why I am in a band. I love playing to an audience. Also, I like studios now where | never used to but I must be honest with you and tell you that I still find being in the studio very hard work. With a gig the hard work has been done already, and you are just turning up and enjoying yourself. Not much thought goes into it, you just turn up, you play your songs the best that you can, and you fuck off (laughter). There are no deadlines, and you are not doing a Bono, talking shit between fifteen songs (laughter).
Monday 7th April you are here in Nottingham playing at Rock City. What, in your opinion, makes Rock City a must play venue?
At Rock City it feels like the crowd are all around you, it feels like The Warriors, where at the start of the film where the hero gives the speech in the park, it kind of feels like that. It is one of those type of venues and it is called Rock City. It’s like fucking go’hed (laughter). Whenever we see the words Rock City, we feel like we have got to rock, we have to bring the fucking gig (laughter).
What can we expect from the gig here in Nottingham?
What can you expect, let’s see, you will see six people who are rather enjoying themselves (laughter).
Working with Nile Rodgers on the new album, how was that?
It really was a breath of fresh air. He really is a lovely fella. The only problem is, he has far too many stories, fucking hell, half of the time that we spent together in the studio we were just talking and not working (laughter). He was telling us about all of the people who he had met in the past, people like Miles Davis and people like that. He was really funny, really calm. I can’t remember him ever saying a negative word in all of the time that I was with him. It really did feel like we were moving forward, and I think that’s why he has done what he has done in music.
You mention him talking. Last summer he headlined one of the Forestry Commission gigs here in Nottingham and the major point of complaint was that he would do one song and then spend ten minutes telling you how he wrote it, who he wrote it for, where he was when he wrote it, and he went on and on and on. He actually did more talking than playing.
Oh god. I honestly do not know what to say about that, it speaks for itself. Basically, he did a Bono didn’t he (hysterical laughter). You would never catch me talking like that. Because of my accent no one can fucking understand a word that I am saying (laughter). I may as well be speaking a different language (laughter).
Putting you on the spot, what would you say has been the highlight of your career so far?
That’s easy, my wife and my son. There you go.
I can’t speak to you without mentioning that song.
Go on.
How did you feel when Mark Ronson and the late Amy Winehouse covered Valerie?
That really was amazing. That really was one of the biggest compliments that I have ever received in my life.
Is it true that you wrote the song in twenty minutes?
Yes, maybe twenty-five minutes, there or there about. I wrote most of it in my head then went in and wrote the rest in my bedroom at my mum’s at the time.
Do you ever get bored playing it?
In a word no. Having said that I did at one point, but I don’t know why. I think that I was just fed up with everything. I wasn’t just fed up with that. But no, I never get tired of playing it. That song is a massive part of the band, it’s a massive part of the set, it is the biggest hit that we have had ourselves, and then someone else had the biggest hit with it. Then Amy became immortalised due to circumstances that were really unfortunate. So, the song has turned into this other thing now. Anyone could get up and sing it, and everyone would fucking sing along to it. You walk past pubs in town, and you hear women singing it.
When I was younger, I was into Nirvana and Heavy Metal, and I never thought that when I was older, I was going to write a song that my mum and my auntie were going to be singing for the rest of time. But that is exactly what we have done, and I have to say that I am kind of proud of that. When I was younger, I would dream about writing a Smells Like Teen Spirit or a Bittersweet Symphony, but I have to say that I am quite happy with a Valerie (laughter).
Will we be seeing any solo work in the future?
Probably not. It’s fucking hard work. I’ve got a fucking band, and I just want to use that (laughter). How many bands do I want to be in (laughter). When I toured my solo work, I had my mates with me on tour and that was the fucking problem, we were always drinking. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that I did it, I’m glad that I was in Spinal Tap mode for a while but I’m glad that is over. I can now carry on being a Zuton.
Testing your memory, what was the first record that you bought?
That was Basket Case by Green Day on CD.
Who did you first see performing live?
That was The Verve who were supporting The Smashing Pumpkins at The Royal Court here in Liverpool 1n 1993.
What was the last song or piece of music that made you cry?
Fucking hell this happens all the time. You are not going to believe this, but it is Sailing By which is the Radio 4 shipping forecast theme. Whenever I listen to that piece of music, I always start fucking balling, but they are happy tears. Happy drug filled tears, happy come down tears (laughter).
On that note Dave let me once again thank you for taking the time to speak to me today. It’s been enlightening. Good luck with the tour and I will see you at Rock City.
Thanks Kevin, that was great because there were some great questions and we had a laugh. You take care and make sure that you come and say hello when we get to Rock City. I will see you later. Cheers for now.
