Julianne's musical career, particularly since the unofficial split of All About Eve in 1992, has taken a number of twists and turns, culminating in a varied involvement in a number of projects.  These have ranged from fringe independent recordings to dramatic changes in musical direction.  The Mice project is probably one of the best known of these ….

Dave : The Mice album appeared with very little fanfare, it has to be said! I remember getting my "chocolate box" postcard one day and that was the first and last I heard about it...

Julianne : Well the record company - it was an independent record company, but it had decent backing and everything.  This guy, this greedy guy just thought, "Oh, hang on, that bird from All About Eve's free..."   I thought, "He seems like a like-minded kind of guy, and he likes the songs and everything". I didn't actually sign anything, but I'd started working on the album.  And then he was like, "Well, it's got to be called Julianne Regan...", and I thought, "Well, no, it's not Julianne Regan, it's another thing..."  And he said, "Oh well, how do you think we're going to sell it if it's not..."  And also, "Couldn't you be a bit more like Björk or Annie Lennox?"

No offence, because I know a lot of people out there like her...  But it was, like, "Couldn't you 'do' a Heather Nova?"  And I thought, "Well, Heather Nova's 'doing' a Heather Nova...  I'm not going to do that, it's ridiculous!"  Absolutely ridiculous.  But they seemed to want to market me as this kind of...funk waif...  A kind of poor man's Suzanne Vega or something.

So even by the time the album was finished, there were already some concerns in your mind about how the album was going to be handled by the record company?

Yeah...  but I'd kind of half got a band together by then.  It was like, "Y'know, there's a few of us now..." Especially with Bic (aka Christian Hayes, guitarist, ex-Levitation, now in Dark Star - Ed) cause he's militantly artistic.  He was like a little ally for me, and we were like, "Right, let's see if we can turn this round..."  and then the record company just folded anyway, because it's backing was rubbish...  And then it was academic, and it was "Oh well, here we go again..."

There was this American company that wanted to sign it - I forget what they were, part of Island or something - and I met the guy.  He was a very nice guy, he was like "Hey, well, you know you have to relocate to LA, and we'll get an LA band around you..."  I said, "Noooo..." (Laughs)  Nothing against LA at all, but it'd be me and a bunch of guys with headbands again...  So no, you don't just up sticks and go to LA. Unless you're like 20, I think...

Well, the album appeared, it even charted.

(Amazed)  Did it?!

Yeah, not very highly though...  And then there was a tour...

Yeeeesss... (Laughs)  The Mice tour .. we turned up at venues that we thought were safe to play. Well to be honest I didn't, but the record company guy thought they would be!  "Ooh, it's a bit big..."  Especially this one in Worcester, the Northwick Theatre - like a mini Brixton academy, wasn't it?  But in Worcester... (Laughs)  And I knew our limitations,  this was a fledgling band.  You can do the "Oh, it's her from All About Eve" thing, but you've got to treat it as a new band. You don't book a new band in at the Newcastle Riverside...  Well, you do if you're satisfied with 20 people turning up...  But we did our best every night - we did try our best...

But it really put me off "Indie" labels.  I mean, if you're going to be - how can I put this, I'm really trying not to swear so much... (Laughs)  If you're going to be 'done harm by' by a record company, then it might as well be a big one, not a small one... (Laughs)...cause at least they'd have put some posters up..

Is it fair to say that your vision of what Mice were was somewhat different to Bic's perhaps, at that point?

Well...  I wish I'd have had the guts to follow his vision.  Because we could have been Dark Star by now... (Laughs)  or Levitation 2!  But within the confines...  I mean, he was really up for it because he's got a real dark side, but he's also got a massive pop sensibility.  And he was "I've never worked in a band that's got this 'pop' thing before..."   So I went to the record company and said, "Look, I've got this band..." And they said, "Well, we can give them £50 a week..." and I was like, "This is Bic! You can't give them £50 a week!"  And their answer was, "Well, get somebody who'll take £50 a week..."  And I said "You have the makings of a really interesting band here, that will sell you some records..."  But the record company guy had no foresight and Bic obviously still had to pay his rent...  So again, it was down to backing - we didn't have any!  [As for me and Bic] yes, we did have different visions about a couple of mixes...

Yeah, 'Dear Sir' springs to mind - we've got two different incarnations of that...

Yes, we have.  I think Tim (McTighe, another guitarist on the Mice album, and Julianne's principal collaborator on the project - Ed) and I chickened out, because sometimes we thought that his stuff was a bit extreme.  But that's because I knew what was happening with the record company...  Basically, if we'd have all been on EMI, I'd have been as weird as he wanted... (Laughs

Did you think the failure of the Mice project was something you had done wrong, did you take it personally, or did you feel very strongly that it was just a record company cock-up?

Well, this is going to sound completely arrogant, but I just thought, "Oh well, sod you then!"  Not the people who buy the records, but it was like...  I'm not going to spend another year of my life making something just to have it to disappear after two weeks.

How do your feelings then tie in with your feelings about the current activity of All About Eve?

Well, if this is all torn down again tomorrow - it doesn't matter!  Because we're enjoying it, it makes sense and if we fail, then it won't be anybody else's fault.  But then we're not even trying to exceed, we've just got an equilibrium, we're just going along now.  The things that were maybe detrimental to All About Eve before, like the claustrophobia and maybe the boredom that not everybody could express their own style, because it is a complete musical democracy...  Then, y'know, it's really healthy, because we can go off and do completely different things to  each other - especially me, because I go to a marketing job! - and then, just come back to it.

Well, since the Mice project fell to earth, you've remained very busy from a musical perspective, job or no job, having put in a whole slew of guest appearances on other people's projects.  In fact, the first one occurred even before Mice. Tell us a bit about the Harmony Ambulance single...

Well, that's going back!  Let's see I did that because All About Eve's manager, Dai Davies - guess where he was from? (Laughs) - We split up, and he took me off to see Geoff Travis, the famous Rough Trade Geoff Travis, and I chatted to him.  He said, "What do you want to do?"  "Ummmm...."  and he said, "Well, while you don't know what you want to do, I'd  really like you to meet these two guys, Gilbert [Gabriel] and Tim [Broughton]..." 

So I went round to Gilbert's house, and he was the bloke from The Dream Academy, a real Jimi Hendrix lookalike! - and they played me a few songs, and I thought, "Yeah, that's alright..." and I sang on one, and thought, "Hmmmm!" (Julianne nods briskly)  And then Geoff Travis heard it and went "Ohhhhh!"  (Julianne raises the back of her hand to her brow and affects almost orgiastic glee)  "That's fantastic, you must go into the studio."

So we did it, and they really wanted me to join, and they were very nice blokes, but... (Julianne winces) I didn't want to be a session singer.  Because...  they didn't need another writer, because they were good writers.  So I just did it, and left it there...  It was just a one-off for the Rough Trade Singles Club...

The next project was Mice.  However, another project followed much later that had it's roots earlier on : the Jules et Jim collaboration with Jean-Marc Lederman...

Well, we've only done two songs so far - and loads of mixes... cause it's a bit...  Whooo!  Sample-y! (Laughs)

I met my mate Jean Marc many, many, many years ago when I was in Gene Loves Jezebel , and he joined as a keyboard player for a while. We both left cause we couldn't stand it any more, and we remained friends, and he does his own thing, and I do mine. But a couple of years ago, he said to me, "We've never written a song together."  So I said, "Well, send me some tapes." And actually, I was very grateful when the tape arrived, because it did kick me out of Chocolate and Richard & Judy-Land. It was before the Mice thing happened, but then it came out after because I neglected it to do the Mice thing.

But again, it was very 'why not?', cause it's nothing I could ever have written, but I could write the melody, and the lyrics.  And it's just interesting to do something different.

It's hard to say what it actually sounds like...

And I think that's really good about it, cause I can't really say what it is.  My colleagues in the band...  well, Andy disparagingly calls it 'Belgian Disco'...

By the way : Jules et Jim is not dead!  I'm going over in a couple of weeks, and we're going to do a load of songs, and then put out a nine track, long EP / mini-album...

Well, we look forward to hearing that when it appears!  Of course, whilst you've been working away at these more collaborative projects, you've been making a variety of guest appearances as well.  For instance, you've recently appeared on an album by This Burning Effigy...

Oh!  Yeah, right...  Why did that happen...  Well, one of my work-chum's boyfriend is the singer in the band and she said "Oh God, Ger [Egan] is really embarrassed and wants to ask you something..."  I'd had a few drinks and Ger said, "Will you?"  And I said, "Well, yeah..."  He said, "You won't do this when you're sober!" I said, "I will! I bet you I will."  so I did but they're dark!  But I like them and they're at this crossover point at the moment, where one of the songs I'd done with them, they've just done a remix of it, and I think it's great.  It sounds like Georgio Moroder or something!  It sounds like a Goth I Feel Love ...  You know Life In Tokyo by Japan?  It sounds a bit like that, a bit like 80s disco - but don't tell Ger! - a bit like Goth 80s disco.  I think it's fantastic!  And that's going to come out...  and, you know...  They're my mates...

You appeared on a CD with some of Marty's friends, The Volares, as well...

Right ! How did that happen?  I was down where Marty was living at the time, in Somerset, where he had his own little studio.  We were trying to write some things, and this bloke turns up from Texas called Big Bucks... (Laughs)  And he was big...  He was Marty's friend Dare's (Andrew Dare Mason, long-time collaborator with Marty - Ed) mate, and he was making an album.  So he came to use Marty's studio.

Marty was supposed to be putting some guitar on it, but he had the worst migraine of his life, walking around like this... (Julianne presses a hand to the side of her head and mimics walking around like a zombie.)  And the doctor was coming, and he was in this big, billowy shirt, dying in his bed... (Julianne shakes her head sadly.)  He was really out of his mind with pain, and ill.  So Dare said, "Oh my God, he can't play...  Look, could you do some singing on this stuff instead, then?"  And I said, "Well, alright then..."  So I ended up in the studio half-engineering - really badly! - and then singing a couple of songs for Big Bucks... (Laughs)

That's Big Bucks, as opposed to big bucks... (Laughs)

(Laughs)  Yeah!  That's how it happened. Again it was another one of those "Why nots?"  It's a nice song...  why not?  And he's a nice man...  And Marty's really ill!  So I'll save the day and rush in and sing a couple of songs... (Laughs)

And all this is still just the tip of the iceberg!  There was also this thing that came out in Japan, called Schaft...

Oh!  (Laughs)  Well, Gary [Stout], who engineered the Mice album, worked at this studio called MasterRock, they have a massive link with Japan.  And they do a lot of sessions in there with Japanese musicians that come over and use the studio.  And there was this compilation album, and they were like, "Can you get us a really good singer?  Can you get us the bird from the Cocteau Twins?" And Gary said, "Well, no, we can't, but we can get you Julianne Regan!" (Laughs)  So I deputised for Liz Fraser!  And that's how that happened.

That was interesting... a funny experience, because as we know, the Japanese culture is very different to ours, and you sit there, and you sing... and if it was an English, or American [producer] or whatever, they'd be "Hey, that was good!"  But [with the Japanese producers] it was like... (Julianne nods thoughtfully and repeatedly, with a grimly serious expression)  Nodding at me, and stuff.  They didn't say anything, and then at the end, they were like, "Oh!  That was fantastic!  Fantastic!" (Julianne gesticulates excitedly)  And they wanted to take a picture, and then they went!  (Laughs) But for about three hours, I was thinking, "they think I'm terrible..." or "I'm not doing it right!" because they were just nodding at me.  But apparently they were really hip guys back in Japan...

Did you have any idea how the finished product was going to sound when you were recording your vocals for it?

No... The Hitler march was added after I'd gone home... (Laughs)  The Hitler speech wasn't on it when I sang on it, no...  That was a big surprise when I got my copy!  I'm sure they were trying to say something profound...  It's an anti-war song, isn't it.

Skipping on a few years brings us almost right up to date, and to the song you contributed to a collection of Goth music that was released last year - a track called 'Let Me Entertain You'.  No relation to the Robbie Williams song, of course...

Oh!  Now what is that?  It was written ages ago, but we recorded it for this thing...

It's very autobiographical...

It is!  And at the time that it was written, it was very autobiographical...  Because that was a leftover All About Eve song...  I guess it was one of the couple of songs that we wrote after Ultraviolet.

It is for a compilation of Goth-related music.  In the past, you've said that you've wanted to distance yourself from this whole kind of scene.  Did you - and do you - think that the perception of All About Eve as a Goth band is doing the band a disservice?

I was annoyed that people were saying that we were a Goth band.  I don't hate Goth but I was annoyed at the misconception.  If I hated Goth, I wouldn't have sung with This Burning Effigy, and I wouldn't have gone to see Bauhaus at Walthamstow Town Hall when I came down to London the first time.  I was just annoyed...  because we weren't.  And I always say this: we were Goth by association, because of The Mission... 

Our early gigs were a bit dark...  But that was such a short period of time.  I mean, Appletree Man was written in our first year, and how Goth is that? So rather than perhaps a disservice, it was a bit Trades Description Act...  Because you'd get disappointed Goths thinking, "Well, that's not Goth..." and other people going, "Ooh, a Goth band, oh no..."

It brings us back to this year's internet Mailing List Poll, because you voted 'The Mystery We Are' your least favourite track and here you are playing it....

I know...so listen, maybe we should put at the bottom of this "Don't take any notice of anything I say. Whatsoever." (Laughs)

This interview is an extract from an Ink & Second Sight Interview.  You can order your copy online at www.inksecondsight.co.uk

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Transcribed by HippyDave
Interview by Howard Crowe, HippyDave, Derek Timbrell & John Lynch