Marc Evans speaks to David Gedge, frontman of the Wedding Present, about the band's new tour, their back catalogue... and their grudging admiration for U2

Almost like the installation of the festive lights and the screening of the Yuletide M&S advert, the Wedding Present’s nostalgia tours have become a bit of a pre-Christmas tradition.

For many years now they’ve played past albums in full to mark the anniversaries of their releases. This year it’s the turn of their ‘Marmite’ album Watusi, a full two decades after it hit the shelves. And it’s one that got founder and lead singer David Gedge particularly excited. “It’s one of my favourite albums,” he tells me from his home in Hove, where he spends about a third of the year — the rest being spent on the road or in America.

“It’s very different from the other ones in the collection, it’s not a fast guitar album. There’s different instrumentation.”

Gedge found listening to the album again after 20 years — partly for the tour and partly because of a re-release of the band’s back catalogue — an interesting experience.

“It’s like reading an old diary,” he confesses. “There’s always a bit of me in everything I write. I don’t ever listen to my old albums, but Edsel is reissuing them. Hearing it again, it’s nice to listen to. Having been forced to listen to it, it’s a nice feeling to know it’s stood the test of time.”

Watusi saw the Wedding Present, who were formed in 1985, move away from their trademark snarling guitars and embrace more eclectic and lo-fi influences.

“It’s not jangly and that alienated some fans,” he says. “Some were a bit peeved by it. But it’s a good pop record and I’m very proud of it.”

There will be an extra band member on stage to take on the Watusi keyboard duties — and line-up changes is one thing he’s used to, but not entirely comfortable with.

“We do have a bit of a rotating-door policy,” he admits. “It’s a tricky one. I don’t like line-up changes. I use U2 as an example. They’re not one of my favourite bands but they’re still doing it as a band. That’s how a pop group should be. I was the only remaining founder member by 1991. It’s very stressful when someone leaves, but it’s a little rebirth when someone new comes in.

“I feel like I’ve been in five different groups.”

Indeed, this latest incarnation is hoping to get to work on some new material next year for release on Gedge’s own label.

“It’s a bit frustrating really,” he admits. “ We’ve had loads of new ideas over the past year, and have got some half-written songs. But the band’s been busy, plus the reissues, and we’ve not really given the new material the time it deserves. After the tour we’ll free up time to hone this down into a collection. We’re looking forward to giving it a go.

“It’s nice to be in control,” he says about his own record label. “We’ve come complete circle from our early days, when we released our records ourselves. I’ve always been very obsessive and hands-on with my own projects.”

So what album’s the next tour likely to feature — could it be 1995’s car-themed Mini mini-album?

“Mini’s one of my favourite Wedding Present records as well,” he says. “We played that live at a one-off concert recently and it worked really well, and at my own [annual At the Edge of the Sea] festival in Brighton. But we’ve got no plans. We’ll work round the festivals and may tour next year. I’m trying not to fill the calendar.”

One place he will go next year, though, is Santa Monica, where he has his American base. How does he find living in two countries? “It seems to work well. My girlfriend’s American. We’ve got a lot of friends there. It’s weird to live in two places but it’s natural to me now. I’ve always been interested in US culture.

“It kind of made sense to me. I’ve always been attracted to it. But I do tend to miss ridiculous things, the subtle changes. You do feel like an outsider. And then over here I do miss things over there.”

The Wedding Present play Oxford’s O2 on November 13. And it’s a gig Gedge is looking forward to, having last visited Cowley Road to play a free set at the Truck store last year.

“It’s always a good crowd, very receptive,” he says. “The O2’s great. And it’s a nice road, great area — great restaurants if you’ve got a few hours to wander round and meet people on your days off or in the hours before a show. It’s one of the perks of the job.”

One thing gig-goers won’t get, however, is an encore.

“It’s contrived,” claims Gedge. “It’s a hackneyed rock and roll rit-ual. When a band first starts out it’s exciting to be called back for more. We used to do encores, but it never felt completely right so we abolished it. People like it. There’s no hanging around and they don’t have to worry about missing their bus!

“John Peel compared it to an artist drawing an extra picture of a dog or something on a work of art, and I agree. It works for me.”

Always a champion of new music — the Wedding Present famously covered Pavement’s Box Elder before the British music press had even got wind of the band — Gedge finds it hard to keep up with the scene. “It’s one of my chief regrets. I pick support acts and bands for my festival, but I’m not as inspired as I used to be.

“Bands these days remind me of something else. All these genres we’ve been through are being regurgitated. When I first heard Sonic Youth or Velvet Underground, they had unique reference points. Now I’ve heard it before.

“Have we done everything we possibly could do with guitars, bass and drums?”

The Wedding Present
* O2 Academy, Oxford
* Thursday, November 13
* Tickets £15.75. Visit ticketweb.co.uk or call 01865 813500