Caught in the Carousel

Steve Lambert

By Alex Green

Steve Lambert

It's good to have Steve Lambert back. Although Lambert and his bandmates in Roman Holliday are responsible for one of the most memorable and defining songs of the '80s—the swinging new wave hustle of "Stand By"—musically speaking, Lambert has opted to let the last two decades more or less define themselves without him. Emerging from his hiatus armed with a new E.P. (Start A Rage) and an album on the way, Lambert sounds better than ever. Although the buoyant, horny swagger of Roman Holliday made them one of the most charming bands of the era, Lambert, now in his forties, is just as charming on his own. In fact, the Englishman, who now resides in Pennsylvania, demonstrates on Start A Rage that he has grown into a songwriter of tremendous sensitivity and heart. His voice has the kind of clarity and grace that makes every song memorable and his introspective lyrics come with a stark and elegant poeticism. We were positively delighted when Lambert agreed to sit down with us to talk about his return.

CITC: Start A Rage is a return of sorts for you—had the idea for the songs been germinating within you for some time?

SL: Yes, I haven't actually released a Steve Lambert product until the release of Start a Rage this year—so many things seemed to get in the way. I suppose I've always been in training...Start a Rage, as much as I like the song, the EP, I feel, is way over produced and maybe a little too preachy, a man obviously pissed off by world events and having a hippie moment, but my heart was in the right place when I put pen to paper. The album will be sparse and much more personal in subject matter and production—it won't be a bundle of laughs, that's for sure.

CITC: Start A Rage does seem to urge one to take a stand, which is always an important sentiment, but in these current times, a decidedly urgent one.

How has the war in Iraq and the state of this country affected you artistically?

SL: Well, I think if you're a human being living on planet earth you can't avoid world events affecting your work...well you can, obviously and deliberately avoid it, but I still believe if you have a heartbeat it'll reveal itself somehow, be it in a three minute love song, a poem, a painting whatever.

CITC: What kind of reaction did you get to Start A Rage and were you surprised by this reaction?

SL: I've had nothing but good things come down the pike since I put out Start a Rage; I don't think there are too many people out there buying records or downloading music who really care what my background is or even remember. The song seemed to touch a nerve without it coming across too mawkish. I don't believe for one minute any of my friends or fans of Roman Holliday honestly expected or even hoped I'd be writing Roman Holliday songs. That would be plain silly.

CITC: How is the material you're writing now differ—from a thematic standpoint—than the songs you wrote in your 20s?

SL: When I was twenty I wrote songs about being twenty; now I'm in my forties and shit, as they say, has happened. I'm starting to say "bye" instead of "hi"—I'm not expecting to be on the cover of Rolling Stone in this life, so I'll chip away in my own little wood shed and put out what I like when I like.

CITC: What current songwriters do you admire?

SL: Today I'm listening to Dan Wilson and Bob Dylan's new album, so today at least, I'm admiring them.

CITC: The new songs are so intimate, almost confessional and what makes them so strong is they urge an emotional inventory. For example, "Start A Rage" is a call to arms, but it's not an anthemic call to arms; it's almost as if it's reminding people to remember that the world is in need of morality. In other words: take stock of yourself. Was this a conscious decision?

SL: Do I think the world is in need of morality? Not really. I think we're no better or worse off than we were two hundred years ago; we're still killing and looting exploiting and hanging on to a shabby belief that somehow we'll be forgiven when we die. Of course I'm being flippant here, but for the foreseeable future the world isn't going to change. We're stuck with an imbalance of good and evil and certainly sadness and happiness and people will continue to write songs and books, make films in protest of it. What a dull world it would be if we all wore white robes and owned wings...

CITC: What can you reveal about the new album that's in the works?

SL: With the next record, lyrically, I've tried to be as honest with myself as I could without naming names. I have a working title: "Welcome To The Sadness And Happiness Club"—I stole it, or rather, I borrowed it from an obscure poem by an obscure poet, who said life is either sadness or happiness. I thought it was a little bleak but it struck a chord; you're either sad or happy and the bits in between are all the bits we forget about—that is to say, the stuff that doesn't get documented. Unless of course you're someone like Mike Leigh.

CITC: After all these years what have you learned about yourself as a songwriter?

SL: I've been writing this record for twenty years; its taken me twenty years to write the type of song that I knew I had in me. I found my voice at forty and moving from New York City played a big part in that. Where I live is the antithesis to Manhattan; I now have a life that feels manageable. By the time I left New York it was beginning to get unmanageable. It was a good move all round. Has it influenced the way I write songs? Sure, it must have; I won't be writing songs about pine forests and black bears, but living in a small town surrounded by nature has certainly helped me focus and more importantly finish what I started two decades ago.

CITC: What do you mean when you say you found your voice at forty?

SL: I mean that prior to hitting forty, I wasn't writing the kind of song I had been trying to write. I'm a very late starter but very very happy to be so.