Sick Bookies, a rock band from Lincoln, UK, sometimes play scruffy indie rock songs, sometimes dive into improvised freaky instrumentals, and often do both in one set.

Their new album ‘Mucky Books’ took its sweet time to come together, with the core tracks fermenting for over a year before they finally put their heads down during lockdown to finish it off. The recording process was a fragmented and spontaneous affair, done mostly via email, which resulted in a jarring yet uniquely DIY sound that captures the weirdness of the times. Bob Nastanovich’s contributions, including his kitchen utensil percussion, added a chaotic, yet brilliant touch to the mix, perfectly in line with the band’s freewheeling approach. Compared to their earlier releases, ‘Mucky Books’ is definitely “harder work,” drawing influences from ‘Tilt’ and ‘Pornography’ rather than straight-up rock, but still retaining that raw Bookies spirit. The band’s creative process is all about spontaneity—sometimes they write and rehearse actual songs, other times they just jam and record it all in one go, leaving the result as messy and organic as their influences. They’ve always prided themselves on avoiding the conventional, with the mantra “see what happens” guiding their chaotic yet authentic approach.

How did you manage to get Bob Nastanovich involved with ‘Mucky Books’? What drew him to your project?

Les Overend: Bob Nastanovich became involved simply because our singer/guitarist, Chris, had the audacity to ask him while buying some singles from his label’s site. Luckily, Bob is so DIY that he handles his own admin, and he’s obviously such a game-for-a-larf diamond geezer. For a time, we even considered sending out more tracks to other ‘heads’ to see what they’d do, but, as we’re quite a lazy band, it didn’t happen. Though our good friend Mr. PJ Sarel of Hull nut-job legends Bunkerpop did help out with a very troublesome track with much aplomb. My wishlist (probably) included Eno, Alan Moore, Mike Watt, and William Blake’s ghost (if anyone’s interested).

What was it like working with Bob on ‘Mr. Ghost’? How did his contributions shape the track?

Les: Working with Bob was ridiculously easy in that we sent him a track, waited a while, and it came back finished. I imagine Bob has a similar lax attitude to recording as we Bookies do, and all along, he must have had a burning urge for the world to hear him making his breakfast (something I, for one, have always wanted to hear). In no way did he wake up one morning and think, “Shit! I’ve got a recording to do!”.

Bob Nastanovich is known for bringing a certain chaotic energy to his work—how did that influence the vibe of ‘Mr. Ghost’?

Les: Bob influenced the vibe very much. When it came to sequencing the tracks, we decided to create some sort of vague narrative or concept (at least two of us are old proggers) concerning two polar opposite characters both doing Faustian deals, leading to no good end for anyone involved. The Mr. Ghost character became a sort of Greek chorus/go-between. The rest of the band has no idea about all of this, by the way.

<a href="https://sickbookies.bandcamp.com/album/mucky-books">Mucky Books by Sick Bookies</a>

Can you talk about the recording process for ‘Mr. Ghost’? Did you have a clear direction from the start, or did the track evolve as you worked with Bob?

Les: There was, and very rarely is, no clean or defined direction with anything the Bookies record, particularly on Mucky Books. We’d been through a big spate of doing arts-lab-type gigs, fewer songs, lots of krautrockin’, and decided to do an LP like that.

Christopher Clarke: We basically set up mics in our regular rehearsal room without any plans and just improvised for a few hours with no instruction or direction… months later, words, synths, and the like were added, and that was that.

Mr. Ghost—the dog—also makes an appearance on the track. Was that planned, or did it happen organically during the recording session?

Les: Mr. Ghost (Bob’s pooch) was just waiting for his day, man. Every dog has them; we just caught the wind.

Christopher: We were delighted Mr. Ghost signed up for the record. We heard rumors that he’d previously been approached and declined offers from Taylor Swift, Steve Reich, and Tony Hadley, so to make his recording debut with us… surely the Grammy for best canine appearance on a popular music record is his.

How did you approach blending your sound with Bob’s distinctive style? Were there any challenges in merging your musical worlds?

Les: Bob played some sterling percussion using his kitchen utensils. He’s got it going on, also.

Christopher: The track was pretty much ready to go until Bob dropped his beans all over it. We weren’t surprised but definitely delighted to hear Bob’s contributions. It seems Bob has a similar philosophy to us—chaos is the queen, and spontaneity is something to embrace.

Would love to hear about the rest of the album and its recording and production process.

Les: The album took a long time to finish, truth be told. The basic tracks “fermented” for about a year or so, and it wasn’t until lockdown that we decided to pull our fingers out. Even then, I’m pretty sure all of us were working during that time, so everything was done via email. The results are often quite fragmented and jarring, but like I say, it was a pretty fuckin’ weird and wonky time, and I’m sure that had some bearing on the outcome.

How would you compare it to your previous recordings?

Les: Compared to our previous stuff, ‘Mucky Books’ is, shall we say, “harder work”? It’s not ‘Metal Machine Music’ or ‘Arc-Weld,’ but it’s definitely more ‘Tilt’ or ‘Pornography’ inclined. It’s called ‘Mucky Books’ for a reason. It does have at least two stone-cold Bookies classics, though. Our partly recorded new one, however, will be a double album chock-full of tunes any post-rock postman would be wont to whistle.

How did the band get together originally? Was there a certain concept you wanted to follow?

Les: The “singer” of the band recorded an album in his bedroom and advertised for a few local mercenaries to bring it to life, and found three more than willing soldiers who, magically and quite unbelievably, had a similar ear for music, especially in such a barren local landscape… This isn’t LA, this isn’t Manchester, this is Lincolnshire, the UK version of Iowa. From that point on, it’s been a case of anything goes; we’ve released songs that were written and recorded professionally, and pieces that are purely improvised, all valued on the same plane—no matter the sound quality. The unofficial mantra of the band is “see what happens.” As long as we’re not on the commonly trod path, we’re alive.

What can you tell us about your creative process? What about influence?

Christopher: The creative process will vary from project to project… Sometimes we’ll write actual songs, rehearse and polish them up, and then record. Sometimes we just make a DIY bedroom-style recording, and sometimes we’ll just record rehearsals. These often contain sprawling improvisations that will either be released as is or taken to the bedroom studios to be embellished. ‘Mucky Books’ was a combination of the latter—we set up mics in the rehearsal room, jammed away for a few hours, and then chopped away the fat and added words, guitars, bleeps, and whistles (and Bob).

Les: We’re forever in the thrall of perennial influences such as Can, GBV, Wire, early Floyd, Television, Hawkwind, Yo La Tengo, Love, Sonic Youth, The Fall, freaky jazz classics… blah blah, you get the drift, and we’ll often still sound unashamedly like Pavement b-sides (the reason I joined the band).

What are you currently listening to?

Christopher: We’re often going through the back catalogs of the above and similar, while also dipping into the freakier side of new music: Squid, BCNR, Lankum, Jockstrap, Osees, Goat, Kneecap, Bob Vylan are some of our current turntable favorites.

Thank you for taking your time. Last word is yours.

Les: Whenever I saw Pavement live, I would marvel at the flame-haired psycho running around, screaming out of time, and playing his instruments very rudimentarily indeed. I always thought he had the best job in the world. I once collared him at a DJ gig at the Hull Adelphi and told him this. “YEAHHHHH!!!” was his grinning reply. Bob’s my favorite musician ever (sorry Murph from Dinosaur) and I’d be happy if he pissed in a bucket on one of our songs. Instead, we got him making his breakfast. Hail Bob!

Klemen Breznikar

Sick Bookies Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / X / Bandcamp / YouTube