The Stool Pigeon

You’ve seen it - the generic Fruit of the Loom t-shirt in block colours, with the word ‘Hefner’ printed across the chest. You see it worn occasionally at a market or a record store, and more often at festivals, where they share a status with Slipknot hoodies. Walking past one of these t-shirts, some people will think, “What is this shit skate label that only sells one thing?” but to others - a quiet society of John Peel listeners and knowing indie boffins - this is the secret handshake, a seal of approval as dependable as a lion on an egg.

The man behind the t-shirts - once the main force behind Hefner - is today comfortably unaware of his cult status. Or, if he is aware, he doesn’t show it. Tucking into a bacon sandwich in between home and the cinema, Darren Hayman talks me through an ordinary day as an underground pop icon. “Some days,” he says, “my job is just like anyone else’s job.”

He isn’t being blasé: “My wife’s alarm goes off at six to the Today programme, and I’m usually up by seven. I’ll do a bit of housekeeping, then I’ll walk the dog, do my emails, update the website, this and that. When my wife gets home I usually make sure I’ve done her dinner. Might do a gig.”

You might wonder why we’ve settled so quickly on the unremarkable but, in a world where kids are making big money with songs about owning trainers, it’s rare to find someone who’s living a life as real as he sings. Indeed, Darren started making music with the intention to keep it real: he first picked up a guitar in 1986 after seeing Billy Bragg play.

“I remember being about 17 when I saw Billy Bragg,” he says, “and I remember thinking to myself, ‘I could do this.’ Up until then I’d never heard anyone sing with an Essex accent - just American ones, or Liverpudlian, like The Beatles. It made me think that if he’s only got his guitar and his voice, maybe I could do it too. I guess it was quite arrogant really.”

Hefner’s songs, like Billy Bragg’s, were at their best with the smallest situations as starting points - songs like ‘Greater London Radio’, or ‘Lee Remick’, a lament to family dysfunction centred around a teenager’s film star crush. Emerging just as Britpop faded out, Darren largely ignored the fiercely marketed bolshiness of Cool Britannia and drew inspiration from observational lo-fi artists from America like the Mountain Goats, Simon Joyner and the New Bad Things.

“All those bands inspired me because they had an audience but they weren’t rich or famous in any way,” he muses. “They had this real, genuine, troubadour quality that I couldn’t see in English bands at the time. But I was always very keen I would sing about what I saw - British things, with a British accent. That was the most important to me.”

Darren hasn’t strayed from those early inspirations, or filtered his style as he became better known. He’ll tell you it’s because he hasn’t sold enough records to sell out, but one suspects that at the heart of the music lies a voice that won’t be manipulated. Inspired by his time teaching art, Darren Hayman and The Secondary Modern, his second solo album, is lyrically outstanding and still very British. It’s British in the same way that Jarvis Cocker, Graham Coxon and the Arctic Monkeys make British records, but instead of a kitchen sink drama, we have a full blown episode of Channel 4’s Teachers, without the swearing. And the sex. But there are definitely some smutty looks in the teachers’ lounge and a few too many whisky sodas after school. It’s a Britishness that’s peculiar to the high streets of suburban east London, where he grew up and still lives. Songs like ‘Rochelle’, which begins, “If you can’t walk in high heels, then don’t walk in high heels,” or ‘Elizabeth Duke’, about proposing to a girlfriend with a cheap ring, invoke images of a town you’ve never been to, but you’ve seen on telly. Unless, of course, it reminds you of a town you do know. That’s the beauty of the album: you can either have experienced it or you haven’t, but either way you know what he means. The album’s also unique in that it may be pop’s first age-appropriate album since Kate Bush started singing about dishwashers. You wouldn’t catch Jarvis singing about marriage or mortgages in a hurry, nor any other 30-something pop star for that matter, but that’s precisely what Darren has done.

So, is this a nod to the write-what-you-see school of his early influences?
“I have no problems with writing adult songs for adults,” says Darren. “There’s a bit of a gap in the market for that, isn’t there?”

If there was a gap in the market for Walthamstow-centric, part-time teacher indie pop, then it looks like it’s just been filled. And anyone who was looking for that missing record on the moon landing or the new town of Harlow can also expect the wait to be over. Since breaking up with Hefner’s label, Too Pure, Darren has been afforded an unprecedented amount of creative freedom - so much so the next album may well be 14 songs about town planning.

“I’m getting used to the idea that I’m not on a label anymore and I can act on all the silly ideas I’ve had,” he says. “I’m sure if Chris Martin wanted to write an album about Harlow someone would tell him it was a shit idea. I’m sure he would think it was a shit idea.” He giggles. “I’m sure it is a shit idea, but I’m just going to keep doing this until I do something so bloody awful that nobody buys it.”

Darren Hayman is yet to release a bloody awful album. Coldplay, on the other hand... If Darren’s initial intention was only to represent his own background as well as Billy Bragg did, then he’s succeeded. He’s also managed to rival heroes like the Mountain Goats and Simon Joyner on prolificacy and maintain the kind of double life of artist/working which would make Philip Larkin proud. Occasionally, however, news of his success will filter into his reality.

“I was doing a music crossword the other day, and one of the answers was Darren Hayman,” he says, “and I didn’t get it. I left it blank. My wife told me off for that. That’s a sign, isn’t it? That I can’t even get my own name in a crossword.”

I bet the kid on the next table with the Hefner tee figured it out.

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