England’s Tindersticks Dressed for Success

Curls of cigarette smoke frame Stuart Staples’ wavy, black-and-gray hair, and a slim, dark-blue suit sets off his porcelain-pale skin. Refined yet rough around the edges, the singer for the English band Tindersticks sips coffee gracefully from a small china cup in the posh tea room of the Chateau Marmont.

“My suit is custom-made,” Staples, 30, explains in the deep, whispery voice that’s become his trademark on record. “It’s the only way. We all do it. We tried thrift shop suits at first, but we’d get on stage and our sleeves would be up around our elbows. So we found this young tailor in London, and now we’re just not happy unless we have a suit in production.”

On the recent album “Tindersticks,” whose cover pictures the six musicians being fitted at the tailor’s, the group delivers a mixture of the dark moodiness that made the Velvet Underground appealing and the orchestral gracefulness that makes crooners like Tony Bennett classic.

Tindersticks’ cinematic and smoky sound, which incorporates trumpet, organ, violin, piano, zither and sometimes an entire string section, has been heralded by England’s music press and is starting to penetrate America’s record collections via college radio.

Staples’ voice is also a large part of Tindersticks’ allure. His baritone croons and gruffly romantic murmurs hang over the music like a fine, blue mist over a deep body of water.

“I’ve been singing on and off since 16,” he says. “I was just inspired by anything and everything at the time. I tried to sing too high, even though my voice was just as low as it is now. I wanted to be like ‘that singer’ or ‘this guy,’ so I strained my voice.” He grimaces. “I was terrible.”

Staples grew up in the northern industrial town of Nottingham. His parents listened to Perry Como, Neil Diamond and their British counterparts. He later listened to his older sister’s soul albums and a few years later discovered punk rock. He left school at 16 and started his first band with future Tindersticks guitarist Neil Fraser.

“Musically, Nottingham was kind of stale and incestuous,” explains Staples, who also kicked around his hometown with Tindersticks keyboardist David Boulter and bassist Mark Colwill.

“Since it was such a small place, there was only like three drummers for five different bands. There was no sense of focus or anyone trying to do their own thing. It was just a constant compromise. At least if you come from someplace like Manchester, there’s a perpetual flow of musicians. But there’s never been a famous band from Nottingham, ever.”

Staples moved to London in 1990 with Boulter and Colwill, and eventually the lineup came together. The band released its first single in 1992 and followed it with a series of handmade, limited-edition singles on the independent label This Way Up, which sparked a buzz in London’s music underground. The Tindersticks released their first full album in 1993, toured with Nick Cave the following year, and put out the new album in August.

“With this one,” Staples says, “we figured we’d take each little idea and take it as far as it would go--whether that entailed string sections or brass. We just kept pushing.”

Pushing the limits has given the Tindersticks a unique sound, but it’s one that may be too sublime for mass consumption.

“There’s always gonna be a real turnover of fast, obvious music that the majority of people want to make and the majority want to listen to,” Staples says. “People come up after shows and say, ‘That was amazing, but my two friends had to leave ‘cause they couldn’t stand it.’

“It’s that line where people love us or hate us. So if we do get famous, it will be by coincidence, because everything just happened to be in the right place at the right time. And that’s OK too.”