Truth and Beauty: The Story of Pulp by Pete Mella L2SB were at the launch of 'Truth and Beauty', a new book that finally tells the full Pulp story. We had a chat with author Mark Sturdy, and nabbed a couple of Pulp members while we were there.   Pulp are a band with a story to tell. It was over fifteen years between Jarvis Cocker forming the first incarnation of Pulp, and the band as we now know them bursting into the mainstream. Books have been written about them, but have tended to do a few pages on the early years in Sheffield and jump straight to their success.    Now avid Pulp fan Mark Sturdy has redressed the balance with a truly massive Pulp biography, researched in intricate detail and covering the band’s twisting tale from Arabiscus Pulp’s school concerts and the long road to megastardom, to the band’s current dormant state.    “You were aware that they had a history,” says Mark, “but it was very much an untold story. There was about fifteen years before they got known, if you’ve read a book about them or read an interview about them or whatever, there’d be bits that were pretty intriguing. So I wanted to go back and dig a lot of that up, especially when books started coming out and they were obviously researched in a weekend.    “You can understand that, as I found out it’s pretty difficult to dig all that early stuff up. You’ve got to spend hours sat in Sheffield library going through the Star pop page on microfilm for hours on end, you know, you’ve got to ring up every Thompson in the Sheffield phone book to find Pulp’s second bass player. You can see why people didn’t do it, but I thought it seemed like a worthwhile project.”    Mark interviewed over 30 people for the book, including various ex-Pulpsters, collaborators, and contemporaries on the Sheffield scene. The book’s been in the pipeline for since 1995 now, and it’s easy to see parallels with Mark’s long journey to being published and the time it took Jarvis and his band of mis-shapes to make it big.    “The struggle against adversity, the success, it’s something that everyone identifies with or aspires too to a certain extent,” says Mark. “People have said to me, ‘do you think your seven year struggle to write your book sort of reflects Jarvis’s long struggle to achieve fame’, even though it sounds really embarrassing and fannish and geeky that has cross my mind.    “I think there’ll be other people who read the book and they’ll find things that again are reflecting their own life. It’s a great story, and a very good band.”    As well as the story of Pulp, the book’s a snapshot of Sheffield during Pulp’s early days, being an insight into dole culture and the indie scene of the 80s.    “I always thought Pulp were some obscure local band kicking round in Sheffield not doing much for years, and they were very good, does that mean there were other obscure local bands I’d never heard of kicking around in Sheffield? Hearing Artery and Dig Vis Drill there is stuff that deserves to have some attention brought to it, and I hope I’ve put that in the book too.”    At the book’s launch down the Washington, there are various old time Pulpsters milling around – Magnus Doyle, Tim Allcard, David Hinckler, Peter Boam, Wayne Furniss, Jim Sellars and Jon Short. The current line up is represented by drummer Nick Banks – the only member of today’s Pulp who was available for interview for the book – and live guitarist Richard Hawley.    Nick’s read the book and is impressed.    “It’s good because it’s so well researched,” he says, “there were a few books came out around 95/96 that were cobbled together from interviews, that only skimmed the surface while this does go back to day one, and goes through the whole shebang.    “Everyone has a unique story, but some stories are more unique than others. The Pulp story is beautiful and unique, because of that facing up to adversity for the entire gazillion years that it was going on, it just kept going and going. Whatever things were going on in the group, the heart kept beating somehow.”    Richard Hawley, who as well as his solo career has been Pulp’s touring guitarist since 1997, and contributor on their last album, sums up the appeal of the band’s story.    “The beauty of Pulp has always been the fact that they stood out like a sore thumb, I mean I’ve known them like 20 years now, certain members, Me and Steve Mackey used to go to infant school together. I’ve known Nick and Candida and Jarv since I was 16, something like that.    “They always struck me as a band when you saw them live as a cross between something really intellectual like the Bloomsbury set, and something really off the wall like the cast of One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. And Jarvis and all of them really had this kind of appeal, for just being normal, but without being normal at all.”    So have Pulp got a future?    “I’ve got no idea,” says Nick. “Candida’s on a world tour, Jarv’s changing nappies, the rest of them are doing other things… I don’t know. I really really don’t know. We are hopefully going to get together and do a few things and see if anything happens.”    “I’d like to say yes, purely from a collaborator’s point of view I always loved playing with Pulp,” says Hawley, “it’s great, it’s a challenging thing and it’s always really good fun as well.    “The one thing I’ll say that will give people hope about them getting back together, is that throughout every stage of Pulp’s career they’ve never ever created a record because they’ve thought it would make them money. Pulp have always made a record when they feel they can and they’re ready to make one, when they’ve got summat to say.”    “I hope they’re back soon,” says Mark. “I thought We Love Life was great, it sounded like they had a lot more mileage in them. Maybe it’s a good thing for them to take a break, do different things, stop them getting too stale.    “Apparently they’re having this meeting in September to decide what they’re doing next, and whether they are doing anything next, who knows? I certainly hope so.”    ('Truth and Beauty: The Story of Pulp' is out now, published by Omnibus Press) July 24, 2003 1:07pm