Random Anecdotes from Early Interviews (Part 4 of Several)
Featuring Robyn Hitchcock, Andy Partridge, Peter Murphy, and Graham Gouldman
During my five years as assistant writer/editor for Bullz-Eye.com, I talked to a veritable plethora of fascinating folks, and my experiences there were invaluable, but I think it’d be fair to say that the majority of the traffic that frequented Bullz-Eye was not coming specifically to read my stuff. As such, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that you probably haven’t read the majority of the anecdotes I’m going to offer up from that era.
If you’re of a mind to check out any of these interviews in their entirety, you can do so by clicking on each person’s name. If you do so, though, just please be forgiving: I was still learning my craft. (Just ask my editors. I was an ellipses abuser of the highest order, and it will haunt me for the rest of my days.)
Robyn Hitchcock on Syd Barrett
I might’ve done this in the wrong order, but I actually fell in love with your stuff before I knew the first thing about Syd Barrett.
Robyn: Oh, that’s great!
[Frame of reference for anyone who needs it: Barrett, the original lead singer and songwriter for Pink Floyd, had died only a few months before this interview, and when Hitchcock paid tribute to him in the pages of the British magazine Mojo, he said, “Syd Barrett left his host body 35 years ago and there were many periods when I thought he had moved into mine, but that was my own fancy.”]
My friend Bob Fulford steered me from Globe of Frogs, which was the first album of yours I ever bought, back to Element of Light, and from there onto Syd’s solo albums.
Robyn: Well, his songs are more primal than mine. They were also written by a pretty young person, although I think his songwriting talent emerged kind of fully formed and then fell apart, whereas it took me quite awhile to evolve into writing a decent song. I didn’t write anything good until I was about 25, by which time Barrett was obviously long gone. I sort of think of myself as evolving in my own spiral way, as a creature and as a songwriter, whereas I think he just…that was it. Just one eruption. Krakatoa. But his stuff is more intense than mine, and I think more…well, obviously, more original.
I don’t know, I can see all the influence and all the sources, including him, where my stuff comes from. I feel like I sort of synthesized a Robyn Hitchcock oeuvre…which I’m very proud of. I basically make the music that I like. But his stuff was really something else. He’s the sort of…he was a bit like Arthur Lee. They were mega-stars that never were, but they produced brilliant stuff that time has enhanced rather than destroyed, and they both have that feeling where people think, “Well, what else could they have done?” Rather than accepting that they did what they did. And at least you’ve got Forever Changes and a bunch of other good Love songs, and you’ve got Piper (at the Gates of Dawn) and, I think, two fantastic records. I prefer Barrett’s solo stuff to the Floyd. And that’s a life’s work, really, for anyone.
I know you’ve paid tribute to him many times, but what’s your favorite Syd Barrett song?
Mmm…I think my all-time favorite is probably “Wolfpack,” which I think was his as well, according to his last interview. But I just…well, I just recommend listening to it. But, again, if you’re not very familiar with his stuff, you’re probably better off starting with “Arnold Layne” and “See Emily Play” and the Piper album, and then edging your way out along the diving board into the Barrett solo material. That might not be the best one to start with, but it’s certainly a good place to finish.
Andy Partridge on collaborating with Robyn Hitchcock, not collaborating with Brian Wilson, and having two sheds
I spoke to Robyn Hitchcock a month or so ago, and we chatted a bit about the two of you collaborating, the first result of which, I guess, was “’Cause It’s Love (Saint Parallelogram),” which turned up on his new album (Olé! Tarantula).
Actually, we have about half a dozen things…
Well, he seemed optimistic that there would be more to come.
Yeah, I would like…love to do more! What happened was that I busted a tendon in my ring finger, my left ring finger, and I couldn’t play the guitar for about six months. And that really messed me up. And then, after that, I had an accident in the studio where a very stupid engineer deafened me…
Ugh.
And I do have very bad tinnitus now, as a result of that. So I’ve had a pretty bad year for accidents. But up until that point with the finger, we were doing these songwriting things, and it was going great, and I liked him. He was very sparky, and I found I wasn’t racing ahead of him, as I do most people. I find I tend to race ahead of a lot of people, and I think they resent that, but he was there. He was there with me all the time, keeping up…and racing ahead of me some of the time, so that was great for me. So, yeah, when he gets off of tour with the Venus 3, I’d love to just carry on.
BE: He spoke very highly of your shed.*
*Partridge has a shed full of equipment in his backyard, where he does all of his recording.)
Well, I’ve just had all the gear renewed in there, so I’m damned if I know how to work anything in there at the moment! [Laughs.] So he’s gonna have to wait; we may have to just capture them on cassette for awhile.
You know, every time I hear the word “shed,” I always think of the Monty Python sketch, Arthur “Two Sheds”…
[Interrupts.] Arthur ”Two Sheds” Jackson! I do actually have two sheds!
Oh. My. God.
[Laughs.] Yeah, I do! One has, like, gardening tools and stuff like that in there, and the other one has the recording gear. So, yes, I am Andy “Two Sheds” Partridge!
Oh, man. That might just have to be the headline of the piece. [Laughs.] Of course, Robyn’s not the first person you’ve collaborated with. You’ve also worked with Cathy Dennis…among other people, of course, but…
Oh, well, the last person I collaborated with, just before Robyn, was Charlotte Hatherly.
Right, from Ash.
From Ash, yes. She’s ex-Ash now; she’s completely on her own, and a couple of days ago, she sent me a burn of her up-and-coming new album, which sounds great! Really, really, very musical. Again, we did about half a dozen things together; she put one of them on this album that’s coming out shortly, and she said she likes the others so much that she’s very tempted to do an EP in a month or two and put a few more of them on that. She was very good. Again, very musical. Yeah, that was a good collaboration.
I’d also heard that it was considered - or at least it was spoken of - that you might collaborate with Brian Wilson, but I guess that never came to anything. Or, at least, it hasn’t come to anything.
Yeah, his management rang me up - it must’ve been almost a couple of years ago now - and they said, “Brian would like to work with you, would like to write for his upcoming album with you.” And I thought, “Wow! This is…” I had to pinch myself. “Am I dreaming this? Did I dream that I came over and picked up the phone, and that they’re saying this on the phone?” And they said, “He’ll call you when he gets off of tour. He’s touring around at the moment, so he’ll call you in about three weeks time.”
So in that time, I spoke with people about Brian Wilson. I said, “Look, is he really crazy? Is he together enough these days?” And I got hear the stories about… What’s his name, from the High Llamas? Sean Hagan. And things didn’t go too good with Sean Hagan supposedly writing with him. I think it never got beyond having some ice cream with him, and Brian not really even grasping what Sean Hagan was doing there. And I felt a bit trepidacious. You know, am I going to be flying all the way to L.A. and him not even remember why I went there? But three weeks pass, then four weeks, then a couple of months, and nobody called me, so I guess he either changed his mind or forgot about it or…who knows.
Peter Murphy on Joy Division, Bauhaus, and being a dad
I enjoyed the series of cover songs that you were releasing as downloads last year, but I think the one that I enjoyed the most was your take on “Transmission.” I know that Bauhaus and Joy Division were active simultaneously, but did the two bands ever cross paths at any point?
Peter: Yes, actually, Ian Curtis came down with their manager for a very early four-day stint we were doing at a club called Billy’s, which is now a legendary story amongst hardcore Bauhaus aficionados. [Laughs.] This was when we were just… We were from the middle of nowhere in England, and we were just this name spreading around. “Who are these people?”
At the time, I was wearing heavy white theatrical pancake make-up and all that stuff, and Ian Curtis came down with the owner of their label, Factory Records, Tony Wilson, who very recently died. They walked in, and the moment he saw me, he said, “Nah, I don’t like bands with makeup, I’m going,” but Ian said, “Well, I’m staying, because I think they’re great.” I didn’t know that Ian was there, but afterwards, once everything was over, there was this lonely guy sitting there, and I said, “That’s Ian!”
So I said, “Hello, how are you?” He said, “I’m all right, mate. That was a great gig.” “Thanks for coming! We’ve heard about you guys…” [Hesitates.] Actually, we never would’ve said the word “guys” then. I’ve become very Americanized now. But I said, “Oh, we’ve heard of you lot, and it’s great stuff,” and he was very cool and very English. There was a lot of “alright, yeah, really great band” between us. That was the only contact that we ever had, but I really liked him a lot. I thought he was really cool in the sense that… [Hesitates again.] We would never have said “cool,” either! But I did think he had something.
But like most English bands in that whole period, we really just ignored each other. We focused on our own world, because that’s what post-punk opened up for us: a true working man’s canvas to paint anything on, with no knowledge of music. It was the end of the dinosaur supergroups, and it was kind of like a renaissance. It was like that. Every band was into their own world, which was very exciting. It wasn’t like, “Oh, I know you, you know me, let’s get some mileage out of this.” There was none of that.
With that being the case, did you even have a perception of who your peers were at the time?
No, because for Bauhaus, there were no peers. For me, certainly, the only peers were David Bowie and Iggy Pop, and they were from an older generation. But I was just three shows in, three weeks after singing a vocal for the first-ever time in my life, when I knew that I was their peer…which is kind of a bit odd, because if you read that in black and white, it looks almost mad, really. [Laughs.] But, no, it was a serious understanding that, “Right, that’s it. I’ve got a band, and this is it.” There really were no peers for us, because we were playing with stuff that was heavily taboo for punks at that time, like glam. But it’s almost like I said, “I rescued Ziggy from the prison he’d been placed in by Mr. Bowie,” because we wanted something more.
I rescued that element, so there was that in it, and there was true avant-garde-ness, true ineptness, and…it was all very odd. But I feel that people still appreciate it now, which is a validation. If you think about it, that’s quite…it’s where it’s at for bands. You have to get that. You have to know that you are who you are, be confident about what you’re doing, and commit to it. Put all your eggs in one basket!
I wanted to ask you about working on The Hunger. I’ve read that the appearance in the film was the first step in splintering the relationships within Bauhaus that eventually led to the break-up of the band. Is that true?
No, it wasn’t that at all. No, The Hunger was amazing. That was a great compliment from one of the true influences of the band, who is revered. I’ll protect his name by not even talking about him, but there he was, watching us on a stage, which was… I know that for Daniel Ash and I, it was a beautiful moment. I mean, what a very “whoa!” moment. That was fine, and that wasn’t any cause of the break-up.
What ultimately was the reason, then? Were you all just going in different directions with your art at that point?
No, there was none of that. I mean, I could analyze it in similar terms, but I think it was really just…on an emotional level and on an energy level, the power of the whole experience kind of was a bit overwhelming. We knew what we were, but we had to confront this very intense energy that we were pulling out, because it was so visceral and true. It wasn’t some sort of musical stylistic strategy. It was just what we did when the four of us met, and…I think it just stopped.
I mean, I was very frustrated immediately. It was me who called that last thing, not because I wanted to go solo but because I said, “We promised ourselves that when this feeling stops, we have to split, whatever’s happening.” At that moment, I said, “For me, it’s gone,” and we all said, “Yeah, it’s gone.” It hadn’t, but we couldn’t do anything about it at that point. Typically, we just said, “Okay, see ya, then.” [Laughs.] It wasn’t, like, “Oh, we have to consider the career move and all the money.” Fuck all that. It wasn’t about that. Yes, we wanted money, but we still just said, “Yeah, well, all right then.”
Unfortunately, it doesn’t match the legacy of Ye Olde Goth Archive for it to have been the result of just a momentary spark. I was never a goth, anyway. I was a moth. My spawn…I say to my son, “You are the spawn of goth. You are moth.” My daughter’s now Goth Chick #1. [Laughs.] And she’s beautiful, but it’s kind of like, “What the fuck is going on? This is amazing!” It’s like a Warholian experience, but for the whole of your life! 21 until you pop…
See, I was going to refer to you as the father of Goth, but you really are the father of Goth!
I actually am! [Laughs.] So I have to say yes to those who say… [Affects nasal American accent.] “Omigod, you’re the father of Goth!” “Yes, yes, I am the father of Goth, thank you.”
Graham Gouldman on his Thing, Animalympics, Kirsty MacColl, and the Ramones
Your debut solo album, The Graham Gouldman Thing, is one of my all-time favorite albums of the ‘60s.
Oh, thank you! That album was just re-released, actually, and I did the new liner notes with a guy called Andy Morton. It’s almost like a mini-biography! It’s quite nice.
I asked one of our Senior Editors if he had any questions for you, and the first one out of his mouth was, "When is Animalympics coming out on DVD?”
Well, good question! I've got quite a lot of the masters, because there never was a CD, but there has been an ongoing discussion between my manager and Steven Lisberger, who directed. I suppose there is a sort of underground interest in it, but I don't know if it warrants a release on DVD. Funnily enough, my daughter was just showing me some "Animalympics” stuff on YouTube! (Hesitates) Or MySpace. I can't remember. I always get YouTube and MySpace mixed up. Just goes to show you how up to the minute I am with everything! [Laughs.] But, you know, it's great that all that stuff's out there.
Yeah, but every four years, I keep hoping they're going to officially reissue Animalympics in conjunction with the actual Olympics.
Well, that would be nice! Unfortunately, it came out when America pulled out of the Olympics, because it was in Russia…which was not good luck.
Regarding The Graham Gouldman Thing, I've heard that Peter Noone (of Herman's Hermits) was supposed to co-produce, but he only showed up for the first session and then never showed up again.
That's correct.
What was the story on that? Did he not realize that he was supposed to come back?
I just… I don't know why! I never asked him why he just never came back. What happened was that it was myself, John Paul Jones, and Eddie Kramer, and…we were just fine and dandy! ]Laughs.] Y'know? We were just, "Okay, here we go, we'll just carry on.” And we were very happy.
I'd also heard that one of the reasons you were happy to do a solo album was that you wanted to work with John Paul Jones.
Well, I'd worked with John Paul Jones prior to doing that album. I'd been working with him on demos and various other records, and we'd worked a lot together, so I asked him to do the arrangements, and, y'know, he had a lot of influence on that album. I mean, his arrangements are amazing.
Have you maintained a friendship with him over the years?
I haven't seen him…the last time I saw him was at Mickie Most's funeral, which must've been about three or four years ago. But I did ask him to do…10cc were going to do a television special, and I asked him to be the musical director, and he'd agreed to do it, but it never happened. But he's someone I'd be very happy to work with at any time, because he was part of my…he was quite a big influence on me as a bass player, as well as everything else.
Your most recent album, And Another Thing, has a co-write on it that really interests me: "There Was A Day,” written by you, Chris Difford from Squeeze, and Suggs, the lead singer of Madness. How did you guys meet up? I know that Chris has participated in a songwriting camp, though I don't know if it's his or…
That's right. Well, we met at a songwriting camp; it was his, but it was one instigated by EMI Music Publishing, and what happened is that there are 15 writers, and every day you write with two other writers. And the two writers on that particular day were Chris and Suggs. And Suggs came up with this title, "There Was A Day,” and that was it. We were off and running. And I had this sort of guitar chord…I had this sort of guitar figure, and we just sort of ran that.
Had you been a fan of Squeeze and Madness?
Uh, yes. Moreso Squeeze than Madness. I just liked a lot of the songs that Squeeze did. But I liked Suggs a lot. He was a great character. Those things are very good. I had a cover with Joe Cocker, an album track ("Soul Rising”) that I wrote with a couple of other people. I met Kirsty MacColl…although the writing day that we did was not very good. The third party - 'cause it's always three of you - was on a completely different wavelength. But we did actually strike up a friendship and work together after that.
I'm still in mourning over her death. She was just great.
Yeah, so am I. I often…vI mean, no time is good, but she was …I don't really know, but she had started a new relationship, she was very happy in her personal life, the Tropical Brainstorm album got fantastic reviews. It was a wonderful album, and it was, like, "Wow, this is a whole new beginning!” And… [Pauses, takes a deep breath.] It was just dreadful.
I saw her perform at the Fleadh in Finsbury Park in 1992, when I was over in the UK for a visit, and she was just fantastic live.
Yeah, yeah. She was a great talent. A great talent.
You also produced the Ramones' Pleasant Dreams album. How did that come about?
[Long pause.] That's a very good question! I'd been doing quite a lot of production, actually, in the early ‘80s, and this was a period where… I think it was '79, and 10cc was supposed to go to Australia and Japan on tour, and Eric Stewart had a very, very bad accident, which actually put him out of action for a year. And I think I just started looking for a thing to do! [Laughs.] And one of the things was Animalympics, and the other thing was when someone said, "You've been approached by the Ramones. They want to do an album with you.”
I don't even know how it came about. And the first thing I thought was, "Why? Where's our sort of…connection?” And they said, "Well, it's that our influences are from the ‘60s…” They loved the Yardbirds. "…and we think we sort of write similar songs.” And I thought, "That isn't quite right.” But I said to them, "Well, look, our sensibilities are from the same place, even though they manifest themselves in different ways, I think.” [Laughs.] “But I think that it's such an off-the-wall idea that I think it's best for us all that, rather than just plunge into doing a whole album, we just do two or three tracks and see what happens.” Anyway, it worked! And, y'know, we liked each other, and we did the album. And then we did all the tracks in New York, and Joey came over to Stockport, to Strawberry Studios, to do the vocals. And it was great.
I will say that "It's Not My Place (In The 9 To 5 World)” was a song I hadn't really paid a lot of attention to until Rhino put out an anthology of the band's work. I'd forgotten how great it was.
I was interested, because of the internet, to look at some of the reviews, and a lot of people loved it and a lot of people hated it…which I suppose is a good thing. Nobody seemed to be indifferent to it! So there you are. But, no, it was an unusual thing to do, but I noticed that…I don't know whether people knew, because it was me, that they thought it was a bit soft and a bit poppy. But I didn't write their songs; I was just guiding them from the control room! But, anyway, I enjoyed the experience. And contrary to what I…I had a preconception of what it was going to be like to work with them, but they were fastidious, they were conscientious, and I had a great time. And Joey was charming.
Lastly…and this is probably more or less one of those impossible questions, but you've probably been asked it enough that you might have a stock answer…what's your favorite interpretation of one of your compositions?
[Instantly.] I can answer that! I loved Chris Isaak's "Heart Full of Soul.” It could've been written for him.