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Fanzine: Change Of Scenery – Issue 7
Category Archives: Article
Itinerary: 1997 March UK Tour
This is the band itinerary from the James 1997 March UK Tour.
Milk Magazine Interview
No rational being can deny that Woodstock II was an ugly marketing scam that took in far more suckers than the precious event for which it was named. But through a circuitous route, it actually helped James. At the time, though, no one in the Manchester sextet knew it. All they understood was that, riding the success of their 1993 album Laid, they were were suddenly minus one founding member of 11 years’ standing, guitarist Larry Gott. “That forced the brakes,” understates Jim Glennie, bassist and another charter James member. “It wasn’t an easy time, obviously.”
While the remnant of James tried to decide what to do, lead singer Tim Booth took time off to work with composer Angelo Badalamenti. The results came out as the seriously odd Booth and the Bad Angel. For the hell of it, James released Wah Wah, a double-album collection of improvised ideas Brian Eno had encouraged them into while they were recording Laid. Gradually, normal work resumed.
“We needed this break,” Glennie says. “We were careering at a ridiculous pace toward a brick wall,and something a lot worse would have happened. It’s given us the enthusiasm back.”
Their latest album, Whiplash, also restores a sense of grandeur. Laid, the album that broke the band in America, was ironically constructed on a smaller scale than either the band or American radio listeners were accustomed to. But a two-year learning process allowed James plenty of time to work back toward epic heights.
“We’ve needed this break,” Glennie says. “We were basically chopping up, sticking together, throwing ideas down, finding the best identity for a song. The process is quite time-consuming. We’re bloody-minded; we like to make things difficult for ourselves.”
Difficult for them, not for the listener. Without pandering to some imagined demographic, Whiplash is as friendly as a big rock album can be. The dramatic sweeping wave of “Tomorrow,” the easy roll of “Lost a Friend,” the fey charm of “She’s a Star”: all catch the ear, and Booth acknowledges his vocal limitations even as he gently prods it to the edge.
In songs like the clattering “Go To The Bank” and the jungle-derived chorus of “Greenpeace,” James push against the conventional pop and rock combinations. (The use of dance forms in mainstream pop/rock was first widely heard on U2’s Zooropa. With a mild dash of pique, Glennie points out that while Zooropa was released first, Wah Wah was actually recorded first.) In England, distinctions between styles — rock vs. techno, band vs. computer — are starting to dissolve, and James take advantage of that.
“Boundaries, not just music but the audiences, are getting blurred, Glennie noted. “Segregating things gets a bit silly. Technology brings a whole new music to explore. It opens the door of how you can approach your songs. You’ve still got to go in there and be creative.”
James were fortunate in the creative regard. They snagged producer Stephen Hague who, as producer for Pet Shop Boys and New Order, had already shown flair for electronic sounds. And Eno periodically wandered in to mess around and make suggestions.
“Eno didn’t want to baby-sit the album,” Glennie says. “Hague was the foil he needed. Hague will happily stew over a mixing desk doing the bulk of the donkey work. Very meticulous. And he had always wanted to work with Brian Eno, so we were really spoiled with two brilliant producers.”
In the interim, Booth and Glennie had mainly been concerned with convincing the rest of James to stick around. A new guitarist had to be recurited, and meanwhile, three band members who were still considered “new boys” (after eight years) had to be made to feel at home.
“Larry’s departure unified us as a band,” Glennie says with a hint of surprise. “It could no longer be carried by Tim and me. We had to hope things would solidify again. People in the band, whose creativity we’ve barely tapped, passionately believe in this album because they worked their fucking balls off to get it finished.”
Back in action, James face new problems. In the marketplace, bands who don’t immediately consolidate their success tend not to get a second chance. Whiplash is selling briskly in England, but America is an unusual place to have to win over twice. James barely know what happened the first time.
“‘Laid’ took off on its own,” Glennie says, referring to the single. “But just the scale of things…you can’t get your head around it, so you end up being shepherded around, doing things you don’t really understand. We come back four years later — maybe people just aren’t gonna be bothered?”
Nevertheless, the tradewinds are blowing in the right direction. After all, other struggling lifers such as Pulp and Manic Street Preachers have finally made inroads here. And after fighting to keep James together, Glennie is reasonably enthusiastic about fighting to get America interested again.
“It isn’t the public having trouble accepting James, it’s the industry,” he says. “We’ve seen different waves of music come and go. We’ve always sidestepped that, because if you jump on a wave as it comes in, you get dragged out with it. There’s something wonderful about throwing yourself back in again, not preaching to the converted. We have this naive view that if we think it’s great, the rest of the world will as well.”
Tim Booth Succumbs To Pre-Millenium Tension – Melody Maker
BRITAIN
“Apparently, about 40 or 50 years ago, it dominated the whole world. Then it started a so-called righteous Second World War, and then the Americans took it over! It’s never quite got over that. It’s a tough, fiery little island doing better in terms of creativity than size would suggest. I tend to call it home, sometimes reluctantly.”
BRITPOP
“I’ve liked a lot of the music and loved a little bit of it, but it bugs me when people consciously lift from the past. It’s one thing to influenced, you can’t avoid that, but when it’s deliberate it’s called theft, and it’s a different thing. Jarvis (Cocker), in terms of attitude, is obviously wonderful, and I’ve loved some of his songs, very much lyrically. He could end up being the Alan Bennett of this generation. In terms of his literary ability, he could probably go and do whatever he wants now. And he’s an original character – it’s not like, ‘We’re lads, we go and get fuckin recked all the time and screw everybody.’ It’s something we haven’t seen before.”
MANCHESTER
“I live just outside now. I had a house just outside Manchester for a long time, and now I’m actually moving back in. It is a pretty frightening city, when judged against most of the other cities I’ve been in. I like Glasgow.”
TOURING
“We’re really looking forward to it! We haven’t done any gigs for three years, and I’ve just been looking at some footage of the last one we did, which was ‘Woodstock2’ in America. Then I’ve just been watching the band rehearsing and working on the new songs, and we’re really hungry. James became famous because of touring, and we know we can do that really well. But it’s been so long that I’ve forgotten what it’s like, so ask me again in June and I’ll probably say it was like giving birth.”
SKYDIVING
“I did it for a ritual that I was doing in America, which was all about ‘choosing your own life’. The most frightening bit was that the plane took off almost vertically, and we hadn’t got our parachutes on. So you’re sliding back towards this huge open door. I kept going, ‘Excuse me! Someone’s left the door open!’ Once you’ve got your parachute on, you feel like you’ve got a chance. The funniest thing is that they video it, and I had this huge fight with the video guy because he wanted to stick Def Leppard on the soundtrack, and all these other rock tracks that I couldn’t stand! I had to fight to get the only halfway decent music he had there, which was ‘Freefalling’ by Tom Petty.”
RELIGION
“I would say that it’s the organised thugs, the vultures who come in and carve up the market immediately after a wise person has died. To me, finding one’s spirit or finding your true nature – that’s my purpose in life. It’s been in a lot of James records, but it’s been hiding. It didn’t sit well with James’ music. One of the main reasons I wanted to work with Angelo Badalamenti was that I knew he’d give more poetic licence to free- associate in those areas, which is simply about finding out how to get into altered states without drugs. I do it through dancing, meditation or jumping out of areoplanes. I used to do it through drugs and I’m not averse to them every now and again, but that’s all too short-term.”
HOME
“I’ve always felt like an alien. I’ve always been desperate to get from here to home. I’m still looking, and the way I feel at home is when I’m in love – when I have people I love with me.”
LONGEVITY
“James were always built to last. It was always our intention. If you take short cuts, you can get there quicker, but you can’t hold it. Longevity for me is about staying alive – keeping your enthusiasm and curiosity.”
GENIUS
“The one out-and-out genius that we’ve worked with is Brian Eno. He’s clear of obstacles. His creativity is direct. On another level, I would call Angelo a genius, and Neil Young. It’s being clear-sighted and clear-minded and not letting your personality get in the way. Most of the music industry doesn’t know half of what Brian does. He writes papers for Mitsubishi on the future of urban transport. He did a lecture tour of Britain on perfume, and sold out Sadler’s Wells! He’s designing a crystal museum in Scandinavia with Peter Gabriel and Laurie Anderson. His interests range so far beyond music.”
INDULGENCE
“Well, you stick a group of young lads in a tour bus for three months, with all kinds of offers coming your way, and …it’s whatever you want to make it. I know I’m seen as a monk and the band are seen as animals, in the positive sense of the word. That isn’t accurate, because I’ve done a lot of wild things in my time, only in a different area. I mean, I’ve gone dancing for 10 days.”
ANTHEMS
“We’re scared by the whole thing. The reaction to ‘Sit Down’ got a bit overwhelming – beautiful but scary. It meant so much to people. We had parents whose children were on life-support machines writing in and asking us to come in and sing to them. ‘Sit Down’ struck the balance between being a big anthemic song and being very personal. We do write anthems, but not consciously, I promise. There’s a lot of very strong, catchy songs on this new album, but God knows if we’ll ever write another ‘Sit Down’.”
MILLENNIUM
“Did you know that the island which will be the first point in the world where the sun will rise on that day has already been bought up by Japanese businessmen? They’ve got a new car, and they want the sun to rise on that new car! I mean, you’re going to want to remember it. Your’re not going to want to go to bed at 11 on that date! We’re living in an astonishing time anyway. Information technology is getting well out of hand, and God knows what is going to happen in the next 20 years. These are really exciting times. We could destroy ourselves, or we could find amazing new technologies to liberate ourselves.”
Top Of The Pops Magazine – Do You Want To Be An MP?
Top Of The Pops “Do You Want To Be An MP?”
TOTP: Do you have any juicy secrets in your closet?
Tim: Oozing through the cracks and keyhole they shall remain!
TOTP: What would you do if someone sold a story about you to the papers?
Tim: Ask them for a split and make sure they say I’m well-endowed
TOTP: What’s the minimum salary you’d work for?
Tim: Love
TOTP: Do you have the ability to send people to sleep when you talk?
Tim: That’s a vicious rumour. I wake people up when I sleep-talk
TOTP: How important is power to you?
Tim: I’d be nothing without it!
TOTP: When was the last time you wore a suit and tie to work?
Tim: Have you seen our last video?
TOTP: Jeremy Paxman wants to interview you. Are you scared?
Tim: No, he’s a fellow Aquarian and he supports Leeds!
TOTP: What’s the correct way to address an M.P. in the House of Commons?
Tim: Arse!
TOTP: Who can’t vote at elections?
Tim: Anyone with any intelligence!
TOTP: Liam Gallagher wants his photo taken with you. Do you say yes?
Tim: He’s too good-looking
TOTP: What would you do about the Criminal Justice Act?
Tim: Make it illegal
TOTP: Do your very best impression of an M.P.
Tim: What do you want me to say?
No, unfortunately Mr James hasn’t made it. Anyone with a sense of humour isn’t allowed in the Commons. We think Tim could rethink his lobbying approaching but perhaps he could start by making the tea.
Top Magazine Interview
On entering the LWT building on London’s South Bank, one could be easily unnerved. Immediately to the left, glossy photos of such toothy-grinning celebs as Cilla, Richard & Judy and Beadle stare surreally down on the reception area. Soon to be added to this Hall Of Fame, no doubt, is Mr Bob Mills – comic, footie expert and chat show host. James are here to perform their trimphant single ‘She’s A Star’ on his new Saturday night slot. Map and compass in hand, I venture out in search of the mercurial Mancunians. ventually I stumble upon the Green Room where Mr Mills, a Giant Haystack of a human specimen, is organising rehearsals. I stare into his kneecaps, grab a beer and scale further heights to the restaurant where the James boys have eloped for an early evening nibble.
Previous preconceptions would suggest nothing more than a vegefest, a rock ‘n’ roll rice dish. But this was never James. Singer Tim Booth, maybe – the original man to put the green in runner bean – but not the rest of the band. It’s appropriate that, tonight, Tim is busy in the wardrobe department, wearing the most antisocial of tartan trousers. There’s also been changes in James’ land -a new openess and democracy which means Tim doesn’t do all the talking. Surrounded by red meat and red wine, I’m talking to the cheeky coupling of Saul Davies (guitars) and Jim Glennie (bass).
James have been together for 14 years; have been compared to U2 and The Srniths, survived Madchester baggie and simmered below Britpop. Not uncommonly it was their efforts to crack the US (Laid has sold a healthy 600,000 there) that nearly led to their demise. Having attempted to bribe me with a tenner to say something nice about the band, Saul takes up the story:
“We’d been going strong for about four years, then after the American tour, we came as close as we’ve come to disaster. Larry (Gott, guitarist and founding member) left, the taxman got hold of us (for five years non-payment) and then Tim went off to record with Angelo (Badalamenti ). We could’ve just given up, got into four or five different bands and done nothing. Or we could re-group.”
“We were forced to re-evaluate what we wanted to do and whether we wanted to do it. Had we got the legs for it?” adds Jim.
Although outflanked by U2’s Zooropa the Eno-inspired Wah Wah sessions helped refresh the spirits. Saul reckons its experimental noodlings to be the band’s favourite work.
“We all love the sound of the album, it’s the band’s favourite. It was the first time we’d used technology through necessity. But we knew we couldn’t afford to make another weird album now. We wanted to make a record with that technological edge to it but one that was married to some blinding pop songs.”
The retrenchment process began with Saul, Jim and drummer Dave Baynton- Power assembling at the latter’s Wrexham home studio. Tim carried on with his side projects, occasionally dropping in with some vocals. They moved on to Real World studios and Mickey Most’s (“always dressed in white Versace”) RAK studios in St John’s Wood, “to get the well urban vibe,” quips Saul. Stephen Hague (New Order, PSB et al) was brought in to produce some pop sheen, Eno recalled for the sonic quirks.
The resultant new pervy James comes by the name of Whiplash (Fontana), mixing the old style sweeping pop melodrama of ‘Tomorrow’ with the jungly modernity of ‘Greenpeace’. Slightly schizophrenic, but still unquestionable class. Only now everyone’s involved.
“We’ve all had to take more of a role,” says Jim,”Being a founder member it had always been me, Tim and Larry – we thought we had to guide the others but we didn’t. The nucleus grew. For Tim it was a big relief. It took a lot of the responsibility off him. He could have some fun and for the first time we were a band that could all chill out. Some of the songs we just smashed up, not too many ‘cos we wanted it to sound up. Like, we had a little room where we could sort out the mad ideas before going into the £l,000-a-day studio (carefully avoiding being financially singed for a second time). We transferred ideas to Eno and vice versa. Bouncing ideas backwards and forwards. We ended up with a kind of b!oadstroked, haphazard, creative democracy .The only thing that stopped us was The Simpsons and the footie – we ended up being completely nocturnal.”
You could call James underachievers, suffering from a perennial identity crisis. But Whiplash slips in easily betwixt the likes of Radiohead and Oasis – the odd esoteric twist and socially concerned muse thrown in as trademark. But what about this new found laddishness? Common consent was an evening with James comprises yoga, Buddhism, followed by large helpings of tofu.
“James have always been seen as being po-faced but anyone who comes out with us for a night would realise that’s a load of old tosh. If they don’t end up with alcohol poisoning or a black eye it would be quite unusual.”
“But we’ve got to be careful,” adds Jim.”You don’t want to become too compartmentalised. We’ve not become a lad’s band who think they’re Oasis. We’ve always been fairly ordinary. Sometimes we’re arrogant like most people in a band, sometimes we’re stupid and immature, making idiots of ourselves and all points in between. It’s fun, we’re just playing with our image.”
So, at last, James seems to be playing themselves, knowing their place and quite content with that. Almost at home James.
“We don’t mind being slagged off, ‘cos that’s better than being ignored,” Saul concludes, “We’ve been pleasantly surprised by the reaction so far. A lot of people don’t have preconceptions of us and they’ll go out and buy our records. We don’t intend to get paranoid.” Time to sit down and tune in .
Tim Booth’s Rebellious Jukebox – Melody Maker
Tim Booth of James tells us about the records that make him feel like a star
1 LOUIS ARMSTRONG : ‘Wonderful World’ (HMV Single)
“I have childhood memories of this. I hated it when I was younger. It was too positive. I love it now because it’s so generous and rich and, his voice, it’s so &ldots;. ridiculously big. It’s a heart song.”
2 JOY DIVISION : ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ (Factory single)
“I love this even without its poignant history. I love it for the haunting keyboards and the scratchy, crappy recording of this beautiful love song, and its beautiful chorus – you can’t really tell what he’s singing in the verses. I like that. I was in Manchester when he died. People were just devastated. Friends I knew just sat on a bus all day and went round and round Manchester.”
3 DOLLY PARTON : ‘I Will Always Love You’ (from the RCA LP ‘Dolly Parton’s Greatest Hits’)
“I only got into this in the last year. I was in a clothing shop and they were playing ‘Dolly Parton’s Greatest Hits’, and I left the shop and bought the cassette. She’s written some great songs: ‘Jolene’ and ‘I Will Always Love You’. Whitney Houston’s version is atrocious. Awful. Theatrical laryngitis. Dolly Parton’s version is heartfelt and moving.”
4 JAMES : ‘Sometimes’ (from the Fontana LP ‘Laid’)
“All these songs aren’t so much influential as my faves. And, if I’m saying my faves, I would say a load of James songs. When you write a song, you’re so much connected to it. Even if it isn’t as good as some of the other songs, to you, it is.”
“‘Sometimes’ was the song that got Brian Eno to make the record ‘Laid’ and Brian said it was one of the greatest musical moments of his life when we recorded that, which is the highest honour we’ve probably ever had paid to us. We just used to get high playing this song. That’s the best thing – getting high when you’re playing your own songs. That happens with ….”
5 TIM BOOTH AND ANGELO BADALAMENTI : ‘Fall In Love With Me’ (from the Fontana LP ‘Booth and the Bad Angel’)
“I love singing this. I sing it at parties. People can’t stop me singing in. It’s like a spell to me, a love charm. And it’s quite sneaky really, cos people fall in love with me when I play it. It doesn’t always work, though. It failed badly for me last weekend.”
6 AMERICA : ‘Horse With No Name’ (Warner Brothers single)
“I love the scarcity of this song. It’s like a narrative – and I’m a sucker for narratives. It’s also got a double meaning – ‘A Horse With No Name’ is a phrase for heroin – but you don’t even need to know that because there’s a whole separate narrative about going through the desert on a horse with no name. In fact, Angelo and I did a cover of it when we were mucking around doing radio stations in America. Also, it was produced by George Martin. Now there’s a real genius.”
7 ROLF HARRIS : ‘Sunrise’ (Columbia single)
“When we first formed James it was the only cover version we ever did. We used to do it on radio with toilet rolls pretending to be didgeridoos. I changed the lyrics to something corny about the last sunrise, a nuclear sunrise. ‘The sunrise too early in the morning.’ That was our version of Rolf’s masterpiece. I think I went for it because it was the first time I’d heard a didgeridoo, which is such a magical instrument. But you can really only hear it on the one song. It doesn’t have much variation in itself.”
8 VAL DOONICAN : ‘Paddy McGinty’s Goat’ (Decca single)
“One of my favourite songs ‘Paddy McGinty’s Goat’ was probably the first song I ever sung to anyone. My mother used to make me sing it to my auntie. I was so shy – I used to sing it from behind the sofa.
‘Oh Paddy Mc Ginty’s an Irishman of note / Fell in for a fortune so he bought himself a goat / Said he ‘I’m sure of goats milk I’m going to have my fill / Till he got the nanny home and found it was a bill.'”
9 PATTI SMITH : ‘Hey Joe’ (Mer single)
“A Hendrix cover. Astonishing . She interweaves in the myth of Patty Hearst robbing the banks – you know the little rich girl in the Seventies who got kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, and four months later she was on videos robbing banks. So, Patti Smith interweaved that story with Hendrix’s ‘Hey Joe’ and Tom Verlaine’s playing guitar &ldots; and, it’s just amazing. It starts out with her reading a poem : ‘Honey, the way you feel guitar makes me feel masochistic / And you standing beneath the Symbionese Liberation Army flat with your legs spread / I wondered whether you were dead, or whether you were getting it every night from some black revolutionary and his women / You know what your Daddy said / He said ; he said ; he said; Sixty days ago she was my little child and now here she is with a gun in her hand.'”
“It’s like this ridiculously melodramatic wonderful poem. It’s my favourite song ever. In fact, Patti Smith’s ‘Horses’ album influenced my whole musical agenda. She wasn’t frightened to make an arsehole of yourself, and I think to be a good lyricist you have to make an arsehole of yourself. To fly, you’re going to have to crash, too. If you look at some of Neil Young’s lyrics, some of them are terrible and some are pure genius.”
10 JOHN LENNON : ‘No 9 Dream’ (from the Apple LP ‘Walls And Bridges’)
“A mediocre album, but what I like about ‘No 9 Dream’ is that it’s got three parts which shouldn’t be together in the same song; it’s very hallucinogenic and very composed. Only a very good musician could ever attempt anything like that. It sweeps you in to this dream world and then half way through it changes into the daftest thing.”
“The first time I discovered how brilliant it was, I was on the tour bus, going between Seattle and San Francisco, and we were in the mountains, at nine in the morning and I put it on and it was so beautiful, I just started to cry. Then I went and found Saul, who was awake, and I said ‘Come here, listen to this song and look at the mountains.’ And he did and he started crying as well. I thought ‘I knew it was scientific.’ I was convinced.”
Radio 1 Website
JAMES – SPLIT
James have revealed they nearly split up as a result of their huge success in the early nineties. They were touring like mad in the States and got sick of the sight of each other. “We played in Britain for 11 years virtually the whole time. We felt like people needed a break – we were getting taken for granted and we were taking ourselves for granted. We were just going to play stadiums and we didn’t want that – so we ran away. Our guitarist left, and Tim wanted to do his own things – so there was a big question over whether we’d hold it together.”
JAMES – GETTING IT TOGETHER
They did their own thing for a bit but then the band’s creative juices got flowing again – they released She’s A Star and now the album Whiplash. Tim Booth says “I went and made a record, but it felt like a rest because I wasn’t doing it with James. We needed a break from each other, we needed a rest. We need to unpack our bags and do our washing! We’ve got our legs back now and we’re ready to get out there and have some fun.”
MTV Interview / News
James are back with a new single She’s A Star from the album Whiplash and a video that pays tribute to one of the world’s most famous film directors.
Tim : The video was meant to be a kind of homage to Fellini and a kind of parody of it and took the idea of, yes, film stars and the other black-haired woman becoming the star even though there’s the more obvious blonde star. So it’s kind of a cruder version of what I think I was probably writing about which is about people coming into their own power and realising their own strengths.
VH1 Interview
Jim : This is the James rock n roll tour bus, part of the Vantool collection which is top of the range I’m told. Well that’s what the driver told us anyway.
Oh, we’ve found a member of James asleep in his bed. Surprise, surprise. It’s Adrian Oxaal. Hello Adrian.
Adrian : Hello
Jim : How are you today?
Adrian : Sleepy
Jim : He’s always sleepy. Hangover. Surprise surprise.
Alcohol. And this is the back lounge where we kind of meet the general public and acts of gross indecency go on. So I’m told, I’m also in bed by half nine.
Tim : To me, Black Thursday wasn’t a catastrophe at all. It was one of those points where things have to change and it’s not going to change. Larry resigned, our accountant came to us and said we had a five-year tax bill that had been frozen for five years and money we’d been told had been put aside hadn’t been put aside and everything came down on one day. And so I went off to make the Booth And The Bad Angel record and left it to Jimmy to sort out.
Jim : I had to sell things to try and meet the tax bill. Children.
Tim : His body. Your little son
Jim : Still miss him.
Tim : It’s schizophrenic. We definitely have the tension of the yob and the saint working within the band continuously. It seems like a good balance, a good pivot. We don’t believe in black and whites.
The whole press view of James has always been very weird to us. We’ve never understood it. They were calling us Buddhist vegans. There’s no Buddhist vegans here. There never were and we’d tell people this and they’d never believe us for some reason. So for years people had this view of us as a very polite band, this band has been very rock n roll, very cliched for a number of years.
Partly, I mean some of the reputation has come because I’m a sick man. I had an inherited liver disease so I have a very clean life out of physical necessity. It’s not something I preach to anybody else. It’s what I do and I do a lot of things like yoga and meditation and things like that. Mainly because I nearly died when I was 22, I stopped breathing and I’ve had to find ways of nourishing myself in that way. But it’s not something I’d like to get self-righteous about.
The lyrics I’ve been writing, a lot of the stuff has been about spirit and the nature of spirit. I got a lot of it out on Angelo. It’s probably more suited to his cheesy keyboard than it is to James guitars so me and Angelo could indulge in that area and do a record like that because then I didn’t need to force it upon these guys. Oh no, not another one, can’t you sing about birds and tits and football
Jim : Well you like football as well. It’s not just God
Tim : No, I want to sing about God again.
Jim : (sings) God is good
Tim : It was like I almost got the right medium for it I think, probably with Booth and the Bad Angel. And then it meant I could come back here and appreciate this and they could appreciate me again.
That break was fantastic because it was like you know. There must have been about a year when we hardly saw each other. And when we came back it was like “Oh God, these are my friends. You know when you’re too close to something, you forget to appreciate it sometimes and we’d got into that place. And now it’s like we’re having a blast.
David Baynton-Power Interview – Leaking Zine
The following is a transcription of an interview with David Baynton-Power, James’ drummer, done at the Rendez-Vous restaurant in Atlanta, GA on March 1, 1997.
L = me, D=Dave, T=Travis from the Morrissey fanzine, “Wilde About Morrissey” who sat in on the interview and helped with some questions.
Leaking: So what happened after the last tour?
Dave: Larry didn’t want to tour anymore, I think Tim wanted a rest. I didn’t. I didn’t feel it was a good time to stop, myself, we were making up so much ground. And so we had some time off, we started to try and write some new songs.
L: What about the tax evasion thing?
D: Oh, you heard about “Black Thursday”? That’s basically, we were holed up in the studio and we had a big meeting with the accountants and the lawyers and they basically said “You’re broke. You owe this amount and that amount and it’s basically not looking so good.” And it was also on that day that Larry said “Oh yeah, I’m leaving.” So it was a bit of a downer. Tim had also gone off, he was working with Angelo Badalamenti, so it was all very fragmented and it was looking a bit bleak. Well really, at the end of the day we pulled it all back together, it just took a while.
L: So you went into your studio you have a studio, right?
D: I have a space to set up some equipment at my house, so with the stuff we’d already jammed at bigger studios we thought, “Alright, lets take it to a small room and start editing and basically trying out new sounds and new textures on it. We weren’t really coming up with anything in a big studio where we set up as a band. It’s like you can really hone in on sounds and stuff and it doesn’t cost you a fortune, it doesn’t cost you œ750 a day to do it, you know. You can mess around for weeks and not spend very much money doing it. So finally, things started developing to the point where we found a producer and it was like, “right, let’s go back into a proper studio and put it all together.” Which really brings us up to where we are now. But there were some bleak moments. There always have been in James’ history. Like when disasters happen is when we sort of get going.
L: In an article the NME printed a couple of weeks ago, it sounded like Tim wasn’t with you when you recorded, that he did his thing and you did yours in separate studios. Is that accurate?
D: Umm, well he wasn’t when we were working at my house, and that was another reason for doing what we did. Cause like we had his rough vocals on tape, so it’s like, “Alright we’ve got the basis of the melody and the tunes that are going on. Let’s find an interesting setting to put them in, you know. But then hopefully, once he’s sorted out his album, he can come back which he did.” We all got together in a proper studio and got it sorted.
L: It seems like you are taking a very different outward approach these days, a real change in attitude, umm, there was that lovely picture…
D: Oh, you liked that?
L: Yeah. It’s up on the webpage….
D: Good. Yeah. Just type in on your web browser “James’ Bottoms.”
L: It’s actually Jamesbum.
D: Jamesbum? Hahaha, good.
L: But it really seems like there’s been a real change. I read a while back Tim saying something to the extent of “No funny pictures.” What brought this about?
D: When you look back at the photographs the press have got, you just think, “What a bunch of boring sods we were.” We just thought, let’s do a photo where you’re going through the magazine and you go “AHH!”
L: It worked…
D: Yes. It worked. So that was basically it, you know. At that photo session it started out, Saul was sat in a chair, the photographer says “Everybody gather round him.” It was like, “Lads, we’ve been here before, let’s do something, let’s make a move.” You know what I mean?
L: So who’s idea was that?
D: Saul’s actually.
L: Not surprising…
D: Well, after I suggested that we’d been there before, it was like, what can we do? He was like “What can we do? Lets take our clothes off, yeahhhhh. Let’s get naked.”
L: Well Tim didn’t…
D: But no, I mean you can’t hide from the fact that, I don’t know if I should be saying this…oh well, fuck it…
T: We know what you’re going to say…
D: There is a bit of a division. Like Tim’s into a lot of stuff that he’s into, and we’re kind of into different stuff. We thought, well, let’s use it to our advantage. So that’s basically why he was there holding the whip and we’re the whipping boys. We thought it was a fun way to kind of show that off, you know.
L: On that subject, have you ever objected to or censored anything he’s written, lyric-wise?
D: Uhh, it goes all ways. You’re always going to come up with your part of a track and someone will go, “Ahh, I don’t know if I really like that…” It’s just the way you bring it up really. Not like “Well, I think its CRAP.” You’ve got to be able to say “Well why don’t you try THIS.” It’s how you do it really.
L: So tell us about Adrian, the new guy.
D: Where did he come in eh? He’s an old friend of Saul’s, and uh, obviously we had to find somebody else with Larry going and luckily he fit the bill. He’s a really good guitar player. He’s a bit more rocking than Larry, he’s got a bit of an edge, which has injected a new spark into the band. It was so good for us that we didn’t have to audition, put the advert in and then 100 guitar players and we’re “No we’ll give you a call…” It was like, “Adrian? Yeah, give him a go. Great. He works.” So luckily that was quite easy for us.
L: So you were working with Stephen Hague and Brian Eno on the new album?
D: Yeah.
L: How do you feel that working with Stephen Hague, who’s done so much with New Order, affected the direction of the album?
D: Umm…
T: Versus Brian Eno.
D: Brian didn’t have a great deal to do with this album really. He did a lot of backing vocals, great backing vocals. There, Brian Eno. Backing vocals. Yeah, Stephen was great. Really nice bloke, easy to get on with, and he’s made a lot of pop records so he has a good ear for a tune. He’s one of the guys who really wanted to get involved. And he has a great track record and it was like “Oh wow!” It’s always great when someone like that, when you get a phone call saying he really wants to do the record, when someone likes us.
L: So are you glad to be back on the road?
D: Well, after three years…There’s no point in being unrealistic and thinking “Well, perhaps no one is interested anymore.” There’s been a lot of change in music. In three years some bands have been and gone you know. So you put your record out and you think, “Is it gonna do anything?” And after all this time to come back to America, and we’re only doing 3 shows, a bit of a promotional trip, and we’ve sold them all out. It’s like, it’s grand!
L: So what are your plans? I know you’re doing some dates in England. Then what?
D: Gonna come back over here.
L: What is the best tour story you have?
D: Uhh, oh god. They’re not printable.
L: Ok, something printable…
D: I don’t know. Can’t you ask what’s the best gig we’ve ever done?
L: OK then, your favorite way to pass time on the tour bus?
D: Hahaha. Sleep, I suppose.
L: What’s your favorite song to play live?
D: Uhh, at the moment, I’d have to say, for me, personally, at the moment I really like doing “Come Home.” Cause we’ve reworked it, pumped it up and modernized it and it’s just like “Shit! If only we’d done this the first time…” *laughs* It so annoys us, you know, you record tracks very much in their infancy and once we’ve had them on the road for a while, they really start coming together and you think, “Shit. If only we had this on the record…”
L: It seems it could get really boring playing them for so many years.
D: Well it does, yeah. Well we’ve done this new version of “Born of Frustration,” which you may or may not like, but there was always a lot of baggage with that song, because it came out at a time when the press started turning on us in England, you know. There was one point where every gig we did we got a great review. Suddenly it just turned and we got slagged off as being a stadium rock band, and being called the new Simple Minds and that track was kind of the key of all that.
T: That song broke you in the U.S.
D: I know, but for us that song has a lot of baggage with it, and when we play it we’ve got all this shit going on in our heads and stuff and it’s like we knew a lot of people like it, so it was like, “How can we present it so it’s kind of new for us and not so stadium…?”
L: But you did that slow acoustic version. Do you know what I’m talking about?
D: No. When?
L: In 1994.
D: Did we? We can’t remember that one.
L: I just remember seeing you play in 1992 and being shocked that you didn’t play it because it was the hit single.
D: Yeah. That sounds typical of us. We’re great at shooting ourselves in the foot.
L: No, people were really into it. You may not remember, it was in Boston on Halloween.
D: Oh yeah…I remember that one. We all dressed up stupid didn’t we? *Laughs*
L: Yeah. About the only costume I remember is Jim’s. He looked like a big dildo.
D: Oh yeah, I remember that *grin*.
L: So what’s your most embarrassing moment on stage?
D: I’ve never had any. *laughs* No, not really. None I can remember. Probably you can ask other people and they’ll tell you something funny, but not me. I spent a lot of time getting into a headspace where I don’t get nervous on stage at all and I play much better for it. You get wound up and you make mistakes, and when you make mistakes you give yourself a really hard time about it. You really have to go on stage and not give a fuck and then you play well. It’s taken a while to get to that space, but I think I’ve managed it. It actually came from being in America. There’s a bit more laid-back attitude over here. I find most Americans far mor easy going in some ways. I caught the vibe.
L: I noticed that the last time I saw you, at the Orpheum in Boston, you came out with a cane. What happened?
D: Oh yeah. I damaged my foot. We’d been, uh, rehearsing in Woodstock, have you been to Woodstock?
L: No.
D: Not the gig, the town. Cause there’s a big studio there called Bayersville, and there’s a big wooden barn there that bands use to rehearse and we were there for a week before we started that tour and Boston was the first show. Well, me and Jimmy, we go running and stuff, we’d go running through the woods. So I’m bombing out through the woods one day, and I just landed on the ankle and my foot turned over like that. Luckily it was this leg [gestures] and not that one cause we would have had to pull the tour. I couldn’t have played. So that’s why I had the cane.
L: What would be the lineup of your ideal gig?
D: Umm, I’d have to say there wouldn’t be any rock bands. I’m a bit of a techno dude. Out in the mountains. No bands.
L: Just a DJ?
T: Like the Prodigy?
D: Yeah…we like the Prodigy and Underworld and people like that you know.
T: So it was your influence on the radio today? Prodigy….
D: No, there’s quite a lot of us really. We’re going for a lot more of that. We just find it a lot more exciting cause it’s new, you know.
T: That’s why you mess around with remixes?
D: Yeah, we’ve also started another side project as well, doing a lot of that stuff. We’re fishing around for deals at the moment.
T: To put out a record?
D: We’ve got one ready to go.
L: So this is the trance/ambient album I heard rumors about?
D: It’s not ambient really. Some of the songs are like 3-minute pop songs in a techno environment.
T: Are there vocals on it?
D: Yeah, a few, yeah.
T: Is it Tim?
D: No.
T: Who?
D: Saul. It’s Saul.
T/L: Ohh, so he really DOES want to be the singer….
D: It’s wild up where I live, see, I live in Wales and I only discovered this last summer, I was getting a bit pissed off living in Wales, after being in London and doing the album. I was thinking, “What the fuck am I doing here?” I only know a few people, it was a bit boring. And when you want to go out you think, “Oh let’s go to Manchester, go to Liverpool to go to a club.” And all the time there were these banging parties happening out in the forests. People go out with a sound system and just techno away all night. Once I discovered that, I just thought Wales is the best place on earth. And I got the lads over, I said “You’ve got to come to these parties, they’re brilliant!” They’re totally unregulated so you don’t have to buy tickets, there’s no security, it’s just like people having fun. That’s really changed a lot of things. I have to give a plus to the people who put those on. People called the Dosse Posse. Stick THAT on the net. That would be good.
L: Careful or you’ll have people coming over there to try and catch a glimpse of you at these parties.
D: Yeah, well you’ve got to know the sites and all. It’s all underground, all word of mouth, know what I mean? That’s what I love about it you know.
L: Do you feel you are trying to present a certain visual image to go with the music?
D: There’s never been a big game plan. There’s probably more going on now than there ever has been.
L: So where did that idea for the cover art come from?
D: Don’t know actually.
L: It’s caused quite a stir. You have an internet mailing list that you may or may not know about…
D: I know there’s a big list of like – me and Mark were we use this little studio in Wales to do b-sides and various bits and bobs and Mark brought his computer down and his modem and got hooked up to the net. I’ve never really surfed the net before. And he said “Have a look at this,” and he pulled up this list and it was like every James bootleg that’s ever been made. *laughs*
L: Oh my, I think my list is up there….
D: Hold on, I’ve got no problem with bootlegs. I’ve got no problem at all with ’em. I think they’re great. I know it’s only hardcore fans who buy them, it’s not like its dipping into our sales, that’s crap, you know what I mean? I think it’s great. It’s flattering that people are that into it, to be doing that shit. It was just like, lists, all these gigs. I mean bloody hell! Gigs I’d forgotten about. I was like “We played there did we?!” It was so long, I couldn’t believe it.
L: There’s actually 2 different pages. The one you are talking about, and then another one that has a chatboard and icons and cursors of you and stuff. And there’s an email mailing list.
D: Oh we could get it up and bang a few things out as well.
L; They wouldn’t believe it was you. Someone once tried to convince people he was Tim, using a bogus address. But my point was, the album cover people were speculating it was a transvestite or even Tim in drag.
D: Tim in drag? Ha. Well, I’ll tell ya, all I can say is like, figure it out. *laughs*
T: Kind of like the Laid cover? It was like, FIGURE THAT ONE OUT, the dresses and the bananas….
L: That was real subtle….
D: Well, I’ll tell ya, that was because we were starving. We were doing a photo session and we were all miserable and going “I’m hungry.” And someone was dispatched to try and find some food and there was only a veg shop open. We were in Marseille, right that’s the cathedral in Marseille, those doors. And it was just like, that’s all they came back with, bananas. I’m telling you, there was no game plan. But as for the new one, you’ll have to guess. Sorry. Whatever you wanna think, think it. It’s probably more fun than the truth.
L: I think we can come up with something good…. There’s a bit on the page that was posted for April Fools last year about Mark Hunter, that people believed….
D: What was it?
L: Well, we said that Mark had been jogging and was nearly hit by a car. So he got mad and tried to kick in the car’s windshield and the police were called in. And he proceeded to moon the policeman and was dragged in for psychiatric evaluation.
D: Ha! Good work! That’s far more interesting than the truth. *laughs*
L: Yeah, well, 3 months later people were still going “What happened? Was it true?”
D: Who did it?
L: Me.
D: Good work. Keep doing it. Mad stories I love it. It’s a good story innit.
L: I thought so, especially after seeing that NME picture…Ok. Videos. Is there a story behind the latest video?
D: I think so. I haven’t figured it out meself though.
L: No, I mean, were you trying to emulate something specific?
D: Fellini.
L: Ahh. So who generally comes up with the ideas? You or the directors?
D: Well, yeah, ideas are banged around. Then you’ve got to find a director, and you sort of muck a few things out with them and you end up with something. It’s kind of fairly hit or miss.
L: How do you like doing them? It seems you’ve done low-budget stuff in the past, except for the last couple.
D: Yeah, well we don’t feel very comfortable in them, you know, we’re not like some bands that really go out and perform.
T: Well, based on the video in gorilla outfits, I’m sure you’re REAL comfortable in that….
D: I think one of the best videos I’ve ever seen was New Order “Round and Round.”
T: Oh, cause they’re not in it.
D: Just loads and loads of gorgeous women.
T: Right.
D: I thought “That’s so cool.” Why can’t we have a video like that, we’re not even in it, brilliant.
L: I’ve always liked the Replacements video where it’s just somebody’s feet and the radio.
D: And he kicks it in.
T: I think I’ve seen that one.
D: Most videos have a very simple but original idea. You know what I mean? You just go “I wish I’d thought of that.”
L: In the “Seven” video, you’re wearing T-shirts and stuff with the numbers one through seven. There is no number 5. Was that just bad editing?
D: Really? I never noticed. There’s seven of us, so what happened?
L: No no, I mean, it counts up…
D: There’s no five going on?
L: 5 never shows up.
D: I wasn’t aware of that. Did you watch the “Born of Frustration” video?
L: Yes.
D: Have you noticed what’s weird about that?
L: Besides the wind?
D: No, you’re not looking hard enough.
L: Andy in a dress…*grin*?
D: Have you looked at the guitar player?
L: What, are you the guitar player?
D: No no no. It’s not Larry.
L: Then who is it?
D: It was our tour manager. Our record company never noticed either.
L: Now I have to go back and look. Heheh.
D: I’ll tell you what happened. Basically it was our first trip to America. We’d run over to L.A. to shoot the video there, up in the “Troner Pinnacles.” Out in Nevada somewhere, that’s where it was shot. Well, the night we got into L.A., Larry got mugged. He was so shaken up he just buggered off home the next day. So he sent our tour manager out to take his place. He was wearing glasses and he wore Larry’s hat and all; but no one ever noticed. So there you go. A little bit of trivia for you.
L: That’s great. Is there a sample of “Bring A Gun” in “Avalanche?” Do you know what I’m talking about?
D: No, I don’t actually. I haven’t listened to “Bring A Gun” in years.
L: There was one bit in there that sounded like a sample from Seven, a real fast staccato bit.
D: I think it’s actually Larry’s guitar played an octave higher on the soundboard. For all the technical people out there who like that sort of stuff, that’s what it probably is.
[waiter enters and refills David’s coffee cup]T: You’re not drinking tea? You like tea?
D: Yeah, but I don’t want to offend you Americans. You haven’t got a clue how to make one.
T: I drink tea all the time.
D: You don’t have kettles.
L: So what is your recipe for tea then?
D: Boiling water.
L: Well yeah….
T: With a bag in it.
D: You take the kettle to the the pot to the kettle, or the other way around. Cause like you order tea over here and they bring you a cup of hot water with a tea bag on the side. And they bring you cream?! No. Sorry. Doesn’t work. You know what I mean. You put a man on the moon, but you can’t sort your tea out. [laughs]
T: Have you ever tried iced tea? What do you think about that?
D: It’s alright. Yeah. I remember doing an interview with Musician magazine.
L: Yeah, something about Earl Grey….
D: Yeah, and I said it’s all about the water temperature. [laughs]
L: So, are there any songs that you’ve done, that you would now disavow?
D: Disown? Not want to know about?
L: Yeah.
D: Well, yes and know really. I mean it’s like, the longer an album takes to make, the harder it is to listen to it. Cause then you can’t have any objectivity because you’re just so wrapped up in every little step of the work that went into it, and it takes years for that to get forgotten and to just listen to it and go “Oh yeeeaaah.” But who knows. I really wish we could just sort of undergo hypnosis, you know, so once you finish the album, someone could go “ooooohhh” [makes noise] and you could listen to it like you’ve never heard it before and then you could make an objective opinion on it. But that’s just one of the factors that goes with the job.
L: Are there any songs you feel like you’ve outgrown? Cause the sound has changed so drastically.
D: Well we do, we always change, or we’d get bored.
L: But I mean you listen to Stutter and you listen to Whiplash and it’s not even the same band really.
D: That was a long long time ago. I’m sure even the Grateful Dead sounded a bit different later on, didn’t they?
L: I would not know.
D: I’ve never listened to them.
L: You wouldn’t want to start….
D: But what a phenomenon. The biggest grossing act in America.
L: And they only had one top 40 hit ever.
D: It was brilliant. Not playing the commercial game and yet still having such a huge dedicated following. I would never knock ’em for it at all.
T: Do you feel you guys play the commercial game?
D: Yes and no. You’ve got to toe the line somewhere. I mean when you’ve signed to a major label, you know…
T: There’s nothing wrong with that.
D: Well, you know, it gets old. Maybe I wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t playing the commercial game. It’s all about exposure, doing interviews, and getting across to people.
L: Oh I don’t know, if you were big “rock stars” you probably wouldn’t have spoken to me in the first place.
D: I don’t know. I mean you do an interview with a magazine and they send along a reporter who basically doesn’t fucking like you and he’s gonna do a hatchet job on you, you know. But you people actually like the music, you come to our shows. I’d much rather talk to you people, you know what I mean? It’s like far more real.
L: Well, of course we think so.
D: No, we’ve been set up loads of times. Send over some real lad who’s all “Oh yeah oh yeah mate and really like ya” and he just goes “Bunch of sods, don’t like em.” It’s like “Fucking arsehole!” Know what I mean? Such a cheap trick.
L: It just doesn’t seem worth it to take the time to do an interview if you’re just going to trash a band. You could just as easily give them lousy reviews and then no more publicity and it would serve your purpose.
D: They’re nasty, bitter people.
L: They’re failed musicians….
D: Probably, yeah yeah yeah.
L: Ok, now I have a bunch of rather….unrelated questions. Which other member of the band would you most want to be and why?
D: No, I wouldn’t. I’m quite happy. That’s a perfectly ok answer as well.
L: Which song, by another artist, do you wish you’d written?
D: “Unfinished Symphony” erm, “Sympathy” by Massive Attack. Like “Damn! Why didn’t we do that!”
L: What do you want the first line of your autobiography to say?
D: Oh fuck. That’s probably it actually. “Oh fuck.” This is the story… I don’t know, I haven’t got a witty answer for you, I don’t know what to say. You’d probably only get a really good one for that from Jimmy or Bob.
L: Bob?
D: Bob. Bob’s Saul. We’ve all got stupid nicknames.
L: Ahh, that answers a lot. I have an interview from a Toronto radio station and Jim keeps saying “Bob” and the DJ never said exactly who he was interviewing. “Bob” kept calling Jim, “Jim” though.
D: Stick that on the net. Saul is Bob.
L: So what are everybody else’s stupid nicknames?
D: Well, I get called “Welsh,” which is fine. It could be a lot worse.
L: Not very creative.
D: Uhh…Mark’s “Chunny Lad.”
L” Is that where “Chunny Chops” came from?
D: Yeah. It was “Chunny Pops” but they misspelled it on the cover. [laughs] We thought it was hilarious.
L: What is that supposed to mean?
D: “Chunny Lad?”
L: Yeah.
D: Uhh…fuck it. I couldn’t explain it to ya. Well, Adrian, Adrian is called [laughs], “Mr. Pastry.” [laughs]
T: Please don’t ask him about that one….
D: Jim hasn’t got one, cause he’s fucking’ untouchable. We’ve tried. They just don’t stick. So we couldn’t.
Frank: Teflon.
D: We tried “Teflon,” it just doesn’t work. So we’ve given up trying. Umm…and Tim’s “Monty.” [laughs]
Greg: Where did that one come from?
D: Uhhh, I can’t…I can’t say.
L: Sure you can….
G: Incriminating factors as well?
L: What is he? “Let’s Make a Deal?”
D: [laughs]
L: We could go really bad places with that….
D: Well, there you go.
L: Ok, what’s the worst thing you’ve ever been asked in an interview?
D: [laughs]
T: I hope it’s not this one.
D: It’s probably one of your questions. Umm, I don’t do a lot of interviews actually. So, I don’t have an answer to that.
L: What’s the best album you’ve bought in the last year?
D: Uhh, I haven’t bought much recently, actually. Uhh, I tell ya, umm, I don’t know. Can you hold it down to a track or something like that?
L: Sure.
D: I don’t know if I can tell. It’s by the Scot Project, it’s on umm, it’s like a fucking’ acid/techno album, a track. But it’s by the Scot Project. I’ll have to find the title out for you.
L: You’re going to be up all night trying to think of it now.
D: Oh, definitely the label’s Reactivate. It just reminds me of all the great parties last summer. They always used to play it when the fucking sun was coming up over the mountains.
L: What’s the first album you ever bought?
D: Ahh, I think it was The Move.
L: The Move?
D: British band.
T: Never heard of ’em.
D: Going back a while, yep.
L: What’s the most embarrassing item in your record collection?
D: Oh loads. These are the ones you get free off the record company [laughs]. There’s quite a lot in there.
T: How about stuff you’re embarrassed to like?
D: Uhh, I’m not embarrassed to like anything. I can always justify it [laughs].
L: Well, ok, what’s the last book you read?
D: Umm, I don’t read books.
L: You don’t?
T: Good for you.
D: I just read magazines. But see I can hold a conversation about most books because I’ve read about them in magazines [laughs].
L: If you were a slurpee, what flavor would you be?
D: [exclaims] A WHAT?!
L: Umm, an icee or a slush puppy, sort of a virgin daiquiri, only in any flavor you want…
D: I’ve never had one.
L: But but, I KNOW they have them in the UK.
D: Yah I know, slush puppies. I’ve never had one.
L: Well, hehe, pick a flavor.
D: Make one up.
L: Ok then, choose a bubble gum flavor.
D: Pop.
T: OK, that’s cola, there’s a cola flavor…
L: If you could choose a way to die, which would you prefer: violent death, accident, or disease?
D: They’re not very good choices are they?
L: No, they’re not.
D: They’re horrible choices. That’d be a Brumpton’s Cocktail wouldn’t it. You know a Brumpton’s Cocktail?
L: No idea.
D: I don’t know if they’re still used. They used to give them to terminally ill people. It’s just a fucking massive mix of pharmaceutical grade heroin and other things and you just fucking nuke out, you don’t know a thing about it.
L: Ahh, now we just have Jack Kevorkian.
D: Yeah.
L: Ok, this one is particularly bad. If you were kidnaped by Martians, what body part would you want them to have three of?
D: Sorry?
L: If you were kidnaped by Martians, what body part would you want them to have three of?
D: [laughs] Well, depends what they look like.
L: Use your imagination.
D: 3 nipples [laughs]. You said anything.
L: Ok, uhhh, what’s the most disgusting thing you’ve ever eaten (excluding bodily fluids)?
D: They’re quite alright those, usually. Umm, fuck it, I don’t know. Probably some kind of shellfish. Mussels…anything like that. I’d chuck. I’d throw up.
L: It’s like snot….
D: Yeah, just the smell of all that sea water. I always used to have a problem when I was a kid and I used to go to the beach. Just that smell used to make me heave. I used to dread going to the beach because I knew every time I went it was like [makes puking noise]. I’ve gotten over it now like, it’s just one of those childhood traumas that you go through.
T: You mean the old people didn’t scare you away?
D: No no no, I’m fine now. Old people rarely smell….
L: Old people in bikinis?
D: Eeew.
T: Well in England, you go to Blackpool?
D: Well only once, really, for a gig.
T: Old people sit outside in chairs. They don’t sit on the beach. They sit outside and chat. It’s not a beach like here, it’s pebbles and everything.
D: Yeah it’s horrible. It’s got Sallowfield up the road banging out loads of radioactive waste.
L: Sounds great…. Ok, your most prized possession?
D: Ahhh, uhhhh.
T: Your drum kit?
D: No. [garbled] It’s just something that you turn up and hit every night. Umm, I haven’t got one, cause when you have prized possessions they get taken away from you.
L: Now that sounds sad.
D: Of course I’d be too attached to something. I could say my girlfriend, but she’s not a possession, you know what I mean?
L: Yeah. Your worst vice?
D: You don’t wanna know….
L: Haha, another place we shouldn’t go eh? Then what was the first gig you ever saw?
D: Uhh, Hawkwind.
L: [laughs] and what YEAR would THAT have been?
D: Uhh, 1974…something like that. It’s going back a bit.
L: Well, that’s all I have.
D: Well, I’ve got to chill a bit before the show anyway.
[Bunch of stray garbage, i.e. us thanking him, him taking off…]Whiplash USA Album Release – Press Release
Press release for James’ album Whiplash in the USA.
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- Whiplash USA Press Release p1
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- Whiplash USA Press Release p2
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- Whiplash USA Press Release p3
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- Whiplash USA Press Release p4
