The Other Side of the Pond
British Voices
If America gave birth to modern rock ’n’ roll, then the British and New Zealanders stamped their unique impressions and craft upon it with everlasting panache. Some, like James Stevenson, were shaped by punk’s creeds and edginess, while Richard Thompson’s haunting and hallow catalog, which extends back to the folk rock of Fairport Convention, is a testament to resilience and vision. Uncompromising and uncanny, these artists reveal their conceptual DNA.
James Stevenson: Chelsea, Gen X, and Gene Loves Jezebel
Previously published in my Punk and Indie Compendium app by BiblioBoard.
James Stevenson is the nimble, electrifying guitar sound that has backed iconic bands like Chelsea, Gen X, Kim Wilde, Gene Loves Jezebel, and the Alarm. Pleased by his modest and easygoing demeanor, I plumbed his past, looking for the roots weaving throughout his storied career.
Do you recall what led Chelsea to cover Jimmy Cliff’s “Many Rivers to Cross”? And was Chelsea conscious of the climate leading to the race riots of 1981 and/or the racial difficulties facing Two Tone?
We covered “Many Rivers” basically because we all thought it was a great song. It was Gene’s idea—and I think the angst he gets across in the delivery of the vocal is really special. At the end of the day, the song is about pain and the difficulty we all face in moving forward through life. I think that’s a subject we all have in common, and it rears its head in every form of music. There was a big riot at the Notting Hill carnival in 1981. I remember being there with Mick Jones. It was a very mixed-race battle against the authorities, and I remember saying to Mick, “See, this is our battle too!” Brixton was different. That was more of a specific opposition to Maggie Thatcher’s policies rather than authority as a whole.
Wikipedia notes Gene might have starred in gay pornography before Chelsea, or according to Andy Czezowski, Gene, like Dee Dee Ramone, “was a rent boy and knew this club on Neal Street which was known as Shageramas then, but became the Roxy soon after.” Were you aware, early on, of Gene’s past?
Yeah, I was aware of Gene’s past, but a lot has been exaggerated and Gene is a private guy, so I don’t really want to go into it here. The situation with the Roxy is totally true. Gene was the guy that got the first gigs happening there. He gets little credit for that. I don’t know if the scene would have happened differently, but it certainly would have happened in a different venue.
I was delighted to see an Urgh: A Music War clip that I had forgotten about, featuring a Chelsea gig in L.A.
Actually I had already left the band when that was shot. The only members of the band from the first album lineup in that film are Gene and Chris Bashford. There were three other guys who were very short-lived in the band and didn’t even make the Evacuate record. I don’t know their names. One of them kind of had a haircut a bit like me so people sometimes think it’s me.
Tell me about your experience working with Tricky. I understand that the Boomtown Rats’ old bass player, Pete Briquette, was also featured. What do you think you brought to the music Tricky was shaping?
That was a strange experience. I like what Tricky did—trip-hop to me is not like rap, and Tricky, really he invented it. It was a very different way of working from what I was used to, which was laying down guitar parts for complete songs—he’d get me to play whatever I wanted all over a track and then sample and loop it here and there. I think he’s a very creative guy. I actually play on about six tracks on the album, though I think I’m only credited on one. One minute he’d want rock power chords, the next acoustic lead! Then he’d sample and loop maybe the three seconds he liked and spin it into the track where he thought it worked. Haven’t heard from him for a while, so I don’t know what he’s up to at the moment.
Supposedly, you walked in to play with Gen X, and ten days later the band made a stage at World’s End Studio [renamed the Congo Club] and invited press, industry, and fans to check out the new solid sound. Yet, soon, it was all over. Was it really due to “Dancing with Yourself” only hitting the Top 100 briefly, thus keeping the band in debt, or did the band not really gel?
When Billy announced he was leaving I felt the band was just starting to really gel. We’d been playing for about six months and Terry and Tony really did sound great together. I remember afterwards Tony saying to me, “Sorry, you’ve joined a sinking ship.” He felt Billy’s decision to leave was taken even before I joined and was something Bill Aucoin pressured him into. At the end of the day, it was obviously the right decision for Billy commercially.
Chelsea’s Alternative Hits was produced by onetime Who manager/producer Kit Lambert, while Kiss Me Deadly–era Idol was supposedly under the tutelage of ex-Kiss manager Bill Aucoin (it’s fair to mention that Aerosmith’s producer Sandy Pearlman recorded the Clash’s “Give ’Em Enough Rope”). Was there any difference working with these old rock industry types versus working with Miles Copeland (Step Forward)?
Actually Kit only produced “Urban Kids” and the flip side “No Flowers.” He was a real character—very much the Englishman. We recorded the song in a studio about thirty miles out of London where Miles Copeland had a deal—and Kit spent all of his advance on a supermarket trolley of booze for everyone. Rumor has it Gene met him while he was burgling his house! But I’ve never been able to confirm that. Apparently, someone was making a film about his life. Don’t know if it made the light of day.
You played with Kim Wilde for her mega-hit “Kids of America” period, in the time before Gene Loves Jezebel and after Gen X, right? Now, how do you look back at the period?
I played on a few tracks on the first and second albums, but I was very much a hired gun—by Mickie Most, not Kim. Though I loved Kim—she’s really one of the boys and drank me under the table more than once!—I missed playing live. All I did with Kim was TV shows, that’s why I put Hot Club together with Glen Matlock. I did all the guitar soloing at the end of “Water on Glass.” I remember being quite proud of it at the time.
Many people consider the work Gene Loves Jezebel did with Jimmy Iovine (“The Motion of Love” and “Suspicion”), and Peter Walsh [who previously handled Simple Minds, China Crisis, Peter Gabriel’s live LP] for House of Dolls as the seminal, watershed period.
Well, I wouldn’t describe our experience with Jimmy Iovine as positive. There’s a joke about him, which I actually told him, and he was not amused. He was basically producing more than one band at the time he was producing us—all at A+M in L.A.—so we weren’t getting his undivided attention, which, considering the fee he was getting, was disgraceful, I think. Then he vanished for two weeks because Lone Justice, who he managed, was supporting U2 in Italy.
We finished two tracks with him in six weeks! That’s one of the reasons GLJ will never recoup—it cost us about two hundred grand! Two tracks! I’m amazed our manager let us stay out there all that time. Pete Walsh is a close personal friend. I love working with him, and we’ve done a lot of stuff together. I just played on The Drift by Scott Walker, which he produced. We finished the whole of The House of Dolls with Pete in less time than we did those two tracks with Iovine. Pete also produced Heavenly Bodies, which I think is my favorite Gene Loves Jezebel album. I think one of the great things technology has enabled is bands not to have to rent studios at a grand a day—you can have a great-sounding studio in your own house now.
When asked to describe the roots of Gene Loves Jezebel’s approach, you said, “I’d say it didn’t have roots in anything tangible apart from British eccentricity.” Looking back, what does that mean? Does it go back to Oscar Wilde (actually Irish, so I am wrong there) or Ziggy Stardust?
It was the Aston twins thing. They had a unique chemistry together and also Jay alone. The androgyny was very genuine—born out of that creative working-class scenario that only seems to occur in the U.K.—think Bowie, Oscar Wilde as you say. I think it goes back further than rock ’n’ roll. That British dandyism. Although the Astons were b
oth actually savagely heterosexual.
Lastly, it seems that the sense of punk renewal, from Chelsea and the Alarm albums to the recurring huge Blackpool festival and so on, is happening right as the Labour Party, or Blair at least, seemingly wanes and declines. Do you think people are reconnecting to the music simply for the sake of nostalgia, or do you think the messages from both bands critique current society and offer messages of hope and vigor?
There has always been music that challenges the status quo—right back to Robert Johnson and the original blues guys, and then Woody Guthrie, etc., and then rock ’n’ roll. Even Elvis, well in some ways especially Elvis, made people question their beliefs and changed opinion by causing a conflict between the young and what the older generation held as sacred. I think punk still does that, though we’re not all so young any more! I also think lots of punk bands are making great new records now—that’s why there are thousands of people at some of these punk festivals. Politicians always wane eventually.
I don’t see a connection directly between the downward spiral of New Labour and what’s happening today in punk rock, but I do feel most people in the U.K. are fed up with the way the country is going. Huge bonuses for city rich kids contrasted with the very real poverty we see on our streets, greed, the erosion of essential services, bureaucracy that is out of control. People in the U.K. anyway do seem to be giving out the message that they’ve had enough. Chelsea’s songs have always conveyed that, right up to tracks on the new album like “Sod the War” and “Living in the Urban U.K.” There will always be a bit of nostalgia, but I think the new album carries its own weight.
Mike Scott: The Waterboys
Originally published in Left of the Dial, 2002.
As a kind of vagabond spiritualist and musician, Mike Scott escaped from the punk ghetto after jump-starting his propulsive project the Waterboys. The band unwittingly begat the genre known as Big Music, which combined a fecund sense of Anglo poetry with a soundscape that resembled an amalgam of rambling Bob Dylan, hard-hitting rock ’n’ roll, swoony art pop, sea shanty serenades, and dark moody ambience. Scott, at the helm, was a paramour and enigma, reclusive and resilient, making music for the ages, not today’s superficial charts.
On A Rock in the Weary Land, you balance an epic, spiritual side with a confessional and intimate side. Is that how you see the record?
Well, I don’t think of it in those terms, though I like them.
Well, how do you think of it then?
Well, I just do what I do really, and make the record as good as I can.
But how do you know how good it is?
Um, whether it turns me on or not, and this one really does. I like this record a lot, and I am very proud of it.
Would it be wrong for people to draw a line from Dream Harder, to Still Burning, to the last solo record in order to trace the sound of the new record, or do you think there are elements of your earlier work on it too?
I don’t hear the early stuff on it. I think this record is a continuation of Bring ’Em All In. On that record, I began using distorted keyboards and a customized wa-wa pedal with a volume control–type knob that I move very slowly by hand or even by foot, so I get much more control. I started using those on Bring ’Em All In, and they reach their peak on this record.
And is the direction you will continue with?
No, I would think it will change on the next record.
For a few years you didn’t listen to much new music, then a few years ago you started listening to Mercury Rev and Radiohead and liked them because they showed you what was possible in rock music. So what exactly did they make possible?
Well, Radiohead’s OK Computer reminded me to work on the sound of every instrument. I love that about OK Computer—every single instrument is an opportunity to explore sonically, and I wanted to do that.
I know you recorded “A Rock in the Weary Land” several times in the studio, so did they also show you how to explore each song in an infinite number of ways?
No, it was more like I was recording certain songs three or four times just to get the right version, just to really nail it.
How do you know when you are satisfied, when the fourth take is better than the third?
No, I wasn’t talking in terms of takes, but different recordings months apart. I just kind of get an instinctive feeling that yes, this is it.
It’s been said that you use the studio time in a clever way, and use it to get good at playing the songs. I understand a lot of A Rock in the Weary Land was just played on piano and guitar in a room that you set aside for music. Is that a big difference from the previous times when you used the studio to explore the songs and now you do it at the house?
I do more at home, yes. I don’t remember that quote, but the record where we explored the music all the time in the studio, especially, was Fisherman’s Blues, and boy did we use it. We would record multiple arrangements of songs, and really took it to the limit on that one. Ever since, I’ve pulled back from the process. It takes a lot of money and a lot of energy working that way. So now I prefer to figure out the song before I even step into the studio. I think there’s a better discipline working that way.
Is the process more satisfying that way?
Any process is satisfying if it gets the results, and if I repeated the Fisherman’s Blues experience, I would have stopped getting results, so I had to do it differently.
How would you identify an American audience as being different than an Irish or British audience?
They’re less cynical. They’re out for a good time. And they really know their music. I’m not saying that audiences in Europe don’t, but there’s something about an American audience that is especially sophisticated. And inhibited as well. It’s that marvelous combination of inhibition and sophistication.
Ironically, a lot of American bands can’t wait to go to Europe because the audiences are supposedly so literate, sophisticated, and interested.
[Laughs.] Well, maybe it’s that old thing where the grass is always greener on the other man’s side.
Why did it take over ten years to go back and reimagine the Fisherman’s Blues material that you’ve been working on?
There were so many other records to make in the meantime. You know, I kept writing songs, I kept finding myself in new cities and new countries.
It just didn’t occur to you?
It was something in the back of my mind that I knew I would go back to when the time was right.
You once said, “The day that I stop being driven I should lay down and die, or go to Scotland and become a shepherd.” Is it being driven that makes you write the songs, or is it the songs that drive you?
It’s a piece of both. When I have written a cluster of new songs, a big drive comes into play, but at the same time I am a driven musician and performer. I don’t know how not to do it. I am very grateful for it, that spirit.
Is it ever difficult to balance the spiritual and artistic sides of your personality?
I don’t think of them as separate areas of life. When I went to live in the Findhorn Foundation community, which is a spiritual community in the north of Scotland, one of the first things I learned was I had to trust my intuition. I realized that I had been doing that in songwriting for decades without knowing that was its name.
You’ve done a musical backdrop for Yeat’s “The Stolen Child,” but when you are writing, do you see any literature creeping in as you make a record, or as you make a song?
I don’t think so, but I’m constantly reading books, and they are constantly inspiring me. One book that did inspire lyric writing was Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin, an American writer. That was an absolute motherfucker of a book. Definitely inspired me when I was writing the “Whole of the Moon,” along with Jimi Hendrix.
Was it the picture the writer drew in the mind, or the rhythm of the language that inspired you?
His writing is jeweled, and there is a teeming quality to it, an abundance in his writin
g. And that inspired me.
And does it still inspire you?
I haven’t read it for a number of years, but I am sure if I read it again I could get another few songs out of it actually.
What makes you happy in your life?
Um, writing a good song, being happy with my wife. Traveling, being with people in different parts of the world. Working with my band. All those things. A good cup of coffee.
Do you still consider yourself the “mainstream guy who goes with the flow”?
I think I was trying to make a point when I said that, which I didn’t articulate very well. I was trying to get across the point that society is distorted and accepts that order as the natural order of things, but I try in my life to work in harmony with the natural order of things, and I don’t always succeed, and I have my bad moments and my good moments. But I’m working on it constantly.
If you work towards that harmony in your work and your life, does that put you in touch with whomever you believe is a higher being?
Absolutely. I kind of feel that the universe has a mind, in fact I think the universe is a very loving, great being that we really can’t perceive in our minds. But all the time it is sending us signs. The American Indians knew this. They knew how to read the universe, how to read the physical world for its symbolism and its construction, and I’m trying to do that in my daily life. Intuition is a great helper.
How do you know whether or not to trust intuition?
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