Renegade: The Lives and Tales of Mark E. Smith

by Mark E. Smith

  Then they read out all the names, and all of them are wrong; and of course Smith turns up in every arrest form. They got everything wrong – that’s why my bail was fucked up. They had the boat waiting for Rikers, and they’re coming in reading out the wrong batch of prisoners. They’re reading out these names and nobody’s replying and then they read out Smith and I’m the only one who said yeah. And they’re all laughing at this, because there’s always a Smith somewhere, but this wasn’t me, it was Sylvester Smith or something, Sly Stone Smith. They couldn’t even get this right, which was quite frightening.

  And then they brought these urine samples out, these tubes with everybody’s name on them.

  ‘Wilson – what’s in your urine?’ And he goes, ‘I don’t know, and I don’t care.’ And then onto the Puerto Ricans, and theirs is all pure. And then they get to this black guy and he’s got it all – VD, the clap, crack, heroin, this green scum, the lot – all in this tube. And some of the guys are saying, ‘That’s our Bo-Bo, always flying the flag!’ and the guy in question’s slumped down, dribbling, saying, ‘Well, it was a good night.’ Then it’s the black gang guys and theirs is all very pure, with about 1 per cent coke in there. Come to mine and there’s about 90 per cent alcohol in there, pure white alcohol. Obviously. I’d not had anything to eat in two days. The place erupts after this. ‘Look at the limey’s piss!’ they’re shouting, clapping hands.

  They’re so incompetent, the Yanks, I was only meant to be in there for a night, not two, and they were just about to shave my head for Rikers Island. I was stripped off and everything. Luckily, five minutes before I was due to go, my bail came through.

  And so as I’m going out all the coppers are holding their hands out, saying good luck, acting all nice – like I’m James Bond. It reminded me of when they liberated the British concentration camps, when the SS put their hands out and the British just blanked them.

  So I walk out and it’s 5 o’clock in the morning, no money, no cigs, and I have to come back at 11 o’clock for my passport. Just walking around, wandering, picking up cig dimps.

  I’m outside the World Trade Center, and it’s about 9 a.m. now, so I’ve got another hour or so to waste. I’ve got a tweed jacket on, I’m not looking scruffy; looked really well, in fact, not having had a drink for a few days.

  And this copper comes over and says, ‘Can you move on?’ like Top Cat, and I say, ‘No, I can’t move on, I need shelter from the rain, I’ve just come from the tombs, I need my passport, and my money.’

  So he let me stay there for a bit. To keep him talking I said, ‘Can you tell me about these two buildings here, my father’s a builder and there’s one side here that hasn’t got a joist on it, how many people are in there?’

  And he says, ‘Well, they should know what they’re doing – there’s 3,000 of them in there.’

  I said, ‘They better watch it, they haven’t got a lintel or a joist.’ This is what holds the side of your house up, it’s the main support. I could tell this because all the other buildings would sway slightly in the ordinary wind, but not this one.

  And this copper just goes, ‘Never really thought about it,’ and walks off.

  At this stage I need a light, so I’m going, ‘Excuse me, sir, have you got a light on you?’ and this guy goes, ‘Smoking’s for losers.’

  Once the rain had stopped I had to get to SoHo. I asked this other guy where it was and he says, ‘No, I don’t know where it is, you fucking hippy.’

  But just like the arrogant fucker before, he was going into the World Trade Center as well.

  Aftermath

  The bottom end of it was that the New York court said I had to go on this alcohol programme, twice a week for six weeks in Bury.

  But the staff there seemed to have more problems than I had. I didn’t have any problems, to be quite honest. I don’t think I did.

  I had to fill in this form about how much I drank – units per week etc. The lawyer in America would be ringing me asking me about the reports. So I write down the truth. British doctors think if you say you smoke ten cigs a week, it’s more like fifty. But I told the truth because it was for New York, not the Bury NHS.

  America is really down on drink. I always believe in being open with things like that. These people who are lecturing you, journalists and whatnot, they’re all out of their heads on Charlie. I can tell by their pupils. I’ll say to them, do you fancy a drink? And they say, I’ll come with you but I’ll just have a coffee. And then you get a beer down them and they’ll start telling you everything. How they have a joint before they go to work, how they’re on uppers, downers, Charlie, the lot; but because you’ve got four cans in your hand, it’s not acceptable. You can see it from their point of view: you can’t go into an office in New York with a can and a bottle of whisky.

  But the guys who worked in this alcohol programme place couldn’t understand that drinking four or five cans of Holsten Pils a day – which is what I was doing – is not like drinking four or five cans of Special Brew. They’d be like, ‘Isn’t it?’ I soon realized that most of them who worked there were all ex-E-heads. They’d say to me, ‘Here’s some literature that might help you,’ and it’s all these Furry Freak Brothers-style comics about ‘Gary the E-head from Bolton’, on how you shouldn’t take E every day.

  I remember reading them: ‘Gary goes out on a Saturday and Sunday and takes a few Es then he sits at home all week,’ and you’ve got all these thought bubbles coming out of his head, all these worries like ‘Poll Tax and Rent!’ And I’m going, ‘What good’s this to me?’ Basically it was a pamphlet on how to take E responsibly: eat fruit and veg all week, get your sleep, party at the weekend …

  And this is not what the New York court wanted to see.

  It’s funny, though, I quite enjoyed it there. You’d have these Scottish guys stood outside with these young Bury lads, and the Scottish guys would be saying, ‘Get in there, laddy! Instead of stealing cider from Tesco’s, just get four Special Brew and some drugs from in there – say you’re addicted to the cider; and you combine the drugs with the Special Brew. Young laddy like you will only need a couple of cans a day and not be raiding your mammy’s purse.’

  And the lads would be like, ‘Er … alright, I’ll think about that, yeah.’ We’re talking about kids who’d been drinking washing-up liquid, anything.

  But they didn’t even know about the anger-management programme. They just asked me questions like, ‘Why are you angry?’, or said things like, ‘Oh, you must be surrounded by drugs when you’re in a studio.’ And I said, ‘No, I have a ban on drugs in the studio.’ And they’d say, ‘Is that why you’re angry then?’

  I had to explain to them that I get angry because I’d go into the studio and the engineer can’t sort out the fucking guitar overdubs because he’s had eight joints, or he’s on heroin or coke – the latter is a special problem as it affects the ears. Or you’ll do a good track and say, come on lads put the Rizlas away, we’ll go and have a pint. And they say, ‘Oh no, it’s alright, we’ll stay here and watch telly, you go to the pub, Mark.’ Engineers and producers are the same. All the time I get this.

  So I’ll go out, come back; I’ve not been to the pub, and I can hear them saying, ‘He’ll be back in a minute, shouting from the pub.’ And I’ll come in, pretend I’m pissed and go, ‘Have you done that track yet?’ And they’ll go, ‘You don’t understand, it’s the computer.’ When it’s not the computer; when in fact they’ve just had a few lines, thinking I don’t know. It’s a particularly middle-class thing, like secret drinkers.

  I’m always the scapegoat.

  Afterwards, I got this letter off my lawyer, saying, ‘Dear New York court, Mr Smith was on a six-week course, we had twelve appointments and he only turned up for six of them, Yours, Yvonne.’

  I had to ring them up and say, what the fuck are you doing? For a start off I went to nine or ten of the appointments. So I had to write the letter for her. Unbelievable. She’s so used to writing o
ut letters for the British courts, she didn’t seem to realize the seriousness of the situation. I had to do all the work for them, send it off, and thankfully it was alright.

  It’s sort of good for me, though, this idea that I’m a mad drunk. It makes people frightened of me.

  People are always trying to diagnose it …

  A lot of women journalists in particular see it as a self-destructive tendency.

  Everything’s going well and I press the button ‘DESTROY’. It’s all going too well. Today I’m going to self-destruct. Like the serial-shagger who floats from house to house setting up families and then buggering off into the night; and so on. And fellows see a bit too much of themselves in me and would rather ignore it or go the other way and tell all and sundry what a nightmare I am, behind my back. I don’t know how football managers go on with all that malarkey – or how my dad and my grandad coped with it.

  But when it’s artistic – it’s a bit harder still. You’ve got to find a level with them. It’s a constant battle.

  There’s been many a time when a band member has panicked before going on tour – they’ve left their passport at home or they’re just too frightened of the unknown. What annoys me is that they don’t think I have the same fears. They’re so self-centred, these fellows, they don’t think I shit myself when we’re on tour and it’s all icy and I’m responsible for six people in a van and the driver’s pissed out of his head.

  I’ve been on planes with group members and they’re literally shitting themselves. They think I’m mad because I’m still talking away or chewing tobacco. Two days before I was due to fly out on the 2006 American tour I had one of those really realistic dreams about a plane crash, the residue of which was still lingering in my head when I was in the airport … But you just get on. You have to. They don’t seem to have any pride like that. That’s not manly to me. You see them next time and it’s as if nothing’s happened.

  I really do think they see me as a robot, or as insane, or suicidal. I get it in pubs. I’m a living caricature. I’ve been out with gangsters, coked out of their heads, taking the piss, and I’ve just put them in their place. And fellows are saying, ‘Do you know who that is? You’re mad, you.’ I don’t feel like I’ve done anything out of the ordinary. It’s a blessing in one respect. I can walk down the street and nobody will bother me. It’s held me in good stead. I can walk down a trendy London street and they know who I am, but they don’t come up to me.

  I can empty a bar – a really heavy vault. If I apply my mind I can clear it. If I’m doing an interview and it gets busy I can clear that room.

  I don’t know what it is. I don’t give out heavy vibes. There must be a feeling around me: the simmer …

  18. Crisp Man

  I’m a bit like the Alex Ferguson of the music game. I see parallels with his timing. He knows when to fuck players off – none of that pandering to reputations. It’s his club. His ideas. His final word. And the results are evident.

  If only City could get him. He’s the one they need; never going to happen, but he’d definitely sort them out. When he got rid of David Beckham everybody thought he was mad – ‘Beckham’s in his prime’ and all that shit. But Ferguson stayed strong and got on with his job, improving his team. There’s a lot to be said for that, for not listening too much to people outside of the loop. I get it a lot, but I never pay any attention; record company people thinking I haven’t a clue what I’m doing – that I’m too drunk to sort the important things out; totally overlooking the fact I’ve been doing it a lot longer than they have. It’s not a bad thing in some ways. The amount of times I’ve pulled an album out of the shitter when they’ve not expected it – like the Infotainment Scan and The Real New Fall and Reformation.

  They wanted Ferguson’s head at one stage as well. Typical Man United.

  Having said that, I could have told City that Stuart Pearce was the wrong man ages ago. I saw him on a plane once; he looked deranged then. All that running up and down the pitch and firing up the fans – that’s had its day, that shit. He’s been mingling with the Keegans too much: the dated English. City are at their best when they’re in-between managers; when they’ve got something to prove; uncertainty seems to bring the best out of them. Nobody wants an England reject at the helm, though. They’re damaged personalities. Some managers see that as the pinnacle of their careers; imagine how they feel when it’s all gone tits-up? They’re hardly going to be brimming with enthusiasm and new ideas.

  I couldn’t believe it when they hired that hod-carrier Steve McLaren – he reminds me of one of those blokes who starts to panic if he’s not occupying his mind with a catalogue of small things; the sort you see out in the garden every sunny Sunday – oblivious to what really matters.

  I did like it in the 2006 World Cup though when he was wearing those really tight shorts; I liked the way they seemed to be glued to his legs. Imagine hiring a fellow who dresses like that! That’s the English FA for you. Let’s get somebody cheap in after we’ve blown all our dough on Sven. And then they went and hired Terry Venables too. To me that’s hilarious. What was it the judge said about him being unfit to be a director of a company? How can they let people like that back in?

  I never support England. Me and Elena loved it when Greece won the Euro 2004 final. England will never be able to play like that, as a team, all working for each other. Not when your club managers are ten times savvier.

  You can bet some strange things go on behind the doors of the FA. They’re like a cult; a randy cult souped up on good wine, expensive fruit and nice clean sausages. Just look back throughout the history – overlooking Brian Clough in favour of Ron Greenwood, for instance. You can’t legislate for minds like that. It’s as if defeat is ingrained in them – as if they can only handle defeat. It’s the English malaise to plump for second best; they get frightened by the prospect of sustained success – that and the fact they don’t know what they’re talking about when it comes to football. They didn’t want Clough in there because he had a gob on him and he liked a drink and he openly refused to take any shit. And the more they tried to gag him the more he blurted. Men like that are not going to be strait-jacketed; they are who they are. Simple.

  I just find it funny how men in England talk about football. I remember being in a pub, and Ben walked in with a few of his mates; he used to play in some five-a-side league or other. But you should have heard the way they were speaking – everything they said was infected by TV pundits, every word. They were talking like they’d just been playing for Real Madrid, analysing passes – ‘And did you see it when I beat that defender,’ and ‘If only he would have crossed it quicker.’ On and on, and really loud, about some fucking game they’d just played in Bury. I was with a mate of mine. I felt embarrassed.

  When I wrote ‘Kicker Conspiracy’ in ’83 nobody gave a fuck about football. I got called a hooligan for writing that song. Melody Maker said I must have writer’s block for knocking rubbish like that out. Football was exclusively working class then. It was a serious stain on the English landscape at one point.

  I have a feeling that that side of it – the football hoolie side – is on its way back now that English teams have started doing well in Europe. That’s how it all started in the first place.

  But then in the early 90s football got annexed by a bunch of Walter Softies. The middle class just lifted it – stole it wholesale. After the ’90 World Cup, when that fat child Gazza balled his eyes out, it became a soap opera – like Coronation Street. Now it’s a tool for the middle classes. I’m not saying the working class have completely deserted it, but it’s very much a middle-class hobby now. Drips like Nick Hornby and David Baddiel and Damon Albarn have a lot to answer for. As soon as they started in on it with their university humour, it shot its bolt. Don’t get me wrong, I still watch it. But twenty years ago you would never have dreamed of today’s annexation.

  There was never any need to go down this path. I noticed the early signs when I wrote ‘
Kicker’, but I never imagined it’d become so cynical and anti-communal. They hike the price of tickets in order to have it for themselves. And that’s not football; that’s not thousands of people sharing in something. Not if you can’t afford it.

  There must be millions of people who’ve had to completely alter their lives because of it. I used to go myself in the 80s, when it was all standing, as it should be now. You don’t sit down to watch a game of football. You sit down to watch a film or ballet or swimming, not a bunch of blokes belting a ball and each other around. I can’t hold with that.

  Even ticket prices at clubs like Bury, who are unmistakably crap, are top-heavy. I used to watch them for free in the 80s. I’d walk through this knackered cemetery and jump the fence – they weren’t worth paying for then, it’s eighteen quid now!

  It should be looked into a lot more than it actually is. Take Leeds – nobody’s really dug the dirt on that moneyed debacle. Somebody must know where it all went. They were like the Factory Records of football, with this wealth of talent on their doorstep and a stack of bills the size of their own deception.

  How can anybody truly follow somebody who’s on £100,000 a week? I don’t begrudge them the money; if they’re good they’re good and I’d rather a working-class lad had it than some slippery Ken, like it used to be. The simple fact is, though, money’s clouded the heart of the matter. When you’re earning cash like that you’re not going to be out there playing for your life. All you have to do is compare any of the recent teams with Alf Ramsey’s England. They were real men. They even looked like real men.