Barbed Wire Kisses: The Jesus and Mary Chain Story

by Zoe Howe

  The Mary Chain arrived at the California Theater in San Diego and prepared for a soundcheck, but Iggy was still on stage. ‘We thought, Good, let’s watch Iggy soundcheck,’ says Jim. ‘Not allowed to watch Iggy soundcheck. Even then, that’s cool, I hate people watching me soundcheck. I’ve never stopped anybody doing it, but I know how that feels.

  ‘But Iggy is soundchecking not for half an hour, not for an hour, but for about three or four hours. And suddenly we’re told, “There’s no time for you to have a soundcheck.” We’re like, “What happened to this ‘co-headline’ shit?”’

  Despite the way the tour had been sold to the Reids, the Mary Chain were hardly treated as equals by Iggy’s crew. ‘Iggy had this Scottish tour manager, a real hard nut,’ Jim continues. ‘He thought that if he sent Iggy into our dressing-room to hang out for about ten minutes that it would make everything OK.

  ‘I don’t want to put the guy down here, because I still love him and I love his music, but he came in and said, “Have you got everything you need?” I said, “No, not really.” He said, “What do you want?” And I said, “A soundcheck.” And he went, “Gee, I was really looking forward to meeting you guys . . .” He stumbled out and that was that. Then we were told, “You can have a sound-check for ten minutes.”

  Once the Mary Chain were on stage, an argument broke out between William and Iggy Pop’s roadies about how much of the stage they could use. The disagreement concluded with William spitting angrily on Iggy’s ‘Marley’, a large vinyl mat used on stage that the Mary Chain were not allowed to go near, let alone gob on.

  Jim says: ‘One of Iggy’s crew came up with a towel and said, “Clean it up.” We told him where to go and all hell broke loose. During the show I was so furious that I literally wrecked all of the onstage equipment. I smashed up the monitors and kicked them all into the pit at the front of the stage.’

  Mid-set, Mary Chain tour manager Scott Rodger (now Paul McCartney’s manager) sidled up to Jim and quietly conveyed that as soon as they’d finished the show, they were to run, not walk, straight out of the fire door and into the waiting van. ‘If you don’t,’ he said, ‘you’re going to get the shit kicked out of you.’ Jim looked up to see Iggy’s crew standing in the wings with baseball bats.

  When the debacle reached the ears of the press, however, promoter David Swift took Iggy’s side. The Mary Chain were, according to Swift, ‘very demanding about using Iggy’s lights and wanting more stage room,’ he told the LA Times. ‘Logistically, Iggy couldn’t do that for them.’

  *

  Work would soon begin on the Mary Chain’s third studio album, Automatic, the brighter, harder, synth-heavy record that William refers to as their ‘driving across America’ (and away from Iggy’s baseball-bat-wielding crew) album. The Reids holed up in Sam Therapy, a studio on Kensal Road in West London, and the ever-supportive Geoff Travis and Jeannette Lee would visit occasionally to check in on them. As Jeannette remembers, the atmosphere was often strained.

  ‘You wouldn’t know what the vibe would be; maybe they’d have been working on something that hadn’t gone well and they’d had a row, so you could walk into a very black mood. One could storm out as you were walking in.’

  Although the Reids had long had a combative relationship, this ominous studio atmosphere provided a preview of things to come. The mood of the record, from the song-writing to the glittering programmed drum sound, seems to reflect where the band was at personally too – while Darklands was softer, more sensual and more introspective, Automatic has clean, sharp lines and, at times, a glaring cocaine confidence compared to Psychocandy’s acid-inspired haze. As David Quantick concluded in his review for NME, it was ‘cruel, but fun’.

  The album was released in September 1989, reaching number 11 in the UK album chart. Arguably it is more loved now than it was at the time, featuring as it does such enduring songs as ‘Blues From A Gun’, ‘Halfway To Crazy’ and ‘Head On’, famously covered by The Pixies. However, some critics and fans, no doubt hoping for Darklands or Psychocandy part two, did not take to the release.

  ‘Automatic was probably their least well-received album,’ admits then Mary Chain press officer Mick Houghton. ‘Not that it’s for me to talk about how a record should be produced, but I thought the mistake was not having the proper drum sound. The songs were great, but the production lacked something, they kind of worked it too much. But later they came back with “Reverence” as a single. When that came out in 1989, it blew people away.’

  Just before the Automatic promotional tour started in October 1989, with three months of British and European dates stretching out ahead of them, the Reids decided, apparently at the last minute, that Dave Evans was not the guitarist they wanted to take. As much as they hated auditioning musicians, this time it couldn’t be avoided. Nobody suitable was springing to mind.

  Jim says: ‘We auditioned what seemed like hundreds of guitarists. When I look back on it, it was probably about four. We narrowed it down to two, and that was Ben Lurie and Phil King.’

  Philip King, later of shoegaze band Lush fame, first met the Mary Chain when he was playing with See See Rider, an indie group also originally from East Kilbride (although King himself is a Londoner). Some members of See See Rider, Philip included, also shared a flat with Douglas, who had a hand in producing some of their material. ‘Total keep-it-in-the-family Mary Chain thing,’ says Douglas.

  London-born Australian Ben Lurie, on the other hand, was working as a receptionist at Rough Trade when Jeannette Lee, who knew he wanted to join a band, suggested he try out for the Mary Chain.

  At first it seemed that Philip was the ideal choice – he looked right, played well and was already part of their extended circle. Ben Lurie admits that he ‘did everything wrong’ at the audition. Apart from anything else, ‘he had a ponytail . . .’ Jim shudders. However, the Reids appreciated his contrariness and his blithe disregard of the groups he was supposed to revere.

  ‘We asked him what music he liked,’ says Jim. ‘He started going on about The Police. We were like, “What? Are you fucking kidding?” Then we said, “You’re Australian, what do you think about The Birthday Party?” And he said, “They’re pretty funny.” We thought he was amusing. When it came to musicianship, he and Phil were neck and neck.’

  ‘Jim says they flipped a coin and Ben won,’ Philip adds. ‘William says I didn’t get in because my shoes were too pointy. So, somewhere in between the two . . .’

  As October loomed and rehearsals were arranged, Ben Lurie and his ponytail were absorbed into the Mary Chain line-up, which would stay as it was for three years after a long period of all too frequent changes. Also joining the tour of Britain and Europe would be Richard Thomas on drums, who had played with the Mary Chain on the ‘Sidewalking’ tour. The drum sound on the Reids’ latest output sounded more mechanical than ever, and yet the drum machine on the road had, perversely, been scrapped in favour of a real drummer.

  The Automatic tour is remembered by all as a difficult, exhausting period for the band. However, despite the usual touring melancholia, Jerry Jaffe recalls a heartwarming moment that would doubtless change anyone’s opinion of the band. (Unless your opinion of them was that they were well-mannered young men with a soft spot for old ladies.)

  Jerry Jaffe recalls: ‘My mother was in her eighties. She’d never been to Europe, and I took her to Amsterdam during the tour. The Jesus and Mary Chain were very big on meeting my mother. I mean, I had trepidation about meeting this band, so the thought of them meeting my mother . . . But they said, “No, we want to meet Mrs Jaffe.” It was kind of sweet, but I was apprehensive.

  ‘They told me to meet them at a certain Italian restaurant at a certain time. I was thinking, I can’t believe I’m doing this, my mother’s not going to talk to me for the rest of my life . . . But they were all there, and they couldn’t have been nicer – they made her feel like a million dollars, honestly it was the nicest time of her life. She was saying, “You know, you’d b
e so handsome if you cut your hair . . .”

  ‘William said I was his third favourite American Jew behind Bob Dylan and Lenny Bruce. That used to make me feel good. And they made my mother feel good, so there you go.’

  22

  Crash and Burn

  A lot of bands say, ‘When it stops being fun, we’ll give it up.’ But we betrayed ourselves, because we never did. We should have given up playing live in 1990.

  William Reid to Uncut magazine

  The Mary Chain had been to some dark places together, but 1990 was the year the fun-to-stress ratio seriously changed for the worse. The tour for Automatic was heavy going, and the Reids, William in particular, had already been in a tailspin for some time. All you have to do is listen to some of the lyrics from songs such as ‘Halfway To Crazy’ – That’s me being torn at the seams . . . catch me, ’cause I’m falling apart – to get an inkling of the general feeling. Chris Morrison helped as best he could, but the drunker the band became, the less he was able to do anything.

  ‘Have you ever tried to talk sense to anybody who is drunk? Or high? Let it all go down and I’ll bail them out in the morning, hopefully they’ll still be alive, but I can do nothing when they’re drunk,’ Chris says. ‘Being on the road is unhealthy, physically and mentally, it’s stressful, exhausting, and then you have the drug dealers, the parasites, the sycophants. It’s a difficult environment for anyone to survive in.’

  Laurence Verfaillie remembers that, for William at least, anything approaching happiness could only really be found at home, ‘with his girlfriend and his cats, his TV, his video, the latest games . . . Tetris was probably cutting-edge back then.’ On tour, William would find it increasingly hard to communicate with people, and he quickly became remote. ‘Or,’ Laurence adds, ‘he’d get pissed and misbehave. But William could also be the funniest guy. He had this really surreal humour.’

  ‘William has an insanely interesting worldview,’ says Geoff Travis. ‘It may just be insane. He’d say things like, “Brian Wilson had nothing to do with The Beach Boys! It was Carl!” He probably meant Carl Wilson sang lead on the songs that you think are all to do with Brian, but it’s just a great thing to say.’

  Chris Morrison remembers going backstage after a show to look for the band, only to discover William in the green room, on his knees and seemingly in tears. ‘He was going, “It’s terrible, Jim! He never got the recognition he deserved! He was so badly treated.” I’m wondering what’s going on. I said, “Who’s he talking about?” Someone said, “Bob Dylan.” I said, “What’s William on?” They said, “Three Es . . .”’

  *

  A certain unravelling started to happen to the Mary Chain towards the end of the 1980s and into the 1990s because, while they had pioneered a sound and an image, the Reids were being overtaken commercially by their contemporaries. My Bloody Valentine (‘Gerry and the Pacemakers with noise’, as Jim Reid referred to them in their earlier years) and Sonic Youth in particular had the arty slant covered, and tapped into the zeitgeist perhaps more successfully and with greater determination than the Mary Chain. The Reids were also happy to nail their colours to the pop mast, which still confused people. Indie and rock were supposedly worthier and more serious than pop.

  ‘The Jesus and Mary Chain had this brief flirtation with being the hippest band in the world,’ says writer and musician John Robb, ‘but as the years went by they got pushed to the side. They weren’t seen to be as cutting-edge, not like Sonic Youth. The Mary Chain didn’t get slagged off, they just weren’t in the middle of the thing any more.’

  Mick Houghton observes that, while Sonic Youth, who were certainly allies of the Reids, were branded as the ‘US Mary Chain’, the two groups just couldn’t be compared. ‘Sonic Youth were middle-class Americans, very art-school,’ Mick says. ‘The Mary Chain never had pretension or artifice. And they were working-class.’ The other problem for the Mary Chain, Mick observes, was that The Smiths were increasingly stealing the Mary Chain’s thunder as the decade wore on. ‘People began to see The Smiths as the band of the 1980s,’ he explains. ‘But I still think Psychocandy was one of the albums, if not the album, of the 1980s.’

  *

  The epic upcoming tour of America would be vital for the band’s future, securing and increasing their fan base in the States, but it was, as Douglas remembers, draining in almost every conceivable way. The tours had been getting longer and longer and there was greater pressure on the Reids to do even more press. To make matters worse, it was also nigh on impossible to get a good cup of tea Stateside.

  ‘The longest tour we ever did in America was with Nine Inch Nails,’ Douglas remembers. ‘It was funny; as the tour went on, they started to dress more like us. It was quite freaky.’

  This support slot would give Nine Inch Nails, an emerging band from Ohio, their first big break. Jerry Jaffe made sure they were on the tour after checking them out because, having endured the Mary Chain’s previous choices of support act, who were not to his taste to say the least, he felt it was time to take the reins.

  Jerry says: ‘The support bands were like irrelevant jokes, they had no talent. Bands like Art Phag. One of the guys played washboard, another played a ukulele, it was just awful.

  ‘I was friends with the label that had just signed Nine Inch Nails, TVT. The guy played me this stuff and I said, “Yes, that sounds like a band that should open for us.” I sent the records to Jim and William. They couldn’t care less: “Hey, you like them? Fine.” Couldn’t give a shit.’

  Nine Inch Nails were evidently in some awe of the Mary Chain, and frontman Trent Reznor was shy around them. This didn’t bother the headline act, who weren’t exactly angling for a group hug. What the Mary Chain did find strange was that the members of Nine Inch Nails were complete health freaks. Douglas recalls: ‘They were all doing exercises and drinking those whey-protein things that body-builders have. Some contrast. We were ingesting quite different liquids, and crystallised solids, before going on stage . . .’ It was, therefore, relatively rare for either group to venture into the other’s dressing room to hang out, not that they’d have known what to say to each other if they had – Reznor remembers with amusement that ‘one of the Reids might have grunted at me once, but that was about it’.

  One of the dates on the tour took the bands to Cleveland, Nine Inch Nails’ home-town. Reznor and his band-mates took the Mary Chain out to a local club, marking one of the few times they socialised. Douglas, as previously noted, has something of a gift for being able to stroll up to someone intimidating and ask for whatever he wants. Three sheets to the wind on a winter’s night in Cleveland, he spotted something he wanted and cheerfully asked for it, much to his friends’ concern.

  ‘There was a mad biker there and he had this amazing Coca-Cola T-shirt,’ Douglas remembers. ‘I just went up to him and said, “Hey! Can I have your T-shirt?”, and they were all going, “He’s going to fucking kill you!” But the guy was like, “Sure!” and took his T-shirt off.

  ‘We didn’t interact much, though. We weren’t comfortable in social groups. That’s why I always say that the Creation thing was never a scene. To have a scene you have to have lots of people who are quite well adjusted. That wasn’t us.’

  Chris Morrison can confirm this. While in the US, he had organised a meeting with the acclaimed video director Sophie Muller, who would later go on to create the artwork for the Mary Chain’s 1994 album Stoned & Dethroned, and the videos for ‘Come On’ and ‘Sometimes Always’.

  ‘I was uncharacteristically ten minutes late,’ Chris recalls, ‘but the Mary Chain are already there, and they and Sophie are in this room. I walked in, nobody’s talking, so I went, “Hi! You got it all sorted, then? Terrific.” And Jim said, “Actually, we haven’t talked yet.” They hadn’t even spoken!’

  They might not have been the greatest verbal communicators, but simply because the Mary Chain were playing so often they were arguably at the peak of their powers as a live band at this point. Th
ey’d even started rehearsing more, not least because they had new members to bring up to speed. But while they were feeling more assured about their live sound, there was a fresh sense of friction. After an awkward start, Ben Lurie had become friendly with Jim, but Douglas wasn’t at ease with the new situation.

  ‘We were such a bunch of weirdos,’ Ben recalls. ‘I thought we were getting along famously, but I’m not sure that Douglas did. But he was a lot of help to me. I’d follow his lead for learning the tunes.’

  ‘The dynamics change and there’s a new relationship,’ Douglas muses. ‘I don’t think it was that I was jealous of his and Jim’s relationship, just a bit disappointed. Later there would be tensions between Ben and William too, definitely. But that’s just travelling together. It’s difficult to spend that much time with the same people.’ Separate tour buses, à la Mötley Crüe, were not an option.

  As far as the fans were concerned, particularly in previously uncharted territory such as Brazil, the chaos and creativity of the shows were life-changing. But after three arduous months in the US, the Mary Chain were at the end of their tether. The group went straight from America to Japan and, as Laurence remembers, ‘the pressure was building and building. Jim could communicate more easily than William, and William was getting frustrated that he couldn’t do that. They had a huge falling-out in Tokyo before a show.’

  ‘I don’t even remember what it was about,’ Jim admits. ‘But it got to a point where things were said that couldn’t be taken back. We agreed that that was it. “Fuck you then!” – “Well, fuck you as well!”’

  Laurence then remembers watching what was, as far as she knew, the last ever Jesus and Mary Chain show later that night. There was no interaction between anyone on stage, they were just going through the motions. Japanese Mary Chain devotee Mihoko Kimura was in the audience and remembers seeing the group in a state of deep inebriation, and radiating sheer unhappiness. The fans weren’t aware until after the gig that, according to a local Tokyo publication, the band had ‘quarrelled’ – they just seemed ‘too plastered’ even to perform, says Mihoko. ‘I wasn’t pleased to say the least, but remained their fan even after that.’