by Tricky
I’ve found the best way to avoid getting a drink problem is to be fit, and to train regularly in the daytime. When you are fit, after a show you’ll want to eat, and then you’ll sleep properly. It takes about an hour and a half for the band to pack down, so I’ll cook something, we’ll eat, go back to the hotel, sleep, get up, and I’ll train. When I’m training, I can sleep well and I beat my insomnia. When I don’t train, I don’t sleep, and I’m always trying to knock myself out with alcohol. I have to be exhausted to want to sleep in the dressing room, and I don’t like it. I’ll wake up feeling grouchy.
The travelling, though, I love. It don’t matter how tired you are. Recently, we drove through Colorado, through the mountains and the redwoods – fucking amazing! We were pulling over and walking in the country, then you’re by the sea, walking on the beach for twenty minutes. How many people get to drive all the way through America, from Philadelphia across to California?
Also: when you are on holiday, you are a tourist. When you are touring, you aren’t a tourist, and people will show you the best places. On holiday sometimes, you feel a bit outside, and it’s not real. When you’re on tour you don’t feel like that. If I say to a promoter, ‘Where is the best Chinese food?’ they’ll set up a place for you to go, without you having to go on the internet, where it’s pot luck. You don’t get that holiday strangeness. Straight away you’re welcomed into the city, and people will take you anywhere you want to go.
When I did a show in Sardinia, the doorman – I’m talking the bouncer, a street guy – cooked traditional Sardinian food for me afterwards. You ain’t gonna get that if you go to Sardinia on your holiday. I wouldn’t go to Sardinia without doing a show, because I wouldn’t know what to do with myself there. That’s why I don’t go on holidays, and why I haven’t celebrated a birthday for years. How can I beat that life I already have with a birthday party? Every day is a birthday for me. On my actual birthday, I do nothing. I don’t know how I could do anything better than what I do ordinarily. I suppose I’m celebrating my birthday all the time, every time I tour. My life is a constant birthday, a constant day off!
Still, touring is hard. People don’t understand how hard it is. There’s nothing glamorous about it at all. For me, it’s pressure, because it’s all under my name. The band are just hired guns, whereas it’s my name on the ticket. There’s a lot of eyes on you. It’s all about you. It’s not the pressure of doing a good show; it’s just that everything revolves around you, which is kind of a pain. With Massive Attack, say, they’ve got this huge lightshow, they’ve got each other to lean on, under this collective group name. When I go onstage, it’s Tricky. That ain’t easy.
That’s why the last tour I did in America in October–November 2018 was so brilliant, because it wasn’t my tour. We were supporting A Perfect Circle, which is Maynard from Tool’s other band. They play hardcore rock, not heavy metal exactly, and they were on a big arena tour, which was fucking tough, but really fun.
Maynard is a huge fan of mine, and the feeling is mutual. I didn’t realise that until we were talking to his manager. That’s how we got the gig, he plays my music. Like me, he’s very non-celebrity. He doesn’t play that superstar game, which is very refreshing. He’s been doing Ju-Jitsu for twenty-odd years. He knows my uncle Tony, through touring with me. When I first saw him on this tour, he went, ‘How is your uncle Tony? He is one hard motherfucker!’
MAYNARD JAMES KEENAN: I was introduced to Tricky’s work by a friend called Martina Salerno, who, along with her incredible friends, used to follow my band, Tool, and Rage Against the Machine throughout the UK and parts of Europe. This was long before Martina went on to debut her talents with the track ‘Songbird’.
So, I can’t say when I actually heard Maxinquaye, whether I heard it before it crossed the Atlantic to America because I was receiving it from clued-up young Brits, but I immediately became a lifelong fan from that moment onwards.
I finally met Tricky on Lollapalooza ’97, which was a good year for camaraderie, with people like Porno for Pyros aboard. Our paths crossed many times thereafter, such as when we had Tricky as Tool’s tour support in 2001–2, and when he secured a work-release programme to star in our video for ‘Parabol/Parabola’. Was there money? Not a lot, but apparently enough. I have few memories, I’m afraid, as I had a penis hat on, and couldn’t see much. On tour, he would actually play keyboards and sing with us on ‘Reflection’ and ‘Opiate’.
It would be erroneous to suggest we spent any time together outside those glorious but random moments – I lived in Arizona when he was in LA – but we have always been excited to run into each other. There are usually conversations involving ‘boxing versus Ju-Jitsu’, some day-to-day banter, then a snack.
Tricky has gone on to get regular airplay with me. That he was available to open for my other band, A Perfect Circle, in 2018 was a blessing. It was good to see first-hand that he has evolved as a musician and producer, in my opinion, in a positive direction.
TRICKY: Most of A Perfect Circle’s crowd didn’t know us, and their fan base is so fanatical, they don’t really want to see anything else apart from A Perfect Circle. I thought there was gonna be hardly anybody in there for our set, but it was packed out in these arenas when we were going onstage, and we had to work to win them over. I like that fight, trying to break into someone else’s crowd. The best compliment we had was in Vegas, where a guy in the crowd shouted out, ‘Yeah! Play some more of that weird shit!’ What a beautiful compliment – you think it’s weird, but you still want to hear it.
For me, it was no pressure, like a fucking holiday. When it’s all about you, it’s a bit obvious. I’ve been doing that for twenty-five years. I’ve been a headline act almost since the beginning. The only artist I ever supported for a whole tour was PJ Harvey, right at the start.
So, after this tour with A Perfect Circle, I’d like to do more shows opening for people. I would support Madonna. I would support Britney Spears. I’d support anyone, honestly – Britney Spears, U2, fucking any of them!
As a city, Paris is small in the centre and crazy-busy. I’d started to dread the summers, when there are tourists crawling around everywhere. That had started to get on my nerves, and I was feeling like it was time for another move. In autumn ’14, I bailed. Initially, I moved back to London, of all places. I got a place in Hampstead, because it’s beautiful up there, and quiet. My neighbours were famous footballers and, a couple of doors down, Liam Gallagher (our paths never crossed, though!).
I never quite acclimatised to life there. Because I don’t drive, I had to get car services and taxis just to go to the supermarket, or the health food store. It felt weird after Paris, where I had everything right on my doorstep. Also, in Paris I used to walk everywhere, but I soon remembered that in London you walk for an hour and you haven’t really got anywhere, so you never have that feeling of knowing the place.
I’d forgotten about the whole class–race thing, too. One day, I came out of my house and started walking up the hill into Hampstead village, and there was a woman parked in some average car – she definitely didn’t live in that super-affluent area. It was broad daylight, and as I turned around the corner and walked past, she locked the door on me. Crazy, right? With the car she had, she’s locking the door so I don’t rob her!
I never felt that I re-engaged with London life. I wasn’t going out much. One day in early summer ’15, I was talking to Horst on the phone, and I was like, ‘I don’t know if I like it here.’ And he said, ‘Well, you don’t use it for networking, so there ain’t no point in you being there.’ I used to go to clubs now and again, but it wasn’t clubs where you’re going to bump into the ‘right people’. I wasn’t using London for what it’s good for, as an artist, like doing red carpets and movie openings, and getting noticed, and hanging out with other artists. People travel to London from all over the world just to do that stuff, but I can’t be arsed with all that.
A week or two later, I was over in Berlin
with !K7 to do some press. It was summer, it was so chilled out, and I thought, ‘Do you know what? I’m going to live here!’ and a month later I moved my studio there.
I suppose it’s down to getting older, but I like slower places now, rather than being so busy and cramped all the time. Berlin was just easier for me. You don’t need a car, because you can walk everywhere, like you can in Paris.
When I first moved, I lived in a little council flat in a small block, with piss in the fucking lift – a stinky elevator! I don’t have a problem with living rough for a while, and money was tight at that time, as we sorted out my finances. Horst came round to visit and he said, ‘This is really nice!’ and I was like, ‘Are you kidding?’ Shortly after, I found a proper place in Neukölln – coincidentally, the same neighbourhood where David Bowie and Iggy Pop went to ‘disappear’ in the mid-70s.
I immediately felt good in Berlin. Berliners know how to live. It’s so cheap there, and they are not monetary people. The really wealthy people there – you wouldn’t know they are wealthy. They ain’t driving around in Rolls-Royces, they are more into quality of life than quantity, so they’re a lot less stressed out. Coming to London, you can see that people are stressed there, because you have to get so much money in just to survive. It ain’t like you’ve got a choice. In Berlin, wealth is a choice.
In the three years or so that I’ve lived there, my life has become much calmer. I’m a lot more relaxed. I tour a lot, and tours are mad enough as it is. You don’t want that life when you get home, so it’s better for me to live where I don’t know anybody. I’ve got no discipline, right? If I lived in London, I’ve got loads of friends and family so I’d be going out all the time. If one of my cousins calls and says, ‘Let’s go for a drink!’ I’m gonna go, and it’ll be a long night. In Berlin, nobody’s gonna call and say, ‘Let’s party at the weekend!’ because I don’t know anyone.
I rarely see anyone. In three or four years in Berlin, I’ve been to a club maybe once a year. I never go to the cinema, or to museums, and I very rarely go to a live concert. I train three times a week, and I see my management now and again at the office. The majority of my time is spent by myself, and I’m really happy with that. I cook, I train, and I sit outside cafés, watching people. Seriously, that’s all I do.
Hanging out with me would be totally fucking boring. I also love walking – that’s my favourite thing. I come outside my house, I choose a direction and I just walk, anywhere. To a lot of people, that would be as boring as fuck. I don’t even go out to eat that much, just when I can’t think of what to cook. I always cook the same things anyway: vegetables, meat, shepherd’s pie, very English stuff. If I do go out, I go out by myself.
I like being under the radar. I like chatting to people on the street, or at my local shop. I go in and say hello, and everybody says hello back. I suppose that’s how I socialise. I don’t know, I’m not very good at making firm friends. Well, it’s not that I’m not very good. It’s just that, to be honest, I’d rather be by myself. I can’t imagine living with anybody. It wouldn’t matter how big the house was, I’d prefer to be by myself.
I think I’m going to be by myself till I die. I’m fifty-one now. I’m distracted. I think about music 24/7, and it’s hard for me to be interested and enthusiastic about anything or anyone else, and that’s because I’m obsessed. I – am – obsessed. I could sit in a room and listen to music, and you are no longer there. If you’re with me in a room and you think you’re listening to music with me, you’re not. You are by yourself, because I am gone.
All I do is think about music, lyrics, my next show. I’ve got no space in my brain for someone special in life. Girlfriends have said to me, ‘Where are you right now?’ We’ll be sat on the couch watching a film or whatever, and she knows that I’m not present.
I’m dysfunctional. I don’t have a normal life. My whole life since I was a kid has been based around music, but I know other musicians and their lives are not like mine. Their life is like, ‘We do an album, we tour, and then after that we go back into normal life.’ I don’t have a life. When I’m not touring and not making music, I do nothing,
I’ve always put my music first, and left myself without any other life, which I’m prepared to do, because whether you’re gonna be a boxer or a footballer, you’ve got to give your life to it to be the best. I’ve lost loads of relationships and friendships to music. I’ve always been a bit of a loner anyway. Whitley will tell you that, even though me and Whitley are best friends.
Sometimes I think I find it difficult interacting with other people. I can see it sometimes when I’m at festivals, with other artists who have met me before – I can see it in their eyes that they don’t like me.
I put my foot in it sometimes, for sure. One time I met one of the Chemical Brothers and said something dumb like, ‘Fuck me, you look old, mate!’ I could just see his face drop, he looked so hurt. I didn’t mean it maliciously, and I don’t see it as like, ‘Oh, you’re an artist, and I’m an artist.’ It was just how I would talk to a mate in the pub.
I’ve had friends say that they think women are drawn to me. What I think is, there are some women who have a natural maternal instinct, and they can feel that I’m a motherless child. Maybe some feel sorry for me, or others see my vulnerability. It’s not even just girlfriends or partners, it’s in general life too.
We were in an airport in Russia one time, and I’m sat there, and there was this older lady next to me, with her son and her grandchildren. My hair was just one dreadlock at the time, and without saying anything she reached over and felt my dread. She started talking to me, communicating that she was from the mountains, and she told me about her music, and then she just held my hand for twenty minutes. After that, she went off and got her plane.
Another time, me and Cesar were in Mexico. A lady was sat with her granddaughter, and the granddaughter said, ‘Hey, how are you? Where are you guys from?’ We talked for ten minutes, then when they were leaving, the old lady came over and said something in Spanish and kissed me on the forehead. I said, ‘What did she say?’ Cesar said, ‘She just fucking blessed you!’ The motherless child thing – I can’t explain it any other way.
I feel like it’s too late for me to settle down. I imagine dying by myself: just pass away somewhere on my own and my body ain’t found for days. I don’t want the fuss. If I was ill and dying, I wouldn’t want to put anybody else through that. I don’t want the drama. I would just like to die in a room, and then my body is found two days later, and it’s over. I don’t want to go through all that real-life shit.
I was saying all this to my brother a while back, while we were at a funeral.
‘Wow, what a send-off!’ he goes, as we were filing out of the place.
I don’t get it when people say that.
‘You know what?’ he adds. ‘If I have half as many people at my funeral, I’ll be happy!’
I was like, ‘But you won’t be happy – you’ll be dead!’
I often say to my family, ‘Just let me rot where I am. Funeral stuff – don’t worry about it! Leave me where I lie. If I die in Berlin, or Japan, let them deal with it. Don’t get involved and just get on with your life!’
I don’t believe in the afterlife, or any of that spiritual shit. I just know you live and then you die, and that’s it. Everything in between is good, bad or whatever. Just do what you wanna do, not working for anybody, not being told what to do. On those terms, I am a success, whether I’ve got money or not. I’ve maybe had one or two jobs in my life, short jobs, so I’ve got through life without playing the game they want me to play, like going to work in a factory or on a construction site – without being involved in the system. I’ve gone where I want, I’ve been around the world, I’ve done what I want when I want. I haven’t got trapped in the rat race.
My life has been too amazing, too good. I get up, and I choose what I want to do. I don’t have to go to work, I don’t have to do anything. You think: how many people
really love their jobs? People work because they have to, right? There’s so many people who do that. I’m lucky, because I’ve managed to survive without it. Doing interviews can be a pain in the arse, but it’s easy really, you’re just sat around. I’d say working in a factory or on a construction site is a lot harder in the freezing English winter.
But settle down? It’s not gonna happen. I could go to Holland tomorrow and decide I’m going to live there, and I could leave everything behind. Living like that, how can I have a relationship? I could have a wife and kids in Berlin, but then I could go to Holland and think, ‘I love this city!’ and never come back again.
I could move to Vietnam tomorrow and I would be alright – find a place to eat, somewhere I can train, a café to drink coffee, and that’s it. I moved around a lot as a kid, from my grandmother to my auntie and what have you, so I guess it’s my natural life.
I’ve always wanted to live in Asia. Somewhere like Vietnam, just to see. It’s probably not the time to do that yet, but I wouldn’t mind going for a year, because I love Japan, Hong Kong, Beijing. I’d love to live and record there for a year, in an Asian country. Japan would be good for my diet, because they don’t really do dairy, and they don’t do bread. Perfect!
You wouldn’t believe my place in Berlin. It’s a beautiful apartment, but there’s nothing in there. I live out of a suitcase, even now. I ain’t got no furniture. There’s nowhere to sit, so I can’t invite people round: I’ve got one studio chair and a table, and that’s it. All my clothes are on the table or hanging on the door. My bags are packed, ready to move.