May 20, 1993
Respect The Interview
Toad's Place
New Haven, Connecticut
Why Peter Buck was not on Respect when quotes from the Perspex Island press junket stated he'd be on more tracks than Robyn!
Well I think they were making their record the same time as we made ours.
On Respect being recorded at home on The Isle Of Wight.
It's like if you bring work home: it's still work so, the nature of having a recording studio parked outside the house and the house all full of wires meant the house wasn't quite its normal down-home environment. My orignal plan was to put a binaural microphone in a bowl of fruit and get Andy, Morris, and I to stand around it at the right distance. But that didn't happen. Technology...technology snuck in there and stuck its hand up and said, "Wait. We must have hundreds and hundreds of wires."
On how John Leckie came about as producer.
John Leckie is an old acquaintance of Peter Jenner (who manages us). And they used to do, sort of, Roy Harper albums years ago. And he's been doing people like...The Stone Roses are probably the most well-known. And he's got an ear...not so much for sound, not so much for music, not for notes. That's to say he says, "Let's have some guitar here," and doesn't actually tell you what to play. Just thinks guitar would be nice there.
On John Leckie being said to have a suit-and-tie approach as read about in an East Coast Rocker review.
John...John is anything but a suit-and-tie person! John actually wears a black cloak and has a falcon on his wrist which sits there motionless throughout the session. And every so often it goes away again. He sits there like a mediaeval knight. He's definitely not suit-and-tie.
Why the shift from Paul Fox.
Well Paul...Paul was L.A.. We went out to L.A., we made the record, mixed it in a car in Los Angeles. Every track was mixed to, sort of, sound good in a traffic jam (or at five miles an hour) on a crawl on the freeway. John was British. This album was made in Britain. It was going to have a different feel to it. I would work with either John or Paul again, you know? Having spent so long without producers, at this stage it's nice to get a different guide for each product. To change it a bit.
Why the move from self-production?
I think that if you got Andy, Morris, and I working together -- having done it for so long -- it's good to have somebody else as a, kind of, arbiter, if you will. Just to vary the chemistry. Otherwise...there's a friend of Andy's said: the three of you will carry on making the same record indefinitely unless you keep changing the...you know, ingredients. So either extra musicians or extra producers, or inevitably you will do the same thing. And that has worked fine for R.E.M. with Scott Litt. I suspect that would work fine for R.E.M. with anybody, really. We're not very experimental creatures. It's the three of us. We're very...we're unified by, sort of, taste and conservatism. And so you've got to mess it around a bit.
Miscellaneous chatter...
"Vera Lynn" ("The Yip Song"). That was written in January '91...'92. We were in Sweden in '91, so we couldn't have done that one.
Have some of these songs been lying around a while?
Not really. They started as the other one finished. The projects were concurrent. Eye and Queen Elvis ran into each other. We were mixing Queen Elvis and I started recording Eye. And some of the songs on Queen I was playing around with for Eye, you know? They're one after the other. Respect was concurrent with Perspex Island. I wrote "Arms Of Love" during the recording session for Perspex Island (but it hadn't been hanging around). The songs are all written like May/April '91 to April '92. The first was "Arms Of Love", the last was "Serpent At The Gates Of Wisdom".
How is it that R.E.M. released "Arms Of Love" before you did?
Well, that's because R.E.M. heard it. I played it...there's actually a demo of Andy and I playing it, somewhere. I played it in Mountain Stage about a week after I wrote it (and shouldn't have). And Michael (particularly) seemed to like it, and so they went in and did their own version with all the wrong chords.
What's the difference in recording solo versus with The Egyptians?
Well, it has to be much more arranged if it's the three of us. Everyone has to think they know what they're doing. Andy and Morris are...once you're working with...the more people you're working with, the harder it is to improvise at the last moment. Actually, I think Andy and Morris are very good at improvising. But they feel it's a cure, not a cause, against committing themselves to vinyl when they're not really sure of what's going on. I'm more of a believer in capturing the moment. But see, they're basically musicians, and I'm basically a songwriter. So I've, kind of, done my bit already. So I know the song in my head better than they do. So it's obviously...it's more by committee. Everything is more thought-out. It has to be ratified by everybody. You have a song and an arrangement, and three people are happy with it so it has that strength. On my own, I can just whiz in and tape it: I don't know if it's any good or not.
"The Moon Inside" has been very difficult to arrange. It's been very...that's been, you know, that's the, kind of...that's the last song from that lot to, kind of, to set. I mean, I have the, all sorts of things. My girlfriend at one point supplied me with a set of lyrics that she wrote while she was driving. And I didn't...I used one line, but I...it kind of made me think about what the song was actually about. And I demo-ed that in a completely different way than it came out. The only thing that remains is that I worked out the basic harmonies. The way it was, it's such a meandering song. I don't think it came out very well on the album. It's supposed to be a sacrificial song, you know. That's to do with the perfect circle. You draw a perfect circle. It's supposed to be a sign of insanity. Likewise, you know, when a woman is pregnant, her belly is completely round. It looks like there's a moon...you wouldn't think there was a fetus-shaped baby. It's like a football: the way the stomach comes out. So the song teeters somewhere between being about female power and being about pregnancy (and being about insanity). And the one thing I know the song is about, is about something you know you can't put off. It's like vomiting. You know you're going to have to do it sooner or later when you start to feel queasy. It's that sense of something that is round (or inevitable) in the distance -- and whether it's a woman finally achieving her respect in society that they deserve, or being able to be out front instead of having to behind the scenes and manipulative. Or whether it's about pregnancy -- or the fact that the moon is going to suddenly burst out from the inside of the Earth (or something). I think it's to do with latent potential inside us that, in some way, hasn't been revealed. And it's rather frightening as to how exactly it's going to come out. And maybe I dressed the song up a bit. The actual lyrics I used, kind of, ended up being a bit, kind of, man-afraid-of-woman. Maybe a bit. It's not meant to be that down. I think we're on the verge of an evolutionary quantum leap: a third eye is going to open, and people are going to become empathetic. And that's the only thing that will save us. Humanity has wallowed in its own catastrophies for too long. I don't think we are evolutionary. I don't think we are an end-product of evolution. I think we are in a period of transition. And the torch of history of mankind will resolve itself to the better. I hope when we develop...whether it's like a third eye opening, literally; or whether it's like six fingers on each hand, like witches.
Do you find your demos are wholly different from the album versions?
Demos always have potential, but it isn't realised. But things could go any way: it all depends who got hold of them. I suspect that if my demos got into the hands of other people -- aside from Andy or Morris (or whomever's producing) -- that they'd come out differently. But they wouldn't necessarily be better. You know, they tend to be all over the place, because you don't get used to a song for a while. You very seldom do a confident demo of something. I mean, maybe Paul McCartney does (or someone like that who's got a head full of arrangements). It's just a rough clue of the songs, when they come. It's very much like sculpting: it just gradually takes...you know, it just gradually takes on form. By the time it's finished, every line is clear-cut and polished and defined. Sometimes too much. I think it's good to leave a certain amount of...to leave things slightly vague for the listener's point of view, so they can finish it off with their own interpretation. If you tell them, it's like Steely Dan -- something Andy and Morris like (whom I can't take because it's airtight, every note is filled in, every implication is made obvious, there's no...everything is realised too much with Steely Dan). I think it's nice just to have things a bit...vague. A bit, sort of, muddy, or willy, or foggy (or whatever the right word is); so that the listener can do the final bits of interpeting and editing. Some guy in Athens did a Free Jazz version and announced at the end that it was "Arms Of Love". And I just didn't recognise the song at all. So, whatever people feel moved to do. I don't know. I don't like the airtight music, that's for sure. That's the difference. The others are musicians. Especially Andy, you know? Andy is an arranger, and he sees himself as a musician. And he's in the tradition of Ry Cooder or David Lindy. I mean, those are his heroes. Somebody who plays impeccably, but with a slight twist on things. And I was always more of the primitive. Andy and Morris thought I was a joke when I first turned up in Cambridge. I mean, I was...I'd just do these novelty songs in the Folk clubs. And the musical elite, kind of, looked at me rather askance. As a, sort of, goofy eccentric primitive who took risks and was irreverent and aimed himself at people who knew how to play "Skin It Back" properly. Or, you know, all had copies of Pet Sounds.
But it worked.
Yeah, well. It was an interesting marriage. And over the years, we've all influenced each other, or rubbed off on each other (or whatever cliche you want to use about it). We've definitely merged a lot into one, kind of, organism. But I'm still the primitive element, if you like.
So you don't consider yourself a musician at all?
No. I couldn't play "God Save The Queen" if you asked me. But if someone said, "Okay Robyn, do you want to be in the house band?" I'd have to say no. I...I mean, I'd love to play guitar on somebody's records. But I think my virtue as a guitarist is basically that I don't know quite what I'm doing. I just launch in there and I try to get it all done before the end of the break without hitting any wrong notes. It's, you know, it's a panic-y. You know, all that stuff with "The Moon Inside": it's still the same as it was in The Soft Boys days. it's just, sort of, despertely trying to get everything right -- and get it all out before the chopper comes down.
I think I'm good on acoustic. I don't really know if I'm...I just don't...I, I don't think that's how I see myself. I think I'm fine to accompany my songs, you know? I don't think...I don't wish that I had Barney Kessel or Eric Clapton or Mark Knopfler playing. I don't admire those licks-merchants at all. I think in many ways the guitar died after Jimi Hendrix -- and it should have been buried with him. I'd make an honorable exception for Richard Thompson. But, you know, barring Richard Thompson, I haven't heard an exciting lead guitarist in years. And even Richard Thompson is almost too good for his own good, you know? It seems effortless, the way he plays that. It seems fantastic. But does it go anywhere, really? I think that...like Jazz had its day, I think lead guitar had its day. In a way the, kind of, punks and the new wavers were, kind of, right to deride it. Kimberley Rew (who used to play with The Soft Boys) is a brilliant guitarist. But he doesn't go anywhere. He doesn't do anything, you know? There's Kimberley playing his brilliant guitar. I...what saves me is my ineptitude, if you like. The fact that I don't necessarily get things right. Andrew...Andy and Morris, you know, they used to laugh at the things I came up with -- but were also kind of amazed because they wouldn't have been able to do it. Because their training...or, Andy had training, and I didn't. So, a lot of our history collectively -- and this really isn't answering any question that you asked, but -- it's...it's formalizing chaos in some way. It's taking...it's like, Andy said Morris legitimizes my approach. I'll come up with this stuff, and Andy will make it sound professional. Sometimes I think this is great. Sometimes I think that the whole thing is a hopeless mismatch, because Andy and Morris are basically proper musicians who should be working with Costello or Brian Wilson (if he was in a workable state), or, you know, Lyle Lovett. Or, you know, some...some pedigree songwriter guy. And I'm basically, sort of, a personality dude. And I should be out there strumming away by myself, you know? Telling stories and playing, kind of, rough version of my own songs. But when it works, it's good.
I know my chords. I know what ninths are, and diminished chords (and stuff). I'm not like Bill Carter from Screaming Blue Messiahs, who says, "I don't know what a bloody A-chord is. I just play the thing." Or something. But I haven't had...I didn't have any training, and I picked it all up gradually. I mean, I'm probably not a primitve at all. But I mean, I was in 1976 (or something). So you tend to see yourself as you were. I'm just, sort of, putting things in...talking about our origins. Maybe even more than what we are now.
Do you consider yourself more a poet, then?
Don't really consider myself a poet because a poet rather, sort of, pressures concepts. You always think of some...I don't know. Poets seem very hapless. They're either sitting around under trees with their dublet, and their gaiter unbuttoned. Gaiters, and their hose smeared with wine. Or you think of modern-day poets sitting around with bad breath in cafes, with nasty little beards, unable to form relationships. Or, sort of, highly-sexed poets who live in lofts, who keep getting off with co-eds, and then not being able to handle it, and rushing back and drinking.
No, I mean, that could be me. Absolutely! But at the same time,I don't really know if poetry...there's something very precious about poetry and, you know, it's not like my songs are...my songs aren't like bulldozers or catastrophic diseases, or any great realities of today. They don't have anything to do with economics, or the great viruses that plague us. But I don't know if poetry is in them. That doesn't really answer your question. I just use words. I don't put words in songs I can't sing. I use words that tend to satisfy. And I use Pop cliches when I think they're necessary. So, in "Driving Aloud", I put in lots of stuff which is conversational. But to hold that together you have to use cliches like "You need love, baby, love, baby don't you throw it away". You know, it could have been from any '60s song. Or, just going, "Yip! Yip! Yip!" Even if that isn't in any Pop songs, I thought that might be too...perhaps...I actually wrote it with Roger McGuinn in mind. I could just hear his frail voice singing it. I should try to sell it to him (if he's still got a record deal). I don't know. I try and, sort of, mix things up correctly.
So have you seen yourself grow? You seem to have moved away from earlier Robyn Hitchcock material. Not straightforward, but, editing?
Well, they're getting more streamlined. I don't know where they go from here. I'm having a break at the moment. I don't want to write anything for another...until I've had another evolutionary leap, if you like. Because otherwise you just come up with the same stuff. Trying to write things when there's nothing there. And, I feel like whatever is there is quite somewhere off. It needs a new state of mind to envision it. Grow into it. So I'm just waiting to do those things but...the old songs...I think some of them are a bit childish now. But I think also they, kind of, got fed back to me, in, kind of, cliche form. You know, poeple would throw frogs onstage, you know? Little toy frogs. Or, I used to get a lot of rubber fish at one point. Once somebody even brought a live lobster in Chicago, that they were going to give us. You know, by seeing how we were reflected by our fans, you know, the whole thing was a bit twee and a bit silly. And it was well-intentioned at the time. But this, sort of, celebration of organic life which, if you like, was what a lot of this stuff was about, was a celebration of and disgust at, organic life. You know, reaction to being matter. To being a material creature. Which is what fuelled it. I don't know if that's existential (or what). Of finding yourelf an incarnate being which is going to cease to exist. I mean, that's still there but it's...it's less, kind of, Terry Julian. It's less, kind of, in the mud. I don't know. It's maybe just not so silly. Maybe it takes itself...maybe I take myself more seriously. I think that's basically what it is, probably. I dread reading this. I mean, the number of people you're going to have saying, "Well, I guess I'm taking myself more seriously since I went through some changes after the third album." See, I really despised all that. That's why, for years, I wanted to make a joke out of it. I hated James Taylor and Neil Young and bloody...all those people in the early-'70s who, sort of, you know, early-'70s Beatles. They all sat there in their funky denims, kind of, getting out of their dope hangovers feeling...taking themelves painfully seriously. I enjoyed Pop. I enjoyed the era of things teetering on the edge -- and then going over the edge. Pop music dcayed as soon as it matured, you know? And that was the aim of The Soft Boys at that time: was to try and write those sorts of songs. Find where it crossed over from '65 to '67. Keep that essence in songwriting. But I don't really care about that anymore. I think it's just a matter of finding the right feel. And I don't care what decade it is.
You've totally re-worked songs. "Egyptian Cream", the lyrics were the same, but...
That's good. That's good, and I hope that worked, you know? I think they're quite...I think "Only The Stones" was a good lyric, anyway. I've always liked that as a lyric. And, "Egyptian Cream"...you know, it's a bit transsexual, you know? I guess I had a period where...I wasn't actually a transvestite (or anything), but I was kind of...looking back on it, I think I was rather lost, sexually. I really didn't know where I was at, you know? I'm not sure I even knew what, kind of, species I even was. And I wrote all those things like "Sometimes I Wish I Was A Pretty Girl", or "Egyptian Cream". I was still...I had a very, very long hangover from a relationship in the early-'70s. The songs I wrote from the early-'70s right up to the mid-'80s...the better ones were usually about that person. I think there was a girl...the woman in question, she...her mom was born in Egypt. And her mum didn't know she was pregnant until she was seven months gone (or something incredible). I can't believe it. And I somehow imagined her mom gave birth on an ironing board. And she was a person who was very confused about her sexuality. And I think I...you know, I envisioned her, kind of, changing herself into a man.
"The Lizard"?
I don't know. "The Lizard" would be nice done live a la Richard Thompson. I can't really imagine it. I think we used to do it. It wouldn't really...I think it really, kind of, ran out of steam. We did it a bit around '88/'89. Peter Buck played on it with us, actually. It's of...it's, kind of, faded away, really. It was to do with Jim Morrison. But it wasn't totally about Jim Morrison. Just, sort...intersected with the Jim Morrison legend. It was one of those it's-great-to-be-decadent-until-you've-actually-hit-bottom. People who enjoy decadence really...it's a very short-sighted thing, really. It's easy to do that when you're young and beautiful and in your twenties, you know? But imagine if Morrison had lived to be a fat old alcoholic: isn't quite so enticing. It's lucky for him, you know? It's lucky he died when he did. For his legend. It's...I don't know. People like that are very hapless, really.
How about the single? What made you choose "Driving Aloud" as the first one? Did you have control?
Not really. We had control, but we went with what A&M decided (which I think was a complete mistake). The best songs on this record are things like the "Arms Of Love" and "The Wreck Of The Arthur Lee". And...what's the real slow one? "Serpent". They're what the record's about. And what A&M picked are the two up-tempo ones that might most seem like commercial-Alternative. And they presented the record in a...I don't think the recordings of those songs were particularly successful. They're better live. So I think they got the whole thing off to a very shaky start. So, we're just...we'll hopefully see them starting again with "Arms Of Love" or "Serpent", and doing it properly. But they need a hell of a lot of kicking and nudging and cajolling, you know? It's sort of like trying to push a donkey into the washing machine.
How is your A&M contract?
Well, it's an album in pairs. We've done four now. If they want to renew the option, they can for another pair. We're halfway through it now. But we signed the deal in '87, five years ago. So, I would think, if we ran the contract to the full seven albums...quite a lot of work. You know, it could be the end of the decade before we completed the number of songs on the contract (if they wanted to carry on). I mean, by and large you...if your relationship goes beyond a certain point, it goes on forever. I think if they understand what to do with this album, and put it in the right places, we could probably stay with A&M a long time. If they really failed...if they really continued to fail to get it, it would be better to continue somewhere else. They, kind of, think they'd like to...they say they think they'd like to pick up the next option. But, you know, they think...frankly, if they treat the next record like they treated this, I'd rather put it out on Mammoth (or somewhere like that, that at least wouldn't interfere with it). [Laughs] But I don't know. It hasn't been bad. We haven't had to have the traditional bitch about the record company a lot. It's just that we've gone a different way from everybody else (and we've gone a different way from what we used to do as well).
How about...Globe Of Frogs was just reissued.
Reissued? Maybe they're just selling off a few old copies cheap. What we have to reissue is all the back-catalog stuff: Element Of Light, Black Snake Diamond Role. All that stuff. We have to do a back-catalog deal for that stuff.
What of all that Ryko stuff? You were in on that, weren't you?
Yeah. The rights to most of The Soft Boys stuff belong to me. But there are a few things we've managed to buy back. Rights to the very first Soft Boys session. And we're just trying to get some stuff out of Warners now. The Radar era. Then we can have a definitive Soft Boys collection which will come out in a boxed set. Something like that. Double-album. Double-CD, rather.
What about...what do you think the strong points of Respect are about?
"The Wreck Of The Arthur Lee" and "Railway Shoes" I'm thinking are nice. What are they about? "Serpent At The Gates Of Wisdom" is based on a painting I did. I did the painting in my girlfriend's grandmother's attic in Virginia in rather bad light on an April night. I wrote the song in May. It...I was trying to...I saw it in the style of The Band. The sort of stuff Robbie Robertson wrote with The Band. I imagined it as a three-part, actually: sound like Levon and Richard and Rick. But in fact it didn't come out sounding like The Band. The music came out sounding like The Band, but the voice is my, kind of, Home Counties voice (which I've gradually got used to). It's not actually that biblical, but it sounds like it. And it just deals with the...you know, the serpent. He's the guardian of wisdom, but he can never actually behold what he regards. He can never go in there to achieve wisdom. He has to stand outside there in the world of folly, you know? Kind of, nipping people in the ankles and tempting them -- and generally being a bad guy. If he's the emissary of god, is he necessarily a bad guy? It's the old thing about...you know, if god came first, why did he let the devil happen? All the rest of it. That's mixed in there as well. It's, you know, it's, kind of, overlayed (as usual).
"The Wreck Of The Arthur Lee". Arthur Lee was the singer in a band called Love in L.A. in the '60s -- and he's still around somewhere. Doesn't do very much. He was a brilliant songwriter in his time. This song isn't specifically about Arthur Lee, but it quotes from a song that Love did. It's kind of in that idiom. I just got back...I'd been in L.A., and I came back, went to bed late, woke up early with a hangover 'cause of a jet lag, and saw this bright June sun streaming in through the windows in midsummer on a Sunday morning. Where I live...where I did live, the island I lived on, none of the shops would be opened for hours. And there was no food in the house, so I just sat there for hours with my hangover and this guitar, and made up this song. And then "Arms Of Love". Yeah, I said I wrote that Originally as "Arms Of God", in L.A.. I wrote that in L.A. during the Perspex Island sessions. That was the first one for this album. But, you know, we changed it when it came to doing it as a trio. I originally...it was more Country to begin with. Sort of, Country. And R.E.M. did this vaguely Country version. So we tried to make it more...a la...don't know what...Velvet Underground (or something). I mean, all these songs have got reference points. They all...they all...there's a musical...you know, The Band or Love or the Velvets (or something). There's usually something of a reference playing there. Even...hopefully they don't wind up sounding like parodies, but there's...one of my weaknesses as a songwriter is I tend to find other people's, kind of, musical bones that I drape my own flesh and skin over. The final creatures may not be that much like the original, but it's very easy for me to be Lennonesque. Or, you know, Dylanesque (or whatever), rather than...if I have my own identity as a songwriter, then it's something that's only evolved very slowly, really. And I can't remember what the other song was that we were discussing.
"Railway Shoes".
Oh, "Railway Shoes". I really like "Railway Shoes". That descended from Van Morrison, I guess. Andy's bassline is very like something off Veedon Fleece. I quite like "Railway Shoes". I'm really pleased with...I wrote that in the shed in the back garden, September, '91. And that's, sort of, one of those dreary, keep-on-keep-on-mid-'70s, kind of, washed-out-funky-denim kind of things that I would have really hated when I was twenty. I know, but too bad. The twenty-year-old me is long banished. [Laughs] And somebody of forty...I quite like "Railway Shoes". And in fact, I think that's one of the more successful...I mean, I like the record. But some of it came out better than others. "Railway Shoes" was one of the more realised tracks. I think the two tracks that come out least like...least like they should have been are "Yip Song" and "Driving Aloud". A&M brilliantly picked them to go to radio. I don't know who they were hoping to catch, you know? I mean, it's not going to make it with the Nirvana generation.
That's over.
Critically, perhaps. But it's...their Pop-era noise is there.
But you've carried on through it...through all the changes.
We've carried on through it. But we've been very out-of-line the last year or so with what's going on with the kids! (If there is such a thing).
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