Thrust
August, 1999
The Original Soft Boy
On tour with The Flaming Lips, Sebadoh, Sonic Boom and IQU, elder psychedelic Pop-meister Robyn Hitchcock took time out to chat about his new record, Jewels For Sophia whilst inhaling an eleven o'clock breakfast in Oklahoma City.
How's Oklahoma City?
Slightly stifling kind of sky. Hot, but not unbearable.
How's your Oklahoma City breakfast?
Oh, it's a cheese-and-egg sub with amazing amounts of pepper. I shall inhale it during the rest of the conversation -- you won't even notice.
I'm listening to the great leadoff track from the new album.
Oh, you've heard it? You are familiar with it?
Oh yes.
Right, that's good.
Thanks for putting the single "Mexican God" right at the start so I don't have to search it out.
Wow, you think that's a single? Wow.
I know the record company might push for something else, but I think it's the one.
I don't think the record company will push for anything. We thought it was going to be the best way of doing it. There was a large volume of songs and my friends and associates listened to it, and we tried all sorts of different combinations. Even right down to when the thing was mastered, we had different songs on there. There was an A record and a B record, and at the last minute I swapped three things around. But "Mexican God" had been lying around -- that wasn't even finished (we thought). That wasn't even a contender for the record until I heard it and thought, "God this is fantastic (if I say so myself)." So I'm glad you like it.
It has a great hook, and wonderfully surreal lyrics, hearkening back to your early solo albums. In fact, most of the album has a bit more jump to it than your last few records.
It's a bit less sombre than the last ten records I've made. Probably since, oh, Globe Of Frogs. In different ways they've all been kind of subdued in their own way. I think this one sounds a bit more perky.
You mentioned the A and B record. Are you going to release an outtake record as for Moss Elixir?
Hmmm [swallowing], it's coming out in November, but it's only being released through the museum of me: Robyn Hitchcock.com -- or if I'm on the road. You won't be able to buy it in stores. Warner is actually letting me put it out myself 'cause it's cheaper for them and it makes more money for me.
Will it be a vinyl release?
No I think we're releasing it as a CD 'cause it's expensive to do vinyl. Except in Britain. Maybe I'll do a limited run in Britain. CDs are also more packagable (though I much prefer vinyl -- it's a much more beautiful item to own).
So how are the final songs selected?
There are some that absolutely have to be on the record. The others just swirl about. A song like "Elizabeth Jade" was on and off and back on again. In the end, it's the sequence that holds your attention time after time, and what flows well. Sometimes a song that isn't so great will fit in better than something that is.
In hindsight, was the choice of A and B records for Moss Elixir the correct one? Some folks prefer the outtakes version.
I think the hard-core fans are always gonna like the outtakes record 'cause it's the outtakes. Maybe we should have had the Trilobites song on Moss Elixir 'cause it was fun. But then, I thought people might get bored with it. Songs that people react to immediately -- especially if they're funny -- may wear thin after five or six listens. I try to put stuff on that will yield up its juices as slowly as possible. Pop music is about giving people an instant buzz -- like fast food. And then there's nothing left. It's designed to be disposable. My stuff has never really been Pop music. You can get great Pop music that isn't disposable, but I've never really had that knack. I do think my stuff lasts -- I try and put on stuff that'll endure the most.
When playing live and you dig back for songs that are, geez, maybe twenty-five years old.
I don't think any of them are quite that old.
How far back do you go?
Twenty years. Back to Underwater Moonlight by The Soft Boys.
Are there songs that you'll always play?
No, I don't play anything every night 'cause you really do get sick of it. I might leave a song for a couple of years altogether. You drain the nutrients away if you hammer on with the same song over and over. There are some songs that I don't think I'll ever play again, then there are some songs that are lying there and someone else will [burping], (excuse me), suggest it.
You've written quite a few songs. Do you think there are some you've forgotten?
I think I remember all of them pretty much. But if I haven't sung something for ten years, then I might have trouble with it. I know what they all are. It's not like I don't know the names of all my children.
Sometimes a record has been in the works for a long time. Is it still fresh to you?
Yeah. Certainly the sequence is. I've only heard the sequence once before we mastered it. After I mastered it. After they mastered it -- whoever "they" were. Before it was mastered.
How do you master anyway?
There's a man in Los Angeles in a darkened room with these flickering green screens that light up the ceiling that look a bit like brain scans. There's two men actually, Bill and Dan. Bill grows tomatoes and Dan likes to play golf, and they sit there twisting these dials as the music comes out of various-sized speakers -- it's probably the best the record will ever sound. You're hearing it back loud, but not painfully loud. They just try and get the best-quality sound out of the tape that you've given them.
What was it like having [former Soft Boy, not to mention Katrina And The Waves] Kimberley Rew playing in the studio again after all these years?
Oh it was nice, yeah. I don't think either of us were using amplifiers anymore. He's still louder than me, even if neither one of us has an amplifier. It's great.
You've said that his playing was ear-splitting, so I'm wondering if your hearing has degraded?
[Laughing] No, The Soft Boys was definitely ear-splitting -- it was a guitar battle. We're not chained to each other anymore. We're not doomed to wander the earth together in a van. We just meet up occasionally. It's twenty years later, and the machinery's got smaller and we've both obviously gotten softer.
I think fans of The Soft Boys era are going to be pleased with "NASA Clapping".
I hope so. Funnily enough the first guitar break is me, though it sounds like Kimberley. There's another bit on Jewels For Sophia -- Peter Buck is trying to play what he thought I would have played. And on one of the outtakes Grant-Lee Phillips does a vocal -- an imitation of me. It's nice to have everyone trying to mimic each other. Shows how grown-up we all are. I'm not sure that that really sounds like The Soft Boys so much -- does it to you, the tracks with Kimberley on?
It's got that Soft Boys drive.
That's great. One thing that everyone was always frustrated with The Soft Boys records, was that no one ever thought that we captured whatever it was live on tape. Kimberly brought that drive to the studio. All the people -- Young Fresh Fellows, Peter Buck -- their energy isn't diluted by being in the studio. Nor is Kimberley's.
Speaking of those Seattle folks, on "Viva Sea-Tac", which is kind of a dig at Seattle--
It's not really a dig at Seattle. They really love it up there.
Yeah?
Well they seem to. They seem to be tickled by it [snickering]. It was really good fun. There was a good energy in the studio. We hadn't rehearsed very much. They had just heard the material, but I thought we did well.
Why slip in the now-standard-Rock-cliche hidden tracks?
I wanted the record to go somewhere else before it stopped. Rather than saying, "Well, here's 14 songs and that's it. Nice job, Robyn. See you next time." It's as if the listener has wandered upstairs into the dressing room, and I was playing through a couple of tunes just for the hell of it whilst having a drink. Like an after-show party, really. That would scour the palette. A record's gotta go somewhere. Does a record amount to some kind of narrative? Some kind of emotional ride? That's the question. Those two songs had after-show stamped all over them, so I've put them there. And I've started it all off with one of my answer-phone messages.
A lot of fans who've heard it live will be pleased to finally have "Gene Hackman" on record.
Yeah, but they'll have to get through "Jewels For Sophia" to get to it -- but they can always tape it. It'll make them concentrate -- as the title track they should hear that more.
What's it like touring with The Flaming Lips?
They like to travel a lot. It's very road-intense. They think nothing of getting up at eight in the morning and driving sixteen hours 'til soundcheck. I get restless after three hours in a van, so I've been doing a bit of flying.
So you're not a morning person?
No, no...it takes me a long time to get to sleep and a long time to wake up -- especially if I've done a show. I'm not going to have a little cup of cocoa and go to bed.
Are you playing small-enough-sized halls that you can converse with the audience?
Well we're not playing enormo-domes. I don't know if I should converse with them, but I can certainly see them. They're horribly close.
What do you think of the Robyn Hitchcock presence on the internet?
I don't have a computer, so I stay out of it.
Are you aware of it -- sites like fegMANIA!?
I heard there's a lot of stuff about me, so we started an official one to put out official things. But it's a bit like the records: what everybody wants is the outtakes, and people are probably more likely to go to the rumour and chat sites. All I'm doing is being Buckingham Palace and telling them what the official word is. But I do generally know what I'm doing before anyone else, so we try and put that up there.
My favourite site is one that shows your traffic cone art.
Oh, really? I haven't seen it.
It's quite nice -- they have rotating pictures of about eight of your pieces.
Eight? Geez, I did over three hundred. That's pretty feeble. I'd love to see all the cones. I wonder where they went. We do floating pens now -- it has my symbol: the tomato on a black- and white-striped candlestick.
What was the impetus for the cone art?
I've always liked cones. I like certain shapes, and I sort of "prophetalize" them (if that's a word). They look good and they're around, and you start noticing them. Cones are everywhere. Generally, people have ignored them (or spurned them, or knocked them over, or ripped them off and put them on top of a roof when drunk). I thought: "Let's focus on the cone. It's part of our lives, and maybe in fifty years they won't be around anymore." They weren't around when I was a kid. They just crept up. There wasn't anything in the paper saying, "And now: cones." There wasn't a public education campaign: "This is a cone, you will see more of it." They just piled in when nobody was looking.
Did you nick the cones?
[Laughing loudly] I didn't nick three hundred cones. I mean, I probably should have done. But they're very cost-effective. It just takes time to draw on them. You can sell a cone for fifteen dollars, and you can buy them for seventy-two cents. Compared to T-shirts, the profit margin on the cone is enormous.
I don't think you should have let the cat outta the bag. We're gonna have a cone glut.
You still have to do the art yourself. The big surprise was the pleats -- these long holes on the sides to stop children suffocating themselves. These were sports cones...geez I've gotta go.
One last question: why "Soft Boys" and not "Wild Machine" [see William S. Burroughs]?
I think you've answered that one yourself.
"Wild Machine" is a pretty good name.
Yeah, but it wasn't so creepy. Oddly enough, The Soft Boys sounded like a wild machine. But it was a very accurate term of what we were as people, and reflected a vision I had of these slightly boneless things that crept around in the dark and had a lot of power.
...tape hiss...
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