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Lol Watson 1993
Matt
Johnson
Johnny Marr
IN CONVERSATION . .
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PART 5.
J: So
obviously, after Mind Bomb, your world was rocked really wasn’t
it? You had a lot of sadness in your life before you got into
making Dusk.
M: Yes. This was actually halfway through the
tour. Eugene, my younger brother, died. That really changed
everything. Really fractured my family’s life and threw
all of us, myself included, into quite a deep depression for
a number of years. Thankfully, in that kind of situation,
there was something therapeutic for me to turn to, to help
me get out of it, which was songwriting. And so putting
those feelings I had into songs I started working on the 'Dusk'
album, particularly 'Love Is Stronger Than Death'......
J: Exactly, yeah. When I look back on it,
considering what you were going through, we went into the
studio and did - particularly you and me - I think we did
the 'Shades Of Blue' EP, with 'Solitude' on it, and 'Dolphins'.
It must have been hard for you doing 'Dusk'.
M: It was and I remember being in the studio and feeling
quite spaced out a lot and I also remember Dave Palmer pulling
me to one side and saying - it was a bit rich coming from
Dave - but : "What's up Matt, you seem sort of spaced
out, you don't seem yourself", because he was used to
me directing him very specifically “No, that beat is
not quite right....this beat is not quite right.” But
I just felt really spaced out. Really, really weird. I just
didn't feel like I had my feet on the ground or something.
And I could really sort of feel that I was there, but not
there, which was a very unpleasant feeling for me because
I was having to fake it a lot of the time.
J: I didn't know that you bastard! I thought I was
doing great.
M: I think we all did do great, but there were
moments when it was just very difficult for me. But
of course what we did differently with 'Dusk' to 'Mind Bomb'
was that we recorded it at my studio, which I'd just recently
bought, and recorded it live as a band, which was something
we wanted to do because of the success of the previous tour.
We worked with Bruce Lampcov who did a brilliant job. He'd
remixed a track from 'Mind Bomb' and we’d got along well
with him so we decided to work with him. We met him again
at some point on the 'Mind Bomb' tour to discuss ideas and
I think he actually recorded a few shows of ours in Detroit.
Going into the studio we had DC Collard on keyboards who’d
joined on the tour. We recorded it, primarily live and then
we did some overdubbing once the backing tracks were done.
J: 'Love Is Stronger Than Death' felt classic
when we were doing it didn't it? It was a real sort
of ‘moment’ wasn't it?
M: It was a hard song to write because of the
subject matter, but I was very, very happy because I felt
the version that we did perfectly captured what I was trying
to say.
J: We were doing 'Dusk' with the band and, as
usual, it was quite intense, I was pretty out there myself,
but I remember loving it and for me it's my favourite album
that I've ever been on.
M: And what about when you’d drive to the
session in your new sports car?
J: Well, my memory of 'Dusk' is that I'd just
got that brand new Alfa Romeo Spider and I'd only just passed
my driving test. I'd get up in the morning feeling really
good and then drive down the Embankment with the roof down
in the Summer and it's a beautiful sunny day, people are waving,
I’m just like Dick Van Dyke with a real spring in my
step and then I'd get to the studio which had been rechristened
'The War Room' and so I'd say good-bye to the day and my new
flash sports car and then I'd go down the stairs into this
dark basement with these dark red psychedelic oil wheels turning
and all these clouds of incense burning ...
M: People stripped off down to their underwear,
the heating full on, like a nice big sauna. The Psychic
Sauna we used to call it.
J: Exactly. You were listening to a lot of Blues
around that time as well weren't you? Robert Johnson.
M: Yeah and Howling Wolf, who’s probably
my all time favourite blues man. Although I love John Lee
Hooker and Robert Johnson I’d say Howling Wolf was my
favourite. Maybe that influence is evident on some of the
stuff? Lots of dirty vocals, distorted harmonicas and juiced
up guitars. On 'Mind Bomb' you shared duties with Mark Feltham
who played ... did you play 'Beat(en) Generation' or did Feltham
play?
J: No I ...errr ... no, maybe Feltham played
on it.
M: Yeah, I think he did, and he played on 'Good
Morning Beautiful' and ‘Violence of Truth’. Incredible
musician. But then on the tour you were playing and you played
all the harmonica on 'Dusk'.
J: 'Slow Motion Replay',
M: Which was absolutely beautiful, that harmonica part
was ...
J: We kind of worked that bit up on tour. You
were kind of kicking
'Slow Motion Replay' around ...
M: And you were playing the harmonica on the tour as
we were going on and ...
J: It became quite a big part of the thing didn't it?
M: Yeah. You wrote the harmonica part for 'Beyond
Love'. And then of
course on 'Dusk' we had it on 'Love Is Stronger Than Death',
'Dogs Of Lust' particularly. That song, particularly
the video, really captured what I was saying about getting
away from me trying to be an actor. It just captured a performance.
I just love the performance that Tim captured.
J: It has nakedness in there as well ... which
always helps.
M: It has nakedness. But also you brought
along that little tub of tablets that you dosed us up with.
I believe we had a few tablets of ‘medicine’ and
a couple of bottles of Tequila. Then we got the three aircraft
hanger heaters brought in and turned them up full blast. I
remember James worried that his bass guitar was melting. He
was looking very concerned but I don’t think he got dosed
up. He was being sensible while we were off on another planet.
Fantastic.
J: I was a bit too sort of ... erm ... I'd forgotten
that I even had my guitar on at that time.
M: But that may be my favourite video. It's raw,
we had the music cranked up and it really captured the live
shows. The fact that it was also filmed in my studio, where
we’d just spent the better part of a year recording the
album, also added a nice twist.
J: The first take, Tim sprayed us with glycerine
to look like we were sweating ... because we just weren't
sweating enough. I thought you were winding us all up
when you started saying "No. No. No. it's not hot enough,
we've got to get more heaters", into this tiny little
room! But it had the desired effect.
M: It really captured the atmosphere I thought
and again that was another song ...
J: Where New York starts to come back again.
Well it had never gone away really but there's a cross between
New York and London there. In 'Sodium Light Baby' which, when
we were doing it, always felt like a ride through the New
York night to me. But then I knew about the sodium lights
in London and your attraction to those. And then with
'Lung Shadows' you've got shadows in there again. And of course
in 'Love Is Stronger Than Death' is “The cold light of
mourning.” So again it's that consistent imagery. New
York, London, lights and shadows. So were you considering
moving to New York at that time?
M: Yeah, on and off. Ever since I went
there for the first time I knew I was going to live there
at some point, it was just a case of choosing the right time.
Of course there was the film ‘From Dusk 'Til Dawn’,
which we shot there and which I personally prefer to the 'Infected'
film. That was a very intense and strange experience
because we went on a magical mystery tour with Tim (Pope)
when we were doing the 'Slow Motion Replay' video.
J: Well, we had two vans which we were moved around
in and the crew were all speaking in codes so we didn't know
which location we were going to. I didn't even know it was
a mystery thing! There was a double bluff going on with me
because when you told me to come out and do it, you said to
me something like: "Oh yeah, we're going to do a Midnight
Cowboy”, me and you walking around New York shot from
the streets of a car. No mention of being on live porno
television, Midnight Blue, Taxi Talk, or meeting Danny the
Wonder Pony or miming on Annie Sprinkle's bed with her writhing
all around us in front of an altar of vibrators. I don't remember
that being in Midnight Cowboy! But yeah it was an intense
experience. The bit where the guy breaks into tears ...
M: He's dead now that guy. I sometimes go back
to that bar. We went back a while ago and found out he died
shortly after that film, which was really poignant.
As we were standing round watching that, everybody, the whole
crew was like ... ooofff ... ouch.
J: But it's asking him that question, because
the premise of that video was going around asking these different,
odd people what's wrong with the world, and amazingly most
people answered “People don't respect each other's race
and difference of opinion” and “There isn't enough
love in the world.” But asking that guy the question
was like someone had turned a key inside of him wasn't it?
Okay, so during 'Dusk' you've got that perennial connection
between London and New York, so had you made your mind
up to move to New York then, when we were doing 'Dusk'?
M: It was on my mind, but my mind wasn't made up
until after the tour. We made the film, I then formed a new
band in New York and went on another world tour. Towards the
end of the tour personal circumstances made up my mind. But
it wasn't that cut and dried. I kept the place in London and
travelled between New York and London, but started staying
in New York more and more until I realised I was really living
over there and not in England. So it was like a cross
fade as opposed to a hard edit.
J: Were you looking towards New York influencing you
more in your music? We spoke earlier about your environment
being important to you.
M: Yeah, I think I was really. I was over there for
7 years and although I was writing a hell of a lot I only
released 1 album. Which is not very productive!
J: Your Football Manager game didn't come back out
of the box did it? (laughs)
M: No, no (laughing)
J: But you became a father didn't you.
M: I became a father. Which as you know is life
altering. Then when I continued work on NakedSelf after my
son’s birth it changed shape a lot. I’d recorded
tons of material, so there's a huge amount of stuff which
is actually waiting to be finished. Probably about 3 or 4
albums worth of material recorded in New York, but only one
album has come out of it so far. I spent a lot of time just
riding around on subways and taking notes all the time, and
walking because Manhattan is just more conducive to walking
everywhere. I love walking.
J: Tell me about it! I know all about your legendary
long walks through New York.
M: Hours and hours just walking, taking notes, riding
on the subways. All the different noises, different smells,
the different light you get over there. It all influences
you I think.
J: So where did you record 'Hanky Panky'?
M: At my studio in London. That was the period
I was in between London and New York. I recorded it live in
my studio in London but then shot the video on top of the
Chrysler building in New York. That was an interesting shoot.
People initially thought we’d used projections or digital
animation because a short while after that video came out
there was an advert featuring the athlete Carl Lewis leaping
from the gargoyles on top of the building, but all done with
digital animation. You can fake a lot of those things nowadays
if you’ve got the money. But Sam Bayer (the director)
and I wrote out how it was going to be filmed. I always had
a fascination with ... I can't remember the name of the woman
who took these amazing photographs in the 1930's. She sat
on the gargoyles and was taking pictures from them. I was
always fascinated by those. So I wanted to figure
out a way of getting out onto the gargoyles. And we actually
did get out onto the gargoyles. It was in January and it was
freezing cold. I wanted to go out and stand on the gargoyles
but unfortunately I wasn't allowed to because of the insurance
situation with the production company, being america and all.
So we got a stunt double and there were two things we did.
First thing was that we used him in the shots when you see
the helicopter circling the building. That's actually him
on the gargoyles. When you see me on the gargoyles, it’s
actually a fake gargoyle - a life size replica - that we’d
put on the flat roof of the skyscraper next door to the Chrysler,
so you see the view of the Empire State Building in the background.
We’d hired this Vietnam veteran to circle closely round
the spire of the Chrysler building and the tricky thing was
that the Chrysler building’s management didn't know what
we were really doing- we’d pretended we were just filming
for an advert and we just wanted to film the view from the
windows. And the security guard - I think it was the Super
Bowl or something - he just sat there chomping on his pretzels
with his little outfit on and his feet on his desk watching
the game on his portable telly... and he went “Yeah,
sure go ahead.” and waved us past. So we all sneaked
into the rooms at the top giggling. The Vietnam vet circling
the building was one of only a handful of helicopter pilots
in New York who was actually licensed to fly that close to
a building, and he's circling round really close by now. I'd
actually sneaked onto the edge of a gargoyle myself and nearly
went over the edge, it was so cold and slippery. So in walks
the stunt guy, dressed up in all my clothes, and he looked
completely grey, ashen grey. Looking completely terrified.
Like he really, really didn't want to do it, and I said to
him “What's up, are you ok?' and he said “Well,
actually I'm really nervous about this shoot”, I said
'”Yeah? But you must have done tons of things like this.
You're a stunt man, you do this all the time?” and he
goes “Yeah, but my speciality is fires ... not
heights.” (laughing) Fires not heights! He had vertigo!
He was so terrified, and he went up there and he was literally
stood like a statue (laughing) and he had the harness on and
everything but it was still terrifying really, because it
was 1500 ft or whatever, straight down, and they're not that
wide those gargoyles. Maybe 6 ft wide, slippery cold metal
and slightly sloping, right over the edge. It is really, really
scary and you're thinking “Is the harness going to hold
if I slip?” (laughing) Anyway when the Chrysler people
found out they literally hit the roof and banned people from
filming up there. Not sure if the ban’s still in effect.
That was the only video for that album. We didn't tour
it but Hank Williams is a songwriter I've always loved and
I just felt like it was a low pressure project to do. I was
just enjoying being a singer rather than a songwriter. Interestingly
enough in America it was voted one of the top country albums
of the year and Colin Escott (Hank Williams’ biographer)
wrote me a nice letter saying he thought they were some of
the best versions of Hank's songs he'd ever heard. To top
it all off I got a lovely signed book from Jett Williams,
his daughter, who said "My Daddy would be proud of what
you've done with his songs.” So there you go.
J: Fantastic. I remember you getting into Hank
Williams and I didn't
really expect that the album was going to sound like. It sounds
like a TheThe album, and I think it kind of shows what a distinctive
sound you've got really. 'I Saw The Light' particularly, could
have come off 'Naked Self' or 'Dusk' I think.
Onto
part six>
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