In their own words
Paul Roberts In Conversation
By Steve Martin.
Everything that I do seems to rely on faith, because my band are really nice
about everything, they really believe in it, they want to be part of something
that they like. A lot of the songs are about faith, and it was written during a
period of time that I had a lot of faith in a lot of people, and they let me
down quite badly. I had to have faith in myself really, and I had to faith in my
girlfriend, who left me half way through the project but I had to carry on, I
had to keep going. It's probably the most intense thing I've done for years,
because at the same time I was working with The Stranglers and gigging and
trying to write. I'm not trying to be too clever with the title, I'd really like
the music to speak for itself.
I've got no problems with it being called a concept album. I don't care what
anyone calls it, I can always say no! It is a bit of a concept because if you go
from the cover, I did that whole thing myself. Ok, the cover was designed by
Curt Evans from Eagle, he did me a favour and he did a fantastic job on it.
Maaike Uijthoven came up with the computerised image. It was a photo from Robin
Sims. He then he came up with the idea of using this computer to change the
texture. The inner cover is a picture of me in a tornado pilots uniform, a
picture of an old first world war diablo - this guy was a fighter pilot in the
first world war who I met on this road in France when I was travelling across
Europe one day - I took his photo cos I met this mad wife of his, he had a black
crow living in a cage in an ancient farmhouse and this guy came out with this
picture, for me to take his picture, put those two together and this was it you
know, you had faith, he's gotta have faith this guy, these two pilots you know,
and then you open it up and there's the artist formally known as the artist!
People buy things that give them that kind of stability, faith in money! So my
Jaguar XK is part of faith. I took that picture years ago, I used to work on
British sports cars, I think Kath Flavell asked me that question, and that's
because I love it and people put faith in their car you know, there's all sorts
of stuff so I suppose if there is a concept in that respect. Then there's the
cross picture and a couple of others.
Then there's the quotations. The first quote is from the bible. "in the
beginning there was the word", I just had to upset someone somewhere along the
line so I might as well do it honestly! "In the beginning there was the word and
the word was faith". Not God, because the way I look at it is there was never a
god and every one, every single person is a god. You see that plant there? That
plant is being kept alive by somebody, Ok, but you can't tell me that there's
someone over in Tiera Del Fuego caring for the trees while he's also caring for
that plant over there. So for me, the bible is a manual of humanity, and was
written to keep the world in check a little bit, like rules and regulations at
work, and if you follow the guidelines of this book then we could survive as a
planet of people. If you go against all those feelings and you become an animal
then eventually the world of humanity wont exist, we'll all kill each other. The
other quote, that's something that I've tried to put into words so many times.
There's an album out by a guy called David Byrne who worked with Talking Heads
called "Catherine Wheel" in about 1980. There's a song on there, and about half
way through somebody, I don't know if David Byrne's got someone in to do it, but
it's got "little children don't mean anything, its dope and liquor, I tell you,
unsaved people don't have any means of deliverance". What that means is that if
you're a drug addict, a junkie for example, an alcoholic, someone who really has
suffered, then you have some, a means of deliverance, if you say something its
got a bit of weight behind it whereas if you read it in a book like so many
people I know, you have no deliverance cos you're reading it from a book. I can
come to you tomorrow and say oh you know, such and such, from a book of Huxley
or something, but it won't be my emotion, it won't be my thought. It's all very
well talking about things, but if you've never done them? Unsaved people have
done, people like Jimmy Boyle do come out of prison, they do workshops with
people and stuff like that now.
I might be crazy - I don't care really but I certainly don't know, I don't
think I am, I think I'm perfectly normal but I am obsessed with madness. I went
through a lot of shit when I was a kid, not with my parents - just myself. I was
a severe drug addict when I was a teenager. When you've got 5 psychiatrists at
16 prodding you around you kind of go "mmm!!".
I could have called it "Fate"! It's not too deep and meaningful, but it does
actually reflect a lot of the things that have gone on, and I've written about a
lot of things in my life, and during the making of the record I found out my
dad's dying of cancer and I found that out in March when I came back from the
Falklands so that really upset me. That's what "Can't Seem" is about, its kind
of dedicated to everything in my life. The two big institutions in my life i.e.,
my girlfriend and my father, my parents sort of falling apart. You gotta hold on
when that shit happens, you really have, if you don't it fucks you. One way or
the other its gonna kill him, whether its his kidneys failing or the cancer.
Cancer might not kill him but the effects of cancer on the rest of your body
might. We've been living with this now, the whole family have been living with
it, for a year now, he's been living with it for a lot longer. He's a very brave
man - the whole thing about that is no matter what I've done in my life I wasn't
prepared for it - I knew what it was gonna be cos he'd been ill for a while and
I thought this has gotta be it, but it didn't help any more when it was told to
me so... But the great thing about that is that I've learnt I've now got time to
sit down with my father and talk about our lives, you know. Hurts but....
Death is hard to write about, whether it is a mass murderer in Free or the
bigger scale of New Mourning Town. They're very closely linked because those two
songs are the violent side of my lack of understanding of humanity. I wouldn't
want to say New Mourning Town was anti-American, it's kind of that whole thing.
I think Nato went in far too hard in Kosovo for example, I don't know, its very
difficult for me, I'm not a politician but I just don't see why the most
beautiful places always seem to be controlled by the sort of screwed up people
you know. The Balkans is a beautiful place to go - when I first set eyes on it,
my first comment to the rest of the guys was that this is the most beautiful
place I've ever been to and it is a total fucking mess, totally destroyed and I
was so distraught when I got home. I spoke to my father about it and he reminded
me about Normandy - you didn't see anything that was dead, you just knew. There
was never more than 1 or 2 bricks standing on top of each other. It's not very
musically sweet its just like fucking horrible you know!! That's what I like and
that's why its in there. Free actually started off as a song about Dennis Nilson
who killed all those guys. And then I saw it from a different angle. I actually
started writing those lyrics for The Stranglers in Written In Red (When!!
Records, 1997) sessions but nothing happened with that song so I just took the
lyrics back. I really liked the idea behind it and I changed it quite a lot, to
be honest, and it was actually about a victim visiting his house, and then him
murdering the victim. I then thought of it from a different angle - so many
things had changed in my life at that point that I couldn't imagine what might
happen to my son. It's a terrible thing, but at the same time the guy has a real
problem himself - obviously a weird guy but obviously very lonely to have people
round, then kill 'em, dress 'em up and put 'em in bed and talk to them! I've got
another song actually where something like that happens, but its almost like
this guy's so sick, we couldn't understand it. But to him it's his way of life.
You can't ever imagine what it's like to be like that. All of us have animal
instincts, all of us have animal thoughts. I mean, I've certainly sat in a car
and tried to put myself in the frame of some sort of crazed murderer or even a
rapist and its very bizarre. Sometimes you get these thoughts and they're your
animal instincts and you just go "hang about, what was that?"! I was so screwed
up as a kid I can remember prowling a bridge one night with a knife in my hand
on my way home. There was no intent, I was just like acting out a scenario. I
was only about 15, I was drugged up to my eyeballs, I had the hood of my jacket
over my head and I was just across this bridge like a nutcase. I mean, I knew
there was no one around, it wasn't like that you know. You know these people are
sick but they don't see it like that. Imagine Peter Sutcliffe. This guy, he did
not care about getting caught, because if he did he would have changed his car,
he would have changed his dress, he would have changed his boots, he would have
shaved his beard off if he did. There is something so fundamentally wrong about
these people.
It's weird stuff - you just don't know, they're so self assured - that's what
it is, it's like a self assurance - if you can whistle down the road knowing
you've just killed 13 people. You are a very sick fucker and you are a source of
fascination. I mean, people like to slag these people down in the world and say
they're so evil but they've built institutions around them. They're always
talking about them, and they're always on the news, they're always reminding us
of these people. OK, it's good to be reminded of horror, but some people will
pick up on it and use it. But most people completely abhor them, you know.
A lot of people think it's because they're gonna be famous; it's their way of
fame. "Fame, I'm gonna live forever". That's part of Free was taken from the
Irene Cara song. It's a total rip off, a total piss take, a total tongue in
cheek "fame I'm gonna live forever". I don't know if you remember a Pearl Jam
album out I think it was the first album "10", where he sings "Ben", he sings a
line out of "Ben" (about the rat) by Michael Jackson, and it kind of inspired
me, but I just came out with it in the song, and when I thought about it, I
thought that's really quite nice, I like that so I kept it in! You know, it's
true some of these people do want to be famous you know, they don't care.
Did you see the programme about the completely crazed American-Indian guy in
the States? I mean, he was a total nutcase. He tortured a woman for 12 hours, he
raped her continually for 12 hours. It was awful, and he wanted to be famous and
women send love letters to these people - they want to marry them, Peter
Sutcliffe, fuck that, what's going on???
I guess I really started writing "Faith?" in earnest probably in January 1998
and I had So Easy. I just liked the groove and actually it was Jody, my son that
produced that track. I had a completely different sound on the song and he came
down from his room and turned round and said why don't you do this to the drums,
and that was that, really. It just completely changed my approach to mixing and
effects, the effects I was using on the instruments and stuff. So to put it
shortly, I mean he changed my approach to production and I suppose I'd always
considered myself a bit of a producer. I always liked to work with other people
and to mix other peoples songs and to add things or whatever.
I put it together in an area no bigger than that! (which for all those in black
and white is bout 6 foot square!!). A lot of electricity a lost relationship,
and that's about it. I could not possibly afford to record in some other studio
because I was writing it as I was recording it, it was a really organic thing,
there were a few ideas down for this and that but you cant afford to go to a
commercial studio and write your record cos they just rub their hands doing fuck
all and sit there all day and take lots of money from you . You have an idea
what you want to do, you've got to, but I wanted flexibility that's why I've got
my own studio, plus I've got control over it. I can work on it any time I want,
I can change things if I want, and also the way I've got my system, my studio
set up is what I like.
I like the digital aspect of recording. It makes life quite simple, but also I
like to have my hands on - I've got an analogue desk, so I can create what I
like. I like to get a big warm heavy bass sound with a lot of digital equipment
you don't get that - its very square, everything's in a little box. I just want
a bit more warmth, that's why everybody started selling valve technology a few
years ago, I don't use valve technology.
When I had it mastered the technician, the mastering guy, took a lot of bass
end off it. But you see this is my problem with sound. If you take an old
jukebox or old vinyl record the bottom end is awesome, but nowadays people
aren't used to that, so immediately you hear something that's like that you want
to get rid of it, because they want to tighten it up so when you put it in a box
it literally turns the bass up. So you can really do what you want with it, but
that's not really right cos when you've taken so much out of the bass end,
you're only left with a certain frequency, or that area of the bass. All I know
is when I twiddle a knob and it sounds right, it's fine by me!!
The mixes were a hell of a lot more bassy when I did them, I re-mixed a few, I
took them to be mastered where they're using things like sonic solutions, they
can do things like pick a frequency out of a total mix and make it, they can
surround that frequency with other things, its a very technical explanation, not
for me.
The tendency if your a singer is you'll mix yourself low, and I don't like the
sound of my voice. Quite literally! I don't, really. I like it in some places, I
really like what I did with Postcard, what I did with Chasing Rainbows, but you
have to come to a decision, ultimately, and when your making so many decisions,
something has to give. You can't that on top of stuff all the time, very
difficult, something's bound to suffer, and like hearing the band play
everything its like "oh shit, I want to go and record this with the band".
When you're playing everything and you're not great at any of them you don't
enjoy having so many hats on. I was playing everything. Listening back to some
of the sequences I'm really happy with what I did, but when you're so involved
with it at the time trying to be objective, nothing was a "pleasure". When I'd
finished it and listened to it, I thought "I've done a really good job here".
You know, I actually really like this record.
It's very different what I've had to do especially in the last year, singing
and playing, which is very difficult. That's why I wanted someone very, very
good to represent me on another instrument like Richard.Erm.. what was the
question?! About being nervous playing guitar? Oh yes that is nerve-wracking.
There are people out there in the audience who can play instruments and I bloody
well can't!! You don't want to be picked up on something like "oh you played
that bit wrong", you know what The Stranglers fans are like, "you got that verse
wrong" thank you very much!! I definitely want to play an instrument, if I can
beef up the piano players playing that's great, I mean there are other songs
that you purely want to sing.
Richard Naiff is a grade 8 with distinction when it comes to music, there is
nothing more he can do in the world to become any better. I've never worked with
a piano player so sufficient. This is another thing. You can learn scales all
your life and chords but to have a feel for the instrument as well, that's not
prevalent amongst classically taught people in my experience. But Richard plays
with his heart and soul, not his head.
We were involved years ago in a band called "It Is". Ever since that he's done
nothing but work in a library and play the organ in Enfield church, and that is
a waste of an extremely humungous talent. I've always looked out for a gig for
him. I said will you do this track for me? I can't think of anyone else that
(a), could do it and (b) would like to do it. Mike Scott was in the studio, so
we went down to Maison Rouge and left the doors open when we were working on it,
and it only took him 4 hours. It's stunning, he'd never really played it, I gave
him the music, sent him the album. Anyway, since that day he's worked with Mike
Scott of the Waterboys, ever since that day! He just had to know "who's that
guy?", we gave him his number and everything.
I'm so happy that Rich is doing music now, you know, he's just given up his
job, he's just got to work his notice off this library. It's astonishing that
people like that are out there - they do exist you know. I would say almost half
of the audience you get are probably much better musicians than the band they're
watching. But there again we go back to the idea of feel and understanding
vibes, not just being a player, that's easy you know, you can't learn how to
feel something.
Maybe someone else could have produced "Faith?"? Well it depends - the word get
misconstrued. I guess my impression of the word "Producer" is someone who sees
how some thing should feel or should be I mean they don't necessarily record it
or mix it but they say it should be painted red or they say it should be painted
blue and red. They're not there to twiddle knobs or stuff like that but my
friend Cenzo Townshend who helped The Stranglers with Written In Red, he's
someone I trust implicitly as an engineer. If I say something to him I'd expect
him to be able to produce it in seconds, I'd love to record it with him in mind,
with him involved, but he also said to me he really likes the stuff that I've
done, he says that I've got to be the producer, so what he's saying is "you
should be in control of this project because you know exactly how the sound is"
- obviously I'd like him to do it, but now I've got the band together I'd like
to record it with the band. I also wanna do a live version of it at some point.
There are people I'd love to be involved. I mean its difficult, but first and
foremost I'd like to do it with (a), myself, (b), Cenzo, maybe with someone like
Alan Mulder involved, but they'd have to be in certain capacities you know. I'd
like all the instrumentation as it is now, but I'd like someone to develop the
power of, say the guitar, the bass and the drums, someone else to maybe take the
loops and make them even better, just people to make it even better, people like
Terry Hall who are great understanders emotional songs. Terry`s a great guy I
think, and a fantastic British writer and Cenzo has got a really great idea of
the technology out there.
As for playing it live, the only restrictions I've tried to put on the band is
that they have a great feel and hopefully I've got the right musicians to have
that. I'm gonna be using sequencers with it. I want it to sound like the songs
but I don't particularly want it to sound like the album because I'm sick and
tired of bands that sound like they're playing from a CD player. It's just not
worth it, you might as well just turn up the CD player and get pissed you know!
I just want it to be in your face. As long as it's in your face and everyone
likes it I couldn't care less really, I mean for me a live gig isn't about
producing the perfect sound its about having an edge.
I'd like to do "Faith?" acoustically, too, I mean I'm a bit pissed off we
didn't get The Damned thing together actually cos it was looking really good
with me and Richard - it was working so well it would have been such a great
tour to do like that. I still want to do it, that's why I'm going out, I'm going
to attempt to do it somehow if I can, see if we can get some small venues, me
and Richard, around 100...150 or whatever. Just do it in bars and see what we
can get out of it. I was planning to do a lot of Mk 11 stuff on that, and I
already worked out all the guitar parts, if there is an instrument other than
the drum percussion that I do play reasonably well its the acoustic guitar. We
still wanna do it, Richard wants to do it, I wanna do it. I just think I'd like
to cos I know exactly how I'd like my songs to be heard, and that is what I'd
like to have done really, made them into beautiful pieces and it would have been
worth it to record an album with them like that.
I'd like to do this acoustic thing, so if I can get a show in Brighton, a show
in Bournemouth, a show in Plymouth, I'll do the south coast you know, with
Richard, just do acoustic stuff...I ain't gonna do it for nothing, you know, I'm
not gonna do it to cost me money at the end of the day, I think that's silly,
cos I need to pay Richard, I don't need to earn money…. well yes we all need to
earn money, but what I'm saying is I'm not doing it for the money, but if I'm
bringing Richard with me I've got to. This is why I gonna go out and buy a p.a.
and I'm just gonna do it, stick it in the car and go, "right lets fucking do
it". It's a different angle, we'd do half and half, we'd be out an hour with a
little break in between, instrumental, a bit of piano playing or something -
"Richard's gonna play you Bach's unfinished symphony, I'm going to the bar!!" so
it would be interesting, cos that's what I'd like to do, and I know a lot of the
fans would love it, would love to do that. They'd love to sit there and go "can
we have .."and I'd give it a go and then you go "no its not working we'll do
what we were gonna do". It's all valuable stuff. its good for you as a musician,
good for the punters cos they get something different - it was like the
convention we did up at Kings Cross, it really worked well.
As for the future, people say "the next album's gonna be more powerful".
Ideally I'd like to do it as a web album, but I don't think that's going to
currently pay my wages, so I'm gonna try and get a deal on it, I mean, I've got
a sniff from Germany, quite a heavy, heavy sniff, and if that comes off I'll get
some money off them. I'll still write it at home, I'll prepare anything I can
and as much as I can in my home studio then I'll take it into the studio and
we'll do it like that - if they wanna pay for me to re-mix or re-record the last
album the band will just go and do it. But I've already got half of it ready and
its just, it will be a bit more powerful really but I think power is
misunderstood, most people basically think power is big drums, big guitars, its
not like that, power can be one word - love is a powerful word, hate is a
powerful word, it don't need to be loud or played on the drums to be... How do
you play love - oh fuck it BOFF!! so yeah it'll be a bit different, a bit
spikier I reckon, not so smooth. Its waiting on my hard drive to be recorded,
I've just gotta find time to do it now. But if I can chase up this album with
the Germans or whoever is interested at the moment, I've gotta follow that
through, that'll be delaying the next album, but I want to do an album a year,
that's what I want to do. If I had a budget, I might get a producer in - I know
what I want, I need a very good engineer, I don't know, it really depends, if I
had a good budget I'd probably get the band to do it almost definitely. There
are parts of it I'd do myself though, I might write them again, listen to that,
tell me how you feel... That's so important to me that the feel is right. You
might get your fingers stuck between the strings of the guitar, but that creates
something, that's how I came up with one of my loops, it was an accident, these
things happen all the time and you cant create that when you go "play" and
everyone plays perfectly, you'll get a good groove but there are other things
that will happen that are so fantastic, you can't write these things you know.
I'd like to think that I could use the band to be honest - that I could record
Brad playing the bass parts instead of putting them on the keyboard - you know
the lucky thing with me is even though I've got machines working on stuff, they
don't really sound like machines. I think there are nuances you can add, get
some vibe in it, people don't even think about that and its done. I think you've
got to focus much closer and I always considered myself a very good drum
programmer - I never say I'm very good at things, but, yes, I think I'm a good
programmer of drums so you don't really know its not a drummer, there's no way
in New Mourning Town or even Free you'd think that was a machine, particularly,
because its got so much in there, nuances, always changing, just when you think
it's a machine you go "mmm, I'm not sure!"
Frank Zappa, he is the god of the 20th century . I might even do a Zappa cover,
you never know do you! Like "Titties and Beer", or something that would go down
quite well with Stranglers fans..!! the great thing I like about Robbie Williams
is, essentially, he is like me, his performance is the same as mine, he sings
well, he performs like a rock n roll performer, throws himself about with the
audience, whether you like it or not that is for me, what it's all about,
getting hot and sweaty. Maybe someone smacking you one or getting, losing your
clothes or something, you know what I mean? Its pathetic really. There's no way
that I'm ever gonna be like Hugh Cornwell, I'm not clever enough, you know, I'm
not academically clever enough, you know what I mean, Hugh is a very clever guy
academically.
I like to think that intelligence is a different word to clever, that
represents an understanding of people of the world, an awareness, and I have to
think that if I've got anything, certainly as an academic, it's probably
intelligence, so yeah I like that kind of performer - its the worst thing in the
world to go to a gig and expecting to pay someone to stand there and look at
their boots and think they're great. Yes you should think they're great, they
shouldn't think they're great, they should be working their tits off to
entertain you. I'm sorry if that sounds like entertainment but that's what we're
all in.
It's easier to write a ballad than a fast or up-tempo song. if your writing
fast songs they've gotta be good. They're easy to sing really, ballads are more
testing for a singer, a bit more subtle, but it is harder to write an up-tempo
song because they don't just... you can write loads of things that are fast but
they might come out crap....and they have!!
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