{"id":512,"date":"2011-05-12T05:24:36","date_gmt":"2011-05-12T10:24:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=512"},"modified":"2015-12-16T14:06:48","modified_gmt":"2015-12-16T14:06:48","slug":"martin-newell-interview-part-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/05\/12\/martin-newell-interview-part-three\/","title":{"rendered":"Martin Newell interview, part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from part two<\/a>\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Bill Kopp:<\/span><\/strong> The Cleaners From Venus enjoyed \u2013 or endured — a brush with the big time in the <\/span>UK<\/span> around the release of \u2018Ilya Kuryakin Looked at Me,\u2019 didn\u2019t they?<\/span><\/p>\n

Martin Newell:<\/strong> Yes. But I didn\u2019t always like the show biz stuff. And I didn\u2019t like some of the people who were around it. And I didn\u2019t like the way people suddenly appeared; people you\u2019ve never met before who seemed to know all about you. They\u2019d be very schmoozy, and I didn\u2019t trust them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In fact there\u2019s a huge chunk of show biz in me. But in the eighties I got a sort of reputation as being like a Syd Barrett<\/strong>. I had broke up the band, and people were saying, \u201cHe\u2019s gone \u2018Brian Wilson<\/strong>.\u2019 He doesn\u2019t want to go out on tour.\u201d\u00a0 The thing is, I\u2019ll do gigging. But touring isn\u2019t, I don\u2019t think, a very healthy environment. And the other thing is drugs. You see, I did loads of drugs between the ages of seventeen and twenty. And then I stopped! And apart from a couple of temporary aberrations, I never went back to it. And the result of that is that I\u2019m enthusiastic, healthy, and very interested in what I\u2019m doing most of the time.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m fond of a drink. And I\u2019m also fond of wearing tight black trousers, so that rules out drinking too much beer these days. But I want to hold onto my marbles; I think I still have most of them. I\u2019ve gotten tweedier; I\u2019ve gotten interested in books, history, things like that. And I think that\u2019s as it should be. It would be really sad if I were prancing around in leather trousers with my foot up on the monitor.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> I know what you mean. I\u2019ve recently started listening to jazz.<\/span><\/p>\n

Martin:<\/strong> I love jazz. Stan Getz<\/strong>, bits and pieces of Miles Davis<\/strong>, things like that. I don\u2019t like jazz when it sounds like people torturing small animals and banging sticks together. Oddly enough, the kind of jazz I like is almost lift [elevator] music. I\u2019ve got a huge soft spot for \u201cloungecore.\u201d And I could put up with some Carpenters<\/strong> in my collection now; Carpenters were fucking great<\/em>.<\/p>\n

At the height of Deep Purple<\/strong>\u2019s fame, Ritchie Blackmore<\/strong> was asked, \u201cWhat do you listen to after a Deep Purple gig, Ritchie?\u201d And he said, \u201cThe Carpenters.\u201d<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> You know what he\u2019s up to these days, don\u2019t you? <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Martin:<\/strong> Well, according to someone he was in a band with before Deep Purple — a guy called Chas Hodges<\/strong> \u2013 Ritchie spends a lot of his time in Central Park walking around in a tall hat being medieval or something\u2026<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> He plays renaissance fair-type music with his Missus. But with the odd bit of Stratocaster. Of course that comes as a bit of a shock if you\u2019ve just been listening to \u201cHighway Star.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Martin:<\/strong> When I was working on Chas\u2019s story [for BBC\u2019s Inside Out<\/em> series — ed], and trying to research very early English bands, I interviewed people who I regarded as salient in the birth of British rock\u2019n\u2019roll. And of all of them, Blackmore was the one who was most difficult to interview. I had to go through a number of record companies; it was almost like, \u201cOh, you want an interview with the king, do you?\u201d Finally someone in America put me in touch with him in New York, and he eventually answered a few of my questions by email! I mean, he could\u2019ve just made a phone call and told me what I wanted. I didn\u2019t want to know about Deep Purple or any of that rock-god shit; I wanted to know about the birth of English rock\u2019n\u2019roll in a period which I call \u201csomewhere between half-past-Elvis<\/strong> and quarter-to-the-Beatles.\u201d 1961-62; he was there.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> He was a session guy; he was on all kinds of stuff.<\/span><\/p>\n

Martin:<\/strong> He was a very good one.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> There\u2019s a proud tradition of British session guys. John Paul Jones<\/strong>\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Martin:<\/strong> He played on Lulu<\/strong> records, Donovan<\/strong> records\u2026and Jimmy Page<\/strong> as well. I hold Jimmy Page in particularly high regard. I\u2019ve never met him or anything. With that generation of rock musicians, unless you got really, really famous, you didn\u2019t meet them. The people who are the pioneers of the sixties, I mostly haven\u2019t met them. But during the Cleaners From Venus I had Dick Taylor<\/strong> from The Pretty Things<\/strong> ask me to write some songs for them, But then Phil May<\/strong> came back from wherever he was, and he said, \u201cNo, no, he\u2019s not writing any songs for this band.\u201d<\/p>\n

The songwriters that I adore — everyone from Irving Berlin<\/strong> to Carole King<\/strong> \u2013 if they write a good song, they\u2019re up there with the gods.<\/p>\n

Bill, you\u2019ve<\/em> got quite an impressive CV; I\u2019ve looked you up. You\u2019ve gotten some very difficult interviews.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> Besides the Chas Hodges feature, you\u2019ve done some music journalism work yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n

Martin:<\/strong> I don\u2019t often interview people myself, but a very very good music mag here asked me if I would interview Rod Stewart<\/strong>. I said, \u201cI can\u2019t.\u201d They said, \u201cBut you write for The Independent<\/em>.\u201d I said, \u201cAnd you\u2019re Record Collector<\/em>. I can\u2019t tell him I\u2019m doing an interview for them when you\u2019ve asked me to do it. It would be very difficult.\u201d But they gave me a number and said, \u201cWell, just try.\u201d<\/p>\n

So I rang up this number, and the guy who answered said \u201cHe\u2019s only in the country a short time, and he\u2019s not doing any interviews.\u201d So I said, \u201cBut I have a really new angle.\u201d He said, \u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d I said, \u201cWell, you know how everybody talks to him about his cars and his wives and his money and football and all the rest of it? Well, I would like to just interview him about his music.\u201d And the guy said, \u201cYou\u2019re right; that is<\/em> a good angle.\u201d<\/p>\n

A week later the phone rings. And I\u2019ve just got in from the early evening drinking. The guy on the phone says, \u201cIt\u2019s Rod.\u201d Rod who? \u201cRod Stewart.\u201d And I\u2019m thinking, \u201cFucking hell!\u201d I asked him everything I ever wanted to ask him, and typed up the whole interview in a day and a half. It was three thousand words; I cut it down to two thousand. And after that they thought I walked on fucking water.<\/p>\n

I interviewed Mick Fleetwood<\/strong> too, but he wasn\u2019t nearly as interesting. Because he couldn\u2019t remember as much stuff. Rod Stewart has the memory of an elephant. And he\u2019s a nice man as well.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> So are the Cleaners back to stay, was this a one-off (two-off, really) or haven’t you decided yet?<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Martin:<\/strong> I\u2019m recording at the moment. I\u2019m making the follow-up to English Electric<\/em>. It sounds like English Electric<\/em>, only a bit different because I\u2019m writing different songs. But it\u2019s like boys\u2019 day out in the shed: you don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen. It\u2019s like you don\u2019t know how your kids are going to turn out. You can make all your plans, but they turn out the way that they turn out. And my songs are like that.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> So, any idea when the next Cleaners album will be out?<\/span><\/p>\n

Martin:<\/strong> Well, Dave who works with me, teaches Tai Chi. I call him Tai Chi Dave. He helps me record, and I like one of his songs so much it\u2019s actually going on an album. I play in a three-piece band with him [Hurricane <\/strong>— ed.] that mostly does very old Bob<\/strong> Dylan<\/strong> stuff. And I used to hate<\/em> Dylan. But I\u2019ve really got to like it very much now. So I play bass for them and just do some backing vocals. And we play country pubs where nobody throws anything.<\/p>\n

Anyway, we\u2019ve already got four tracks. Once we get about sixteen or twenty, we\u2019ll just pick the best of those, print it off and say, \u201cThat\u2019s an album.\u201d We\u2019re not sure about a title for it yet. My significant other came up with a title last night. There\u2019s an area in England called the Lake District; when she was a kid \u2013 about six or so — she called it the \u201cLate District.\u201d So I think that would be a really good title for an album. But it doesn\u2019t matter what it\u2019s called; I just want to carry on doing more of the same. So working whenever Dave can record me, we\u2019ll finish another album. We\u2019ll finish about June \u2013 or maybe earlier \u2013 and then we\u2019ll put it online, see if Ray [Gianchetti of Kool Kat Muzik] is interested in it, and just see what happens.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> Any plans to tour?<\/span><\/p>\n

Martin:<\/strong> I haven\u2019t ruled out going to America, but I\u2019d probably have to sail there. I don\u2019t want to go to an airport, standing there at four in the morning with your shoes in one hand and your belt in the other while someone x-rays your aftershave. It\u2019s so stupid<\/em>; if they\u2019re gonna kill you, they\u2019re gonna kill you. Why not just get on the plane?<\/p>\n

[Coming tomorrow, a bonus: Martin Newell discusses Captain Sensible<\/strong>‘s The Universe of Geoffrey Brown<\/em> album. — ed.]<\/p>\n

English Electric<\/span><\/em> and The Stopping Train<\/em> are available from Kool Kat Muzik<\/a>. Keep up with Newell at www.martinnewell.co.uk<\/span><\/cite><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Follow \u201cthe_musoscribe\u201d on \"\" Twitter<\/a> and get notified
\nwhen new features, reviews and essays are published.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from part two\u2026 Bill Kopp: The Cleaners From Venus enjoyed \u2013 or endured — a brush with the big time in the UK around the release of \u2018Ilya Kuryakin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1417],"class_list":["post-512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interview","tag-martin-newell","cat-41-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9932,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512\/revisions\/9932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}