WUSB 90.1 FM Program Guide
Spring, 1987
Robyn Hitchcock
Proving He Hasn't Roots On His Feet
Interview by Nick & Bill Capozzi
First thing I do have to ask you is about your distribution. I don't know how much you can elaborate on, as far as Relativity and getting the stuff to The States. Now the obvious LP here is Fegmania!, and I Often Dream of Trains, and Black Snake Diamond Role (and things like that). But there seems to be a problem -- like after these things are on the shelf they disappear for months.
You mean the shops don't reorder?
Right.
Well, so far the only ones that have been officially released in The States are Fegmania! and Gotta Let This Hen Out!. All the others are imports. They may have trouble buying imports -- which is grievious to us 'cause it means we would be making much more money than we are. Otherwise, what is happening is that Relativity has distribution rights for three years for the other solo albums, and eventually for the early Soft Boys albums.
It's just sort of frustrating. So, I hear Roger Jackson is not joining you on this tour.
No, he's not on this tour.
Is he still an "Egyptian"?
I don't know, really. It just seemed like a good idea -- at the time -- to do it as a three-piece. It was by chance, actually. He couldn't make it for some reason, so we did it as a three-piece. And it worked so well that we thought we'd carry on.
There was one thing: you were quoted in Creem magazine a while ago; it says you were not keen on having a huge profile. In the same article you said you were not interested in dead-posterity. How does one balance out wanting to be a success but not wanting to be having tomatoes thrown at you on stage?
Well, what I meant by that was that it doesn't do you any good. If you become posthumously successful, it doesn't make any difference. It might be nice for other people, but it isn't any use for you. And as regards to not having a big profile, what I said was that I wasn't interested in being jammed down people's throats. You know how much things are operated by corporations, big business and all that. And they want to get behind something, and that means all the cutouts in the stores and millions and millions of people being brought in for press interview setups and lots and lots of people just churning away to get all this stuff done. With the result...it'll turn out the more people there are working, the more have got to be paid. So the stakes are higher. Pepsi Cola thinks by giving fifteen million to Michael Jackson they're going to make another twenty million to pay for all their holidays and credit cards (and things like that) selling Pepsi Cola to people who may not be able to afford it (or who could care less whether they buy it or not). But somewhere along the line someone's going to buy a can of Pepsi because Michael Jackson's endorsing it. Michael Jackson doesn't need that fifteen million. I mean, I'm not a communist. But the whole thing behind commercials and advertising seems to me to be that you're basically endorsing something you don't believe in for people who don't need them.
You get an awful lot of that over here. You get it in England too. It's not just a little thing of them saying "Cadbury's Chocolate". It's actually saying, "Oh boy! I was an incomplete person until I had a bar of chocolate!" Basically, people are lying on a big scale. They're telling an untruth. And The East can point their dismal finger and say, "Oh you capitalists!" But I'm sure they'd do it if they could afford it. It's very strange if you go into the Eastern Bloc because there aren't any commercials and posters. It looks nice in The West because you have lots of flags and the rest of that stuff. It looks like a good place.
So you don't foresee major Robyn Hitchcock videos on MTV every twenty minutes, followed right after by "The Robyn Hitchcock Weekend" (or anything like that)?
Well, having said that, they're putting "Raymond Chandler Evening" into some sort of a road session -- which is good, but only cost us £200. Trouble is that everybody is ultimately seduced by money. Someone said, "Look, you never have to work again if you don't go around saying these things." Maybe they'll say, "If you do go around and say these things you'll never work again!" Anyway, all I want to do is make a living. As I've said, I don't need to make two livings, only one.
You realize though -- not to grease you or anything like that, but you really do have quite an incredible talent and a way with hooks that is just amazing. It's very fluid and sounds great. And there's a possibility that people will listen to this and they'll say, "Hey, this is great! Where can I get this?" if it was "jammed down their throats".
Well, if it's made available to people, that's great. It's just the law of something; as soon as something's big it has -- I mean it's something that no one knows anything about, and it's not going to be advertised. There's something that everybody knows about and it's going to be advertised all over the place. It's ludicrous. Michael Jackson and Madonna and Prince don't need advertising. They're going to sell anyway. But those are the ones with the big campaigns. They probably start their marketing campaign before they even start making their records -- before they've even written a song! And you can say that someone like me could do with a few billboards and a few of the old cardboard cutouts. That would be nice. But it doesn't work out like that, does it? And I'm not going to have that until I'm in a position where I don't need it!
So you're happy?
No, I'm never happy. I'm just nervous. I don't like to be that heavily focused on. I remember reading this story -- and it's a fictional story supposedly -- about an umpire in a game of football in Argentina (and he's an unpopular guy). The entire audience is sitting there with mirrors, and it's a hot day. And suddenly, on a given signal, the umpire blows a whistle to send one of the favorite players off. Every person in the stadium -- twenty thousand -- they all turn their mirrors on the umpire and he just shrivels up. That's my kind of paranoia!
You handle it well. What's good is that it doesn't come out in your music. By the way, I know many females were very happy to see your toes on the new album cover.
It's to prove I haven't got roots on my feet.
Oh, I have to ask you about the paintings. They are phenomenal. They're really excellent. They're almost as good as the music, maybe (if not better).
It was originally better than the music. It's probably about the same now.
Is there any possibility of perhaps coming out with a soft-cover edition of your work?
Well, what's happening is that there's a fan club starting up, called "Fegmaniax". We are using that. I mean, my motive for it is really that I can use that to sell the stuff like T-shirts and post cards (and things like that). And we're gonna use shots of The Soft Boys that we're going to have out -- Soft Boys lyrics, and lots of old shots that were never shown. But of course, Soft Boys never ever did anything at all, except drink a lot of tea (and at night they'd drink beer). Nothing happened to Soft Boys. They never got in any fights. They never got delayed. Nothing happened to them. They just sat there and played their guitar sometimes.
Kimberly's doing well with Katrina And The Waves.
Yeah, Andy saw Kimberley. I think he's doing okay. I haven't seen Kimberley for a while. I saw him at a Bangles gig in London.
The Bangles. Oh my!
Well, they came up and they did "Going Down to Liverpool". And I looked at Kimberley's expression, and it hadn't changed. I thought, "If I was him I'd be clocking up all the money." One thing I'd like to do...if I can find The Bangles in the West Coast, I'm going to sell them a song. I'll try to write one for them before I get down there because I noticed they do better with covers. I met them once in Germany, and I figure my credit's good enough to at least get them to listen to it.
They're nice California girls.
Well, if you see them tell them I'd love to sell them something. Don't tell them what it is.
Ultimately what I'm working towards is the idea of an art exhibition. It's going to be a long time, but what I'm going to try to do is set myself in a position where I could have some sort of an exhibition in New York -- in maybe a couple of years. I'd be doing it really because music's only one sound. Music's the kind of sound I was obsessed with when I was a kid, but, I drew all the time. So now that I'm a bit older I'd really like to be able to leave music. You know, all this is happening late. I should have been touring five, maybe ten years ago.
Well, we have to let you go. Thank you, Robyn, for your time.
Thank you.
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