Austin Citysearch
March, 1998
Robyn Hitchcock
by Rebecca Gonzales
"Hu-lloh. Is this an interview? Okay. Is there any chance you can call me back in five minutes? I just have to finish shaving."
So began my conversation with Robyn Hitchcock, who had agreed to a phone interview from his London home.
Neo-pyschedelian Hitchcock was born in London in 1953; he got his first guitar at the age of 14. Hitchcock began writing songs the year Apollo 11 landed on the moon; his career has been in orbit ever since. He formed The Soft Boys in 1976. Then in 1984, four years after The Soft Boys' breakup, Hitchcock gathered The Egyptians around him to record the hallucinatory masterwork Fegmania!.
The Egyptians disbanded in 1994, but two years ago, director Jonathan Demme (Married To The Mob, Silence of the Lambs) tapped Hitchcock for his next performance documentary, following Swimming To Cambodia with Spalding Gray and Stop Making Sense with the Talking Heads.
How did Storefront Hitchcock come about?
Jonathan Demme materialized through the floor one evening after a gig. The floorboards melted -- they parted when Jonathan came up through a trap door in the dressing room. He handed me his card. It said "J. Demme, Filmmaker", and he said, "Do you want to make a film?" I nodded. I was speechless. He kind of winked at me and then disappeared back down into the floorboards. My girlfriend and I went over to look, and the floorboards had mysteriously sealed up.
Demme was the mastermind behind Silence Of The Lambs as well as Stop Making Sense with the Talking Heads. What do you think made him choose you next?
I think he had heard one of my records many years ago, and it had gone into his DNA at a formative age. Not as a kid, mind you. But maybe I reminded him of some event from his past. I also think he enjoyed the show. He likes taping live performances. All the vocals, all the music is live. There is no miming [lip synching], which I especially like. It was very organic. I think he likes organic music.
The film is really a taping of a performance in a storefront in New York. What material did you perform? Was it strictly material from the new album Moss Elixir, or did you throw in some older stuff?
It was a mixture. It was some stuff that was written for the project, and some stuff from Moss Elixir, which was the show that I was doing with Deni Bonet on violin when Jonathan Demme came by. Deni is actually only on a couple of songs in the movie, but she is actually on four or five in the storefront show itself.
The film was shot in 1996. What took it so long to come together?
When you see the movie, there is a reference to a large fish absorbing smaller fish. I think I described it in terms of ritual fellatio, which is quite common in tribal cultures as a way that men deal with each other. Anyway, what happened is this was paid for by Orion and Orion was swallowed by MGM -- ritually or not, we will never know. And so it now finds itself in the bowels of MGM, and MGM is in the process of looking at what it got when it bought Orion. So basically it's the corporate reason.
Are you planning on making the jump to be a big star now?
I don't see Hollywood beating a path to my door, but I am doing more film music. I would certainly be interested in doing more of that, especially with independent film. But, you know, I am not desperate to get a big part in Speed 3.
What do you plan to do in your set for the SXSW music festival? Will the violinist Deni Bonet be with you?
Deni is going to be there anyway, and I think Tim Keegan [Homer Lounge] will be there. Tim is on one song off the Storefront soundtrack. There is never enough time. If I did one song from every album I have put out, it would still be too long. Ideally, there will be a sprinkling of old favorites and new material.
The soundtrack of the film should be released soon after the film comes out. What plans do you have after that?
If all that comes out in the autumn, which it should, then hopefully next spring I will have a new studio album out called Jewels For Sophia, which I have actually started recording. And I am finishing a novel.
So we have music, film, and books. Any medium you don't plan to try your hand at?
Sport. You won't see me try that. Eventually, I'd like to have some kind of exhibition of my pictures.
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