Dream Magazine Interview:

Did you start your creative career as a painter/printmaker or as a musician/ sound manipulator?

I started out as a visual artist although sound had always interested me..Visual art was my first means of expression and only during my second year at Art College did I seriously think about using sound as an alternative. I regard myself as primarily a visual artist and it has taken a long time to regard myself as a musician in anything like the conventional sense.

I am deliberately self taught in everything to do with music as my love of visual art was seriously damaged with my experiences of negative teaching methods and negative teachers at art school.

In retrospect I think this was as much my fault as it was a symptom of the times...

Anyway I am glad I got this push towards music because the majority of my time is spent producing work in this medium and It is one I never tire of.

I've heard you consciously avoid listening to contemporary music, how long have you done this, and isn't it a bit difficult? (it seems that it's piped in everywhere)

Well I'm not so sure that's true anymore... My young children take up so much of my time that I really don't have any spare time to speak of... The minute I'm allowed to, I'm off to play with my boxes and make some music..so I hardly ever have time to listen to any...I do however get to watch Top of the pops 2 , one of my children's favourite programmes....Also CDUK with Ant And Dec (those lovable Geordie rascals).....Anyone outside of England has probably lost the plot by now...TOTP2 includes contemporary hits with hits of yesteryear and like any mid-forty-ish person the ones from way back sound much better than the Boy Band/Girl Band drivel that is around today.....I think my kids think so too...but there really is a lot of rubbish as well as good stuff from any given time....

Was your work with :zoviet*france: your first released recordings? Can you tell a bit about who and what :zoviet*france: was?

Yes those were the first released recordings, although I had done work with other people that was eventually released in one form or another...Most of my work was done with a friend who I was at art college with......Abstract, avant-garde type stuff ...maybe a little better than typical art school...Other work was with more traditional band line ups...Drums ,guitars...singers...(although strange to say the least.)...One guy is still a friend.. Tim Jones..He still releases many records under various names ...a real eccentric...and very nice and genuine.

When I joined :zoviet*france: it consisted of a couple of guys (Peter Jensen and someone else.....It was an aimless affair, the remnants of a very bad punk band, the kind of punk band that was the result of mildly disaffected, very middle class, Twee-nage revolution.

They didn't know what they wanted to do, but they knew it wasn't punk as that particular genre was on the way out...I liked Peter Jensen from the off and liked him even more when, after lending him some Can records , he came back a week later and could play all of Jacki Liebzeits licks....He was and still is an astonishing musician..While on the subject of members of :zoviet*france: I think it is well pastime that some former members of :z*f: got credited :zoviet*france: has had quite a few members over the years....Peter Jensen I have already mentioned...After Peter left there was Paolo di Paolo......a visual artist ..responsible for the design and concept of the Clay Box...later known as Popular Zoviet Songs After Paolo left there was Mark Spybey, who went on to form Dead Voices On Air..After Mark there was Andrew Eardley....responsible for the offshoot band Horizon 222

Here's one more anecdote about :z*f:... I knew Paolo di Paolo as a visual artist and we both used the same print workshop...at the time I worked there every day so I saw a lot of Paolo. One day he came in and said Hey guess what, I joined this fantastic band last night. They are brilliant, have you heard of them, :zoviet*france:? I should have left then......shouldn't I?

Who was responsible for the remarkable packaging of the :zoviet*france: releases? Could you describe some of the assemblages you used for record covers?

Well I have already mentioned who was responsible foot the clay box.. probably the most adventurous packaging....In case you missed it...it was PAOLO di PAOLO..!! the rest of the packaging had various inventors and contributors...

The first...The Hessian record...was mainly the idea of LISA HALE....Almost all the packaging ideas came about through the print workshop that existed at the time.. I was a member ..Lisa was a member , Paolo was a member...it was the ability to produce small runs of hand made sleeves in a workshop that made the :z*f: packaging a possibility....All three of us were printmakers in a variety of mediums and most of the ideas came through trying to stretch the possibilities of these mediums...

They were very labour intensive....everyone thought we were nuts...Maybe we were...

I heard you spent an extended period of time withdrawn from communicating with the outside world, what were the circumstances of this period of time, and how was it accomplished? (I have done similar things)

Well I have always been a bit of a loner...I grew up on the Solway plains in Cumbria...a desolate beautiful place. I spent many ,many hours just out walking and day dreaming.

When I was at Art School in Sunderland I became very depressed...the whole thing just seemed so futile, ( I was clinically depressed but didn't know it...) eventually I just gave up trying to talk to people...I'm afraid today I thought almost everyone was a bit stupid and shallow....( I have lightened up a lot now... thank god..) I lived in a very strange place in Gateshead... on a street that had been due for demolition for the previous fifteen years, consequently the rent was a joke .. I paid for a year at a time.

There was only a few people left on the street as everyone was being re-housed, eventually. I lived there for five years...There was no bathroom, just a cold water tap and outside netty. The water froze in the winter. I had a tin bath and a coal fire place. It was easy to be a recluse was almost invisible I drifted around like a ghost I was completely batty.

I'm near your age, what are the best aspects of being in your mid 40's?

The best aspects of being this age are a sort of belligerent freedom that has-been held in check for a lifetime........

I guess you just sort of give up trying to impress people and have a kind of take it or leave it attitude. I doesn't mean you don't care, just that you don't care so much about what others think of you.

I feel OK about myself now .

I feel dreadfully sorry for those that fret and worry about things too much........

My son gives himself a hard time and I wish I could tell him to give himself a break....but you can't...I wasted a lot of time in my life, now I just want to work....

Do you believe in ghosts? If so could you relate an experience?

I have seen ghosts throughout my life .... for as long as I can remember.....

I lived in a village for all my childhood ....There was a witch ...My grandfather was, amongst other things, the person that buried the dead in the local graveyard...

Superstition was commonplace...

He only buried them after dark and had runic drawings around doors and windows of his house. To stop the souls coming back ...I regularly saw the people who he had buried wandering about the village days after...

The village witch said to my mum that I had the gift... it was a blessing and a curse She really had white hair as well ... but a kind face....she was a recluse as well ... rarely seen outside .My mum took me to see her when I was about five .... I had probably said I had seen some dead person again and she wanted to know if I was a crackpot...

My grandfather believed me...

I think the hold we have on this reality is much more tenuous than we would like to think ..

I am pretty sure I have had visits from creatures of another dimension swell as seeing ghosts of the dead and finding myself suddenly not quite here.....ley lines , stone circles , magic places all have a big effect on me....

I probably am a complete crackpot.

Interview by George Parsons, September 2000 (c)

Dream Magazine (Issue #1)