Transcription
Big trend toward shops in London recently selling art, you know, especially people who make editions of things—that there be little, little bit, just like a little supermarket of art. There's been three or four over the last two or three years; they've done really very well. A new, really new approach to, sort of obviously, Schopenhauer-onic kind of stance behind it, but it's kind of interesting that people are starting to see it doesn't have to be this place called a gallery that you go to to get art, you know. Wouldn't it be cool if you could buy your sprouts and a Jeff Koons in the same place? Which may not be too far away, by his prices, and I'll give two it's—wanted to start out asking about the whole sort of, you know, glam rock, gender-bending—you know, what do you think with some of the sort of sources of that, and you perhaps could describe the reaction that you got at that time?
I think, for me, it was very simply a question of automatically falling into areas that I had not experienced and were virtually kind of taboo areas for the majority of the society in that particular time. And I think I found the gay world really attractive, and as much as people were totally into unknown things in London, like soul music. There wasn't any other club playing soul music in 1969-1970, part from gay clubs. The music was always so much better; everybody looked great; there was a sense of festivity because it was still virtually—it was still virtually a clandestine underground world, a community that really hadn't come out. I mean, today, so completely different. Well, from when I was a young male. Yes, Brian, I really said that, and I think there was a feeling of excitement and titillation about the whole idea of moving in areas which were forbidden to the rest of society. And like any young person, I think I was really inclined to experiment sexually and philosophically. I mean, I was a Buddhist on Tuesday, and I was into Nietzsche by Friday, you know. I think most of my life is being like that. Room and I think it was this declaration of interest in things other than those contained by the regular parameters of such society is always interested me, kind of. I know supermarket, and I know Cliff Richard, and I know my mother, what's new when elsif he dad, you know. It was that sort of thing, so it was sort of an endless search to expand. I don't know what I thought I was expanding, but I guess I just wanted to experience everything. I think I was aesthetically promiscuous.
There's a sense of the kind of outrage that it generated, you know. There was even, as you know, people think of the 60s as, you know, that's great, for—I even put the red hair on—hahaha—absolute in perspective. Well, the sense that, you know, that they're, you know, even as people think of the 60s, it was this great ton of liberation, there seem to be this incredible sort of sense of earnestness about it that you—you just exploded, yeah. And the kind of introducing elements of artifice and theatricality just drove people crazy, you know. Because you could talk a little bit about, you know, some of what, you know, that—that response. Increasingly becomes difficult for me to remember back to what exactly were all the influences that went into the creation of that poor soul and his coterie. It had a lot to do with fascinations outside of rock-and-roll, yet again. The idea of things outside of whatever genre I was in, or my lifestyle, of my society—it wasn't whatever I was close to was never enough. I wanted to know what the next thing was, after that, what's on the outside of all this. And in rock music, or in theater, the outside at that particular time, because it was still a very secretive kind of thing, was Kabuki theater in Japan. It was something we didn't really know anything about in the West, and I remember the colors and the presentation, the ritual—that it all seemed so magical and replaced. I think all the time those rituals have replaced my very, very strong spiritual leanings. I don't think I'm—I'm not a religious person, but I am a spiritual person, and I think not knowing what church to go to, because none of them made sense to me in any real way—my strivings to have some kind of spiritual base were really, really strong all my life. I've had a need for that, and I think I tried to amalgamate my own bedrock of spirituality—something I could pin a reason for life on—by going outside—looking at ritual. And so Kabuki came into it; drag came into it; Jack Kerouac's *On the Road* came into it. For some obscure reason, I remember seeing a film about high priests in Indonesia who were also in drag, and then found out that most high priests outside of the Judeo-Christian ethic adopt some kind of female attire, or so female, or at least—and Raja has kind of made—and that that was almost traditionally part of other cultures' religions, and I found that fascinating. So in my mind there was something of the high priest to the Ziggy character as well. I try to cram in every bloody piece of information that I had at my fingertips at that particular time to create this little religious base for myself. Probably that's what it was about, Hannah. Or in other words, I haven't got a clue.
You went also from, you know, inventor. I know, but I know what went into it, but I think that applies to any—any—any art form. I think most artists are a lot happier discussing the process of what they do rather than what the hell it means. Well, you know, you went—oh, I know—so many—I'm sorry, I got—I know so many painters who title their works after they've done them, which is a real giveaway. There's a—you went from sort of inventing these characters, obviously, so you start us a lot in saying, you know, and almost like transformed yourself, and then, you know, from these super-white figures, isn't it, then becoming kind of an R&B hero. You know, what was—what was about—what was that transformation about? What's particularly, you know, young Americans? It had an awful lot to do with not wanting to be—I felt that I wasn't wrapping myself—it was always very important to me, and it's always been something that I've had a real push-pull relationship with my life—is it the idea of being trapped and pinned down and categorized. I always felt would be like prison to me if I wanted to move and change as a writer and a performer—that if I got put into a pocket, if I got said, oh well, he's that, it would sort of really—it would rip my guts out as a writer—that it would, because my—my writing is based on the idea of transience. My writing is a very clear understanding—nothing in this world is a real reality; it's not something that you can hold on to; it can be something you can enjoy briefly, tentatively, for the moment that it's there—love, or a sunset, or whatever—but like a sunset, and unfortunately, in so many cases like that, it's a transitory thing. And I didn't want to get locked into being this one thing and not being able to flit like a butterfly from flower to flower, pollinating my intellect—something like that. Had an awful lot to do with not wanting to be pinned down, not wanting to be like a pinned butterfly or moth—probably my case. I think it came as a surprise to a lot of vegetable that I could—I can sit just briefly control my—what. Well, so—so rather than be pinned down, my—my momentum worked in wanting to hit and run very fast, and one side—one side—done something and said it the way I felt it should be said, drop it and move on. That was kind of my—that was my *mo*, really.
I think it came as a surprise to a lot of people to hear you draw on a lot of sort of, you know, sources and black music when you—when you're—when you did the *Young Americans* record. You know, you talk about some of the things that you were listening to and that interested you or that—that you're drawn to. Yeah, I think it would be extremely pompous for any rock artist to say that black music probably wasn't the mattress where all other forms of popular music spring from, and I—I indeed felt the effervescence of American black music was something that always—one of the few things that musically really cheered me up, and I was really caught up with the James Brown soul explosion in the clubs in the late sixties and early seventies. And even though I was working in a very sort of white area with Ziggy and his variation of rock, it never left me, and my interest in black music never dying. And once I got to being in America an awful lot, which happened around, I guess, the end of '73 into '74, I just—I just found that I was just more and more in black music areas. I was in Philadelphia a lot; we were recording in there a lot. My friends, when I came over firstly to America, were black or Hispanic, and I was going—the first place that I went to when I came to New York, places like the Cheetah and Leopard Club and the Apollo, which, for me, was kind of such a gas. It is so—it was so cool because I have a sort of this red-headed clown alien and most outrageous suits and generally one of the few white guys in the audience of the Apollo. And it was almost that it was my pastor being sort of allowed to be there, which was very presumptuous on my part, of course. I was very young, very nice, and everybody was so friendly, and I knew what I looked like, and I thought, on earth could they think was interesting about me? I'm sitting here watching The Spinners, and I'm going out of my mind because this is like—ah—I've only heard it on record, and they're kind of—I asked me where my suits were made. I thought, well, this is cool; this is reciprocal. Yeah, I dig this; this is great. And I such a great time.
Well, it almost seemed like there was a kind of, you know, when you started doing, you know, these very theatrical things, and then, you know, some—there's George Clinton doing what he was doing, and that there was, you know, a sense in which these cultures were feeding off each other in some way. Yeah, there was—he took each lane—checked—you also—George Clinton. Yeah, I was very flattered—more than flattered. Yeah, they did that. There was a period where there was a real sort of coming together between—I remember when I first saw Patti LaBelle's LaBelle, and I couldn't believe how influenced they'd been by glam rock. I mean, the first time they came out on stage, it was like, wow, this is unbelievable—an American black trio in glam rock; it was like—it was so bizarre, you know. I got incredibly nationalistic. Valentine. Yeah, I see English women. What about—temporarily forgetting New York Dolls—it's always wise to know when to edit—exactly. Um, what about collaborating with John Lennon? Yeah, how did that come about? Gee, you know, it's really hard to remember when I actually met John. It was a—must have been sort of somewhere in mid—mid '74-ish is my guess. I spent—there's a book that can tell me—but we kind of started knocking around with each other, and he had his eye—I think at the time—gave me—which I thought one of the better Lennon quotes, which I've said a number of times—but when I asked him when he thought what I was doing—glam rock, he said, yes, graded sir, but it's just rock and roll with lipstick on. And I was impressed, as I was at virtually everything he said. He was probably one of the brightest, quickest-witted, earnestly socialist men I've ever met—my life—socialist in true definition, not in a fabricated political sense, but at a real humanist and a really spiteful sense of humor, which, of course, being English, I adored. I just thought we'd be buddies forever and get on better and better and all that, you know, fantasy. I know—be—I know the Beatles—that I always liked—everybody had their favorite Beatle—I never really realized that—why did realize that—always knew that—but one wouldn't have declared it in the early seventies because that would have been most uncool to actually say that you actually like the Beatles in any way, shape, or form. But they made such a great impact on—they gave the British the illusion that they meant something again, you know. We love hearing that—oh boy, do we love hearing them.
A couple of things began rising at around the same time—this to say, disco and punk. Yeah, I'm curious to see what—would you know how you recall your reactions to those things? So what was your sense about that? Well, I guess I mean—I—I've made a detour all around that unwittingly because around '75, '76, having imbibed the more finer products of Swiss pharmaceutical company, I found that I really needed to sojourn in another country, in another time, another place for brief one, so I made off for Berlin virtually to sort of clean myself up—my lack, of course, in my typically—typically my character—I picked a heroin center of Europe, but it sort of didn't occur to me at the time. And what was happening in Britain didn't have quite the same thing in Germany because equally as strong in Germany at that time was the advent of electronic music in a major way. The Germans had found their forte, and it was called Kraftwerk, and Kraftwerk and that school—that approach to music was virtually all I was listening to that time and soul music, and the two, of course, came together. I remember Brian Eno running into my—haha—he's gonna hate me for this—running into my room with a single in his hand. He said, I've heard the future. I said, oh well, you better put it on then. And it was Giorgio Moroder's recording of Donna Summer, *I Feel Love*. Brian—oh, that was so funny. I said, are you serious? And he said, yes, listen—that Teutonic drumming, that black voice—this is fantastic. Has more of an aside than anything else, but I just—it was the one of the funniest things I've ever heard anybody say—I just heard the future. Um, as it happens, he was right, but Brian inevitably is—that's another story. I'm jumping ahead here, but the music from that late seventies period for me definitely are a landmark in—in what I've done—for me—there's something that I'm always either embarrassingly or exuberantly measure my new work by—exuberantly am—um. Yeah, we interviewed—or here in the robbery yesterday. Yeah, it was great talking about that and everything. I have a funny story about him. Oh, can you tell him? And also, just if you can mention something because he said he spent his whole career since trying to get that vocal grate down at the end. Well, I'll send—I'll send his record signed—hahaha—if he sends mine. See, you have a story—I can't use it—not just though—no—no—no—it's—no—I can't do that. There is one fun—funny story about—I wonder—Giorgio—I guys suppose you can sue me if this isn't true. I've got to tell it just because I think it's so sweet. A friend of mine who knew Giorgio very well worked on a film called *American Gigolo*, which starred Richard Gere. Giorgio Moroder apparently saw the film and said to my friend, ah, who designed that room? It is fantastic. And he said, well, I'll get you his portfolio, you know, if you want to—sit—yeah, I want my house done by this man. So they sent in the portfolio of the beautiful—that fantastically beautiful minimalistic room that Gere had—is the jiggler—sure, she'll send it back, sir—no—not this one—the pimp's room. I don't know if that is true, Giorgio, but I've always held on to that story—it's so lovely. I know this nice—is there a frame—oh god—what could I say that would be possibly interesting about it? Became, you know, people who became famous for being famous—this idea of, okay, alright. I suppose one thing that is interesting that came out of writing *I'll Be Cutter*—that that Fame came into being because of it was that John and I spent so many hours talking about managers—we both loved managers with a vengeance. I'd recently had totally disastrous ending and a great awakening to what management could mean, and John, of course, it had years of it, one way or another. And I think a lot of what we felt about management came through in *Fame*, even though ostensibly it was sort of about famous—famous—war—I was *Fame*—sort of thing—but I think again that might have been subject matter, but again, content was really a great hostility towards what *Fame* actually—what the reality of becoming famous means. Well, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen—that's what I say—quite rightly too—towards our—for me—no—because I did—when did Rock become institutionalized as such—should I say—when the first brick of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was put down? Yes, I will say that has something to do with that—when it started getting its own award shows. When we're going through a new period now where I think there's a real sort of exciting atmosphere among young musicians again, but there was a period which went right through the eighties well into the early nineties where young guys that I'd meet really were more about career opportunities than—than about what music they should be making, why they should be making it. And it suddenly dawned on me that the devices had changed—they're—they're—their priorities were very different—it was what kind of music will make me famous, not—I have this great music, and I maybe can become famous through it. It's a very strange thing and became more and more like that during the eighties—my worst period. I felt so out of sync in the eighties. I can't tell you—I just wanted the world to open up and swallow me. I felt so out of tune and out of tunes, as it happened. What pops that—what mister—this is the seventies in one word—personality—RUSH!