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MATTER January/February 1985
(courtesy of Aidan Merritt, the kind-hearted editor of Positive Vibrations)

INSIDE THE PAISLEY MIND
Angela Carlson and Jim Walsh pick Robyn Hitchcock's brain

``I've decided that the whole record business assumes that any
record released must have a haircut, a pose, or an image to go
with it to be successful. And then lyrically you're often preaching
to the converted. I can't see any point in continuing. I can't be
bothered. Now any music that I do I just want to keep to myself.
`Eaten By Her Own Lunch' is my way of saying goodbye. But watch
out for Luther Paisley.''
---Robyn Hitchcock on his retirement from the music business,
Melody Maker, 1982.

Robyn Hitchcock (a.k.a. Luther Paisley) is back. Hitchcock recently
broke out of his self-imposed retirement with the hauntingly personal
acoustic album, _I Often Dream Of Trains_, featuring his most mature
vocal work to date. It was two years ago last month that Hitchcock
released what was to have been his swan song, ``Eaten By Her Own Lunch,''
after which he quietly slipped under the waves without so much as
a ripple. Keeping a low profile, he's been working on his cartoons
and the acoustic ditties that have since turned up on _Trains_.

Hitchcock ignores trends: just a guitar manned by a mind that rapidly
builds and sidetracks on what the uninitiated assume to be drug-inspired
ramblings, only to implode on odd, microscopic details. His clever pop
melodies coupled with dark eccentric lyrics side-stepped so-called
movements such as ``the new psychedelia'' in Britain, and preceded
the guitar band ``paisley revolution'' here.

Hitchcock and his band, the criminally under-rated Soft Boys, were more
or less ignored by the press. It was this lack of public recognition as
well as the gap between his original conceptions of songs and how they
actually sounded on vinyl that caused Hitchcock to hang up his guitar.
Until now.

During a near-midnight phone call (London-time) with MATTER, Hitchcock
sipped tea, lager or scotch and offered his insights into everything
from malicious dwarves to the internal workings of his own mind,
``inasmuch as a mind can discuss itself.''

MATTER: When you were quoted in Melody Maker as saying you'd given up
music, were you disappointed with music at the time or with your
reception?

Hitchcock: I'm surprised you saw that over there, actually; that's about
two years back, now. I was just very tired basically, sort of _physically_
tired and mentally tired... every so often you just wear out for a bit,
don't you? So it was quite good to stop for a bit.

MATTER: Did you stop playing completely or were you still working on
the acoustic material?

Hitchcock: Yeah, I was playing at home. I was still doing stuff a lot---
I was playing guitar when you rung up. I was tired then, as you probably
read my comments about, I can't stand by them all, but there's this
point where you haven't really got enough energy to keep going with things,
uh, and I wanted to get a certain number of people off my back as well.

MATTER: Record company people? Business types?

Hitchcock: All sorts of people... window cleaners and Sub-Mariners
and people like that.

MATTER: Especially the Sub-Mariners...

Hitchcock: Well, just a _few_. I was being plagued by Sub-Mariners, so
I figured the only thing to do was to feign a certain amount of invisibility.

MATTER: Did you lay low for a while?

Hitchcock: Welllll, I went outside and I took the flag down, and then I
put the shutters up, and I sat inside with a blunderbuss for six months.
Every time somebody sort of came to the mailbox, I'd fire a warning shot...
I didn't _get_ anyone, 'cause one night I was asleep and the Sub-Mariners
came down the chimney. I was dozing off in my chair (exhales apologetically),
and when I woke up, the Sub-Mariners had surrounded me. So they tied me up,
and they ran away and thought they were very smart, y'know, leaving me.

MATTER: How'd you get loose?

Hitchcock: How did _I_ get loose? Well, they tied me up with newspaper...
it was very feeble, newspapers and strings. I wasn't tied up; I was
_wrapped_ up in a parcel---I was asleep. So I just had to kick myself out
and take the address off, and when I woke up, I found I'd been mailed
somewhere else.

MATTER: Somewhere awful?

Hitchcock: No, it wasn't too bad. I was in a new house and I had another
guitar, not really a better guitar, it just had different strings on it.
There was a dwarf by what we call the fridge in England, and the dwarf says
(nasally dwarfish voice), ``Oh, I know all about you. When's your next
record coming out?'' And I said, ``Leave me alone, dwarf, I'm tired.'' He
says, ``Oh no, I'll never leave you alone.'' So I said, ``Get thee behind me
dwarf.'' He stood behind me for a while, and he said, ``I'll only stay
behind you if you make another record.'' So, I made another record to keep
the dwarf behind me.

MATTER: Does ``Furry Green Atom Bowl'' have to do with the dwarf?

Hitchcock: ``Furry Green Atom Bowl'' is to do with eggs, really, to do with
the cycle of life. You know, all this theory of sub-atomic worlds and how
this world, if you shrink down to the smallest thing you can ever do---
did you used to read ``The Atom,'' an American comic?---well, _right down
there_. If you shrink right down you can fall between worlds. It's quite
possible that we make up---this solar system makes up---one atom. The whole
thing might be part of someone's kitchen table, and the reason people can't
see beyond the end of the universe is 'cause that's where the table stops.

MATTER: Are you quite a perfectionist in the studio? On ``Uncorrected
Personality Traits,'' from the latest album, the harmonies are perfect.
How long did it take you to do that?

Hitchcock: It's nice of you to say so. I did that record in three days, I
recorded in three days---there's quite a few out-takes---and we mixed it
in another two days. I wanted to keep the budget really low, and I did.
We did it for something like twelve hundred pounds. When you think that
Thomas Dolby spends forty, fifty, sixty thousand... we kept it down, and I
was pleased with it. I'm not at all a perfectionist, but I've got a little
machine at home, a little portable studio, you know, a four-track. It's
actually called a Fostex, which is about the size of...

MATTER: A table top?

Hitchcock: You can fit it on a television. It's the same size as the Empire
State Building if the Empire State Building were shrunk down to the size of
a Fostex. And it's easier than having a portable Empire State Building, 'cause
you can mix on it. I arranged that ``Personality Traits'' stuff at home, sort
of worked them out, 'cause it was only me. You see, there was no band; I wasn't
with anyone at the time. I used to go and play on (Captain) Sensible's
records if he asked me, otherwise I was completely by myself for the last
couple of years, so I got used to multi-tracking myself or whatever. So I
_had_ practiced the record, but not much.

MATTER: Your lyrics are so unique that people can't help wondering, ``What
is Robyn Hitchcock like?'' Do you have this alter-ego that writes songs, and
do you have a ``traditional'' life... kids or anything?

Hitchcock: Oh yeah, I've got kids. You know, we're just a nice happy, quiet
pair of people, and we've got nice, happy, quiet kids... there's something
_howling_ outside. (pauses) Oh, it's stopped. Good. Ah... you know, I've got
two cars, neither of which starts.

MATTER: Two cars?

Hitchcock: Yeah. Well, they're old cars; they're not expensive cars. And I've
got some old guitars; I live in an old house... I lead what you call a very
normal life, and I'm a very normal person. I can't think of any other way to
describe it. I think I've just got a kind of...

MATTER: Vivid imagination?

Hitchcock: Possibly. No, I've just got a lot of tendrils in my mind. My mind
crystalized very rapidly; it forms branches very quickly. It's like a little
railway system which is always looking for somewhere else to colonize. It
branches very restlessly from one thing to another, and then it all collapses
and it comes back to where it was. I don't know, it's like a little composite
in my head; that's a better way of describing it... sort of rapid
fertilization, like a jungle. Things grow very fast, and then they die
quickly and they rot down and new things grow very quickly and they come
bursting out like a speeded up film of a tropical forest. Inasmuch as a mind
can discuss itself---it's a bit like a mirror looking at _itself_, only I
don't know how much truth there is in that. You can put two mirrors up
against each other, and there's infinity, but you can never _see_ it, 'cause
your head blocks it off. But if you could put a tiny eye inside one of the
mirrors, you could see infinity, because you could see the bounce back.
Unfortunately, if gets darker, so you need a very strong torch. So I mean,
that describes it perfectly.

MATTER: Many of the songs, like ``Flavour of Night,'' seem a little John
Lennon-influenced. Are you a Lennon fan?

Hitchcock: Oh _yeah_. Always have been. That song is a bit like ``One Day At
A Time,'' on _Mind Games_. It goes (crooning), ``Youuuu,'' and that's very
similar to ``Flavour of Night.'' You only have to double track yourself and
put play echo on and you sound like... well, we used to do ``Cold Turkey,''
which was obviously a Lennon song. But I could never put things as simply as
John Lennon, nor have I been shot yet.

MATTER: Where were you when he was shot? Do you remember that day?

Hitchcock: I was recording a song called ``The Lizard,'' or it might have been
``I Watch the Cars.'' I think it was. The studio was locked for hours, so we
stayed in the cafe. I'd heard the news just before I came out, and I couldn't
believe it. I was there with a couple of guys, Kimberley, Matthew, and
Vince from the Psychedelic Furs. And Vince said, ``Why couldn't they have
shot Richard Butler instead?'' And then Pat Collier turned up at the studio,
and he didn't say anything at all... it was a very odd day. We all just got
drunk in the evening. I still can't believe it, of all the guys to get shot
it was him. Anyway, if some of the songs sound like him that's why.

MATTER: Other than John Lennon, and Syd Barrett, who has had the biggest
musical influence on you?

Hitchcock: There was this guy called George Formby, who used to sing in a
high-pitched Lancastrian accent (adopts a nasal, shrill voice): ``When I'm
cleaning windows---'' like that. Apart from that, just the old guys, Bob
Dylan... probably Bob Dylan---I only picked up the guitar because of Dylan,
like so many other people. It was a good idea. I don't know, it's basically
Bob Dylan's fault.

MATTER: Is _Trains_ the record you always wanted to make all along, and was
_Groovy Decay_ the record Albion wanted you to make?

Hitchcock: It wasn't Albion, really, it was the guy who was managing me; he
sold it to Albion. The pressure was on to be an international star, and to
straighten out, you know, get a big, _modern_ drum sound. It didn't work with
me at all. It was another one of those things that compelled me to retire.
Everything started to drift out of my control, and I fell asleep, and then I
sort of woke up, and then I fell asleep again. This was an attempt---you know,
_not_ to sound like anybody else. It's got nothing to do with rock 'n' roll;
it's got nothing to do with pop music. To me it's a folk record. I mean, I'm
quite surprised that anybody likes it really, 'cause it's very much my own.
It's a bit sad, I suppose...

MATTER: I really like _Black Snake Diamond Role_.

Hitchcock: Well, who doesn't? It's my all-time party favorite, that. I'm
really pleased with that; I listened to it the other day. That was another
reason I'd stopped. I didn't really think I could do anything _better_ than
what I'd done. _Groovy Decay_ had some good songs, but it was a bad session.
I don't think I know anyone who likes it. I know _one_ guy that likes it...
he's quite tall. _Groovy Decay_ was done in the middle of the night and we
were all falling asleep. It was all part of a sleepy period which culminated,
like I said, in being shut in with the blunderbuss, waiting for the dwarf to
come. We were waiting for the dwarf then because we knew it was going to come.
But on _Black Snake Diamond Role_, we didn't even _think_ there was a dwarf.
It was a very innocent time.

MATTER: What are the other former Soft Boys doing these days?

Hitchcock: Well, Kimberley is in America, I think now, or has just been. He's
got a band called Katrina and the Waves. His band was originally the Waves,
anyway, from Cambridge. The Waves fell apart and he joined the Soft Boys and
the Soft Boys stopped and he reformed the Waves. Two of the people in the
Waves are American, the lead singer and the bass player. We always thought
Kimberley would go down big in mid-America 'cause it's just this thing about
Americans liking their sort of no-nonsense rock. I mean, the big stadiums
and stuff, although they've got to project a bit more to get out, 'cause
they've got that feeling of a little band, but they're very _good_. Personally,
I prefer Kimberley in _his_ band to Kimberley in _my_ band. I got him in
rather greedily, but I'm not sure he worked out. Anyway, that was that. He'll
keep going; Kimberley would play every night of the year, you know, he'd
play to three deaf people and a mouse, it wouldn't make any difference, and
the mouse would be deaf in the end, too. Kimberley's the kind of guy who'd
actually go to audiences' houses and drive them to a gig. He's got an
enthusiasm for live work which I don't really share, which is why I haven't
done many gigs lately.

MATTER: Are you thinking of coming over to the States or touring?

Hitchcock: We'd love to come over there. I've got a band that includes a
couple of Soft Boys---Morris Windsor is playing drums, and a guy named Andy
Cobb who was in the _very_ original Soft Boys. And I've got a sax player and
keyboard player as well. We did a gig---the first one in two or three years---
the other day, which was quite good. It was just at the Hope, London's
legendary Hope and Anchor. In fact, a lot of people turned up, and the band
was good, so we thought we'd do another one next month. But the problem with
getting to the States, you appreciate, is that it's a very big place. We
played New York once, and the town didn't _explode_... there's not enough
people in lots of different places where we could do a decent little tour.
There's no point in doing things if you can't afford to do it properly---if
your van breaks down, or when you get to the gig, you find that the band are
all dead because there's been no air in the van. You have to be aware of all
these problems... or that you find that the band has all been _eaten_ going
through customs, and there's nothing left but a load of bones. I just have to
(laughs) _try_ and get it right.

MATTER: How do you keep it all straight in your head?

Hitchcock: You mean... how do I keep it from _falling out_? I tie up my head
with this stuff called gaffer tape, and I bind my head up at night, and I
unbind it in the morning, and it stops my brain from leaking out onto the
pillow. So I'm alright.

MATTER: Can you say anything about your next album?

Hitchcock: It might be called _Egyptian Cream_; it's about a hair restorer
with a difference. It kind of affects people's hair in drastic ways. It's
coming out the beginning of January or February, and that's got a band on it.
You know, bass, guitar, and drums and organs and stuff. It's not a bit like
the acoustic album.

MATTER: Back to the days of, like, _Black Snake Diamond Role_?

Hitchcock: Well, more like that, slightly better recorded. It's like that,
although I don't know if the songs are as good. I was really pleased with
that album. I was really lucky to get a good bunch of songs, and I threw lots
of songs off, as well. I had about 18, and I threw eight out. This one, I'm
just trying to get enough finished to make it good. _Egyptian Cream_ is going
to have songs on it like ``Insect Mother,'' which is about an... uh... insect
mother. And it's got ``The Man With the Light Bulb Head,'' which is also my
first film. It's only an eight-millimeter film, nothing swish.

MATTER: What's the plot?

Hitchcock: It's only a little video---two and a half minutes. It's got this
guy, his head is a light bulb, and he sort of turns himself off and on.
It's very simple (laughs). You just see him wandering around in the film with
his head flashing, bits of stuff come out of the wall...

MATTER: Is it nightmarish?

Hitchcock: No, it's meant to be funny, really. It's not meant to be horrible.
I've finished that, and I'm also doing another one, ``I Often Dream of
Trains.'' We're doing a film for that which will be much simpler. It's going
to be me singing into a disconnected telephone, wandering around the old
railways of Great Britain as the leaves fall. If that works out, I'll maybe
do a third one. (pauses) It's not stuff that you can expect millions of
people to _leap_ into the air about. A lot of people aren't going to
understand it. And there's nothing I can do. You can't deny the people who
like it the right to have it, so you've got to go on churning the stuff out.
But you can't get upset because millions of people don't buy it.






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