The Rapetorous Siouxsie Sioux

Rip It Up, Issue 211, 1 March 1995, Page 20

The Rapetorous Siouxsie Sioux

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Congratulations on The Rapture. It sounds stronger after every play.

"I’ve been talking to a lot of people who have maybe only played It one or two times, and I said: ‘Well, It’ll get better the more you play it.”

What was John Cale’s involvement? He produced half the tracks. When we finished touring after Lollapalooza and then a tour on our own, up to March 92, I uprooted myself and moved to France. I got the band down to the house and we wrote and demoed there. It was great to be in an environment that wasn’t hired or part of the business. [There were] not even any roadies there, so we were just self-sufficient. It was a real reaction to the way we had approached the album before that, Superstition. It was recorded in a place called Leon, a town north of Biarritz in the south-west of France. That’s the region where I live. We had nine songs at that point. We finished that, then had a great time playing some festivals and going to Australia in October.

“Before that, I went to see the Velvet Underground at the Paris Olympia show — the one used for the live recording of the video. It was just great to see one of your alltime favourite bands, as we were all too young to catch them when they were actually playing first time around. I think they only came to England once, and that was without John Cale, so that was a great event. When we got back from touring, we listened to what we had recorded. It sounded great, and we’d already recorded The Rapture at that point, but I felt it wasn’t finished and I wanted to write some more material. A couple of songs I wasn’t sure about and was thinking of dropping, so that December we wrote two or three more songs. "Because of living in France, we have a few connections in Paris, and found out a friend of ours managed John Cale. We’d felt, on the songs we’d produced ourselves, that

we’d reached a logical conclusion. We knew we wanted a producer, and that had been the real despairing moment of mine with this album. We didn’t want that Stephen Hague [an earlier producer] situation again. We had approached it very much as a live unit, very organically, and didn’t want any technology to intrude. So there wasn’t anyone we wanted to work with, and the record company was batting over ridiculous ideas and we were batting them back.

“When this friend mentioned John was coming over to work on an album he was finishing, me and Budgie looked at each other and said: ‘Why didn’t we think of that before?’ He has certainly produced some landmark albums, like The Stooges, Patti Smith's Horses and the Modern Lovers. To me, those are real landmark albums, so we thought: ‘Why not ask? He can only say no.' We kind of struck up a correspondence. He sounded interested, but obviously wanted to hear what we were doing. I think he’s a very fussy man. He doesn’t work with stuff he can’t believe in. He was very complimentary, and said: ‘Right, when can we do it?’

“We found a period in March that year where we all met in London, had a rehearsal room, worked on the new songs, and got into a recording studio in May. Within about a week, we had recorded five new songs, then mixed in New York in June, so it’s been ready for a while. But the record company — Christmas arrives earlier and earlier! It takes longer and longer to put a record out once you’ve finished it." Had you met Cale back in the late 70s punk days?

"No, we hadn’t, and it’s crazy we hadn't. Maybe because the connection was too obvious and we shied away from it. Myself, I’d bought a John Cale album before I’d heard of the Velvet Underground — Fear then Slow Dazzle.

Do you think it’s important to have an outside voice involved in your music?

“\Ne achieved so much on our own, but knew we took it to the conclusion. We did need someone else, but that someone else was a big question mark as far as what kind of producers are out there. They’re very expensive and have such inflated opinions of themselves — and the reality is that they rarely mic up real guitars and real drum kits. We’re sick of going into a studio and having some apprentice come in and fumble away in the dark.

“The fact we had someone the stature of John Cale meant we didn’t really have to worry about watching him to make sure he didn’t fuck up. Also, there was little we needed to explain to him. He’s very intuitive and quick-witted. [He] has a great sense of humour as well, which is always important." Never a dull moment with him, I’m sure. “I think he has mellowed out, but he still has that glint in his eye, which you cannot mistake. [He] still has a good wicked glint. He’s no Florence Nightingale, believe me. And, yes, we’re twinkling away wickedly, still."

Tell us about the title track. It’s arguably the longest, most daring song you’ve done. "It’s probably the most ambitious idea we've had, not just because of the length of it [11.32], but because of how I wanted it to flow and be a journey. I didn’t want to, and we wouldn’t and couldn’t, have it be some kind i of musical vir-1 tuoso show-off — a big wank. We’re self taught musicians, so we don’t know how to wank off like that. But it was ambitious — an idea we’d had for so long, and we had

the title. We'd actually written the middle section as a band in France, in rehearsals. The front and ending came when we were in a recording state. That’s when we tend to open up a lot more. It’s a lot more relaxed, less frenetic, so things happen. It’s always great to go into the studio and have those things happen — when it works. When it doesn’t, it’s frustrating.”

You have such a distinctive sound. Does that make it a real challenge to keep from repeating yourselves?

“I don’t know. I think because our tastes and interests — not just musical, but with theatre, film and books — they’re so diverse that it’s kind of a challenge to reinterpret other areas. We’ll never say: ‘We need to do a jazz song now.’ We might like something that sounds a little jazzy, but whenever we play it, it always has our edge to it. There are no rules as far as we’re concerned. We have used technology, but we hate it when things use us.”

Is the song ‘The Rapture’ at all inspired by the film of that name?

It’s funny — in North America and Europe, people have been asking that, and I’ve tried to explain that it was a film title friends of ours in America kept telling us to go and see — ‘you’ll love it’ — and I never actually did get to see it. But the actual title and . the word | acted as a springboard for so many ideas for me that maybe it’s good I didn’t get to see the film. I asked someone here today what

the film was actually about, and it sounded really interesting. It sounded like this album would be a perfect soundtrack for the film. That title conjured up so many images for me. Now I’m in New York, so I’ll try and get it on video — invest in it and watch it with our album playing!” Do you ever get approached to do soundtracks? Your music has a very cinematic quality. "Not as

much as we’d have like to be. The only thing that has happened was when Tim Burton asked us to write a song for the Batman Returns film, but that was for a very specific scene in the film. We were the only band approached to write for the film, so it wasn’t like one of those horrible films with 100 bands on it. That’s pretty sickening, isn’t it? And there was another film, Out Of Bounds. They use ‘Cities In Dust’, but we didn’t actually write for that one. That’s all we’ve been asked to do. [lt would] be nice to do more.” Do you ever look back at your career and how it unfolded? If somebody had said in 1976, you’d still be making records in 1995, how would you have reacted? “Yes, likely would have laughed them out of the room — ha ha ha! We only formed to fill in a spot that was free on the bill of the 100 Club festival. We were in a gay club in London, and I happened to overhear Malcolm [McLaren] saying: ‘lf only we could find one more band.’ I piped up, without thinking: ‘l’ll do it.’ I was with [bassist] Severin at the time, and we recruited [guitarist] Marco [Pirroni — Adam and the Ants] and [future Sex Pistol/punk icon] Sid [Vicious] in a club that night. Then we thought: ‘Well, what are we going to do [big laugh]?’ Apart from Marco, no-one else had ever held an instrument or talked into a microphone. We met at the Clash’s studio to find out where you plug in: ‘Ooh, what does this do?’ Kerrang! ‘What’s a pick?’ So, we entered into the spirit of the thing, and the impossible became possible. The naivete was that I said to the guy doing the sound for all the bands: ‘OK, I want to be really loud, so I’m going to have three microphones so I can be three times as loud as anyone else [laughs]. So we gaffered three microphones together, and no-one told me it wouldn’t be any louder! They appeased me, and I finally found that out — just the other day, actually. Just kidding!” Are you mused or bemused at the current, so-called punk revival? “Both. It’s kind of like a preconceived notion of what they’re doing. It’s so self-con-scious. As far as I’m concerned, it was quite a naive and innocent way of becoming a band for us, personally. It wasn’t like studying books with musicians. No-one can read music in this band, except for Martin, the cellist/accordionist, and we give him a hard time for it. We slap his head: ‘Where did you pick that rubbish up from, Martin?’ No, I just find it all very cynical actually.” How are you viewed in the English music press these days? "We’ve always distance ourselves from being part of a fashion, or clique, or movement, which the media are always trying to create out of something, especially the press in Britain. It’s so desperate there. We’ve saved those buggers till last ‘cause we know we’re going to have to get our fists primed! We’re not looking forward to doing press there, but we'll be ready. We’ve been in and out of fashion there three or four times at least, so it’s like a pinch of salt.

Again, I don’t take it too seriously. [l] don’t have any sleepless nights about it. It’s just — that’s life, I suppose. There are a lot of assholes in the world!” There used to be Siouxsie clones amongst your fans. Do you still get that? “I think people are cooler about that kind of thing now. I like to think that people we’ve influenced, you wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at them or listening to

them. I’m also so sick of the bands around that are just so derivative of an era, like the 60s or early 70s. Maybe for 14 year olds it’s exciting but, if I know where the source is, I’m really not interested in what they have to offer, unless they add something of their own to it.” Do you think your own achievements have been undervalued given all this current stress on ‘women in rock’? "I know there have been people wanting to do ‘women in rock’ books every other week, -and I resisted a lot of that. I think it’s very healthy to have a lot of women involved in rock, but to make a big deal out of gender, rather than what that person can bring to the music, was just a male idea — a very hetero idea of rock chicks, and very patronising as well. Yes, it is depressing that is still happening. Let them play their games. I’m not really interested and I think people out there know that. They’re misinformed so often, but I’m sure they’re not as stupid as these papers try to treat them.” What are your recollections of the Lollapalooza tour? “For us, it was very exciting and really good because it wasn’t the big successful monster it later became. There was a lot of doubt about it. Promoters weren’t booking it because they were nervous about it. It was only halfway through, when they saw it was outselling the Van Halens of the world, that they started knocking on the door. With the bands, it was a very diverse bunch of people thrown together. We were the only English band and there was a lot of trepidation from the other bands, us included, that it could be hell backstage. Imagine all those people hating each other! Some people may be disappointed about this, but we had great fun with all the other bands. “The road crews all helped each other, so it wasn’t this juicy soap opera that everyone was hoping to get their teeth into — ‘and that bitch Siouxsie’ etc. — butthat did seem to happen with the ones afterwards. Plus, it did get to be this big, successful, almost corporate thing, that I suppose was inevitable after its initial success. The first one was a ‘what’s going to happen?’ thing, and that was a perfect vehicle for us. But we won’t do it again.” Do you still enjoy performing? “Oh yes. We wouldn’t do it otherwise. The physical side of that is very much a part of this band, as well the spiritual side — that’s a very important element — and it’s fun! People don’t associate us as a band having fun, but that is the ultimate criterion for what we do.” One last question. What was the first vinyl you ever bought? “Oh, this is very embarrassing. I have to explain. I grew up with an older brother and sister — 10 and eight years respectively — so there were a lot of records I never had to buy. But the first 45 I bought was ‘ABC’, by the Jackson Five. At least he hadn’t grown into the monster he became then. He was Michael, as he was born.”

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KERRY DOOLE