Lloyd Cole

Lloyd Cole interviewed by Roy Moller and Douglas Clark, Basement Cafe, Otago St, Glasgow, 10.08.85 for Spanky Farrell's Interview fanzine. At one point in the interview. Lloyd asks us how old we are, "Twenty-two" we reply. "Ah", says Lloyd, twenty-four. "Not so young".

The "Mirror Image" series you recently featured in on Channel Four seemed quite stifling. Were you happy with the result?

I hated it. I really really hated it. It was filmed just after we'd released "Perfect Skin" and the versions of some of the songs were not the same as they are on the l.p. - they weren't finished. "Charlotte Street" had a different chorus. We recorded it I think in May last year and were told it would be shown in September/August of that year but it wasn't on till this April. Our profile in live performance is a lot different to what it was in those days and I just think it represented us really badly considering we'd released two subsequent singles and an l.p.

Did you enjoy touring America? Did it live up to your expectations?

I still can't really say to be honest - we didn't really see too much of America as such. We saw a lot of promoters and people in the record business and most of the other people we met beyond that were people who'd come out their way to try to meet us and these weren't normal people so you never really get a fair view of it. A couple of times when we were in New York I wandered round the place and I was most impressed although it was pretty fast, and I managed to get about half an hour in San Francisco which was very pretty...Georgia was nice. All we could really tell is that they're a lot more foreign to us than people like the French are.

Lloyd describes most of the new US bands as "garbage"and we agree, although we'd make an exception in the case of R.E.M.

I was just going to say except R.E.M. R.E.M. are very good. We did a festival with them in Belgium recently: that was a ridiculous bill. It was the Ramones, R.E.M., us, the Style Council, Depeche Mode, Paul Young and U2. It was really great, it was lovely. All those groups you'd think would be very stuck up and wouldn't went to speak to you were all very polite. U2 are actually the nicest people on earth. Bono got a bit carried away on stage but he's very earnest when he's not on stage and he's just a lovely man beyond that -R.E.M. were brilliant. I was kind the kind of person who thought they were pretty good. Lawrence (Donegan, bass player) has most of their records, and I'd thought they were alright - some really good songs - but when I saw them live I thought they were magnificent.

Do you have any pet band that you think deserves more exposure, the way that Morrissey champions James?

I haven't really. I've never heard anything by James. One of these days I'm just going to go out on a shopping spree and just buy records because I can't be bothered listening to John Peel, quite frankly. I can't bear to listen to all the garbage to hear one or two good songs and I don't really like the radio. Occasionally I go on a shopping spree and buy things and if they don't turn out very well I give them to my brother and things. Who do I like these days? There must be a few.. I think del Amitri are very good. I think they're the kind of group that one should champion anyway cos they're never gonna set the world on fire and have big hit singles but I actually think the l.p.'s very good and I like Justin as a singer.

What is it that appeals to you about being a pop star?

Well, nothing very much to be honest. I think you want to be one when you're very young and even when you're quite old. I think the worst thing in the world is to be ignored and obviously being a pop star is the opposite of being ignored. I don't think I ever really thought "pop star", I just thought to be somebody in a pop group.

Have any of your idols disappointed you?

I was really disappointed in Tom Verlaine when I met him. I just found him quite bitter. I met Richard Lloyd (Television's other guitarist) recently who's now completely dried out. Apparently when Television became a heroin addict which is very sad. Tom Verlaine has become quite embittered, he's quite cynical. It's very sad to see somebody who was obviously quite starry-eyed in the first place very embittered so he's kind of let me down. Edwyn Collins has been very nasty to me.

He seemed to think Polydor were giving you more attention than they were giving him.

They were, as well, but I don't think it's something he should feel bitter towards me about.

Wasn't "Forest Fire" a funny sort of follow-up to "Perfect Skin"?

I just thought it was obvious. As a group we all thought it's a dead good song and everyone'll just like it but it's not as easy as that. It was unfortunate but when "Forest Fire" come out there were two Radio One roadshows a day or something ridiculous and you have to be in the Top 40 to be on them so if you weren't on the radio you didn't get in the Top 40.

Only one DJ proved to be really unhelpful in promoting the single...

Steve Wright really disliked it. For some reason he played it one time and said that's the follow-up to "Perfect Skin" which I liked but that's not very good is it and then a couple of days later he said the Commotions have a new single out but I'm playing the old one...We were a bit disconsolate after "Forest Fire" but we were really pleased after what happened to "Rattlesnakes". It didn't really get any bad reviews anywhere. It got a Grammy in Holland or something.

Paddy MacAloon (of Prefab Sprout) accused you of name dropping. He said you'd be all right if you stayed away from film influences and "groovy French existentialists". (and yet he called his l.p. "Steve McQueen").

Did he say that? When did he say that? I was talking to him the night before last in London and we were talking about writing and he was saying to me what d'you think's wrong with your writing and I said I'd like to use less words and he said that's what he thought about himself as well. He's a nice person but I don't like the idea that because somebody doesn't think you're perfect they should be annoyed with you. I don't like their new l.p. I really don't. I have to say it. I only like four tracks on it. The rest I just find too slick and laid back. I like "Faron Young" a lot and I like "When Love Breaks Down". I bought "Faron Young" in fact but I was really disappointed with the l.p. after I'd read all these things about it that told me it was going to be marvellous.

Lloyd cites "Faron Young" as an example of using a name in a way that makes sense within the songs as a whole...

It's a lot easier to use somebody's name in a song than to use several sentences describing what kind of person Arthur Lee was. I mean Grace Kelly's in a battered old sportscar cos she always drove them in these films. I don't think there's any names in the new songs except Jesus.

Are you doing "Jesus Said"?
No, we've dropped it. We recorded it and it turned out sounding quite lightweight. It's quite a shame 'cos the lyrics were good and the chorus was good so we'll try and salvage the chorus and put some other words to it and make another song out of it.

You've said you don't like people singing along to your songs at your concerts.
I think I should be more sympathetic 'cos many people probably do that as an escapist thing but I think it undermines the basic idea I have that people come along to watch us (laughs). I'm always changing things about anyway so these people never have total success. I just think jumping up and down and throwing about to Commotions music is a bit silly. If you want to do that then the Ramones are definitely the group for you. In America they tend to bring out lighters. That's happened to us a couple of times and it's so funny. When we did the Belgian thing, I stayed on and watched U2. I'd never seen them live before and I thought I must see them. (In hushed tones) They were good as well. They were doing some song, a quite gentle one, and there were 65,000 people there and they all started lighting lighters. You can imagine it - very strange.

Fans of "Rattlesnakes" have also come up with some strange interpretations of Lloyd's lyrics...
It's really funny some of the things people think you say. A lot of people complained they didn't get a lyric sheet and some girl in America wrote me a big long letter and a lyric sheet which she'd managed to write herself and she said "I've spent ages and these are the words to the songs". There's a bit in "Four Flights Up" where she said "When I ask you what you want you say you do want a crocodile!" - there were some lovely ones in it. In the new single ("Brand New Friend") there's a line that goes (sings) "If I were to ask you what you would do with yourself/ If I were to tell you would you just talk to yourself" and the person who directed the video said I really like the line where you say (sings) "if I were Italian" (laughter) and actually I will sing that one day.

Whereas much of "Rattlesnakes" was recorded by direct feed, Lloyd tells us that the new l.p. will be more "luscious" with some rough guitar passages - and a more danceable feel on "Brand New Friend" and "Perfect Blue". He says he's been aiming for the feel Talking Heads had on "More Songs About Buildings And Food".
We haven't started it yet. The working title for it is "Decline And Fall". It probably definitely won't be called that but that's my working title. I think half the songs on the l.p. are about falling from grace or falling from somewhere else or falling apart or something.

As there's been talk in the press of a slightly Presleyish air to the young Cole's appearance, we ask if he's going to make good on his reported intention to cover the King's 1955 classic "Mystery Train".
We'd love to but it's dead really kind of weird trying to sing a song with a beat like that. I don't think I could sing (sings) "Train I ride". I don't think it would suit me. It's a bit repetitive. I find it very difficult to keep my mind on things where the words just go round and round. I'm trying to write less but it's still difficult.

As for his Joan Didion fixation, Lloyd likes her new book "Democracy", but he's still not made it through her first novel, "Run, River". She's very popular in America, he tells us. Over the water she's not the obscure intellectual figure she can appear to be from a British perspective. Talking of intellectual figures, is it true that Glasgow University dropout Lloyd is a fan of the works of post-Structuralist Roland Barthes?

A little. He's about the only one of these modern French people I can understand. Shame he got knocked over by a milk truck. (Laughs). What an inglorious way to go!