Nick Lowe SXSW Interview, Pt. IV (March 21, 1998)

You've done so much good work in the '90's, it seems to me that someone's going to have to bring Basher up to date. 

Oh, well, I hope so. I hope so. 

Has anyone shown an interest in gathering your more recent-- 

Yes. They have actually. There's talk about box sets and things like that, which--I don't know. I can't work my way through a box set, even of people that I like. I've got a Johnny Cash box set. I've only listened to the first one. Whenever I want to hear Johnny Cash, I just put the same one. I never listen to any of the others, you know.

Speaking of Johnny Cash, did you write "The Beast in Me" for him? 

I did, actually, yes. 

Was there ever the chance that he would've rejected it? 

Oh, yeah. He did. I actually thought it up when he came to London and came to stay with me and Carlene [Carter]. He came around. Carlene phoned him up and said we'd written this song. And, in fact, what it was is, I had this first--I had the title and the first verse, and when he came along--he came 'round to hear it, and the song really wasn't finished--we'd made up a whole bunch of other stuff to tag onto it, but I knew that the first couple of lines were great. Anyway, I sang it to him, and he said, "Well, you're onto something here, but it's not quite right, is it?" I said, "Well, it's not really." He said, "Well, when you finish it, send it along." And that was about 1980. And every so often--I finished it in what? 1994 or something. But every so often I'd get this song out, or if I'd run into him, he'd say, "How's 'The Beast in Me,' Nick?" And I'd get it out again, and it was one of those songs where you think you've said it all in the first verse. There's nothing else to say. But something must've clicked one day, and I just finished it off. It just seemed to all fit, which sometimes happens. The song hasn't kind of revealed itself to you or something until some time passes, and that's the danger time [tape ends] ... the song we'll be revealed. So, anyway, I sent it off to him and didn't hear anything, and next thing I know American Recordings has come out, and it's on it. So-- 

He didn't tell you he was going to record it? 

No, he didn't tell me he was going to do it. It was fantastic. I did know that my step-daughter, who hangs out with him a lot, she said that he'd been playing it to people who'd come around to the house. He'd been singing it to them. So I thought, "Oh, that's interesting. So he got the tape." I thought he just might've listened to it and thought, "Oh, no! He still hasn't got it right." But, no, I thought it was good. 

"The Man That I've Become" sounds like a Johnny Cash song. Yeah. Yes, it is a Johnny Cash song--a Johnny Cash-style song. But I think Johnny Cash is such a great artist--I'm such an admirer, a fan, of his--as well as my familial connections to him--that I think it's sort of--he's a great enough artist--if you've got a good song, even if it sounds like--I don't know--like a good Barbra Streisand song--but a good song, good song--"People Who Need People," for instance. It's a good pop song of a kind, from the point of view of being in every airport, playing in every airport around the world. It's a crafty piece of work that everybody knows. But if you send a song like that, a really good song that doesn't necessarily sound like Johnny Cash, he'd be able to spot--"This is a really good song!" Here comes Johnny Cash singing it: (in mock Johnny Cash) "People--boom-chick-boom"--Now, he'd do something with it. He'd do something with it and make it brilliant, but I think it's sort of insulting to send a song to somebody that just sounds like them. It's sort of insulting to. People have done it to me. They mean well. They mean well. But they say, "Ah, here's a song! You're gonna love it!" And it's this rather embarrassing pastiche of three or four of your things slung together, and you go, "Thanks very much. That's very nice of you. That's very interesting, but it's not quite what I'm trading with at the moment." So I never would've dreamt of sending him "The Man That I've Become" because it does sound like him, especially with that Luther Perkins lick on it, that really does--it just cries out for it, you know. But the other thing is, it's got that country and organ music. I think organ on country tunes sounds so cool. It just puts something in there that's--on country songs--that's really emotional, better than a pedal steel for me, even though I like pedal steel played well. You know what they say, that women don't like pedal steel. It's only men who like pedal steel. There's something about that tone. Men react to the pedal steel much more than women do (laughs). I don't know. It's just one of those things. I think it's more sonic than anything else. 

I first heard "High on a Hilltop" as an extension of "What's Shakin' on the Hill." In both the "hill" is a metaphor for what's really important. 

I suppose it is. I hadn't thought about it like that. I think that that is a gospel song. I think "High on a Hilltop" actually is a kind of gospel song. I felt inspired with "High on a Hilltop." It's still pop, you know. It's still pop. I still think, "Would Dan Penn do this, or Arthur Alexander?" You know, some of the people that I like. Ivory Joe Hunter. I think, "Would they do something like this?" If I think they would, I think, "Oh well, I will too" (laughs). 

When I first saw the title "High on a Hilltop," I thought, "Yet another gospel song!" 

Yeah. 

"The Man That I've Become" goes well with "Failed Christian" because they both have verses about the choir. 

Oh yeah, yes. That's true. Yes, I didn't know that until we actually--I hadn't realized that until they sequenced it. But they do. Yes, they've both got the choir reference.

They sound as if they're being sung by two people coming at the same emotional or spiritual state from different perspectives. 

Oh, well, that's great. That's great. 

Such connections seem to continually emerge from your albums. I have the feeling that ten years from now I could play this album and discover more. 

Well, I hope so. I really hope so because--well, I like listening to it too. See, that's the strange thing. You get a real kick from sitting down and listening to your own record. There comes a time when you stop, but generally it's when you start thinking up a new way of telling your story. But until that comes along, to listen to your own record and really enjoy it and not be going--twitching and--you know, because you can hear yourself going to work--there are always things that you wish you'd done slightly different. Of course there are. But they're all honest, honest--you know, you overlooked something. I mean, it's honest. But to be able to listen to your own record and for it to sound like somebody else, for you to enjoy it as if it were somebody else, is a very curious sensation. Or maybe it's not curious enough. Maybe it's not a curious sensation. 

Did you always listen to your own records and enjoy them, even in the '70's? 

I did, but some more than others. Definitely some. Whenever I thought I'd done a good thing, oh yes! I'd listen to it over and over again and dig myself, you know (laughs)? But, no, there was a period when I was striving for something and not--I was very unhappy, and I felt very uncreative and at a low ebb and trapped. I felt--I was still with a big record label then, and when it's time for an album, you've gotta come up with one. It doesn't matter if you don't feel like it. 

Columbia? 

Columbia, yeah. And that's a terrible feeling, to go into the studio with feet like anvils, you know, just dragging them. And that's, of course, when you start taking to the bottle and thinking that if you've got half an idea--if you get drunk enough, you can actually turn it into something good. And the awful thing is that occasionally it works. But, of course, the next time you do it, what you're left with is this drunken mess. And that's awful, when you've got to--when you know you've done a record that, in your heart, you know is a sorry thing. 

Part III: https://arsenioorteza.blogspot.com/2009/05/nick-lowe-sxsw-interview-pt-iii-march.html

Part V: http://arsenioorteza.blogspot.com/2009/05/nick-lowe-sxsw-interview-pt-v-march-21.html

Nick Lowe SXSW Interview, Pt. III (March 21, 1998)

I'm a Catholic, so when I first heard "Soulful Wind," I thought you were singing about the Apocalypse or the Holy Spirit or something. Was I way off base?
No. I was thinking of something good. I rather thought the soulful wind was kind of a good thing, but at the same time maybe a good thing that could sweep away the bad stuff. So whether that's apocalyptic, I don't know. I always think of the Apocalypse as something that sweeps away a bunch of good stuff too. Everyone's history.

You use phrases like "the lion will lie down with the dove"--
Yeah.

Familiar biblical phrases--
Yeah.

And I thought, "Oh, he's writing a song about ultimate hope."
Yeah, I think it is. I'm--I find I'm using a lot more of that sort of language in the songs I write now, but it seems sort of natural somehow. I don't give it much thought. You know, I'm an--I suppose I'm an Anglican, you know, which they describe as "Catholicism lite" (laughs), but I'm not a practicing Anglican. But I have a sensibility about this, and the older I get as well, the more I'm at ease with whatever this thing is. But to me it's a kind of language. It's not something I thought up. It's a kind of a language and a way of expressing a feeling, and those--as we all know, those biblical phrases and things are--they strike chords and are really fantastic fun to sing. It's just great to say them.

Then I heard on this album--
"Failed Christian," right.

But also "Lead Me Not"--
Yeah.

And I thought, "Well, he's continuing in that. It's growing instead of shrinking."
Yeah, it does seem to be, but as I say, I haven't thought it out at all. It's so hard to come up with a sort of three-minute, simple song with a very direct lyric and a direct tune that people haven't heard millions of times before that if I started boxing it off and saying, "Oh, you can't do that. You can't do that. You've gotta--No, it's going too far this way." If I started corraling it too much, it would sound stiff and kind of make people feel uncomfortable somehow. I've done that in the past. I've had good ideas for a song--in my opinion, again, in my opinion--I've had a good idea for a song, but I've rather squashed the idea at birth. I've said, "Oh, it's that kind of tune! Right! It goes in this box!" And I've forced it into a box, and in fact the thing probably--you haven't served it well. I'm much more apt to letting the song--letting the lyrics and the melody and how long the thing is structured, whether those things are structured--I try and let the music do the talking much more now than me doing the talking. At least, that's what it feels like to me anyway. And one of them is in the strange sort of quasi-religious thing that seems to have come in. But, you know, I haven't had somegreat revelation, sadly (laughs). It's a sort of a device, but it's one that makes me feel good to use.

Why did you choose to cover "Failed Christian"?
Well, do you know who Henry McCullough is?

No.
Well, he's a very interesting man. He's from Northern Ireland, with all that that implies. And he's also a really fantastic musician. He was in the sort of Woodstock lineup of the Joe Cocker and the Grease Band. He was the guitar player--you know, "A Little Help from My Friends" and all that. And he was also the guitarist in the first lineup of Wings as well.

Henry McCollough?
Yeah.

Isn't there a Jimmy McCulloch who played in Wings too?
Yeah, there is, but they're no relation. Jimmy was--Jimmy followed Henry, actually. Henry was the person who did "Band on the Run" and "My Love," all those. But coincidentally the next guy's name was McCulloch too, although Jimmy was a Scot, and Henry was from Northern Ireland. Although they're very similar. You know, when you get up to Northern Ireland and Scotland, they're not very far apart. It doesn't sound like it. Their accents are completely different, but they're very similar sort of people. But, anyway, Henry had a lot of--am I rambling too much? Maybe you've got a bunch of questions that you want to ask, and I'm just--

No, this is fantastic!
Oh, all right. Well, Henry had a lot ups and downs with drink and drugs and what have you, and he really blew his--blew his thing, really. So he decided, in the nick of time, to go back to Northern Ireland and kind of clean himself up and get himself straight again and organized again and stop hanging out with these hoodlum friends and whatnot. And I lost touch with him. I was never really a big friend of his, but he got Brinsley Schwartz--the band I was in, Brinsley Schwartz--onto the Wings tour to open for them. He got us onto it. And, anyway, I lost touch with him. And about two summers ago, myself and my boys were doing a show in Belfast with Van Morrison, who, by the way, Geraint Watkins, the keyboard player, and Robert Treherne, the drummer, who play on my record and on The Impossible Bird, have just finished doing Van's album, Van Morrison's, the next one. Yes, it's coming out.

That'll be a different sound.
Yeah, I can't wait to hear it. I don't know what it's going to be like. I said to them, "Now, don't give away all your stuff that you do with me to Van" (laughs)! Anyway, no, it's a different thing, although he records live as well. He records his vocals live as well. Anyway, so we did this show with Van in Belfast, and Henry, right out of the blue, just came backstage, and it was really fantastic to see him. And he gave me a tape of some songs that he'd been working on. One of them was "Failed Christian," and I just thought it was a really great song because it had that--it's got that sort of naivete and wisdom thing working for it. It's not a particularly original thought. I've heard it expressed before. But the point is well made yet again.

I thought it was probably fifty years old or something.
Well, he's got that (laughs)--he sometimes seems extremely old. But, oh yeah, I think it's a really good thing, although people who haven't really listened to it right and heard what the song is saying have put it together with a few other things like you were saying--you know, those other biblical references -- and said, "What do you mean 'Failed Christian'? What's happened to you? Steady on now" (laughs)! And I say, "No, no, no. Just listen to it. It's all right. Everything's fine."

It's good to know that he's still--
Yes, he comes up with something as strong as that. Right. And he hasn't recorded it. I phoned him up and said, "Look, Henry, I've been listening to your tape, and 'Failed Christian' I think is so cool. What do you think about letting me record it?" And obviously he recorded the demo of it, but he hasn't got a record deal or anything like that. But he said, "Yeah, go ahead." So that's pretty good to give away a tune like that.

When The Impossible Bird came out, the publicity accompanying it made mention of the fact that you'd recently become wealthy by virtue of having a song on The Bodyguard soundtrack.
That's right, a song of mine you might be familiar with, "Peace, Love and Understanding."

Whose version was on the soundtrack? Yours?
No, it was done by Curtis Stigers.

So it was a new version.
Yeah, a new version. But it's a song that's been covered by lots and lots of people. I've got covers of it by a gospel choir--a sort of black gospel choir from Harlem--and it's a fantastic version. And bluegrass--I have a great bluegrass version of it.

I heard you say one time that you wrote it tongue-in-cheek.
Yeah. When I first thought it up, it was supposed to be like an old hick because everything was changing, you know, in the '70's so fast. You know, hippies were going right out of fashion. And it was supposed to be this sort of washed-up old hippie sort of saying to the new, you know, "Well, I might be out of the window, but one thing: what's so funny about peace, love, and understanding? You can answer that with your flash new ways." It was supposed to be sort of funny. But when Elvis recorded it, he put that anthemic thing into it, and even when I do it now, I do it with the--I've forgotten the original thing. I've got so used to people doing--but it is--it's got a great title, that song. I think that's why people identify with it. The song itself is very simple and trite, really, and sort of pretentious. "As I walk this wicked world" sounds a little bit much. But that's the way it was supposed to be when I did it. But now I don't think about it. It just seems to me all dead righteous now.

Pt. IV: http://arsenioorteza.blogspot.com/2009/05/nick-lowe-sxsw-interview-pt-iv-march-21.html

Nick Lowe SXSW Interview, Pt. I (March 21, 1998)

(Originally posted at the now-defunct popped.com; conducted at the SXSW, Austin, Texas. His latest album was Dig My Mood, hence the preponderance of questions about it.)

I found this [the first Brinsley Schwartz album] recently in a pawn shop.
Amazing.

Were you the lead singer on it?
It's been so long since I've even seen it. Let me just have a look. I know I did quite a lot. Oh, yeah, I did. I did most of the singing on this, I think. Yeah. Good God! There's only three tracks a side on one (laughs).

One of them goes on for quite awhile.
I know (laughs).

Side one reminded me a good deal of Crosby, Stills and Nash.
Yeah. We were very influenced by their first album, and being young, you tend to wear your influences very much on your sleeve until you get a little older and you start to find out where they got their thing from, and you start listening to that, and so on, and so you start discovering other people. But, yeah, Crosby, Stills and Nash were the thing at that time, and we were very influenced by it.

You did a better job than America, who were also influenced by them.
Well, they had the "Horse with No Name" though, didn't they?

Why did you dedicate Dig My Mood to your parents?
Well, that's nice of you to ask that. I think probably because they--well, not in my mother's case. You know, my mother has always been a tremendous fan of mine, even through some of my less successful artistic efforts, but my dad definitely hasn't. He's really--poor old chap, he's had to--when I used to bring my records back and put them on at home, I used to see him sit there, kind of with this really long-suffering look on his face, having to sit there and listen to it. But recently he's started liking my records.

Your recent records or your old records?
I think a bit of both actually. I think a bit of both. Certainly, he likes my recent records and records that I sort of play on and things, you know, I bring home and say, "Well, this is so-and-so. I was playing on this" or "I did this," you know. He likes the company I keep, if you know what I mean, as well--Little Village and things like that. He likes John Hiatt. And I think he started listening to some of my earlier things and enjoying them now as well, certainly more than he did. But my mom and dad are really getting on quite a bit now, although they're very sprightly and fit, really. I thought that probably now was an appropriate time to make a little dedication to them.

Is it the slower material on your last couple of albums that he's especially liked?
I suppose so, yeah. I think he likes the songs. I think he likes the songs, and he likes the sound, I think. The sound seems to get to him. You know, he's a sort of a jazz fan. He likes that kind of mellower thing. He always professed to not like music at all actually, but I've found out lately that he's kind of a closet music fan, and with rather good taste, as a matter of fact, but he's always kept it rather quiet, strangely enough.

Has he come around yet to "Marie Provost"?
No, I don't think that--he doesn't like the sort of cluttering drums very much.

You mentioned jazz--the first time I heard the first line of "Faithless Lover," I heard Gershwin's "Summertime"--
Oh, did you?

Do you have an appreciation for Gershwin?
Well, of course, yes.

Not all rock stars would say, "Well, of course" to the question of whether or not they liked Gershwin.
Oh, well, I suppose so, yeah (laughs). Well, you know, I'm a songwriter, so I'm very interested in the craft of songwriting, which, of course, those great songwriters had--and with their bafflingly sophisticated lyrics, which, of course, everyone used to sing, you know? Even if you were pumping gas back them, you'd be singing these really sophisticated lyrics with references to these rather well-traveled subjects, which doesn't really play nowadays, I don't think, in quite the same way, sadly.

It might play in twenty years.
Well, it might. At the moment, you know, you've got Andrew Lloyd Webber's version of it, which I--you know, that doesn't happen for me. But "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair" is a brilliant, brilliant showtune, or tune on any level, just to name but one. Was that Rogers and Hammerstein?

I don't know.
Anyway--I can't remember what you asked me.

I mentioned that "Faithless Lover" had reminded me of Porgy and Bess--
Oh, I see. No, actually, with the "Faithless Lover" song I'd been listening to a lot of French chanson--you know, like Jacques Brel and Gilbert Bécaud and Charles Aznavour--you know, that sort of Parisian street music, which really is fantastic stuff. I don't speak French very well. I've got schoolboy French. So I don't always know what they're singing about, but the French have a reputation for having the worst pop music in the world, and yet they've got this brilliant, indigenous street thing, which is rather elegant even though it's tawdry and comes from the gutter. It's got this--the purveyors of it are rather elegant, are rather interesting people, and the songs are incredible-- the stories and the songs. They're about transsexual strippers, you know, and how (laughs)--you know, completely over the top.

There's a moment in "Faithless Lover" when this high-sounding instrument comes in behind the melody.
Oh, it's just a fuzz guitar. We were trying to get that sound like you hear in French porn music. You know, they have that sort of funny fuzz guitar, that really over-the-top fuzz guitar. That's what we were trying to go for. And that kind of funny clicky bass they always have on it.

That song and "You Inspire Me" both sound like something Frank Sinatra could've recorded.
Yeah. That song--I told the guys when we went to record it--I said, "Look, this has got this--this song has got a little descending little line in it, which is very redolent of the '40's and the '50's. It sounds like one of those late-night, sort of loungy kinds of tricks." But I said to them when we went in, "Look, this might sound like jazz, but let's just remember, we're not jazz guys. So don't try and push it into something that sounds really phony and fake." Not that these guys would, because they're really great players, these people that I play with. But they're not--

You didn't want them to think "jazz."
Yeah, exactly. I said, "If it comes along--" you know, because I cut my stuff with the vocal at the same time, for reasons I'll go into if you want me to. But there's a great English eccentric, a guy called Viv Stanshall--I don't know if you've ever heard of him. He had a sort of satirical group in the '60's called the Bonzo Dog Do Dah Band. He was the singer. He was a very eccentric bloke. And he had this little thing he used to say about jazz. He used to say, to describe jazz, he'd say, "Jazz-- delicious hot, disgusting cold." And I said to them, "Look--" Viv's no longer with us, of course--I said, "Look, Viv is looking down on us now. Just remember, 'Jazz--delicious hot, disgusting cold.' So please handle with care." I think it came out really sounding sweet and wistful. It doesn't make go, "Oh! It's that horrible fake jazz thing!" Because the song itself is basically a three-chord, four-chord song. It sounds like a country-western song when you just play it on the acoustic (laughs). So I wouldn't dream of saying, "Oh, I'm really into jazz now." I like pop music, albeit pop music from my era. You know, that's what I'm schooled in--two verses, middle eight, chorus, and out.

Your dad must like "You Inspire Me."
Oh, he does like that one, yeah. Yes, he does like that one. But he likes some of the others as well, which are not quite so obviously of his era.

Why did Rounder pick up Party of One, of all of your albums it could've chosen to reissue?
I didn't even know it was.

It's listed on the Rounder website with your two latest albums and the live EP.
Oh. Well, maybe they leased them off Demon, because Demon--you know, all my back catalogue--they've got all my back catalogue. And they recently reissued Party of One, with a new cover and two-- that awful thing they do where they take two outtakes--

You don't like that?
Oh, man! There's a reason why they're outtakes! I think it's such a shame. I know that if you're a real fan--real fans would be interested in it, but if it's not very good music, I think it's kind of a shame to do that. But that's the way it is.

You had no say over whether they did that or not?
Well, but I can be persuaded very easily, and if they tell--"Well, that's what everyone does, man! Wake up! It's the real world! It's only just trying to sell some records!" I'll go, "Oh, yeah. All right. Maybe I'm getting a little aloof about this."

I think your reservations are in large part correct. I found most of the outtakes on Bob Dylan's Bootleg (Volumes I-III) box set rather underwhelming.
Well, exactly. What the ear don't hear, the heart don't grieve for.

Part II: http://arsenioorteza.blogspot.com/2009/05/nick-lowe-interview-pt-ii-march-21-1998.html


"CRACKIN' UP" (Not the Abba song.)