A Conversation with Andy Partridge (continued)

PM: I was reading a book that you guys did with Neville Farmer, Song Stories, recently.

AP: Oh, right, okay.

PM: I was amazed to see--

AP: Well, yeah, I'm not--you can tell by my reaction I'm not on fire with either of the books that have been written about us, actually.

PM: Right. Well, I think one rarely is.

AP: One of these days somebody is going to write a good one, but I think the two that exist are not great.

PM: In the one that I read, I was amazed to see the friend of mine who turned me onto XTC mentioned, and that was Scott Thunes.

AP: Oh, right! Seriously, you know Scott?

PM: Yeah. We were playing in bands in northern California together just prior to his Zappa days.

AP: Right. Have you suffered the wrath of Scott?

PM: Oh, yeah!

[laughter]

PM: I mean, when you mentioned in the book, "Yeah, he was a very musical person, but a guy you could get into an argument with right away," I said, "That's my boy."

AP: Oh, I'll tell you, you could get into a fight with him at the drop of the hat.

PM: He was a contrary genius, and a decidedly argumentative person.

AP: Yeah, I'm surprised his nose was still a sort of dimensional shape, really.

PM: [laughs] I won't print this...he was brilliant, and quite a good friend to me, but could be his own worst enemy sometimes.

AP: No, you can print it if you like. Musically, he's very talented.

PM: [laughs] In the Neville Farmer book, I found the accounts of celebrity diehard fans interesting, the sadly departed River Phoenix, and Keanu Reeves--

AP: Yeah, they were sort of hanging around--River Phoenix was hanging around during the making of Oranges and Lemons. I had no concept of who the hell this smelly kid was.

PM: Wow.

AP: Because he just really stunk, and he looked like a bum off the street.

PM: Unbelievable.

AP: He was in a filthy, grungy checked shirt and jeans that were just held together by the dirt. And I had to say to people, "Who the fuck is that dirty kid over there in the lounge, and why is he here every day?"

PM: [laughs]

AP: And it was like, "Oh, that's River Phoenix, the actor." "Really?" I didn't know who he was. And I approached him and said, "Oh, so you're an actor, are you?" And he was extremely nervous. I think we were his favorite band.

PM: Wow.

AP: And the irony of it was, every day that he came in, I'd have many, many conversations with him, and most of the conversations would get around to drugs, and how awful they were, and it was him telling me.

PM: Ahh.

AP: Because I'm not a big drug fan, I'm not interested in drugs. But no, it was him--we were concurring that drugs were for losers. And what's the next I hear is that that's how he went.

PM: Yeah. So unfortunate.

But it led me to wonder that you, as a band, and you and Colin probably had a lot of friends and fans among the glitterati and the literati, being the kind of band that XTC is.

AP: Yeah, you hear about stuff occasionally. Like I think Mike Meyers is a fan. I think what's his name, the voice of Mr. Burns, who plays bass in Spinal Tap--

PM: Harry Shearer.

AP: Right. I'm sure there are a few. Kiefer Sutherland, apparently, is a big fan.

PM: Really? That raises my opinion of him, as well.

AP: Yeah, I don't like his dad much, I think his dad is just a sort of damaged old hippie.

PM: [laughs] Really? That's funny.

AP: Well, every film he's in, you think, okay, just somebody remind him it's not f***ing M.A.S.H.

PM: You know what I loved him in, as Die Nadel in the Eye of the Needle. He's pretty good in that, when he was the German spy doing the silent killing and all that. He was hot there.

AP: Oh, right. But he has a terrible Irish accent when he's in--what are those war films where he plays some Irish agent or something?

PM: [laughs]

AP: Please.

PM: He's got a terrible Irish accent? [laughs]

AP: He really does. And he's playing the same role as in M.A.S.H., but with an Irish accent, a brain-damaged Irish accent. Donald Sutherland is not one of my favorite actors.

    continue

print (pdf)     listen to clips      puremusic home