Alive! True Adventures of Primal Scream

MAY 1993. MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE. THE PRIMAL SCREAM band checks into its penthouse, optimistic, raffish exiles on something of a mission. The line-up is that of the Primal Scream away team: Gillespie (vocals), Innnes (guitar), Young (guitar), Martin Duffy (piano, organ), augmented by David Hood (0ass) and Roger Hawkins (drums).

To that nucleus will be added Andrew Love (sax) and Wayne Jackson (trumpet), aka the legendary Memphis Horns, whom one excitable phone call from Dowd will convince that the Scream LP is worthy of their very best attention, and Henry Olsen, the band's on-the-road bassist, who will play bass and acoustic guitar on a couple of the songs.

They are staying in a tower-block that once welcomed visitors as the Memphis Holiday Inn, although no one in the band can quite work out what it is now. It feels like a hotel. There's a mald in the mornings, and someone says Presley used to have the whole of the top floor in the '70s to host his awesomely debauched parties. But these days it's more of a rented accommodation vibe.

The Scream are as one as they scan the city below: it's good to come South. But boy is it hot. The climate is so sticky it hits them as they cross the street. People are doubling back to the hotel to cut the legs off their jeans, before venturing back out again. No wonder all those graceful Southern ballads were made out here in the '60s; as it is, you can't walk faster than a lazy hi-hat groove. Gillespie decides to stick to the studio, before his clothes stick to him. But environmentally, he is in no doubt: this is where the album has to be made.

JUNE 1976. HAMPDEN PARK, GLASGOW. ENGLAND's Home International match against Scotland in 1976 is famous for a single moment of custodial slapstick: the ridiculously soft Kenny Datglish shot that England goalkeeper Ray Clemence allows to roll through his legs. To embellish the foolish keeper's anguish, it proves the decisive goal in Scotland's 2- 1 wili, and on the video Kenny Dalglish: Portrait Of A Natural Footballer, Clemence admits that Dalglish is not above bringing the subject up every now and again when they meet for a nostalgic ale.

This video replays the action leading up to the goal. As Scottish actor Bill Paterson warmly intones the voiceover, toothless six-yard assassin Joe Jordan receives the ball on the left wing, just over the halfway line. He passes the Bell's Whisky advertising hoarding, then the Visionhire sign, then the Royal Bank of Scotland. Standing behind it, in a yel- low raincoat, looking like he's turning to talk to the policeman about to walk past him, is Andrew hines youthful ball boy, fervent Scot, making Primal Scream's first documented television appearance.

Innes goes all the way back. He was in Alan McGee's band The Laughing Apple in 1981, and on the second Creation Records release ever, 'Flowers In The Sky' by Revolving Paint Dream in 1984. He's been in the thick of Creation and Primal Scream culture for well over a decade now, yet he's still almost completely anonymous. Any publicity that comes his way tends to start from the premise that he's an animal, a hedonist sans souci, likely to greet the new day from a supine position on the pavement, at around three in the afternoon.

But that choppy, soulful guitar playing on the Scream album didn't get there by itself. Innes is first and foremost, a musician. In conversation he's cautious virtually to an FBI degree, intensely wary of his band's reputation, loath to criticise any other musicians, and he maintains a steady, baleful eye contact under a mat of frizzy orange hair. It's possible he's extremely shy. But should anyone play him so much as the first four bars of 'London Calling' by The Clash, lanes wiil snap to attention, whirl towards the music and commence to boogie, saluting The Clash and all they stood for. He's a football fan, a fluir fan, yet to make his mind up about Ryan Gings but vastly enamoured of Eric Cantona, the early 1970s Ajax team, Johan Cruyff's '74 Holland World Cup squad, and of course Dalglish, in whose video he plays such a proud cameo.


MAY 1993. MEMPHIS. FOR A FEW DAYS NOW, GILLESPIE has been aware of something strange happening. Every time he sings, Hawkins stares at him, curious and intense, not quite voodoo but well above sociable. Eventually Gillespie has to inquire. What's happening, man? I'm listening to you, the drummer tells him. I'm trying to feel what you're singing. Gillespie resumes the vocal, buzzing. He's read the books. He knows Hawkins used to stare at Aretha Franidin exactly the same way 25 years ago.

Another eye-opener occurs when the Scream find out ZZ Top are recording their 'Antenna' album in Ardent's other studio. "Primal Screams?" says Billy Gibbons slyly one day. "I dig your shit." He gives Gillespie a tape of gospel songs.

And who's that effervescent Southern belle of a certain age who keeps bringing in food to the studio? The Scream are not great eaters - look at them - but what can you do when someone plonks down a Jack Daniel's Pie? Or a big plateful of oysters. This woman they call the Quaalude Queen. She's friends with Peter Guralnick and Stanley Booth, whose memoirs about soul and the Stones have long pro- vided a connection for European white kids with the immaculate music in their collections. And there's Dowd. Teenage-energetic, he's a revelation. The man knows which is the right take. Gently, he pulls great performances from the musicians.

By June it's looking good, Gillespie can't help thinking as he surveys the paperwork. There are three distinct kinds of songs: the ballads, the rockers and 'Funky Jam'. The ballads just keep mounting up, no one can stop them, and Henry's played some great bass on 'Everybody Needs Somebody'. The rockers: 'Jailbird', 'Rocks' (that goddamn chorus, sounds like a teenage anthem). 'Funky Jam', well, that's kind of like a brIlliant mess.

Gillespie gradually learns more about Hood and Hawkins. Frankly, when they heard 'Screamadellca' they had wondered what the hell it was all about: were they going to have to squeeze some sensuallty into the electronics and loops? Don't you understand, Gillespie retorted, it's you we want, and what you can do. You're essential to all this.

July, 1993. Memphis. Three of the songs, 'Funky Jam', 'Free' and 'Give Out But Don't Give Up', are out of Gillespie's range. It's time to get on that motherfuckin' phone to Denise Johnson.

JANUARY 26, 1994. A PHOTOGRAPHER'S STUDIO IN Chelsea, London. In between offering make-up hints to the boys, the lips, Bob, the lips - Denise Johnson admits she had no idea what role she would be playing on the album before she got to Memphis. The Scream aren't great ones for keeping people informed. As it happened, she sang lead on three songs, and backing vocals on three others.

It was Innes who spotted Denise, a Manchester lass singing with Hypnotone, at a soundcheck when Hynotone played in London a years back. Innes was very impressed, and the Scream invited her to London to sing on 'Don't Fight It, Feel It'. They told her it was one of the last songs they were doing for the album; actually it was the third. Aside from that, she's sung on 'Get The Message' by Electronic, an ACR album, stuff for Yargo, so 'Don't Fight It' was pretty much just another session for her. A year later she got another call: did she fancy going on tour with the Scream? Absolutely.

Now she's got a solo deal and Johnny Marr, Bernard Sumner and the Scream are all going to be on her album. It meant knocking back the next Cliff Bichard tour, but she's prepared to force herself.

"Primal Scream's a party, man," she says. "You come to it and you give what you've got. Leave when you like."


JULY 1993, MEMPHIS. DENISE IS WORRIED THAT Dowd thinks she's a bit of a joke. The Aretha thing has been worrying her, but Dowd's looking at her as if he doesn't think she knows what a microphone is. It's giving her a complex. Yeah, she says to him, I'll have the Neumann U-87, please - great sound, that's what I'm used to. Dowd clocks her with new respect. "My God," he says, we're in the ballpark." On her last day, with all her vocals done, Dowd says, "You come with me". He takes to a nearby bar and buys her a Long Island Iced Tea - five white spIrits, with a dash of Coke for colour. It comes in a pitcher. "You've earned it," says Dowd.


July 22, 1993. Memphis. The studio is deserted. As Dowd prepares a mix of the album, the band have scattered. Gillespie, Innes, Henry Olsen and Murray, their tour manager, are in New Orleans hanging out. Robert and Duffy are in New York, where the New Music Seminar is taking place. Dowd has been telling everybody: "We finish Saturday." But everyone's due back today, Thursday, to get ready for the playback. The studio is throwing a barbecue - very un-Scream, but so was going fishing in Alabama. Roger and David will be there with their wives. Alex Nightingale has flown to New York from England, and he'll collect Robert and Duffy and take them to Memphis.

On Friday, Gillespie, Innes, Henry and Murray arrive back from New Orleans. A puzzled Dowd greets them: "You heard about Duffy?" No, what? "Well.. someone sald he got shot. In the butt." They try all the New York numbers they've got for Nightingale; all engaged. The phone rings. It's Nightingale. Henry takes the call. Alex is fractious and spilbng words all over the place. We're late, he says, but we're on our way. The pips go before Henry can ask about Duffy. Then Robert calls. Again, Henry takes the call. Henry Olsen is a very Engllsh gentleman, a classically trained musician, always wears a suit, lives in Stratford-upon-Avon. He's having a stop-start nightmare conversation with a distressed Robert Young, who keeps freaking out - he thinks he hears laughter on the line. We're not laughing, Henry assures him. Someone laughs. Robert slams the phone down in tears.

JULY 23, 1993. LA GUARDIA AIRPORT, NEW YORK. Nightingale buys three tickets for the last flight to Memphis: one for himself, one for Robert and one for Duffy, whom he has just collected from the hospital. Duffy is visibly under medication and the airport officials refuse to let him board the plane. No way are they going to make the playback.

At some point the previous evehing, Duffy and Robert had entered a bar in New York - no one can remember its name. Both were drunk; Duffy ended up slumped at a table. At the bar, as the night wore on, Robert noticed the barman pointing to Duffy. Your friend, he sald, looks like he's been shot. Robert pulled back Duffy's jacket and stared, horrified, at a wound in Duffy's side, which was bleeding profusely. He helped the oblivious Duffy to the men's room and asked him what had happened. Duffy had no idea. He still has no idea - of who stabbed him, when, how long he had been iving there, or what he could have done to provoke it.


JANUARY 26, 1994. CHELSEA, LONDON. As MARTIN Duffy waits to have his photograph taken, he fidgets hyperactively, occasionally pouring a measure of gin from a half-bottle in a bag under his chair. With his jerky movements and Cockney Birmingham accent (he's originally from Birmingham) he looks and sounds a bit like snooker's wayward legend Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins. He keeps his leather jacket wrapped round him like a blanket. Duffy is indisputably the Scream's most engaging character. He's a demon keyboard player, the kind that wins the respect of the greats. After some excellent work with Felt, including 1988's 'Train Above The City', which is virtually a Duffy solo album, he played on 'I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have' on the self-titled second Primal Scream album. As everyone knows, his piano outro became 'Loaded'. A year later he was an official member. Right now, his voice betrays a damaged throat, which was operated on in January. He shrugs it off; he has the air of a man to whom things happen.


JULY 24, 1993. MEMPHIS. THE RECORDING HAS FINNISHED. It's Dowd's last day; he's off to do the new Gregg Allman album. But it's evident to the Scream that the album's not there yet. Plans are made for Dowd to do another mix in August. After a short period in hospital, during which he learns that the knife missed his kidney by an inch, Duffy flies back to London. He has a new statistic. In the case of 50 percent of stab wounds, the victim doesn't even know he or she has been stabbed. Alex Nightingale accompanies him on the flight.

"NIGHTINGALE'S A REAL HANAGER. HE'S INCREDIBLY bright. He's brighter than I am. Between me and Alex, it's a pretty formidable team," - Alan McGee. "Alex Nightingale is the only man who could manage the Scream," - Primal Scream's press officer.

February 3, 1993. Scream Heights Management offices, London EC1. Alex Nightingale, 31-year-old son of Radio One DJ Annie, is hard at work, doing what he's been doing since last Spring: planning the Primal Scream tour here and in the States, and laving the groundwork for the one accolade that has so far eluded the band - American stardom. 'Screamadelica' wasn't an American album, but this might be. Sire, the band's US label, are confident it will go gold, and Nightingale can now say yes to certain offers. Yes, the Scream will put the work in. Yes, they'll tour the States supporting some band they don't necessarily respect. Yes, we have the team in place.

As morose as the Scream are sometimes known to be, Nightingale is notoriously manic and brusque. In only a couple of years he's built up his booking agency, EC1, to a powerful company that handles The Orb and the Scream's tours. When the Scream moved to Brighton in the late '8Os he befriended Gillespie, accompanied him everywhere, and slipped into the role of manager. "It's not a nine-to-flve job, let's put it that way," he says.

There's a story that Paul McCartney once proposed marriage to Nightingale's mother, to which he offers a terse "no comment". What he does remember is seeing various members of The Who a lot during his childhood. To leave the house to sit his History O4evel, he first had to climb over the unconscious body of Pete Townshend, shifting the guitarist's body slightly so the door would open. (He still falled it). He was eight when his mother first introduced Keith Moon, the night Moon arrived home in Weybridge without his keys and smashed up the front of his house in a drunken rage. On another occasion, Moon was staving at the Nightingales', went to the off-licence, sank a bottle of vodka and was next seen driving along the beach at Brighton in a stolen police car ordering pensioners through a loudhailer to evacuate the beach because there was a tidal wave approaching. When the police headed him off, with the bottle of vodka still in his hand, and asked him if he had anything to say in his defence, he uttered the immortal words: "Do you know where I can find a decent tart?"

Having seen the legends up close, Nightingale is covinced the Scream are no pretenders. "It's real," he says soberly. "I know people are trying to build up this whole myth about the Scream. Right: no one going to die. We've got too much to live for."

JANUARY 26, 1994. DOME CAFE, KING'S ROAD, Chelsea, London. The first guitar riff you'll hear on the album is that of Robert Young. The Scream are fond of surnames - Innes, Duffy, Nightingale - but Robert is addressed most fondly as Throb. Tall, suave, tanned and hairy, he flaunts his bare chest amid a shock of all-over leather, and lunches on triple Jack Daniel's and a huge bucket of mussels.

Robert Young has played on every Primal Scream album (on 'Sonic Flower Groove' (1987) he was the bassist). A teenage Joy Division fan - with a brutal Bernard Albrecht haircut - he had lived across the road from Gillespie as a boy. When the Scream split with their original lead guitarist Jim Beattie, a man with an imprinted Byrdsian 12-string style, Robert, a guitarist more ingrained in what Gillespie likes to call "the boogie", was persuaded to give it a bash. He was soon joined by lanes. For guitarists, they're both surprisingly generous - they don't insist on specIfic credits for their solos, although if the playing is dirty and lowdown, it's a fair bet it hails from the house of Throb.

"For me," he says, "it's obvious who's doing what. But it doesn't matter. If he can do something better than me, he does it. There's no pride involved." Known to be a hard partner, Robert is spoken of in awed tones at Creation, where they say, "Some people have 'days'. Throb has weeks." A slow, elegant mover, he too is reticent.

"We've always been a rock 'n' roll band," he insists. "Although we sometimes use the available technology, if you see us live, it's a rock 'n' roll guitar band. It's always been one and it always will be."


END OF JULY, 1993. CHATEAU MARMONT HOTEL, Los Angeles. With no word of Primal Scream's activities being leaked back to the UK music press - least of all relating to the stabbing of Duffy the band find themselves in rock's second most notorious hotel alter New York's Chelsea, and party like people possessed. They're using this trip to hook up with McGee, who is meeting with New Order's manager Tom Attencio to discuss a possible Scream management deal. In the bungalows of the Chateau Marmont, secluded and set back from Sunset Boulevard, they mingle with their fellowguests, Evan Dando and Arthur Lee. Dando will later come clean about the crack and heroin that he was using at the time; the Scream, ever cautious, remain emphatically tight-lipped. Gillespie soon learns that this is the place where John Belushi OD'd and died. Oh well. Life goes on.

While at the Chateau Marmont, they are introduced to the man who will help them take the album on to the next stage. George Drakouiias, who lives just around the comer, wanders in one night when the Scream throw a party. Best known for producing the first two albums by The Black Crowes, Drakoulias is also a soul fanatic; a superb bass player; a man who looks like a composite of every biker that ever existed; Rick Rubin's first-in-command at (Def) American Records; the man who has "arranged" the next Ride album; and the man McGee first wanted to produce the Scream album. Chatting to Gillespie at the party, he learns that they're not happy with the mixes of the album's two adrenaline rock 'n' roll tracks, 'Jailbird' and 'Rocks'. Let me have a listen, he says. Gillespie hands him a Walkinan cued up to play 'Jailbird'. We should do it, Drakoullas tells him firmly when the music finishes. It'll happen. We'll do it here in LA.

August 22-29. Memphis. Back at Ardent, Tom Dowd debuts his second mix. It still leaves the Scream unsatisfied. No one's alleging Dowd has done anything but a first-rate job. The ballads are fantastic, and that's half the album. But the rockers don't combust to quite the kinetic heights the Scream had intended. And 'Funky Jam' is just, well, a jam that's funky. McGee is now officially worried.But it's difficult to get through to the Scream anything as mundane as panic.

Gillespie is most unhappy with 'Big Jet Plane', one of the keynote tracks, a lazy, sorrowful ballad. He feels they have misunderstood the soul of it. Late one night, the Scream decide to have one more go at it. But they need a keyboard player, and Duffy's back in England convalescing from the stabbing. The obvious when-in-Memphis name to call is Jim Dickinson, the shady, ubiquitous James Luther. Dowd makes a call or two. Dickinson blows out a session across town and duiy appears, grinning wolfishiy. "It's a full moon tonight," he observes. "It's a blue moon," Dowd corrects him.

Although Gillespie's not too clear on the lunar specIfics, he's well aware that Memphis folk believe that a blue moon is invariably accompanied by magical and mysterious happenings, and that's good enough for him. He warms up with a few old Sun Sessions tunes while Dickinson mixes up the organ. Finally, they're ready. lnnes plays an acoustic. Robert Young takes the electric. And as Bobby sings the vocal he captures all the sense of regret and redemption he's anhing for on 'Big Jet Plane'.

"That," he says drowsily afterwards, "is how I always imagined great records were made."

August,1993. Graceland, Memphis. Seeing the home of The King is a must for any rock 'n' roll band in the area, so the Scream assemble in the grounds to see what vibes, if any, linger. It's actually their second visit. Gillespie felt like a necrophillac the first time; so he's stayed in bed. But Innes,in fine form, excels himseif by vomiting copiously on the lawn, and is manhandled off the premises shouting: "First guy to do it since the King!"


SEPTEMBER, 1993. ENGLAND. ON 'SCREAMADELICA Primal Scream had learned the importance of mixing. They can write, play and arrange. By their own admission, they need help with mixing. Only one member, lnnes, even attends mixing sessions. Now they reailse they'll have to do something simllar with this album: farm some of the songs out to different people and see what arrives. 'Jailbird' and 'Rocks' are une, Drakoulias can breathe flame into those. The real bastard is 'Funky Jam'. Who do they get? Weatherall? Lord Sabre is approached, but for 'Give Out But Don't Give Up' instead. He says he can't do anything with it. They are stuck again. It is Chris Abbott of Creation's Infonet label who gets the light-bulb over his head. "It's obvious. Get George Clinton." While Creation contact Clinton's manager, they tell Dowd that Clinton will be remixing some songs, not sure how he will take it. "I couldn't think of a better man myself," Dowd says.

September 1993. Detroit. George Clinton, captain of the Parliament/Funkadelic mothership, remixes 'Funky Jam', 'Give Out But Don't Give Up' and Denise's ballad 'Free'. He's never heard of anyone remixing a ballad before. Impressed by the groove and soul of the music, he adds his own vocals to 'Funky Jam' and 'Give Out'. Through the miracle of modern remildug, Denise Johnson finds herseif duetting with George Clinton, and Primal Scream and George Clinton never meet once.

September 22-30, 1993. Jacob's Studio, Farunham, Surrey. Denise adds more vocal to 'Funky Jam'. The Surrey countryside proves too sedate for the Scream, who have seen too much to want to come down yet. "There's too much rain," opines Innes. "And too many fuckin' cows."

November 4-9, 1993. London. Brendan Lynch works on a remix of 'Funky Jam', distinct from Clinton's. It was at Sabresonic one night that the Scream heard Weatherall play a spaced-out, organ-heavy mix of 'Kosmos' from the first Paul Weller album. What's thaI? It was a lianited promo, only 100 copies or so, but the Scream fell in love with it, and that's what they ask Lynch, co-producer of Weller's two solo LPs, to do with 'Funky Jam'. With two very different versions of 'Funky Jam' - Lynch's later re-christened as 'Funky Strut', then again as 'Struttin"- they can finally call it a rap. November, 1993. Brighton. It's been a good while since Gillespie's checked out any of the album. But now he's home and he's alone, sooo... he picks 'Jesus', a deathly but regal balladiater retitled 'I'll Be There For You'. It's been an intense time making the album, what with Duffy getting stabbed and all the sleepless nights, and he's not sure what emotions to expect. Fine stuff, thinks Gillespie, as the tears run down his face.


NOVEMBER, 1993. LOS ANGELES. MEANWHILE, OUT in LA's Oceanway Studios, Innes oversees the Drakoulias mixes. Three days into the session McGee gets a call from Drakoulias, who says: listen to this. He plays 'Rocks' down the phone. "That's my Hitler!" shouts McGee, just like the scene in The Producers. Within days he hears 'Jailbird' - bang, another smash. Meanwhile, Nightingale calls Dowd to keep him posted on the latest remixes. "Just get that fuckin' record out, boys," barks the 67-year-old legend. When Gillespie hears that, he is humbled. Dowd is 100 motherfuckin' percent.

November 29-30, 1993. The Scream make their last visit en bloc to LA, to record the swaggering, devoutly rockin' 'Call On Me' with Drakoulias. Interestingly, Paul Oakenfold does a mix of this too with one simple instruction: make it a number one record. McGee finds it too polite, but he can't help thinking, yes, that is a number one record...

Christmas, 1993. Los Angeles. lnnes, Drakoulias and the latter's engineer Dave Bianco remix 'Call On Me', 'Cry Myself Blind' and 'Everybody Needs Somebody', possibly the album's best song, another sublinie ballad. When 'Cry Myself Blind' is finished, that's it. The last song. But lanes isn't having any fly-straight-home nonsense. He stays for two weeks, his girlfriend joining him for Christmas. The others have all scattered so it's a fortnight at the Chateau for lanes.
JANUARY 24, 1994. LONDON. WHILE INNES MAKES monor edits, Gillespie decides on final titles of all the songs, and finally gives the album a name: 'Give Out But Don't Give Up'. They've got a great photo of Eddie Hazel, the late Funkadelic guitarist, for the back cover. They've got an all-out action video for 'Rocks', shot beneath the YMCA in Tottenham Court Road today. They've got six ballads, three rockers, two versions of 'Funky Jam', and a sinewy, insidious title track. Primal Scream, know what I mean. The new album is ready, ready, ready...


INTERVIEW WITH BOB:
Citizen Caned
"We're not a rock 'n' roll museum... So where is Bobby Gillespie 'at' in 1994?

THE KEITH RICHARDS T-SWRT DATES FROM THE cover of Rolling Stone in 1971. The body beneath dates from 1964. And at 29, Bobby Gillespie steels himself for an interview thus. One glass of champagne. One cup of tea. One toasted cheese and tomato sandwich.

He's pale to the point of anaemia, skinny to the point of McDonald's straw. He talks in a big soggy blur of syllables - "right, right..."- and his conversation is pebble-dashed with the names of rock 'n' roll's greatest artists. Not survivors, or gloriously wasted fuck-ups, or casualties, but artists and musicians. 'Give Out But Don't Give Up' is a musician's album, and Gillespie's languorous form moves with a musician's grace as his mind flits across~ classic songs, classic albums.

"Seen this?"

His gaze has chanced upon something he thinks might be appropriate. It's an old Faces poster that came with their 1971 album 'A Nod's As Good As A Wink', a real old pornographic mess of a poster, an orgy of naked women, champagne flutes, battered amps, tartan scarves and camera verite clips of tour misbehaviour. But Gillespie's not looking at any of that. He points to the writing below, a list of all the songs pins helpful Rod Stewart notes. *

One reads simply: "We liked this song, that's why we did it."

Gillespie shakes his head in appreciation, almost lost for words.

"See that.. that's the Scream."

Do you ever put Primal Scream into a historical context?
"See, this really pisses me off. People think, Primal Scream, all they want to do is find some place in rock history and they'll be happy. That isn't why we do music. I love being in the room and bearing Mr Innes and Mr Young playing their guitars, or Marty playing the keyboards. Sometimes they'll play a really soulful, lyrical, country-soul, heartbreaking guitar, and it really moves me. Or else they can play rock 'n' roll, like 'Rocks', and it sounds like a fluckin' aeroplane taking off. Right? And I live for that. That's why I'm in a group. That's why they're in a group."

Do you think it's important for Primal Scream to exist, purely to link pop's present to rock 'n' roll's past?
"The only thing I don't want is us to be nailed down as some motherfuckin' curators of some rock 'n' roll fuckin' museum. We love all sorts of music, and I'm glad to turn people on to sounds that they've never heard - y'know, go and buy 'Superfly' by Curtis Mayfield, or The Impressions' 'Greatest Hits', or Culture, 'Two Sevens Clash'."

'Sonic Flower Groove' sounds really strange now, in the context of what followed. Were you rock 'n' roll then?
"Whheww... (whistles incredulously).. what you've got to remember is, when we started the band we could barely play. We were still learninghow to write songs. What you say in songs. If you take the ffrst three Stones albums, it's all cover versions. The Beatles - lots of cover versions, but even then The Beatles had been together for years. We started the band in, say, March 1984, played our first gig in October 1984. It was experimentation. We were just playing with music and seeing what happened. That's why it's good now that we can use different musicians who've got different feel and can help us make the kindof record that we want to make."

Have you always known that mixing songs is important?
"No, because.. this is the thing. We started playing music because we were bored and we'd nothing to do. We thought we were the only people in the world that liked the fuckin' Heartbreakers and the Dolls and Otis Redding and shit like that. Then we met the Mary Chain, which was a big influence. We had sImilar influences, like films, books, records, juvenile delinquency, that sort of stuff. Joke! But when you start a band in this country you're under immediate pressure. All those records that we did before are just the growth of a band. It's different line-ups and also different musical influences and different things happening in your life. When we got a chance to make our first record we didn't know how to make a fuckin' record. Then we realised that what we're good at is songwriting, playing, arranging. But we ain't good at producing and mixing. I think we realised that a long time ago. We've always wanted to try and get good people to work with us, but we never had the money and we used to get laughed at..."

You're in an exciting rock 'n' roll band. You've got a longterm girlfriend. Do you ever spend much time alone?
"(Thinks) Not as much as I used.to. I do like being alone a lot. It's good to be on your own. Not all the time, because I think I enjoy being with people I like. Or I even enjoy just talking to fuckin' strangers at a bar, on a train or whatever sometimes: (Ruefully) Depending on how the conversation goes: But I can feel lonely in a room full of my friends."

Do the Scream fear death?
"I never think about it. really. I get more uptight about somebody I love dying, but not me dying.

You are aware you're living a pretty severe lifestyle?
"I'm not aware of that, no, I don't think so. You've got to just live your life. You've got to do what you feel. Put it this way, I want to live. I ain't no deathtrap. That's another thing that's misunderstood about us. We do get into a lot of strange situations, but I think that's part of the adventure of being alive. Also, I think going through a lot of bad times can be beneficial for your spirit, in shaping your character. You can become a stronger person as the result of going through bad times. I don't mean that in the macho sense, just in the sense of self-knowledge, or knowledge of other human beings."