Select interview with Andrew Eldritch
Todd R. Eigenschink
for some of you seeing it again), but for those of you that aren't
on the list... (Besides that, I figured, since I'd already typed the
whole bloody thing in, I might as well get some mileage out of it. :)
Here 'tis...the full text of the interview from the May 1992 issue of
Select. There were six pictures as well...
1) A two-page shot with text overlaying part of it; Andrew half a
mile from some castle in the background with the focus on his
2) The Sisters in '82
3) The Sisters in '83, with Wayne Hussey being pointed out
4) Eldritch in 1988 with Patricia Morrison (and a beard)
5) Eldritch and Tony James (and one person I don't recognize who
wasn't named)
6) A head shot of Eldritch over which is printed "There's a
difference between deliberately perverting language and not
knowing what the fuck you're doing. Wayne Hussey's illiterate..."
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With his shades on, he's the gothic rake, the flashing blade, the
cynical puppetmeister of all you little people. Shades off, he's just
this insecure geeky bloke trailing a catering pack of neuroses. Is
Andrew Eldritch serious or what? Welcome to the twilight world of ...
baron von paranoid!
Story by David Cavanagh
Photos by Alastair Indge
Reprinted without permission
He got his name out of a dictionary ("weird, unnatural or hideous":
Shorter OED) and he thinks he's the best lyricist in the world. He's
known for being one of the most single-mided bastards in the business.
He's both the unassailable Godfather of Goth and the riotous old
pseud. He's simultaneously shrouded in the metaphorical clouds of
smoke that best become a fruity old star of his tradition, and yet
perenially bogged down in tawdry, cancerous litigation with former
colleagues for alleged beer money owed.
Who _is_ Andrew Eldritch, you wonder, as you leaf through a pile of
old interviews on the way to his current whereabouts in Bath. A
character of the Old School, maybe, up to his eyes in Times crossword
puzzles and Harvey's Bristol Cream, whose first question to you would
be a haughty: "so...what does your father do?" Or some gauche,
neurotic Leeds University dropout who formed a band to overcome
shyness, lack of height and inability to click with girls? A dashing,
caddish rogue in a smoking jacket with the voice of a Shakespearian
act-or, dozens of puckish epigrams at his fingertips and a pack of
hounds to set on you should your line of interrogation verge on the
impertinent? Or a shy little geezer with a high-pitched southern
twang, fingers that fidget manically with his Silk Cut and nervous
eyes that dart around and do anything but look into yours?
Who _is_ Andrew Eldritch?
He'd greeted us wearing shades, and once you'd got used to his
small stature he looked just like the guy you see onstage:
slicked-back hair, black coat, black leather trousers, motorcycle
boots, a filter tip in his paw and a cruel slash of a mouth bidding a
confident hello. Once we sat down in the pub and the drinks arrived,
however, he took his shades off to do the interview. And away went
the legend of Andrew Eldritch.
This is not the leader of the Sisters Of Merccy, surely, you think
to yourself. Not this guy with his painfully shy eyes and his shaky
fingers and his chirpy voice. This can't be the guy who startled one
interviewer by repeatedly swishing a fencing blade mere inches from
his face while bemoaning falling attendances at county cricket
matches. Bloody hell. _This_ is the man who swaggers round Hamburg
by night, smoke-screened in stealth as he moves from bar to bar.
_This_ is what Andrew Eldritch looks like with the shades off?
A Sisters Of Mercy compilation album comes out this month, entitled
'Some Girls Wander By Mistake'. That's a quote from the Leonard Cohen
song 'Teachers', which was the first thing the Sisters ever played
live, on February 16, 1981. The album is a collection of early
singles and EPs from 1980 to 1983. Eldritch is the first to admit
that, in a few cases, this material doesn't exactly constitute the
absolute apex of Sororian wordplay, but press him on his reasons for
dredging the old vinyl crypt thus, and he'll merely flash some car
keys at you and smile pleasantly. Ah, a Merc. Your first?
"I've never been able to afford a car before," he nods, looking
very proud. "I've never had that kind of money. No money at all for
my personal enjoyment. So, er..." he rattles the keys, "this is why
I'm putting it out."
A classis model?
"No, no, a very sensible family saloon."
Black, though, of course?
"No, white actually."
Well, that's no good, is it? Anyway, what's it like listening to
all this ancient history?
"It's a tour de force of willpower," he says. "It's a tribute to
persistence. It's a good lesson to everybody who listens to that
record, that if you try hard enough, no matter how bad you are when
you start out, sooner or later you might not have to sign on anymore.
I was signing on until '84, you know. The musical climate when all
this stuff came out was totally against us. We were _hated_. We felt
completely alienated from London and alienated from people who had
money. Then, it was like Kid Creole was the be-all and end-all of
everything. He was completely hideous. That's what inspired us and a
whole lot of people like us."
There's something odd about Eldritch's speech. You'd have to hear
it. It's like something self-conscious. He doesn't sound very
confident at all. Maybe he's still licking his wounds from last
year's aborted, loss-making Sisters/Public Enemy US tour. He's trying
too hard. When he makes a joke he goes "Erm!" at the end, just like
Jimmy Tarbuck. His precise syntax evaporates if you press a point.
He's a likeable man, certainly, friendly and honest. But when he
talks of _coming_off_the_dole_ as being of huge importance in the
Sisters' history, you can't help thinking, Well, hang on, where's the
star-gazing in that? Where's the cynical playmaster of other people's
emotions that you read about? Where's the ruthless puppeteer, the
smirking Don Quixote?
When he makes a couple of charming quips about his height ("when I
was small...well, smaller") it gets increasingly hard to square _this_
Andrew Eldritch with the imperious Count Von Eldritch who bewitched
40,000 people at the Reading Festival last summer. He hasn't, you
know, sent along a stunt double today or something, has he?
To best appreciate the embryonic Sisters Of Mercy, we have to
Tardis our way back to the days of '80/'81, when sombre, commmitted
bands like the Gang Of Four, Delta 5, the Mekons, and The Au Pairs
sang of feminine armpit hair and Northern Ireland. Andrew Eldritch
(or Andrew Taylor as he was then) was a shy Stooges freak studying
Chinese at Leeds University. He and all his mates did loads of speed
and not much else. On the first Sisters single, 'The Damage Done'
(1,000 copies only, 1980), Eldritch plays the drums and a little
guitar. He was so crap at drums you can actually hear him drop the
sticks at one point.
A year later the Sisters regrouped, and this time Eldritch was the
singer. Now it was looking more like a band.
They were never quite like anyone else. They weren't as arty as
Bauhaus, nor as boisterous as Souther Death Cult. They didn't have a
drumer, just a cheap machine. They were pretty naff. One of their
most famous songs, 'Temple Of Love', was never played live because
nobody in the band couple play the guitar part. The press in London
tended to scoff. Eldritch is convinced some singles were reviewed on
the strength of their titles alone. But, as any Peel listener from
the time will tell you, the Sisters never seemed to go away.
A staple of a Sisters Of Mercy set became the well-chosen cover
version. Their first gig ended with a 20-odd minute version of the
Velvets' 'Sister Ray', with Eldritch frantically inventing additional
lyrics. 'Some Girls Wander By Mistake' has versions of the Stones'
'Gimme Shelter' and The Stooges' '1969'. What does Eldritch think the
Sisters brought to these classic songs, apart from the tinny sound of
a drum machine?
"A bit more energy," he says, and rattles on regardless of the
loudly raised eyebrows. "You see, in those days we took a lot more
drugs. I mean, we were really the bees' knees when it came to
amphetamine consumption. I'm sure we set quite a lot of records."
Years of outrageous coyness on the subject of his drug intake have
left Eldritch with a non-specific reputation of mysteriously derived
illness the equivalent of, say, Dennis Hopper's. Everyone knows he's
lived, but no one's really too sure what he's done. Just exactly how
pharmaceutical are we talking about here?
"Well, I don't want to get arrested, do I?" he says testily.
It's eventually wheedled out of him that heroin was at no time on
the shopping list; that cocaine changed his personality in all sorts
of unsavoury ways and has been ditched with a vengeance; and that a
few lines of cheapo whizz every so often are about his limits these
days. And yet he insists that the Sisters "took up where the Stooges
left off" and that the Detroit band's "gonzoid rush" became in time a
fully-fledged Sisters trademark.
The 1992 Sisters Of Mercy have two 'proper' guitarists (Andreas
Bruhn and Tim Bricheno), but still the same tacky drum machine they
were using in 1980. They haven't had decent bass player since Craig
Adams left with Wayne Hussey to form The Mission in 1986.
And Andrew Eldritch is still no nearer to facing an audience
without his trademark security blanket of smoke, 40W lighting smoke,
dry ice, monumental echo smoke.
"I'm too terrified," he says, looking like he means it. "I don't
like the idea of that at all. I think one of the reasons people like
to watch me is because it's obvious I don't really have any technical
ability, but there's something about the way my terror manifests
itself that seems to turn them on."
You're not cool at all, are you? You're really human and
frightened.
"Oh, yeah...I mean...yeah..." His eyes dart around.
So why is all this Transylvanian bollocks written about you in
interviews and stuff? all this heroic Flashman nonsense. He exhales
steadily. His answer is pretty weird.
"Because I have no social skills, no communication skills outside
of my songs. And people are always a bit lairy of what they don't
understand. People don't understand me because... (_long_pause_)
...because I don't explain a lot of what I do, I just do it. I
frighten people with my intensity..." His voice trails off. "I don't
like explaining. It's futile."
Did you kind of reinvent yourself as a rock start when you formed
the Sisters?
"No," he says quickly. "I'd already cut myself off from everybody
before that. Really, I ended up in a band by default. I'd never
picked up a musical instrument. I'd been banned from music classes at
school since I was ten cos I couldn't sing in key or play anything. I
was completely incompetent. Tone deaf. I still am. Even today, if
you listen, I've got a way of implying notes rather than singing them.
And if it's not in A, I can't sing it anyway. The musicologists among
you will notice how many of our songs are in A. It's quite a lot. It
is remarkable how much one can make of one's limitations. That's
_all_ I've done."
As the Sisters records came out (all doing extremely well in the
then-formative independent charts) Eldritch spent more and more time
working on their lyrics. This became his domain. As soon as the
conversation touches on his lyrics, all self-effacement and
nervousness vanishes. Andrew Eldritch is adamant he's simply the best
there is. That's better than Michael Stipe ("very good"), Lou Reed
("useless") and, well, everyone else really... with the surprising
exception of Richard Butler of the Psychedelic Furs, whom Eldritch
rates as a true genius.
Wayne Hussey of The Mission does not rate very highly.
"Yes, well, there's a difference between deliberately perverting
language and not knowing what the fuck you're doing," says Eldritch
briskly.
"Wayne's illiterate. My writing owes more to collage editing in
film. It's a richer use of language, that's all. Plus," he adds,
quickly warming to his theme, "you need to be pretty clued up to get a
lot of the humour in my writing. I write lines like : 'Stuck inside
of Memphis in a mobile home', erm! Now if you don't know your Dylan
(it's a pun on a 1966 Dylan song called 'Stuck Inside Of Mobile With
The Memphis Blues Again' -- Ed) you're not gonna know that's funny.
There's a lot of stuff like that. It's like doing a particularly
esoteric crossword. You not only have to know the Wordsworth quotes,
but also who as the England cricket captain in 1965, or whatever. You
have to have read a whole lot of Milton, Blake, Donne, Eliot."
And here we are in another grey area. Eldritch refers several
times to his "education". He's not from Leeds originally; he was born
in the Fens in East Anglia ("so, of course, I hate the French, erm!").
A nomadic childhood peaked with an invitation to go to Oxford
University to study German Literature, but the young Andrew Taylor
couldn't get a foothold in the class-conscious, punt-happy Oxford
_milieu_ and abandoned his course at the end of the first year. He
went north, to Leeds University, to learn Chinese. Unnerved to learn
that the plan was to dispatch him to Peking for a year of some
intensive, closer-to-the-action tutelage, he dropped out and went on
the dole. His Chinese is now, he admits, pretty shaky. He's still to
meet a Chinese person he can speak it to--the restaurants round his
way are all run by Cantonese people who speak a different dialect.
But he considers himself "a linguist, a specialist", and it's this
fascination with words and sentence construction that he brings to his
lyric writing. He explains how he'll omit the definite article here
and there to get the listeners attention, or twist the grammar round
so you get lines like "Acid on the floor so she walks on he ceiling"
('Body Electric').
"I thought the 'Vision Thing' album was unassailably brilliant," he
says. "I just love the language. I'm a linguist. Those little
twists." He inhales.
When most rock stars want a few hours of incognito relaxation away
from the depredations of clammy hands of the superfans, they tend to
whack the shades on. Andrew Eldritch takes his off.
"No one looks twice at me when I've got them off," he says
confidently. "Plus with this short haircut I look like a puny Marine.
Ain't nobody gonna recognize me now. When we do gigs I spend most of
the time beforehand in the crowd, soaking it all up with the shades
off."
He goes into quite a passionate little speech about "being picked
on" by strangers in public when he's just trying to "live in my own
space". The Eldritch of cartoon legend, of course, would send these
scurvy rapscallions on their way with a cuff round the ear and a
piercing aphorism or two. The real Eldritch just says: "Nah, mate.
Sorry. You've got the wrong bloke."
How do you feel about your fans? Are you protective of them?
"Oh yeah. I _hate_ it when they get slagged off. The worst kind
of reviews are when they say, Well, it's a pretty good record but who
wants to be associated with the other people who are going to buy it?
As if they're obviously morons. That really upsets me."
Do you get the feeling your music helps them through something?
"Yeah, I do. I get letters along those lines. I do know there are
a lot of people who find sustenance there. We're just trying to
provide a soundtrack for people with the same worldview as we have,
whatever that might be. I think our music has values, and I don't
think that's anything to be ashamed of at all."
Would your fans be disappointed if they met you off-duty?
"No, I think they'd be pleasantly surprised, because I do give
people the benefit of the doubt. People keep having a go at me, you
know. People take advantage of me quite a lot. It's because I'm
actually quite easy-going."
His eye contact's all over the place now. What's this all about?
"No, I think the only reason they'd be disappointed is because I'm
obviously shorter than they think I am. I'm five foot nine, and I'm
not pretty. I _know_ I'm not pretty because before I was in a band I
was completely unattractive." He looks down at the carpet. "I
like...I like those little twists of language, you know, I...I don't
like people to be paying attention to what the hips are doing. I just
want them to...get the _most_ out of the songs..."
A sudden, almost sympathetic thought occurs. Would you be happier
with your shades on?
"Yeah, I would," he exhales. "I mean...it's occurred to me, yeah.
I just thought it might make things difficult for you."
Don't you think the Sisters fans would respect you even more if
they knew you were this human? He finally snaps. He's had enough.
"Look, it's not up to _me_ to tell them, is it? Why should they
believe anything _I_ say? One of the things I've always said to them
is, Look, I know I'm telling the truth, but what I do is akin to being
a rock 'n' roll star, so you'd want to be very careful before you
believe anything I say. Now why should they believe me? Eh? If
anyone's gonna tell 'e, _you_ tell 'em. I write songs..."
With little twists. Sure. Next time you're at a Sisters Of Mercy
gig, take a good look around the crowd beforehand. Look for a little
guy in a leather jacket with a cruel mouth but incredibly nervous
eyes. Ask him if he's Andrew. The chances are he'll say no and
scuttle off through the crowd, head down.
And when the lights go down and all that bloody smoke billows up
and that imperious looking figure with the matchstick legs and the
voice of doom salutes the first delerious cheers of recognition, ask
yourself this: who _is_ Andrew Eldritch?
--
Todd Eigenschink (eige...@CS.Rose-Hulman.Edu)
Assistant System Manager, News Administrator
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, IN
"I'm a brainless funnel!" -- Jeff Little
Todd R. Eigenschink
1) A two-page shot with text overlaying part of it; Andrew half a
mile from some castle in the background with the focus on his
FACE! The focus was on his FACE!!!! (I don't know where that word
ran off to; sorry 'bout that!
Laura Treekiller Lemay - IWTFM
> 1) A two-page shot with text overlaying part of it; Andrew half a
> mile from some castle in the background with the focus on his
>
> FACE! The focus was on his FACE!!!!
Darn. :-)
--
*********************************************************
Laura Lemay le...@sun.com
Bitchy vampiric technogoth Go away.
*********************************************************
G The
eige...@cs.rose-hulman.edu (Todd R. Eigenschink) writes:
> "No one looks twice at me when I've got them off," he says
>confidently. "Plus with this short haircut I look like a puny Marine.
>Ain't nobody gonna recognize me now. When we do gigs I spend most of
>the time beforehand in the crowd, soaking it all up with the shades
>off."
Actually, even with the shades on no one seemed to notice him at the
University of Waterloo Show this past March. I could hardly believe
my eyes - there was Andrew, just walking around the crowd (with a
rather large bodyguard beside him) and no one seemed to recognize
him for who he was. (Of course, yours truly was too far away to
catch him before he snuck back to his dressing room ... sigh).
Geoffrey The
kg...@descartes.waterloo.edu/kg...@descartes.uwaterloo.ca
Gnome of Darkness
The same thing happened at Massey Hall - the Eldritch, Andreas, Tony
and Tim all came out and watched Danielle Dax for a while and no one noticed...
and unfortunate me, I was stuck in the balcony yelling at them to come on up
for a better view...
kristin