HUGH CORNWELL - INTERVIEWS

Tony: All the Guilty reviews in the press have been extremely positive - and fans seem to think that the album is your best yet - do you see it as your best work to date?

Hugh: "Yes, definitely. It's a culmination of a lot of things that I've wanted to do for a very long time. So it's a good basis to go on from now."

TK: It's something you were living with for a long while. The initial tracklisting was very different…

Hugh: "Long gestation period, long gestation. I mean, some of those songs - Five Miles High and House Of Sorrow - were written in about '93, amongst lots of other tracks that I demoed about three times, all in all. Those two actually made it through, all this way. It's quite remarkable."

TK: Quite a few of the songs came together when you went into the studio with Laurie Latham…

Hugh: "Absolutely. Once we were in there and firing, the four of us with Laurie, I was just coming in with things I had written the day before and saying let's try this one. Torture Garden was like that. Black Hair… I agonised over for a couple of weeks, but that was pretty quick. Nerves Of Steel was pretty quick."

TK: Was Snapper one of the later songs?

Hugh: "No. Burning Desire was very quick. Snapper - I wrote the lyrics to that when I went off to visit Kenya with a friend. I wrote the lyrics there in the summer of '95. The songs went from a couple that were written in '93 all the way through to writing just before they were recorded. So the album spans quite along period really."

TK: What about the songs that were left over - will they resurface?

Hugh: "I've no idea. Some of them we'd like to re-work. I mean, Jesus Will Weep definitely hasn't been lost. We might re-record it or we might end up releasing my original demo, which was much more of a programmed, atmospheric piece - with no real drums. It's all programmed stuff, and sounds like it was done in a church. What other titles are you thinking of?"

TK: Lady in Mind…

Hugh: "Yes, Lady In Mind. We never recorded that with the band. There's just a version that I demoed. There's If You Wanted To, which is sitting there. There's a lot of songs."

TK: There's the song that was mooted as a possible single, Touch Touch…

Hugh: "Yes, I'm not sure if anything will happen to that. Some of them I'd like to see go further and some I'm not particularly bothered what happens to them. I mean I've got about 30 or 40 songs for the next record to choose from."

TK: Really, already?

Hugh: "Yes, I just had to stop writing because I was just stock-piling more and more songs. I thought until this record (Guilty) gets licensed, what am I going to do, sit around twiddling my thumbs? No, I'd better start writing for the next record. So I started writing, and I've just got so much that it's ridiculous, so I've stopped. Any new ideas are going in the back of the brainbox, for future use!"

TK: Guilty has been out in the UK & most of Europe for nearly a year - and yet Snapper haven't released a single from the album - when there are plenty of likely candidates - virtually every track - One Burning Desire, Snapper, Black Hair… & Long Dead Train. Does it disappoint you that there have been no singles (yet) from the album - or do you see yourself as more of an album artist?

Hugh: "No, I am disappointed, but it's just frustrating, because VelVel - the American label, they are totally in agreement with you. They see six or seven what they call radio-tracks. So they will be pinpointing tracks and pushing them. It's just that the situation hasn't been right to do it in this country. In this country, there has to be an angle to releasing something as a single. Either a showcase on a show or something. If you release a single and you don't get any of the breaks that you want, then it's been a waste of time, and finance as well. Snapper, being a young company, they said unless we've got a sure-fire in on something - on some show, then there's no point releasing it. It would be to satisfy your vanity, so I was quite happy to wait. There's plenty of time for that to happen. We've got a video planned for One Burning Desire, which was going to be the first single."

TK: You worked on an edit of that, and Snapper, with Laurie…

Hugh: "Yes, we had it all ready. We weren't sure whether it was going to be double-sided. We've got a genius with visual images, called Graham Fink. He was artistic director at Saatchi's for ten years in the 80's. He's the enfant terrible of the advertising business and he's being making ad's for the last ten years. He's started making pop videos. He's only made three and he's already got an award for one of them, which he made in an afternoon, or something. He loves the album and he's got an idea for every song. We got one ready to go for One Burning Desire & Snapper, but we haven't been able to make them yet. No way has this album finished its run in this country. It really needs to be re-released, it's bubbling around in the shops. When it was originally released in this country, there was no advertising. I don't know why that was, but the fact of it is that it just didn't happen. To 95% of the population of this country, this album doesn't exist, so it could quite easily be re-released next week with promotion, and suddenly it would be like a new record. I would be quite happy for that to happen, because it's not a timed record, it still sounds good."

TK: I hear a lot of comments from people saying it's such a shame that more people have not got to hear this album - that it's mostly die-hard fans who know it's out there - so its good to hear that it's got a lot of life ahead of it…

Hugh: "David Fagence and I knew it was going to be a very hard, long, uphill struggle. We're slowly pushing this ball up this hill and it's slowly getting there. I mean, the big excitement for us now is that we have a substantial American label with clout, who know what this record is about, know what is possible in the future and they're going to get behind it. If I've got to do it in America and bring it back to Europe, that's absolutely fine by me. I'm quite happy to base myself in America, and break it there first. There's no time limit on records anymore.

Once we start making some of these great videos, with Graham, for the American market, its just going to take-off. It's all a waiting game. Music is one of those things that can't be hurried - it takes its own time. Until it's the right time, nothing is going to happen."

TK: You are going to the States after the European dates, for the first time in over 10 years…

Hugh: "Yes, I've never played there by myself. When I did the album Wolf, which came out on Virgin, they wanted me to go and tour there as they were getting really good radio reaction on some of the tracks. I knew the Flock Of Seagulls manager, and they had named their band from Toiler On The Sea, so they were big Stranglers fans. They loved the record and were about to go out and do a greatest hits tour. They offered to come out on tour with me - and play my set before they did theirs."

TK: You wouldn't have had to have the haircut as well, would you?

Hugh: "Yes, could you throw a hair-cut in as well! We were planning this, because they were massive in America, and this was going to be a clean-up tour, and would have been great audiences for me. Just as we were planning this, Virgin dropped me from the label. I went in to do some interviews in the office in New York, and they said - oh sorry, didn't anyone phone you at the hotel. We've just got the fax through from England, you've been dropped - so that's it pal. I thought just because I've got dropped in England, if you've got reaction here, can't you just carry it on. And they said sorry we're completely controlled by London. So I will be pleased to go over and play."

TK: When I saw you live in November you said Snapper was "a song about eating fish" - people have read more into it than that - what is your interpretation of the lyric?

Hugh: "I've always been a real fan of eating fish. There's something very sexual about fish as well, and there's something very religious about fish. Fish is one of these ubiquitous - one of these subjects that gets into all sorts of areas of peoples lives. I read a book about it - there's a scholar in Oxford who's just written a book called Courtesans & Fishcakes - about the life of the ancient Athenians. It's all about their fish eating habits and how it links to their sexual appetites. I saw quite a lot of similarities there."

TK: And it was a pure co-incidence with the record label name as well…

Hugh: "That's how we ended up on Snapper in the first place. David met one of them in Midem, and he gave him a tape of what we'd done already for the album and he gave David a card. They walked off and stopped as they read what they'd given each other, turned round and they saw the word Snapper on both of them. They thought it was a weird co-incidence. I mean Snapper, for all their shortcomings, because they are a small label that have got their hands tied really in what they can do. They gave us the start, which we needed, and if it hadn't been for their interest we wouldn't have been able to get this deal in America."

TK: Is Long Dead Train about you leaving The Stranglers & starting afresh?

Hugh: "Really, yes. It's a bit obvious really."

TK: How are you enjoying playing live - as a 4-piece - without keyboards & with Mike Polson as 2nd guitarist? Mike's still quite new really…

Hugh: "Yes - it's great. Mike's so supportive and enthusiastic. If it can be tried, he'll try it. We found that some of the keyboard sounds, or things that are missing on keyboards - he can actually mimic with a guitar sound or a sound effect - or do something which has that same effect. Its just worked great - worked fabulously. I'm really, really, happy."

TK: What sort of live set do you have planned for the forthcoming European & US dates? Obviously it will be based on Guilty - but are you planning to use any of the new songs?

Hugh: "Because Nosferatu is about to be re-released we might do a couple of tracks off of that. I'd like to throw in something that no-ones heard before. Irate Caterpillar I'd like to do - because that could be done with two guitars, bass & drums quite powerfully. Maybe as an instrumental or something to start the set off. Wired we could do as well - we've done that before live. It would be nice to do something that nobody's heard before. I'm getting quite a bit of a back catalogue now. It's going to be hard to decide what to do. I'd rather do my back-catalogue than Stranglers back-catalogue. But I can't really do that till I get a break somewhere - get something off the ground in America or Europe."

TK: The L'etoile De Sang soundtrack is coming out around the same time as the Nosferatu re-issue. You recorded that back in 1985?

Hugh: "The film was made in '86. I had ten days off from band recording sessions in 1985."

TK: Why has it taken such a long time to come out?

Hugh: "There's never been any possibility of releasing it - it didn't seem to be the right time. And I never really thought that anyone would be interested in releasing the soundtrack to a film that's only 20 minutes long. There's actually more music than the film is long. In the film, only snippets of the songs are used. English Walk is on the car radio when I'm driving along, and so you only hear it for 15 seconds."

TK: It's a mostly instrumental album -what instruments do you play on the songs?

Hugh: "Its all keyboards - its real Eno-ish ambient stuff. All I had was a DX-7 & a SH-101 - which is a monophonic, sequencer keyboard. It's got some fabulous sounds and they are really in demand now. I had these two keyboards and I just experimented and built things up on an 8-track and ended up with what we've got."

TK: You worked with Dagmar Krause on the track Out Come The Tears? Was it through her work with Michael Nyman, which was at the same time as this?

Hugh: "She was in Henry Cow. She'd done lots of Kurt Weill stuff, and we just needed a really strong, female voice and thought she would be a good person to ask."

TK: Are there any plans to release in the future the music you recorded for Inside Art - the episode about the work of the artist Peter Howson - is it in a similar vein to L'etoile De Sang?

Hugh: "The programme came out. It was a children's series to show how paintings are made. They put a stop-frame camera in front of an easel while an artist was painting. They just took a shot each time the artist left the canvas. They ended up with a film of this painting being created and Peter asked me to do the music for his one. So I did this piece, but the company thought it was too mature for kids - so they didn't use it. It was going to be made into a short film with this piece of music on it. It would have been great in cinemas. It's like so many things I do, they never see the light of day. I start off in good faith with people and it never gets finished off. The story of most of my career is about things that were never finished. I do my bit - but the project never gets completed. There's hundreds (laughs). The nice thing is - if we get one little snip somewhere with something I've done - then some of these people might get off their arses and go "ooh - now maybe we should finish this off, because maybe theres something in it for us". I don't care what their motives are but it would be nice to see some of these things bloody finished!"

TK: David tells me that you are working on a track with a poet called Sex W. Johnson…

Hugh: "Now that looks like its going to get finished! Mantra Of The Awoken Powers is the poem. Barry Flanaghan, the sculptor, he makes these 12 foot high bronze bunny rabbits dancing and doing stupid things all over the world, he's spoken the mantra. "

TK: And you're doing the music…

Hugh: "I've done the music for it. So he hasn't heard the music - we've done it all by post. He's sent a tape of him speaking the mantra from America and I've put down a few ideas for the music, and its fitting really, really well. It's for an album dedicated to British Art collaborating with British music. They've got Damien Hirst doing a track with The Buzzcocks. Brian Eno with Mark Quinn. Boy George has done something with Tracey Emin. Mine is going to be me - with Sex W Johnson & Barry Flanaghan."

TK: Nosferatu is due to be re-issued in April - how do you view the album & songs now? In the past you've talked about it as being difficult and very left-field - when you thought that you could have recorded the songs in a more straight forward way…

Hugh: "I'm quite proud of it. As time goes by more and more people are saying how much they like it. Much to my amazement. Now there's been sufficient time of me being away from The Stranglers, certain people have told me that they think Nosferatu & Guilty are very me - whereas Wolf and Wired weren't very me. And that's quite interesting - as the more people say that the more I feel connected to Nosferatu and the prouder I feel of it.

It had its moments. I just wasn't sure how to approach it before but now I'm getting this body of stuff, it was the first thing I did outside of the band."

TK: It was recorded in difficult circumstances - recorded in different studios, in bits and pieces…

Hugh: "Yes - one here, one there. We recorded it at such short notice that all the studios were booked and we could only get them for three or four days at a time. We wasted a hell of a lot of time setting up and packing down to move studios. If we had been in one all the time it would have been a lot more effective. But we ended up being able to adapt very quickly to different surroundings."

TK: Is it coming out as a straight re-issue - I presume the only extra track is the instrumental Losers In A Lost Land - from the 'b' side of White Room…

Hugh: "I'm not sure yet - we're still in negotiations about when its coming out and in what form its coming out."

TK: What about the track you did with Robert Williams - from the US album Late One Night - Grinding The Gears…

Hugh: "After Nosferatu, Robert did an album - Buy My Record. Late One Night must have been a second album he did. Grinding The Gears was much later. What did I do on Grinding The Gears - did I just play guitar?"

TK: Guitar, backing vocals & you co-wrote the track…

Hugh: "That's right, Yes. I don't think I've got a copy of that."

TK: You have recently finished filming Feet of Clay…

Hugh: "Another short film that hasn't been finished (laughs)."

TK: That will be finished?

Hugh: "I don't know. It's another one of these forgotten projects that I spent three days shooting. Its about a hitman - shot in Kate Moss's flat - a fabulous studio in Chiswick that the director got the use of."

TK: Who's the director?

Hugh: "Guy Pitt. He shot this on a shoestring and I was going to do the music for it. I had some music ready to adapt for it - and the latest I hear is that he's ground to a halt on it - he can't finish it. So that might never see the light of day."

TK: A track that may see the light of day is the one-minute track you recorded for the Morgan Fisher album, Music For The Millennium…

Hugh: "Yes, 2000 Lights. I think that's going to come out. Mind you, I haven't heard any noise from that quarter for a while - so that I'm not even sure about. Its great for trainspotters this, my career, isn't it - because people can spend their whole time looking for these things that don't exist! (Laughs). There must be some Greek mythology that would sum all this up. Maybe someone reading this who knows something about Greek mythology could come up with a suitable parallel - for me - that goes with some sort of fable about looking for things that don't exist."

TK: How does a song develop with you now - do you take the bare ideas to the other people you are working with?

Hugh: "The way we recorded Guilty is pretty much the way I would like to work in the future. We work between us - from a raw song - just guitar and lyrics. We then look at a way to play the song - an arrangement. The song is written, but we work out an arrangement between the five of us. Once everyone's happy, everyone's excited - which might take a day. We were lucky - Black Hair… we did the arrangement in less than a day - and that was one of the difficult ones. If you're firing, it's easy to do that.

Then you record the basic track - which Laurie would get a drum-track from. Everything else would be guides, basically. If you are lucky you might get a good bass track out of it. Then you've got a tape with the skeleton of the song on - the right arrangement, a great drum track, and a bass track subject to changes, maybe later on. I would then go with Laurie down to my studio. We would then work on it from there - with guitars. I'd just do anything that came into my head. We'd try any possible idea. We'd end up with a guitar arrangement we both thought worked. Then we would get keyboards - which with Guilty was Phil - Ming - who would come in - and between us we would agree on the keyboards. Then the vocals would go on top of that. I would then end up with a song that, although it had the involvement of all the players, it still was really my creation.

The guitar was very important. So many people tell me that I've got a very odd, distinctive style of playing. Before - when I was getting all these other guitar players in Chris Goulstone and Ted Mason to play - that was obviously totally the wrong thing for me to be doing. With my material, I should be playing guitar on it. So this is what I am doing, and it seems to have worked. So that's why Mike Polson - however much a good player he is - he's quite happy to learn the parts from that album that I played. It's the ultimate self-mastubatory activity - playing with him onstage - because I'm playing with myself! It's like having two of me onstage, which I love - though it might be a bit boring for him. This way works so well. I play a lot of keyboards anyway - so I might end up doing this in the studio myself.

I've got to be very careful - because although in a live situation it's a band live, its my material - and I've got a gut feeling about the embellishments, the decoration on it all."

TK: What direction do you think the next album will take…

Hugh: "It's going to be very psychedelic. Where Laurie & I got with House Of Sorrow and Torture Garden - we want to continue down that route and take it really to extreme psychedelia. The middle sections of those two songs - Laurie really just went crazy and I want him to do more of that. I want to be much more radical. We knew with this record we were testing to see if it worked. It's the kind of guy you work with again and again - and it just gets better. I see no reason to go and change producer. So the next one, we want to be more radical, more extreme in the production and he's really up for that. A bit nastier - darker."

TK: A lot of the covers you have done in the past - i.e. stuff by Hendrix, Cream, The Velvet Underground -they are all from the late 60's / early 70's - is that a period you still get a lot of inspiration from?

Hugh: "Yes, absolutely. That - to me - was the most inspiring period of rock music. I keep finding these albums that I had forgotten about. I just picked up Family's Family Entertainment - my God, what an album. Another 1967 album. If I did Desert Island Discs - and had to stick to Rock music - most of them would all 60's albums. I find it very difficult to get excited or inspired about new stuff I hear. There is very little that's being done that's new. And if you can get the original rather than the re-working, why not go for the original.

One thing I like about the advent of CD's is that albums have no age anymore. Its just music - it's put everything on the same standing."

TK: A lot of "official" band / artist web-sites are often seen as very "corporate". Often only giving information that record companies want to give out and becoming nothing more than a PR or propaganda exercise - instead of breaking down barriers and giving fans, from all over the world, the chance to communicate with artists - and give feedback - both positive & negative. Do you have any ideas on how you would like your web-site to progress?

Hugh: "It should be a forum for the people who hear the music and the people who make it to interact. I even hear that some musicians are setting up jam sessions on web-sites. I think Peter Gabriel & Dave Stewart are doing this using pseudonyms.

As long as there is an exchange of information - as long as it's not one way. One thing that's getting very difficult is updating the information service - because it's a postal thing, whereas the web is so instant. Postal stuff is becoming so redundant, especially where you've got a musical career where things are changing everyday. It's proving to be very difficult for us to keep this going."