BARRY ADAMSON : The king of Nothing Hill

-B.A : Yes, I had to go to the hospital and have another replacement, which is a boundary, ‘cause most of the time all you expect is to do it just once, and then die, old age ! It’s my third operation in five years, it’s very complicated, but it was a blessing, I suppose in disguise like these things are because I met a surgeon and I went through a very extreme process to do with my own kind of peace if you like about something that happen in there, it was almost like necessary for me to go there and to find somebody who could say to me :’This is it, I’m the best person and I’ll do this for you’ and in a way it’s true, it’s like new, it’s amazing.

-And can you appear on stage nowadays or do you prefer to make albums in studio ?

-B.A : No, because for the last album I started to appear on stage and it was so much pain I had to stop, but I enjoyed it so much, even if I reached the point to quit and go, and I can’t wait actually to get the people together again : because we’ve got this new work as well, so I can do a good combination now of this new record, the instrumentals, some film playing and maybe some surprises as well : we’re really looking forward to do it and we’re very excited about it, ‘cause we have the movement again, the life again and then we can explode on the stage, it’s gonna be really good...

-Where does the inspiration for this lp comes from?

B.A : I started off with the place I live, I moved house, and I moved into an area you can’t stand on the street, it’s very like problems with drugs, problems with crime, but I live off the road in a high space built like a castle, not a real castle, but the idea of an ivory tower ; when I moved there I was thinking that it’s what’s you’re doing with your life, get a little bit of success, be able to do this. And suddenly I was like looking down the street at the people with the crime and the drugs and all the rest of it and I felt very strange like I wanna to go down to the street and say : « Hey, guys, what’s goin on ? », and they would go : « Ok, let’s go to your house ». « No, you can’t come to my house, ‘cause you would steal everything I have ! » So I had this weird disconnection from everything, like I wasn’t there in this vast nothingness, emotional emptiness, it was unbelievable. So I started to think about this, I tried to look why this happens and I went from the idea of people indeed untouchables to kings, to celebrity if you like, a separation, and then songs started to come, and in every song I tried to use it as central sort of theme, and back to the song, back to them, in this little twisted smile I say : everyone is everyone, that’s the actual place I’m standing, it’s such a desperation in the street that it’s must be some kind of connection. That is where I am, the king, that is where thing is, that total disconnection having brought to this illusion ; this is really where the inspiration comes, and that has been with this record really, and I linked up to like when I was young boy, a young man, and it becomes the artistic expression, if you like, of what I feel.

-It seems very 70’s oriented : Barry White, Isaac Hayes, the Blaxploitation movies, Shaft, Superfly, the motown, ...

-B.A : Yes, perfectly, and I think that, going on the things we talked about, the seventies for me were kind of, I felt that a lot of times, very extreme : black is beautiful, black power, blaxpoitation at the same time, and great music, which forced the soul like if people had to find this unity in soul, the nastier side really of the same coin is the separation of the soul connection, so I kind of using that as my guns now to identify things, plus I’ m aware of how the fashion is gonna bring back this as a time for the new generation to look at, and one way I can celebrate that as an ideal rejected before being punk ! It wasn’t listening to Chic : only the Sex Pistols ! I like these style as well and the way people worked on that records, it’s a good language for me to use to express these ideas...

-And the 70’s British movies, like Get Carter...

-B.A : Yes, exactly, of course it is : I think, from that, for example, the use of the train, the journey he’s making to go up in the film to see people who killed his brother and to allow you to use sound effects as well as music to make a language, and this kind of use of instruments in this way, ‘Noir’, making ‘noir’ statements, I think...

-You seems to be farther from your rock period at each of your own record...

-B.A : I love guitars, I love distorsion and noise, and I tried with this Lp kind of like to stay a little bit faithful to rock, but I do kind of move away from it, perhaps it was like somewhere I went to, before, and returning back from somewhere, but I was on the train coming here and I was listening to the Stooges, ‘Loose’ etc, and I was thinking it was fucking great, I still have a passion for this. But you know sometimes I realize jazz, rock music, soul, taking away what their are, the way they sound, the spirit it’s kind of the same, and maybe I’m looking for the similar spirits, because I get the same feeling from Charles Mingus and the Stooges and that make sense : It’s not the same music at all, but the spirit is the same...

-Yes, when you listen to ‘Fun House’, for example, at the end of the record, there are those endless saxo solos

-B.A : Yes, there you can find similarities, as long as the spirit is there. I tried to compare that spirit from all those musics, and even Barry White and the Stooges fit the same ! They’re on the same bridge !

-Tell me more about this song n°7 : ‘Le matin des noire’, based in France ?

-B.A : It’s a very strange story because it is that old title : ‘I love Paris’ in springtime when it rains, bla bla bla, and I had two experiences of the same feeling in Paris once when I was eighteen, and one not so long ago : I was walking down the street, and everything was kind of turned into this like a strange movie, all in my head of course, with no connection with anybody or anything ! That’s interesting, because for some of the works on ‘As above, as below, I was researching on the Devil and the Devil’s favorite places are New York and Paris. I don’t believe in the Devil anymore, since my discoveries of certain things, but I have moments where something kind took a hold of me like those old times in Paris and I felt like I was looking into people but I was invisible, so I turned this into illusion like in cinema, so this is why I make this statement in the beginning : I took a little riff from Archie Shepp, and I made this ten loving minutes whenever it is, and then I’ve got a call from the people from Archie Shepp, saying that I can’t do this, we will not allow this or you must give us all the money and you must call the song with the title the way he made it, even with the wrong spelling ! It was a shock for me : I landed me straight back to the place where I was invisible, and it was perfect. I didn’t exist in that song, ‘cause it’s all done by Archie Shepp and he gets all the money and it’s his title, it’s such perfect, beautiful : I’m the king of Notting Hill ! This is a good story, I like that !

-Who plays with you on this record ?

-B.A : If you know James Johnston, who plays guitar, making noises everywhere ; when I played live, I use a keyboards player, Nick Platus, who played with people like Heaven 17, Tina Turner, he’s a big session guy, and the same saxo player I have always used called Pete, who’s like a jazz genius ; I played a lot of things, more than I’ve done before, bass, guitars, programmed a lot of things, harpsichord, pianos and vibraphones, I played all those things, so it’s kind of my home album, a lot of it was made at home, even if it sounds like a big studio album.

-Are there guests this time ?

-B.A : Not really, I felt it was important to do that, I wanted to sort of heave myself on their shoulders. I didn’t feel like I was taking anything from them, I was first asking them to pull me forwarda little bit. But I felt I was hiding a little bit still, I was hiding behind the names and celebrities, so I decided not to do that. My first operation was after ‘Oedipus Schmoedicus’ and the last after and the new album, so they are like brother and sister and I felt like something was really starting here that I kept up here.

-Would you consider to collaborate again with Nick Cave or others bad seeds members ?

-B.A : Yeah, but you never know what can happen. You know the singer/songwriter Ed Harcourt ? I was moving my studio the other day and he was walking by and he said : « Hi, blah blaj blah,... », so maybe I’ll do something, maybe he’ll do something, so never know what is around the corner. I like the happy accident, really

-Did you listen to the Howard Devoto / Pete Shelley LP ?

-B.A : No, is it good ? I’m a big fan when you’re out of that things for a little while, I think it seems like a good idea, I can understand why and why not : maybe they wanted to finish something between them. I’ll get it, though, just for interests : It’s part of my education as well, I learned from both of them way to develop your art...

-Your lp’s are still full of songs which are like short movies in itself : is it still your dream to direct a movie yourself ? Or act ?

-B.A : Yes, you got to start something, get going, you don’t have to start tomorrow, it can wait you can develop some ideas, which is what I’m doing all the time anyway ; but I always have some script or something on the go, some ideas . I like to leave them, then pick them up : it’s like going to some class on wednesday night and, one day, it will come in useful. there’s more music to find.

-Last movies which you really enjoyed ?

-B.A : I guess it was ‘Training day’, I like the way the main characters are not heroes at all, it’s like the mirror of ‘Bad lieutenant’ movie, I think I like the characters cleverness, I like the fact that he’s so prepared, it’s unbelievable, he couldn’t fail ; it’s unbelievable, for such a dark character, I enjoy that.

-Which record, in your past career, are you the most and the least proud of ?

-B.A : Well let’s see : I like ‘Your funeral, my trail’ by the Bad Seeds, it’s a very strange coming out of self destruction and really could see a chink of light, I thought I could seea way out and I put everything I had into playing on that record I’m very proud of that. I love Magazine’s ‘second hand daylight’ very much, that was when I was still optimistic about things for this period and I think my performance and my spirit on that record is great, very strong : I can remember every second of ‘Back to nature’ of the recording.

-When will we see you live in France ?

-B.A : In october, and I hope to see you there ! I’ll be with six people maybe, two keyboards, bass, guitar, drums and myself, and, on some dates, I could maybe have some strings and brass : this is what I’d really like.

-Would you enjoy to do a record like in the sixties or fifties, with only strings and piano and drums, nothing electronic ?

-B.A : Yeah, could be good, could be really good. The difficult thing is : everything has changed, so to get the sound, no matter on how you set up the microphones, the technology is different, even the wiring ; so you don’t get the sounds in the same way ; so I would do that if somebody spend time to. There’s a studio in London, Abbey Road, where they keep a diagram. So you can go in there and find this diagram where they placed every microphone for the orchestra of John Barry’s films or something like this...

-Robbie Williams did an album like that...

-BA : Yes, but he went to America, and the way the orchestra sounds is the way you record now. It gives you a nostalgia feeling, but not the real thing. Maybe it doesn’t matter for a lot of people, but for me, it would be important.