Fashion Neurosis with Bobby Gillespie

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1:10Hi, come in.

1:18Welcome to Fashion Neurosis, Bobby Gillespie. Thanks for having me, Baila. Can you describe what you're wearing today and why you chose these particular clothes? I'm wearing a teal-coloured tonic suit made by my friend, the tailor, Richie Charlton. And you've got a cool tie with some tiny bit of sparkle in. The tie I found in a tie drawer at home. I think it's McQueen. But I like the sparkle on it. It's nice. It's good with the shimmer of the tonic. It's really cool. understated I think. And you're the lead singer of the rock band Primal Scream and you're a very cool dresser and when did you first notice that what you wore could make a difference to how you felt?

2:13I remember my mum made me a spardoman outfit before these kind of things were available in the jobs somehow she'd found um this fabric that was red kind of like a black kind of sparatory kind of webbing effect on it and um she made a kind of all-in-one catsuit for me and a mask god that's so thoughtful of her to go to that trouble yeah she made me a captain scarlet tunic as well using um duffel coat uh toggles for the epaulets that's so great she was good very inventive and your your memoirs called tenement kid and you grew up in a tenement block in glasgow and your parents sounded great but there was a lot of violence in your school some of it from sadistic teachers and you described school kids saying your fight is at four o 'clock like a duel and I wondered how you dealt with fear uh well when I was at primary school if somebody challenged me to fight I would go ahead with that even though I was scared you know you just didn't want to be seen to back down but when I went to the the seniors school secondary school suddenly there's 18 year olds there 16 year olds and you're like 12 or 30 you know whatever it is um i made the decision to try and avoid any kind of fights or violence you know and i think it was the right decision how did that how did you manage to evade it because did you manage to get in with like certain people who kind of looked out for you a little bit yeah i think if you're kind of quite um and it's sports i was into sports and um you give a good account of yourself like on the football field or you kind of get some kind of respect from the kind of tough guys you know it's really the teachers that were violent not not the pupils you know yeah that you described how provocative they were and you described hearing david bowie's a lad insane when you were 11 and said that the music listened to you in a way that the teachers never did and that's such a graphic description it's so evocative and i wondered if did you remember something in particular that you just held on to that really kind of got through to you that did come a few years later with uh punk and um six pistols clash um the jam and bands like that but when i was like 12 13 not so much you know i mean i love music and i love punk music but it didn't have the same hold on me then as it did you know when when punk came along yeah it was um i was like um that hit me really hard you know and in the best in the best way yeah yeah yeah it really captured my imagination yeah made me think in a different way you know about myself and my life and the world or my relationship with the world you know not that I had much of a relationship with the world before that but um I think punk came along when I was 15 gone and 16 and I'm just about to leave school yeah I found it gave me a feeling of agency that I'd never had and when you said that punk hit me hard I it hit me hard too and I it was the first time ever that it was that you had any kind of leverage being a young person instead of just someone to be ordered about and um the clothes were such a big part of that and i wonder what you were wearing at that time when you saw that picture of the sex pistols and had such a big reaction well when i saw the picture of johnny ron when i was at school um for advertising the school debate in society.

6:45Punk, what is it? What does it mean? My hair would have been kind of like similar to the length it is now and a kind of bow haircut, you know. Kind of like the Ramones, but I hadn't heard of the Ramones, you know. I wasn't dressed like a punk, I mean, spiky hair and ripped clothes, you know. Just like a 70s kid, you know, typical 70s kid. Maybe I was around like an Adidas T-shirt, you know. Probably wearing a pair of Adidas training shoes. Because you said Bowie and Bolin introduced me to androgyny and poetry. I thank them forever. And coming from such a kind of tough, macho background, you didn't seem at all threatened by the idea of androgyny and gender bender.

7:37I wondered if that was unusual. Well, I think a lot of the tough guys at my school would have been into David Bowie, you know, because the girls certainly were, so it's probably looking in for them, you know. When I saw David Bowie or Mark Bowling on TV, I didn't think they were feminine. I just thought they were them. You know, I didn't know the word androgyny when I was 13 or 14, and I just thought it looked fantastic. yeah I didn't think it was anything rebellious about it I just thought it looked right you know more than anything just feeling it really feeling it and also you expected people in music like rock stars or pop stars to be exotic and wear you know outrageous clothes that you wouldn't see people wearing walking down the street you know it was supposed to be glamorous Because you said album cover art was a big influence on you I wondered what you Was there something in particular you saw That you thought, God, maybe that could be me Maybe a bit later, you know Not so much around the glam rock period Because the big album covers for me then were

9:03electric warrior yeah by t-rex aladdin same by bowie and also diamond dogs by bowie but i didn't see myself being you know like any of the people on those album covers you know just there's more about later again with punk where i could kind of identify with the the the the punk stars of the band you know they seemed a bit more assumed you know people that johnny wrote on or pro weller seemed more street you know yeah less i mean it was glamorous obviously punk was glamour it was I guess the idea, the ethos was that what was considered beautiful was now considered ugly and what was considered ugly by the straight world was considered beautiful by the punk.

10:01Yeah, I always remember Bob Marley's cover, album covers, that I suppose there's something so emotional about when you see a good album cover, you just feel like something's happening, that it's so sort of intensified. All the feeling is intensified. And I remember seeing that album cover when I was 13 or something and thinking, oh, my God, this is everything. What record was that? I think it was The Wailers. It must have been one of the first ones. But then I listened to the sort of get up, stand up, And then I scratched those words into my desk at school. And it was like a precursor to punk, I think.

10:52And David Bowie as well. I mean, I didn't get, we didn't have a radio at home. We didn't have a TV or radio. So I sort of listened to, my mom had records like, we had mixed to like Leonard Cohen and Johnny Winters. and then Nina Simone and I've always had a little crush on that metal that frantic heavy heavy metal sound which is part of punk I suppose isn't it well I think I don't really know Johnny Winter's music so much but I liked hard rock bands like Deep Purple and Thin Lizzy before a herd punk you know and a lot of punk rock's not that far away from hard rock really six pistols x-ray specs it's a hard rock sound you know yeah but getting back to what you said earlier uh about the if i could see myself on an album cover um the first clash album joe strummer pro simon and mcjohn stood it looks like an alley oh yeah um but they look like a gang about to sort of dig you up you know and um i remember being really struck by that when i was 15 you know how hard it looks and how it was very relatable relatable you know i mean if you sort of saw photos of the eagles dressed as cowboys you know it wasn't really relatable it wasn't relatable but the clash stood or the Ramones stood you know against the brick wall with tight jeans and you know straight leg jeans and leather jackets and t-shirts it was like yeah I can relate to that and uh I think that's what punk one of the great things about it was it put rock and roll back in the street you know and you studied Russian revolution at school and then I I wondered.

12:54For what level? It wasn't very deep. No way it was deep, you know. Yeah, but did you get any of your, like, how you dress, any inspiration from that? Because you have quite a kind of, like, anti-establishment desecration of military, like a lot of swagger. Well, back in the 70s, I didn't know this, but apparently, you know, Leon Tversky had a train. He was like the main general for the Bolsheviks and he had a train, these trains full of soldiers. They would just go to the different fronts because the Bolsheviks were fighting the Americans, the British, the French, the Germans and the white Russians all at the same time.

13:44And so this train would go to the different front lines and apparently Trotsky and his boys are dressed with long black leather trench coats. And today I turned up here with a long black leather trench coat. But I don't think it's really related to Leon Trotsky. So I don't know, it's a tenuous link. It's a gorgeous... I think it's more like World War II war films. Where's the coat from? Because it was a particularly nice one. It was gifted to me by Ricardo Tichy when he was working at Burberry. and my wife Katie was working there and anyway very kind of him to give me I love that yeah it's really gorgeous because it's black leather but it's got more of a sort of slinky vibe than a military vibe which is something I associate you with being a slinky person yeah like you just do things that just in that kind of undercurrent way and you're never obvious and it's very that's nice to hear it's very cool and how did you cross the divide from dreaming about being a rock star from actually to actually being one and where was there an incident where you were suddenly playing music rather than just being interested in it I had a couple of uh things happen um when I was like 18 or 19 was friends with this band called altered images then they they were a little bit younger than me i think they were still at school they had a gig at meadowsborough rock garden opening for a guy called pete petrel and he had been in a band called spiz oil and um he used to open for suzy and the banshees i actually saw Spizz Oil open for Susie and the Banshees in 1978.

15:38And anyway, Susie and Steve Severin had kind of taken the altered images under the wing. They got a gig opening for this Pete Petro guy at a place called the Rock Garden in Middlesbrough. And I kind of helped out rodding and carrying, you know, carrying the gear and stuff. and I'd make posters for altered images for the gigs and make stencils to spray paint on the amps and the guitar cases and stuff. I'd go and watch them rehearse and a very good band. We kind of met on Saturday morning at the Meadowsburg gig up in Castamilk and he told us that Tets, the drummer, wasn't coming. He'd refused to come.

16:26There was some problem and he asked if I would play the drums because he'd noticed that I was playing the drums at the rehearsals. And so I said, well, I'll do it, but only if you don't sack Titch because Titch was really great friends. We were great friends, you know, and I said, I don't want to take Titch's place, you know, only if Titch is allowed to come back into the band. And they promised that that would be so, you know. And so that was my first gig, you know, playing drums for all the images at Middlesbrough Rock Garden. like a thousand skinheads and punks and guys and my he gets and skinhead girls you know throwing paint glasses as a great gig though so i don't know if that answers your question probably not no it does it does well i think that and then also that was exciting but um it didn't make me want to join the band or anything but same year or the images were asked to open for susie and the banshees on a tour around england and i went along and that was i think you know we were suddenly we'd gone from kids watching from the front of the stage to being on stage although i was kind of like the roadie i was setting up the gear and taking it off you know afterwards and um and then watching the banshees from side stage and then um irv dressman was across the hole from the banshees it was just suddenly i'd stepped through this portal into this really glamorous rock and roll world you know and um that was amazing fantastic experience that was 1980 and um i guess we've formed primal scream the band but sometime in 1984 you know so But before that, I was also in another band.

18:28It was a band called The Wake, and a guy called Caesar, Jerry McNulty, he had been the guitarist in Overt Images, then he left and he formed a band called The Wake. And I ended up playing bass in that band, kind of similar to what happened with playing drums with Overt Images, you know. They got a gig opening for New Order and the bass player never turned up, so they asked me if I would play the bass, you know, and I did that night because I knew how all the songs were and then I ended up joining the band for a while. So I'd had a bit of taste of being on the road with great bands, like, you know, New Order and Suzy and the Band, as a roadie and as a bass player, you know, before I formed Primal Screams.

19:17So I wasn't fazed when we started playing gigs, you know. I was like well this is where it should be you know so interesting hearing about that moment of going through the mirrors like where everything changes really and you were doing it yeah amazing did you have that with the fashion because didn't you work for Vivian Westwood yeah I did but for ages I felt like my true calling was to be in a band and about 20 years later I thought maybe I'm supposed to be you know doing what I'm actually doing because I was in some bands but I didn't have what you described I was I didn't have the drive to actually perform but I never gave up fashion so it's sort of um yes it's really those kind of moments in development uh did you ever practice with people yeah did you sing yeah did you write lyrics no i think that's what was missing i didn't know how to make a song but i knew how to make a an outfit so the sort of the driver that it was needed for me to do that it wasn't there and i'm glad i finally noticed that I was I was in the right place instead that I just didn't have the guts to do what I really wanted but it was for a good reason I had the guts to do other things so I was meant to be that about that yeah yeah and in like when in girls started dressing so differently from like being very sexy pin-up in the 70s to you know when punk happened and ripped up fishnets and dr martin's and like a really tough look and did you find that you were attracted to that yeah i think so yeah yeah i think i liked again maybe it was the androgynous thing you know it was maybe made girls less threatening you know rather than being kind of sexy with the cleavage and high heels and the 70s dresses i think maybe the punk girls were dressed more boy like maybe that was as i say less threatening and maybe more attractive maybe i don't know i've never thought about that before yeah it's so interesting the idea of like sexy girls being a threat to boys you know because as girls were always taught that that was what was supposed to be the appeal and um well i think if you're young and you have you haven't had girlfriends or whatever and then i guess threat is too strong a word i think you know maybe maybe you would be less shy maybe that's the word or the term you know i don't know but I think that was another thing that punk did do I think it you had a lot of female musicians like the Slits probably Stairine, Susie Chrissy Hynde Raincoats and the whole idea I think was to get away from you know that macho 60s, 50s kind of layering sexist kind of lad male chauvinistic culture you know i think the whole idea was to start again and do something new and be more progressive i think in your every aspect of your life you know it's just i think things that would come naturally anyway but um i hear like me you grew up you kind of viewed the world from a certain perspective you know i kind of felt that women had a broad deal again it just felt natural that the girls were in bands like the modettes x-ray specs yeah suzy it didn't feel like it was a gimmick or strange it felt this is this is right you know as much as when borland and billy were dressed like an outrageous you know silver costumes and wearing further bows and wearing lipstick and makeup and stuff it didn't yeah it felt right you know same with the girls in punk it just felt right because you were you were a drummer in the jesus and mary chain and you started primal scream at the same time or soon after yeah but we met the mary chain at right about the time we were starting primal scream i helped getting gigs on a record deal i Yes, because my friend Alan McGee had a little label in London and they were looking to get gigs.

24:21They couldn't get any gigs in Scotland or Glasgow.

24:28I mentioned to them that I had a friend that started a club in London and maybe he would give them some gigs. I called him up and said, you've got to put these guys on, they're amazing. you know so he'd never heard him he just took me on board and he loved their performance he said it was so extreme and and um loved him loved their sound but going from drummer to lead vocalist is a big hierarchy shift in band status and how did you how did you know you were a front man well because I was writing songs with Jim B, the guy I started Primal Screen with, and throughout the summer of 1984, and we built up a catalogue of songs, a small catalogue.

25:23That summer, actually before that summer, we'd met the Mary Chain, and they had more songs than us, and they were doing demos and stuff, demonstration tapes. and I was always going to be the singer in Primal Scream. So by September 1984, I think it was, they asked me to play drums with them. And I said, yeah, we went on this little tour of Germany. And it's before their first song, first single, had been released upside down. And so I sang and played guitar and wrote songs in Primal Scream and I played drums in the maybe chain. it was you know it was it was easy because you know it was easy being in the major chain because jim and william wrote the songs they were great songs all i had to do was turn up and play drums you know two drums uh floor tom and a stair and i stood up and um because i couldn't play the conventional big five piece drum kit with the bass drum and stuff and so but my style of drumming their music at that point in time and so yeah i mean i could write songs i knew i could write songs so i didn't you know start as a drummer and try and become a songwriter i was already writing songs you know it's unusual though isn't it i suppose you think like dave growl he was the drummer in nirvana and then he became the lead vocalist but yeah i think it's a bit different You know I don't know Is it that different Maybe Everything's a bit Everything's I mean Skip Spence Was the drummer On Jefferson Airplane Then he was Singer, guitar player Songwriter And Moby Grape You know It's interesting You saying You were always The Always the lead That makes sense Well yeah How you are You know Yeah Well Who else Some other people That were drummers That became singers I can't remember Who Iggy Pop started that as a drummer Really?

27:34Yeah, he was in a band called The Iguanas That's why his friends called him Iggy Iggy of the Iguanas Oh my god And later he was in Prime Movers He was a drummer in the Prime Movers and the Iguanas And then he formed the studios So yeah I'll take Iggy Yeah For a career Yeah, he's the one to look up to Career of evil so cool and you said sometimes clothes are more important than the music i like to see things like that to wind up kind of muses you know but there's guys and bands you know like i don't care about clothes man i just you know so about the music no it's not you know if the sex person was the the sex person had looked like k-dobel or sad cafe you know we we wouldn't be sitting here right now i wouldn't be lying here right now speaking to you no you know i don't think i'd ever been a musician or a songwriter performer it's all about you know the image and the music is equally as important as far as i'm concerned you know yeah symbiotic isn't it it's also i suppose it's like i was wondering if it was part of how you got your fans you communicated with them to be addicted to to primal scream to what you were offering i've no idea i mean i think in the early days we kind of mixed up unconsciously or consciously i'm not sure but we mixed up you know we'd wear like black leather trousers or like um polka dot black and white polka dot spotted shirt that I had a handmaid which was very 60s the leather trousers were kind of 50s it was kind of 60s pointed boots or 50s brothel creepers um long hair um I guess we had a unified image in the early days of primal scream everybody wore leather trousers and chelsea boots and kind of 60s tops and um kind of 60s haircuts but we didn't look like 60s um revivalist band you know there was a bit of punk in there a bit of 50s a bit of mod you know like i wear like three button mod jacket you know like a morehead jacket um or leather trousers you know you'd never really see a mod wearing leather trousers you'd never see a rocker wearing like a three button more hair jacket you know so italian style so you know we kind of mixed up the youth cultures and i think people did come to see us for the style you know because we look different from a lot of the bands you know 84 85 you've always been really stylish that on stage and i remember the first time i saw you play primal screen play probably like 20 years ago or something and you had this white belt and I thought, oh, God, I've got to get a white belt and I got one and wore it for like 10 years or something.

30:48White belt. Yeah, it was really cool. It was just such a touch and I thought that is a really good idea and I've got to have that. Right. I can't remember the white belt, but I'll have to look for it.

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33:29Transformer Transformer and you strip down And swap clothes I wondered if you ever did that in real life I think Well Maybe I won't be first There's Quite decadent times With that Transformer Film was for Nick Knight The theme was you have to make a film with you know with you know based around the word transformer and um katie wanted to do it and that was her idea for us to do as you have just um described you know and um i think the soundtrack was a primal song called the lord is the lord is my shotgun yeah um yeah it was kitty's idea that's so yeah she was um she yeah she's very good at this she's very good at that kind of thing has she um had a big influence on your style and i mean oh yeah yeah very much so yeah very much so because when you got married you were both wearing alexander mcqueen outfits it was an amazing yeah wedding katie had a very beautiful dress that lee made for her and i had um a white sun suit that had um it was embroidered and it had a thistles and roses you know joining coming up the leg yeah you know there was a flare trouser and the the roses and the thistles kind of embroidery came up all the way up the leg to and then went on the bottom of the jacket you know and very influenced by the outfits that the flying burrito brothers wore on their gilded palace of sin album cover you know grandparsons was the singer in that band and he was um he got new day of hollywood to make him to make the band their suits and he was gram person was a big fan of the george johns and hank williams and you know people like that country singers and um so he he went to where the country singers went to get their clothes made and um nudie of hollywood who also made the gold glammy suit for Elvis you know.

36:07Nudie did Nudie suit yeah so my suit was when I got married I wanted to wear something you know inspired by a Nudie suit and so Sarah Burton and Lee and Katie and myself all had input into this suit you know and yeah it's a beautiful suit. Yeah and I had a bow tie Johnny Thunder's bow tie oh wow yeah so that's another story you know johnny thunders yeah well i was at your wedding and you both looked incredible and you both looked it was so unincidental but just like so natural you were both just so happy and we were we were all so happy watching you come in and it's incredible it was such a great it was a great day yeah so wonderful it was a lot of fun yeah it was good and if you fancy someone and they're wearing something that you don't like does it kill your attraction to them well i haven't done that for a long time

37:21um but yeah i guess um somebody's wearing a wrong item of clothing or Their own shirt Their own jacket Or shirt Yes It's not very attractive is it Is there anything that springs to mind I mean obviously Katie's never gonna She's the best dressed person I've ever met In my life It's never gonna happen with Katie No she's the best No she's the best dressed lady in the world I think

37:52I'm not stylish I never really liked girls around Doc Martens I've got to say It's interesting Do you feel it neutralises something? Yeah I mean I can't recall anybody You know, specifically But, you know Yeah, it's just a kind of Look, you know especially through the 80s i think kind of indie look i guess you'd call it but again a lot of times kind of indie girls in the 80s dressed in ways i think they were non-sexual you know because they were like wasn't very sexual music it wasn't like funk or disco or soul you know there wasn't about dancing and uh going to a club and trying to get off with somebody it was more i would say indie music was more not cerebral but um maybe people were less sure themselves sexually you know if you you know like people that were going to see bands that orange juice or the orange juice or the smiths the girls would wear like you know secondhand you know clothes from secondhand stores or jumble sales that were like 60s influence but they weren't sexy yeah they were like you know it's kind of waist up music isn't it yeah very and maybe some people would wear Doc Martens I don't know like I had a girlfriend car and had kind of started that dress and it that way you know uh shouldn't have dog martins but you know it's like kind of tartan skirts and kind of suede kind of 60s kind of jackets and then you know she got into vivian west with busties and palm hold clothes from you know dresses from hyper hyper and you know high heels and stuff and i kind of preferred that i've got to say you know yeah maybe the indie scene were kids that were teenagers that were maybe a bit unsure of themselves sexually not that confident so they dressed a bit more demurely you know not hide or camouflage but maybe they felt safe you know not dressed in a sexual sexually provocative way you know like you were talking about punk girls earlier you know wearing ripped i remember the first time i went to see the clash and the girls outside the cars go pro were wearing like you know like suspenders and ripped fishnet tights and you know fucking the bras hanging out and you know black lipstick and safety pins through their cheeks and safety pins razor blades hanging from their you know the earlobes and yeah it would be like him so highly sexualized and uh but also torn down you know Yeah.

40:57It was kind of like they demolished this kind of porno, kind of male gaze cliched, you know, look for girls to look sexy. It was kind of like they'd taken it and ripped it apart and made it their own, you know, and turned it on the men. Yeah. You know, it was kind of like amazing, you know. It had a kind of romance to it, didn't it? Which in the 80s. Yeah, it was, it was, there was a violence to it. It was aggressive. And girls in the seventies were meant to look, you know, maybe sexy, but also available and really demure at the same time. You know, they were supposed to be, what's the word? Not compliant, but.

41:46Passive really. Passive is the word. Whereas people that Susie Sue, Chrissy Hine, probably starring in the slits, it was aggressive. Yeah. It was like, fuck you. you know and that i thought was really sexy really attractive but at the same time i loved the toughness of it the hardness of it yeah i know katie's the queen of style but do you ever suggest things for her to wear well sometimes she asks my opinion on what she's and I give her it I'm very honest you know but I'll have to be careful with certain words I read a story about how you broke your back and you were taken to hospital and you just you were just talking about a pink jacket that you had just bought you were really high on painkillers and I wondered if you remembered that jacket what was it we played on the shores of Lake Geneva.

42:52Just let the deep purple song smoke in the water. Anyway, I stepped onto a speaker in front of the stage and I was singing the chorus of the song. And as I stepped, well, I thought I was stepping back onto the stage. I actually stepped into the air and broke my back in four places and i was kind of lying on like this on a gurney in the hospital and that night i'd i'd worn for the first time this pink jacket it was like a kind of pink tuxedo jacket single button i think two buttons rock and roll jacket uh and it was made by uh hedy slimane for san loran and i was very proud of the jacket um i was gonna wear it all summer for the gigs and I was on the gurney and my tour manager was there and at this point I didn't know I'd broken my back in four places.

43:50I didn't know if I could ever walk again. I was just on a gurney on morphine in a strange place with no idea. I knew something bad had happened and uh i was shouting i was the tour manager was stood over me looking pretty you know shocked and i said i said i said the pink jacket is the pink jacket okay and he said the pink jacket's okay because you sure it's okay i don't even know when he got it he goes here you go oh god you know i just thought you know in all the chaos and me falling on stage get you know the gig end and get taken to the hospital and ambulance because i think they had to take the jacket off me i was in hospital for about four or five days or something and uh in switzerland and i had the pink jacket hanging up beside the the saline drip i got some photographs of it it's got a little bit of blood on it yeah so that's amazing it kept you going i suppose it kept your focus really from drifting to something more frightening it did yeah because at that point i didn't know um if what the injury what the injuries were you know what the damage consisted of um but yeah broken four places but the pink jacket survived and so did i A happy ending And you've had a lot of problems in your life with addiction You said your dad stopped drinking and smoking cold turkey And that influenced you to stop Did he talk to you about your addiction when you were active Because you were pretty wild No, never, never Because you were really close, weren't you?

45:45Yeah Yeah, but, you know, I'd go for a while without seeing him, you know. He moved around, and because of his job, he moved from Glasgow to Essex. He would come at the gigs. When he moved back to Glasgow, him and my mum would come at the gigs, and obviously the band were all carrying on and partying and stuff, but they were completely non-judgmental, you know, which is pretty good, you know. I think as far as he could see, you know, I was having a good time. I had a great band, you know, all the boys in the band loved it. When my parents came to the gigs, you know, everybody got on with them really well.

46:23And when we were growing up, people were always welcome. Other kids were welcome by my parents, you know, to come to the house, which wasn't always the case, you know. And, you know, with other kids that I knew, you know, the parents, they weren't that happy having a, you know, having you run there and stuff. And my parents were always very welcoming. And so the boys in the band, a couple of the, you know, they grew up with me, you know, and so it was always, it was always a nice atmosphere backstage in Glasgow because of that, you know. Yeah, I remember making your dad. He was great. So obviously my dad could see that we were high and stuff, but I don't think it was up.

47:08It wasn't, it wasn't like he was walking, you know, he never saw anything bad, you know, He's just seen us happy after a gig, you know, and everybody's celebrating, so that's kind of natural. And how come you decided to stop? Mainly because I wanted to keep my family together and I felt that my using was in danger and that I had to break the chain of addiction. You know, I had it in my own family, my dad, and his addiction caused problems in his marriage. and so I just ran myself into the ground, you know. But essentially, you know, drug taking and children, you know, a young family, that just doesn't mix, you know.

47:53And I was trying to, you know, when we in the band were screaming, we all started having children. and everybody kind of, I think more or less, kind of held themselves together whilst at home. But when we went on tour, we'd just go fucking crazy, you know? And also the culture of the band were, you know, the crew, the roadies and friends. It was very, very druggie and very macho, I guess, you know, in terms of the drug take. and it was a whole culture of it and it was very hard to break out of and also I think personally that my identity was kind of locked up in this idea that I was the singer and praying and screaming, we were this druggy rock roll band and I had to be on drugs to play the gigs and, you know, just went with that image, I guess, and kind of trapped myself, I think.

49:06I think we all did, you know. Yeah, it is a trap, isn't it? You know, and I guess you, after years, it's a habit, after years of taking drugs to go on stage and taking drugs whilst you're on stage, you start to believe that you can't do concerts without being wasted, you know, taking loads of speed or cocaine or whatever. And you delude yourself that you need the drugs to do it. And of course, that's not true. Indeed, right about the time that I began, 2006, 2007 was when I really felt that I really had to change. And I was asked by Warren Ellis and Nick Cave to come and help out with Grinderman for some live shows.

49:56I remember that. And I played the first two shows of Grindrima. I saw you. At the Altamora's parties. I was there. You were there, right. Incredible. And so when we rehearsed, I sang back on vocals and did percussion. Just had to invent a job. So good. Because they played me when they were mixing the album. They got me to go to Olympics. Got me to go to some studio in Cheswick. And they asked me to come and listen to what they were doing. And I really enjoyed it. it was good and um then they asked me if I would like to come be part of the band live and I said well what will I do and he said we don't know why don't you just come to the rehearsals and see what you can do so we rehearsed for five or six days and um yeah I just played some percussion and did some back vocals and it was great fun but I was I think I was taking speed and having a drink you know and um they were um warren and nick were straight and um every time we practiced a song nick was would throw himself into it the whole band would actually uh as if they were playing in front of an audience you know you know sold out and i sold out theater somewhere you know it was like a tuesday afternoon and i think cheswick or somewhere i don't know where it was and um i wimbledon i think it was in wimbledon actually uh and um you know every time we we practice a song it was they weren't practicing they were playing it for real and it was great you know but they were straight you know warren and nick were straight and you know and i knew that you know i'd hung out with warren in the 90s you know and he was a big druggie and a big drinker like myself and um so when we did the shows they were also straight and you know again i was still using speed and stuff and it was quite a druggie weekend you know because the only ones were there with peter parrot and my friend douglas was there and there's a lot of narcotics she'll be saying and um but anyway you know what i took away from that was that you know nick and warren were were straight and they had been druggies like me and they were doing great work and they were doing it straight and they were playing gigs straight and so when you know when I finally really made a consciously strong effort I tried a couple of times to get straight uh you know I went to see shrinks and all of this stuff but you know I was doing things like taking cocaine before I went to the shrink and then just ran at the shrink and you know obviously I didn't want to give up and and um anyway it was about it was a struggle but in the end I got there and um but the example of Warren and Nick or Nick and Warren you know it was very uh inspiring for me you know very inspiring that these two rock and rollers who had been had long uh histories of drug abuse um had quit and they were still fairly young in the 40s and they were doing great work and they were vital and um it proved to me that it could be done you know i didn't have any other um examples of this of people that i knew yeah at least you know and um and so yeah i got to thank those guys so you know and Warren especially was very very supportive of me when I started like you know my my clean journey so to speak and uh and I spoke to Nick a couple of times about performing and I was very nervous the first few gigs I played seven eight night gigs or what seven eight gigs uh when I was straight I was terrified you know didn't know what to do with my hands you know i spoke to nick about it he said yeah yeah he had the same thing that when he first went on stage straight he didn't know what he'd do with his hands i was like i don't know what to do you feel really self-conscious like yeah and um he said but nick said just keep doing it keep doing it and eventually you'll be all right you know and what he said was true you know we did a gig at I think Best of Own Isla White.

54:23And that was the first gig that I did straight that it felt like as good as when I was on drugs, you know. Wow. I thought, yeah, I can do it. I can do it. It was like a breakthrough, so, yeah. Such a great story, learning from, like, the wildest men in rock how to be clean. It's true, you know. Yeah, it means so much, doesn't it? I mean, I've been in situations with those guys, you know, and it can be done, you know. That's what I would say to anybody that asks me, you know, it can be done. You sang a song to your father on his deathbed. Is that right? Yeah. I mean, that seems like a... I probably shouldn't laugh, but yeah.