Fashion Neurosis with Richard Russell

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1:06Hi, come in.

1:13Welcome to Fashion Neurosis, Richard Russell. Thank you. Can you tell me what you're wearing today and why you chose these particular clothes? I'm wearing clothes by Maharishi, which is mainly what I wear. and it's clothing made by a British designer called Hardy Bleckman who happens to be my partner Esther's brother but I was wearing his clothes before I met her and I find what he makes the most comfortable and practical for doing everything in and I like how it looks. I didn't know he was Esther's brother. He's a brilliant designer. I love his stuff. He's a brilliant designer and a very close friend.

2:04It's been like developing a brother. I've never had a brother because he's my brother-in-law. And we work together on a lot of different projects. He does a lot of artwork for music I make. And he's an excellent designer, but he's also one of these Taurus warrior types. who I always like working with because he's sort of, he's very bold and kind of does what he wants. And I always liked being around people like that. You managed to get on the couch without your shoes. And so can you tell me about your socks? Same as the rest of the clothes, they're from Maharishi. Oh, really? Yeah, they make very good socks when they tend to have logos in step.

2:58and often the socks are, now what is the word for those socks? But they're ones where the toe, the big toe is separated from, like a mittel. Tabby. Tabby, that's it. So a lot of the socks are tabby socks. So I often wear sandals. So the sock, and I wear, I do tend to wear, it sounds terrible, but socks with sandals and these type of clothes is fairly standard for me. or sneakers and I kind of wear the same sneakers I've been wearing since I was a teenager. Yeah I'm partial to a sock and a sandal myself I love that. And you're the owner of XL Recordings an independent record label that's released music by some of the world's greatest artists including Gil Scott Heron, Tyler the Creator, Dizzy Rascal, The White Stripes, FKA Twigs and the prodigy among others and maybe most famously Adele and do you think coming from an orthodox religious background has made you more focused on noticing what's different and what's appealing we are on the couch literally um oh that's a very interesting question I mean I think that my background is a very very mixed bag of stuff that I got from that um a lot of which I rejected but I suppose some of which in later life I've seen the value of I've definitely seen the value of just having parents um as you get into the big wide world and you realize not everyone has that luxury i don't know if like my my sort of my relationship with music is possibly quasi-religious and maybe maybe music occupies the place in my life that religion occupied in my parents lives i think it probably does but I've been fortunate enough to earn a living out of that as well which I suppose you would get to do if you were a priest or an imam or a rabbi or something so yeah but you know music occupies this place where it is beyond what I can touch and see and it's a place of it's always been the place of escape and refuge and transcendence for me as I think it is for anyone who is a fan of music yeah um and it's a thing of such tremendous value to a person because it enables you to to escape things but I I imagine that's what religion has always done for people as well that's such an interesting comparison I would not have thought of it like that except for I've definitely used music like that periods of extreme feeling you know sort of terribly anxious all the time and I've known that if I put certain music on I'll sort of jog myself out into something else at least which reminds me it's possible to to not be stuck in that kind of thing well for young people in the sort of modern you know i mean since teenagers existed which as i understand it was the 50s i think there's been a lot of possibility for music to occupy this very fundamental place in your life and that yeah that might have left less room or less need for religion for people.

7:01I've always seen music and religion in very parallel ways. And I think I've become more interested in religion as I've got older. I've become very interested in religion as I've got older, not in any one religion. I discovered a book by a writer called Houston Smith. Have you ever read him? No. He was amazing. He was like the sort of inventor of the idea of comparative religion. and he wrote a book which was originally called the religions of man until one of his female students said to him um that sounds a bit like religions only for men and he said oh i hadn't thought of that so when he reprinted the book he changed the name of it to the world's religions right and it really sort of cracked me open because it it just i think it's a book that help me understand the world and help me understand people and help me understand history through the lens of these different religious practices and the thread of something that runs through them and in the foreword to the most recent edition of he's not with us anymore but in the foreword to the most recent edition of the world's religions he says i've had a lot of criticism for not writing about some of the terrible things associated with religion not talking about any type of you know fundamentalism or any you know christian fundamentalism far right you know all of these different things um the erosion of personal freedom all these different things and he said people have said to me why don't you write about things and he said um if you read the history of music despite the fact that most music made is not that great they don't write about that that's such a good that doesn't warrant a place in the history of music um all the mediocre stuff and he he explains the history of religion in those terms so it's very um it's very very powerful and i suppose the canon of music is something i've spent my life kind of learning about a popular music anyway um and to to to get that this first glimpse of like the canon of uh religious writing and religious thought and ideas from from him was massively powerful for me and it's led to a lot of other uh reading because you had such a focus from a young age and do you think you were more obsessive than any of your friends oh yes um And I didn't, yeah, and I think in that regard, I was something, I felt like an outsider.

9:47I definitely felt like something of an outsider in my family. I mean, I had great friends growing up who are still great friends. But that obsessive part of me was, I mean, it's probably diagnosable now. Yeah, everything is. I'm not going to do that now. but I can see that there's a strength in that and it might have been helpful with some of the things that were because from this obsessive nature it's enabled me to connect deeper to the thing I love but it's also created problems in my life as well so I think overall I'm pleased I don't know exactly what it is but I can definitely see why people would rather establish it.

10:39But I think when I entered the world of music more fully, which was when I was quite young, I started to find that I was around other people who were equally obsessive as me and sort of equally strange or something. Yeah. So that was very comforting. And was there anything that you were obsessed with wearing as a child or that you longed to wear? Yeah, clothes are very important to me and very connected to music. And I think most of my ideas about clothes were coming from that, from music. But then also, I think some of my drive and ambition was connected to just want it. Well, I wanted records and I wanted clothes.

11:26And those things were, you had to have money to get them. So, you know, and money that didn't seem attainable. I mean, any money. It was disposable money to spend on records and clothes. You had to work to get that. So I think that was probably quite a helpful thing for me in developing a work ethic when I was quite young. But, you know, I've been a lifelong hip-hop obsessive, and I loved hip-hop from when I first heard it, which was Grandmaster Flash doing The Message on the tube and Malcolm McLaren doing Buffalo Girls on top of the pops, which was actually within a week of each other really it turns out yeah gosh um so i think the playgrounds of the uk were pretty alive that following week with people trying to break dance um and and so yeah then this this um world of not just music but fashion kind of opened up from that a lot of that was about sportswear and labels and at the same time there was the casuals sort of thing happening as well which was related to football and was European and was coming from Italy and Liverpool and they were an interesting parallel they were parallel worlds who had a similar idea I think of some slightly aspirational way of dressing and label identifying with labels so I was very um I was very into that and but of course it was more of an idea and a notion like i managed to get a feeler wristband god because i think that was an entry-level priced item and i sort of i wore it the whole time and it used to it got quite dirty and my friends used to make fun but it had a feeler logo on it and i think about how that's like i sort of a bit of like desperation and then i managed to save up and get deodora trainers but they weren't the deodora gold trainers which were the ones you really wanted but i remember they the deodora gold trainers were i mean they were called that because they had the gold um deodora logo down the side and um they were completely outrageously priced and completely unaffordable and that price was 40 pounds which obviously is not that much for sneakers now yeah i just got i just got very I got interested in sportswear and labels and ways of dressing and having a wedge haircut, which I now think kind of came from Bowie and came from that low album cover.

14:06Oh, yeah. Because that's a sort of ultimate wedge he's got there. Yeah. And the wedge was a big football casual haircut. You saw Paul Weller with a wedge. and at one stage George Michael sort of had a wedge although it was a bit curlier so yeah there was that kind of 80s pop I never really attempted new romantic dressing it was kind of embarrassing wasn't it I think I was a little bit too young and it was just a bit it was maybe just a bit beyond me but I think something which was a little bit more kind of hip-hop casual streetwear sort of as that I started to become aware of that um that felt very um me I haven't got that far beyond it really but so specific and so kind of uh you know that somehow those clothes matter as much as the the music it's so interesting to hear a man talk about clothes in that way i mean most men do actually given a little bit of questioning but um how exhilarating it is to be able to aspire you know to crave and long for these things and then get one of them and uh i i enjoy clothes more and more i think it's a more more interest to me as I get older not less yeah I mean having resources to be able to get the stuff you want still kind of still really sort of tickles me yeah I feel really like really fortunate to be able to do that that's never really left me I think because the period of time before I could afford to have the clothes I want was a very impressionable time in my life so that sort of stay with me um and i don't have like i'm not into like cars or anything like that um so i don't have like uh i don't have enormously expensive tastes but clothes are like a sort of abiding interest to me and discovering you know i'm maharishi is a sort of wonderful thing I like.

16:25Hardy's always designing new items of clothing that I like. But I'll sometimes come across another designer or label. You know, like I had this relationship with him, which, you know, my relationship with Esther is monogamous, but my relationship with Hardy is a little more open. so I feel entirely free to explore other labels. And so every now and then I come across, I've come across a couple recently and I think, oh, I really like these clothes and you sort of investigate it. But it's like discovering a musician you like, right? You sort of start discovering the different things and it can be quite exhilarating.

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19:20and if you fancy someone but you don't like what they're wearing does it kill your attraction i mean i think it would be hard to fancy someone to know whether you did or you didn't if you didn't like what they were wearing so i suppose the answer to that is yes but it's I think so much of your initial that and that energy you know and connection with people has to do with um that kind of first feeling you get and I suppose so much you know a lot of that is I mean it's to do with a lot of things isn't it yeah I mean with everything with friendships with working relationships you know an initial energy that you get with someone I'm trying to think if I've ever been like thrown by someone's clothing but then discovered a great connection to them um not really because maybe I think the connection is sort of tends to be well it's an interesting thing isn't it it's very mysterious to connect when you feel that connection to someone and how things work between you yeah when you have you know you meet someone you've got that connection with them and you can talk endlessly about stuff so and then you'll meet someone else and there's nothing to talk about yeah and i do think everyone is interesting but you definitely can meet someone from time to time and there isn't but i think music is a great help with this because i don't think i've ever met anyone who was deeply interested in music where we didn't have a huge amount to talk about yeah immediately music's very very good as a sort of bonding subject.

21:05And you describe your education as rejecting any institution you could, which is quite a commitment. And I wondered where that conviction came from. Well, I think it came from having a lot of religion imposed on me and schooling that I didn't really like and didn't really I couldn't really I was bright but there were a lot of subjects I couldn't do now again this would probably suggest something to do with something that might have been diagnosable but it was it was definitely interpreted by people who taught me as just being lazy or difficult um and I think I just sort of went with that you know I think if someone tells you you're lazy or difficult that's you go with that yeah so i i that was i was fine with that i was like i'm gonna be lazy and difficult i'm gonna fail my exams yeah um i did and i also gave the impression of not caring about that and being i was djing and i was deeply into that from when i was 15 16 years old people were paying me to do it i was good at it i did that 10 000 hours thing of of you know becoming a good technical dj um i used to play guitar before that but nothing like with nothing like the level of commitment that i had to dj and so i was very easily able to convince myself and everyone around me that i didn't care about school however However, I still have nightmares about failing my exams.

22:48Really? So I'm being in that room and it's like still horrifying. So I danced to a good friend of mine recently, who I'm seeing this evening, actually, one of my oldest friends. I said, remember when I failed my A-levels? He said, yeah. I said, how was I about that? And he said, you didn't give a fuck about it. And I said, are you sure I wasn't just sort of putting that on? and he said well I mean you could have been you could have been kidding yourself and kidding me I suppose yeah so I think that's what I was doing there because who wants to fail you know who wants to do badly it's something you have to deal to have to deal with it and deal with the ups because I was bright and have to deal with the sort of upset you've caused and so but you know it also meant I had no safety net and you know nowhere to go except music and I also moved out of home when I was young in a way where I was like I'm not going back there yeah and I mean I had I mean I was very fortunate with my upbringing really I had loving parents I grew up somewhere that was okay but I was just done with it when I was quite young yeah um I mean in a way that now now feels a little bit sort of petulant really because nothing that bad had happened to me but i was done with it and i just was wanted to i wanted to be in another world a world of music um and i was like from when i was kind of 17 um and i was in new york when i was 18 um yeah i i feel like now I realized there was a lot of bravado there and as like you would you wouldn't really talk about your emotions at this time and I think that was probably more true of men yeah then I think you know there's always been a greater communication about emotional things and you know your body as a woman women have communicated about you might have you might have some communication with your mom or your friends um i was never communicating about anything really with with other men until i was a bit older yeah um so i don't you know i don't think i was like processing much which definitely stored up some issues for later on but i was like doing stuff and moving quick and very djing very quickly starting to make records and um do the label you know be a producer to be a DJ, do the label stuff.

25:21That was all happening very quickly. And I was very, very young. And yeah, and it was exciting. A lot, a lot, a lot got done. So it was productive. I think if you, as a young person, you know, a teenager, if you don't have someone being, showing you emotion, that being emotional is, is part of a means to an end as well. and particularly for young men, I think it's much harder to know what's in it for you, to be like that. Yeah, I mean, I think as a young man, I felt the need to act a bit tough and to be a bit tough and to have this kind of, you know, this sort of suit on and to not appear vulnerable for kind of self-preservation.

26:19And I see younger men being much more open now. Really? And now, yes, I agree. Definitely. And it's really wonderful to see it. I mean, you know, I have two sons and their level of emotional maturity, openness, willingness to accept their own vulnerability really just makes me so incredibly happy to see that, that they're able to do that. It's definitely, you know, things get worse in the world and they get better as well. And this is one of the things that is definitely an improvement, that there is space for people to including young men to discuss their emotions and be open about it and i do think you're potentially avoiding an awful lot of mental health problems if you can be open yeah about what you're feeling and i definitely did not feel i had that um possibility um as a young man um i didn't either as a young woman right right definitely just what just to do with the era, to do with the time.

27:27Yeah. And also to do with the lack of anyone else doing it. It was not a, not something that people did.

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28:57But you made an interesting comment about liking handbags because it seemed to give the person a pause moment. And you said that rings do that for you now. And I noticed that you're wearing some rather good rings. And have you ever tried a handbag now that you registered? I've got a pouch. It's over there. Really? Yeah, I took it off when I came in. But Maharishi make these pouches. And it was a game changer for me to have this thing where it's got a notebook and three pens and, you know, the practical things like a credit card, a Vip Sinex sniffer, some lip balm. um um it's very very useful thing to have a pouch so i mean yes it is it is a identical to a handbag um but in a way that i can get i can get away with um and then you do start wondering how you survived before you had one of these things yeah god and in your memoir liberation through hearing you talk about how your lack of experience made you unafraid of failure and you became the boss of XL at 23.

30:16I wondered how do you deal with self-doubt? Well, I think now I deal with self-doubt just by acknowledging it. Yeah. And I think I got in the habit some time ago of rather than pretending that things don't make me angsty, I just accept that they make me angsty and I do them anyway. and I almost look for that as an indication of something interesting and if it's making me feel uncomfortable that means um I might be onto something so I'm pretty suspicious of like feeling too comfortable at any given time um uh and a friend of mine who's a very good artist said to me once the comfort zone is where you get your head blown off um totally agree yeah so and i think when i was younger i just wasn't processing anything so it was tremendously useful for work because i was just doing i was just going and there was no um there was no theory of anything um now we didn't even used to use the word artist i think would have we would have thought of that as pretentious yeah when i started out you were djing making tunes and putting the tunes out and that is a sort of i mean you know we didn't know words like multidisciplinary i hate that word right but well yeah it's it's a bad term actually because only because everyone is multidisciplinary yeah there shouldn't need to be a term for it and everyone i mean i actually think it's not just your right as an artist to work in different um mediums um it's your human right yeah to do whatever you want yeah and express yourself in any way you want and to make music take photos do paintings design clothes whatever you feel like doing and it's it's strange this thing of that that's that's happened of people being judged harshly especially if you've done well in a particular medium people get judged harshly moving into another medium yeah and you think that makes no sense at all because every person expresses themselves in more than one way yeah and in more than one form so and i think i i realize this because i started off DJing, making records.

32:53The label took off. I began to take that very seriously. I ran the label in a very hands-on way quite a while. And then I felt like I wanted to make music again. And there was a certain amount, I felt resistance to it internally and from without as well of like, yeah, but once you become someone who runs a record label, are you not on a different side of things? And I just thought, no, that's ridiculous. And I got into making records and then I wanted to make my own records. So I started doing that. And I mean, I've spent this whole summer playing live. And, you know, I will embrace all of these things because they're all forms of expression.

33:35And I actually think that moving around and seeing things, I mean, everything I do tends to be music related, but it's still often visual. And moving around, seeing things from these different perspectives, it's just very, very healthy. So I just totally reject this idea that people need to stay in this one lane. I think people are busy, so they like to perceive other people as being good at one thing. Yeah. And they like to say, oh, well, Bella Freud is a fashion designer. That's it. That's what you're allowed. Yeah. Yeah. But clearly it's nonsense. Yeah. And you're not being a fashion designer right now.

34:20you're doing something totally different to that and people seem to like it very much and also doing these other things makes you I find better at being the thing I'm supposed to be my fashion design you know doing it wakes up ideas and the most important thing is to have ideas or at least think you have absolutely and and I think when I you know having intensively you know re-entered the studio intensively to make that record with girl scott heron and really staying in the studio yeah for for some years like making a succession of records one after the other and really re-grounding myself in like studio craft and in producing sort of going deeper than i did in the like rave era when i was making one-off dance records in a very sort of quickfire way with no real notion of sort of process or craft or theory getting back into it in a sort of deeper way not that there weren't great advantages to doing it in the less deep way but it was a different time in my life getting into that deeply it was tremendously rewarding but at a certain point I remember having to answer some questions and help out with something that was going on with the label I found it so refreshing or like doing the laundry almost like just because i'd immerse myself in something else yeah yeah so i i think i think anytime you do that you are refreshing you're letting the other part of you refresh itself and yeah life fallow for a moment and and then you come back to it and your eyes are open again um and so yeah this year i've been playing live and writing a book and it's been fantastic.

36:18But I've got a bit of studio work coming up, a little bit of music making coming up. I'm so excited about it. But I wasn't excited. I wouldn't have been excited about making music in January. Yeah. Or like making records. It was like a different time to do something, to play live and do something different and writing. So, yeah, it's very, for me, it's been a big answer to things is like keep the different channels open. Because by the age of 27, you had a huge amount of success and you describe yourself as 30 pounds heavier and buying expensive all black clothes. And I wondered how did these clothes symbolize the discord that you were experiencing?

37:12Well, I suppose it's quite, I mean, black clothing. Obviously, people can wear black clothing and still be joyous, but it can also be, it can be symbolic of something, can't it? It can be symbolic of death.

37:33And I think I had, yeah, I mean, I had hit a wall. You know, I was having mental health problems. that were undiagnosed. And at a certain point, I was in Miami, actually, with another one of my closest old friends. And I really was struggling. I mean, I was having a breakdown. And he's very matter-of-fact. He's been very blunt. And I was trying to talk to him about it. And he said, I'm not qualified to really help you with this. you need to seek some proper help and I was like what like what do you mean and he was like well there's people you can talk to yeah about things and I was like who and he was like I don't know but there are and then I thought of another friend whose mum was a psychiatrist um and I thought I need to ask him about this um and I did and his mum found me someone to go and see and it was completely life-changing and i was incredibly lucky because i met an amazing um psychiatrist who i saw for seven years and worked with very intensively um and i think it was it was just a sort of uh a study of the self that i'd never done i didn't really know what my story was i had no idea about it and i needed to learn those things um and i think as soon as i started doing that like things started opening up in my life for one thing i realized that the relationship i was in um was not right and i was not with the right person although i was in a serious relationship and so i ended it i think to to her great relief as well as mine um uh i felt very guilty about ending this relationship so abruptly.

39:41And then I didn't see my ex for like two or three years. And then I bumped into her on Portobello Road. And I said, I'm really pleased I bumped into you. I feel so guilty about the abrupt way I ended things. And she said, I know it was great you did that because you just saved us both so much time. Thank God. How great. Yeah, it was great. It's really something. It was great. and I think we could both you know see that things went wrong and then you know when you when you make those changes it just the first well it's the gardening term isn't it first the cut and then the growth oh I haven't heard that yeah so you know obviously every yeah you know things end and then things begin so that was really like that was so I got I think mental health and physical health started kind of happening at the same time for me um i found a terrific yoga teacher and she taught me yoga one-on-one which i've done ever since and i do every day i do on my own every day and that is that's very important to me um and yeah and i think the interest in just sort of and i was very lucky i had music all the way through this and also there was one point where I said to my friend whose mum found me the psychiatrist, I said to him, I don't think I can work.

41:09I don't think I'm well enough to work. And he said, keep working. Oh, my God. And it was really great advice. Yeah. Because I think that although it was hard, there was something there where I was not the person who was crumbling even though i was pretending to be able to do things i was still i i actually was able to do them because i did them yeah and so that gives you another sense of yourself totally yes um and i think that was very and i think again that's a work ethic thing like you don't want to completely lose yourself to work because i think that was a big part of the problem for me is that i lost myself to work um they're very nuanced these things aren't they i lost myself to work but it was not the solution to completely do away with work yeah like just as work had been part of the problem work became part of the solution um and it was to work in a different way um yeah to work in a more open and less driven and less attached way and to just not kid yourself that it was the most important thing in the world and because then you're kidding yourself that you are the most important thing in the world and it's just not true yeah and as soon as i did this and there was a genuine letting go of things for reasons of survival and as soon as i did that um the the the sort of success kind of like increased like it was it was unbelievable but I wasn't that attached to it I mean I obviously was grateful for it and um very accepting of it but it really did happen but I was very able to deal with it because it happened at a time when I was like well this could be happening or this could not be happening and they'd both be okay and as as you know success is happening then i'm very grateful for it but if it wasn't happening that'd be okay and it doesn't define me and i'm not any better than anyone else because of this um and you know people work very very hard for their whole life and don't have a lot of success and there's a tremendous amount of like happenstance right place things beyond now understanding that that go into that um so it was uh yeah that was an interesting period and then that there was also a period there where then i met esther and that's put that was probably the most life-changing thing of all um to meet someone where you felt this really genuine connection um that hasn't changed at all in 25 years or has i suppose it's changed but it's deepened over that period and having kids and then you know if you needed proof that you weren't really the center of the universe you've then got it yeah um uh and it's not you know it wasn't ever really about you but then then you know it's not yeah about you true because you talk about unraveling and how part of your ego had started to disintegrate.

44:43And there was something that really struck a chord with me that you said, and it's about the fear itself is the thing. And I found the same, that I'm more afraid of being afraid than actual frightening situations. And I wondered how you go through the mirror with that. Because it's like what you were describing before, this constant doing to not to sort of handle the fear but it doesn't it isn't a solution somehow it's a it's about acknowledgement acknowledgement of your own fear and for me you know not not being in any type of therapy anymore writing things down is extremely important do you still write a diary every day because you mentioned that in your i have i have a little book with me always i don't keep it quiet as a diary um like a daily thing but i will

45:51process fear in there and when you put it on paper you see it for what it is yeah it's not real exactly it feels real feels very real but it's not to be listened to it's to be ignored it's to be accepted it's to be faced it's your demon isn't it it's to be faced acknowledged respected in a way but then you are meant to do the exact opposite of what it's telling you to do or more often what it's telling you not to do it's saying to you don't do this thing because you might fail you might trip up you might not be able to do it um and the actual you is um it's fine with all those things it doesn't matter yeah and that that demonic thing is that's very close to what the ego is you know the ego is telling you you can't do these things and the ego is also you know when as well as telling you it's it's you are lesser than and you are unable to do things the ego is equally happy to tell you you are more than and you are greater than it's the ego is happy to tell you you're superior or inferior um but the actual you knows you're not any of those things you know that there's there's more of a oneness than that um and i think like where our dreams lie is in things that we're a bit scared of um so you've got to navigate your way past those fears um and and kind of see the fear as a signpost to like something great that lies beyond it and something enriching and fun and exciting maybe or, you know, in your life that you need to experience.

47:47But listen to your fear, you're not going to get to experience it. It's so true because being able to sort of know what fear is a generator of progress and kind of courage. And then there's the fear that sometimes I get lost in, oh, I have a kind of apprehension or fear about doing something. And actually like swimming in the sea when I hate being thrown under waves. And it makes me lose my courage. and then there's another fear which gives me courage and I'm sometimes I sort of I'm interested in like pulling apart like when I get these signals in my body like okay what is it you know I mostly it's fine if I can pull apart this kind of spaghetti from invading my head and thinking this kind of you know convulsing stomach means something is terribly wrong and actually it's just something that's going on and it will be okay somehow or other and and there's another thing you said that I really identified with with which is about unwittingly putting gurus in the way of your life and I do that too I particularly did it with my dad and I wondered if you think that's part of fearing success that it's easier to make the other person the star i've definitely learned a huge amount from a series of people i mean i have been very lucky to have people i think i lacked this figure when i was younger and i actually think i needed mentorship ship and and i found it and i was incredibly fortunate with that so with the label i met martin mills who's the owner of beggars banquet when i was very young and he's always been my partner since i was a teenager um we've been working together since i was a teenager for my whole adult life he's in his 70s now he's still very active and he you know in terms of the record label he has been an unimaginably great partner and he's an extremely intelligent and diplomatic person who I've been able to who knows a huge amount about music and I've been able to learn a massive amount from him.

50:28So I've been very lucky with that. And then, you know, I had this tremendous psychiatrist, had a great yoga teacher. It sounds like the worst Oscars award. Thank you, speech of all time. Thank you to my yoga teacher, to my psychiatrist. And, you know, and actually at the time when I wanted to, well, even before I made that record with Gil, Liam Howlett from Prodigy who again I've worked with since I was 19 years old he said to me in what must have been 2000 or thereabouts he said have you got a laptop and music production software on it and I said nope and he said you're going to love this shit this is like they've made all this stuff way easier than it was those of us who like grew up on like akai samplers and like the original ways of beat making that were you know great in their ways but lengthy became a lot simpler with laptops and software and he was absolutely right and i loved it i was so grateful to him to like for flagging that to me amazing yeah um because actually in working with prodigy on the label that did sort of coincide with me stopping making my own music because i sort of recognized how very very great liam was and i wanted to help him with what he was doing and the role that was there was to be the record label um so i embraced that and i did that and i did it very well and um i wanted prodigy to be this big worldwide success um now obviously they were that because of this incredible music that Liam made and Keith made and Max, you know, this amazing group of people.

52:18And they're still this amazing, amazing, amazing group. But that did coincide with me stopping making music. And I think Liam had noticed that. And so he flagged this. And that got me back into it. And then I think this notion came up that I wanted to make a record with Girl Scott Heron because I wanted to hear a new record by Gervis Got Heroin. And I knew that it would be somewhat difficult. And I knew it wasn't really right to try and find someone else and say to them, oh, can you try and do that? That if I wanted that to happen, that was something I needed to take on myself and do it and just do it.

52:57We were talking about your fears earlier. It was frightening. Yeah. That was frightening. What that entailed, where I had to go, how I had to... We started off writing letters to each other, Was he in prison? Because you said he was in Rikers Island and you went to visit him in prison. Was that the first time you'd met him? In person, yeah, but we corresponded before that. And the letters were very good and full of humour and lightness, despite him being there and beautifully written. Amazing. That record is one of my favourite things I've ever heard, actually. that song Dear Baby where he says I keep trying to write to you I mean it's not like that but essentially I keep trying to write to you and all I can put down is dear baby and oh god that killed me that song it's just so everything about it was so moving what an amazing experience to have found him and made his last record with him.

54:08It was very, very deeply moving. And he said at a certain point, we used to work at a studio called, well, we started off working in Looking Glass Studio just above Soho in Manhattan, Philip Glass' studio, and then it closed.