Jill Bryson interview
9 June 01
So it came to splitting up rather than being dropped? Your history is so undocumented that I wasn't sure.
Oh yes, we split up. We decided to split up and then the record company had an option to keep both of us on, but they'd had so much trouble with us, I'd just point-blank refused to do all the shit things, which I have every right to do. Not going out with some DJ. I remember him inviting us to his country retreat for the weekend. NO! Sorry, maybe he's lovely, but NO. That's so shit, it's not the way to do things. And they obviously had no faith in us or the record or anything, so what's the point? We'd have been better off on an indie label. It wasn't good, and Bill and Balfey were on that 80s huge-advance kick, they just wanted to go off and be mega, and they just didn't want to nurture it. The pressure from the record company got bigger and what we were getting out of it got smaller, and I just couldn't be bothered fighting any more.
If you had've kept with the indie thing would it have lasted longer, would there have been more to it?
Yeah, probably. Perhaps we'd have had to pull together a bit more. I dunno. I think in general there was quite a lot that was different about us. It worked because we were both there, it worked because we were US, and that just wasn't there any more once we'd come down to London and once we'd been interfered with by a big record company. Maybe had we stayed in Glasgow and just carried on... I think it would've fizzled out, I think we were too different. In the end I didn't feel any respect for her at all. It was very tricky to work with her. I think she felt very under pressure. She's the sort of person who if you said 'that looks great' or 'that sounds fantastic' would change it because she'd think you were lying to her; if you didn't like something she'd stick to it cos she'd think 'clearly you're trying to manipulate me', she was very paranoid.
Had she always been like that or had it come out of her with the commercial success?
I don't know. Her and her husband at that point started to hang around with Genesis P-Orridge and his crew. And he obviously wanted to use the fact that she'd had a hit single and I think she sang on one or to of their... Throbbing Gristle was it?
Psychic TV. Throbbing Gristle was his earlier project. [Rose sang on Godstar, a minor UK hit in April/May 1986, credited to Psychic TV &The Angels of Light].
Yeah, it was Psychic TV she sang with. Then she started getting into black magic and stuff like that, not in a positive way. I've nothing against magic, but I had no time for what Rose was doing. It wasn't scary, it was more reckless and silly. And also she got into Nazi memorabilia that her and her husband would buy. In her daughter's room they had a huge Nazi flag and I just thought that was SHIT, I really thought it was SHIT. I don't know what you think of Genesis P-Orridge but if that was the influence it was a bad influence, a really seriously bad influence. She started to write songs clearly influenced by that, nothing to do with me, no collaboration at all with me. Which was, well, what's the point, you know? She started wearing black rubber. I remember them spending a huge amount of money buying a Nazi youth dagger, her and her husband, and it's like WHY? What's THAT about?
Was this still at the time you were together?
We were still as a band, yeah. It was all too much. We had flats as well, we had cheap flats in the same building, and me and Peter had this terrible neighbour. He was just awful, he practically threatened to kill us.
Over what?
Because we walked about on the floor, and we were Irish and in the IRA, which he used to shout through the floorboards. Admittedly the sound insulation wasn't good, but we didn't make a lot of noise. We had the police up to the door because he said we were smoking drugs and we were in the IRA and we had bombs in the house. Well, for a start we're Scottish, one of us is Catholic and one of us is Protestant, we're from Glasgow, OK? Please search the flat; us and three cats and that's it. We had this campaign from this guy and he nearly got us thrown out and Rose refused to help us. Everybody signed a petition to say that this guy was crazy except them.
Why did they do that?
They said they didn't want to lose their flat.
But if everyone else is signing it....
But because our leases were tied together they didn't want to do it. Which I just thought was shit cos if you're friends with somebody then you're friends with them and you help them out even if it puts you at risk. And it DIDN'T put her at risk, you know? And in the end we got to stay there because everybody signed the petition except them, and the guy who was being mental was moved. It was that sort of thing which was shit. I just thought she'd lost the plot then, totally lost the plot.
Who instigated splitting up then?
I just said I don't want to do this anymore because it's really horrible. The next album which we were going to do had got to the point where she was going to do one side and I was going to do the other. What's the point? What IS the point? I didn't want to do that, I wanted to write with her, I wanted to do it WITH HER. But she was writing about 'crystal nights', you know? [taken to be a reference to 'Kristallnacht' ('crystal night', the night of broken glass) : On the night of November 9 1938 throughout Nazi Germany windows were smashed in thousands of Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues and hundreds of the buildings burned, without fire engines or ambulances being sent to help]. Just Nazi shite, and black magic and, well what's the point? Do your own album! Just go off and do it and I'll do my own stuff. I didn't want to, my heart was never in it. I did a few demos, but I didn't want to do stuff on my own. Some people like Julian [Cope], they can do stuff like that, but even Julian likes to collaborate.
He needs a team but he likes to lead it, I think.
He's been doing this for a long time, he's had other people around him, he's a strong character who knows exactly what he's doing and he's very smart and talented. I don't think Rose had the direction to do that. It was that, and the Nazi thing, and I just thought I can't cope with it any more. It had been difficult for a while but it got to that point where I just didn't want to do it. And also she'd starting taking a lot of ecstasy, that had just come on the scene and she was hanging out with those people doing a lot of that. We'd have some Belgian TV show to do and she fell out of a tree and couldn't go so it'd be cancelled. It was that sort of thing, she was totally unreliable and I really couldn't be arsed. Her heart wasn't in it.
On a tape of late demos there's Beautiful End, Cake Knife, Dark 7, Michael Who Walks By Night. Whose songs are whose?
Beautiful End, Cake Knife and 60 Cowboys were Rose's songs. Michael Who Walks By Night and Dark 7 are mine.
Did you do the lyrics as well?
Yeah, and I'm singing on them, and it's terrible. I don't think Rose wanted to sing them cos she hadn't written them. That's why I didn't think it was going to work. I didn't really want to sing. I don't mind doing backing vocals and harmonies and layering things up.
Afterwards, did you do much on your own? Is there much recorded and unreleased?
I did a few demos, it must've been late 1986. I did it with a friend called Robin Brown, he sang with me. We just sat in a bedroom with a DX7. I'd written the songs and he did some backing vocals and we recorded it on a little 8 track in somebody's front room in Muswell Hill, and he put some other things on to it, keyboards and stuff.
What are you playing on them?
Just guitar and some really hamfisted keyboards. After that I did a few gigs with a band made up of most of Primal Scream, Robert and Andrew Innes. That happened cos I played Alan McGee [head of Primal Scream's label Creation Records] a demo and he liked it and he said 'do a few gigs and I'll get you a band together'. I had a guy who I was singing with who I don't think they liked very much, a young gay guy, they wanted to be a bit more rock and he was a bit fey, but I liked him. It was a bit of a strange band. You had Robert from Primal Scream and Andrew Innes and the drummer they had at that time who I think was [Julian Cope collaborator] Donald Skinner's brother.
How many gigs did you do?
I think we did about three or four, we did University of London Union and Hammersmith Palais where I was supporting somebody.
Can you remember who?
It was all done through Alan McGee so it'd probably be someone of his.
How did the gigs go?
Pretty well. We had a few reviews and I was wearing a hat and it was all one of them mentioned, basically just reviewing the hat.
Like the ribbons and make-up fixations you'd had from the press with Strawberry Switchblade.
Yeah.
Were you still doing Strawberry Switchblade songs?
No.
Just new stuff?
Yes. And I enjoyed it but, you know, not that much. I'd rather have done it with somebody else, with Rose if she'd been OK, if she hadn't gone off the rails. I'd rather it was more fun. So I didn't want to carry on, and at that point Alan McGee was going through a lot, I think his marriage broke up, I'd just split up with my boyfriend, it was a really weird time and after the review of my hat I just thought it might be nice to do something a bit.... I just didn't want to do it, you know? I mean there was one review, somebody at Record Mirror which was actually a good review, an intelligent review, it was really nice. But because it was just me it was 'who's going to be in the band? What are you going to do? Who's going to produce it?' and I didn't want to do it without an ally, somebody that's going to help.