Rose McDowall interview
29 Jan 02
Did it not freak you out, the Hitler Youth dagger?
No, because it's only like army memorabilia, d'you know what I mean? At first I thought, 'has this been used?'. I did think that, because the one I got had a nick on the end. But a lot of those were never used, they were for boy scouts; they are exactly the same as the boy scout dagger except for the emblem. So really it didn't have any significance in a Nazi way. There's no way that I'm a fascist or a Nazi. I think Hitler was a very interesting man but he was totally off his fucking rocker. It's fascinating to think that he could control a whole nation like that. How the hell did he do that?
There's something a bit simplistic in the way we're told it was just him, the way history is boiled down to a few bogeymen when in fact they were just part of a massive team.
All the things he stood for; a super-race tall, blond and blue eyed - he was short and dark! It's was a headfuck, how can he be promoting that when it was everything he wasn't? He was obviously a twisted little man right from the beginning. He was obviously very twisted and sick. It is all completely sick and awful.
Somebody actually sent me some bones from Auschwitz that they found when they went to visit there, in a little box. I took them out and I gave them a burial, a proper burial in a place that's somewhere special to me and said said something to put them to rest. I couldn't do that, I couldn't pick up something like that and take it away cos I think it's disrespectful to the dead. I have complete respect for the remains of someone who isn't here any more, and especially something like that. People send me significant things, like that and a piece of the Berlin Wall and whatever.
Jill said you had a Nazi flag banner as well.
I never had a flag. I knew someone who had one, but I never had one and I don't believe there was ever one in the house. She's talking about a flag isn't she? I didn't have a flag.
But yeah, I had an interest in the Second World War, my grandfather fought in it, d'you know what I mean?
It does grab people because it was so audacious, Nazism wasn't like any other militarism, it was done with such SHOWBIZ.
It was so cunning and well-planned
and yet so ostentatious with the big banners and Hugo Boss uniforms, clearly interested in style and dazzle as well as practicality, so overt, and that still astonishes us today like no other regime ever has.
I'd never thought about that, when you said showbiz, but it was really, wasn't it?
Absolutely! Putting a really distinctive symbol on everything that everyone will recognise wherever it goes, you read about the rallies with the deafening music as the speaker marches on, rather than just someone walking on to a stage.
It is fascinating, because it happened at all. How could that have ever happened?
We forget how prevalent things like militarism and eugenics were at the time - they were common right across the world, but as we forget all of them except the Nazis it makes the Nazis look even more extreme.
And I think there's a cultural thing as well. The Japanese army could be limkened to the German army with mishima and all that, the whole pride and honour thing, it was another big showbiz thing. If you were dishonoured in any way you had to kill yourself. I know it wasn't the same thing, but the way it was so serious, it was everything, your honour was everything.
It's so weird for us because our culture only really values individual happiness and money, it's so difficult for us to deal with ideals outside of that. Out of the two cultures, I think we're more fascinated by Nazis because the Japanese honour thing is more to do with your internal workings whereas the Nazis was more to do with how other people see you, and that resonates deeply with the consumerist advertising culture we all live in, yet it was for a genocidal military regime that we can't imagine living in.
It fascinated me that it had ever happened at all, and in a time that there were people still alive from. My grandfather was there, my mother was four when the war ended. It's such a horrific thing to imagine being in, especially if you have kids, your perception on things changes, you get this instinct to protect.
It's totally bizarre, I just can't imagine being in a war, I'd kill myself rather than have to face that horror, cos it would destroy me mentally. That's the whole thing about humanity; why does someone want to kill somebody else? Maybe that's got a lot to do with my upbringing, seeing how people can be so brutally cruel to somebody, chop off their arm with a sword. I didn't tell you even half the stuff I had to experience; some guy being killed with an ice-skating boot when I was coming out of the ice-skating, got it stuck in his back. I put my grandfather's scarf that he gave me, it was a real treasure, round this guy's neck and my coat on him to try and keep him warm till the ambulance came but he died on the way to hospital. I came across that kind of thing a lot in Glasgow. The idea that someone could willingly want to do something so awful to somebody, another human being, makes me feel sick, it really actually makes me feel sick. I hate violence.
Did you ever talk about any of this stuff with [NON mainman, Spell collaborator and Jeremy Clarkson lookalike] Boyd Rice when you worked with him [on the Spell records], cos he's got pretty outspoken views on racial issues.
He has or he did have or he's always had?
Well, has had certainly.
I actually asked Boyd about this cos I didn't want to be tarred with that. Boyd is a really fascinating guy, he's super intelligent, he's a really interesting guy. He says he's not a Nazi. It's not politics, he just believes in the Darwin theory of survival of the fittest, basically.
But Darwin wasn't talking in social terms at all. By 'fittest', he meant which traits promoted physical survival and reproduction. Having loads of kids would be closer to Darwin's idea of fittest.
Well he's had two! He's never said anything racist to me. I've talked to him about it and he's said he now has to be careful about things he says because people will misconstrue things. I'm sure he did wear swastikas when he was a punk, a lot of punks did.
There's a picture of him with the leader of the American Front, both of them in the AF uniform. [click here]
I haven't seen that. I saw pictures of him in rallies where he used to do things for shock value, and with Monte Cazazza, another guy who'd do performance art things purely to shock people. There's a lot of guys that, when I first knew Boyd, were on the same kind of scene and would all be in the same magazines like Monte Cazazza, one guy who made all these mad metal things, one guy who blew his hand off, it was all mad performance art stuff and Boyd would do things that were outrageous as well.
Boyd collects Barbie dolls, you know. He's really kitsch in a lot of ways. His idea of Satanism for example - he was spokesman for the Church of Satan when Anton LeVey was alive. The idea of the Church of Satan is not to sacrifice things, it's just living your life how you please; if you're into 60s girl bands - which they both were - to celebrate that. To celebrate LIFE, not to do something that was evil. Just to be who you are and do what you want and have that freedom. It was like a kind of anarchism in a way. The way they looked at the Church of Satan is was FUN. There were rituals and all this, but they had fun doing it and they weren't harming anybody when they were doing it. There are other Church of Satans and I'm sure a lot of them are pretty dodgy, but their one seemed pretty harmless to me. And I know Boyd well enough to know that he's not evil.
I don't like people who want to harm somebody just for the sake of harming somebody. I always get asked these things about Boyd. People ask me about Doug Pierce and Boyd Rice from Death In June and NON, cos I've worked with both. The two people that I know personally and quite well are not what other people have perceptions of. The thing about Doug is he is a man of honour, if he says he'll do something he will do it. Honour and self-respect and the idea that someone's word is worth something, that friendship really means something. I have a small group of friends that I've known for a few years that I feel that close to. Tibet and Coil, those are the people that I'm really that close to, that I will always be that close to, they're like my own blood and they feel the same way.
When I met Doug I really liked the fact that he was a really strong person, a strong character that really believed in honour and self-respect and self-discipline and stuff like that. He never struck me as being a fascist. I don't know where he's going with his life right now cos I haven't been in contact with him a lot, so I've really no idea what he's up to. And it's not my place to talk about anybody else's politics anyway. I can't speak for Doug, I can't speak for Boyd, I can't speak for anybody but myself.
I talked to Boyd recently, but I haven't saw Doug for a long time, but there's no way that I would condone any of that because I think it is completely sick and my family would have been persecuted as well, because they were Romany gypsies. Doug is gay, so he would've been persecuted. There's all these contradictions - how could he believe that if he'd be front of the queue for the gas chamber? It just doesn't make sense. I'm not for people persecuting anybody.
So much of this stuff is written accusing people, it's good to give the opportunity for you to respond. We could move on and even talk about some Strawberry Switchblade stuff if you like!
Ah, the letters were S.S.! What's that all about then? Subliminals in there.
Imagine the SS in polka dot uniforms, there's an image to conjour with.
With flowers in their hair.