Rose McDowall interview
29 Jan 02
After you split with Jill, she said you did some gigs with someone else.
I did a couple of Strawberry Switchblade gigs, but it wasn't with someone instead of her, it was me with two of Primal Scream, Lawrence from Felt, two of the Weather Prophets. It was kind of a wee bit like a Creation supergroup!
One was the best gig I've ever done. I took a tab of acid before I went on stage, which I would never recommend to anybody, and I would never have thought that I would've done it myself. First gig after Strawberry Switchblade have split up, so what does Rose do? Something completely fucking off the wall!
Before I went into the venue it was a full moon that night, and I thought, oh COOL. It was in Brighton, and there was the full moon reflecting off the ocean, it was just gorgeous. I went into the venue and I was really nervous, and I took this acid. I went out on stage and I swear I don't know HOW I remembered the songs! I think it was because of the moon, because I looked at the back of the hall and there was a spotlight, and I was thinking WOW! COOL! The moon's come to my gig! What an honour! Because I was so elated about the moon being there, I wasn't thinking about the songs, I just played them naturally. It got reviewed as being the best pop band ever!
The trick with doing anything on acid is to distract yourself from thinking about the process of doing it. If you're running and you start thinking about your legs and the ground you'll stumble, but if you're concentrating on what you're heading towards then it's fine. It'd probably be easier cos it was songs that have been part of you for so long.
A lot of the songs were new songs, they weren't old Strawberry Switchblade songs like Jill and I would've done. It was me moving on and still keeping the name, basically. Cos it was my name in the beginning, cos I got it from James Kirk. But Jill didn't like me to use it because it was associated with both of us, and so I ended up not using it. Although I should've still used it if I was going to keep doing that sort of stuff. I thought it was silly to fight over it. I know people associated it with Jill and I, but things change and people change and bands change, and sometimes bands keep the same name but the people in the band are different.
Anyway, I only did two gigs, one in London and one in Brighton, I think it was the Escape Club in Brighton. The one in London was a bit of a nightmare, I'm afraid. MTV were at that one. They only filmed one song, Angel, and they did that mostly in the soundcheck. It was just those two gigs with a bunch of people from Creation Records that were in bands that I liked and were mates, basically.
And it was really good fun, and it sounded brilliant cos they were all brilliant musicians, the guitars, it was just orgasmic. The keyboards and everything just sounded brilliant, they all fell into the songs really really well. It was good fun being on stage with a REAL group, not a machine, not a bunch of session musicians. Being in a group, you could turn and look at your friend and smile, you were all there together, it was really good fun. I loved it, it's one of my best memories of playing live.
Do you see any influence of Strawberry Switchblade in anything that's come subsequently?
It's happened a few times actually, but I can't remember what. There's that band that quite blatantly called themselves something like Strawberry Switchblade. What was it? Some American band [Switchblade Symphony?] You always see little interviews in goth magazines and stuff like that. And they used to wear polka dot dresses right at the beginning of their career. They said that they weren't influenced by us, they weren't copying Strawberry Switchblade. The polka dot dresses would have given it away, really.
The one that really got me, I remember the first time I heard Linger by the Cranberries, the way she's put the harmonies on herself, it's so Switchblade. The gentle swoony guitar is similar too, but the vocals are spot on. If you see Strawberry Switchblade as part of that Postcard Records thing, there's certainly an influence from that scene. There's a big indie sub-genre of bands that clearly love their Postcard records, the most prominent I'd say is Belle & Sebastian, where there's a delicate and intelligent pop thing going on. It's really noticeable when Belle & Sebastian put the two female voices together.
I've heard a couple of Belle & Sebastian things, I got them on a compilation that came with a fanzine. I do want to go and see them, I've heard they're a really good band.
My mum has called a couple of times when she's heard something on the radio saying it sounded like me! There have been a couple of things where I thought, 'that really sounds like me! I don't remember doing that track! What was I on that day?!'.