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Aesthetics

John Cale

Article from One Two Testing, July 1985

too good a piano player and not a good enough guitarist


They say musicians were invented so John Cale could influence them. Jon Lewin makes friends.


"When I get pissed off, I get very good. I refuse to answer any of the questions they ask, and just say anything I think they don't want to hear."

Although it wasn't immediately apparent from his demeanour, John Cale must have been in tolerably good humour when I met him at Ronnie Scott's recently. Although his legendary status is mainly due to his role in the Velvet Underground, Cale is also a magnificent writer and totally captivating live performer, a magician who can transfix you so completely that you find yourself listening to nothing but his music for weeks on end (well, he fair gets me going).

Not only that, this latterday God has produced records by Iggy Pop, the Modern Lovers, and Patti Smith ("Horses") amongst others; and it was in his role as producer that Cale was back in London, working once again with old friend and colleague from the Velvets Nico, 11 years after their last LP together.

"It's about time we worked together again — she's gone through a number of changes. What she has now is a very supportive performing unit — a drummer and a keyboard player — but it complements her music very well."

What is it like working with Nico again?

"She's very professional and together; business-like. Every time in the past there have been certain unfortunate incidents that have happened during recording. This time there weren't any... that could have been something to do with the fact that her musicians did my job for me — on "Marble Index" (the second of the four LPs Cale produced with Nico) I played all the instruments — everything."

Is producing important to you?

"Yes. There is a certain amount of discomfort that goes along with it, because you often don't know whether your role is to be Obergrüppenführer or collaborator."

Do you find it easier keeping a lower profile?

"No, I find it very difficult — I've got to be in charge, it's my job. From a professional point of view this album has given me a lot of satisfaction. I haven't done any for a while, and where I actually took greater control, it really worked. Like, the first track is a radio play, where Nico sings...

"We've built a whole new track around her version of 'My Funny Valentine', only it's not that at all, except for maybe two words; and I'm reading sentences out of 'Tropic Of Capricorn' — '...the last white man to fire a gun...' — the track is so amorphous you don't know what the hell it is.

"Basically everybody was dissatisfied with her singing 'My Funny Valentine'. We'd used three tracks for piano, vocal and trumpet, so we had 21 left. Rather than change the reel of tape, we simply recorded on the other tracks. It just happened that everything fell into place as the song was basically in C min, and we were playing in F min. It's definitely Apocalypse Now. Without Marlon Brando."

How different is producing your own records?

"You're working blind. You're in the eye of the hurricane — no matter how educated you are, or how much you've learnt from being an A&R man at Warner Brothers, you have to find someone you can trust, and depend on their ears."

Like who?

"Generally it's a consensus. I haven't had the luxury of working with the same people for any length of time. The engineer on this album was Dave Young, who's also my guitarist; he was the engineer on 'Music For A New Society'. The drummer on 'Caribbean Sunset' was an engineer too — I just happened to trip over a couple of engineering souls who longed for the spotlight. Frustrated musicians. You've got to pick the right people to work with."

What do you think has been your most successful recording with other artists?

"Lou, and the Velvet Underground. But I didn't produce that, I was just a collaborator. Patti Smith's album was very gratifying."

What was working with the Stooges like?

"It was great — we did the LP in ten days... just knocked it up. He looks like a psychiatrist now, with those glasses... he was never a freak anyway."

Which of your solo records works best in retrospect?

"'Honi Soit', as an album. 'Wilson Joliet' was a powerful song, 'Fear' was a powerful song... 'Fear', 'Guts', and 'Wilson Joliet' as songs. Mind you, 'Russian Roulette' is a very radical pernicious song — I'm glad I didn't put the lyrics on the sleeve."

During the 70s you had a reputation for bizarre behaviour on stage — wearing the ice hockey mask, dismembering mannequins — do you still feel the need to be extreme?

"For a cheap version of Ziggy Stardust you make the most of small resources. Oh yeah, they were good drama. No, I don't — the new material has titles like 'That's What You Think About Love', which sounds innocuously Album-Orientated Rock."

What's the new material intended for?

"At the moment there are two projects. One is an LP with the band, a lot of which will be written in the studio, like most of my records — I resent being in the position of having to make demos.

"The other is the Dylan Thomas song cycle — The Falklands' Suite. At the moment they're in a voice/piano state, but by the end of May I've got to orchestrate the whole thing for chamber orchestra, pedal steel guitar, 12-string, bass, cathedral organ, and a children's choir.

"I wrote it quite a long time ago. Alan Lanier (pronounced 'lan-ear') of Blue Oyster Cult has this mini-studio in his house... he had this set up, so I just wrote at the piano with a copy of the collected poems. Every now and again he'd walk in, adjust a piece of equipment, and walk out again. And while he was out of the room, I'd write another song, then he'd come back in...

"I managed to pull that off while reassuring him that he played a seminal role. And he was persuading me that I played a seminal role by singing the poems."

How on earth did you come up with that instrumentation?

"That's my job. I'm a composer."

Do you always have such a clear idea of how your songs should sound? Presumably you write on either piano or guitar...?

"I don't like writing on the piano, because I'm too good as a pianist, and I don't like writing on the guitar because I'm not good enough. The bigger the challenge, the more gratification I get out of solving the problem, sometimes to the perverse end of detuning the guitar any way you want, then trying to make sense out of it. Like, if you're really good on the piano, then do something that you've never done before; try and remember every little nook and cranny of everything you've ever played, and avoid them."

Did your training with John Cage and La Monte Young have much effect on your playing?

"It wasn't training, it was collaboration — avant-garde music."

Isn't their influence at all apparent?

"No. I've always been basically a passionate European symphonist, though I use the words advisedly as I haven't written one yet. But I will — that's another ongoing project which I'm mulling over with some people at the moment. It's not fair to mention names yet... "

Do you listen to much contemporary music?

"I don't listen to much music at all — I do a lot of... er... eavesdropping. It's my favourite pastime. I listen to everything that's being said in trains, taxi cabs, on the radio, in the papers, then I figure out what's going on — I'm probably about four days late with my conclusions..."

Is the idea of disassociated information an inspiration to your song-writing?

"Yeah, my view of the world is not based on what I was taught — it's pretty cynical. All the information you are given suggests that the people only want what you say is good for them, and I don't like that. I don't think people are that stupid."

Do you juggle this 'found' information to fit into songs?

"Not enough. 'Chinese Envoy' uses an image from a Maupassant short story... if I wanted to, I could just include my clippings from the papers, but I'm not sure that's what people come to see. If I just wanted to be risqué, well, the last time I played the Electric Ballroom, I gave this diatribe against heroin; now that's really the pot calling the kettle black. Sometimes I'm tasteful, and sometimes I'm bourg. Or just tacky."

"The best interview Lou ever gave was in Tokyo. At this press conference, they were firing questions at him, and he DEMOLISHED them, played so many fucking games. I really admired that."

Thank you for being so gentle, Mr Cale.


More with this artist



Previous Article in this issue

Outside Of C

Next article in this issue

Pitchrider 2000


Publisher: One Two Testing - IPC Magazines Ltd, Northern & Shell Ltd.

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One Two Testing - Jul 1985

Donated by: Colin Potter

Interview by Jon Lewin

Previous article in this issue:

> Outside Of C

Next article in this issue:

> Pitchrider 2000


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