A short play in one act
The Artist: Hugh Cornwell
The Interviewer: Adrian Deevoy

A Songwriter, a guitar player, a filmscore writer, an actor, an indispensable element of an organic collective of 10 years standing, an author. Here he comes, he's all dressed in black. Every inch The Artist.

The Artist views the world through a glass darkly, he frequently does not like what he sees. Always on the outside looking in. He used to shoot to kill with electric guitar shards, now he strums, hums and smiles a lot more.

This is International Musician's Latest Hugh Cornwell Interview (a poor man's Waiting For Godot).

Enter The Artist (stage left). Removing his black leather jacket he lies on the couch up on the end of which is perched the interviewer. The lights dim.

Hugh Cornwell: I'm in a chirpy mood today. I haven't been in a chirpy mood forages.

International Musician: Will that make for a good interview?

HC: We'll have to see (laughs).

IM: Why did you decide to release a solo single?

HC: I did a solo single basically because the others wouldn't do it. We didn't go into it. They just didn't like it.

IM: It sounded like Brian Ferry.

HC: Well maybe that's why you didn't like it. Fair enough.

IM: Why was it such an acoustic single.

HC: That's because it had an acoustic guitar on it. I wouldn't really call it acoustic music...

IM: You'd call it...

HC: ...Cactus music. I'm getting very into that. The romance of the West. Nobody seems to be doing this Gene Pitney/Roy Orbison type of music. Beautiful melodies. Beautiful ballads. Songs that you remember for the rest of your life. Songs like Strong Summers, the songs I was listening to in my teens. I'll never forget that. It would be nice to do that for people. Send a shiver up their spines.

IM: Do early Stranglers' songs send a shiver up your spine?

HC: Yes. Mostly because I want to take it off. Don't you think the Stranglers early material sounded very odd? They compressed the sound so much it sounded like it was coming out of a telephone. If ever I listen to it now I have to twiddle the eq on my machine until it sounds warm again.

IM: Where do you make your music?

HC: I've got a music room at home. Like a little kid's play room. I've got an eight-track set up. A Teac, I think. And some guitars and some keyboards. A Roland and a DX7 and another. There's a Linn drum machine which Jet Black sometimes programmes for me. Listen, I'll tell you a story about Brian Wilson. At home he'd got a music room with a piano in it and a big box of sand. When he wanted to write songs he'd sit at the piano in his shorts and put his feet in the sand and that would inspire him to write Beach Boys songs.

IM: What inspires you to write songs?

HC: I like to rub myself in coconut oil. Well, I say rub myself I like to have it rubbed in by three nubile nymphettes — black of course. Then I boil up some custard and put my fingers in the custard and smear it all over my head. I find that puts me amazingly perceptive mood to be inspired to write Roy Orbison songs.

IM: Have you got a favourite guitar?

HC: It's always the one I've bought most recently. The one I'm mad about at the moment is the Washburn I use for acoustic songs live. It's like a semi-acoustic but the sound-hole is filled with wood and it's got hollow bits inside it. I keep playing it at the moment. I plug it into my Hot Watt and go crazy.

IM: Do you still use your hand made black acoustic?

HC: The Kinkade Brothers one?

IM: Still sounds like a team of jugglers...

HC: Yes. And now Hercule will introduce to you... The Flying Kinkade Brothers. I see what you mean. I use that guitar in the studio. It's got a beautiful tone. The bass they made for Jean sounds really good now. He was having a lot of trouble with fret buzz and so on so he took it back to them. It sounds marvellous now. They're very easy to record. You just close mike them and they sound great.

IM: Has your guitar playing improved?

HC: No, I've got worse. Regressed. I've gone right off playing it. I'm quite happy to strum an acoustic guitar and leave all the virtuoso stuff to somebody else. I'd rather concentrate on singing nice tunes. People keep saying to me, "What's happened to all those off-the-wall solos you used to do?" well, they were okay in a certain time but not now.

IM: Everything But The Girl admire your solo playing.

HC: Really? Well that's great because I was in Italy with some friends and they were playing this fantastic tape and when I asked who it was they said it was Everything But The Girl. So I'm a fan of theirs.

IM: Is it true that the Stranglers are using a brass section now?

HC: We got brass in for a couple of Swing-type numbers we were doing. But we thought there's no point in just doing two numbers with them. So they're playing on Nice 'n' Sleazy and Peaches now. Bab bab bub bu bu bab bab brrruuu!

IM: Sounds nice.

HC: There's a sax solo on Peaches too...

"I did a solo single basically because the others wouldn't do it"

IM: You've written the soundtrack for Bertrand Fevre's Bleeding Star. You seem an unlikely candidate to enter into that area.

HC: What you mean is, "Punk writes film-score shock"?

IM: Tell us about it.

HC: It's a short — 20 minute — film. It's not even been shot yet. I'm writing the music for it virtually blind, just using a script. Luckily the images in it are so strong. The guy who's making it gave me an album of whale music as some kind of reference. It's about the sea.

IM: Are there any rules in making film music?

HC: It has to be very ambient. There has to be a lot of space in it. I'm not sure if that would apply for all types of film music but it definitely does for this. You can either do it by using echo and reverb or by leaving actual space. I've only used six channels for this music. Just two synths — a Roland one and a DX7. The sound of the crashing waves was a preset I found in the manual called Surf. I pressed the button and used that one. It's all done on eight-track. It's very good fun.

IM: Can you describe how you link image and sound?

HC: It's not something you can put into words.

IM: Can't you describe how certain visuals evoke particular sounds?

HC: It's a very personal thing, I suppose... no, I can't.

IM: Did you miss not writing lyrics for it?

HC: The images are so strong it didn't need lyrics.

IM: Do you listen to other people's lyrics?

HC: Not really. I'm completely self-obsessed with my own lyrics. If I tried to interpret other people's lyrics I'd probably get it as wrong as people do when they think they understand mine.

IM: Your lyrics are becoming increasingly opaque.

HC: Good. That's reassuring. Nothing is as simple as it seems. It's like everyone thinking Strawberry Fields was about acid but Strawberry Fields was a lunatic asylum behind John Lennon's aunt's house where he used to live. He used to nip over the wall and play in the grounds there. The song's just another song about childhood memories. People always try to make their own interpretations fit.

IM: Have the Stranglers become very telepathic after 10 years?

HC: Sometimes I find that Dave will play exactly the same tune as I have played on a demo. But that's bound to happen after a long period.

IM: What are the drawbacks?

HC: There are only drawbacks if you are in a rut. Which we're not. In a way the extracurricular projects help keep that spark of whatever we have.

IM: Are you a multi-instrumentalist or a dabbler?

HC: I just write songs.

IM: Do you analyse how you write songs?

HC: They just fall out. Things just happen.

IM: The melodies are very sharp and flat. Black note melodies.

HC: Are they? I don't know. You tell me.

IM: How do tunes come to you?

HC: In bits sometimes.... sometimes altogether.

IM: Do you write lyrics to fit melodies?

HC: Sometimes.... sometimes the other way round.

IM: Name some classic songs.

HC: Name me a song with a good melody.

IM: Jailhouse Rock.

HC: Yeah, Jailhouse Rock, Backstage by Gene Pitney 24 Hours From Tulsa, Dream Baby. Modern classics? That Yazoo song, Only You, some Abba songs.

IM: Have you ever written a classic?

HC: Is that for me to say? Have I?

IM: Do you ever write for writing's sake?

HC: Sometimes.

IM: Poems?

HC: Sometimes. I write things down.

IM: Is your eight-track a musical sketch book?

HC: Yeah, that sounds pretty good (laughs). Look it's been very nice talking but I don't think I've got anything else to contribute. Is that very rude of me?

IM: Would you describe your eight-track as a music sketch book?

HC: You've just asked me the same question twice.

IM: That's because you didn't answer it.

HC: I see. I'm sorry. Like I said I'm in a chirpy mood today (laughs).

IM: Chirpy but hardly verbose. Thanks...

The curtain falls apathetically. Exit The Artist pondering the meaning of verbose.

Adrian Beckett