SoundFreak

Ian... following his obsessions

The UK music press has changed almost beyond recognition over the last 20 years. There used to be 2 other inkies to rival the NME, weekly music papers called Sounds and Melody Maker, both with their own distinctive editorial flavours. Time Out’s London listings magazine had a competitor too in the slightly more street-cred form of City Limits. The 80’s and 90’s saw the launch of many new glossy music-related magazines, several of which have since floundered and perished along the way.

Ian Johnston is a freelance writer/journalist, who over the last 20 years or so has written for Sounds, City Limits, a magazine called 20/20 which was a monthly spin-off of Time Out, GQ, Esquire, the Scotsman, the Saturday Telegraph and numerous others. He’s also been the author of two books; The Wild, Wild World of the Cramps published by Omnibus Press and the critically acclaimed Nick Cave biography Bad Seed, published by Little Brown. He currently contributes to Total Film magazine and independent music magazine Loose Lips Sink Ships.

SISSY: How did you first start writing professionally?

IAN: Sounds was the very first thing I ever got work for. It was a cool paper because it had its own remit and there were some good people there.
I was living in a squat in Hackney at the time, wondering what the hell I was doing and I’d recently been to Las Vegas. There were a series of these compilation albums coming out called Las Vegas Grime, which featured weirdo late 50’s and early 60’s novelty rock and roll records. Just on spec I wrote a review of one on headed notepaper and an envelope from the Sahara hotel in Vegas and sent it in to Sounds, thinking I’d never hear anything more about it. I actually got a reply!

SISSY: They must have liked your style.

IAN: Possibly. This was in the dark ages of the late 80’s when the internet wasn’t in common usage. So this review in an unusual envelope and headed paper must have caught their attention. They liked it and they printed it… next thing you’re at the news stand going ‘oh look, there’s my review… I think I’ll do another one.’ So you think of something else and do some more reviews. After a few, you think of an idea for an interview and suggest it. If they go for it, that’s how the ball starts rolling.
Suddenly you’re in print… the minute you have your name attached to some piece you can say that you’re a freelance writer.

SISSY: Who did you interview early on?

IAN: Basically, one of the reasons I got work was that I had virtually no interest in contemporary music whatsoever, so all the ideas I came up with for the people at Sounds were completely eccentric and totally off the wall. For instance I suggested doing something on Johnny Cash long before his renaissance and before he’d become hip again. I did a review of him at the Royal Albert Hall. I also interviewed Screamin’ Jay Hawkins for Sounds because the film Mystery Train in which he appeared as a night clerk, was coming out.

SISSY: What was he like to interview?

IAN: He was one of the maddest, craziest, most demented people I’ve ever met in my life; I’ll never ever forget that interview! I’d been a huge fan of his music and then to actually meet this guy…
I went into his hotel room and he says ‘I will show you my bones.’ I was like ‘excuse me…?’ And he pulls out this bag full of all these novelty toy items, including bits of actual bones like chicken bones and all sorts. Then he said ‘these are my bones. I rolled these to make the rain stop on Jim Jarmusch’s film set.’ Apparently Jim Jarmusch had rung to thank him; Hawkins was grateful to Jim because he’d used the song ‘I put a spell on you’ on his film Strangers in Paradise’ ensuring the continuation of Screamin’ Jay’s legendary status.
I also reviewed some gigs he did around that time for Sounds.

Although it can become stifling at times, it’s generally good to find a niche for yourself and specialise in something, then people know who to come to if they want something in your field. A good example of that is a music writer called Max de Charney who used to be the drummer in Gallon Drunk, then formed his own band, The Flaming Stars. He’s always been a writer as well as a multi-instrumentalist and he’s now carved a niche for himself at Mojo magazine. He’s a huge early rock and roll/rockabilly fan, and if you look in the latest edition of Mojo you’ll see there are different writers who have their own little section and his section covers all the retro rock and roll stuff.
Mojo is published by Emap, and one of the longest assignments I had was for a movie magazine called Neon, which Emap produced to give their publishing empire a bit of a boost. They thought that one of their publications was becoming complacent, so rather than have any other rival magazine come along and steal their thunder, they took the unusual step of producing this more left-field movie magazine to light a firecracker under their other publications. I also wrote for the music section in this magazine; it was quite enlightened in that it didn’t just specialize in film.
So long term, it’s a good thing to have specialised knowledge although it can sometimes work against you because if it’s not commercial, you can get pushed to the sidelines.
From what I’ve seen, a lot of writers who are really into music don’t do well in the major music publications because they don’t want to follow the party line that dictates the current flavour of the month. You won’t get the chance to write a critical piece on someone if the editorial directive is to push that band… they’ll pull the piece. The music press deny that this happens but I know plenty of music journalists whose experience has been exactly that.

SISSY: Can you tell us how you came to write your books on the Cramps and Nick Cave?

IAN: The first one was purely by chance: in the early 90’s I’d been doing a few articles and one day I was at a friend’s house. He used to work for Ace records and had a big filing cabinet full of all the stuff he’d taken when he left the label. I opened one of these drawers and there was a huge wedge of cuttings and articles on the Cramps. I’d always loved their early stuff and they’d turned me on to a lot of other music that I would never have discovered prior to hearing them, like early rock and roll music by people like Link Wray. Punk had made everyone forget about these things since ‘year zero’, which was insane… the attitude with punk was that you had to forget about anything that happened before punk; it was almost like a non-music movement.
The Cramps appealed to me because they sounded like this amazing music from some sort of future past, coming through a broken radio. They had excited me when I was a teenager.
So there I was, looking through this old press file and I thought, ‘Wow, I could write a book about them.’ Then it just so happened that they had an album coming out and I was working for a magazine called ‘What’s On and Where To Go in London’ at the time so I got to interview the Cramps for them. The interview went very well; it over-ran by at least an hour so I must have been talking to them for about two and a half hours. I came out of the interview thinking I had to do a book about them.
To my shame, I didn’t contact the band in any way and try to make it an official biography because through various contacts I’d discovered that they were very insular people and that if I’d attempted to do an authorised book, I’d probably still be waiting for permission. So I thought I’d use the interview I’d just done and the knowledge I’d gleaned about what sort of music they were into, plus all the stuff I’d found in that filing cabinet.
I wrote a proposal, took it without any agent or representation to a publisher and negotiated my own deal, which of course, was highly foolish! But when you’re young and stupid you don’t know about the pitfalls; you just want to do something. The advance I got up-front was actually pretty good for the time but I could have done better with the terms. The title, ‘The Wild, Wild World of the Cramps’, I got from a Jayne Mansfield film… she’s one of my other obsessions!

SISSY: Is it still in print?

IAN: No. They asked me to update it a few years ago but I was in the middle of writing my second book at the time and I just didn’t have the time or inclination to do it. So it’s in limbo at the moment. Creation books inquired who had the rights to it; Omnibus Press owns everything. I would probably rather re-write it than up-date it, and seek out the Cramps for an interview and permission for the book. I suspect that they’ll do their own book though, because I saw that they recently released a compilation album and in the booklet that comes with it, there’s loads of notes written by singer Lux Interior and guitarist Poison Ivy correcting information that’s been written about them previously.
On the positive side, it all happened very quickly; within a year the book was written and published. Roger Armstrong from Ace records read my book and liked it and in fact, the Cramps themselves must have liked it; they were on a roll at the time and released another album on the heels of the last one, called ‘Look Mom, No Head’ and I had to interview them for a City Limits cover story. I was very nervous because I’d used their last interview for the book without their permission, but although Lux raised his eyebrows a bit when I arrived, they were very friendly and gave me a very good interview so I suspect they sort of liked the book.

SISSY: It sounds like they might be up for you doing another book then… get onto it and take your own advice… follow those obsessions!

IAN: Although sometimes your obsessions can lead you to penury and the nut house, which is something to be avoided if possible!

SISSY: Do you think a writer starting out should try and get an agent before attempting to get a publishing deal?

IAN: It depends. For instance, the Cramps book enabled me to get an agent. Sometimes you have to take a risk in order to get noticed enough to get an agent. The more stuff you actually have behind you… a book is a tangible thing you can present to people to demonstrate your abilities and get more work.

SISSY: Tell us about your second book.

IAN: It’s called the Bad Seed and it’s about Nick Cave and his band. Again, it was an unauthorised book. I got the idea for the book because on the estate in Hackney where I lived, I met this engineer who’s now a great producer; his name is Victor Van Vugt. I was round at his flat on the estate one day and who should walk in but Mick Harvey who used to play in the Birthday Party with Nick Cave and has been in his bands for years, so I started talking to him and we got on pretty well.
I’d been a huge fan of Nick Cave’s music so this book was a real labour of love for me. It was amazing to have seen him develop over the years in the way that he has; he’s developed more than just about anyone else I can think of. For instance, Shane McGowan is fantastic, but he seems to go through ups and downs and he’d admit himself that it’s been a rocky road whereas with Cave, unbelievably, it’s got more and more focussed which is astonishing. There’s not many people like that, and it’s amazing to have seen that happen right from day one when the Birthday Party came here 25 years ago.

SISSY: And it’s pretty amazing that Nick Cave has walked so close to the edge and not fallen off into drug addiction or obscurity!

IAN: Or I’d even say he’s lived just over the edge for a long time, and then come out of it.

SISSY: Is this book still in print?

IAN: Yes, I think it’s in its 9th edition or something and it’s still selling, although not very lucrative for me! Writing can make you a good living though; I think Tony Parsons did pretty well out of his George Michael biography although I don’t think he mentioned anything controversial in it about George’s sexual proclivities, so it probably seems a bit dated now.

SISSY: Do you have any plans for new books in the future?

IAN: Yes, I’ve been trying to get some interest on a book about film but they don’t sell as well as music-related books, so publishers prefer those.
Having done the Nick Cave book, I know how difficult it can be and how much work is involved in doing it properly and that terrifies me, which is why I started to concentrate on journalism. In order for the book to reach fruition I had to interview a hell of a lot of people. And you have to understand that you can’t just walk into people’s lives and expect them to trust you and tell you everything, just like that. You’re basically trespassing; first you have to gain their confidence and prove yourself in some way, that you’re capable and have some sense of responsibility or dignity. You can see how a rock biography or film about a rock star can go really badly; for example the Pete Doherty saga. So you can understand why people are nervous about engaging with someone who wants to write about them… it’s their life after all.
But with Nick Cave, I felt that I had a good take on it. I didn’t really have a set agenda, I just wanted to know and understand what happened from their perspective rather than impose my own opinion.

SISSY: Do you know how Nick Cave reacted to the book?

IAN: I’m not sure… but how would you feel if someone wrote a book about you?
I imagine his reaction was ambivalent. My brother James (who was a founder member of Gallon Drunk) plays in Nick Cave’s band now after getting to know Nick socially; I did worry that my book might have made Nick suspicious of James but he must like his attitude and style because it didn’t put him off having James in the band.
You have to understand, if you’re doing a book about someone that you really like and admire, it doesn’t mean to say that they’re going to like you or what you write.
It is very much an invasion of someone’s privacy at the end of the day. I’ve heard stories of writers who tried to do various unauthorised biographies being chased out of gigs. It’s definitely a rocky road, unless you’re doing a simple cut-and-paste job, you have to tread very carefully. It’s also a question of balance; you can’t bend to every whim you’re presented with but you have to be aware of the risk the interviewees are taking in talking to you. You have to be sensitive and diplomatic or you could spoil friendships and create a real mess in someone’s life.

SISSY: What are the main differences between journalism and writing a book?

IAN: With journalism, the guidelines are established but with biography, they’re not. As a journalist, the publicist rings you up, you walk into a room, you have maybe 35 minutes to do an interview where there will be some stipulations about questions you can’t ask etc… you ignore that and ask them at the end anyway! But the parameters are established as in they have something to sell and you get something from them in exchange for publicising their product.
When you write a book, it’s a whole different ball game. You have to use your common sense. And however long you think it will take to write, it will always take much longer! Always try and get as much money as you can up front for your book, so you have something to live on, because when you look at the amount of work involved, it doesn’t pan out as much in terms of a weekly wage.

SISSY: What training did you do, if any, to qualify you as a writer?

IAN: The only thing I did that has any bearing on my writing was I did a 3-year degree course at Reading University in film and drama studies. I got in quite a bit of trouble for making a short film, which featured a dead cat. The practical component of the course wasn’t that great but the thing that was of use was the theory. And I watched every great movie you can think of for 3 years and digested as much film theory, criticism and writing as I could absorb. Also, it taught me how to present an argument.

SISSY: Has your love of cult/art films and film noir influenced your taste in music?

IAN: Probably. This is a bit of a generalisation, but I think material of any description that’s very successful in a mass market has an element of being designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator, so as a piece of art, it won’t be that interesting. It’s like fast-food; it fulfils a need but is lacking in substance. That’s fine for other people, but it’s not for me. Maybe I’m just a twisted individual, but I do enjoy stuff that has a modicum of intelligence or passion.

SISSY: Is there a band or artist that you would feel inspired to write a book about in the future?

IAN: I can give you an exclusive on that! If I were to do another music book, it would be about Goldfrapp. Or there’s this guy who’s recently broken through called Richard Hawley. Both are co-incidentally on Mute records. If we’re talking about people carving a niche by following their obsessions, Daniel Miller (the head of Mute) started a label to release a record by his band the Normal… a song called Warm Leatherette, which Grace Jones later covered. 26 years later, Mute is still going strong and has some brilliant acts. Daniel stuck to his guns, he had a vision of what he wanted to do and he achieved it. I think Mute remained completely independent until a few years ago; now they’re part of EMI.

SISSY: What’s your take on the effect of the internet?

IAN: Well obviously it’s having a huge effect. I think it’s momentous; all sorts of things could happen and spiral out of control. But I think that people of a certain generation, oldies like myself, are always going to want to have a tangible product to hold in their hands as an acquisition, because we were raised to consume things. So it could have drawbacks in the sense that perhaps the album will disappear as a format… although people have been saying these things for ages and yet it’s survived so far.
It seems like younger people with their i-pods aren’t so into building a physical collection… perhaps that’s a good thing; after all, it’s healthier than raising a nation of anal-retentives!