The Flipside
of Nik Turner
By: Al
Flipside #89
April/May 1994
This notorious
English madman, along with Helios Creed, members of Pressurehed and friends are
touring an amazing musical collaboration designed to bring the spirit of acid /
space rock out of its grave and give it a good 90's shake up.
So I've been a big Hawkwind fan for a long time and of course the chance to
meet any of its many members (ex- or not) is always a welcome opportunity.
Well, it just so happens that somehow my good friends in Pressurehed have been
doing these recordings with one of Hawkwind's founders, Nik Turner. Not only
that, but f*ckin' Helios Creed, the absolute God of guitar noise, has also
joined in with the bunch and now I hear they're taking it on the road! My
opinion of reunion shows and has-beens coming back from the dead to play
greatest hits tours is pretty low, and when this Turner-Helios-'Hed alliance
booked themselves as the 'Space Ritual 94' tour, I was a bit puzzled. Certainly
on the strength and reputation of Helios Creed alone could they pull this tour
off - not to mention Nik Turner who, although somewhat unknown in the States,
is a bona fide living legend in Europe not only for his many years in Hawkwind,
but by his solo efforts, the Inner City Unit band and now the two brand new
full length releases with Helios-'Hed ('Sphynx' and 'Prophets of Time'). And of
course, Pressurehed have two very excellent releases of their own to boast
('Infradrome' and 'Sudden Vertigo'), have done a bit of touring and can indeed command
a pretty good cult following locally. Anyway, the booking people could call it
what they want. The fact is this alliance was doing a variety of stuff from all
parties concerned, and that included a few Hawkwind tunes that Nik had penned.
So be it, I was amped.
By some odd fate I ran into Nik at a Nirvana concert (of all places!) and
immediately decided an interview was in the stars. So we decided to do it
during the rehearsal session for this upcoming tour. This was indeed a gas for
me, getting to see the band go through and actually develop renditions of each
other's material, as well as to chat endlessly. That was also a bit of problem
since it was impossible to decide where to actually begin the official
interview - like turning the tape on.
At one point Helios, Paul Fox (
When it finally dawned on me to turn on the tape recorder, we were half way
through psychedelic memory lane and I guess that's as good a place to start as
any...
Helios:...it was like 1 in the morning, then I'd look at my watch and it
would be 9 o'clock, then I'd look again a little later and it would be 3
o'clock - it kept going forwards and backwards. It was weird - I thought it was
some kind of new kind of acid, some secret government experiment or something
like that because I was tripping so hard. I mean I can't believe I was jumping
around in time like that.
Nik: Ahhhh!
Helios: I'd go into blackouts too, coming into different places and not
remembering what I was doing. I was drinking a lot too...
Paul: Where'd ya get it? Was it blotter?
Helios: It was blotter. I got it at this hippie party.
Paul: Dead heads?
Helios: Yeah...
Paul: Oh, they've got the best acid.
Helios: I dont remember what kind it was - it may have been
"musical notes"...
Nik: Oh, I had some of that in
Al: I always figured that those early Hawkwind days must have been wild
- everybody just giving you the best of everything.
Nik: Oh, it was, it was wild. A gig in
Helios: Acid is one of the most popular drugs now here in
Nik: Really?
Al: That's what they say, I don't know if I believe that...
Helios: It is. I know some High School kids and that's all they think
about - doing acid, going to concerts, in
Nik: Things haven't changed much, have they!
Helios: Oh, when you're a kid acid is fun, it's cheap, it's better than
crack or cocaine...the government doesn't want you to do it... It's like
psychedelia itself never disappeared, it just went underground. It's always
been here.
Al: That's what I mean, it always has been and now the media is just
focusing on it again and playing it up big to gain support for their war on
drugs.
Helios: Yeah, it's always been here. People have always been into it and
the music. I've always been listening to old psychedelic music, new psychedelic
music, but if it don't have positive lyrics I get kind of bored of it. We just
went through a kinda cold wave of depressing music.
Al: What other things were going around besides acid, Nik?
Nik: Oh, drugs... PCP, DMT, THC, mushrooms...occasionally bad speed when
I was driving a long way...
Paul: Now look, you don't even get high!
Al: Yeah, you don't drink any more. Helios can't even handle caffeine!
What's going on? (Earlier both Nik commented how alcohol zaps his energy if he
drinks before playing, while Helios searched for a caffeine-free soft drink!)
Helios: Hey, I had to spray bug spray in my house that I'm moving into.
I had to get the PCP bugs out of there. I just did some mushrooms out of our
field before we left - haven't done them in years - they were OK. Went
out into the field, walked around, aired out my brain - they weren't very
strong. I wrote this song on my last album about how all they try to push on us
are bad, dangerous toxic drugs when they could make really good drugs. They
could make really good psychedelic experiences, where you come down and you
feel better, you're healthier - mentally healthier.
Al: They're here. I think Ecstasy's a really good drug if you can get the
real thing.
Nik: Yeah, but it gets bad publicity as well, people claiming that it
rots your bones...sends you mad...they need to perfect it and they need to give
you the real thing.
Helios: People say it drains your spinal fluid. Every time I've done
Ecstasy it's been a totally different experience. One time in
Nik: The things you do for kicks!
Helios: But the weirdest things I've ever seen is on mushrooms, like
when trees turn into snakes...one time in Hawaii I did some mushrooms with my
girlfriend and we got stuck together! Her leg was connected to my leg, we tried
to pull apart but we couldn't! I just flipped out, man! Our skin...and there
were these voices talking in our heads, telling a story: "We are all one
and flesh." NO!!!! It was weird, man...I could write a book about how
weird some of my psychedelic trips were. I still try to do psychedelics every
once in a while, but I never have trips like I had when I was younger. I don't
know if it's the drug or me or, I don't know.
Al: Do you ever do psychedellcs any more, Nik?
Nik: Magic mushrooms, occasionally, but nothing else really. I quite
like healthy drugs.
Helios: Oh we have some good pure acid for you Nik, for the desert!
Al: Well, this sounds like it could be a pretty fun tour!
Helios: Oh yeah, it's gonna be Nik Turner's big comeback.
Nik: Oh, I'm glad you think so!
Al: How did this all happen?
Nik: Well, Brian Perrera from Cleopatra Records got in touch with me
because he was interested in releasing an album that I produced in 1978, what
was based upon some flute music that I recorded inside the Great Pyramid, in
Egypt.
Helios: That was sort of what got me, the fact that he recorded inside
of the Great Pyramid. I go, "That's different, that's cool, I think I'll
support that consciousness."
Nik: I turned it into an album at the time and promoted it with a
pyramid stage and took it around to festivals and had a really wild, theatrical
tour. It was really good and it sold around copies and then it was deleted.
Brian thought he'd like to reissue it. But Virgin Records wouldn't let him do
it, and they wouldn't reissue it either, so we decided to make a new album. I
couldn't get over here at the time so I did some recording, and ran into a lot
of problems with equipment and what not. The original recordings of the flute
was done in
Helios: I've always wanted to go there.
Al: How did you get involved with this, Helios?
Helios: Well, I've known Brian for a couple of years because of
Pressurehed. I did a show here at Rajis and they came up and introduced themselves.
So every time we played here since, we stayed at their house. I knew that they
were huge Hawkwind fans and I was like, yeah, I'm influenced by old space rock,
too. I used to listen to that when I was a teenager and do acid and stuff like
that. Although I didn't know who was who - but they were always talking about
Nik Turner and how he was the craziest guy from Hawkwind.
Nik: (Laughs!) They were putting me in the same bag with Roky Erickson and
Syd Barrett I seem to remember!
Helios: I started to realize that his trip was very similar to my trip
in the sense that there was this partner that took off with the band and the
name...
Nik: A music business bullshit trip...
Helios: Yeah, music business bullshit sort of left him without credits
and stuff like that. So I feel maybe he's more of a Hawkwinder than the
Hawkwinds, you know?
Nik: Well I used to be called Hawkwind, that's where we got the name.
Helios: So I sort of knew all about Nik before I met him. People thought
we were old friends!
Nik: I had never heard of Helios, and then suddenly I got this record back
('Sphynx') with Helios Creed on it. I said to a friend of mine "Do you
know who Helios Creed is?" And he was like "yeah, he's
great!" So I got Helios to send me some albums of his. I told other
friends that I was doing this tour with Helios Creed and they were impressed,
saying how they admired his playing and his albums, brilliant...
Al: Oh, when I saw that Nik had teamed up with Pressurehed and then
teamed up with Helios, it was like how f*cking perfect!
Nik: It's a match that I am very interested in making work, it's very
exciting.
Helios: Music, since it's been so negative all these years - the cold
part of it... In the late 60's and early 70's, maybe this is kinda corny, but
it was really positive music. Then we went into punk rock and explored the
negative aspects of music, now I think music could kinda reach a synthesis of
negative and positive knowledge. Sort of a tree of life. A lot of Helios Creed
songs are like bad acid trips but a lot of them are like GOOD acid trips.
Nik: A lot of the Hawkwind stuff, a lot of that was like bad acid trips
too. The first album was exciting, and in many ways it was great but a lot of
it was Dave Brock trying to freak people out. And not in a nice way. He used to
go around his house and just try to freak you out all the time. You would think
it's funny sometimes but when you're feeling a bit sensitive... like what
happened to Huw Lloyd-Langton, he took some acid and, well, he got freaked out
by it all and Dave wasn't very understanding about it. He's quite sadistic
really...
Helios: One approach that we had, that I guess I discovered by accident
in listening to other bands - something that is really fun on acid is when the
music is scary AND funny at the same time. It really creates an... you laugh,
you're scared and all of a sudden you're at a different level. That's what the
Butthole Surfers like to do, on that song "Late Bloomer". It's like
this big monster thing, and I lower the frequency and it's a scary kind of song
but what he's saying is how he has to stay in bed... "his mother said you
gotta to stay in bed, or you'll catch a cold..." You know what I mean? If
you hear the lyrics, you go "What? This doesn't fit the music." I
like tt. That's the one I want to do with this band because our set needs a
funny/scary song.
Nik: I used to write quite serious songs with Hawkwind - the self
experience type of thing, "Brainstorm" and "Master of the
Universe", that sort of thing. But when I left the band I got into more
satirical sort of lyrics, very political, but very satirical with a lot of
analogies so that it didn't appear to be about what it was about. Things could
be taken on many levels - you could take it as a cheap trashy pop song but it
could actually have a very deep meaning. A lot of people are just not into deep
meaning. I'm not always, I just want to be entertained really - so by the end
of the day things have got to be entertaining.
Al: I think Hawkwind had a good balance of the "deep meaning"
songs and the lighter "Sci-fi" kinda stuff.
Helios: You know I always thought it would be great to play guitar on
'Master of the Universe', and now here I am playing guitar on it.
Al: Was there a falling out between you and Dave, Nik?
Nik: Oh no, I've never had a falling out with him. I mean I feel sorry
for him really. I've been sacked from the band twice, and he's basically
instigated it to make sure it was his band - when everybody else in the band
thought it was their band. You know, we had this band that everybody put all of
their energy into. I got a lot of the gigs for the band and established a lot
of its' street credibility by doing a lot of free gigs and benefits and being
agreeable to play anywhere - establishing the band like a people's band. We
were even quoted as being the British Grateful Dead, and I was like the British
Jerry Garcia, you know!
Helios: You kinda are, I mean if you were still there and the band had
maintained like Jerry did, you guys would be huge.
Nik: Yeah, well that was one of the mistakes of the band...
Helios: Same thing with Chrome, if we would have kept it together...
Nik: It's consistency, really, our mistake was not following through. I
mean everybody in the band though it was their band and then suddenly Dave
starts sacking people. It got to the point where people realised it wasn't
their band, it was his band - that sort of devalued the whole thing as far as I
was concerned. It wasn't what it was purporting to be. On the one hand,there
were a lot of people putting a lot of energy into it because they thought it
was the democratic thing, that it was the people's band, the people that
created the imagery, the artwork, graphic design, the light show - all the
peripheral people that did things for the band for the love of it - suddenly
found out that it wasn't what they thought it was.
Helios: When we played in
Nik: Yeah, they were real events, milestones really. They were quite
reactionary and totally anti-establishment, absolutely anarchistic. Thai's why
they failed really, there was no organization, no strengths to them. A sort of
"divide and rule" sort of thing. Anarchy was a convenient thing to be
going on for the establishment because it was a divide and rule thing - because
it was an anarchist situation it was unorganized. Anarchy by its very nature is
a disorganized thing but it's played itself right into the authorities hands by
that. The last year before they shut the festival down I was talking to guys
who had been talking to the police, and I had discussed it with the chief of
police myself...they were saying they don't mind the festival going on but they
have to have somebody to talk to, who is responsible or who the people will be
responsible to so that the thing can maintain itself and not be destructive to
the people around it. Because that was what was happening, you'd go to the site
after the festival and you'd find like 15 stolen cars there - all wrecked.
Helios: I heard there was a problem with graffiti on the stones?
Nik: No, that was never a problem, that was a publicity lie. If there was
graffiti on the stones it was put there by students from
Al: You can't even get near them now, right?
Nik: Right, and they've used this as an excuse. They've used the whole
scene at Stonehenge to actually change the law in
Helios: It's all your fault!
Helios: What did the English punk rockers feel about
Nik: No, actually, because the punk movement was a reaction against
hippies in a way.
Helios: Yeah, at first...
Nik: Although Johnny Rotten publicly sort of disclaimed anybody with
long hair, he was actually secretly known to have been a roadie for Hawkwind at
one point. Unbeknown to Hawkwind too! Ha haaa. It was only later when he was
famous that he mentioned that he had roadied. I think he mentioned it to Bob
Calvert once...
Helios: I know Jello Biafra was a big Hawkwind fan...
Al: A lot of later punk bands ended up playing at the festivals, like
Citizen Fish...
Nik: A lot of the neo-punk bands, I saw Nicky Tesco at
Helios: And a few years later and they were sucked up into it too!
Nik: But there was a whole crossover movement centered around this group
called Crass...
Helios: Oh, I love Crass...
Nik: And Poison Girls and a few other bands and they were basically old
hippies and they created this Anarchy center, a gathering point. And they were
really nice people and they would be at
Helios: That's what Chrome was, psychedelic, acid punk. We were
considered the first acid punk band...
Nik: And that's what Inner City Unit was, that was an acid punk band.
Helios: It was a good energy to turn into psychedelic.
(Helios leaves to set up his equipment for the rehearsal.)
Nik: And then you had Jimmy Pursey from Sham 69, he would secretly go to
Al: The early punk scene here was a heavy drug scene.
Nik: But there were a lot of different factions: there were punks and
psychobillies and skinheads and squatters...they were all in the same boat and
it was crazy really, some of them were quite militant and fascist like the
National Front, this right wing Nazi organization...
Al: More recently, how did the rave culture fit into it all?
Nik: I think the rave culture was a reaction against banal live music -
what was happening as well was the music was being produced by producers
without musicians, really, with sampling and all that sort of thing.
Al: What did you think of it all?
Nik: Well, I like it but it's not the sort of thing I want to listen to all
the time.
Al: Right, I like rave music at the raves...
Nik: I like live music, and I find it really boring to listen to rave
music. I like rap music as well but I think it's sort of degenerated. It used
to be a fine medium of expression but it's become a medium for fanning people's
egos. I suppose it's a reflection of what is going on but I don't find it
entertaining when you have records about stuff like "I f*cked six women
and I nearly killed my kids and I robbed the liquor store and I'm gonna go sell
some more crack now." I don't find that very entertaining, I think it's
crap. I don't want my children listening to that sort of thing and I don't find
it entertaining. Music ought to be entertaining or have some sort of message,
but it doesn't have to be offensive. There are areas that we should be
enriching. It should make people feel good. It shouldn't make people depressed
and suicidal, it should be enlightening... It should be a spiritual experience,
really, like John Coltraine, he became really engrossed in music as a spiritual
experience, as a spiritual expression, as an expression of love. I think that's
a really lovely way to look at it. That's how people should look at it but many
people don't understand anything like that. Yeah, the rave thing I thought was
healthy. I thought it was great but I don't see it as a permanent thing. In
fact, there's sort of a reaction against raves, towards live music, which is
quite a good thing.
Al: Getting back to your current project, the flyers and publicity seem
to put a lot of emphasis on Hawkwind...
Nik: Yes, well there is. What these people are into doing and what I'm
quite keen on doing as well, is to recreate the sound that Hawkwind had in the
early 70's. The material that we're doing, and we're doing several songs by
Helios and several Pressurehed songs, is basically the songs I wrote with
Hawkwind. A lot of them are songs that haven't really ever been performed
before - or very rarely.
Al: Which ones, for instance?
Nik: Well, '
Al: Does Dave Brock know about this project?
Nik: I think that he does but I haven't really spoken to him about it.
We've had a few problems, for one there's a fanzine over here called Kadu Flyer
who expressed interest in helping us promote the tour. And then when apparently
they talked to Dave and told him they were advertising the gig as
"Hawkwind" and how "That's not right", "They shouldn't
do that"... The next thing I'm hearing is that Hawkwind are trying to
serve injunctions on some of the venues we're playing at because we're
advertising it as Hawkwind.
Nik: Well, we're not. What we were calling it was "Nik Turner's
Hawkwind" to stress the fact that it isn't Hawkwind...
Al: It is a bit deceiving, I'll admit.
Nik: Well, it might be. That is a problem, especially in a legal
situation, trying to pass something off as something it is not. But we're not.
It's been stipulated in all the flyers and promotion material that's been given
promoters that it isn't to be presented as Hawkwind. But the fact that they
(the promoters) are presenting it as Hawkwind is because if they don't they'll
probably only sell half as many tickets. At the end of the day, as well, I
think people coming to the gigs are gonna like what we do. I'm confident that
they will. And I think that it can't do Hawkwind any bad at all, it can only do
them good. Al: I think that the strength of Nik Turner, Helios Creed and
Pressurehed together is strong enough without riding Hawkwind's coat-tails.
Nik: Well, it wasn't my idea really. I came over here to produce this
Nik Turner "Sphynx" album. I was coming over here as Sphynx. Then
Brian was saying "Well, wouldn't it be a good idea..." I had been
toying with this other idea in
Al: Would there be any chance of you teaming back up with Dave Brock?
Nik: I don't know really. The reason I left the band was because Dave
Brock gave me the sack. Dave phoned up everybody and kinda said "Well, do
you think Nik... this and that... do you think he should be in the band"
and at the end of the day they said to me, "Well, you're sacked." I
was like what does that mean? And Huw Lloyd-Langton says "Oh, we think
you're trying to turn Hawkwind into a punk band." And I wasn't really at
all. I was just trying to turn it into something interesting, something that
would excite people. Then Alan Davies says, "My mate thinks you shouldn't
ought to be in Hawkwind, because you're not what Hawkwind's all about." I
said, "Well, I was in Hawkwind for ten years and I am what Hawkwind is all
about." Not to say that "I" was Hawkwind and I wasn't gonna
argue with his friend, that's his opinion - but that isn't justification for me
getting the sack. The drummer said he didn't mind, he didn't have any
objections. He told me Dave phoned him up and asked him "Don't you think
Nik's not taking enough interest in the band? Because he's not showing up to
rehearsals all the time." Basically [why] I wasn't showing up is because I
knew all the tunes and I was writing new songs. I had read all the Michael
Moorcock books, which nobody else had. I started writing songs based on these
lyrics, and actually came up with the whole concept which was from "The
Black Sword." I think Dave saw me as a threat to his whole domination of
the writing credits... So I got sacked and for me there was a total loss of
respect for them. It was like "F*ck this, who wants to be in a band with a
bunch of people like this." I was quite happy to leave.
Al: I know they've had their ups and downs since then, but there have
been a few great records recently...
Nik: I don't denigrate their efforts in what they do, I just don't
listen to it. It's not really what I'm into. I listen to Miles Davis and
Charlie Parker, John Coltraine, some Ska music, big band music... I play in a
big band, a soul band, a jazz/funk band, a modern jazz dance band, a circus
band - I just do a lot of different things - I play in a space rock band as
well! I personally feel quite strongly, and to a lot of people this is true,
that Hawkwind is a concept. It's not just a band and it never was just a band.
At the time Hawkwind became popular it was the product of a lot of people who
put their love and energies into the band. Those people have all withdrawn
their support now, one of them committed suicide, as I was told, as a result of
the way Dave treated him... A guy called Barney Bubbles who handled all the
graphics of the band, created the image of the band. He created the propaganda
machinery behind the band. In a way, -I mean this is a bit corny, but I've
heard people say similar things and I've found it rather corny as well- but to
me it's a rather spiritual thing, in as much as I'd like to do this for those
people. There's a lot of people who liked the light show, done by Liquid Len. I
mean he was really into [the] band and I coerced him into doing the lights for
the band. He was really into it for the spirit and he won't have anything to do
with them now... I know that people aren't interested in that side of it - all
they want to see is the music and that's fair enough. That's fine, but for me
things go a bit deeper. I don't like doing things that I don't like to do. I
wouldn't do this tour as anything to do with Hawkwind if I didn't feel some
right to it or for a reason that is justifiable to me. That reason, to me, is
to do something for the people who created Hawkwind. A lot of people that got
involved in the band and were responsible for the success of the band, to a
large degree were friends of mine, that I got involved in the band. Like Robert
Calvert, I got him involved in the band. They did it because they believed in
it and it was me that gave them the belief. Not to blow my own trumpet about it
but I was there and was a catalyst to create a situation where they felt like
they really wanted to do it. Things were right, in that respect.
Al: There must have been a lot of energy around the time those first
Hawkwind albums were coming out... It was so different, the whole approach, I
enjoyed the spoken interludes between songs...
Nik: Oh it was, it was really good. It was a totally different concept
really. Having the spoken words accompanied by electronics, there was a
marriage together of a lot of things; simple music that anybody could think
"Oh, I could play that!" I know loads of people who "Master of
the Universe" was the first tune they ever learned! Some accessible music,
like Can and all these other bands doing fairly simple based electronic music,
rhythmic things...it was all happening at the same time. The different elements
that were around at the time got all pulled together. People were building
things for us - things to plug my sax into and play through. Sort of
avant-garde and new and untested ideas, and it was very exciting.
Al: It seemed to me that when "Space Ritual* was completed there
was a sort of turning point.
Nik: I think "Silver Machine" was a sort of turning point. We
had this success generated by a pop record, and it was selling a lot. We
generated a lot of success and a lot of money that we were able to plow back
into the band and create this stage set. This whole show, which to a large
extent was engineered by Robert Calvert. He devised this "Space Ritual"
idea as a concept and wrote a lot of poetry to be used in it. Michael Moorcock
contributed partly. So all these very creative people were contributing towards
the creativity and success of the band. It broadened the appeal of the band -
with Michael Moorcock we were suddenly in the realm of a public that Michael
Moorcock was catering to. He had created this new genre of "science
fantasy," I don't know anybody else who had popularized it so much.
Actually he's in the process of moving to
Al: I kinda felt that pre- "Space Ritual" Hawkwind was more
along the lines of psychedelic inter-dimensonal space and drugs and personal
insights, and after "Space Ritual" it went heavily to the science
fiction / fantasy side...
Nik: Yeah, I think Robert Calvert was one of the prime instigators of
that change, really, because of "Silver Machine" - a sort of
ambiguous song about, oh, I don't know what it's about - hypodermic syringes or
silver motorcycles or rocket ships or just a fast car...
Al: Some of the science fiction stuff was a bit corny for me personally,
but I really liked the metaphysical stuff...
Nik: It depends what you call science fiction really. Hawkwind started to
get into the realms of sword and sorcery, which is a form of science fiction...
Al: Or science fantasy, I guess I didn't see early Hawkwind as either
fantasy or fiction...
Nik: Yeah, Robert Calvert, he tended to draw the band into sort of J.G.
Ballard style of science fiction, with crashed cars and all that sort of thing.
Then Robert got into this whole thing of Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters,
he went off on his own doing all these solo projects about things that he cared
about.
Al: Are you doing "The Right Stuff" on this tour? (A Captain
Lockheed song that Nik played sax on and Pressurehed cover on their new CD.)
Nik: Yeah! It's quite a varied repertoire we have actually, with a few
Robert Calvert songs in there and we're gonna be writing material on the tour
as well.
Al: Good, I'd really like to hear songs that you come up with as a band
more so than doing Hawkwind covers - although I'm looking forward to that as
well.
Nik: Yeah, I've just come over from
Al: When you came over here in 1974, you played a lot of songs from
"Space Ritual" but a lot of everything else as well. Was the
"Space Ritual" set a tight sequence of songs with the dancers and
lights...
Nik: I can't really remember what the "Space Ritual" set was -
I know what the "Space Ritual" album was and we did do a tour in
Al: You had one...
Nik: Yeah, a girl, Renee from
Al: So Del Dettmar has joined in for this tour!
Nik: Yes, he's been living in
Al: Does he still have his old synth equipment?
Nik: Yeah, he does, he has his EMS VCS3's - which was a sort of "state
of the art" electronic gadget in probably 1970 or something like that. It
was state of the art in that it was a totally variable package. It wasn't
something like you push a button and that's all you get - you had to program it
completely. You cant sample sounds on it but it has all these variable contacts
that lets you do a lot more than you could ever do with any sort of
preprogrammed synthesizer. It's got a lot of versatility and it's still in
demand. When I asked Del if he'd do these gigs I told him that if he had any problems
getting his equipment in that he could use some of the equipment we have here:
Korgs, Moogs and things like that. And he said, "Really, I've been playing
this thing for 25 years and I'd rather play that!"
Al: What will become of this project. Is there another recording in
store?
Nik: Yeah, we're gonna do a live recording on this tour, a video as
well.
Brian: And there's the new studio album "Prophets of Time".
It's got Simon House playing keyboards and violin on it as well as some spoken
word stuff that Michael Moorcock donated that Genesis P-Orridge does...
Nik: It's really good actually...
Brian: And Helios is on there and the guys from Pressurehed.
Al: When did that get recorded?
Brian: In the last couple of months. I like it better than
"Sphynx", it's a lot more diverse, more spacier...
Nik: It is, yeah... A lot of it is Inner City Unit based material, but
using this lineup. It's quite interesting and quite different as well. The
album is like, more or less, the best songs that Inner City Unit had, in my
opinion anyway! I like the songs and I felt quite happy about doing it. But on
this tour we'll be doing a live album...
(At that point Helios got his equipment warmed up and breaks into "Master
of the Universe", of course, nothing else could be heard....)
Images appearing in this interview:
