Speaker 1: Pushkin. Niccolo grew out of England's pub rock scene to
Speaker 1: write some of the smartest songs of the New Wave era.
Speaker 1: His classics like so It Goes, I Love the Sound
Speaker 1: of Breaking Glass and Cruel to Be Kind stand up
Speaker 1: with any of the best songs of the time and
Speaker 1: He's still going. Nicolo's newest ep, Laid On Me, comes
Speaker 1: out June fifth and shows he's still the strong songwriter
Speaker 1: he always was. Nicolo established himself early by writing and
Speaker 1: producing one of the UK's early punk singles, for the Damned,
Speaker 1: produced Elvis Costello's first five albums, co founded one of
Speaker 1: my favorite record labels, Stiff Records, and wrote the classic
Speaker 1: What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding. Nick talked
Speaker 1: to Bruce Helum about all of this, plus what it
Speaker 1: was like Marion. It's Johnny Cash's family and a hilarious
Speaker 1: first encounter with Keith Richards. This is broken record liner
Speaker 1: notes for the Digital Age. I'm justin Richmond. Here's Bruce
Speaker 1: Hadlum and Nick Low from GSI Studios in Brooklyn. This
Speaker 1: interview was tape on Nick was on tour with Love
Speaker 1: Straight Jackets. So why don't we start with one of
Speaker 1: your new songs. Oh okay, yeah, last night was the
Speaker 1: last night of our tour. I've been on tour with
Speaker 1: the Straight Jackets, so place. The song that you've recorded
Speaker 1: with this is called Love Starvation. I'll do my best
Speaker 1: to do. Can you tell me the inspiration for that song? Well,
Speaker 1: I was doing some recording with the Straight Jackets in
Speaker 1: New York City last year and we came back from
Speaker 1: the studio. We'd had a pretty good day. We came
Speaker 1: back from the studio and I just thought we needed
Speaker 1: a song within that tempo that would that's that sort
Speaker 1: of tempo, kind of Bobby full of four, Ritchie Valen's
Speaker 1: kind of tempo, sort of sixties Holly Gully beat. You know.
Speaker 1: I could hear them doing it. And when I got
Speaker 1: back to the UK, I woke up one morning with
Speaker 1: this title Love Starvation, which I thought was a really
Speaker 1: really good title and I and it sort of wrote itself.
Speaker 1: Do you write every day? Is that part of Europe?
Speaker 1: I do. It's not always any good. In fact, mainly
Speaker 1: it's not. I'm not terribly prolific, but I never stopped
Speaker 1: writing stuff. But I because I've heard it before, I
Speaker 1: get impatient with myself because I just I think I've
Speaker 1: heard that that's no good. Oh yeah, there's more of
Speaker 1: that old rubbish, is it? And then one day something
Speaker 1: will come to mind that I haven't heard before, and
Speaker 1: and I'll I sort of go into a kind of trance,
Speaker 1: I suppose, and it might take a week or two,
Speaker 1: or sometimes that it goes after a week or two
Speaker 1: and I just sort of lose interest in it, or
Speaker 1: but if it's any good, it'll come back. But I
Speaker 1: go into a sort of a trance, and I fiddle
Speaker 1: around with a fiddle around with it until it's suddenly finished,
Speaker 1: and I think that I've written a cover song. On
Speaker 1: The ones that I think are good are ones that
Speaker 1: sound to me like not actually like an actual song
Speaker 1: that I've ripped off, but it'll sound like I haven't
Speaker 1: had anything to do with it. And those are the
Speaker 1: ones that I think are good. If I hear my
Speaker 1: little tricks and little fancies and things that you do,
Speaker 1: if I hear that, I get really impatient with it,
Speaker 1: and I don't like it. It's a very peculiar thing
Speaker 1: writing songs, because you can't turn it on, neither can
Speaker 1: you turn it off. And sometimes it well. When I
Speaker 1: was younger, I used to. I used to really freak
Speaker 1: if I if I couldn't write a song, you know,
Speaker 1: if I hadn't done for a while. I used to
Speaker 1: get really upset and then start forcing it, forcing it out.
Speaker 1: And that's that's the worst thing you can possibly do.
Speaker 1: So it's not forcing it up, but you still work
Speaker 1: at it. Yeah, working at it is pleasurable, but forcing
Speaker 1: it is unspeakable. Well I can. I'll give you an
Speaker 1: example if you like. I'll play something which is just
Speaker 1: a real work in progress. It's just something which has
Speaker 1: got three bits. It's got three bits to it, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't really make sense, but there's there's a there's
Speaker 1: a few bits and pieces that I would say could
Speaker 1: be good. It's the song is called I'm on Your Plane,
Speaker 1: which is a weird title like I'm on your level
Speaker 1: or something, you know, because it's got it's got possibilities.
Speaker 1: But I but it doesn't really sort of make much
Speaker 1: sense yet. So you'll try and come up with a
Speaker 1: bridge or do you think you've distinct parts that aren't
Speaker 1: fitting together? I think I think that the actual shape
Speaker 1: of it. I think the tune is good. And there's
Speaker 1: three parts. There's an A, B and a c part,
Speaker 1: and they all seem to I probably wouldn't do any
Speaker 1: I wouldn't probably wouldn't write any another part, but I
Speaker 1: might juggle change change one of the part, or two
Speaker 1: of the parts too, So they're quite they're a bit
Speaker 1: different the second time they come around. That's how I
Speaker 1: feel that one would go. And so you've always got
Speaker 1: some of those you're working on. What's your hit rate?
Speaker 1: If how many you say some things you just abandoned?
Speaker 1: How many songs would you rate before you would have
Speaker 1: an album's worth to say? Oh god, I probably. I
Speaker 1: mean my songs are all pretty short. So an album's
Speaker 1: worth is about eleven or twelve songs. I'd have to
Speaker 1: write about thirty to get twelve songs that I like. Well,
Speaker 1: something like that, because I always do a couple of covers,
Speaker 1: at least a couple of covers almost my records. When
Speaker 1: you were writing in early seventies and you were with
Speaker 1: Brindsley Schwartz and you were you wrote a lot of
Speaker 1: the songs that became your hits later on, was writing
Speaker 1: the same back then? For you? It was? It was
Speaker 1: when I hear that the early songs I wrote, I
Speaker 1: can really hear a kid, you know, start starting to
Speaker 1: feel his way, you know, my, my. The way I
Speaker 1: always explain it is that, you know, we figured out
Speaker 1: that in order to have any staying power, we had
Speaker 1: to learn how to write songs. So a couple of
Speaker 1: us were into it, you know, and you start off
Speaker 1: writing your heroes, you know, catalog and then and it's
Speaker 1: very very obvious that they you know where it's come from.
Speaker 1: And then you'll move on to someone else and rewrite
Speaker 1: their catalog, and someone else after that, and someone else
Speaker 1: after that, until one day you'll be writing your latest
Speaker 1: hero's catalog. But you'll put a bit of the first
Speaker 1: person and a couple of bits from the third and
Speaker 1: suddenly you'll find that it's not exactly like your latest hero.
Speaker 1: It's got something else about it because you put these
Speaker 1: other influences in. And that's the way it goes and
Speaker 1: goes and goes, until suddenly you've got your own recipe,
Speaker 1: you know, like a Hallett. Who was that first hero
Speaker 1: for you, the one you were imitating. Well, I think
Speaker 1: at the time I joined my first band and I
Speaker 1: really got, you know, started to take it seriously. I
Speaker 1: think it was probably the band I think I loved
Speaker 1: I loved the band Crosby, Stills and Nash people like that.
Speaker 1: No one too obscure, you know, they're all pretty mainstream.
Speaker 1: It's only a game. When I got older, you know,
Speaker 1: I started hearing I mean, i'd been a mod when
Speaker 1: when I was a teenager and so, and we should
Speaker 1: explain what does that mean that you're oh, well, it
Speaker 1: was a sort of youth movement in the sixties, and
Speaker 1: they they they were they had a sort of fashion,
Speaker 1: you know, they liked wearing the right clothes and things
Speaker 1: that we used to ride on scooters, you know, on
Speaker 1: little Vespers and Lambrettas. And the music they listened to
Speaker 1: was all American R and B music, motown and stacks,
Speaker 1: stuff from from Memphis and Scars scar and blue beat
Speaker 1: and reggae music. And so i'd been i'd been a mod,
Speaker 1: So I thought that I knew quite a lot about
Speaker 1: cool music. Um, you know how wrong I was. But
Speaker 1: but you know, for a seventeen year old, you know,
Speaker 1: I was pretty you know, I knew who you know,
Speaker 1: Solomon Burke was, and Johnny Taylor and people like that,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't writing like like that. That I thought
Speaker 1: that was really really hard to do to write those
Speaker 1: kind of songs, which is strange because they're simple. They're
Speaker 1: really simple, and it's very those that's the hardest stuff
Speaker 1: to do, is some a real simple direct message. What
Speaker 1: was the first country music you liked, because that's a
Speaker 1: big influence on Yeah, yeah it is. Well, um, that's
Speaker 1: that's much easier to answer. My my father was in
Speaker 1: the RAF and when I was a kid, I lived
Speaker 1: in the Middle East and wherever he was stationed in
Speaker 1: the Middle East, or Germany and Cypress Jordan, and they
Speaker 1: had I did a lot of listening to records then
Speaker 1: the family record collection, and my mother was very musical,
Speaker 1: and she had the you know, Sinatra and Nat King
Speaker 1: Cole and you know the stuff South Pacific and guys
Speaker 1: and dolls and all that stuff in a soundtracks. Well,
Speaker 1: forget back that, the soundtracks and Broadway shows all that.
Speaker 1: I had the King and I the King, and I
Speaker 1: absolutely and so I loved all these records. But she
Speaker 1: had in her collection very bizarrely, and she didn't know.
Speaker 1: When I got older, I asked her, where did you
Speaker 1: get those from? She had two ten inch tennessee Ernie
Speaker 1: Ford records. I just thought, this is the greatest thing
Speaker 1: I'd ever heard. He had this fantastic voice, you know,
Speaker 1: which was like a Disney like a Disney cartoon character,
Speaker 1: like I'm the King of the Swingers, you know, like
Speaker 1: Louis form was it, Louis Primer did did that. But
Speaker 1: he had this beautiful sort of baritone voice. But it
Speaker 1: wasn't just that that that his records were so swinging.
Speaker 1: I didn't know it was country music. I could tell
Speaker 1: it was sort of some sort of hillbilly thing going
Speaker 1: on there, but they were playing with all these jazz
Speaker 1: chords in and I didn't I didn't understand that that
Speaker 1: was the sort of California version of country and western music.
Speaker 1: I'd never heard anything like this, and it sounded like
Speaker 1: that Tennessee in my seven year old mind, something like
Speaker 1: Tennessee ear. And he was really cool. I could see
Speaker 1: that because of what the clothes he was wearing on
Speaker 1: the covers of these records. What was he wearing? California
Speaker 1: casual pool were right. He was never he was never
Speaker 1: a cowboy. He was if he did it was a
Speaker 1: sort of stuff that real cowboys didn't quite wear, you know,
Speaker 1: like a tasseled tailored tasseled swayed jacket or something like
Speaker 1: that might have got himself beaten up on the rail,
Speaker 1: but he looked so cool. He looked so cool. But
Speaker 1: also it sounded to me like his mates who were
Speaker 1: playing on this record were also really cool, which so
Speaker 1: they made each other sound cool because they were hanging
Speaker 1: out with Tennessee and obviously we're doing what he said,
Speaker 1: But Tennessee was cool enough to know these people who
Speaker 1: could make this fantastic noise. So that's the first thing
Speaker 1: I heard that really really blew my mind, I thought.
Speaker 1: And it was so swinging. And then what your first
Speaker 1: instrument was? Was it a guitar? Well, I had a
Speaker 1: little plastic sort of ukulele that my grandma bought me,
Speaker 1: and then I got another that I sat on that
Speaker 1: I think or somebody did anywhere, but I got another one.
Speaker 1: It was like a banjo version, same sort of thing,
Speaker 1: but it had an amaze using a little gadget that
Speaker 1: you clipped onto the neck came separate and you just
Speaker 1: you had elastic bands or something, and it had push
Speaker 1: buttons on it and each where each button was it
Speaker 1: had a little cord window. But you pressed the buttons
Speaker 1: down and it made underneath it pressed the strings down
Speaker 1: in the right place, so you effectively just playing the
Speaker 1: So he gave me an ear for for how you
Speaker 1: know which chords would go with, especially with simple songs
Speaker 1: like Lonnie Donegan was the guy that from my generation
Speaker 1: was the fellow that we all copied because he played
Speaker 1: very simple songs. They were they were sort of lead
Speaker 1: belly songs and you know, work songs and folk songs really,
Speaker 1: but they had this great swinging, swinging drive to them
Speaker 1: because they were jazz players who played on his records.
Speaker 1: But they were very simple and very easy to learn.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't too long before I thought, this is
Speaker 1: a bit uncool pressing the buttons down. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: going to figure out where my fingers actually go. You know,
Speaker 1: how then did it become your dream to become a
Speaker 1: musician from pressing a button on a plastic guitar. Well,
Speaker 1: I didn't really want to become a musician more than
Speaker 1: I wanted to be famous. That that was my first
Speaker 1: drive and have lots of people telling me I was marvelous.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize there was going to be any any
Speaker 1: work involved in it. And you thought just the hair
Speaker 1: and I had the head. That was a start yes,
Speaker 1: and being you know, any kind of believing that that
Speaker 1: I was any kind of artist was far from my
Speaker 1: my thoughts and and still is really. You know, I
Speaker 1: think of myself really as a as a as an
Speaker 1: artisan sort more than an artist. You know, I make
Speaker 1: artistic decis but I think I'm a hack really and
Speaker 1: proud of it. You know. I'll i'll have a go
Speaker 1: at doing anything jingles, you know, I'll have I'll have
Speaker 1: a shot at anything. But I make I make sort
Speaker 1: of artistic decisions along the way. Really. But and then
Speaker 1: how did that start for you? Did you drop out
Speaker 1: of school or you did? I went to quite a
Speaker 1: good school, actually, but I wasn't. I wasn't very academically gifted.
Speaker 1: I had a facility with for English and writing, and
Speaker 1: I thought I might be a journalist actually, And I
Speaker 1: can remember these well, these guys who have definitely been
Speaker 1: in the war, in the Second World War war correspondents,
Speaker 1: you know, they'd come out to these trouble spots and
Speaker 1: they'd come and stay with us because my dad, who
Speaker 1: was stationed commander of these places, he was quite high up,
Speaker 1: would would make sure they had the right accreditations and
Speaker 1: papers and all that stuff. Passes, you know, to go
Speaker 1: to these areas and used to stay at the house.
Speaker 1: And I really liked these guys, you know, there was
Speaker 1: something about them. I liked the way they drank and smoked,
Speaker 1: you know, and the way they talked and laughed with
Speaker 1: each other, easy sort of camaraderie. Also their clothes as well.
Speaker 1: I loved their clothes that they had well, very well worn,
Speaker 1: you know, And I thought I wanted to be one
Speaker 1: of those people. And I got this job at a
Speaker 1: paper as editorial assistant, making tea, sweeping up, filing copy.
Speaker 1: Occasionally they give me a movie at the local fleet pit.
Speaker 1: I'd get that, I'd go down and review it. It
Speaker 1: was a real break for someone like me, you know,
Speaker 1: to get into and I've been there about six months,
Speaker 1: I suppose, and I realized that I didn't have what
Speaker 1: it took. These fellows were really fantast it was only
Speaker 1: a local paper, but they were really good, and I
Speaker 1: realized that I didn't really have what it took to
Speaker 1: do that. My dreams of being in a in a
Speaker 1: foxhole with a mud spattered remington, you know, wearing a
Speaker 1: steel helmet with a cigar stub clamped in my teeth
Speaker 1: you know, knocking out the copy, you know, with the
Speaker 1: incoming incoming, I was just going to It was just
Speaker 1: really ridiculous, you know, it was never going to happen.
Speaker 1: And then I got a call from Brindsey Schwartz who said,
Speaker 1: come and join my band. And you knew him from
Speaker 1: school from school. I went to school with him, yea.
Speaker 1: And then you started playing? When did the writing start? Um?
Speaker 1: Fairly fairly soon after I joined again? I really messed
Speaker 1: things up for them, really because when I joined, when
Speaker 1: I joined the group, they were they were on Parlophone,
Speaker 1: which was the Beatles label. In those days. Anyone really
Speaker 1: who could knock out two or three chords and had
Speaker 1: a kiss of drums got a record deal. It was very,
Speaker 1: very very easy to get a record deal, but still
Speaker 1: with Parlophone that was something else, that was the Beatles label.
Speaker 1: And they got this deal. They didn't play on their
Speaker 1: own records, which was very common then. They had session
Speaker 1: people playing on the Compson. They on the on the record,
Speaker 1: but they they they sang. And when I joined the group,
Speaker 1: you know, I figured that I was way more hip
Speaker 1: than than they were, and so we can't have this
Speaker 1: and we've got to play on our own records, you
Speaker 1: know this, And actually the records that they did with
Speaker 1: the session men playing were sounded fantastic in but you
Speaker 1: didn't know about the Monkeys back then, you thought exactly,
Speaker 1: And so I said, no, no, we've got to we've
Speaker 1: got to play our own stuff. And so then we've
Speaker 1: we've very soon got fired as soon as we as
Speaker 1: soon as we started playing on our own records. I thought.
Speaker 1: After the Beatles, it was understood that musicians had to
Speaker 1: play on their own records. That was part of their
Speaker 1: appear that that didn't change. Well, the Beatles were you know,
Speaker 1: this was nineteen sixty eight when I when I joined them,
Speaker 1: The Beatles hadn't released their white album that then they
Speaker 1: were still actually going you know, um, so it was
Speaker 1: it was a it was a huge scandal in this
Speaker 1: story broke not that our group had session member, that
Speaker 1: any that most pop groups had session people playing on
Speaker 1: their records. It was you know, people couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this quick break. We're back
Speaker 1: with more of Bruce's conversation with Nick Lowe. But you
Speaker 1: you had a period where you wrote a lot of
Speaker 1: sort of your what would later become big hits for you,
Speaker 1: you wrote so goes And that was really much later
Speaker 1: that the first. The first thing I wrote, which was
Speaker 1: really good was, well, it was an original idea. As
Speaker 1: I've I've said before because people have asked me about it,
Speaker 1: is a song called What's So Funny about Peace, Loan
Speaker 1: and Understanding? And I remember the day I had the
Speaker 1: idea for it. I thought I couldn't believe it, that
Speaker 1: I'd actually had an original idea that I hadn't come from.
Speaker 1: What was the what was the genesis? I suppose that
Speaker 1: the the the genesis of it was was it was
Speaker 1: sort of funny. I was because the hippie dream was
Speaker 1: sort of dying. I suppose this is about nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 1: I thought of this, and the hippie dream was sort
Speaker 1: of dying, and and people were starting, People who had
Speaker 1: been hippies were started rediscovered alcohol, you know, and they're
Speaker 1: rather embarrassed that they'd you know, dabbled with this this
Speaker 1: thing and they were, you know, le deserting the sinking
Speaker 1: ship in drow. And I suppose the idea for the
Speaker 1: song was a you know, a die hard hippie saying
Speaker 1: to all his followers or all the people who were
Speaker 1: in his commune, you know, who are now leaving. Well,
Speaker 1: you think I'm a you know, I'm an old has been.
Speaker 1: But but what you can't deny, you know, you can't
Speaker 1: deny that that peace, peace, love and understanding is that
Speaker 1: is what we should all be looking for, you know.
Speaker 1: And you're sniggering at it and laughing at it. But
Speaker 1: what's so funny about when it comes down to it,
Speaker 1: what's so funny about? That was the idea for the song,
Speaker 1: and I thought, well, it's a bit of a mouthful,
Speaker 1: but it's a really great title. What's so funny about peace,
Speaker 1: Love and understanding? Because because people did used to do that,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, man, you know, do the do the peace sign,
Speaker 1: you know as a you know, whole piece and love
Speaker 1: man in this rather rather sort of annoying tone of voice,
Speaker 1: you know, that they'd adopt. So it was, it was
Speaker 1: it was a sort of funny song really about peace.
Speaker 1: The most cynical people person you can enjoy. But the
Speaker 1: but the surprising thing, looking back now from from this distance,
Speaker 1: is that I can remember also having a very mature thought,
Speaker 1: which when I think back to how I was in
Speaker 1: those days, I didn't have a single mature thought, you know,
Speaker 1: going for me at all. But in this case I did,
Speaker 1: and that was not to mess it up by trying
Speaker 1: to explain about an old hippie, you know, and you
Speaker 1: know I'm just an old hippie. What's so funny about peace,
Speaker 1: love and understand? I thought, no, no, no, this is
Speaker 1: a really really good idea. Don't just let the title
Speaker 1: do the work for you, and right, really simple verse
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if his cliches about walking the wicked world,
Speaker 1: searching for Pete light in the darkness, you know, and
Speaker 1: all that old nonsense, It doesn't matter that it'll The
Speaker 1: title is really strong, the tune is strong. Don't mess
Speaker 1: it up, you know, with some of your clever, clever nonsense.
Speaker 1: That is an amazingly mature thing to do. And the
Speaker 1: result is that that song has been covered by I
Speaker 1: don't know how many people. It's it's it almost feels
Speaker 1: like I really have had had nothing to do with it,
Speaker 1: because everybody knows it's never actually been a hit, but
Speaker 1: everybody knows that song. Can you play for us now?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, sure? I tend to do it in this
Speaker 1: sort of slow tempo, but once again, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: sorry I'm sorry about my croquy, crokey voice, but I'll
Speaker 1: do my best. It's beautiful. When you you tripped over
Speaker 1: one word, you're probably expecting the crowd just to rise
Speaker 1: up and sing it back to you. Yes, come to
Speaker 1: your rescue. It had a huge effect on your career
Speaker 1: long after you rode out. Which is it? It made
Speaker 1: you financially independent. I suppose can you tell that story?
Speaker 1: I think you're probably referring to the Bodyguard record. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it that that was a real, real stroke of luck. Yes,
Speaker 1: I was in the I was in the middle of
Speaker 1: trying to figure out quite a lot of things. Really.
Speaker 1: I mean, my career as a sort of pop star
Speaker 1: was over. You know, I wasn't young anymore. And you
Speaker 1: can sort of tell, because I suppose because i'd been
Speaker 1: a record producer as well, and sort of yucked it
Speaker 1: up in the in the boardroom, you know, with with people,
Speaker 1: you know, the people at the record company, as well
Speaker 1: as being an artist to myself, I'd seen both sides
Speaker 1: of it. I was very aware of when when the
Speaker 1: pub when you know, the signs of the public had
Speaker 1: got tired of my my act, you know, because I
Speaker 1: was tired of it as well. It was. It seemed
Speaker 1: really exhausted, and I was, you know, I was drinking
Speaker 1: and all all those cliches I was. I was drinking
Speaker 1: quite heavily and all that, and I was just exhausted.
Speaker 1: I didn't like my records, and you know what I
Speaker 1: was doing anyway, I got myself, I got myself sort
Speaker 1: of cleaned up, and then I started when my head cleared,
Speaker 1: you know, I started to think, well, how right, how
Speaker 1: can I move things along now? Because I'm going to
Speaker 1: get older and I don't feel like I've done anything
Speaker 1: really really good yet that I want to be able
Speaker 1: to say I've written at least half a dozen really
Speaker 1: really good songs, and I don't think I have yet.
Speaker 1: I think I've got it in me too, But the
Speaker 1: drink and the late nights and all the rest of
Speaker 1: it have taken their toll, and that's spoilt a lot stuff.
Speaker 1: So I've got I'm now I'm going to develop a
Speaker 1: new act know and and so I did, and I
Speaker 1: came up with this pretty good record of best record
Speaker 1: I'd made for a while, called The Impossible Bird. Made
Speaker 1: it on a real shoestring budget, with a lot of
Speaker 1: called in a lot of favors, and I was, you know,
Speaker 1: even so I was effectively broke, and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden I got I knew that they were going to
Speaker 1: use this song in a movie, and I was pleased.
Speaker 1: You know, there'd be a few a few dollars in it,
Speaker 1: not bad, actually a nice payday, few grand And it's
Speaker 1: come out and it's sold, and curses Steigers, who you know,
Speaker 1: was a big pop star. Then he'd recorded this song,
Speaker 1: Piece of an Understanding, and this movie came out. It
Speaker 1: was a big hit, and all of a sudden it's
Speaker 1: on that there's a soundtrack. Album sold three three million,
Speaker 1: four million, five million, And when it had sold about
Speaker 1: eight million, I thought I'd better get in touch with
Speaker 1: old Curtis, you know, and say what happened? You know,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, thanks very much. I definitely owe
Speaker 1: you a drink here. As far as I know, I've
Speaker 1: never actually seen the film. I feel as if I have,
Speaker 1: because I've tried to watch it a few times, but
Speaker 1: I'm not even sure if it's actually in the in
Speaker 1: the film. If it is, it's playing on a car
Speaker 1: radio somewhere in the background. But anyways, it's on the
Speaker 1: soundtrack road which I think ended up selling forty million.
Speaker 1: It did eight million. That was just early days. It
Speaker 1: went up and up and up and up until even
Speaker 1: though I got I don't know, I don't even know
Speaker 1: how much, less than a cent, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know how what my share was, but it was after
Speaker 1: it goes up there, you know, to those quantities. You
Speaker 1: do the math, as they say. And I got this
Speaker 1: succession of massive checks through and they could not have
Speaker 1: come at a better time for me, because not only
Speaker 1: was I able to pay my boys, you know, who
Speaker 1: had done all this great work for me for nothing
Speaker 1: pretty much, I could pay them. I could go into
Speaker 1: the United States, where I still had this fabulous audience
Speaker 1: but but they were waiting for something to happen. I
Speaker 1: could go and see them, show them this new style
Speaker 1: that I wanted, this slightly more grown up style. I
Speaker 1: wanted to show them that would suit my advancing years
Speaker 1: in the pop business, because up to that point, there
Speaker 1: weren't that many people who have advances in pop music.
Speaker 1: Now you can't move for them. There's plenty of them.
Speaker 1: The buggers won't get out of the way. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: they're still doing everything they did when they were twenty three. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: I wanted to avoid that, you know, because as I thought,
Speaker 1: this is that'll be just two undignified you know, and
Speaker 1: preaching to the converted and all that. I wanted to
Speaker 1: bring a new, younger audience along as well as the
Speaker 1: old people, you know, because I like Johnny Cash's audience.
Speaker 1: I thought his audiences were fantastic. He had all age groups,
Speaker 1: so all digging it. But anyway, I was able with
Speaker 1: this money, this windfall, to take the boys over, to
Speaker 1: have a decent bus for us to tour in the US,
Speaker 1: and to stay at decent hotels, not top of the range,
Speaker 1: but decently we wouldn't get our stuff stolen, you know.
Speaker 1: And also to make another album on the proceeds of it,
Speaker 1: which also did well, and dig my Mood, yeah, and
Speaker 1: to pay off pay off some debts, you know. And
Speaker 1: of course once people see see you've got something going on,
Speaker 1: you know, then you're the initial windfall from the bodyguard.
Speaker 1: You spend all that, but it's suddenly there's everything, Everything
Speaker 1: get starts getting groovyer for you, and people start coming
Speaker 1: looking for songs, and so I got a few covers
Speaker 1: off those those records and things, so and that really
Speaker 1: allowed me to lift off, you know, and probably is
Speaker 1: the reason why I'm I'm a fortunate enough to be
Speaker 1: sitting here talking to you today. I don't ask you
Speaker 1: a little bit about producing because as you became well
Speaker 1: known as a songwriter and with Brindley Schwartz and then
Speaker 1: with rock Pile, you you became the in house producer
Speaker 1: at Steph. Yeah, and I don't know, I mean the
Speaker 1: most famously you worked with Elvis Costello and Graham Parker.
Speaker 1: I don't know what in what order you worked with them,
Speaker 1: who you worked with? First? To tell me, first of all,
Speaker 1: how did how did you work with Graham Parker? How
Speaker 1: did you well? Graham? Yeah, Well, when Graham formed his group,
Speaker 1: the Rumor they was formed first, First of all, he
Speaker 1: was managed by an ex manager of the group that
Speaker 1: I'd be in, Brindsley Schwartz Um. He also had two
Speaker 1: members of Brindsey Schwartz in in the group, plus the
Speaker 1: other guitar player had been had had worked for us,
Speaker 1: so he was he used to be a He was
Speaker 1: a roadie for the Brindsley's for quite a long while
Speaker 1: and a very good friend of the band Martin Belmont.
Speaker 1: But I was really pleased because I thought Graham was
Speaker 1: so good. And what was it about his songs that
Speaker 1: you liked so much for us? Well, they they they
Speaker 1: they sounded really mature, you know, they were really mature songs,
Speaker 1: and they were you know, he'd clearly been listening to
Speaker 1: really good stuff. You could see his influences and things.
Speaker 1: But he had these, you know, really great influences, I thought,
Speaker 1: because they were the same influences as I had, you know,
Speaker 1: so of course I thought he was he had excellent taste.
Speaker 1: But they were they were a very they were very
Speaker 1: good musics. They had a rate rhythm section, as well
Speaker 1: as Steve Goldingham and Andy Boden, now who I got
Speaker 1: to play on a few of my records as well.
Speaker 1: And then I think after that, I think Elvis Costello
Speaker 1: came next. He was signed to Stiff originally as a writer,
Speaker 1: but after they listened to his tape in depth, you know,
Speaker 1: they said, well, actually this guy's a bit he's a
Speaker 1: bit more fantastic than that. So I did you think
Speaker 1: that as well? No, I didn't really I knew him.
Speaker 1: I knew him decla. I knew him as as Declin McManus,
Speaker 1: And I didn't know him because he used to come
Speaker 1: and see Brindley Schwartz. Whenever we played in Liverpool, he
Speaker 1: used to or up the northwest of England. He would
Speaker 1: come along and we noticing because he looked so unusual.
Speaker 1: One day, actually we were playing at the Cavern Club,
Speaker 1: were famously the Beatles started out. We were playing at
Speaker 1: the Cavern and we were having a drink in the
Speaker 1: pub across the road. Both are gone now, of course,
Speaker 1: both the Cavern and the pub the Grapes, I think
Speaker 1: it was called Across the Road. And before our show
Speaker 1: and in Caane, this fellow I thought, I said, look,
Speaker 1: there's that there's that guy who comes to see us play.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go and buy him a drink, you know,
Speaker 1: I think probably it's a time, you know. And he
Speaker 1: says that he approached me at the bar and brought
Speaker 1: me a drink, and I don't know, but either way,
Speaker 1: that's where we met for the first time. And he
Speaker 1: had a group in the pub rock scene that was
Speaker 1: going on in London at that time. The Brinsleys were
Speaker 1: in and Graham and the Rumor, and well Graham sort
Speaker 1: of was in it. They were a bit too good
Speaker 1: for that really, But Dire Straits actually were a pub
Speaker 1: rock band as well. Where are they now? No idea?
Speaker 1: And so I got I got the job. To start with,
Speaker 1: I was definitely in charge. You know, look here, kid,
Speaker 1: you know you do this and do that. And on
Speaker 1: his first album, that's the one and only record I
Speaker 1: did with Obviously I did five or six albums I
Speaker 1: can't remember now, but that was the one and only
Speaker 1: one where nominally I was in I was in charge,
Speaker 1: you know. I suppose I had the last word, but
Speaker 1: it really didn't take long before I realized that he
Speaker 1: was really was something else, and I'd be very foolish
Speaker 1: to override him. You know. Sometimes he come up with
Speaker 1: these really kind of crackpot ideas, you know, and I
Speaker 1: NA Nana, and then I, as I was about to
Speaker 1: say no, I suddenly found it turning into yes. And
Speaker 1: next thing I know, I was tugging my four lock
Speaker 1: as they say, you know, say good morning, mister Costella,
Speaker 1: what would you like to do today? And so our
Speaker 1: roles reversed and I was very much you know, he
Speaker 1: all the shots and I and I enabled him to
Speaker 1: do it. We'll be right back with more from Nicolo
Speaker 1: after the break. We're back with the rest of Bruce's
Speaker 1: interview with Nicolo. I want to talk more about songwriting.
Speaker 1: So can we hear another new song? Yeah? Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: you played a beautiful song called Blue one Blue, Oh,
Speaker 1: I can do that. That was the one I was
Speaker 1: thinking of. Yeah, I'd love to hear that. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: here we go. Can you tell me about the writing
Speaker 1: of that song. I can't really know. I just sort
Speaker 1: of made it up when I was on holiday in
Speaker 1: Italy and just sort of was sitting around in the
Speaker 1: in the heat, in the dark and in the one
Speaker 1: afternoon and just messing around with a guitar, and that,
Speaker 1: you know, simple little chord called figure came came out.
Speaker 1: But I seem to be able to get it to
Speaker 1: roll into the other parts, you know. That that was
Speaker 1: it will go in and out of time. You never
Speaker 1: kind of know what key it's in either. It sort
Speaker 1: of starts off in one key and it sort of
Speaker 1: changes into another and then changes back again. And and
Speaker 1: this's this sort of rolling thing. I thought was quite interesting,
Speaker 1: and I thought blue on Blue is a pretty good title,
Speaker 1: which I kept on. I was making noises to start with,
Speaker 1: like you doo blue move blue bloom, you know, and
Speaker 1: it turns into you find yourself same Blue on Blue,
Speaker 1: and then and then you'll think, what are you saying?
Speaker 1: Blue on blue? That's pretty actually pretty good, and it
Speaker 1: just sort of felt right. And it's funny you mentioned
Speaker 1: the rolling in that song. When you go into the
Speaker 1: I guess it's a bridge part. There's this um tension
Speaker 1: until you go back into the kind of the I'm
Speaker 1: ever so pleased that you make a comment like that.
Speaker 1: Nothing cheers me up more than to hear well, it's
Speaker 1: almost it's almost a little nervous. I get a little
Speaker 1: nervous in the bridge waiting for it to come back,
Speaker 1: and then it loops in and I think you just
Speaker 1: do the second half of the chord changes at that point.
Speaker 1: That's right, Yes, yeah, just a huge relief comes over
Speaker 1: me when I'm listening to that, and thank God he's back.
Speaker 1: It's also one of those it's one of those chord progressions.
Speaker 1: It could just go on forever. Yeah, yes, it's There's
Speaker 1: there's nothing very original about it. It's all except the
Speaker 1: way that the structure takes it. Well, it feels like
Speaker 1: it's still going. I think some Van Morrison songs are
Speaker 1: like that. It's like it's going all the time. We
Speaker 1: just dip in and listen to three minutes of it
Speaker 1: and then we dip out. But it's still going. You
Speaker 1: know you didn't. Now well, I must say, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a song that I really really like doing and
Speaker 1: and and especially doing with the with this straight jackets
Speaker 1: what they've they've brought it, brought it up. You know,
Speaker 1: it sounds really cool when they do it. You've been
Speaker 1: very generous. There are two things I do want to
Speaker 1: ask you about before you go. We talked about country
Speaker 1: music earlier. In your great love for country music, you
Speaker 1: then married into country music royalty. What was it like?
Speaker 1: This is the music you loved, and then suddenly June
Speaker 1: Carter is your mother in law and Johnny Cash is here,
Speaker 1: I guess your stepfather in law. What was that like?
Speaker 1: It was? It was unbelievably great. I couldn't believe my luck,
Speaker 1: even though I mean, they were so they were so
Speaker 1: kind to me, but both both of Johnny and June
Speaker 1: I absolutely adored them. But still it was Johnny Cash.
Speaker 1: You know, I used that every time I met him.
Speaker 1: There was a good fifteen minutes when I was with
Speaker 1: him that I could barely speak because he was so charismatic.
Speaker 1: It almost sucked the air out of the room. The
Speaker 1: only other person I've met like that was was Solemn
Speaker 1: and Burke. But John had this effect on me every
Speaker 1: time i'd meet him until you know, as I say,
Speaker 1: about ten or fifteen minutes had passed him. Then he
Speaker 1: was such a lovely guy. I've got, you know, tons
Speaker 1: of stories I could tell about him, including him the
Speaker 1: time that he and June came to stay with me
Speaker 1: and Carlin in when we lived in Shepherd's Bush, which
Speaker 1: is now quite a smart part of London, but back
Speaker 1: then was funky, you know. It was dead funk as
Speaker 1: an Irish part of town, and of course the Irish
Speaker 1: loved John and June, and John wouldn't go anywhere out
Speaker 1: without being dressed up as Johnny Cash. You know. He
Speaker 1: didn't know there's no sweats and baseball cap pulled down
Speaker 1: lower andything like that. He had the black frock coat,
Speaker 1: the boots and everything. He was high. I'm Johnny Cash,
Speaker 1: you know, and walking out in Shepherd's Bush with him
Speaker 1: and June in a sort of in coat with a
Speaker 1: mink hat on and some incredible jeweled brooch, you know,
Speaker 1: and saying hi to everyone. Oh, my god. It was terrific,
Speaker 1: so funny and cheered everybody up. You know, all these
Speaker 1: Irish people say, oh Johnny, what about chair, you know,
Speaker 1: shouting at him. It was great and and getting up
Speaker 1: in the morning. We had we had a nice little house.
Speaker 1: I mean it's it was a funky little house then
Speaker 1: but now it's probably the house is probably worth about
Speaker 1: four million because the area has gone right. And Johnny
Speaker 1: cast actually belonged to Tony Viscontia. I bought it from
Speaker 1: Tony Visconti. He used to live there. And did you
Speaker 1: ever do you ever talk music with Johnny Cast? Yes,
Speaker 1: I was, That's what I was going to say, actually,
Speaker 1: because um, he he liked nothing better when especially in
Speaker 1: this house of ours in in in Sheba's Bush. I
Speaker 1: can remember on occasion when he was such a music
Speaker 1: fan and we'd opened a bottle of wine and you know,
Speaker 1: have a few glasses of wine and we get start
Speaker 1: playing record. He played records to me. He played me stuff.
Speaker 1: He turned me onto things like furling Husky and um,
Speaker 1: Johnny Horton, who was who was a good friend of him.
Speaker 1: You know, he played me fantastic stuff and he was
Speaker 1: like a fan, you know, he oh listeners listening to
Speaker 1: this one, you know, and trying to couldn't quite get
Speaker 1: in the groove, especially after we'd had three or four
Speaker 1: glasses of wine, you know, girt, you know, scratching the record. Um, oh,
Speaker 1: this is fantastic, this is great. You know. He just
Speaker 1: just like a music fan does, and you'd forget that
Speaker 1: it's Johnny Cash and you're listening to records with with
Speaker 1: John Now, I mean, I just think it's just such
Speaker 1: a fantastic memory, you know. But back then I sort
Speaker 1: of took it for granted. I can't I can't believe
Speaker 1: that I did. But he was a super super guy
Speaker 1: and m and I still miss him. I still do
Speaker 1: think about him all the time. And June, Yeah, I wonderful.
Speaker 1: What was she like? Oh? Beautiful, funny, kind, never a
Speaker 1: sort of a bottomless well of patience that she was with,
Speaker 1: especially with John, who was quite a hat could could
Speaker 1: be quite a handful a time. I never saw him
Speaker 1: when he was mean, you know, and I believe he
Speaker 1: was mean. I never ever saw him mean, but I
Speaker 1: saw him when he was out of sorts sometimes, you know.
Speaker 1: But he was always really funny and lovely. That's a
Speaker 1: scary father in law. Well, yeah, law, I suppose it was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I suppose it was. One more story which I've read about,
Speaker 1: but it talks about this collision between sort of the
Speaker 1: world you inhabited with Rock Pile and Prinsley Schwartz in
Speaker 1: the much bigger world, which is and I don't know
Speaker 1: if it was the first time, but the time you
Speaker 1: met Keith Richards, which which I've read about it and
Speaker 1: just seems completely ridiculous to me. So could you tell
Speaker 1: a little bit of that. It was ridiculous, Yes, it
Speaker 1: was when the Rock Pile really were We could we
Speaker 1: could have, should have would have made it, you know,
Speaker 1: we were really poised to be very successful, indeed, but
Speaker 1: we were We were inherently a lazy band. Played this
Speaker 1: basically we played the same set for three glorious years,
Speaker 1: you know. But there was those things that made people
Speaker 1: like us in a way, the fact they could see
Speaker 1: we were having such a laugh. You know, we didn't
Speaker 1: take it seriously. You know, we were having such a
Speaker 1: great time. We had a little run of shows at
Speaker 1: the bottom Line that much loved and lamented bottom Line,
Speaker 1: and we were playing there in the in the middle
Speaker 1: of this little run of shows. It was the night
Speaker 1: after Keith got out of jail in Canada, and for
Speaker 1: some reason this room we should explain. I think it
Speaker 1: was heroin possession or some drug thing. I couldn't possibly
Speaker 1: comment on that, Okay, something you know that Keith had
Speaker 1: got up to. I think it was something like that,
Speaker 1: but we'll film the RCMP. I think it's determined pretty
Speaker 1: well documented anyway. But anyway, he got out of jail
Speaker 1: and for some reason he decided to come and see
Speaker 1: rock Pile. Why I know not. It was the day after.
Speaker 1: It was the day after he got out of jail.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I could think of plenty of things I'd
Speaker 1: rather do after I got out. You got him through
Speaker 1: that experience. I'd like to think I helped anyway. Of course,
Speaker 1: he couldn't believe it, you know that he'd want to come.
Speaker 1: We heard this rumor, you know, and we were in
Speaker 1: the little cramped dressing rooms that were the back, the
Speaker 1: back of the bottom line, and in walked Barbara sharone
Speaker 1: well well known publicist and writer at that time. Anyway,
Speaker 1: she walked into the dress room, she said, I'm here.
Speaker 1: I'm here with Keith, and we'd we'd sort of heard
Speaker 1: us a bit of a rump us out in the audience.
Speaker 1: You know, they were very very excitable audience because they
Speaker 1: knew what they were getting. But when this word went
Speaker 1: round that Keith Redger was coming down, I mean you
Speaker 1: could feel it coming through the walls, you know, people
Speaker 1: were so excited. Anyway, Keith, she said, can I bring him?
Speaker 1: You know, can he come and play? Do you think
Speaker 1: of course he can? Yeah. But the funny thing was
Speaker 1: that we were all keen, except for Edmonds. Because Edmunds
Speaker 1: had been in his the top band in Wales in
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties, like nineteen sixty one sixties. So they're
Speaker 1: in the top band in Wales and along comes this
Speaker 1: band from London to do a little tour with them
Speaker 1: through the Welsh through the Welsh valleys, and they're doing
Speaker 1: the same sort of music, Chuck Berry music, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's it's the Stones and and Edmonds said, oh
Speaker 1: they were rubbish, you know. So Edmonds wasn't pleased, and
Speaker 1: he was all for saying, oh no, I don't want
Speaker 1: him in here, no, no, tell him to tell the
Speaker 1: clear off. And we were, you know, really keen, or
Speaker 1: it was almost impossible not to be carried along with this.
Speaker 1: It was overpowering, you know, the audience expectation. So you're
Speaker 1: on stage, You're looking back and forth at the two
Speaker 1: of them, hoping it's not a fight or they just
Speaker 1: go well. I don't think Keith could care less, you know,
Speaker 1: but but Edmonds just glowered at him all night, you know.
Speaker 1: But he started, you know, he he got on stage,
Speaker 1: he started turning up is the wrong amp? You know,
Speaker 1: we had our amps and say it's quite squashed. And
Speaker 1: I suddenly found my my I was playing bass, you know,
Speaker 1: and suddenly the bass got louder and louder and louder,
Speaker 1: and then I thought, what the hell's happening here, you know,
Speaker 1: and then super twangy, you know, waning wing, and then
Speaker 1: it sounded really deep like reggae bass is a woom boom.
Speaker 1: And I look around in Teith is trying to adjust
Speaker 1: his own guitar, but he's on my knobs, you know,
Speaker 1: adjusting my man. So it was understand why he wasn't
Speaker 1: getting louder, and he couldn't understand his he couldn't understand
Speaker 1: why he was he was turning everything up, you know.
Speaker 1: So it was I mean, he tried to stay on
Speaker 1: with us, you know, because we just pressed on, you know,
Speaker 1: we'd tried to get him off, you know, the enemy
Speaker 1: right thing, Keith Richard, Thank you Keith, you know, and
Speaker 1: he wasn't going anywhere, you know, he just stood there
Speaker 1: sort of swaying and forwards and and uh didn't know
Speaker 1: any of your songs? Could he He had to go, yeah,
Speaker 1: he had to go, but it was it was really
Speaker 1: really hopeless and the and he got old pretty quick.
Speaker 1: You know, you could tell that the the the audience
Speaker 1: weren't digging it nearly as much as they were when
Speaker 1: he stepped on this day songs? Did he? Did he
Speaker 1: stay for I think about three maybe maybe four? And
Speaker 1: then we had a we had a tour manager who
Speaker 1: had a real sort of English sort of manner sort
Speaker 1: of oh, oh really is could I possibly could do
Speaker 1: you mind? Awfully? If I had? It was very very
Speaker 1: you know, he had that corny English thing, you know,
Speaker 1: going jeeves sort of thing. And he eventually I won't
Speaker 1: tell you what Edmund's actually said, to call him out
Speaker 1: and and and tell him and get Keith off. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't very polite. And there was this great sight
Speaker 1: of our tour manager did sort of taking him gently
Speaker 1: by the arm, you know, and just leading him whilst
Speaker 1: taking his guitar off him and putting it, you know,
Speaker 1: putting it away, and just leading him gently off the
Speaker 1: stage where which you know, which I'm sure he was
Speaker 1: quite pleased to. But they were the crowd I seem
Speaker 1: to remember. The crowd was actually not too bad. I
Speaker 1: mean they they I think they realized that he wasn't
Speaker 1: really in any condition to do it, but they've given
Speaker 1: him a nice clap. But it was so such a
Speaker 1: weird night. And have you seen him since, Keith? Yes, No,
Speaker 1: he was he there when you finished? Was he just
Speaker 1: did he? No? It wasn't backstage? No, oh no, he'd
Speaker 1: gone by the time by the time we got off. No,
Speaker 1: that didn't surprise me at all. It was you know,
Speaker 1: quite beastly in there, and and of course the entourage
Speaker 1: that he had with him or you know, taking up
Speaker 1: quite a lot of room. Dave Emmons was pretty he
Speaker 1: was delighted. Yeah, oh boy, we had a laugh about that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it was a great It's one of those
Speaker 1: things is a great experience in retrospect. Had it has
Speaker 1: been a good story. Thank you so much for everything. Well,
Speaker 1: I've taken so much of your time. It had been
Speaker 1: really generous. It's been a pleasure. Will thank you. Thanks
Speaker 1: to Nick Lowe for playing for us and talking to
Speaker 1: Bruce about his creative process and career. Be sure to
Speaker 1: check out Broken Record podcast dot com for a playlist
Speaker 1: full of Nick Rose songs as well as some of
Speaker 1: our favorite songs that he's produced over the years. You
Speaker 1: can also subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot
Speaker 1: com slash broken Record Podcast. Broken Record is produced to
Speaker 1: help from Jason Gambrell, me Lobell, Leo Rose, and Martin
Speaker 1: Gonzalez Pushman Industries. Our theme music is by Kenny Beats.
Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmond. Thanks for listening.