Speaker 1: So it's a really great shuth until the old man
Speaker 1: he collapsed on the cross and that was really heavy
Speaker 1: and at the ambulance in and they sort of arriving
Speaker 1: at the Schnuffen. Yeah, it was really had coming to
Speaker 1: that said with a cross and all that.
Speaker 2: Evening, everyone, Welcome to Midnight Chats, the music interview podcast
Speaker 2: for late night listening.
Speaker 3: My name is Greg Cochran, I'm Stuart Stubbs and.
Speaker 2: Stu Tonight's guest on the podcast is someone who has
Speaker 2: had a distinguished career is putting it a little bit lightly?
Speaker 3: Really, do you want to have a.
Speaker 2: Go at trying to sum up our guests kind of
Speaker 2: contribution in what you spoke to them about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a lot to get into with Anton Corbin
Speaker 3: a bit different for us actually, not a musician, a
Speaker 3: photographer and a filmmaker who has played such a huge
Speaker 3: role in music since he started his career as a
Speaker 3: photographer in nineteen seventy nine. He's from Holland, the Netherlands.
Speaker 3: Sorry it's from the Netherlands. He moved to London in
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy nine started shooting for the Enemy. He ended
Speaker 3: up taking some very famous photos of Joy Division in
Speaker 3: bayswater Tube Station, and that put him on this path
Speaker 3: of shooting legends after legend after legend within music. He
Speaker 3: worked very closely with Depeche Mode and You Too. He
Speaker 3: became creative director for their visual outputs. Anton's the guy
Speaker 3: that shot the cover of the Joshua Tree by U two.
Speaker 3: He then started directing music videos, including loads of Depeche modes.
Speaker 3: He's the guy that made Enjoyed the Silence for Depeche Mode.
Speaker 3: He made Heart Shaped Box Greg for Navana.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean it's like insanely iconic.
Speaker 2: Anton Corbyn's work, and the great stories about Kirk Vain
Speaker 2: in this by the way.
Speaker 3: What he's done every time you think, oh, that would
Speaker 3: be quite a good career. If it ended there, then
Speaker 3: it's like another thing. He then started making films. He
Speaker 3: made that incredible Joy Division biopic while the Ian Curtis
Speaker 3: Barpik rather Control, starring Sam Riley. That then opened a
Speaker 3: door for him to make a huge Hollywood picture called
Speaker 3: The American with George Clooney, which we talk about ever
Speaker 3: so slightly here. I could have spoken to this man
Speaker 3: forever because I'm a big fan of all of his work.
Speaker 3: I start off sort of gushing towards him at the beginning.
Speaker 3: I'd like to apologize to the listeners and to Anton
Speaker 3: for that. But the reason Anton was in town to speak,
Speaker 3: we did this face to face. In the summer of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three. He was promoting a new documentary film
Speaker 3: called Squaring the Triangle, which at this point you can
Speaker 3: see on streaming. I know it was on Netflix and
Speaker 3: is hopefully still there. It was on a plane I
Speaker 3: was recently on as well. Greg little humble brag for
Speaker 3: you there. Yes, it's called Squareen the Triangle, and it's
Speaker 3: about a legendary nineteen seventies artwork design company called Hypnosis.
Speaker 3: They are the company that created some of the most
Speaker 3: ridiculous album covers of the seventies, worked very closely with
Speaker 3: Pink Floyd. Dark Side of the Moon is one of theirs.
Speaker 3: The Man on Fire on Wish You Were Here that
Speaker 3: was one of that. It's a really great documentary all
Speaker 3: the stories behind these really elaborate, ridiculous images that ended
Speaker 3: up on album sleeves for people in the seventies at
Speaker 3: a time when essentially people were just spending obscene amounts
Speaker 3: of money on their album art. That's how I managed
Speaker 3: to get Anton Corbyn to sit in a room with me. Basically,
Speaker 3: he's a legend. He's an absolute legend in the visual
Speaker 3: side of music from seventy nine onwards. He's been there
Speaker 3: for the whole thing.
Speaker 2: And also this is something a little bit different for us,
Speaker 2: as you said, like Anton's not a musician, but somebody's
Speaker 2: like legendary contribution to music culture for decades. I wondered
Speaker 2: what He's quite softly spoken, and it's very like down
Speaker 2: to earth and when he delivers a story, he's just
Speaker 2: like even about whoever it might be you two or
Speaker 2: the Rowling Stones, he sort of does it in his
Speaker 2: very quiet, kind of grounded way. I wanted to ask
Speaker 2: if he was if he was what you were expecting.
Speaker 2: It's that very you know, strong Dutch accent. I think
Speaker 2: it's very calming, and it makes him so modest. I
Speaker 2: think he seems like a very modest guy. And you
Speaker 2: know what I took away from meeting Anton Corvin. When
Speaker 2: I'm sixty eight years old, if I look half as
Speaker 2: good as Anton Corvin, I will be very pleased, very
Speaker 2: stylishly dressed. As if I've not made it clear already,
Speaker 2: I liked him, like or love love. This is Anton Corbyn,
Speaker 2: my number one here tonight on Midnight Chat.
Speaker 3: I hope you enjoy it. Thank you for coming onto
Speaker 3: the podcast my pleasure. I'm a big fan of yours
Speaker 3: and actually your work was there right at the start
Speaker 3: of my career, actually because when I first left university,
Speaker 3: my first job was an enemy magazine. Really yeah, and
Speaker 3: it was this was two thousand and five, which I
Speaker 3: was there for two years. If I'm not mistaken, I
Speaker 3: don't think you would photograph him for them at the
Speaker 3: time I was there. I think you'd left long before,
Speaker 3: in eighty five, okay, right, yeah, we missed. We just
Speaker 3: missed each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah years.
Speaker 3: Yeah. But when I got that job, I worked on
Speaker 3: the photo desk. I was the junior photo researcher, and
Speaker 3: I had no experience in it, and I didn't I
Speaker 3: didn't necessarily even have a huge sort of love for photography,
Speaker 3: I guess at that point. But working there, they had
Speaker 3: this huge archive, this photo archive, so my days would
Speaker 3: be spent in there looking at lots of old prints,
Speaker 3: including lots of your old Prince. And subsequently, since then
Speaker 3: I started my own magazine and photography has been a
Speaker 3: huge part of that original photography. So, yeah, you were
Speaker 3: there from the very Your name was a name that
Speaker 3: I sort of became very familiar with very quickly at Enemy.
Speaker 3: So you left in eighty.
Speaker 1: Five, Yeah, and I saw the enemy, did you about
Speaker 1: five years later?
Speaker 3: Okay? What did you see them?
Speaker 1: Over? Right?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Well, the rights because I had to write some of
Speaker 1: my pictures that they had signed that at the time,
Speaker 1: and they're going to put on book out there, some
Speaker 1: cheap rock photography book, and I really didn't want to
Speaker 1: be part of that, and they went ahead anyway, and
Speaker 1: I show them and they settled and I was allowed
Speaker 1: to take all my pictures out of the files. So
Speaker 1: obviously I missed a fuel because you found.
Speaker 3: Some Maybe I misremendering this. Maybe the conversation would always
Speaker 3: be it's a shame we don't have Anton's pictures.
Speaker 1: That would be a better conversation.
Speaker 3: I remember that your your name was used a lot
Speaker 3: though we you know your name was. That was how
Speaker 3: I was introduced to your work and your photos. So
Speaker 3: when did you start there? And did you start there
Speaker 3: as soon as you arrived in London?
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean what happened, wasn't In early seventy nine,
Speaker 1: I went to the enemy with some bunch of pictures
Speaker 1: to show to the then editor Neil Spencer, and I
Speaker 1: showed them and he was really entojestic and he wanted
Speaker 1: to publish a couple just for the sake of it.
Speaker 1: And I said, well, if I if I come to
Speaker 1: live in England, would you give me some work and
Speaker 1: he said sure sure, So on that fake promise, I
Speaker 1: moved to England and then half you later knocked on
Speaker 1: the door and said here I am, are you And
Speaker 1: I said, well, you know you said you would give
Speaker 1: me some work. I did this picure. Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So he took me around to the big room where
Speaker 1: all everybody was working, with piles of stuff on people's desk.
Speaker 1: They're all typing, and he said, this is Anton and
Speaker 1: he's a great photograph from the Netherlands. Anybody got some
Speaker 1: work for him? And you heard. So they were silent
Speaker 1: and people looking up from above whatever was on the desk,
Speaker 1: and one guy started to sing, I hate the fucking
Speaker 1: Dutch they're living in Oliver Clock. There was some punk
Speaker 1: singer that I was unaware of, so I took it
Speaker 1: personal and then slowly people started the type again and
Speaker 1: that was it. But there's no introductions in they couldn't
Speaker 1: get us, but one guy, Tony Stewart, he called me
Speaker 1: a week later. He said, Oh, there's a there's a
Speaker 1: gig at the Marquee, Bill Haley, can you photograph that?
Speaker 1: So it was sprinted like a poster stamp in the Enemy.
Speaker 1: But that was my first commissioned work. And then some
Speaker 1: photographer got ill who was supposed to photograph Joe Jackson
Speaker 1: as a feature, and then they called me last minute
Speaker 1: and I went and Joe liked my work, and the
Speaker 1: Enemy liked my work, and suddenly I was doing covers
Speaker 1: for the enemy, and I worked for Joe for a
Speaker 1: bit and it was a great time.
Speaker 3: What was your first So, what was your first cover
Speaker 3: for the Enemy? Was that Joe Jackson shop?
Speaker 1: No, it was a story by Nick and on rockabilly,
Speaker 1: So it was rockabilly kids in a club, okay. And
Speaker 1: then the second one was the week after was a selector.
Speaker 3: So this is this is seventy nine, when you when
Speaker 3: you sort of arrive in the UK.
Speaker 1: Yeah, October seventy nine, and the first cover was in
Speaker 1: January eighteen.
Speaker 3: I've heard story from you, I think on an old
Speaker 3: film talking about when you got here. Maybe like within
Speaker 3: two weeks you went to see Joy Division and you
Speaker 3: introduced yourself to them backstage?
Speaker 1: Correct?
Speaker 3: And where was that? Where was that show where you
Speaker 3: saw them?
Speaker 1: I think it was The Rainbow, which.
Speaker 3: Is in Finsbury Park.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I don't think it exists anymore.
Speaker 3: No, it's like a big sort of church now. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: it was the Rainbow, the venue that had a retracting roof.
Speaker 3: Did it have a roof that? Maybe that was in
Speaker 3: the sixties, though I heard a rumor that it was
Speaker 3: it had a roof that could come off to make
Speaker 3: it an outside of.
Speaker 1: It, right, Okay, I don't well anyway, I arrived in
Speaker 1: October and I saw Joy Division early November or they
Speaker 1: wouldn't have the roof off.
Speaker 3: Did you come here because of Joid? Like Joy Division
Speaker 3: was a Was that part of the reason you came
Speaker 3: here because you loved that band?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I lost the music and I wanted to be
Speaker 1: closer to where that kind of music came from. And
Speaker 1: I'd been for a Dutch magazine or I've been a
Speaker 1: few times to England to photograph for them, and I
Speaker 1: always lost my pictures so much when I the ones
Speaker 1: I took in England. More than the ones I took
Speaker 1: in Holland, so I felt that it was quite a
Speaker 1: natural kind of environment for me to shoot in. And
Speaker 1: then when ann Pleasures came out at all, I just
Speaker 1: have to go there because it's so fantastic what happens there.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be part of it. I don't want
Speaker 1: to wait till people get well known and then come
Speaker 1: to Holland. So that they were the main motivators to
Speaker 1: go there. And I sold myself as an important photographer
Speaker 1: in the Netherlands, and they hadn't toured the Netherlands yet,
Speaker 1: so I think Rob Breton said, Okay, I think you
Speaker 1: should do it. And I had a basement flat in
Speaker 1: Bayswater and the only tube station I knew was lancas
Speaker 1: the Gate, so I asked them to come to Lancaster
Speaker 1: Gate and being the only place I kind of knew,
Speaker 1: and they came Sunday morning was very cold, and they
Speaker 1: were standing there outside the tube station, shaking with a
Speaker 1: cigarette in their hands and underdressed English boys, you know,
Speaker 1: big cold but nothing underneathed kind of thing. And when
Speaker 1: I cast generally because I was a smoker, he stood
Speaker 1: outside the same same way. You know. It was in
Speaker 1: the winter. He stood there trembling. I thought, well, that's
Speaker 1: a good sign.
Speaker 3: What was it like? You mentioned that when you when
Speaker 3: you were still living in the Netherlands, but you'd come
Speaker 3: here and photograph. You like the way those photos looked
Speaker 3: more than the ones that you were taking back. Now,
Speaker 3: what was it about them? Was it the light or
Speaker 3: was it what you were taking photos of? No, the
Speaker 3: light is the same as in Holland. Really it's overcast
Speaker 3: most of the time.
Speaker 1: No, it was I think partly me because I was
Speaker 1: excited about being in England and being ware it happens,
Speaker 1: and just I think the surroundings. I like people's yeah,
Speaker 1: determination to get out of the council flats and make
Speaker 1: something of their life. And they gave everything to the music,
Speaker 1: and I at the time gave everything to photography. You
Speaker 1: know that, I know fallback plan.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: It was all or nothing for me, and I gave
Speaker 1: photography everything I had and holand I lift for a
Speaker 1: year in the Brottle and here I left six months
Speaker 1: in a in a in a squad after I got
Speaker 1: kicked out in Baigrod and I lived in Dlston the
Speaker 1: squad so and I was but I was photographing Bowie,
Speaker 1: you know that just went on.
Speaker 3: We were always good at it. Did you always get
Speaker 3: the sense that when I mean, how old were you
Speaker 3: when you picked up a camera and seventeen and did
Speaker 3: you did you just know you had an eye for it?
Speaker 1: At no point in rubbish, I used to go a
Speaker 1: camera because I was so shy and I didn't there
Speaker 1: to go to a concert where I knew nobody because
Speaker 1: I was just moved parents to a new city and
Speaker 1: hadn't come to school yet. It was in school holiday,
Speaker 1: and that means that you don't know anybody. And I
Speaker 1: felt that if I carried a camera, you know, it
Speaker 1: gave me something that I wouldn't have it out of it.
Speaker 1: And this is my father's camera and I took a
Speaker 1: few photographs on it then it was a daylight concert,
Speaker 1: you know, and I sent them to a magazine just
Speaker 1: because I didn't know what else to do, and I
Speaker 1: was so obsessed by music in the music world, and
Speaker 1: they published a few and I thought, oh, that's it.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm going to do for the rest of
Speaker 1: my life. We're going to take pictures of bands. And
Speaker 1: of course, the first year I was at school and
Speaker 1: I photographed my father's camera in the provinces of where
Speaker 1: I was living, and nobody purposed any of the pictures.
Speaker 1: And then the next school holiday I worked in factories
Speaker 1: to earn my own camera. And then I saying, you know,
Speaker 1: I tried to photograph and nobody purposed any of the pictures.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the second year, the enemy
Speaker 1: of all and if you're like my bigs, you're small
Speaker 1: but thought that says, you know. And then I tried
Speaker 1: to get into the art academy and nobody would have me.
Speaker 1: I tried to do three different ones in Holland, so
Speaker 1: I'm self taught.
Speaker 3: Really, I'm surprised to hear in a way that you're
Speaker 3: that you're shy, because that action of moving to a
Speaker 3: different country is quite bold. And then when you get
Speaker 3: there to go to a gig of Joy and of
Speaker 3: joy the vision who are quite an intimidating bunch, or
Speaker 3: they certainly seen that from their music and their look
Speaker 3: and everything. And then to get backstage and say can
Speaker 3: I take your photos? That's all of that sort of
Speaker 3: stuff is quite bold. Yes, it is I confidence stuff.
Speaker 1: I think the camera helped me, you know, it sort
Speaker 1: of pushed me forward and moved England. I went with
Speaker 1: my then girlfriend towards far better to arrange things than
Speaker 1: I was. She she she found a fled she found
Speaker 1: it and the other so alone, I couldn't have done it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I was driven by something to make contact
Speaker 1: with people and photograph them. Those you know, I did
Speaker 1: everything to be able to photograph people.
Speaker 3: I think so around that time, I mean, it's sort
Speaker 3: of it's the very end of the it's the very
Speaker 3: end of the seventies. So Hypnosis, who the new film
Speaker 3: is about. I guess it's kind of winding down, isn't it.
Speaker 3: That ends in a two two, doesn't it? But were
Speaker 3: you so you wouldn't necessarily cross paths or worked with
Speaker 3: them because you're also just starting out and they were
Speaker 3: at that point you know, the kings of graphic design
Speaker 3: and album artwork. But were you aware? Were you aware
Speaker 3: of that then? Did you did? Was that? Because Hypnosis
Speaker 3: is actually to me, I saw the film the other week,
Speaker 3: by the way, and enjoyed it. Even to me, it's
Speaker 3: like a name that I sort of sort of half
Speaker 3: know now but didn't really know. But back then, did
Speaker 3: people know it? Then? The photographers know it, creatives know
Speaker 3: what Hypnosis were what they were doing.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that everybody knew because in that world at
Speaker 1: least because there's a lot of books out on Hypnosis.
Speaker 1: You know, they did this series of books called Album
Speaker 1: Cover Album, which there's a lot of their stuff in it,
Speaker 1: and they insignated that. I mean, they were very It
Speaker 1: was bo I think was very clever in his in
Speaker 1: his reeling and dealing, you know, but I wasn't professional proper,
Speaker 1: you know, so I would never be hired by Hypnosis
Speaker 1: to photograph or anything. And I didn't think of that either,
Speaker 1: you know. I wanted to be published in the enemy
Speaker 1: those for me the highest good, and then records leaves
Speaker 1: game secondary and you didn't even think about exhibitions.
Speaker 3: And one of the things that I really loved about
Speaker 3: the film is this sort of time span, this seventies
Speaker 3: sort of decade really where the rock industry was completely
Speaker 3: ridiculous and there was so much money and there was
Speaker 3: so much excess, and that story that they say in
Speaker 3: the film about the statue that they put on the
Speaker 3: top of Everest McCartney for poor McCartney for the Wings
Speaker 3: greatest hits, which they could have probably done anywhere, but
Speaker 3: they you know, it was a time of excess, So
Speaker 3: they did it there because somebody, I think Paul McCartney
Speaker 3: even said we should put it on Everest. Are you interested
Speaker 3: in that well, because I've always felt with your photos
Speaker 3: and your work that it's all quite understated and I
Speaker 3: can't imagine you shooting those sort of covers that Hypnosis
Speaker 3: were doing, and it's much more sort of simple for you.
Speaker 3: Is that fair?
Speaker 1: Yes, totally. I didn't dream of these things. I'm a
Speaker 1: very hands on kind of guy, so I would always
Speaker 1: myself and I was shooting black and white. I didn't
Speaker 1: have an assistant till I did the Joshua Tree I
Speaker 1: think that when that started. So yeah, I did everything myself, photographed, myself,
Speaker 1: made the point, myself developed my film, sprinted my photographs,
Speaker 1: dropped them off at the enemy or whatever. You know.
Speaker 1: It was a different times. I I was also from
Speaker 1: a generation of the bunk and a Postponk generation, not
Speaker 1: off the Pink Floyd generation.
Speaker 3: I mean in terms of that side of the music
Speaker 3: industry that you walked into. I guess starting with that
Speaker 3: meeting with Joy Division and then all the enemy stuff,
Speaker 3: what do you remember from the music business at that
Speaker 3: At that point, I was born in eighty two. I
Speaker 3: think for my generation, one of the reasons we think
Speaker 3: that the past was better than now isn't necessarily the
Speaker 3: music itself, although obviously some of that is incredible. It's
Speaker 3: the way things worked and the fact that you could
Speaker 3: walk up to Joy Division and say can I take
Speaker 3: some photos and they would say yes, and you didn't
Speaker 3: have to go through chats and labels and lots of people.
Speaker 3: I suppose that's the punk right, But was it was
Speaker 3: it all like that? Was it as easy as I
Speaker 3: think as I would like to think and sort of
Speaker 3: regret missing out on.
Speaker 1: I like to think it was easier. Yes, I think
Speaker 1: there was less of an organization protecting everybody, and now
Speaker 1: it's overprotected and everything has to be approved and everything,
Speaker 1: you know. I think what happens now is a lot
Speaker 1: of people who are young then and older now, and
Speaker 1: they're competing to kids who are fifteen or sixteen and
Speaker 1: looking so young, so that that's difficult to not be retouched,
Speaker 1: you know, in the photographs, and complete control is the
Speaker 1: whole idea of them. And as a PHOTOGRAPHERY, you also
Speaker 1: want complete control over your work. So that's a flash point.
Speaker 3: You mentioned that you for a long time to have
Speaker 3: an assistant your travel, just you and your camera, which
Speaker 3: I think I imagine was part of the appeal for lots
Speaker 3: of people that they knew you were like an unfussy guy,
Speaker 3: especially for the punks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's different if you appeal of somebody's
Speaker 1: doorstep on your own other than three assistants and lights,
Speaker 1: you know, it must be different. It must be more invasive.
Speaker 1: I think a big group and I never filled home
Speaker 1: with lighting things and all that stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, do you ever have rules that you put in
Speaker 3: place to the people you're shooting. The reason I say
Speaker 3: that is because I heard a story. He's obviously this
Speaker 3: is a very wildly different style photographer to you, But
Speaker 3: I heard this story that David Bailey has a rule
Speaker 3: that when he shoots someone, whoever it is, whether it's
Speaker 3: the queen or you know, a man in the street,
Speaker 3: he insists that they come completely alone, and they can't.
Speaker 3: They're not allowed to bring their agent or their manager
Speaker 3: or a pr or anyone. And if they do turn
Speaker 3: up with somebody else, then I just sent away and
Speaker 3: the shoe doesn't happen. And that's his sort of terms.
Speaker 1: Well, obviously I tell people it's not a circus act,
Speaker 1: you know, when I'm photographing people, so I don't really
Speaker 1: enjoy an audience. But I've never said you can't bring
Speaker 1: your friend or whoever, or your dog or or your manager,
Speaker 1: you know. But I just remember I did have shooted
Speaker 1: Billie Idol in the early nineties in LA and it
Speaker 1: involves writing something on a piece of glass and stuff,
Speaker 1: and he wasn't sure and he had to call the
Speaker 1: manager and he came over to judge it first before
Speaker 1: I could photograph it.
Speaker 3: So because he wasn't sure about the way he'd written it,
Speaker 3: or he just didn't know about the concept behind.
Speaker 1: The concept, you know, it seemed alien to him. I think, okay,
Speaker 1: but it's a very good picture in the end. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they they let me photograph it. But it's you know,
Speaker 1: managers also feel that they need to and their role sometimes,
Speaker 1: so it's just annoying.
Speaker 3: We have a magazine as well, and we do a
Speaker 3: lot of our own photo shoots, and it's obviously a
Speaker 3: complete different world to the one that you started shooting
Speaker 3: in for all of these reasons we're talking about, and
Speaker 3: you know, people not being sure of things and everybody
Speaker 3: maybe wanting to look cool, and I mean and I
Speaker 3: understand it as well.
Speaker 1: Me do, because you see what people call themselves photographers
Speaker 1: these days. It's awful. Yeah, so I don't blame people
Speaker 1: to check it out a bit.
Speaker 3: There's a great photo that you took of you two
Speaker 3: all in drag. I think, oh, yeah, what year would
Speaker 3: that have been? That photo?
Speaker 1: That would have been ninety one?
Speaker 3: Okay, Obviously you've got a very very close relationship with
Speaker 3: that band now and probably did already at that point. Yeah,
Speaker 3: oh yes, did it just come down to that? Were
Speaker 3: they game for that? Because that to me, what's amazing
Speaker 3: about that photo, other than the photo itself, is the
Speaker 3: fact that you've got that band to do that well.
Speaker 1: I think we all want to do to move away
Speaker 1: from the Joshu Tree and Redelham kind of honest kind
Speaker 1: of look. And the music also was very changing with
Speaker 1: Acton Baby. It was a very different kind of record
Speaker 1: sow they signaled for change in musical direction and I
Speaker 1: wanted to follow the Uputy photography, so we just spent
Speaker 1: any direction. You know. We did a lot of different
Speaker 1: kinds of shoots and that was one of them. And
Speaker 1: dressing up we did it during Carnival in on one
Speaker 1: of the islands in Spain and Portugal, so it didn't
Speaker 1: seem so odd in that sense we're doing it there
Speaker 1: because everybody was dressed up outside. But you know, it
Speaker 1: was also the fun element of that not being expected
Speaker 1: of you too.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's it's true, isn't it. Like the
Speaker 3: greatest photos are the ones I think where artists or
Speaker 3: actors or whoever's in the pot is kind of fully
Speaker 3: trusted the vision of the photographer doing it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, I mean you two also knew
Speaker 1: that if the pictures didn't turn as well, they would
Speaker 1: never be seen anywhere. But I also did a shoot
Speaker 1: to the Stones once for Rolling Stone magazine during the
Speaker 1: Voodoo Lounge album era, and I said, Okay, I'd like
Speaker 1: to do it, but I'd like to bring some masks,
Speaker 1: you know too, because I didn't like the Stones pictures
Speaker 1: of the eighties and nineties, so I was so safe
Speaker 1: all in studios, and I liked the Stones in the
Speaker 1: sixties and seventies when they took risk and the very
Speaker 1: exciting pictures. So I wanted to hark back to that period.
Speaker 1: And then it went through some pr person and they
Speaker 1: said no, no, no, way. I said, well, fine, but
Speaker 1: then don't expect me to fly to Canada to do
Speaker 1: a shoot that I don't want to do. And then
Speaker 1: Mick called me and said, what was this thing with
Speaker 1: the masks? Explain it to him for and on that
Speaker 1: and he said, okay, you just bring the masks. So
Speaker 1: I did. Then they did the bugs and was very
Speaker 1: successful for them.
Speaker 3: I mean that sort of high contrast black and white
Speaker 3: photography that you do, it's got this gothic feel to it.
Speaker 3: But one thing I wanted to ask you was a
Speaker 3: lot of the artists that you've photographed, and you've you know,
Speaker 3: you've kind of the list is kind of obscene of
Speaker 3: the amount of that the sort of legends I guess
Speaker 3: that you've photographed, but a lot of them are quite
Speaker 3: sort of these dark, brooding characters as well. From Nick Cave,
Speaker 3: Patty Smith, I've got a list here, Tom Waite's Depeche Mode,
Speaker 3: obviously Joy Division. They're all these sort of dark, introspective characters.
Speaker 3: Are you attracted to shooting those types of people rather
Speaker 3: than the spice girls?
Speaker 1: Say? I wouldn't mind children, suppose girls, but I think
Speaker 1: that I feared towards people who gave everything for what
Speaker 1: they're doing, because I did the same in my photography.
Speaker 1: So there was that kind of link or desire to
Speaker 1: photo up people that felt I put everything into their work.
Speaker 1: I'm attracted to that.
Speaker 3: That's a really good way to sum up all of
Speaker 3: those people I've just mentioned.
Speaker 1: I guess. But there's also a practical thing. It was
Speaker 1: that when I started photography, the people I photographed and
Speaker 1: the magazines that I knew were all printed in black
Speaker 1: and white. And I thought, the only way to get
Speaker 1: your pictures published in these magazines if you make them
Speaker 1: in black and white. And same with Joy Division. I
Speaker 1: shot it in black and white because my only chance
Speaker 1: of publishing one of these pictures was in magazines that
Speaker 1: wrote about these bands that had no hits and that
Speaker 1: they were all printed in black and white, and me,
Speaker 1: it was in the early days, only black and white.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I hadn't even thought about that.
Speaker 1: Joy Division the hit after Ian died, and then you
Speaker 1: would photographed in color to burishdi smash it. But we
Speaker 1: never got that far.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I suppose that's the other thing, isn't it,
Speaker 3: Like hindsight a wonderful thing. And those photos that you
Speaker 3: took of Joy Division now are legendary, iconic photos of
Speaker 3: an iconic band.
Speaker 1: There weren't at a time, but there was nothing logic
Speaker 1: about but I did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, at the time, when you went and introduced yourself
Speaker 3: to them, they weren't the world renowned Joy Division. They
Speaker 3: were just a punk band that you liked. Yeah, the
Speaker 3: postpunk band that you're into in your career. Where does
Speaker 3: film and getting into like music videos and then films?
Speaker 3: Is that just a Was that just a natural progression
Speaker 3: for you to from photography.
Speaker 1: In retrospect, It was, but it wasn't natural to me
Speaker 1: at all because I was shy, and I find that
Speaker 1: sharing ideas or being forced to come up with ideas
Speaker 1: for a video was not natural to me because I'm
Speaker 1: intuitive kind of a photographer and I'm very influenced by
Speaker 1: documentary photography. So I have to find something, but to
Speaker 1: plant in advance. That's very hard for me. But what
Speaker 1: happened was that I did pick people's photographs of press
Speaker 1: and then also sometimes for album sleeves, and I said, well,
Speaker 1: these days we need one more thing, and that's a
Speaker 1: music video. Why don't you do that too? So that's
Speaker 1: how that started reluctantly, and then I found my form.
Speaker 1: Actually only I think with Depeche Mode, because there was
Speaker 1: no budget.
Speaker 3: That would be Enjoy the Silence.
Speaker 1: No, not that way. Before that, that was for Question
Speaker 1: of Time eighty six and such a low budget that
Speaker 1: I had to shoot myself the film myself, and then
Speaker 1: it became slightly more a moving experience. Before that, it
Speaker 1: was basically a selection of photographs put together to make
Speaker 1: it look like.
Speaker 3: Before Enjoyer Enjoy the Silence. What's your starting point for that,
Speaker 3: because it's the It's the one with Taika walking around
Speaker 3: with the detecture and the king as a king.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, he's dressed as a king and walked around
Speaker 1: to the deck chair. Yeah. Well, it's difficult. I don't
Speaker 1: By the time, I think five videos for Depeche Mode
Speaker 1: in black and white and almost Super eight, I all
Speaker 1: filmed myself. Then they The first single that came off
Speaker 1: that album called Violated was Ah Personal Jesus, which I
Speaker 1: don't in color in black in on Super eight in Spain,
Speaker 1: and then second of us Enjoy the Silence. And I
Speaker 1: only had this idea of this king walking with the
Speaker 1: duck chair through landscapes and all he needed was peace
Speaker 1: and silence and sitting somewhere looking at things things we
Speaker 1: all can achieve that it doesn't matter if you have
Speaker 1: money or not. And I came back the idea to
Speaker 1: the band and they didn't like it, that they couldn't
Speaker 1: visualize it. And I have to admit that I was
Speaker 1: really better in describing my ideas, so that didn't help.
Speaker 1: And they said, could you please think of another idea
Speaker 1: because we think the song is so beautiful, one of
Speaker 1: the best things we've ever done. And so I went
Speaker 1: back and then I couldn't get the idea head out
Speaker 1: of my head and there was no space to get
Speaker 1: another idea, and so I went back with the same thing.
Speaker 1: I said, I think it's really good the idea, and
Speaker 1: they were like, okay, just do it. That kind of
Speaker 1: attitude and it's bus I think twenty thousand pounds or something.
Speaker 1: It was shot in two locations in portugalal location in
Speaker 1: Switzerland and on Scotland, and then the rest of my
Speaker 1: little studio in London, the black and white stuff, so
Speaker 1: it was a tiny team.
Speaker 3: You know, it's all comes back down to that trust
Speaker 3: thing again, right, You've been working with them for so
Speaker 3: long that even when they didn't like the idea, they're like, okay,
Speaker 3: that's were they happy with it in the end?
Speaker 1: Oh amazing, because the feedback once it was an empty
Speaker 1: in America was enormous and it was incredible, and Chris
Speaker 1: Martin lost the so much he wrote a song about
Speaker 1: it by the video called Fever of Vida that.
Speaker 3: What I love about about that video is that sort
Speaker 3: of color saturation. There's an echo of that in Heart
Speaker 3: Shaped Box.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's a chieftain a very different show.
Speaker 3: But that I rewatched that video yesterday knowing I was
Speaker 3: meeting you. It's so iconic, you know, like the film
Speaker 3: Squaring a Circle. One of the things that's so great
Speaker 3: about that is how iconic all the things that are
Speaker 3: being spoken about, all of those brilliant pieces of artwork,
Speaker 3: but that you know, you've sort of got your own
Speaker 3: canon of that as well. And Heart Shaped Box, I
Speaker 3: think is up there. You know, it's one of those
Speaker 3: sort of very iconic moments of the nineties. So that
Speaker 3: was your idea as well, that concept, No, it was
Speaker 3: not okay.
Speaker 1: Now it could came up with it the dyea. He
Speaker 1: made drawings and road things and he faxed them to
Speaker 1: me and I added a couple of things to it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I know, the whole genesis of that was
Speaker 1: his idea, and he was fantastic with that. He was
Speaker 1: a great artist. Cart and we made the film and
Speaker 1: he wanted to have this technical look, which we couldn't
Speaker 1: get because technicol it didn't exist anymore. So we shot
Speaker 1: in color, then transferred to black and white, and then
Speaker 1: got some people in Mexico just across the border. Because
Speaker 1: everything sent in San Diego to hint in every single frame.
Speaker 1: It took weeks and weeks and weeks, but the result
Speaker 1: was very beautiy.
Speaker 3: It gives it such a sort of disturbing beautiful quality.
Speaker 1: To Yeah, which is great because I had some videos
Speaker 1: with Mtfy turned down because there were two didn't fit
Speaker 1: the guideline or whatever. But because of the nice collar,
Speaker 1: they never looked at the embryos hanging in trees. You know,
Speaker 1: no problem. It's so weird, isn't it a sleight of hand? Yeah? Totally.
Speaker 3: Was it a cheery shoot because it's such a sort
Speaker 3: of haunting video.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know, that was a really great shoot
Speaker 1: until the old man he collapsed on the cross. It
Speaker 1: thought it was a different thing. He had a balkance
Speaker 1: or something. He didn't know about and that broke and
Speaker 1: that was really heavy, and at the ambulance in and
Speaker 1: they sort of arriving at the snuffs, and I bet
Speaker 1: they did. Yeah, it was weird coming to that set
Speaker 1: with the cross and all that.
Speaker 3: I'm wary of time because I know it's limited. One
Speaker 3: thing I was going to ask you about Depeche Mode.
Speaker 3: I am from Essex myself, Okay, my dad lives in Basildon.
Speaker 3: Did the band never take you there at any point?
Speaker 1: I went there for the first shoot I did to them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in a pond in rolling boats, okay, in eighty one.
Speaker 3: I mean, I was going to ask you about what
Speaker 3: you thought about Basildon, but but I won't.
Speaker 1: Don't. Don't.
Speaker 3: What was that the first time you did you meet them?
Speaker 3: Because that is a band that has been a huge
Speaker 3: part of your life, and that relationship with them.
Speaker 1: Is reluctantly Because I was head photographer for the Enemy,
Speaker 1: the chief photographer, so I got all these assignments, and
Speaker 1: as it was a weekly magazine, the turnover was huge.
Speaker 1: I asked to do the cover of the Depeche Modes,
Speaker 1: so I did, and then News Records asked me to
Speaker 1: work with them for some other stuff and I turned
Speaker 1: it down. There's too poppy for me. And they asked
Speaker 1: me twice in the next few years.
Speaker 3: This is when Depeche Mode are doing Can't Get enough
Speaker 3: that era. Yeah, when they were really poppy, you know,
Speaker 3: that was a very very pop thing.
Speaker 1: And now I love these songs, but not then, And
Speaker 1: I don't know. I was reluctant to like these songs.
Speaker 1: But I only started with them when the video had
Speaker 1: to be done for a question of time, and the
Speaker 1: stipulation was it had to be done in America because
Speaker 1: they were on tour. The The only reason I said
Speaker 1: yes because I never by the time done a video
Speaker 1: in America. I didn't care who it was for, you know.
Speaker 1: So I did the video and then didn't hear back
Speaker 1: from them at all because they all had gone on
Speaker 1: holidays by the time the video was finished. And nine
Speaker 1: months later I got a call say, and we work
Speaker 1: on new material which you might come in and listen
Speaker 1: to it. So then I asked, was after another video
Speaker 1: and another video? And then there was all before I
Speaker 1: did photography for that.
Speaker 3: When they when they said they were working on new material,
Speaker 3: and you went, I heard it, Had it? Had it changed?
Speaker 3: Had it got more into your liking at that point.
Speaker 3: Always it wasn't still the pop stuff.
Speaker 1: No, it became you know, it became the Violated album,
Speaker 1: and that was fantastic. So I started then with Strange
Speaker 1: Love and and Never Let Me Down Again, and then
Speaker 1: Behind the Wheel, Yeah, a great song.
Speaker 3: How then does a film like The America and come
Speaker 3: about and fit into your world? Because I actually didn't
Speaker 3: know that that was your film until yesterday, and retrospectively
Speaker 3: now it does make sense having seen it in the
Speaker 3: style of it. But that is sort of seems so
Speaker 3: far away from from everything that you've done.
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, I just slowly, I guess, moved into
Speaker 1: more things that are an experience for me. After Control,
Speaker 1: I got all these other music bios offered, and I thought,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go that direction. You know, if
Speaker 1: I do an all the film at all, which I
Speaker 1: never thought I would because I thought Controllers of one
Speaker 1: film I might be able to make. Because of all
Speaker 1: the awartive gods, I got so much attention, I got
Speaker 1: an agent and all that stuff, and then I got
Speaker 1: this script I called a very Prideful Gentleman I think
Speaker 1: it was called There was an a very English book.
Speaker 1: I thought, well, I don't want to work again with
Speaker 1: Englis actors could have done that, But I do want
Speaker 1: to make something that's fictional because I don't have a
Speaker 1: very different experience. I don't want to control film to
Speaker 1: be a lucky lucky break, you know. I want to
Speaker 1: see if I actually can make a film about other things.
Speaker 1: So I went into Color. I want wanted an American
Speaker 1: actor to have that experience, and like I said, I
Speaker 1: wanted it to be a fictional story. So I changed
Speaker 1: some things. I actually wanted to make a vestern, but
Speaker 1: I put some vestern elements into that film, and you know,
Speaker 1: I looked what I could do, and George were interested
Speaker 1: to work with me.
Speaker 3: So and did you enjoy the experience of because that's
Speaker 3: obviously not just you in a camera or you and
Speaker 3: one assistant. That's a huge team and you're in charge
Speaker 3: of this huge moving thing. And did you did you?
Speaker 3: You've obviously done that on control as well.
Speaker 1: It's obviously so there was a it was a transition
Speaker 1: in a way of control because I was smaller and
Speaker 1: that felt more. Yeah, something I had to handle on also, financially,
Speaker 1: all my money went into that film, which I still
Speaker 1: don't have back because there was some other irregularities there.
Speaker 1: But this was a proper American studio film, so it
Speaker 1: was quite a different experience, and I wanted to have
Speaker 1: that experience. I wanted to see if I can actually
Speaker 1: function that way. And I mean there's some bits that
Speaker 1: I think, okay, but overall, I'm very happy with that.
Speaker 1: And it's also the kind of film nobody makes anymore.
Speaker 1: So I think that's quite beautiful about it.
Speaker 3: Did you enjoy it?
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean I found it very stressful, to be honest,
Speaker 1: but it's also yeah, I think about it with real
Speaker 1: love because you spent a few months in one place
Speaker 1: and that was a brutto in Italy. This is a
Speaker 1: great place, beautiful, so you never have that photography. You
Speaker 1: go in and out of all kinds of places, but
Speaker 1: here you stay in a long time. From where you
Speaker 1: rent something, just stay in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well I loved it and I loved the new film.
Speaker 3: And then Tom, thanks very much for coming on Midnight Chats.
Speaker 1: It Stewards, thanks my pleasure.
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