Host: Julian Fisher
Guest: Hugh Cornwell

JF: Hello and welcome to today’s show brought to you by Qsheet. I’m delighted to be joined today by Hugh Cornwell, singer-songwriter, former front man for the Stranglers. Good afternoon Hugh. We’ve just realised before the show started today, I last saw this guy in 1977 in Bracknell Sports Centre on the ‘No More Heroes’ tour, maybe a little bit more about that later, but we’re here today Hugh to discuss the new album ‘Dirty Dozen’.

HC: Okay, great.

JF: When’s it out?

HC: It’s out the end of September, 25th I think. Yeah.

JF: Pleased with it?

HC: Yes, yeah it’s a collection from a much larger body of live work, of which there’s like 45 tracks we recorded at the end of a tour, because we were hot on all of them so we thought we’d record the lot. So it’s a collection from a selection of 12 of those and the rest, the whole thing will be available as a mail order triple album, but I can’t get a triple live album in the shops. Led Zeppelin can but I can’t. I can get a single live album in the shops.

JF: Right so there’s a single live album in the shops, but you can buy the whole package, if you want, online. Is that quite exciting when you’re on tour and you, was that quite a spontaneous decision going ‘this stuff is great, let’s get it down on…’

HC: Yeah, yeah it was actually, we’d started off the tour and I’d suddenly realised we had all this material we were working on, and then we suddenly realised that at the end of the tour we were going to be in one place for three nights running so I thought ‘my god, well this is a perfect opportunity, we’d be mad not to try and get all this down on tape’ so that’s what we did.

JF: Well we’re going to listen to a clip of this shortly. Hopefully we can listen to the clip from the album ‘Dirty Dozen’ very shortly. But before we do that, let’s take a first question from Jamie actually. Jamie asks ‘what made you decide to base Dirty Dozen on your live sessions at Islington Academy?’

HC: For that reason that we were going to be at that place for three nights running, and it was the end of the tour so it was simple to just record the last three nights.

JF: How do they compare to other gigs?

HC: Well I mean by that time we had all the 45 tracks completely up and running, it was exactly the same level of prowess of performance so it would’ve been a bit of a wasteful exercise to record any of the earlier gigs I think.

JF: You’d kind of reached a peak by then?

HC: Yeah we were peaking, then absolutely, that’s the word – peaking.

JF: Jamie also asks, ‘Is the album all pre-recorded stuff or is there new material on there too?’

HC: It’s all from my catalogue, be it Stranglers or my solo albums as well. There are no new songs going to be featured on it, no new songs on it.

JF: So kind of a ‘greatest hits’ live as it were.

HC: Yeah, it’s a moment in time where we had all these songs up and running and it just seemed like a good idea to put them all down.

JF: Okay, well Nigel’s got a question for us – ‘How does Hugh decide the balance between new and old materials?’ When you set a tour itinerary out, that must be quite a tough one, running all of this?

HC: Yeah well...

JF: You’ve got such a rich collection of songs, how do you decide what order? What do you start with, what do you finish with, what goes in the middle?

HC: Well part of the reason is that part of the logistics is taken out of my hands because I’ve reached a format now where I do a Stranglers song and then one of mine, and I alternate, so that takes 50% away of it because I know I’ve got to start with a Stranglers one and I’m going to follow it with one of mine, so that takes a lot of the difficulties out of it, and then I’ve just got to decide which one’s a good opener, which one’s a good follower.

JF: Sure. I’m interested in this kind of balance of musicians. You’ve got a great back catalogue but also want to remain creative and bring out new stuff.

HC: Exactly.

JF: I saw Lou Reed recently at the Isle of Wight festival, he refused to play anything out his back catalogue whatsoever, and the the audience were just massively disappointed. But he said, ‘that’s my history, I want to play new stuff’. How do you balance your need to want to be fresh and new and the audience’s need to wallow in that…it’s literally kind of 50/50.

HC: Absolutely and I’m really happy doing that, and everyone seems to be quite happy. The Stranglers fans love it because they just have to wait three minutes between Stranglers’ songs, they can like switch off or go to the bar! ‘Oh it’s one of his I’m going to go to the bar’. And the new people, the people who want my stuff, they – the same thing – ‘Oh well it’s a Stranglers’ one I’ll go to the bar now, or I’ll go and have a leak’ you know, so it pleases everyone and I’m, if they’re happy, I’m happy.

JF: Maybe some lessons there for the likes of Mr Reed and others….

HC: Well I mean I didn’t know that Lou was doing that but I know that Bowie – I saw Bowie a couple of times a few years ago and he had a new album out but he only did three songs from his new album.

JF: I saw that tour too.

HC: In two and a half hours and I thought he’s obviously doing it for reasons because he realises that people, although they might like the new stuff, it’s going to take them a while to digest it and get used to it, and recognise it so, so don’t give them too, you know, be kind to them, you know.

JF: In two or three tours time that new track will then be the one they’ll remember.

HC: Exactly.

JF: I’ve got a question here from Davie G – ‘What motivates you to continue making records?’ I mean how many is this?

HC: This is, well because it’s live it doesn’t really count as a solo album because I always count studio albums as being solo albums but I’ve done 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 – the next solo album will be my 8th or 9th, no 9th, and I did 10 with the Stranglers so I’m nearly getting on parity now.

JF: So what is it that keeps you going?

HC: Well if I’ve got enough, well I’ll make a record when I’ve got the songs so if I haven’t got the songs you won’t hear a record but I’ve got enough songs for a new albums so there’ll be one next year, which is slightly quicker than I’ve been doing recently, I’ve been doing it every five years I think, or is it four years, but this is going to be two years so it’s quite quick, I must be speeding up.

JF: Do you enjoy that luxury of being able to go ‘Do you know what, I’ve got nothing so it’s going to be a while’ or ‘Hey do you know what, I’ve just written a dozen songs in a week and I’m going to put something out’. Does that give you some freedom?

HC: Yeah it does. I mean I don’t survive on the release of a new record; I survive mostly on a familiar back catalogue and live work, so a new record isn’t necessarily an essential part of my existence. But if I’ve got enough songs then I’ll do one.

JF: Because some record companies insist on every six months, or every year you’ve got to have…

HC: Yeah I’m not with a record company like that.

JF: Are you enjoying that - the freedom?

HC: Yeah it’s great.

JF: Excellent. Deacon wants to know, ‘What inspires your lyrics?’ Well he’s got two questions, first of all – where do you draw your inspiration?

HC: I just write about things that happen to me. You know I remember reading somewhere someone said – always write about something you know about, because if you write about something you don’t know about, you’ll come unstuck. And so I’ve always written about things that I know about and the things I know about are things that happen to me, and my impressions of people and places and things, and things – just stories and stuff so I focus on that and somehow within those lyrics I try and put a view on life as an added sort of thing just for myself because if I was just writing lyrics about things that happened without getting any sort of conclusion out of it that would be very unfulfilling but the fulfilling part comes in trying to draw some sort of a conclusion or develop one’s moral standpoint or philosophical view about things or about life, you know.

JF: So based on that, Deacon’s second question is – which of your songs are you most proud of? Are they the most intimate?

HC: No, I mean they can be anything. I’m proud of all the lyrics because they’ve always been written in the same way so they’re all equally as important as the other one. Simple really.

JF: Nothing really that if someone said ‘Okay, it’s all over tomorrow, name the one song that you are the most proud of?’

HC: It’d be too difficult. Probably one that hasn’t been recorded, you know, a newish one that no one’s heard yet and I go ‘Oh, this one’ do you know what I mean because that one is, no one knows that one so you go.

JF: Absolutely, there’s an assumption that the best is yet to come.

HC: Exactly.

JF: Excellent. James wants to know ‘You’re originally a blues musician’ – I wasn’t aware of that?

HC: Really?

JF: Were you?

HC: I wasn’t aware of that either!

JF: Okay.

HC: I’ve had the blues a few times but…I’ve had the reds as well!

JF: Well, the follow up was ‘Is that a particular genre of music you draw inspiration from, whether you started there or not?’

HC: Well I did, actually I have to own up to listening to blues when I was a kid, one of my brothers was a big blues fanatic, my older brothers, and so I heard a lot of Sonny Terrybrown, McGhee, Led Belly, you know, Howling Wolf, all this stuff – I was exposed to that when I was like 12 or 13 years old. When you’re exposed to it you’re not actually drawing, asked to form an opinion so you’re just experiencing it so it took me a while to form opinions of it and some of it I liked and some of it I didn’t like, and then through that I got interested in things like Chuck Berry and black musicians like Bo Diddly and stuff like this that were sort of rockin’ a bit, and it sort of went from there but I couldn’t really say I was a blues musician, but I listened to a lot of that stuff when I was starting yeah.

JF: What other genres have inspired you down the years, or influenced you?

HC: Well I had a very complicated childhood in the sense that my dad was into classical music, my eldest brother was into blues, and country and western, and then my second eldest brother was into Queen and Hendrix.

JF: That must’ve been one heck of a fight over the record player on a Saturday afternoon!

HC: Well I didn’t have a listen on it but I mean I didn’t have a go because I was the youngest, but I got all these bloody things thrown at me all the time and I again, with no control over it, so it was a totally uncontrolled musical experience, and it was quite, I couldn’t…

JF: Do you think that makes you a better musician because you can draw from so many sources of inspiration?

HC: It just means I sometimes things come out and I don’t know where they’ve come from. I say ‘where did that come from!?’

JF: A little bit of Shostakovich just suddenly jumps out at you or…

HC: I dunno. No he didn’t like Shostakovich, my dad liked, I mean he used to like Benny Goodman as well so he likes sort of jazz as well you see.

JF: So jazz and blues.

HC: He liked that as well. And then my eldest brother was into Art Blakey, Jazz Messengers and all the sort of bee-bop jazz and stuff so there was all sorts of stuff.

JF: So listening to the new album, can we play that game of trying to pick where you’ve got your influences?

HC: Well it’s retrospective the album isn’t it so there aren’t; there’s a few odd things in there. I don’t know, I’ll have to try that when I get home.

JF: Well, why don’t we try it now? I think we’ve got a little compilation, so that was a neat little link there. We’ve got a short compilation of some of the tracks from the new album out. So – Hugh Cornwell, and the album’s called?

HC: Dirty Dozen.

JF: Okay well there’s a selection from Hugh’s new album, ‘Dirty Dozen’ – we’re halfway through the chat with you Cornwell, and those clips there, obviously all from the old days.

HC: All Stranglers songs.

JF: We were listening to ‘No More Heroes’ and while we’re listening to it you said you’ve adapted that more for the current World Cup theme.

HC: Well you know, you said you always liked the references to people in it and I said ‘Oh well I’ve got a new reference now I’ll put Zinedine Zidane in when I do it live now, because he’s a perfect example of no more heroes, he was a hero and now everyone thinks he’s not a hero any more because of his behaviour so I think he’s just played straight into my hands.

JF: How did you work the lyrics in?

HC: Whatever happened to Zinedine Zidane, gave a head-butt, which got him sent off. You know, simple really.

JF: Any more? You feel like adapting that?

HC: No, now I feel that I’ve got the licence now to just change it whenever I like which is great you know. Sometimes I put Tony Hancock in if I feel well disposed to Tony Hancock.

JF: How is it playing old Stranglers tracks? Do you get bored with it? Do you try and reinvent them? Do you like to play with them?

HC: Exactly, if I can play with them, then I’m happy about it. But also, as I’m only a trio, I go out as a three-piece and we don’t carry keyboards on the road and I’m really glad it frees up, there’s a lot of freedom and space now, the three of us can have a lot more fun on stage as well, there’s a lot more freedom for the bass to play, and I can wig out on the guitar so it’s freed up a lot of space on the stage, in the sense of sonically, so when I do the Stranglers songs they don’t sound the way they used to sound they sound sort of different so I kind of like that.

JF: Well they don’t sound to me like covers, they sound like reinventions.

HC: Reinventions, yeah I like that.

JF: But what’s still there is your very distinctive voice and that driving bass line that always, sort of, the Stranglers to me is that voice, and that just urgency.

HC: And you didn’t even realise there were no keyboards on it when I mentioned it to you earlier. You went ‘isn’t there?’ So there you go, you didn’t even notice they were missing.

JF: Joey asks ‘If the Stranglers hadn’t made it, what do you think you’d be doing now? Would you still be recording or would you be doing something else?’

HC: I’ve no idea, I might be a cab driver.

JF: Always appealed has it?

HC: I don’t know, I might have been a cartoonist, I might have been a, I don’t know, I might have been a busker, you never know – dunno. I wouldn’t have been a doctor, because my parents wanted me to be a doctor, but I didn’t fancy the responsibility.

JF: Were you a rebel, is that how you got into the band in the first place?

HC: God no, I wasn’t a rebel no.

JF: Because in that era, everyone always assumed everyone in a punk band was a rebel.

HC: Oh I see, no I was a failed biochemistry graduate, I wasn’t any good. I used to love it but I wasn’t any good at it, so in life, you have to really do something that you’re good at because if you do something you’re not good at you’re never going to feel very happy that you’ve achieved something. Even if you don’t enjoy it, it’s the very fact that you’re doing something, how many times have you met people who’ve said ‘oh, I hate my job, but I’m good at it’? And that’s absolutely right, that’s what you’ve got to do. There’s no point in saying ‘I love my job but I’m awful at it’

JF: So to answer Joey’s question, you would just have done whatever you enjoyed doing? You just happened to be a musician?

HC: Yeah, exactly, yeah.

JF: Well, I mean, we heard a bit of the Stranglers stuff there earlier. Sasha wants to know, why is it, I think you may have dealt with this earlier, but why is it that despite leaving the Stranglers your set still comprises a lot of the Stranglers material?

HC: Well I think we dealt with that earlier didn’t we?

JF: I mean, it’s because the audience want it.

HC: Yeah but then they might want all Stranglers but I’m not going to give them that because if I did that there would be no point in leaving the band. So I do a lot of my own stuff as well, so I get off and they get off.

JF: How is the relationship with the band?

HC: Well we don’t really talk. I mean they spend a lot of time trying to pretend I never existed, which I find a bit sad, because I did contribute a lot to the band and it would be nice to know that one’s efforts were appreciated you know, and I put a lot in for 17 years so that upsets me a bit but I mean I wish them all the best of luck. They’re still doing it and musicians always want to play music because they love doing it – that’s obviously why they’re doing it and I wish them all the best, yeah.

JF: Well I might as well ask this question before somebody else asks – they’ve been without their primary lead singer now for a month or so, is there ever any danger of the two of you ever working together in any way, shape or form?

HC: No I left all that behind me 15 years ago, I’ve worked very hard over the last 16 years to establish myself the way I am now, so I see no reason to go back.

JF: Phil wants to know, were you ever worried about how the opinions of your former bandmates would be received when your autobiography came out? Fairly forthright…

HC: Yeah well it’s fair enough, I mean I wanted to be honest and even-handed, you know, and I do appreciate the fact that the truth always depends upon where you’re standing, and I realise that my truth might be different from theirs, but that’s a given, so that’s fair enough, but I did point that out in the introduction, that I realise that my truth might be different from other people’s, but that’s one of the things I pointed out at the beginning of the book.

JF: Well I think you’ve always been known for being very straight, any media articles; you’ve been very honest, sometimes to the point of directness.

HC: Well I try to be, yeah I try to be because in the end all we’ve got is the truth really in the end that we can be sure of.

JF: Okay well I think we’ll close the Stranglers chapter there; it’s been well and truly documented. Jeremy wants to know, ‘What’s been the biggest highlight of your career so far?’ Is that part of the past or part of the present or, talking about optimism, is it still to come?

HC: I mean I really enjoy the position I’m in, I feel very privileged to be doing something that I enjoy doing, and I’m pretty good at it, and I make a living out of it, and I get to travel, and I get to meet loads of new people all the time, and I have great fun, and I feel that’s the highlight of it really. You couldn’t really separate it out into different bits, I couldn’t really ask for a better way of living really, and I just hope I can maintain good health because I think that without that you’re nothing really.

JF: Well you look at some of the Rolling Stones still playing the kind of gigs they’re doing at their age and they’re still having an absolute ball.

HC: Amazing.

JF: I mean, do you draw any inspiration from bands like that. Do you think ‘do you know what, they’re still reinventing themselves?’

HC: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it’s amazing.

JF: There is an era of bands from the 60s and 70s and early 80s where people still want to see them, still want to hear them, and to see bands reinventing, refreshing themselves. To me actually, it looks great, it looks positive that guys have still got something new and fresh to say, and not just playing the same sort of, a tribute act.

HC: Yeah. I mean, because once you stop working and being active what are you going to do? You’ll probably end up sitting in a room and just shrivelling up and shrivel up, as Divo said one day. You’ll just shrivel up and die, so what’s the point, or what good is that going to do anybody? Better off trying to stay active and keeping your brain sharp and then maybe you can embrace change because that’s the most important thing about life is being able to embrace change I think.

JF: I mean one of your passions outside of music is cricket.

HC: Aw cricket!

JF: And we’re in the middle of a test at the moment and if anyone could give us a live score we’d be most grateful!

HC: Yes yes! We’re looking pretty good at the moment. I’ve got big cricket connections. I just love cricket. I’m really sick, I actually go abroad to watch test matches.

JF: Are you one of the barmy army?

HC: Not quite but they’re making overtures, but they’re great guys.

JF: They’ve got a band!

HC: Eh?

JF: They’ve got a band!

HC: They have a band?

JF: Yeah, I mean they collect musical instruments up, loosely call them a band.

HC: Well I don’t know if you’d call it a band, yes I suppose they have! And it’s great fun to go abroad and watch a game, it’s just fantastic.

JF: And a voice in my ear says they’re 390 for 8 so…

HC: Oh right.

JF: So still going strong. Where does it, is it something since childhood?

HC: Yeah because when I was growing up my dad used to, he was a draftsman in the old sense of the word where he used to do plans and things, drawings, technical drawings on a, with a T-square on a drawing board. And when he was doing that he used to have the cricket on, I always remember him having the cricket on in the summer listening to the commentary so I was…

JF: Were you on that earlier this year?

HC: I was indeed yes; one of my big childhood fantasies came true. Actually met Blowers and Aggers and Vic Marks and Mike Selwood – brilliant. CMJ – fantastic, buzz.

JF: Again, talking about ambitions realised…

HC: Yeah it’s great.

JF: Well we’ve got to get back to the music, that’s what we’re here to talk about.

HC: Oh really?

JF: Well we could talk about cricket a bit more but…Well, we have a question from Lock and Lock wants to know ‘how do you kick back and relax when you’re not making music?’ Is it cricket, do you have other things outside?

HC: Cricket, yeah I like to keep fit so I’ve just discovered swimming, I swim a lot, I like doing that, and I love the countryside – fresh air and stuff, and playing cricket and reading and travelling.

JF: Talking of travel, a question in from Craig, have you ever wanted to break America, tour America either in a previous incarnation or…

HC: Ah yeah. Yeah, everyone wants to break America it’s such a big, great country and it’s a fabulous place to visit as well. I love America; it’s just a land of extremes. I think we’re earmarking 2007 as being our American onslaught.

JF: Fantastic. Going to take a tour on the road, take the band?

HC: Yeah we’re going to do a bit of work there next year.

JF: Because I know it’s a cliché but it’s a vast country and you have to really play an awful lot of gigs just to even get noticed over there.

HC: Yeah you have to do that.

JF: Is that an extension of the tour you’ve got coming up this autumn?

HC: Well we’re just trying to line something up now but it’ll probably take a big chunk of next year out I think.

JF: Just kick back and relax?

HC: Ah?

JF: Just kick back and relax after the tour and..

HC: Yeah, just you know, I do whatever’s necessary that’s it. As long as the dressing room’s okay and hotel’s quiet I’m happy.

JF: Toby wants to know ‘what’s your view on the current rock/indie scene in Britain?’ Do you listen to the new bands – Franz Ferdinand, Razorlight.

HC: Well funny you should ask that because I’ve just been, I’ve just come back from Sheffield, I’ve been working with a new band in Sheffield. And Sheffield is the Liverpool beat-boom of the 60s reincarnated. It’s absolutely amazing up there, there’s tons. The Arctic Monkeys have opened the floodgates, I’m not particularly a big Arctic Monkeys fan but they have their influence has been incredible up there and they have opened the floodgates and all these young kids all forming bands and they’re pretty good a lot of them too. And it’s a great music community, and its beat groups, its rock groups, its beat bands, you know.

JF: Does this take you back, because as a teenager in the 70s for me the huge breath of fresh air, why I loved the Pistols and the Clash and the Stranglers was that everyone was out there making music, it was just back to year zero and to me the closest thing that has come to that is the music scene in the last couple of years.

HC: Absolutely, and I think the Arctic Monkeys are going to be seen as the Sex Pistols of, in the sense of influence, you know they’re influential, you know, what they’ve done.

JF: In the sense that, if you can play the instruments, you’ve got a couple of mates, you can get together, you can…

HC: Oh, and ‘Oh god, I can write a song about what I did on Saturday night! Oh I didn’t realise that – great!’ you know. So I’ve just been working with a band up there called the Cherokees and they’re one of those new bands and it’s fantastic.

JF: Are you writing with them or producing them?

HC: No I’m producing them.

JF: Is that something you enjoy doing?

HC: Well I don’t do it very often but they really wanted me to do it so I said ‘oh alright then’.

JF: Okay, well got a question here, well bit of a flip back actually – Denise wants to know, what was it like touring with Blondie last year?

HC: Fantastic! It’s fantastic. Debbie’s great, still doing it, and it’s nice to see them all again, a couple of nice new guys they’ve got in the band now which is nice, good.
So it was a very pleasant experience, we all were like a big family.

JF: Excellent, well I’ve got an enormous question here: Does Hugh discuss old times with his old schoolmates in the music industry?

HC: Yeah occasionally, yeah. I’ve got a couple of mates I’ve known for a very long time since before…

JF: Could be one of them asking this.

HC: Since before Stranglers days, you know, that long back so we sometimes kick back and try and remember people’s names and things like that you know, and ‘oh god, what’s happened to so-and-so?’ and they’ll always have died. Something like that anyway.

JF: One thing we haven’t really talked about yet is your tour.

HC: Tour yes, the tour! Hitting the streets of London and all the UK, certainly not the Streets of London, that’s a song isn’t it!? No we’re hitting the streets of the UK in October and I’m doing 12 dates starting in Brighton at the Comedia on the 11th of October and then going to Bournemouth on 12th, Stroud on 13th, Exeter on 14th, Cardiff on 15th, Leicester the 17th, Stratford-on-Avon on the 19th, Manchester on the 20th, Preston on the 21st, Glasgow the 22nd, Newcastle 24th, and ending in London on 26th at the Scala before heading off to Germany to do this whole thing again. And all those dates will all be on website stuff – myspace and all that.

JF: So you’ve got a profile on myspace?

HC: No, I’ve got my Hugh Cornwell.com, my website as well, so it’s all on those things.

JF: Lot of fan sites still out there, lot of online support? I put your name on google and there’s an awful lot of sites come up.

HC: There are yeah, it’s nice, people seem to be enjoying what I’m doing so – fine.

JF: And obviously as energised as ever for this, the album coming out, the tour coming up.

HC: New album next year yeah, which I’ve got to record. It’s all written, but I’ve got to record it, more decisions.

JF: Things are as positive as they’ve ever been?

HC: Yeah, yeah I think so. But the planet’s getting too hot, we’ve all got to buy those new light bulbs that cost 7 quid, because each one that you put in apparently, saves so much carbon, so we’ve all got to replace those. If everybody in the country did that, replaced all their light bulbs with those funny ones that glow a bit, we’d probably stop the temperature going up so much. Because it’s all too hot at the moment isn’t it, so we’ve got to do something about it, so I’d like to say something about that.

JF: Okay, well – Hugh Cornwell, singer-songwriter and eco-warrior, thank you very much indeed for coming in today, thank you very much indeed for all your questions, please catch Hugh’s album, Dirty Dozen, out on the…

HC: 25th September.

JF: 25th September, and tour starting on…?

HC: 11th October.

JF: Excellent, thank you very much indeed for coming in today Hugh.

HC: Cheers.