The Burning Up Times - Strangled.co.uk

Burning Up Times Issue 3
In your opinion, how does Rattus
compare to Heroes – musically and
artistically?
I don’t know – I never play them. Well, I
play the songs. I’ve also thought they were
very similar, but I’ve never been very much
good at being my own critic.
Lyrically, Rattus courts controversy
with Ugly, London Lady (to a degree)
and Sometimes and Heroes has I Feel
Like A Wog and Bring On The Nubiles.
Was there a collective consciousness to
provoke the public?
Yes, there was a bit. Yes, we wanted to be
lyrically outrageous. That was one thing
you could attribute a bit of planning to
because when you’re writing lyrics, you
say, wow – that’s a bit close to the knuckle
and stuff like that but then you’d say, fuck
it. That’s what I want to say. So there was
a bit of discussion about that, whereas
there was much less discussion about the
music.
And had it served its purpose by the
following LP Black & White?
I couldn’t give you one lyric off the cuff
now.
In The Shadows, and 5 Minutes
effectively point to a harder-edged
musical direction. Was this a conscious
decision to evolve, or a natural process?
By this point, we’d got through all the
songs that we’d acquired from ’74 to ’77
and we were having to sit down and write
songs for an album, which we’d never
done before. And so, partly because of
where we were in our evolution, within
our environment, the process by which we
got songs together had slightly changed.
That in itself, had some effect on how
songs came out. It would be very diffi cult
to rationalize that and describe precisely
the process, except to say it’s the way
music evolves. Not only your ideas but
your abilities and sensibilities – your
environment – all play a part in how music
comes together. We were in different
times, it’s as simple as that.
Are there any tunes you brought to ring
yourself in these early years?
Yes, but it wasn’t until much later on that
any of mine appeared on any records.
Psyche…
You must have felt pressure to not only
perform, but be the bands’ chief organiser
and linchpin?
No, I just did what I felt came naturally.
My philosophy in the early days was
everyone in the band – ‘cos we’ve always
been a very democratic band, everyone
is a business equal and an artistic equal
– and the philosophy has always been
everyone should do and contribute what
they’re good at. Only occasional times
when there have been lapses from that
when people tried to do things they
weren’t actually good at, we encountered
a few problems. So early on, I thought
if I was the best at doing certain things,
I made sure I did them, and exactly the
same for everyone else but different in
each case.
It might be said you and JJ are as polar
opposites, not least astrologically.
Would you describe it as a sometimes
fraught relationship – and compared to
nowadays?
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