-I’ve just got my copy of the Apple Box, and I’m very excited at seeing this and, well, it’s nice to talk to you about this!
“I’m glad you got a copy, that’s how it should have come out about ten years ago. ”
-Yes, that’s what I wanted to ask, because this box seemingly tells us that this body of music was conceived as a single work, while we have known it subdivided into two records, and actually they do sound as two different albums so I would like to know more about that.”
“Right. Actually before I start, are you taping or writing?”

-I’m taping with a digital recorder.
"Oh great, I can then speak at full speed.”
-Yes, just be aware that I’m not a native English…
”Oh, I’ll make it three quarters! [laughs]… sorry, what was the first question?”
-First question was: we have known the two Apple Venuses as two separate albums, and now you are suggesting that this was conceived as a single work, so I would like to know why it was split into two albums, also with a certain lapse in time, and…
”Right, OK. Well it really was…this is really the best of the material that came up over about a five year period, from about ’92 to ’97. We actually had forty-something songs, and these were about the best of them. And I really wanted at that time - because we’d been out of the public eye - I knew that when we recorded again, when we were free from Virgin and we recorded again, that anything we did would be perceived as some sort of comeback. And so I rather liked the Stalinist idea of “quantity having a quality all of its own”, then I thought it would be a good think to put out the best of all the material that was forged in those very difficult times. And although they’ve been, I would say corralled in two different areas, one orchestral and acoustic and the other one much more electric, they were really conceived pretty much hand in hand, throughout a five year period, and I thought it was, it would be a good thing as an artistic statement to keep them together; but unfortunately, financially we just couldn’t manage to do it, we had TVT in America saying “no, you can’t put them out together, it’s going to be too expensive”, Cooking Vinyl didn’t want to put them out together in England, too expensive…, and shamefully I give in and said OK, we’ll put them out as two separate things, but I really wanted people, if they were going to see this as a comeback - which inevitably they would - I wanted them to be struck by its quality, and its quantity, like an entire museum for you: not just one or two rooms, you know. ”
-So, to get the finished version you eventually ended up working separately on the two track-lists starting with the tracks of Apple Venus 1, they were not processed at the same time, were they?
”Actually we started all of the material at the same time, because initially… personally, I was sure that I wanted to do all the orchestral stuff together, and then all the electric stuff together like two faces of the same coin: one is heads, one is tails. But Colin was not sure whether this was how he wanted to do it and Dave definitely wasn’t. Dave just wanted to take all of the material that he liked, whether it was electric or acoustic, and put it onto one disk, while I was very much against that… So, really like I said, I wanted it to be kept separate, I wanted it to be… obviously it’s the XTC coin, but it does have two different faces. It does have a noisier face and it does have a more… I guess adult face. ”
-Yes I agree. And it’s good to see all this body of music gathered finally.
”It’s the first time in history that we ever owned our own music. I can’t tell you how good that feels. ”

 

-And how come that after the contract with Virgin finally expired, you ended up being bound to another label, why didn’t you go independent right then?
”We never had the money to finance the recording. And unfortunately the recording was much much more expensive than I would anticipate. Just because, I think the speed of Haydn Bendall’s works is very slow, it’s very beautifully engineered, makes things sound wonderful but he’s very slow… Also, we literally had to record Apple Venus about three times, because the first time we recorded at an ex member of Squeeze’s studio, and he stole the tapes! So we had to start all over again, and we started it again and Dave and I were arguing, and I thought the music was really suffering, it wasn’t sounding so good, and so much of that was thrown out, and on the third time of starting with Haydn Bendall alone, then Haydn said “I can’t spend any more time on the project, you have to get someone else to work with”, and so we had to then spend to get Nick Davies to come and engineer to finish it off, so… really just making that one record, the Apple Venus, the one side of it, cost us, you know, three times at least what I thought it should have cost.”
-Yeah that’s too bad, but I understand it’s not the first time you had problems with producers and so on, so…
”Not too many problems actually, I think this is more… I thinks problems have been somewhat blown out of proportion in the past. The only producer that I personally have had difficulty with was Todd Rundgren.”
-And this is too bad, because the outcome of the work together with Todd was…
“Oh, it was great, yes! Great arranger… He’s a great arranger, he just has no people skills. And the way that he produces records, is I think… he likes to break the band to his will, much like you break a dog or you break a horse, and I was resisting being broken. But he’s a wonderful arranger, and I think he did a fantastic job on Skylarking. But he’s really the only producer that I really had a problem with, and then because Gus Dodgeon, who was a later producer - he produced Nonsuch - he got to read that I had problems with Todd Rundgren, he assumed that the problem was all my making, and so he was difficult with me from the first day of working, because he thought it must be my fault that I didn’t get out with another producer. ”
-And that’s again too bad because also in that case the result of the work was amazing…
”The result of the work was amazing much really because of Barry Hammond’s engineering, and Nick Davies stepping in at the last minute to mix the record, and I’m afraid Gus Dudgeon isn’t… I mustn’t speak ill of the dead, but he was not the best mixer. And like I said, those are really the only two producers that I had problems with, I’d say.”
-Then, coming back to the Apple Venus work, I would like to know why did you first issue the two instrumental albums, Instruvenus and Waspstrumental, which was the purpose and then why were they left out of the box eventually?
”Ah, OK… The purpose of it really was a curiosity, someone had said to me “I’d love to hear these records without the vocal side, I’d love to hear the arrangements, and sort of the construction of the music”, and I thought “well that’s a fascinating idea, we should try that”. So it was really nothing more than a kind of … a kind of curiosity thing, it’s like seeing your favourite film star, who’d know what she looks like, no clothes on. And it’s hopefully a satisfying curiosity, I know of some people that actually really liked it, the instrumental mixes, and they may well work if you haven’t heard the songs first, but obviously if you’ve heard the songs first they just kind of work at a karaoke level. ”
-Yes, that’s what I thought: I enjoyed very much listening to the demos, especially to Homegrown, which is more different from Wasp Star than Homespun is to Apple Venus 1…
“Oh yes!”
- …so I enjoyed very much those stripped-down versions and so on, but the instrumentals …
”… they’re a curiosity, they’re nothing more than a little curiosity, I wonder what she looks like naked! That’s all…”
-About collections: XTC have issued a lot of them, a lot of anthologies in the past, and some of their track-lists are really meaningful, I wonder which were the ones which you looked after personally, in which you choose the songs and their sequence, and which ones were complied by the label?
“Oh well… can you name any in particular? ”
-For instance, Rag and Bone Buffet…
“Oh that was dictated really by the tracks that somehow fell between the gaps: they were like the orphan children, you know? They were usually B-sides, or extra tracks or give-aways, or something that was an extra thing for the fans, in some way. I was a great believer in not ripping people off, because when I, as a teenager or in my early twenties, when I bought lot more records, I used to like to get value for money, and I tried to do that for people: when we put a single out, we tried to give them two disks, or when we put an album out we tried to give a free dub record, or a free single… then every single becomes an E.P… I like to give this value for money. And so really, Rag and Bone Buffet is those tracks that fell by the way aside, the orphan children, and I thought it would be a good idea to gather all this up and to make them into a disk. So really that was an attempt to kind of save forgotten pieces.”
-It seems that you are really interested in getting all of XTC’s music available, there’s lots of box sets, the Fuzzy Warbles that’s an incredible series, the Transistor Blast with all the radio sessions, the Coat of Many Cupboards… it seems that you really want us to get hold of everything.
”I think that’s kind of important, and I also think it’s … it’s sort of important that people hear the not-so-good things as well. If I like an artist, and when I say artist I mean a musical artist or a painter or a sculptor, or whatever, I like to see all they’ve done, I have a bit of a catalogue fetish, I like to find everything that is available. And when I can, I guess I try to exorcise that catalogue fetish with people who like XTC… give them a big selection of things. I think the more you see the more you can know, the more you walk the land the better you know the land; and the more you can love the land. And I think it’s the same with an appreciation of an artist, whether they are writers or painters or whatever. ”
-I agree completely, because I collect the music of just a few artists, and I really like to have everything of those few… Then next question is: how about the Dear God single, I don’t think it is available in any format, is it?
“You know… I don’t think it is! I mean, the track is on Skylarking and on Fossil Fuel which is obviously the chronological collection of the singles. But I don’t think it’s.. I mean, like most of our singles, they’re not available as stand-alone objects. ”
Then how about the Homo Safari sries, which was part of the Dear God E.P.?
“ Ah, nay, yes, they really have escaped! They really have escaped, that’s a side of my music that is like… I guess they’re related in some way to the Fuzzy Warbles, the glorious tradition of “where to put this unloved piece of music?”…
Is the Fuzzy Warbles series ongoing or…
“ There are two more, then I really must stop wallowing in past songs and move to the future. But I’ve been happy with the Fuzzy Warbles series so far, and there are some good things to come on 7 and 8. But then I must pull the blinds down and say: OK, new world, from now on. But the Homo Safari series I think are… I think they may be lost in the midst of time, I don’t think Virgin has any plans to release them in any fashion. So we’ll see, I mean I don’t own, I never will own, any of the songs that Virgin have. I think actually, if I remember correctly, my future relatives will get ownership of those songs seventy years after I’m dead.
Oh yes, but although I’m a little younger than you, I think it’s too far off for me!
“ Yeah [laughing], I feel very angry that I will never own my own songs! It’s very important for me to feel that I own the Apple Box material. It’s like the children coming home, you know, to their parents. But I have a lot of children that I will never ever see again, that’s the Virgin years.
I know… and as far as new music goes, I imagine you’ll have hundreds of new songs in the vaults, is that correct? You have always been very prolific as an author…
“ I do have a lot of music stored up, but I don’t know whether I’m happy with it, I don’t know whether this music reflects where I’ve been, and not where I want to go. I’m not sure where I want to go, I’m at a very strange time in my life, where I don’t want to repeat myself, I don’t want to repeat anything I’ve done previously. And by the same token I’m having trouble wrestling with the concept of more music, I don’t know whether I’m kind of growing tired of music, I’m not sure. I mean I’m at a very strange place at the moment.
Well, I hope you don’t grow tired… and what about the band asset that you have in mind when you speak of moving to the future, just Colin and you and sessionmen or what else?
“ I don’t actually like the thought of making a solo album, and I can’t tell you why… it’s as if in some way I would be almost piercing the heart of the XTC concept, killing it off and I don’t want the actual concept of XTC to die. At the moment, Colin is not writing anything, and I don’t want to be the one to say: OK, let’s make another XTC record, there are going to be all my songs and none of yours, because he would not be happy with that, and I wouldn’t be happy with that. I wouldn’t be happy carrying him along and he wouldn’t be happy just being a sessionman for me. So XTC… I feel it’s a kind of a megaphone, I think we should pick it up when we have something jointly important to say, but otherwise I’m really wrestling with the concept of a solo album, I don’t know if I want to make one. I’m kind of beautifully lost at the moment, I’m lost but I’m not too worried about it.
I was also wondering whether you have some interest in any new collaboration. In the past, for instance you have collaborated with two of my favourite recording artists, Peter Blegvad and Martin Newell, I’d like to know if there’s anything more like that planned for a future.
“ Peter and I are making mental notes to work on another project as soon as we can, but he spends a lot of time teaching at the moment, he lectures. One of the concepts we’re working on is the story of the blues, and it will sound nothing like conventional blues music, but that’s one of the umbrella-ideas that we’re working on. Also there’s a possibility of Chinese folk tales, turning those into a musical and a speech kind of thing. So I’d very much like to work with Peter as soon as he gets a little more time. With Martin I don’t know, I think Martin and I have fallen out a little bit; I asked Martin when I first set up Ape a couple of years ago, I asked all the writers that I knew that I really respected, will they come and be on the label, I asked Peter Blegvad and he was happy to, I asked David Yazbek in America, and he unfortunately for me - but fortunately for him - has gone into writing stage musicals, and I asked Martin Newell and Martin would not come and be on the label because he didn’t want me control his - or he thought I would control his musical output - and I felt very upset by this, and our friendship is a little cool at the moment.
Well, maybe I shouldn’t ask, but is there any chance to have you promoting this box on stage, at least with a single show, maybe on television?
“ Mmmmhhh… I think the visual of two middle-aged men struggling with electric guitars is not… I don’t know, I think unfortunately I seem to be stuck in a genre or media that’s best made by young men. It’s like jeans, actually I don’t think you should wear jeans when you’re over 40, and I almost feel that you shouldn’t have a guitar in your hand when you’re over the age of forty. It feels wrong, I don’t know… it is very much like football, I think the best footballers are probably between the age of 18 and 30, and I kind of feel that certainly with other bands, they do their best work like young footballers, and sadly too many of them don’t know when to retract and pull back, and you have the rather pathetic show of older bands churning out pale imitations of their past, because they’re addicted maybe to the adulation, addicted to the applause… it’s rather a sad sight in many cases, and I don’t want that to be the case for XTC. I think XTC, when we gave up touring, that was at the right time: it was certainly at the right time for my sanity! But it was the right time for us to explore more what the recording studio did. And although there’s a lot to be said for older musicians working in other fields, maybe jazz, maybe orchestral music, I think music made with guitars and drums is probably best done before you’re thirty. I think that freakishly we got better since the first recording onwards onwards onwards… we actually got better, and that isn’t supposed to happen in popular music. Your first couple of albums are supposed to be great, and then you start to go downhill or disappear. Most bands have a life-line of about five years. But in five years, we were just beginning to get going! And you know, by the time we got to Skylarking, we were pretty good, by the time we got to Nonsuch, we were even better, by the time we got to Apple Venus better still, but that’s not normal, that’s freakish.
Do you suggest your choice of staying away from the stages has to do with that?
“ Certainly. Actually, I can put my finger on exactly why we got better, it’s because we’ve not been successful.
Well… not successful on a very large scale maybe but…
“ Not successful on a large scale, certainly but… generally the fact that we’ve not… how can I explain this?… the dream that I had when I was younger of what I would like to do in terms of making records and the acceptance that they would get… I guess I haven’t made the money and the acclaim that I thought I would make. And because we never had that money and acclaim, the hunger was not fulfilled. And I think that the lack of acceptance has been a fantastic battery for me, a fantastic battery to keep me going. I’m really thankful that we’re not more popular.
I wish you could go on much longer, maybe even with a lot more of success, I think you’ve come to an age at which you can manage it…
“ [laughs] Oh maybe, but I’m really very happy that we weren’t more successful, because it kept me hungry and it kept me willing to make better better better better…

 

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