Graham Parker

Is No Ordinary Dude

by John M. Borack

After recording 15 albums' worth of biting, incisive, lyrical, spirited rock 'n' roll, Graham Parker is taking a break. Well, sort of; he's not working on a new album, but he is working on a novel, titled Hatemail. When asked how penning a novel differed from writing music, he offered an explanation that sums up his music quite nicely. With songwriting, he explained, "You grab somebody and shake their emotions up in three minutes."

Graham Parker has been shaking things up since 1976, when his classic debut album, Howlin' Wind, was released. That album (as well as its follow-up, Heat Treatment) showcased Parker's love for the music that he grew up listening to in bis native England: soul, R&B, reggae and ska all figured prominently in the mix. His lyrics were (and always have been) dead-on, often caustic observations that recalled the best of Bob Dylan's poetic lyricism (Parker would encourage one of his many record labels to place a sticker on the front of one of bis CDs that stated "Caution. Contains worthwhile lyrics!")

Parker's snarling, soulful voice was complemented by the hard-driving backing provided by bis band, the Rumour (guitarists Brinsley Schwarz and Martin Belmont, bassist Andrew Bodnar, keyboardist Bob Andrews and drummer Stephen Goulding).

Although the Rumour's members were all pub-rock veterans, Parker's music definitely was not pub-rock. And even though Parker had a defiant, punky attitude - "If people expect me to do any one thing, fuck 'em," he told Trouser Press in 1978 - his music was far too polished and eloquent to be labeled punk.

Whatever one called it (white - or white hot - soul wouldn't be far off the mark), critics were effusive in their praise of both Howlin' Wind and Heat Treatment. The Trouser Press Record Guide called Howlin' Wind "a classic debut album, full of fine ideas fleshed out with ragged enthusiasm." Village Voice critic Robert Christgau, in his review of Heat Treatment, opined, "Parker doesn't just have the makings of a major artist, he is one."

Many of the songs on Parker's first two LPs remain his best, and best known: "Fools' Gold," "Don't Ask Me Questions," "Hotel Chambermaid," "White Honey," "Heat Treatment" and "Pourin' lt All Out" are all stone classics.

After the release of Howlin' Wind, the promo-only Live At Marble Arch appeared in Britain. It contained powerful live versions of many of the tunes on Howlin' Wind, as well as three appropriately soulful covers ("Chain Of Fools," "You Can't Hurry Love" and "Kansas City"). Following Heat Treatment, The Pink Parker, a foursong colored vinyl EP, was released. It included a fine cover of the Trammps' "Hold Back The Night," which became Parker's first single to chart (at #58) in the U.S.

Parker and the Rumour's next release was 1977's Stick To Me. Most critics denounced the LP's production (by Nick Lowe, who also produced Howlin' Wind, as well as one track on Heat Treatment) as muddy and stifling. The released version of Stick To Me was actually the second attempt at recording the album, due to a fiasco in the studio.

According to Parker, "There was a big problem on the tape: oxide was coming off ... we couldn't mix it. lt wouldn't balance and there was black stuff coming off the tapes. We only had a week to redo it." The album's highlight was a terrifically scary version of Anne Peebles' "I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down." Trouser Press loved the album: "Stick To Me had that self-assurance which suddenly made the earlier albums seem unsure and bucolic," wrote Jon Young.

In 1978 came the double live LP The Parkerilla. (Actually, it was three sides of live material, with the fourth side devoted to a bizarre "disco" reworking of Howlin' Wind's "Don't Ask Me Questions.") "If you think it's a little early for a concert album by Parker, who's not exactly Peter Frampton on the rack-jobber circuit, you're right ..." wrote Robert Christgau, and most other critics agreed. The Parkerilla was seen by many as a way for Parker to get out of his recording contract with Mercury Records (Parker didn't like the way his records were being promoted - or rather, not being promoted), but Parker denies this.

That is my faith in the listening public. They really want to be moved and taken somewhere by a song and they're not going to be distracted because the bass drum sounds like a pudding.

Either way, Parker soon found himself on Arista Records, whose first Graham Parker and the Rumour release was a promotional 45 not-so-subtly titled "Mercury Poisoning" that took deadly aim at Parker's former record company ("I've got mercury poisoning/it's fatal and it don't get better" was one of the nicer lyrics that Parker spat out).

Parker's first official release on Arista was what many acknowledge as his masterpiece, 1979's Squeezing Out Sparks. The Rolling Stone Record Guide gave it five stars, calling it "aggressively clear-headed and laden with pissed-off hooks." It was voted the Village Voice's "Pazz and Jop Album of the Year," and became Parker's first top 40 U.S. album. Gone are the soul influences, replaced instead by a terse, angry, guitar-dominated sound. Every song on the LP is a killer, especially the hard-rocking "Discovering Japan" (awesome drumming by Stephen Goulding), the slightly ominous "Passion Is No Ordinary Word" and the humorous "Local Girls" (which was released as a single, with a non-LP cover of the Jackson Five's "I Want You Back" on the flip side).

But the song that attracted the most attention was the chilling ballad, "You Can't Be Too Strong." Seen by many to be an antiabortion tune, Parker has grown weary of talking about the song over the years. He wrote facetiously in 1992 that "You Can't Be Too Strong" was "about ramming my fist so far down your throat you'll need to get a vasectomy to get it out." A promo-only album, Live Sparks, was issued to radio around this time; it contained raging live versions of every so'ng from Squeezing Out Sparks. Also in 1979, Dave Edmunds' Repeat When Necessary LP was reieased, its highlight being the hilarious, Parker-penned "Crawling From The Wreckage."

Parker's next release was his last with the Rumour, 1980's The Up Escalator (the Rumour released two albums on their own, Max and Frogs, Sprouts, Clogs And Krauts). Escalator was another collection of solid, passionate rock'n'roll. Highlights were "Endless Night" (which featured Bruce Springsteen adding backing vocals), the Stonesy "Stupefaction" (which was released as a U.S. single coupled with the non-LP B-side, "Women In Charge") and the raucous "No Holding Back."

1982's Another Grey Area found Parker shifting gears, teaming up with New York session cats to fashion a great sounding album that featured many strong tunes. Christgau wrote that, "By replacing the Rumour with studio regulars, he's lost the edgy drive that used to help his bitterness cut through ..." Regardless, the lovely "Temporary Beauty," the reggaefied "No More Excuses" and the accusatory rocker "Big Fat Zero" were all sturdy rock/pop numbers. Live versions of "You Hit The Spot" and "Another Grey Area" appeared on the B-side of the U.K. single "No More Excuses," while the previously unreleased "Habit Worth Forming" (written by Parker and Andrew Bodnar) was a U.S. B-side.

1983's The Real Macaw was something of a surprise, a fair-to-middling collection of tunes that found Parker mellowing a bit lyrically. "Anniversary" and "Last Couple On The Dance Floor" were smooth and romantic, while the buoyant "Life Gets Better" sounded like a surefire radio hit, but didn't click with record buyers. Razor and Tie Records has released Macaw (as well as The Up Escalator and Another Grey Area) on compact disc, with one bonus track included on each CD. Parker also placed a song on the Hard To Hold soundtrack album ("When The Lights Go Down") in 1984.

Parker re-emerged in 1985 on Elektra Records with Steady Nerves (credited to Graham Parker and the Shot, a combo that included old mate Brinsley Schwarz on guitar). The disc was rather uneven, but did include Parker's only Top 40 American hit, the Motown-ish ballad "Wake Up (Next to You)" ("Bricks And Mortar," a previously unreleased track, was the single's B-side). The rocking "Break Them Down" received some FM radio airplay also, while "Lunatic Fringe" remains a favorite of Parker's. "Too Much Time To Think" was released on the CD version only, while the horn-driven "Locked Into Green" only appeared on the vinyl release.

After an aborted alliance with Atlantic Records resulted in nothing being released, Parker began what can be described as phase two of bis career in 1988, that of the more acoustically-based, ever-so-slightly mellowing singer-songwriter who now feels comfortable writing about more peronal topics ("The Kid With The Butterfly Net" from 1991's Struck By Lightning is a touching song about children growing up), while still getting off his trademark rockin' blasts ("Short Memories," off 1992's Burning Questions, is a biting anti-war song).

The studio albums that Parker has released since 1988 (The Mona Lisa's Sister, Human Soul, Struck By Lightning and Burning Questions) are pretty much in this vein, and are all strong, involving pieces of work. (Rarities from this period include the U.K. version of Struck By Lightning - and its accompanying bonus EP-which includes a straightforward reading of Herman's Hermits' '60s bubblegum smash "I'm Into Something Good" and "Museum Piece," both of which remain unreleased in America; the 1988 B-side , "Ordinary Girl" (the flip side of the "Get Started, Start A Fire" single); and a 1992 promo CD that features Parker's take on the Who's "Substitute," as well as the non-LP "Class Act").

As Mike Boehm of the Los Angeles Times wrote in 1993, "On record, the Parker persona that has emerged over the years is one of a rough-edged, crusty spitfire from the wrong side of the tracks who, in his maturity, has come to realize that his best and truest self is the one that reaches for a softening, redeeming love."

Parker also began playing live as a solo acoustic act in the late '80s, which was documented on the fine Live! Alone In America set (1989) and last year's even better Live Alone! Discovering Japan, which includes ace covers of Billy Idol ("Sweet 16") and Bob Marley ("No Woman No Cry"). Parker's latest recording is a red-hot version of "Paralyzed" that he contributed to the Otis Blackwell tribute album, Brace Yourself!, that was released in early 1994.

In 1993, Rhino Records released a two-CD retrospective of Parker's best work titled Passion is No Ordinary Word - The Graham Parker Anthology 1976-1991 (it doesn't include any material from Parker's 1992 release for Capitol Records, Burning Questions, unfortunately). There have been numerous (at least seven) compilations of Parker's material released over the years, but Passion dwarfs all of 'em. It's a career-spanning set that's filled with 39 tracks of prime Parker (plus a track that was previously unreleased in the U.S., "Museum Of Stupidity," which slams such targets as the PMRC and rappers 2 Live Crew), and it makes an excellent case for calling Graham Parker one of the best - if not the best - singer/songwriter of his generation.

Goldmine chatted with Graham Parker shortly after the release of Passion Is No Ordinary Word, and found that while his patented "angry young man" image may no longer apply, he's definitely a long way from mellowing.



Goldmine: What do you think of the anthology on Rhino?

Graham Parker: I think it's a piece of work. I've had a few compilations done.

There was one in England done not long ago on Phonogram [1992's The Best Of Graham Parker And The Rumour], which was just Graham Parker and the Rumour and went up to The Up Escalator, I think.

Goldmine: lt actually goes up to "Mercury Poisoning." You wrote some brief liner notes for that, too.

Graham Parker: Okay, that came out and then there was the RCA thing; there was a brief time I spent with RCA, and they did a compilation.

But I think that this one is the best, and the first one for some reason that I've paid much attention to. I guess it's because Rhino's people just kept calling me saying, "We're doing this, we're doing that, what do you think?" So I was sent the tapes from Bill Inglot, who remastered the stuff for CD, and I was sort of impressed with it. I think it works.

Goldmine: It's definitely thorough.

Graham Parker: I don't listen to the old stuff much. lt generally annoys me and makes me wince. Understandably, listening back on one's past, but in this perspective, it impressed me.

Goldmine: How much input did you have on track selection?

Graham Parker: Well, actually, I had no input, but I was offered the input a few times. I had plenty of chances to say, "I don't like this one," but I just took one cursory glance at the list and said "Oh, yeah, it's the usual stuff, yeah, fine, that'll do, you know" [laughs]. Because, if I got really involved with that, I would pick all of the obscure tracks. I would pick the bad ones, you know, I would pick the oddball things because they're more interesting for me. But, now listening to this ... well, I haven't actually listened to the whole thing - that would be unbearable - but I've listened to bits of it, and these are good examples. They're the strong tracks, generally, to pick.

Goldmine: Just off the top of your head, are there any tracks that aren't on the set that you would have liked to have seen on there?

Graham Parker: Umm, the other day I was thinking that "I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down" would have been a good one, from Stick To Me. Maybe instead of "Watch The Moon Come Down." I do that ["Moon"] solo now, with a harmonica and everything, and I think it's much better. I prefer it. I don't know, what else ...

Goldmine: I know one that I would have liked to have seen on there is "Hotel Chambermaid."

Graham Parker: Yeah, now that one I'm not so keen on. I think "Pourin' lt All Out" is a pretty good choice and "Fools' Gold" frorn Heat Treatment. "Discovering Japan," definitely.

I don't know about "You Can't Be Too Strong." It's been sort of a bit overdone, I think. You know, they really wanted to take quintessential stuff and I think mostly they've done that.

Goldmine: In your liner notes included in the set, you're kind of self-deprecating toward some of your earlier work, like your vocals on "White Honey" and "Don't Ask Me Ouestions." Do you tend to be hard on yourself as a songwriter?

Graham Parker: Yeah, in some ways it's a dual thing. Sometimes l'll stick with something that isn't good enough and convince myself that it is. Other times l'll just tear everything up and say "I've gotta go further, I've gotta go further, this isn't deep enough."

In instances like "Get Started, Start A Fire" [from The Mona Lisas Sister], I had three versions of lyrics for that riff and they just weren't good enough until I just came up with that song and I knew that was it. So I am, yeah, I'm tough on myself. I try to go further with the stuff. And it's hard, you have to have the energy to do that. It's tough, but it makes the best work, really. And in the midst of all that, sometimes songs pop out that take 10 minutes, and they're really good.

Goldmine: Are there any songs that came to you just like that?

Graham Parker: "Museum Of Stupidity" is one [laughs], but it's not that great. I recorded that with the Struck By Lightning set, but it didn't fit to me, lyrically it wasn't right. lt was too ... let's see ... I can't think of a clever word ... straight ahead [laughs]. lt didn't go around things enough. It went straight to the point and started damning people that might censor.

Goldmine: There are a lot of people who deserve some damning in that song, I think.

Graham Parker: Myself, I'm in there as well. We'll all be hanging up in the Museum Of Stupidity, really, at the end of the day, but some people are hanging there more than others.

I think "The Kid With The Butterfly Net" probably popped out pretty quickly, and I know I wrote "Anniversary" in like 10 minutes and thought "Oh, that's not good enough." And it turned out that it was. lt hung together. It's hard to see when you write things whether they really have the integrity ... that's what it's about for me.

Sometimes some of the little throwaway things that take a few minutes to write, you just don't think that they really have the integrity. I mean, "Mercury Poisoning" is a bit of fun and all that, but I didn't think it had the integrity to be on Squeezing Out Sparks.

Goldmine: More of something you just tossed off?

Graham Parker: It's a toss-off thing, yeah. It's like, "Oh, my manager wants me to write a lot of songs about Mercury Records [laughs] 'cause we hate them so much." I wrote one and said, "That's it. That sums it up, I can't write any more." And that's what it was. There again, "You Can't Be Too Strong" was something that I just tossed off, and I thought, "I don't know about this."

First off, I had it in a country rhythm, that's how I wrote it. And [producer] Jack Nitzsche said, "Why don't you slow this down?" and I said "Oh, all right." And then it suddenly gathered this weight, you know.

Goldmine: That's one of the songs that you've become best known for, and I know that you're getting tired of talking about it.

Graham Parker: Yeah, that's one of my big ones, as it were. I don't have any explanation for it. It's just what it is. There's definitely no pro or anti with me, I'm not that kind of person. There's not many things where I say "This is how it should be, or this is how it shouldn't be."

Goldmine: That's something I've always found with your songs: people can put whatever meanings they want to to your lyrics, because they're not always cut-and-dried.

Graham Parker Yeah, I hope so. Nowadays, it's the thing to have your lyrics put on the records, right? Everybody, even people whose lyrics are sort of subhuman; you know, "Ooh baby, yeah," or "Do the New Jack with me baby, yeah," or whatever it is, real banal crap. But those lyrics are printed; you read some of this stuff and it's amazing. These people can barely string words together. I used to sort of like it in the days before that, when you tried to decipher what Mick Jagger was saying in "Tumbling Dice" and "Get Off Of My Cloud." You just read things into it. I think there's enough people with enough imagination to read into things what they will.

Goldmine: Going back now, what kind of stuff did you listen to while you were growing up?

Graham Parker: It depends on what period.

Goldmine: What kind of stuff influenced you the most?

Graham Parker: The first thing that I remember seeing on TV in England - now this might have even been pre-Cliff Richard and definitely pre-the Beatles - was this show from America, and it was this set that was made to look like a train station, and there was these black blues singers. Also, in England then we had this thing called Radio Luxembourg, which you could occasionally pick up in the car if you had a car radio.

At about 11 at night, I'd be with my parents or something, and you'd hear something coming over the airwaves. lt was really exciting [because] it was an American pop record, like maybe Martha and the Vandellas.

There was [another] show on TV, and this big black woman came on and played an electric guitar and wailed this song. And I'll never forget it, it was like, "Wow this is incredible!" That was something that really affected me. From then on in England we had the Beatles and the Stones, you couldn't get anything better than that, really. And then you found that it came from American R&B and soul music; they were copping a lot of it from that.

When I was 16 or 17 it was fashionable to be a mod; that doesn't mean like those kind of early Who mods with the hair sticking up - I mean like a skinhead. That's what Mods evolved into, the skinheads. And that was the look that a lot of us had, you know, Doc Martens and Levi's, which were still a real cool thing to have. Red suspenders and the white shirt and really short hair. I mean, brutal looking! That was what I looked like and lots of people had that kind of look in 1966. We got way off the Beatles and Who and all that; it was all black music, and it was all ska.

Nick Lowe told me a story: I think he went to Greil Marcus's house and Greil Marcus played him a bit of Stick To Me on his stereo and Nick said to Greil, "Well, I'm not surprised [you don't like it], look at this stereo! You shouldn't play it on a thing like this. This is a really expensive hi-fi. It's not made for hi-fis, it's meant for one of those Dansette record players with one speaker. What do you expect?"

Goldmine: So you kind of went back to the source, then?

Graham Parker: Right back to the source, yeah. And that was the really hip thing. It was a very exciting period to discover these Jamaican bands like Prince Buster and the Skatalites, and to see them in the local towns. They'd actually come and play in a suburban town, in a disco. It was wild, really. And Otis Redding - that was very important.

Goldmine: Did you ever see Otis Redding perform?

Graham Parker: No, I didn't. He was on, I think, in England not long before he died and I missed him. I don't know, I didn't see it in the paper or something happened. He was at some club called the Carousel Club. It was absolutely amazing, and I didn't get to see it.

Goldmine: Early in your career you were compared to Van Morrison, Springsteen and Dylan; later in your career you were compared to Elvis Costello, even though you predated him. What comparisons did you feel were the most unjustified?

Graham Parker: Being compared to Van Morrison and Dylan was fine by me. They were not such primary influences as soul music, but being a white person from England, the music would come out sounding more like Dylanesque/Van Morrison than Martha and the Vandellas. So that's fair enough. Being cornpared to Elvis Costello or Joe Jackson or whoever came after me, it's okay if they get the perspective right on it.

You know, if they balance the see-saw right, you know what I mean? There's been a tendency throughout the '80s to not balance the see-saw right at all, and people who have a small column of space will say "Graham Parker, who sounds like Elvis Costello."

Goldmine: When actually it's the other way around.

Graham Parker: Yeah, that's insulting to me. And I'm not putting down Elvis or anybody else. Springsteen is not a fair comparison because I was evolving at the same time, but he did make records before me. But I made two records before Mr. Costello had a record deal; he was signed to Stiff records, which my manager [Dave Robinson] started after he made some money with me.

Goldmine: How did Dave Robinson hook you up with the Rumour?

Graham Parker: I met Dave after meeting a couple of musicians in London. I knew nobody in London, I just put an ad in the Melody Maker and I met one guy, Noel Brown, who played slide guitar on "Soul Shoes." He introduced me to somebody else who introduced me to Dave Robinson. As a matter of fact, the guy who introduced me to Dave Robinson was in a band called Chilli Willi and the ... oh, what was it?

Goldmine: Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers.

Graham Parker: Yeah, I get them mixed up, cause you've got this band now that's the Chili Peppers [Red Hot Chili Peppers], or whatever. They made a record called Bongos Over Balham, which I never actually heard and would like to get a copy of. Suddenly I was mixing with people who had a bit of a name, and that had never happened to me before. I was just starting to try to do something at the age of 24. It was like, "I'd better make a move now."

Goldmine: And this was while you were shopping your demos around?

Graham Parker: Yeah, I was just doing a bit of shopping demos around and getting some pretty decent response, but no one was jumping at it. But I knew I was on the right track. I had written "Back To Schooldays," [and] I knew I was going somewhere then. That was after writing a lot of stuff that was a cross between James Taylor and Pink Floyd; basically that's what I was writing in the early '70s. I hadn't quite found my way out of this progressive rock hangover; I was still right in it and that's what I wanted to break.

I started getting back into soul music, you see. Once again in my life I got back into that, and combined it with sort of a progressive element. So I had that going, and when I met Dave Robinson he kind of finagled the band around me without me knowing it. He was doing demos with me and sort of bringing in these people to play. In fact, once we did this version of "Back To Schooldays" and he said [imitates Dave Robinson's Irish accent], "Oh, fucking sorry there, Graham, but I wiped the drums and bass off on that one accidentally, so I brought in these couple of guys, they're from a band called Bontemps Roulez, you'll love it, it's fine, don't worry about it."

I was a bit sensitive about this; obviously, you're young and this is my material, don't fuck with it. We recorded it, but he went and wiped the drums and bass just so that he could bring in Andrew Bodnar and Steve Goulding. It was all very Irish, you know [laughs]. Have you heard the Stiff Records boxed set?

Goldmine: I've seen it around, but I haven't picked it up.

Graham Parker: There's a version of "Back To Schooldays" on there which is a demo version. And it's got these drums and bass that were overdubbed after the track was done, and it's got a horn section and girl singers! I mean, it's really over the top.

Goldmine: Dave Edmunds did a really cool cover of that, too.

Graham Parker: Oh yeah, that was a great version.

Goldmine: And he played guitar on your version too, right?

Graham Parker: Yes he did, we brought him in. So Dave Robinson kind of delicately put these people around me - or not so delicately - and introduced me to this Brinsley Schwarz person, and this Bob Andrews person and I didn't really know anybody else, so I said "Okay, well, let's do it, then." Within a very short time, I had the record deal and that was it. We were off.

Goldmine: What I'd like to do is go through your albums one by one, getting your take on each one collectively, and also discussing some particular songs.

1976's Howlin' Wind seemed to be a gutsy reaction to the mid-'70s, boring, singer songwriter type of music. How would you rate that album today?

Graham Parker: Well, I think the first album's always got all this stuff on it that you've been waiting to spew out for years. Every song has got a real unique quality that some of the later albums don't have. Stuff like "White Honey" - I mean, I just couldn't write a song like that anymore. I'd like to be able to write something with that kind of rhythm and that kind of vibe, but it isn't there anymore. That was then, you know.

And the song "Howlin' Wind" will always be a strong piece of work. "Don't Ask Me Questions" had the whole Armageddon scenario, the whole end of the world apocalypse thing that I was going for.

Goldmine: A really snarling, angry vocal by you on that one, too.

Graham Parker: Yeah, yeah, and I think it could have been better, but you always do. The record will hold up forever for me. There ain't nothing wrong with that one, other than I hate the way that I sing.

Goldmine: There's definitely a lot going on musically on Howlin' Wind. There's some soul, R&B, reggae, rockabilly ... Was this a conscious effort on your part to make it as musically diverse as possible?

Graham Parker: Yeah, I suppose so. I mean, I was trying to show the world something. I was trying to say "Look, the progressive thing is dead, okay? It's over." You don't want to do a record that has two great songs, and the rest is "Let's sort of jam on this one, guys."

You know, a lot of records were like that then. There were people getting away with that left, right and center and selling millions. It was all very lackluster, see, so I was reintroducing the idea of "Every song's going to be great, everything is going to be unique and take you somewhere else."

And the first album is the place to do that, because you have the influences of a lifetime. I was young, I was 25 or 26 when the record came out.

My feeling is that a lot of my stuff is too intense to take. I don't want to listen to it. lt stabs me right in the eye, and I don't want to be stabbed in the eye all the time.

Goldmine: Were a lot of these songs written years before, songs that you'd been stockpiling?

Graham Parker: They started in '74, I'd say, when I started to hit on the groove of this kind of writing. Some, like "White Honey," I was writing just before doing the record maybe a few months before. I remember playing that to Dave Robinson backstage after a gig at the Hope and Anchor, and I was absolutely drunk out of my face.

I'd had three pints of beer right after a gig ... and I said, "Listen to this, Dave, listen to this," and I played it, and he said, "Oh, great! Shut up! Save it, save yourself!" [laughs] lt might go away, you know.

So I was still writing "Back To Schooldays" and "Don't Ask Me Questions," which wasn't a reggae song when it started out. They were written in '74 or '75.

Goldmine: How did you hook up with Nick Lowe as producer? Was that through Brinsley Schwarz or Dave Robinson?

Graham Parker: Dave Robinson said, "Let's just use Nick Lowe," and I didn't know any better, so I said fine [laughs]. Anyway, that was it. I didn't know what else to do, either.

Goldmine: Would you consider working with Nick again?

Graham Parker: I don't think I'd do a whole album, because what he does I think I can get an engineer and do something similar, really; there's no point, in a way. But it would be fun to do something with him.

Goldmine: Even though you were into different styles on Howlin' Wind, almost every song sounded like it could have been a hit single.

Graham Parker: Yeah, well, for me I grew up listening to hit singles on the radio. I didn't think that anything should be indulgent. That was another thing of getting away from the LP structure of the '70s. Where "Hey man, this song is five minutes long, shouldn't it be longer?" There was that attitude still going on, and I thought, "No, it's gotta go back to single length."

Goldmine: Get to the point and get to the next song.

Graham Parker: Yeah, it's got to go back to that, and Howlin' Wind was really an attempt to make an album that was full of my ideal hit singles. That's a good way of putting it, really.

Goldmine: Both Howlin' Wind and Heat Treatment, your second album, are filled with anthemic songs. Two of your the best tracks are "Pourin' It All Out" and "Fools' Gold." What can you tell us about those songs?

Graham Parker: They've got more of an anthemic, as you say, quality. I can remember that writing Heat Treatment was a lot harder because I came out with it six months after Howlin' Wind, I think. And I don't know where the songs came from, I'm surprised that they sort of hold up. I think there were a few dodgy ones on that, like "Just Something You're Going Through"; I'd sort of half-written it by the time of Howlin' Wind but I didn't think that it was good enough and I kind of cobbled it together for Heat Treatment.

"Help Me Shake It" was another kind of ... I was sort of fishing a bit there, it's sort of a cliche thing. The second album by a lot of hands is often a disappointment, and I'm surprised that Heat Treatment in retrospect hasn't turned out to be a disappointment to people. Critics and fans don't say Heat Treatment was a disappointment after Howlin' Wind; they all say it was pretty damn good, you know. I guess I was lucky, really [laughs].

Goldmine: The song "Heat Treatment" sounded like it was in the vein of "White Honey," the soulful thing with the horns.

Graham Parker: I was virtually stuck after Howlin' Wind. Dave Robinson said "Better get another record going, Graham, quick." And I'm like, "Oh shit! What do I do now? I've done it all." I was quite happy making Howlin' Wind and rnaybe poodling around a bit. I'd played gigs in London, and I thought I'd become a star, really, that was about it for me. That was the pinnacle of success, really, to play in the Hope and Anchor [club]; I mean, I thought that was it!

I think I'd even toured America before Heat Treatment came out. I can't remember the chronological order of things exactly now. We came here very quickly, because Dave Robinson wanted to be really on the case of this, "Let's get Graham Parker around the world, quick! I've really got something here." This was his ticket, you know.

He'd managed Eire Apparent and the Brinsley Schwarz group and nothing had really come of it, and suddenly I came along out of nowhere and he grabbed it and tried to milk it for all it was worth, understandably.

Goldmine: Around that time, The Pink Parker EP and the Live At The Marble Arch promo disc came out, and showed that the Rumour could put across the intensity of your songs in a live setting. Do you have any interesting anecdotes on life on the road in the mid-'70s?

Graham Parker: The interesting stuff you can't really print. I didn't enjoy playing as much as I do now; for one thing, I didn't have any singing technique.

I would find myself, for instance, at the Roxy in L.A. and I'd be singing and Diana Ross and Joe Cocker would be in the audience, and my voice was shredded! I mean, literally shredded, you know, and I went out and just did it and I couldn't talk. I mean, I couldn't talk and I went out and sang! That was the kind of savage punishment I inflicted upon my vocal cords.

Dave Robinson would say, "You were fucking great, you sounded like a fucking banshee, like a fucking wailing banshee out there, it was incredible!" You know, I was like inventing punk as I went along.

You don't really want to harp on about the past, but I'm telling you, people were more intelligent when Dylan was breaking through into new areas of literacy. There was much more intelligent listening going on then.

Goldmine: I guess in the days of punk, that sort of voice wouldn't necessarily be a negative thing!

Graham Parker: It was like this screaming [screams], to try to rise above a fucked voice, unbelievable. The good memories are really not worth talking about, though. It's just, "Oh yeah, that was a good gig, yeah, we got on well." By the time of the Squeezing Out Sparks tour in 1979, I was in shape and singing, and the band were really happening ... it was fantastic, that was really a high point. That was about the last time we toured, really.

Goldmine: Yeah, because you and the Rumour split after The Up Escalator came out, right?

Graham Parker: Yeah, pretty much. We did one gig in Germany with Nicky Hopkins on piano, and it was like a big TV show thing and it was good, it really was one of the best TV recordings we'd ever done, but that was the end of it.

Goldmine: Your third album, Stick To Me, wasn't as well-received critically in the U.S. as your first two. Still, it had plenty of good songs on it, like "The New York Shuffle" and "Watch The Moon Come Down," and your cover of Ann Peebies' "Tear Your Playhouse Down." What's your feeling about this album?

Graham Parker: I think that it holds up as well as anything material-wise, apart from perhaps "The Raid," which is a little hokey. "The Heat In Harlem," I make a few mistakes in there in calling Harlem "Harlem Town" [laughs].

Yeah, my idea was to be sort of cinematic. There's a couple of clunky sort of things in it, but I think the kibosh was put on that record by [rock critic] Greil Marcus by saying that I need a producer and it sounded terrible.

Goldmine: Not knowing what had happened during the first recording of the LP, obviously!

Graham Parker: Yeah, the first attempt at recording it would have sounded better. Listening to it now in retrospect, when you put these things together and listen to them back to back, there's not a huge difference between the sound of Stick To Me and "Hold Back The Night" or "Mercury Poisoning." I think that America was going into this phase where records were being made very slick in Los Angeles.

Nick Lowe told me a story: I think he went to Greil Marcus's house and Greil Marcus played him a bit of Stick To Me on his stereo and Nick said to Greil, "Well, I'm not surprised [you don't like it], look at this stereo! You shouldn't play it on a thing like this. This is a really expensive hi-fi. It's not made for hi-fis, it's meant for one of those Dansette record players with one speaker. What do you expect?"

We were very anti-American, you know; all of the Americans had everything, they had too much, they were too spoiled. There were groups like Boston making really slick-sounding records and that was the problem with critics: they were reviewing things like that and listening to Stick To Me, so they had the perspective all wrong. So that was our take on the matter - we blamed the Americans. I think if you listen to it in the context of these other records, it doesn't sound that much different at all.

Goldmine: Why did you decide to cover "Tear Your Playhouse Down"?

Graham Parker: Well, I had that album that Ann Peebles made with "I Can't Stand The Rain" and "Tear Your Playhouse Down," and it was just an album I played and played and played. You know, it was like an Al Green record, the production, with Ann Peebles singing. So it was a great song, right up my street for some reason. As soon as the Rumour got their hands on that song, it was, "Whoa, this is powerful." They really did it justice.

Goldmine: Tell the story about Michael Jackson's reaction when you told him that you had covered the Jackson Five's "I Want You Back."

Graham Parker: I think he had got a platinum album for Off The Wall, and they had a party in a bank in Beverly Hills. It was the weirdest thing. I did say to him, "Hey, Michael, I did 'l Want You Back.'" He said [imitates Michael Jackson's voice], "Ooh, ahh" in a little high, sweet voice. And he looked at me like "What is this person saying to me?" lt sort of went right through him. He wasn't enigmatic, he was just sort of dumb, you know [laughs]. No, he was enigmatic, actually. That's it, he was enigmatic.

If somebody said, "Hey Graham, I did your song," I'd say, "Oh really, that's great, what song?" You know, I'd sort of come down to human terms. Jackson was sort of Dylanesque in his answer, really.

Goldmine: Your final release for Mercury Records was the live LP, The Parkerilla. Was this simply a way for you to get out of your contract with Mercury?

Graham Parker: Well it wasn't for me. The fans kept saying, "When are you going to do a live album?" lt wasn't at the end of the contract with Mercury. Squeezing Out Sparks should have been on Mercury. They had me for longer. It's just that we managed to get a few lawyers involved and get out of the deal. They were fed up with us, and The Parkerilla obviously didn't sell at all in America; it wasn't rated very highly.

So luckily, I got off of Mercury, but it wasn't really done for that reason, that sort of was read into it. I just did it because people wanted a live album. I thought it was going to be like Frampton Comes Alive or something. And it was sort of poorly-received. I don't know why. I mean, I'm just not going to listen to it and say, "Why did they not like this, what went wrong?"

I thought it was a good representation of Graham Parker and the Rumour live. We were pretty stunning live. We knocked audiences on their backs. We were really motoring along at high power, not quite as good as the Squeezing Out Sparks tour, but all the same, it was pretty damn good. When we were mixing it, I remember Bob Andrews was really pissed off; he didn't think it was good enough. He didn't think it was recorded well enough. I don't know ... I guess it just didn't excite people that much, really. The Live Sparks thing was more exciting.

Goldmine: I think that was something that, had it been officially released in some form, might have done a lot better than The Parkerilla did. I know Live Sparks has been released a lot on bootlegs.

Graham Parker: Yeah, right. And the same thing for Live At Marble Arch. People found that very exciting.

Goldmine: I also know of a bootleg of another show you did, I think it was in Chicago in '82 or '83 after The Real Macaw came out.

Graham Parker: Really, from Chicago?

Goldmine: I think it was a "King Biscuit Flower Hour" broadcast.

Graham Parker: Okay, yeah, one of those. I know there were a few Roxy bootlegs that came out, at least one anyway.

Goldmine: So after you got out of the Mercury Records deal, that's when you wrote "Mercury Poisoning"?

Graham Parker: Yeah, I wrote that at the same time as Squeezing Out Sparks.

Goldmine: Squeezing Out Sparks came out in 1979. That's pretty much acknowledged as your masterpiece. The whole record is very passionate and emotional, and a lot of the songs are really angry. Is this indicative of the way you were feeling at that time?

Graham Parker: Ummmm ... I'm angry every day at something, and always will be.

It's hard to get through a day without getting pissed off at something. Usually what you see on the media is enough to do it to anybody, really, or to me, anyway. I was flying, I was having a great time at that point! My singing was starting to come out on tour.

Goldmine: On Sparks you were forging your own style, rather than showing off the soul influences of your first three releases. This was kind of your quintessential album.

Graham Parker: Yeah, I really didn't capitalize on it. There is something about the album which reminds me of growing up, of various periods of my life in the suburbs of England. "Local Girls" really encapsulates it.

Goldmine: That's an autobiographical song from when you were a kid?

Graham Parker: Yeah. Where I grew up there was like these army camps. There were soldiers. You always think that the local girls in your village, they know you. And it's like, "Oh yeah, he's kind of a nerd;" And they're looking at these soldiers who come from these different places and are in a camp there.

[The girls] are kind of a romantic thing; you might fancy some local girls, but you know there's no chance. She thinks you're just a local kid that everybody knows. So there's that kind of frustration that most young men go through in that song.

I don't know, there's something about that record; it's really got a unique slant. The "Discovering Japan" angle; there's nothing like that, really: [quotes the lyrics] "But lovers tum to posers/show up in film exposures/just like in travel brochures/discovering Japan." I mean, that stuff doesn't grow on trees. I don't know where it came from.

Goldmine: That was one of the songs on the album that had sort of a magical quality to it. Another one is "Protection," with that line about Winston Churchill ["So all of you be damned/we can't have heaven crammed/so Winston Churchill said/I could have smacked his head"].

Graham Parker: I saw something on TV. I literally saw him making a speech, and it was, "So all of you be damned." That's what he said, and I took it to mean "this is the way that authority really treats the public, the people, this is what he is really saying here."

He was kind of drunk, I think, at the time. But the subliminal message was, "Fuck you, you will do what we say." And when you are a bit younger, you really take this conspiracy thing to heart.

Goldmine: Fifteen years later, what are your favorite tracks from Squeezing Out Sparks?

Graham Parker: "Passion is No Ordinary Word." Absolutely.

That's a biggie. That's a strong one for me. Those lyrics, again, are kind of beyond what I'm capable of. They're up there. "Love Gets You Twisted" is pretty strong.

Goldmine: I've always liked "Saturday Night Is Dead."

Graham Parker: Yeah, that one says a lot which people didn't get, either. It's really about seeing through illusions in many ways and growing up, and people take it literally.

They played it in Los Angeles late at night, and this one DJ got on after and said, "Saturday Night Is Dead" from Graham Parker, well, I think he's got to be a little kooky." He really thought I was just talking about Saturday night being dead! That really made me uptight and I've been uptight since then.

I thought, "Well [laughs], that's a lot of fuel for me, that comment." I'm still pissed off about that. This is what it's turned into now. This is the way people have to have lyrics. On a flat surface, a literal statement.

Goldmine: I guess it's a way of pandering to the lowest common denominator.

Graham Parker: Yeah, and it's still going on ... it all has to be all explained very carefully to people. They can't buy that one, they don't know what that is. That hasn't got a name, that's not rave, that's not rap, that's not alternative. That doesn't say this. It has to have it all spelled out for them. You don't really want to harp on about the past, but I'm telling you, people were more intelligent when Dylan was breaking through into new areas of literacy. There was much more intelligent listening going on then.

Ummmm ... I'm angry every day at something, and always will be. It's hard to get through a day without getting pissed off at something. Usually what you see on the media is enough to do it to anybody, really, or to me, anyway.

Goldmine: Now the pop music market seems to be overrun by teenagers buying stuff.

Graham Parker: Yeah, and the visual imagery of MTV has made it so that everything has to be defined in a clear category: "Now, this is what we're saying." Even though this is what some hokey director is saying, really.

Goldmine: What was it like working with [producer/arranger] Jack Nitzsche?

Graham Parker: He was great in as much as he didn't like the Rumour. That was the best thing about working with him. He didn't sort of pander to them or their bullshit. He thought they were playing everything wrong. It's just that it took literally three days for him to tell me "there's something wrong here." Meanwhile, we were recording this crap.

Martin Belmont was literally tsk-tsking "Discovering Japan." We were trying to get it down and Martin was like, "Ehhh." He thought the song was crap. He just didn't see it. Obviously, that affects me, so I'm thinking "Well, maybe it is. I guess going from D to B minor is not so cool." The spin I put on the chord sequence is not obvious at all, but nobody saw it. Eventually I had to say to Jack, "You're the producer, tell us what to do."

Goldmine: And that's when it all started to click?

Graham Parker: Yeah, he just told the drummer, "Stop playing the cymbals. Okay, play the high hat and snare. Keep it tighter, play what Graham is playing on the guitar. Okay, Graham play the song. Let's hear what you're doing. Everyone play like that." It was really weird. And since then, I've been doing that. This is what I've been doing since The Mona Lisas Sister, really, I picking up on that idea.

Goldmine: Kind of getting back to basics?

Graham Parker: Well, it's not even back to basics, because there were no basics in the Rumour. They would try to complicate things as much as possible. And in a way

that was a good idea, because when I started out I had no ideas other than "here is a song on an acoustic guitar." I didn't know how to arrange it for a band.

So they would take it through all these convoluted forms and come out with all these weird piano figures like you hear on the beginning of "Howlin' Wind" - which I still don't really like very much - because they didn't think the songs were enough. They really thought they had to put all of this other stuff in.

That in a way made it exciting, I have to agree. Everybody was playing so much, the arrangements were jam-packed. And Squeezing Out Sparks wasn't - it simplified it a lot.

Goldmine: Kind of similar to what you're doing now in the sense that it's pretty much guitar, bass and drums with a little bit of keyboards. It's not quite as dense.

Graham Parker: The early music I made was dense. I like the Stones records, where years later you would hear the acoustic guitar on "Brown Sugar." At the time it wasn't noticeable.

Jack Nitzsche told me that the Stones have no ego when they make records. He grew up with the Stones. He said, "This band," meaning the Rumour, "they're fucking egomaniacs. They're just your band, Graham."

So we dealt with that, and made a record that really went beyond ourselves. Jack Nitzsche came to England having no idea as to who I was. I'd sent him a tape with "Local Girls" on it that I'd strummed into an old cassette player, and he thought, "Oh, that's a pretty good song. That's not bad."

And then he heard "You Can't Be Too Strong," "Discovering Japan" and "Protection."

When he heard that line in "Protection," "It ain't the knife through the heart that tears you apart/it's just the thought of someone sticking it in," he was like, "Fuck!" He was like, "This is Dylan! That's what you are, man, you're smarter." He suddenly got the picture.

Goldmine: He initially thought you guys were a punk rock band!

Graham Parker: Yeah, he didn't know what punk was and he said, "Well, this is punk, yeah, I guess this is punk" [laughs]. He said that to me; "I don't know what I'm doing here!" [laughs] It was really quite weird.

It wasn't like now; it's all a business transaction now, nobody's out of their brain anymore. Everyone's on health food and shit. You can't have a producer turn up on drugs or something [laughs].

Goldmine: Your next album was The Up Escalator in 1980, and that featured another batch of solid rock songs. What are your remembrances of that album?

Graham Parker: The Rumour was still kind of full of themselves.

[Producer] Jimmy lovine took two days to get a drum sound, which was typical then, because everybody was trying to get this mythical drum sound and even producers who had got it before didn't know how they did it! It's a total mystery; it was a joke, really.

So everyone was striving for that, and the Rumour had just done their second album [Frogs, Sprouts, Clogs And Krauts], and they thought that it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. "Why are we here with Jimmy Iovine? We know better than him!"

Goldmine: They were actually telling him how to get a good drum sound!

Graham Parker: All this was a bit selfimportant - a producer spending thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars on studio time in New York City adjusting a snare drum! lt was incredible, and I said "Look Martin [Belmont], we've paid the producer, he's the guy," 'cause Martin had said, "Look Jimmy, we've just done this record in England and it's got a good snare drum sound and it didn't take long," and you could see Jimmy wincing. And there was that kind of thing going on, but I think that the record turned out okay.

"Empty Lives" was a cracking song, and "Stupefaction" was good fun, a good re-creation of a Stones song with more humor.

Goldmine: "Jolie, Jolie" from The Up Escalator was written about your wife. Definitely not your average love song, with lines like, "The women are so hungry that they eat their own kids"!

Graham Parker: Oh terrible line, horrible, yeah! I mean, that was an awful line ... it doesn't mean anything, they don't really, do they? [laughs] It's a joke ... I couldn't resist throwing a spanner in the works. I remember lovine hated that song and he hated "The Beating Of Another Heart." He thought it should all be like "Empty Lives," it should all be angry and vitriolic, you know.

And Springsteen came in and heard some of the songs, and he loved "Jolie Jolie." And lovine said to me, "I can't believe that Bruce likes that. I don't know why," and I said "Because it's good, Jimmy. It's a good fucking song, man, come on!"

Goldmine: What did your wife think of it?

Graham Parker: Well, she thinks it's typical of me to throw in this ridiculous stuff: "you can't write just a love song, can you? No, you've got to throw this Mexican bullshit in there." Yeah, sorry, there you go, that's the way it is [laughs].

Goldmine: So, Springsteen was just hanging around the studio at that point? Is that how you hooked up with him to do the backing vocals on "Endless Night"?

Graham Parker: Yeah, he just came in once and heard stuff, and he was really enthusiastic. He's a major fan of some of my early stuff and Jimmy just said, "We should get him for backing vocals," and I said, "Fine, yeah, great" and that was it, pretty simple, really.

There's something about that record. It's really got a unique slant. The "Discovering Japan" angle - there's nothing like that, really: [quotes the lyrics] "But lovers turn to posers/show up in film exposures/just like in travel brochures/discovering Japan." I mean, that stuff doesn't grow on trees. I don't know where it came from.

Goldmine: "Stupefaction" was chosen as a single from The Up Escalator. Were you generally happy with the songs that your record company chose as singles?

Graham Parker: Yeah, I went along with it because all the way down the line we were trying to do what we did with Howlin' Wind. Graham Parker and the Rumour agreed on one thing: everything should be a bit like a single, as if you're making a single. And that's what we thought we were doing.

So I didn't think that there were things that were really wrong choices, you know, "Stupefaction" to me sounded like a poppy, uptempo, "fun" song that could on the radio. And Jimmy Iovine thought so. He said, "You know, it's great, this guy's saying "Stupid, stupid, stupid" [laughs].

Just imagine people listening to the radio going, "Hey, listen to him." It's like Beavis and Butt-head or something! [does spot-on Butthead impersonation]: "Hey, that guy's saying stupid!" Jimmy had that scenario of what would be going on in the outside world ... the record company thought it was good fun.

Goldmine: "Stupefaction" was inspired by actual events that took place in Los Angeles, is that right?

Graham Parker: Yeah, I'd spent time there and I was looking around at people, getting into the lifestyle. [when I'm in L.A.] I sort of feel as if I've been removed from real time, and that I could spend the rest of my life there and become an old man and not know what happened. I get this bubbly feeling, maybe it's 'cause the seasons don't change much.

I remember the most extraordinary thing; me and my tour manager at the time were in a hired car, and my tour manager said to me, "Look at this guy next to us," so I looked and there was this guy driving a car, and his head was tilted back, and he was looking at the ceiling of the car, and it looked like he had broken neck!

Everyone comes out of work in L.A., and you're driving along the freeway and you look at them, and they're all there with roach clips, getting stoned as they come out of work hitting the highways! It made me laugh, really, being there.

Goldmine: Around this time you split with the Rumour. Was that pretty much amicable?

Graham Parker: Well, to me it was. They knew, they were kind of fed up, really, they'd had enough. It was time to start other things. Nobody sued each other or anything, everything was fairly amicable. I still see them around, they're friends, you know.

Goldmine: Andrew Bodnar still plays with you, is that right?

Graham Parker: Yeah, he's been on the records, everything, practically, since The Mona Lisas Sister.

Goldmine: And Brinsley Schwarz was on a couple of the albums after Mona Lisa.

Graham Parker: Yeah, that's right.

lt was the weirdest thing. I did say to him, "Hey, Michael, I did 'I Want You Back.'" He said [imitates Michael Jackson's voice], "Ooh, ahh" in a little high, sweet voice. And he looked at me like "What is this person saying to me?" It sort of went right through him. Jackson was sort of Dylanesque in his answer, really.

Goldmine: Moving on to 1982's Another Grey Area. I know you weren't real happy with that one; you've called it "slick as a slimeball" and "an expensive black hole," and I assume that was due to Jack Douglas's rather sterile production, but I think that album includes what is probably one of your prettiest melodies in "Temporary Beauty."

Graham Parker: Yeah, I'm keen on that song. I'm not that against the records ... I exaggerate, really, for the sake of a joke. That's a good sort of punching board, that record, because it did get panned, especially in England by all these critics who were all waiting to ... you know, the coup de grace on Graham Parker, you know what I mean? That was the record [where] they really put the old sword through the bull's head. It was good, though, it was exactly what I wanted to do.

I think he's an amazingly talented guy, Jack Douglas, he really is. He had the sound and the direction of that record planned from the beginning. I called myself co-producer, but I didn't do a thing. I just didn't know what he was doing; his technical ability was way beyond most people I've worked with.

But it was a very indulgent period. It was the '80s, and there was money still floating around, and there was still the theory that if you spent more money, you would make a better record, and if you became indulgent about it, that was okay; "Graham Parker's a pop star, we can spend his money," that was the idea. And I really didn't do anything against it. It was my fault.

Goldmine: A lot of the songs still hold up really well on Another Grey Area. Another favorite is "Big Fat Zero," a really snide, hard-rocking song. That didn't come across as well on the album as it did during some of your live performances of that period.

Graham Parker: That's possible, yeah! The record is a bit chained by the production which I think suited "Temporary Beauty" and a few other songs on there, but there's a song on there called "It's All Worth Nothing Alone," where it just didn't suit it, it didn't sound strong enough at the end of the day, looking back on it. I think people were disappointed with that.

Goldmine: Your next album was The Real Macaw, which was your last album for Arista. Macaw included many of your most romantic, accessible songs. One of the best things on there was "Life Gets Better." Was this a highly personal song for you?

Graham Parker: Well, it's sort of just a pop ditty, really [but] it's not that lightweight; it's really saying something, it's contradicting a lot of messages that I got when I was 16, 17 years old.

Specifically, in the first jobs that I had there were older people that I had to work with. They're sort of lording over you and calling you a boy, when you're very sensitive about being called a boy; you want to be called a man when you're a teenager. And they were all sort oy saying, "Yeah, when you're 21, that's it."

These people were all sort of dead from the neck up. They were dead from the waist down, in fact. But you were supposed to be all randy and sexy when you were a teenager, and go out and do it while you can, because it's all over once you're 21.

You're supposed to be married, your life is supposed to be finished. Änd I find that life is quite contrary to that - the reality is you keep growing in many ways.

These people had very narrow lifestyles. They were English, and English people tend to have a stick up their ass, and they believe in what the media informs them, and that was what their lives were based on. And in fact, "Life Gets Better" was not just an airy-fairy little song. When you really look at it and think about it, I'm kicking these people in the teeth, saying, "Look, that's not how it has to be, folks. I'm still discovering, and I'm still creating, and life keeps expanding."

So "Life Gets Better" sort of all came from the TV and the media, the post-war idealism: "If you knock a girl up and get her pregnant, get married young and be with someone you hate for the rest of your life."

Goldmine: So "Life Gets Better" was basically a reaction to all this narrow-minded thinking.

Graham Parker: Yeah, so it's not much different from what I've always been doing, in a way.

Goldmine: It's just couched in a pretty melody.

Graham Parker: Absolutely, yeah, it was just couched in a way that made people think, "Oh, he's lost it now, he's doing a weak, silly little song," but there's more to it than that. I think it's a song that holds up at the end of the day.

Goldmine: Definitely. Another great song on Macaw is "Passive Resistance," which took a lot of pointed jabs at the record industry.

Graham Parker: Yeah, that was written because I heard that they did experimental research on what appealed to people for radio stations. They literally wired people up to see if they were getting too excited when a song was being played, and if their heartbeat went up too much, that's not the kind of song you want to play, because you want to pacify people, you want to give them what they're familiar with and make them happy.

So I'd heard about this research, a very "1984" type of idea, and literally that's what rules radio now, there's a demographic kind of idea. You can see that it comes from some sort of consultancy in Idaho or someplace.

Goldmine: If you're between 15 and 24, then you must listen to rap or heavy metal, if you're between 25 and 40, you listen to adult contemporary or country ... everything's sort of slotted into formats.

Graham Parker: Yeah, "classic rock" is supposed to be the pinnacle. "Who Are You" by the Who is like held up as the pinnacle of rock'n'roll. And [Jethro Tull's] "Thick As A Brick," for fuck's sake.

Goldmine: "Anniversary" is obviously a very personal song.

Graham Parker: Yeah, that's a sort of song that's trying to be really straightforward: "Okay, I'm in love, I've been married a year, okay, great, let's write a song." Which I thought would never get on an LP. But it's like some of those songs either have the integrity or they don't, and that one, for some reason, I think, had the integrity. So it ended up on the LP, and I think it's all right.

Goldmine: Do you think it was a natural maturing process for you as an artist that made Another Grey Area and The Real Macaw a little less harsh than your earlier work?

Graham Parker: No, it's a reaction. I was definitely reacting, with Another Grey Area,against the Rumour style of recording. If you don't react strongly against things, you don't go anywhere; they all sound the same. I think what I like about records, great records by the Stones and the Beatles, the flavor of each record reacted against the last one quite strongly. They didn't make this kind of homogenized stuff that people do now.

Goldmine: So it was basically a matter of trying not to repeat yourself, and do something new as an artist?

Graham Parker: Yeah, absolutely. That was it, more than anything.

Not so much the writing of the songs, which often dictate themselves a little bit, but it's the production of the record and the mood of the record.

Goldmine: Your next album, 1985's Steady Nerves, saw you move to Elektra Records. That LP included your first Top 40 single in the U.S., "Wake Up (Next To You)." When you wrote this song, did you think that it had hit single potential?

Graham Parker: Well, I think that about practically everything. With each batch of songs I write, I think, "Oh, this one sounds catchy," 'cause I think they're catchy melodies. I don't write pieces that have sort of simple scale melodies which don't cut across the chords, I always think they're classic pop single tunes. "Wake Up (Next To You)," to me, is no different from "Fools' Gold" in that respect.

Goldmine: Why do you think "Wake Up" clicked, while other songs you've released that were as good or better before and since, didn't?

Graham Parker: It clicked because Elektra spent a hell of a lot of money, that's the only reason [laughs]. Do you want reality, or shall I give you some cock and bull story?

Goldmine: You had problems with Steady Nerves, from the cover art to the videos to your choice of William Wittman as producer.

Graham Parker: [Laughs] Well, yeah. In fact, I first wanted Jack Nitzsche [to produce]. I went out to L.A. and met up with him, and Bob Krasnow at Elektra Records said, "You don't want to do that, you're using some guy who makes music for movies!"

And Jack had an agent who said, "Nah, don't do it, it's more lucrative doing movies." So that got shelved, and Wittman came up, and my only defense was that he had just worked on [Cyndi Lauper's] She's So Unusual.

But Krasnow was not keen. He said, "He's an engineer, he's not a producer." So I said, "He knows exactly what went on on that record, he knows how to make a hit record, he can do it."

So we were on trial, and we did it. Once we were in the studio, Krasnow heard "Wake Up (Next To You)" and he couldn't argue with it. I think that track was good, but listening to it now, I think the record was overproduced.

There was too much compression and too much reverb on the voice on some of these songs. It's a little overthrottled, a little strangled by its own compression.

But I think it was a fair enough attempt. It's just that my mind was changing then, and I didn't implement it. I was too lazy to say, "I should produce this." All the time in my mind I was thinking, "I don't like this," I didn't like all this keyboard shit that was going down on "The Weekend's Too Short." That's a lightweight song, lyrically, it doesn't really hang together.

I thought "Lunatic Fringe" was a serious piece of work. That number is my favorite.

There's one line on there that I think is as good as anything I've ever written, the line about, "They're pumping iron down in the village/they're locking lions up in the zoo."

Goldmine: Your lyrics have always painted really vivid visual pictures for the listener.

Graham Parker: That's what I've always thought songs should be, an encapsulation of emotion and vivid imagery.One of the two, or both, if possible. If you can get both, great, you're laughing.

Goldmine: In 1988 you released The Mona Lisa's Sister. This was released on RCA, and found you reunited with Brinsley Schwarz. This is when your sound became a bit more rustic and a bit toned down, letting the songs speak for themselves a bit more. Would you agree with that assessment?

Graham Parker: [On Mona Lisa] I wanted the record to sound as extreme as I felt, which was the demos. My demos, I felt, were more exciting than my records.

Now I was actually doing demos in studios, and doing overdubs and backing vocals and harmonica, so I was really filling out these songs. So I thought, "This is it. This is really time for me to call myself a producer," and that's what I did. I kept it very simple in the production, and I didn't use too many instruments.

I just used four on some songs and said, "Stop. That's it." It was really going back to the ultimate logic that Jack Nitzsche had implemented in '79, which was "The song is played by Graham Parker on guitar, and then we add a few things. Just like a demo. Graham Parker plays guitar, sings it, does it in two takes, and as long as nothing's dreadfully out of pitch and it's got a feel, we'll go with that." That's what I hung on to throughout that record, and I stuck with it even though Brinsley was not convinced it was the right thing to do.

Goldmine: What was it like working closely with Brinsley again?

Graham Parker: It was great. He just played some fantastic guitar on that record, on "I'm Just Your Man," for instance. Absolutely beautiful stuff. We sort of bounced off of each other a bit, but I had to override him a lot, because he tends to want to make things technically a bit better. And my feeling is that the public doesn't care what the bass drum sounds like, you know? They're not listening.

Goldmine: They're listening to the big picture.

Graham Parker: I think so. And that is my faith in the listening public. They really want to be moved and taken somewhere by a song, and they're not going to be distracted because the bass drum sounds like a pudding.

Goldmine: "Under The Mask Of Happiness" was inspired by a true-life murder case.

Graham Parker: The Fatal Vision book by Joe McGinniss [The book tells the story of Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald, who was convited of murdering his wife and two young daughters in North Carolina in 1969.] I got into that idea, and I blew it up into a bigger thing about personal relationships in general. Inside a lot of people there's an ax murderer waiting to get up and hack his family up and start the whole thing again clean. What a concept!

Goldmine: Another song on Mona Lisa, "O.K. Hieronymus," harkens back lyrically to Squeezing Out Sparks, with a lot of interesting imagery. Were you pleased with that song?

Graham Parker: Yeah, I like that one, I thought that one was fun. lt was a lucky one that came out. I've always been a big fan of Hieronymus Bosch and his work. It's sort of reality, but again, underneath, and I like those kind of ideas.

Goldmine: You ended the disc with an inspired version of Sam Cooke's "Cupid." It seemed to fit right in with the relaxed mood of the album. Was this an old favorite of yours?

Graham Parker: Not really. I always found Sam Cooke a bit slick, but over the years you tend to widen your taste and not shrink it. I used to just pick up a guitar and start singing that. lt was meant to be a B-side, and it just turned out good.

Goldmine: Your next release was Live Alone! In America, where you covered another Sam Cooke tune, "A Change is Gonna Come," as well as offering acoustic interpretations of some of your earlier songs like "White Honey" and "Gypsy Blood." What was it like going it alone after being backed by a band on stage for so many years?

Graham Parker: lt was scary at the time, and it still is! On the other hand, as I've gotten older, I've got ten more capable, so it balances out. I had to do something like that to keep refueling. You have to take risks.

I've never considered myself a solo performer, even though I used to do it when I was in my early twenties. The James Taylor thing was happening, and I wanted to be like that, so I was buggering around like that. But I'd never really done it as a way of living, so I thought, "Let's try," and I'm still doing it.

Goldmine: What's your favorite of the three new songs you released on Live Alone ["Durban Poison," "The Three Martini Lunch" and "Soul Corruption"]?

Graham Parker: Oh, "Soul Corruption" was pretty good, I think. "Durban Poison" I kinda like, and "The Three Martini Lunch" is one of those songs that people always call for.

Goldmine: Your next album was 1990's Human Soul, and many of the songs on the "surreal side," as you called it, were sort of strung together, a la side two of the Beatles' Abbey Road.

Graham Parker: Yeah. When you've got a song title "Sugar Gives You Energy," it's kind of like, "Well, how important is this?" On the other hand, how important was "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window"?

That was my idea, and it was fun, and I really enjoyed doing that and planning it all out, and having everything down to the millisecond. We didn't do a lot of songs, then edit them down as an afterthought. I said, "This is what I want to do. I want to do one minute of 'Green Monkeys,' then I want to end on that chord, and I want to go into 'I Was Wrong.'" That's what I told [co-producers] Brinsley and Jon Jacobs. It was a lot of fun for me.

Goldmine: "Big Man On Paper" is another highlight from that album. Is that autobiographical at all?

Graham Parker: Yeah, I guess so. I was sort feeling in some kind of melancholy mood and wrote that song. I mean, here I am with a residence up here [in Upstate New York], driving around on my own in America, watching these people in their classic rock T-shirts.

Now they've all got Belly T-shirts; it's the same old thing, but with a new coat of paint; not the music, but the kids. They're just following what MTV's telling them to follow, or whatever. That's how I felt as well; these people are never going to pick up on what I do.

So there it was. I think "My Love's Strong" [from Human Soul] is one of my favorite songs. That's a hit song for someone.

Goldmine: I think you've mentioned somewhere that if Rod Stewart or Paul Young would have done it ...

Graham Parker: Yeah! I think if they do it now, it's a bit. But they ain't hearin' it, so ...

Goldmine: Why do you think more people haven't covered your songs?

Graham Parker: I think the lyrics are too difficult. To bring in one of those comparisons, it's like Elvis Costello. He's one of the greatest writers on the planet, so why doesn't anybody do his songs? It's the same thing; the lyrics are too difficult. But there have been a few covers: The Pointer Sisters did "Tumed Up Too Late" from Heat Treatment, and the guys from the Byrds, [Roger] McGuinn and [Chris] Hillman, did a version of "Soul Shoes." And Rick Nelson did "Back To Schooldays."

Goldmine: And Rachel Sweet did "Fools' Gold."

Graham Parker: That's right. And I got a version of "Don't Ask Me Questions" from some German band the other day. So people do that stuff - "You Can't Take Love For Granted" [from The Real Macaw] was done by Marti Jones, and that's always a buzz when somebody does one of your new songs, but it doesn't happen much now. I mean, nobody's going to do "Platinum Blonde" - it's just a quirky, difficult kind of thing that I'm dealing with, and people don't jump to that.

But I've got a goldmine of stuff sitting there; the simple stuff, the love songs, like "My Love's Strong." And I think "Fools' Gold," if White Lion, or whatever, did that, you know ... it's got the potential. And "Slash and Burn" could be done by one of those hair bands or grunge bands or something, but they're not hearing it, or they tend to have this sort of reverence for me. People are like, "Oh, that's Graham Parker's stuff, you don't fuck with it."

And Rod Stewart doesn't know I exist. I mean, he was a big fan of mine, he raved about "Hotel Chambermaid" [from Heat Treatment] in the press. I know somebody who worked for him recently, and they said, "Oh, I used to work for Graham," and Rod said, "Oh, really, is he still around?" Like I was dead, you know. I mean, he doesn't read Rolling Stone reviews, [so] even though I still get great reviews and make a record every year, he's got no idea.

So I want to send him "My Love's Strong," but I just can't be bothered, you know. I'm compiling a list of songs for other people that I think should be covered, and I should get aggressive. I'm just not pushy enough, really.

I think Willie Nelson could do "Temporary Beauty," and I think he could do "Watch The Moon Come Down." There's stuff like "Guardian Angels" and "Children And Dogs" [from 1991's Struck By Lightning] that should be covered, but these people are all waiting for John Hiatt, which is much more simplistic in the lyrical ideas. I gave "Long Stem Rose" to somebody who knows Don McLean; could you imagine him doing that?

Goldmine: That's an absolutely gorgeous song.

Graham Parker: There's a hit right there, make it a bit more syrupy. These are the things with my songs that I can't do. They just don't come out like that with me. I think that they're like that, but they come out being sort of gnarly Graham Parker in the end. But the potential is there, and somebody's going to do it and crack it one day.

Goldmine: Getting back to Human Soul, "Soultime" sounds like it's a tribute to some of your earlier influences and musical heroes.

Graham Parker: That's exactly it. It's looking back to the days when I used to go dancing to this soul music and stuff; it's something that just popped out. lt seemed like a nice story to tell. lt was more like autobiographical storytelling than most of my stuff, which takes an incident, blows it out of proportion, and turns it into high drama.

Goldmine: You've called "Little Miss Understanding" a throwback to the Heat Treatment mode. Do you still enjoy writing in that vein, even though you don't do it as much anymore?

Graham Parker: I like it 'cause it's the hardest thing for me to do. I tend to get more complex, like "They Murdered The Clown" [from Struck By Lightning] and "Platinum Blonde" [from Burning Questions].

I tend to go off on these bizarre tangents that are definitely not easy for people to get a handle on. "Little Miss Understanding" is a fun type of song; I had that song, in fact, for The Mona Lisas Sister, but it didn't work. For some reason, I got that sort of idea of making the chorus a ska beat, and it suddenly clicked together and it was just right.

Goldmine: You've called 1991's Struck By Lightning the best record you've ever made. Why do you feel that way?

Graham Parker: It's got a mood to it, for me, and everything works just the way I wanted it. I was in the studio with a drummer and a bass player, and we played these songs very bare, and when I put overdubs on, they all worked.

"The Kid With The Butterfly Net" has got this sort of melancholy, longing feel to it that I've always wanted to get in a song, and "Strong Winds" has got it, and [so does] "Guardian Angels." There's different subject matter involved - watching a kid grow up is one of those things - and I just pulled it off, to me.

A lot of my records, to me, seem like a lot of disparate songs stuck together; Howlin' Wind is like a collection of hit singles that weren't hits. That's what I've tried to do, I've tried to go through this huge variation.

On Struck By Lightning I didn't - I went for this theme, musically and lyrically, and it hung together, more musically than lyrically, as a matter of fact. My feeling is that a lot of my stuff is too intense to take. I don't want to listen to it. It stabs me right in the eye, and I don't want to be stabbed in the eye all the time.

Struck By Lightning doesn't do that to me. It's listenable, like, well, Dylan's Blood On The Tracks is what I was going for. Although I'm at least called a literate writer, and I can write "Platinum Blonde" and "You've Got To Be Kidding" and these clever sort of things that are more Dylanesque, my favorite Dylan album is Blood On The Tracks, which is emotional and captures a mood that goes from beginning to end.

Although "When I Was King" doesn't really fit, and "Ten Girls Ago" could have been on any other album, the rest are unique to [Struck By Lightning], and that's why I think it's the best.

Goldmine: Most of your compositions on Struck By Lightning are extremely sweet and affecting, especially "The Kid With The Butterfly Net." Is that tune about your daughter?

Graham Parker: Yeah, it's about watching a kid grow up. It's got all this longing in there, and it's hard to capture that without being a bit wimpy, you know. Hopefully, I pulled it off. That's my favorite recording that I've done for all time.

There's a thing on the bridge section in the middle, just before the last chorus, I think, where there's a violin, and Garth Hudson [of the Band] on the keyboards, and Garth Hudson flies out of the violin with this keyboard figure that just makes me shiver. It's magic, and that kind of stuff you can't plan.

That's the pinnacle of my recording, that track. The strange thing is, it's like nothing else. It's not like a better version of "Don't Ask Me Ouestions" or "Passion Is No Ordinary Word," it's something else altogether, I'll live and die by that track.

Goldmine: Sticking with Lightning, "Over The Border (To America)" has some hilarious lyrics: "Don't make us out to be peons or fools/we're into Zeppelin and Paula Abdul."

Graham Parker: That particular line is based on a specific thing. It was P.J. O'Rourke, I think, writing about when the Berlin Wall came down. He was in Europe, and here they are with all this freedom, and, "Wow! Videos! This is it! This is culture!"

Their idea of culture is Paula Abdul and the Big Mac - that's what they're getting from America. That's really sad.

Goldmine: How do you think living in America has affected your songwriting?

Graham Parker: Well, all the references are American. "Over The Border (To America)," for instance, it's right there. England, to me, even when I spend longer periods of time there, I can't get any references anymore, 'cause it just seems very narrow to me. Sad to talk about one's own country that way.

I was talking to Graham Nash the other day, and I asked him if he went back to England very much, and he said, "No. Too narrow." And that's how America affects you; Americans, by and large, want to open things out, and the English want things to be like it was.

Goldmine: How did you get John Sebastian and Garth Hudson to appear on Struck By Lightning?

Graham Parker: I bumped into Garth Hudson, literally, in a music store, and mentioned that I was doing an album, and Sebastian works in one of the studios where we were doing overdubs, so it was real easy. lt so fitted the music, it was perfect. It wasn't like trying to graft the wrong people on to it.

Goldmine: "Strong Winds" and "Wrapping Paper" are two of your most beautiful ballads ever. How do you feel about them?

Graham Parker: They hold up. I like the melody and the harmonica on "Strong Winds," that wistful, sort of Old West kind of thing. And again, it's got that longing to it, that sort of sense of how fragile life is.

Goldmine: On the British version of Struck By Lightning, there's a version of the old Herman's Hermits song "I'm Into Something Good." Why did you decide to cover that?

Graham Parker: You know, I tried that with Graham Parker and the Rumour once, and we were too tough to do it. I always have this stuff up my sleeve. I walk into the studio and say, totally unexpected to the band and the engineer, "We're going to do a Herman's Hermits song today, okay?" And they go, "All right. Yeah, Graham Parker's gone crazy, what's he on?"

And so I played it for 'em and showed them my arrangement, and that's how we did it, one take, man, it was great! It's a great song, and you just wish the times were like that as well, sometimes.

Goldmine: In 1992, you jumped to Capitol Records and released Burning Questions. This was made in about three weeks?

Graham Parker: That's what I try to do now. 22 days, to make a record,

Goldmine: Do you find it keeps things fresh to keep the recording moving swiftly?

Graham Parker: I don't want to overindulge too much, and I don't have the money to. Mona Lisa's Sister was the beginning of that; I told RCA, "Don't give me a lot of money and put yourself in a big hole that you can't dig out of. I'll make a record quickly, and I'll do it my way. Just leave me alone."

Goldmine: "Short Memories" is a rather vehement anti-war song.

Graham Parker: Yeah, that's one of my favorite songs, definitely. That's the one that turned out the best on Burning Questions. The Gulf War set that one off, no doubt about it.

Goldmine: Another favorite is the sweet ballad "Oasis."

Graham Parker: That one nearly didn't get on the record. I thought it was a bit suspect, and that it walked the boundary of bad taste a little too closely, but Pete Thomas [the drummer on Burning Questions, and one of Elvis Costello's Attractions] loved it. He thought it was very mighty, and it had this feel to it. It could have been on Struck By Lightning, almost.

Goldmine: It seems like you often tend to get lumped in with the bitter, sarcastic, Elvis Costello-type of singer-songwriters. Since you've written more than your fair share of really heartfelt tunes with pretty melodies, and not just driving rockers, does this annoy you?

Graham Parker: I think with the limited space that most people have when they're writing about pop music, it's much more convenient if they can just say one thing, and lean on that.

I break those rules, and so do Dylan and the Stones, so there's much more to it. I mean, I'm totally romantic. I have both sides to draw on, and I mix them up in the same song sometimes.

It's not easy to categorize that, so I get the "Angry Young Middle-Aged Man" thing thrown at me. That's the thing about being wider than the genre.

Goldmine: You're currently without a recording contract, right?

Graham Parker: Yeah, and I'm not even looking for one. I'm writing a book, and that's it.

Goldmine: On your song "Love Is A Burning Question," you sing, "I've seen the future of rock, and it sucks."

Graham Parker: (Laughs) I don't know that I really think that; it was just a good line. Just sort of poetic license, really.

Goldmine: But it might possibly be true ...

Graham Parker: It's true in the respect of the sort of musical fascism of radio programming and MTV programming. It's true in the fact that it's now a business, and it's been quantified and reined in.

I think it sucks that record company people in England, not too long ago, were saying to new young bands, "Are you from Manchester?" And they'd say, "No, we're from Birmingham," and the record company person would walk away! And in America, it's "Are you from Seattle?"

So nothing impresses me. It doesn't matter how alternative they are. I've heard it, pal. Show me. [Nirvana's] Nevermind is a great record. I haven't heard [In Utero], but I've read lyrics, and the guy is singing about being a pop star, already!

Goldmine: What kind of music do you enjoy today?

Graham Parker: I like Jellyfish, they're my favorite band in the world! They should be a mega-band. They're incredible!

Goldmine: Are there any unreleased recordings that we can ever expect to see the light of day?

Graham Parker: There's not much in the vaults to bother with, but I think people have talked about Live At Marble Arch being released officially.

Goldmine: How would you rate your latest release, Live Alone! Discovering Japan?

Graham Parker: I think it's a much better record than Live! Alone in America. I've come a long way since then. Instead of just doing things exactly as they were on the records, which was a criticism that was levelled at Live! Alone In America, now I've evolved a whole thing, and the whole act of performing solo has.become something that I do.

So you tend to do looser versions, and stretch things out more, and add harmonica to songs that didn't have harmonica on them. So I'd say that Live Alone! Discovering Japan is definitely worth checking out if you can get it.

Reproduced with kind permission from John M. Borack.

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