Victor Sylvester

I don't care. We are fighting battles against irre­movable forces.

'I like working in the States, I like the audiences, they latch onto things that I never thought they would. People told us they won't understand English humour. But we just did it. Great. But they didn't twig why Englebert or why Victor Sylvester. But they got the general terms. Made us concentrate more on visual things than verbals. Got less idiosyncratic and less native, emancipating. We came back feeling that things we'd been say­ing and had been on the verge of giving up were in fact right, thought that's a dangerous way of thinking. They respond in a different way, a different race. People react intellectually to emotional stimulants and vice versa here. (Hey . . . a platitude, put apostrophes around that, you rotter.) The central thought can be gleaned from our past, if you want our philosophy. The best thing is to be creators for others we fear becoming machines. Worried about various systems. We smell nastier rats in different areas to those that other people do. I see some of these TV pro­grammes and they are more than just bad and vulgar, they're suppressants, opiates. The series we did was pretty good in principle. It was the first series to treat kids as intelligent kids, note that I hesitate to say treated kids as adults because they are obviously wrong too. My boy is 17 months now and he is equally knowing as I am, but his vocabulary is in terms of sights, sounds, smells and touches. He's as knowledgeful as I am. I felt part of a good idea. It worked. The kids came in and laughed. Its immaterial even if they don't get what we are really saying. I doubt if we'd do another one. I fear that we rather es­tranged ourselves the last time because we were all so upset and miserable, it was a very bad period. It got worse and worse right up to nearing the breakup after the last US tour which really was the end. The finest thing anyone can do is to laugh, sit back and enjoy each other's company. Partner Program 

'Until I became wrinkled and destroyed by this system that I shall now make it my purpose to destroy, I used to laugh a lot. We all did. Our reactions at first was turning everything into a joke and tried to topsyturvy everything. And we went through some changes and destroyed the free-wheeling dada thing we had we're trying to recapture that and we became enmeshed in the system and almost became part of what we were attacking. On the last series we were becoming much more aware of what we all should do and what our artistic shape should be and were dis­covering ourselves and we were really locked in by contracts and so on. At first the worse it became the more we laughed. And we were in these surreal situations. We were doing absurd things that we didn't like and it was ridiculous. And then we realised what was happening and we stopped laughing. Six months ago I began to force myself to work as a machine . . . the worst thing is any­one could do is to stop me thinking and working. I never felt so poignantly and desperately that I was being strangled. I now feel that it is vital if I could stop other people from being trapped and destroyed in the way I have been. We really did get very much near to breaking up. This album is an expression of our hatred for the system and its also the most together thing we have done. All of it is separate projects. We only liased on two pieces. Everyone was working separately. We stopped talking to each other. We were looking out of the window. I'm empty, we felt, why haven't I done anything. How dare I get on a stage and talk about things I don't know about any more. All I can do is talk about this rotten load of shit. Irrelevant in any case. We were really falling apart. We started managing ourselves and began marshalling ourselves like an army. We worked incredibly hard. We did it cheaply and efficiently. The next one, Brain Opera, has been written for a year already. I'm really very excited about our next album. I'm already looking forward to it. We know we must hold onto one thing and record and perform things that we're proud of. Unity in desperation as behind the album. I can hardly believe that we have done what we wanted. It's perfectly acceptable to be a star, I'd love to be a star. I like to go on stage with fantastic snakes

exploding from my head and wigs and mice playing inside them and drawn by swans and so on. As long as we are both aware of what's happening and they realise I know how ridiculous it is then we can both enjoy ourselves. The des­cription of the club we visit was a factual trip. People were saying they had to cut their hair to get in. If we went to the worst tailor's shop in town, and get the filthiest DJ we can find people will love you, they'll say come and meet Joe Hardcastle, he keeps pigs and is as rich as shit and so on. They love being seen in the foyer, first name terms with the stars. Just a suit that doesn't fit, a badge. It's crazy. This track shows us doing that and being as sick as anyone else. We never actually kowtowed, but it was negative support. It is incredible that there are people who don't write their own stuff and just do everything they're given and people still value their opinions. People should realise that we were never really like that. I don't think the business will taint me. My ideas are in the right place. I'm interested in making a reasonable profit in order to further my prime interest which is work, keep fed, have books and art materials. I don't need a fortune to do that, I don't need to screw people, to con them and deceive them to do that. It has affected me al­ready as a person—six months ago I would never have spoken seriously to anybody. I thought that speaking seriously wasn't really creative for me. I would say the same things but in riddles or jokes, or fables; just to entertain the head and play with it.

'The whole Chicago harangue was so totally negative. We arrived there in the middle of the riots which no one had told us about before. We looked out for our windows and saw Black Panthers and White Slugs, and Porcupines marching up and down the streets shouting and blowing up statues and so on. We were forced to stay in the hotel. Stranded without money. The record company sent round a guy to tape radio interviews. We were lounging on the bed naked and playing around and there was a knock on the door and a little toad-like photographer comes in and say's I'm from Psychedelic Erog magazine or something and he sits down and manages to piss us both off with the waste of time when we could have been working. And then this guy from the company who is supposed to represent us comes in and starts asking questions like how many in the band and so on. So I just exploded. I told him it was a fucking outrage. Went through the same old thing I've been telling you, I haven't had much other topics of conversation recently. The photographer said 'Hey, they're really getting into something here'. And suddenly he started groping for the taperecorder and getting busy and it has suddenly dawned on him that we weren't just going through the usual chat. We always felt about these guys that it was pointless saying what we felt because they wouldn't understand anyway. Then the other guy gets up and says 'Nobody understands these boys . . . incredible, bloody incredible'.

'What I'm saying should make sense, but six months ago I wouldn't have sat down and read someone else saying all that. I couldn't have been bothered to read it. What is more pathetic about most of this business is that it does take itself so seriously. One level you get how much so and so spends on shirts at Mr Codpiece and, at another level, hearing someone's pronouncements on any­thing they think. Its OK I suppose. But the premise that revolution and pop is pretty heavy now man and that no-one could possibly be" wrong if they're a pop star or could possibly be ridiculous. Its become even more silly than any­thing else. Nothin' worse than such blindness and puritanism. People are getting incredibly bloody right, being terribly right and feeling 'I'm too sophisticated and too turned on to accept any other views'. Maybe all these problems will cause me to write better. I've got angry but I've also got crafty and as a writer selective, tasteful, harder. Things do flourish under tyrannies . . . '

'I do what I do, I am what I am,

We are what we are, we do what we can'

Keynsham.