PENNY BROADHURST

The man, the legend...Penny Broadhurst meets Mark E Smith of the Fall and laughs a lot. This is more or less a straight transcript, because we wanted to preserve the spirit of the actual interview rather than dilute it with lengthy prose. The setting: a bar in Leeds, 2001.

Tell me about the new album.

Well it's called Are You Are Missing Winner (silence). It sounds great, really. The Unutterable was a bit too polished, this is...very raw.

Why is there a cover version on the album (Motown hit Gotta See Jane)?

Getting the group in training. It's a different group from the last one, believe it or not.

Changed again?

Well, not completely.

(We both laugh.)

Ben's still there and two others in there as well.

What are the new guys like then?

Marvellous so far, yeah.

Not fallen out with them yet, then? (I raise an eyebrow)

No, I don't fall out with them, I just don't relate to musicians. (smiles)

Why've you done another spoken word album (Pander Panda Panzer)?

(thinks) St Andrews and Berlin and Dublin, I've only done about five spoken word gigs. I love it, me.

Would you do more of it if you got the opportunity?

Woooargh yeah. What's great about it is you just walk around on your own...I've done the literary festivals - St Andrews (Stanza 2000) I did and some in Holland as well.

What's it like being there, as the rock'n'roll bloke next to all the typical poets and writers?

Well that's strange. 'Cause the first one I did was in Holland and Will Self was there. The guy out of Pere Ubu was there and Nick Cave and all that crap. I did another one with Nick Cave as well at the Royal Albert Hall, which was good. But Salman Rushdie was there at one of them. He came into my dressing room and said "I want you to be my friend". I said, "Can you get out please?"

(Mark cracks a cheeky grin, I piss myself)

His books are shit.

I know, from the first ten pages.. I don't know how he gets away with it. I wouldn't like to be a writer, me. I was talking to Nick Cave. Nick Cave was quite alright about things like that, writing them books, but he said "I want to be a songwriter again now." "Oh alright," I said.

What, stick to what you're good at?

(laughs) No, I actually I said "You're not very good at that either."

(Attempt to recover myself from fit of the giggles)

"But you're better at that. A bit."

Do you ever get bored of touring?

Nah, it's nice. No not at all. It's the only rest I get. The rest of the time it's clerical work, innit?

Turn you into a secretary.

Well yeah, that's what it amounts to, isn't it?

(I talk for a bit about how it's the same with the website, how we spend ages chasing up emails and sifting through press releases rather than interviewing and writing).

Well they (press releases) talk rubbish, don't they? I had a job with IndiePlanet on the Internet. They said write a thousand words at a dollar a word. So I thought, that'll be good, y'know. But I did about three articles for them, then they just went bust after about three months.

Sounds about right.

(We chat a bit about my past experiences of working in new media and the people I worked with - and being made redundant).

The Americans who did IndiePlanet and that were the same. They have all these powerful visions of themselves and they're all "Have you no fax machine, y'know, have you no email?" The group's got about three computers, which I bought, and I go to my local paper shop to do a fax. I don't want that shit in my house.

What did you think when Elastica split up, having worked with them?

Big news, innit? It was funny 'cause I was listening to BBC news the other day, which I rarely do, and the headlines were "Troops move into Afghanistan, blah blah blah... and in the pop world, Elastica split!" Yeah yeah yeah, Bin Laden, then Elastica split up. (More laughter) When I was working with them, it was incredible. I've never seen anything like it. I did three tracks with them. I did my stuff in, like, an afternoon. And they'd been sat there four years, y'know. I did more in an afternoon...

And you bring out an album a year...

It's their own bloody fault, 'cause it's like what you were saying about London, it's all (sniff sniff, miming snorting a line) and worse. The drummer comes in, finally, and I wanna go home tomorrow so why are they messing about? They're just a regular rock group I suppose. I feel sorry for Justine though, because she's nice...

Have you ever heard of the group Plastica, from Wolverhampton? (Mark gets a bit excitable) They're great. They're four girls and they do all the Elastica numbers, all the first album. Speed it up a bit. Hehe. Plastica.

Cool. Damon ripped off Pavement for the Blur album, who ripped off you...

Well if I thought about this shit, I'd go a bit insane, wouldn't I? Pavement have split up too, haven't they? Well, I was cursing people and the curses come true..hehehe.

Have you heard the Manic Street Preachers track, Wattsville Blues? Nicky Wire singing...another one nicking your style-ah.

That's funny, 'cause there's a track on our new LP is called Bourgeois Blues. Bloody Manics. Lickspittles. I can't stand them either.

Read any good books lately?

I read this book Bring The Jubilee, quite old, '50s. I've been reading a lot of Richard Matheson, he's '50s as well. It's about time travel and all that, before sci-fi. This bloke was brought up in America but the Confederacy has won the Civil War so America's completely different. So he makes this time machine and goes back in time. It changes Gettysburg, the battle, it's really good. But it's written in the time, of the times. It's a bit like Little House On The Prairie really, about five hundred pages. I like reading me, y'know what I mean.

So do I. But I read in bed a lot and then I either fall asleep and never finish anything, or stay up half the night to get through a book.

I do that all the time. Read in bed. It's the only relaxation I've got, really.

The only time you can cut everything else off, no music or telly or information or other people around. Just you.

I feel sorry for young kids, 'cause they don't get that. It's a world of your own, isn't it? You stop drinking, stop smoking, just have a beer - only one, y'know - you don't wanna eat...you just read a book and it's you in your own world. Kids lose that and it's a shame, 'cause you can't beat that high really, can you? Well, not high, but spiritual satisfaction.

When you finish, you've come through something, an experience.

Well I do that. Because I get really angry sometimes, violent towards things. Not business, but people. You sit down with a book, though... I read crap like the Napoleonic war, diaries of the French cavalry. That does it.

Who do you trust, if anybody?

I don't. It doesn't bother me though, I never have anyway, from birth.

If you had to take a shoebox and put something in it, what would be in there?

I'd put a bloody third bloody spoken word CD in there! Heh. The people who are trying to cut this spoken word record, you wouldn't believe. They're rock cutters, y'know? I say "Do this, do that" and they do, because they're really dedicated people. But when it comes back... People are clapping, and it's louder than what I'm saying. They do it like a rock album. They get clapping and sniggerering and people walking out saying it's a load of shit. They think it's funny. Breaks the ice at parties.

(chuckling) I played it to a lot of me mates in Salford, they're all builders and all that, and they say we've got to put this on. So it's all (Mark makes stupid growly noises, taking the piss out of himself) and they're (slow handclapping).

I interviewed Damo Suzuki, via email...

He was well into the internet before it all took off, wasn't he? Great man, such a laugh. We were on tour in Germany once and he came back to the hotel. It was just me and him. He said "Let me hear the tape of the show tonight" and I said "Oh alright then". I put this tape on and it was the wrong side of the bloody tape! And he says, "Your material certainly reminds me of CAN." He was fucking cracked, it was like the 13th Floor Elevators or something. I got on very well with him.

What do you think of compilations and reissues of your stuff?

I've no control over them, I don't wanna do it.

Does it piss you off?

Very much so.

People seem to buy more compilations than real albums.

Everywhere you go anyway I hear all the music I'm trying to get away from. When I was a child everywhere you went in town there they were...there's '70s compilations and '80s compilations and it's 'cause the copyright's run out.

I'm sick of most of them.

People buy 'em so they can have them lying around, they can look at them. I always hide my best records away.

You don't lend your best stuff, you never get it back.

I made that mistake a long time ago. You lend out your best book and you never see it again. Or your records, y'know.

Will you be happy when the NME finally dies?

I dunno, what's happening with them? I saw it in the paper shop a few weeks ago. It's total bollocks, isn't it? There's nothing to read in it. Stupid, aren't they. They're trying to be tabloids, but the Sun does that shit better. Obviously, if you meet blokes out of the Sun and the Mirror, they're disgusting people, but if they go for somebody and talk dirt they check it out. Whereas the NME doesn't, and it looks shit. Why turn it into a minor Smash Hits? I think we were on the cover once and I said to the group, I said "We're fucking on the cover of the NME, so start fucking worrying 'cause that's the end of it for most bands." Fucking right.

It means they've decided you're cool or lumped you in with some scene or something.

Don't get me on this point! (chuckle) Fucking hell.

What do you think of all the Nostradamus stuff that's going round because of September 11th?

He actually did say bombers over Paris 2002. It's weird.

Loads of people are buying books of his now out of paranoia. Does that amuse you?

Ha ha ha ha! On the new LP, yeah, it's quite frightening. 'Cause there's a track on it called Cropdust. Spencer the drummer wrote it. And what I'm saying on it...I can't, it's too weird...and there's another track as well where it says "You are flying, got to abseil into a foreign land". And you think about it and it's all a bit much. Because there's also one about twin towers...but it's too late now to change it because it's already pressed.

Does it scare you a bit?

It does scare me, very much. The band are like this (jaw drops).

Do you sleep alright?

Me? I was never one of those who slept a lot. I don't need it. Four hours. Me great-grandfather, he used to do night shifts. It was when the pubs were open all day, so he used to work for twelve hours then go to the pub for twelve hours. He never fucking ate, never fucking slept. He lived till fucking ninety five. But then they sent his body off to London 'cause he died. So I asked me dad about his granddad, and he said he could only usually come out and have a sandwich and then back to work.

It's a good question that, actually, 'cause people always think I'm drunk or on drugs all the fucking time. And I'm not.

You used ProTools and sequencers a lot on the last album, did you like working with the new technology?

I've left it out for the next one. I like it, but it's too time-consuming.

I'd like to read all this shit, 'cause it's interesting. Make sure I see it. Can I have a bit of your orange juice?