Q&A: (Robyn Hitchcock)

If you were a fan of college rock during the late 1970s, chances are you've heard of The Soft Boys. Since the group's dissolution in 1980, once-member Robyn Hitchcock has made waves in the music world as a solo artist.

Hitchcock, who relocated to the small college town of Cambridge, England, as a young adult, formed The Soft Boys, a band that recorded only a few albums but has influenced many musicians and bands like R.E.M.

On Hitchcock's latest work, "Spooked," he enlisted the talent of producer/musician David Rawlings and musician Gillian Welch, and recorded the album in Nashville in a very short time frame. He is currently on tour in the U.S. supporting the new record.

Hitchcock sat down with The Beach Reporter this week to talk about "Spooked," the dangers of television, Condoleezza Rice and Bruce Springsteen, among other things.

The Beach Reporter: I first interviewed Gillian Welch when her album 'Soul Journey' came out and your album really reminded me of that record in the sense that it's all about really stark arrangements, and it has what I call a 'first take' vibe to it. So, was that something you were kind of looking for and that's why you collaborated with Dave and Gillian?

Hitchcock: No, I think that is one of the byproducts of working with them. They like to do stuff that way. They're the kind of people who, pretty quickly, get a very close feel in terms of the way you play the arrangements. You don't have to sit there and say "No, no, no, it's not like that." Whether you knew what you wanted or not, they tend to get it.

Did it pose more of a challenge singing to these songs, most of which are acoustic-based and a slow tempo? For me, songs like these really showcase the emotion and technicality of a singer.

Well, I've written slow acoustic songs for years. It's been a long time since I wrote anything up-tempo and electric. It's one of the sides of what I do, and it definitely coincides with David and Gillian. I've always been as much a folk musician as a rock musician. I think if you look closely at (David and Gillian), you can see that they are rock musicians in drag in a lot of ways. They gravitate toward country music, they gravitate toward Nashville and they have a very strong sense of tradition, but they are also indie kids. They used to listen to me when they were in college where they met each other. Gil was a big R.E.M. fan and Dave was a Pixies fan.

How did you all meet each other?

I met them at one of their shows in London. My wife gave me one of their albums and I really liked it so we went to see them, and it turned out they knew my stuff as well. So it was very coincidental. I had a small part in "The Manchurian Candidate," Jonathan Demme's film, and we were filming that in the beginning of last year in New York. I had some time off after it, I went to Nashville and that's how we got to make the record.

Do you usually record in England?

No, I can record anywhere. Really, it doesn't make much difference where I record. I've never recorded in Holland or France, but I've recorded in L.A., San Francisco and Seattle - mostly I've recorded on the West Coast. I think about half my records have been made in America. I can't tell listening to them where they were made.
When you are there actually recording do you think the city becomes a character in a sense and inspires the songwriting or recording process?

I don't know how much it comes through. I made an album in L.A. that was very slick but that was partly because there was a lot of money around. But, of course, now it sounds very dated because it all happened with the state-of-the-art late 1980s, early 1990s sound - you know the one in which the drums sound like they are making an album on their own. I made a very acoustic solo record in San Francisco, but that was one I paid for myself. In Seattle, it's been pretty natural-sounding. I guess whenever I record in L.A. it tends to be more slick but that may be because it's on a record company dime.

How long were you there making it?

Well, we did the basic thing in six days. Then we went back in the studio in April and spent another 10 days tidying it up, recording a couple of tracks with drums.

I really like the song 'Television.' It's interesting - all the things you can do with the TV these days with the invention of Tivo. People's lives kind of revolve around it and some people have it on just for the sake of having 'company' around. What kind of effect do you think it's having on people?

Well, TV is just like any other drug, really. Only at the moment its use is unrestricted but like most drugs it makes you feel good for a while but you feel kind of rotten afterward. But people are addicted to the television as much as someone is addicted to morphine, tobacco, codeine, cocaine or whatever; it doesn't physically enter the blood stream, but it's definitely an addiction. I think in that respect it's quite easy to relate to.

How often do you watch television?

I watch very little, but you can just understand the way it is, especially if you are on your own. In my instance, it would be that I'm on my own in a hotel. I think people develop a one-to-one relationship with the TV. You live on your own and you want to have some other noise in the household. You turn on the radio like my wife or you can turn on the TV and have it flickering away in the corner. I've got friends who do that. They have that sense of a presence. It's very one-way; the television doesn't take any notice of you. The same with putting a piece of music on, really, but the TV sort of has this other artificial relationship with you.

After listening to 'Everybody Needs Love' and your cues on that song, I was wondering, how much of a role did spontaneity play in this recording?

It was quite a lot on this song. I actually took it back to England, overdubbed it and added the sitar. We played around with it a lot and I think I was making up the words to it as I went along. I didn't have the real words in front of me, so it was stuck together.

You dedicate the album to the Dark Princess. Who is the Dark Princess?

Yes, yes. Who is the Dark Princess? Ah, boy, well, the Dark Princess it very dear to me, really. She is the central core (laughs). I can't really describe her, but she's a dark princess. You can't reduce it to anything more exact, really. But she is a dark princess, rest assured.

But it is an actual person?

Oh, yeah. She is actual all right, more actual than God. With God, you can't reduce God to anything smaller. You can say what is God. God is whatever causes the trees to grow, or whatever helps me park my car. I suppose the Dark Princess has similar functions in a way.

An American Girl ('Creeped Out') vs. an English Girl ('English Girl') - you give two varying perspectives on the two. In your opinion what do you feel are some similarities and some differences?

I don't think they are necessarily types, there could be a creeped-out English girl. I think the English girl on this album is a middle-class type; she's quite distant, if you like. I hope the songs aren't too stereotypical. I think that women have sharper antennae than men do, and so women possibly get more creeped out than men do. That could be from watching too many films. You know the frightened woman alone with the flickering candle under her face. It's always more disturbing when women are vulnerable compared to men. So, if you want to set up a picture of human vulnerability, it's usually a woman on her own who is the creeped-out one.

Yeah, it's interesting because I know that I feel like that sometimes when I am by myself. I'll admit that when I'm home alone about to get into the shower, I'll sometimes think of that scene in 'Psycho.'

Yes, there you are. God knows what "Psycho" had done for shower sales. Think how many women must feel like that and probably quite a few men as well. If someone is going to sit up frightening themselves at night with scary movies then in a way that's their responsibility.

After listening to 'We're Gonna Live in the Trees,' I really thought animals do know what's going on, they just don't feel like telling us plus they don't speak human, but their existence in a way makes more sense in terms of the use of the environment.

Right, the thing is they don't talk and we're just animals that talk. The problem is that we don't think of ourselves as animals but we are, we are just speaking animals. We have other diabolical talents as well, but in the end we are no better than they are. They are able to do what they do in a much simpler way. Our lives are incredibly complicated; we can't just go off and exist. Other animals, generally given the right ecosystem, they can keep going and all they have to do is eat each other or bugs or eat whatever is growing. They don't have to import food from thousands of miles away. They do have their complex roots, but on the whole are less torturously interdependent.

On the comedy sketch 'Welcome to Earth' that is modeled after an automated system, what option (famine, pestilence, Condoleezza or death) would you choose if you had to pick one?

(Laughs) That's a hard choice. I don't know. Condoleezza has been upgraded. I supposed famine would be all right, pestilence is going to kill you and death you get anyway. It's like would you jump out of the burning building or into the fire. What would you go for?

I think I'd have to take Condoleezza.

You'd take Condoleezza? She's a Scorpio. I don't know, she's a musician as well, that sort of pulls me. It's tough isn't it? Where's Bruce Springsteen when you need him? He's a nice guy.

Is he?

Yeah, apparently he's a very nice bloke and he's also risked the wrath of a lot of his audience by coming out against Bush. It's all right for me; my audience is 100-percent liberal Democrat, book-reading, dissident, intellectual, psycho-hippies. Bruce connects with real people in ways that I don't feel I have to or don't believe I can. He's risked alienation, and I know people who met him and say he's a really good egg. So, that's good, they are not all garbage. I mean Condoleezza and Bruce, in 300 years time will both just be people from the late 20th century.