EXPOSING YOU TO MORE NEW MUSIC

ISSUE 27

ANOTHER NIGHT WITH HUGH

STUBBLE INTERVIEW BY KEN ZEBBYN

It was a rainy night in Boston at a quaint little pub called The Kendall Cafe. I saw Hugh outside as I pulled up unloading his guitars into the club. After settling inside we shared a few words which follow.

Ken: You drove up yourself?

Hugh: The drive up the color of the scenery was sensational (foliage season) coming up from New York today.

Ken: Any Trouble finding the place?

Hugh: I had the wrong bloody address, I had 323 Cardinal and I didn’t have the Medeiros. I driving asking where’s Cardinal, Kendall Cafe on Cardinal and nobody knew or heard of it.

Ken: Last time We spoke was at The Mercury Lounge, how did you feel after that show, it being your 1st solo show in America?

Hugh: Fantastic, it was a great show, well attended and there was a guy that turned up from Peru, did you know that? There was this guy swarming around in the bar who had come over from England and he was carrying on saying “Oh I’m from England really swarming around and this other guy walks in and says Hugh I just got here from Peru and the other guy goes very quiet as he wasn’t the center of attention anymore. He had flown in for the show and was flying back to Peru at 5AM. So I bought him a couple of beers.

Ken: With your success in the past with The Stranglers you must have had the life of limos and tour busses and now...

Hugh: what do you mean I’m driving in a limo now a fabulous 4 wheel drive huge Cherokee. It’s all perspective. Actually I’m really enjoying, when I’ve Been Playing in England I’ve been playing very small places and the other night I got a deal on a huge 5 star place outside where I was playing and I went to stay there and actually didn’t enjoy it because I felt I could understand get very complacent in what you are doing with all this luxury you know. I really didn’t feel all that comfortable. so it’s not like I couldn’t get used to it again but just didn’t feel right.

Ken: Just as First Bus To Babylon was released here in the states VelVel lost their publicity dept what happened?

Hugh: VelVel was sold to the Koch people and they retained the main members they had signed and I feel fortunate. Its more organized now I am coming back in February and playing California and out west, then I’m coming back in April with a band and it will probably be a lot like this tour. (Northeast US) So we are doing serious work it’s not haphazard some serious plans for the next 6 months from the label. There will be a new album soon. I’ll be going in the studio with Laurie soon in 2 months. Then as soon as that is finished the plan is to come back and do the West Coast and then a few months in England with the band and then here with the band. They’re great. Taking 8 months off after 3 tours in England (with the band). The drummer is 24 years old Justin Chapman and the bass player is Michelle Marti she is Australian and they used to be an item. They played together for 8 years. And she is now living in New York but she’s coming to England to do the album and tour. So we start in December recording, no gimmicks just a pure psychedelic album.

Ken: How much has your website done for you?

Hugh: It has done an amazing amount of good, people had been having a difficult time finding out what I was up to. Now they can find out very easily what I’m up to. We used to produce this newsletter but by the time they received it wasn’t true anymore. It was a problem then we don’t have now.

The website can be found at www.hughcornwell.com

Ken: I noticed some NEW CD’s on your site.

Hugh: There are 3, one with this band that we recorded last year in Manchester, which is a very very fantastic record. I’m very proud of it. It’s got tracks from Nosferatu and Black Hair and it’s got “Big Sleep” on it too. No Stranglers material on it at all. It was recorded on a mobile and its been mixed properly. I’m very proud of it; it sounds better than any Stranglers mobile album. The separation is fantastic, it’s so clear, and the performance creates really good sound. Its called Mayday. Then there is one called Solo that is just me doing a solo set like I’m doing tonight not the same set but one I did in Norway. The third one was the one I did with the poet, which I might have mentioned to you last time, its called Sons Of Shiva. It’s this Irish poet I took 8 of his poems and set them to music. I did all the music and got him to recite his poems over the music, it’s very psychedelic.

Ken: The website makes it look like you are not on that one it does not list your name.

Hugh: Yes it does I’m Nuala Llewnroc which is my name backwards Nuala which is almost Allen which is my middle name backwards and Llewnroc is Cornwell spelt backwards. we are also re-releasing Wolf as Decadance with that song as the main track. And its working out well people referring to it as First Bus and Black Hair.

Ken: What’s it like to come here to the states trying to establish your solo career like you have in Europe?

Hugh: Its not as far as I’m going to take it, I just have to have my head in the right shape its taken a few years but its getting easier now that I’ve been working with David Fagan for the last 5 years and it was very very hard at the beginning and it has been slowly getting easier and easier. making more and more friends and all the rough edges are now past and the trains getting faster and faster every minute its great.

Ken: You have always had a bad boy image with The Stranglers telling record company executives and others to piss off. Has that hurt you and if you could would you change anything from your past?

Hugh: I wouldn’t do anything over because that’s how you turn out who you are. Its all useless philosophy to think about things you did, I think about now which its getting bigger and stronger and we got a train that’s building up speed and when it gets to the proper speed it will be unstoppable just wish the Stranglers engine was going the same way but its going in the opposite getting slower slower and slower. I guess one of the things I would like to have done with The Stranglers would have been spending more time over here. We really didn’t do it justice. Working over here we did tours here that were very tiring and didn’t follow them up. We said oh forget that it’s too much like hard work. The reason was we spent 4 years doing so much hard work in England we didn’t want to go through that again.

Ken: Do you feel the book NO MERCY is a fair reflection on your time with The Stranglers?

Hugh: It’s about 70% true. You’ve got to realize it was written more or less by Jet Black. It comes across that way doesn’t it? He contributed the most to it so its more or less Jets book in the same way as if I wrote a book and I was the only person consulted as I am intending to do. I spent 2 days with the author in Germany going over stuff changing a few things. I’m going to do one that will be based more on the music and I’m going to go through each song and the story of each song. which I think will be more interesting. each song is about moments in the bands life.

Ken: Does it bother you when interviewers bring up the past with The Stranglers?

Hugh: One thing I find that I’m really happy about is when the subject is brought up in America its done with great respect and sensitivity where as in England there is hardly any sensitivity at all. It is like Oh C'mon when are you getting back together and its going straight over their heads and they are not getting it. Like for instance at a recent gig in Midland and this guy is drunk out of his mind in a Strangler T-shirt and throughout the first 4 songs he kept saying Stranglers, Stranglers. So I stop playing and say to him I really appreciate you coming to my gig but if you continue to shouting out Stranglers all the time I’m going to lose my concentration and I’m not going to be playing well so if you want a good gig can you please stop it. And he looked at me hurt and wandered off into the pub.

Ken: How did it feel doing the live Internet thing and any video plans?

Hugh: We are not close to a visual image yet. We are trying to get a production team interested in doing documentary about what I’m about. A real mixed media thing, a film that could be seen as a film and enjoyed as a film even if you didn’t know who I was. As far as the online gig I just got on with the gig but I had tremendous difficulties with the sound. I have not got any feedback on it yet as the first orders just went out and I’m very interested in hearing what people are saying about it.

Ken: Now that you are planning to record again how much material are you going to draw from with Guilty/Black Hair being a few years old?

Hugh: That’s right it’s been almost 3 years and I’m writing again and its like diaraha of the mind. I just wrote a song about Arthur Lee he’s in prison now, its called “The Prisons Going Down” I’m doing that tonight. I’m doing another song called “Miss Teasy Weasy” which is another new song going on the album and I’m doing “Gingerbread Girl” which I did last time. I’ve just been writing loads and loads of songs and Laurie’s been into them, and I say how about that one and she says I like that one, and yeah I like that one, I mean I played her 18 songs last week and she liked them all. Maybe we will record as many as we can and then whatever we recorded we can put that album out.

Ken: With all the solo gigs you have done have you put any thought to doing an acoustic number on this album?

Hugh: Maybe, yeah maybe. That’s a possibility. We are going to vary the sound a lot more. Guilty flawless its a great album but its very much the same the whole way through. So Laurie and I decided on this one we want to take people on a bit of a journey, a psychedelic journey. We are going to have one song that is going to be either a harmonium or a piano in like a cave, like singing a song in a cave with a blistening guitar. We are going to take people underwater and out again its going to be a musical trip. Its not going too necessarily have the band on every track. It’s quite possible it could have an acoustic song.

Ken: Speaking of psychedelic you did a cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Stone Free” was it a tribute to him?

Hugh: I tried “Dazed and Confused” as well and I was doing lots of recording at home. I tried “Dazed and Confused” which is one my favorite songs of his and that’s still a possibility at one point. But “Stone Free” worked very well, immediately and when we recorded Wired the guy from the label said great title for the album STONE FREE, so it was actually going to be called Stone Free and that was going to a cut on the album. And as it turned up we didn’t put it on. Jimi .. I mean. you can’t... you know he is a very big influence, I’m not a Henrdix fan anymore more or less than I am a Miles Davis fan. other people or Mose Allison they are just big influences. I do sort of identify with Hendrix’s difficulty that he had. he started singing...have we gone over this before because I have said this to a few journalists, he started singing only because if he was just playing guitar by himself nobody was listening to him. So he became a singer songwriter people listened to him. He really just wanted to play guitar. Me, its exactly the other way around I really just want to be a singer but I had to learn to play guitar because it was the only way with people it would work.. So I don’t rate my guitar playing and Hendrix never rated his singing. I would never say.. my guitar playings crap I would never say I was a guitar player like Hendrix. The reason we are recording in December is because in order to be booked for the festival season next summer you have to have record thats out in April. At this stage in my career they won’t take you if you don’t have a new album out. It’s a realization that you have to plan a year in advance. I hope I have enough time to finish the album.

Ken: Have you given material to the band to learn?

Hugh: No I probably wont think I’ll just take them into the studio and learn them there. Its what we did with a few tracks last time...Black Hair, The Torture Garden, One Burning Desire and Hothead were done like that. Nerves of Steel was done like that too. I tell them it goes like this and four hours later we have an arrangement and backing tracks worked out. ? I love that you get some spontaneous feel to it, although it isn’t spontaneous you get a moment on tape, which has been created. Because when you first learn a song you have this real excitement and buzz in yourself about playing it. It’s never the same as then. So that’s why we do it like that. Those are the tracks I think turned out the best on the album.

Ken: Any final comments for our mostly Boston based audience?

Hugh: Well it’s been a long time getting back here and I’m glad I made it. I may come back here at the end of the tour as well in a month’s time maybe I don’t know.