1977 Hot Press interview
Donal Corvin talks to Van the Man about Them, the States, and most everything up to Veedon Fleece... A Period of Transition, Van Morrison's latest album broke what had been a three-year silence on the part of the Belfast Cowboy. And since the release of the album, Morrison has entered, for the first time in a similar period, into a short round of promotional interviews. To describe some of these as embattled is to put it mildly. In particular, in his session with Soundperson Vivien Goldman, interviewer and interviewee came across as being at different mindpoles - there can hardly have been one sympathetic word spoken. Some might call Morrison unnecessarily hostile, possibly paranoid, in his treatment of a basically well-intentioned reporter. Maybe justifiably. But there was one exchange during the short interview which might explain Morrison's attitude completely. Van evades answering a question with the comment that it doesn't interest him. So Vivien asks him what would he like to talk about. He says he's there to promote A Period of Transition. But, she rejoins, the point about the question was that his answer might 'have given some slight insight into the man who created the music.' "Well, if you're looking for that you'll never get it" Morrison told her. Why? "The only way you can get to that is if it's somebody I know, who I've known maybe for several years and you know, knows a bit about me, has seen me work, his seen me operate, then I'd feel free to discuss that. But seeing as I don't know anything about you, it's kinda difficult to talk about that kinda stuff." Morrison's words. It was in the light of this and the general lack of background depth in recent interviews that we were convinced that it would not only be a worthwhile but a valuable project to extricate the following interview with Morrison from the vaults. It was conducted by Donal Corvin, a freelance journalist currently with the Sunday Independent and a long-time doyen of the Irish Rock Scene, in preparation for a projected biography, during the time Morrison was based in Ireland working on the material for Veedon Fleece. The biography never finally came together as, when Morrison returned to the States, phone communication across the Atlantic proved an inadequate means for detailed conversations. Not surprisingly. And since then a biography of Morrison, written by Ritchie Yorke in the States, has been published covering some of the ground discussed here. But, if our judgement is correct, this is rare archive material, in which Van the Man shines through. The question and answer format allows that to happen most fully. No way, however, should this be read as if it was a fully up-to-date interview. It's got its own joys besides. There are a couple of points worth making. At a certain stage in the interview Van talks about his 'thing', his 'style', which he only developed in '69. In his recent interview with Roy Carr of NME, Morrison seemed to feel that what was developed then has since come to the end of its cycle. His present impulse is to get right back to basic roots, a fact which is clearly manifested in the particular quality of A Period of Transition. And throughout the Carr interview Van expressed a desire NOT to be locked into any public expectancy(his word) relating to style. A major difference between then and now? An ironic moment comes in our interview when Morrison comments that he should be releasing double (or triple?) not single albums. But the Carr interview casts a revealing light on that remark. In it, Van made the point that around the period of the Corvin interview, he realised that he'd burnt himself out writing and recording too much. Hence the silence between Veedon Fleece and A Period of Transition. D.C.: How did Them come about? V.M.: "There were two guys both called Gerry who put an 'ad' in the Belfast paper one time. They were going to open a rhythm In' blues club. So I went over to see them and they wanted me to put a band together. I was seventeen. I lined up Them; the original Them. That was Herbie Armstrong and Billy McAllen; Gerry McIlroy was going to play drums. I forget who was playing bass but I think Eric Wrixon was going to be on piano, something like that. Then Herbie and all those guys backed out. They didn't want to do it Ices it wasn't steady bread. Then Wrixon and I fell in with Alan Henderson and Billy Harrison and Ronnie Millings. And we started playing as Them." D.C.: When did you begin recording? V.M.: "Well, it's a kind of a desperate story. It's all shrouded in getting screwed-over. I don't want to talk about that . . D.C.: Anyway you did 'Baby Please Don't Go' And 'Here Comes The Night'. And 'Gloria' was a B-side? V. M.: "Right. Then it became the A-side in the States. 'Gloria' was about my Cousin." D.C.: What made you write a song about your cousin? Was it some dark secret? V.M.: "No. I just dug her." D.C.: Bert Berns produced your first singles and wrote 'Here Comes The Night'? V.M.: "Right. And he produced a couple of Them's album cuts." D.C.: What do you think of those early albums now? V.M.: "I think they're good albums but ... Yeah. I listen to them. I have to buy my own albums. I have to buy them in the store 'cos the record company doesn't send me any! You know? As well as not sending me any money? It's weird. "I bought the first one. It's a double album: Them featuring Van Morrison, lead singer. I think it's really good. I like it. At the time I didn't think that they were really getting into what the band was doing." D.C.: Was Berns in complete charge in the studios? V.M.: "Not really. He only did about four tracks and when he was doing, those, he was in charge. But this guy from Solomon's office was mainly in charge." D.C.: Tommy Scott? V.M.: "Right. He was just in the trip for his own personal gain. As far as knowing where the group was going . . . I don't think he knew. I don't think he had any idea. What we did and what he tried to put on record were two different things. "There was one time we went in and did this song. It was a ballad. I remember going into the studio and cutting it. It sounded like a soul ballad thing. It sounded great. It was called 'One More Time.' A couple of days later I got a dub. He had added echo to the vocal and the guitar sounded like sandpaper. You know, wah-wah fuzz guitar? "It didn't fit with the song at all. It was just polluted with echo. Echo on everything - this was his image of the group. This is what he thought the group should sound like - totally commercial. And that's not what the group was. Obviously he was just in it to make the bread." D.C.: After the first two singles were you discontented with the way things were going? V.M.: "Well after the first two singles the band wasn't even together! The singles were a success while the band was together. But after that it wasn't Them anymore. "You see, Them was a very funky, down-to-earth group. It was very straightforward - like, it was communicating with people. A recording group, I don't know. It made good records so obviously it was a good recording group. But it got out of that thing where we were communicating with people. It got really weird. "Like Top of the Pops: Them were never meant to be on Top of the Pops. I mean, miming? Lip-synching? We used to laugh at that programme, think it was a joke. Then we were on it ourselves! It was ridiculous. We were just totally anti that type of thing - "We were really into blues, like funky. And we had to get into suits and have make-up put on and all that shit. Ridiculous! And they had marks on the floor and if you moved from that spot, the camera wouldn't pick you up. "The management company wanted me to go on TV in pink tights! For 'Baby Please Don't Go'. Said I'd be sensational." D.C.; And at that time you were into the ex-army gear? V.M.: "Right. We used to wear army surplus clothes. They sent us over to get blazers. They said: 'just got over there and tell them Mervyn sent you.' We thought they were paying for the blazers until we got the bill for them." D.C.: And from then on the group began to disintegrate? V.M.: Yeah, Because it was too far away from where it was really at. We were categorized with groups like the Rockin' Berries and, you know, the Searchers. We were nowhere near that trip but we were getting locked into it by association. We were a hard, funky group. "People started to leave the group. A few people left and a few people were replaced. One guy just stayed for two weeks. We were just trying people out but the newspapers really made it big: like there was a million changes. The newspapers blew it up out of all proportion. "I saw an album cover for The World of Them yesterday. It looks like a six year old kid did the drawing of the band. But there's people in it whom I never saw before in my life. I don't know who they are. And they were never in Them. I don't know why they have them on the album cover. D.C.: You still hadn't developed your singing style then? V.M.: "I only started to elaborate on it in 1969, right. That was one of the things that was hanging me up with Them 'cos I always wanted to expand and grow. I couldn't grow in that situation because with a group you have all of these different personalities and it's hard enough for two people to agree, never mind five. So it didn't allow me much room to stretch out. D.C.: But you were ultimately The Boss in all the bands? V.M.: "I wouldn't say that. I had a lot of the say but that doesn't mean that it'll work out creatively. In the studio things inevitably get turned around because it was a very loose thing that the band was into but in the studio it became very tight - with Tommy Scott as producer. He didn't want anybody to get stoned. They tended just to ramble on but this restriction nipped things at the bud. And Scott kept pushing his material. We didn't need his material. He just kept pushing it in. And the management company was pushing it. Whew! It was a whole big number. "We were in it for the music and just the general feeling of turning people on - getting feedback from people. That's how it started. And then all these people come in and try to pull angles on it. It just dilutes everything that you're saying or doing. "We would arrive at a session and Scott would have these lyrics on a piece of paper and Billy, the guitar player, and I were supposed to take it from there and do one of Scott's songs." D.C.: And you did some of his songs ... V.M.: "Yeah. We even did, that's how manipulative it was. We were too nice about the whole thing. We should just have put the clamps on right there. It was out of this world. And they didn't care whether the group broke up or whatever." D.C.: Jimmy Page was one of the sessionmen on some of those tracks? V.M.: "Yeah, but he didn't even play guitar. Like he played rhythm guitar on one thing and doubled a bass riff on another. That's all he did. I mean, it was nothing. It was just zero bit. I don't think it's a big deal now. He made it later but so what? He wasn't really playing on those things. He was there but he was just goofin' off." D.C.: Was Phil Coulter also involved on those records? V.M.: "Yeah. He played on them. I think Phil had more to add than anybody that was around 'cos he had a basic idea of what we were doing. He played piano on a lot of stuff." D.C.: When did you first go to the States? V.M.: "Well, there's a whole lot of weird things went down there. Dig this. They wanted me to go to the States with four guys that they picked out and called Them. I didn't go for that. I took the group with Henderson and Armstrong and Elliot and those geeks. This English guy was playing drums. I don't know what was going on. I hadn't a clue." D.C.: And then the band broke up in the States? V.M.: "Yeah. We only played in the States for three months. But you gotta remember this was a different band. It was just being sold as Them." D.C.: This was the last Them? V.M.: "It wasn't even Them at all. It was playing a couple of numbers that Them did ... and the rest of it was - all different songs. It was just the name, that's all." D.C.: And when Them broke up you stayed on in the States for a coupla months? V.M.: "Naw. For coupla weeks. I was just resting. Resting after ... It gets strenuous on the road." D.C.: Did you see Berns? V.M.: "No. He lived on the East Coast and we were on the West so I didn't see him." D.C.: You came back to Belfast then, at the end of '65 or start of '66. That must have been a freaky trip? V.M.: "What? Yeah, it was because when I went back to Belfast I'd meet people in the street and their whole concept, you know, of 'the thing' was totally money: How much money're you making? You must be making a lot of money And you aren't making any money. I mean, their whole concept was money oriented. "I'm in music. And it's my living too. To most people, they think you're doing it to make so much money - something like that. And Going To America is the same type of thing. You only got to America to make money. It's a big Pie In The Sky or something." D.C.: So you didn't have any money in Belfast then? V.M.: "No. I was totally broke 'cos I got a little money from the stuff that I'd written. I got a little - I didn't get it all. and I didn't get anything from the recordings. So I was totally broke." D.C.: How did your friends react to you when you came back then? V.M.: "How did they 'react? Some of them were just the same but some of them acted very strange. They expected me to have a lot of money and throw it around. You really know who your friends are. You really know. But a lot of them treated me just the same." D.C.: You were writing plenty at that time. What were you doing? V.M.: "Yeah. I wrote a lot of songs at that time. Probably 'Brown-Eyed Girl' is the commercial one. For that I just got a lot of ideas and stretched them out. It was originally 'Brown-Skinned Girl'. I'd also started on the songs for Astral Weeks. I'd done some sketches on some of the stuff and then I finished it in New York. D.C.: Did you see the album as a concept then; in Belfast? V.M.: "No. I didn't see it as a concept until most of the songs were written." D.C.: You eventually did get a band together in Belfast and do gigs. At the time of the Monkees. .. V.M.: "Let me explain something to you first. I don't think I started to get into, you know, what I do ... uh, until '69. When I recorded 'Don't Look Back' on the first Them album, that's when I first started to get into my style, my singing style, my real style. And 'Baby Blue' on the next album ... that's the sort of stuff I was getting into as far as vocals go. But I couldn't really do it in that context. You know what I'm talking about? I couldn't really do it until much later. I didn't really get a chance to ... but I was already into it then. So the gigs you're talking about, they were just work. It just got very weird all the time. I'm not trying to say Belfast is weird or anything like that. I'm paranoid . . . D.C.: When did you decide to emigrate to the States? V.M.: "It was thought out all before that; I'd been wanting to go to the States for a while. This guy gave me the message that Bert Berns wanted to get in touch with me, if I wasn't doing anything, that he wanted to make an album. So I got Bert's number in New York and called him up and lie said: 'Let's get together and do an album'. There was another record company I was going to sign with in England but I couldn't wait on them any longer. They weren't doing anything 'cept talk. But Bert gave me money, like a good advance, and he paid my way." D.C.: What sort of guy was he? V.M.: He was about thirty-eight. I really respected him. I dug him. I really don't know whether he was into my music. I knew him as a person and could relate to him that way. But he was also, you know, a big businessman. He had a big business trip going and I couldn't figure it out. What did I know? I was twenty. I knew him as a writer and a producer and a person. But maybe he had too many business trips going." D.C.: What about the Blowin' Your Mind album? V.M.: "There's not much to say about it except that I wasn't really happy with it. He picked the band and the tunes and all that stuff. I had a different concept of it. I saw it a lot differently to what he did. I had a hard job convincing him what I wanted to do. And he didn't want to listen anyway. "I recorded a bunch of stuff on a tape recorder like this and most of it was just myself and this was how I wanted these songs. Not the songs that got on the album but a different bunch of songs - a concept for an album. I did them on the tape with just guitar and somebody banging on a tambourine and vocals; that was about it. And Bert said: 'That's great. That's just how you do it. Why don't we put it out like that?' And I said: 'Yeah. That's kinda the way I want to do it. The way it is. Not with much changing.' But it never happened. When we got to the session it was a big production number . . ." D.C.: Had you only done the one American album with him? V.M.: "No.1 did another session that wasn't really an album. He had this studio in New York that he wanted me to try out. It worked out really bad. They took the tapes and put it out as an album anyway. It's called The Best of Van Morrison and it's just The Worst. There's a couple of good cuts on it but it's mainly terrible." D.C.: Were you writing much those times? V.M.: "Yeah. I've always been writing. There's always stuff that I'm working on but it doesn't all get out on albums. I've got reels of tape. Like I've got just wall-to-wall tapes. . ." D.C.: How did you then come to split with Berns? V.M.: "We had a kinda disagreement. I had gone all the way with him but he didn't want to go my way. D.C.: Do you ever think of how Astral Weeks would have turned out if he had produced it? V.M.: "I know how it would have turned out! I played him some of the songs and he wanted to get about twenty people in the studio, hand-clapping. Let me say this: I think Bert was a great producer; he had a whole style which was really good. But the other thing wasn't his area." D.C.: You told me that the concept of Astral Weeks was 'rebirth' . . . V.M.: "Right. That could mean a million things. The album is full of sketches and that's why people read more into it. Because you're giving them pictures and with the visual trip they read into it whatever they want. I have another song 'Snow in San Anselmo' on the Hardnose LP - which is a sketch. And I've heard about forty-five interpretations of what that song is about. Which is . . ." D.C.: Snow in San Anselmo ... V.M.: "Right. But one image just leads to another. I don't write with an interpretation; that's up to the listener." D.C.: 'Madam George' was a song that confused a lot of people ... V.M.: "Well, for a start, the song is actually Madam Joy. Sometimes I write the music first and then the lyrics. But Madam Joy was a straight poem with music added. It was a spontaneous thing and I didn't really dig what it was about until after I wrote it. It was stream of consciousness and then later just, flash!, I knew what it was about. "I had a great-aunt whose family name was Joy and she lived around the Cyprus Avenue area. I only met her once, when I was little. She was supposed to be very clairvoyant or psychic and lived in this old Victorian house. I just heard stories about her." D.C.: So after everything, 'Madam George' was a poem about your aunt? V.M.: "Well that's part of it. It's about other things too. It's a sketch about a lot of various feelings, moods. The feeling of that song is very important because that enables the lyrics to come through." D.C.: Astral Weeks was a weird album. There was a mystical feeling about it ... V.M.: "I feel that way myself. I agree. I can listen to it now and it's still there. It's my favourite of all the albums." D.C.: Can you tell me about your obsession with Caledonia? V.M.: "Well. I have a theory that soul music originally came from Scotland and Ireland - I mean, soul music as we know it today from the American negro. Scotland, and I think Ireland too, was originally called Caledonia. "The structure and roots of traditional Irish and Scottish music has a very strong link with the American negro's rhythm 'n' blues. The structures are very similar and the chordings are in that same mode. "Take 'Purple Heather' on Hardnose. There's a theme running through that which is pretty similar to the standard rhythm 'n blues trip and there's a lot of connections like that. Bert Berns had the theory that this was where it originated. I mean, the negroes in America didn't get those soul riffs out of the blue. It came from somewhere. "Bobby Scott, who wrote 'Taste Of Honey', has that theory too. Later on I got one of Bobby Scott's records where he sings and plays piano and his piano playing is very similar to my guitar-playing. The way he thinks on the piano and the way he writes is very similar to the way I think and write. And he's into that soul thing too. D.C.: When you have so many of your own songs unreleased how come you did Purple Heather? V.M.: "I heard the McPeakes do it at a party in Belfast a long, long time ago. I'd probably heard it first from my mother but the McPeakes sold me on it. I just thought it was one of the greatest things I'd ever heard. Period. On record or off record. And I had an album of Dolly McMahon's with the uileann pipes and all that stuff. I liked it too." D.C.: What other Irish records have you listened to? V.M.: "Well I didn't have many albums, physically. But my mother played bagpipes. She used to walk up and down the upstairs bedroom playing bagpipes when I was a little kid. She used to march up and down. She was in one of those pipe bands." D.C.: Did she influence you musically? V.M.: "Yeah. Well she's got to be an influence on me. We used to sing a lot. The family used to get together and we'd sing a lot of stuff. There was a lot of influences but after a while you sift through them and they melt into one thing and you do your own trip." D.C.: Are you on some sort of Irish kick at the minute? V.M.: "No. No more than four years ago. I'm no more on an Irish kick now than I was when I was born ... I don't know what that means. That's weird. I've been into all kinds of music for years. Does the fact that I recorded a song from Sesame Street mean I'm on a Sesame Street kick?" D.C.: Fair answer. I love you for that! Let's change the subject. . . Do you reckon that Bert Berns was much of an influence on you? V.M.: "He was an influence on me in a way. So was Ray Charles. So was John Lee Hooker. After a while you do what you want with the influences. Like 'Purple Heather' - I don't do that like anybody else does it. I don't do it like an Irish song. Generally people who hear it won't even click on it. If you're not from Ireland you're not going to click on it." D.C.: Let's talk about other people who have done your songs and your connections with them? V.M.: "I don't have any connections with artists who have done my songs except for Art Garfunkel. Well, Richie Havens. I know Richie but I didn't know he was going to do one of my songs. He did a really good version of 'Tupelo Honey'. Really excellent. He does it his own way. He does it like Richie Havens. Which is good. I don't like people doing copies." D.C.: You seem to be happy with Art Garfunkel's version of 'I Shall Sing'. How would you have felt singing to the backing track on that? V.M.: "Well I would have had it before he did because Jack Schroeder, my main horn man, did the arrangement on it. Ha! I recorded it myself also but didn't release it; couldn't fit it on an album. And Art comes up and says: 'Will you play me some songs that you wrote?' so I put the tape on and played him a whole lot of songs and he said: 'That one'. . . D.C.: There seems to be no end of songs that you haven't released? V.M.: "Yeah. I'm always writing too. It's this thing about having just one album out. I'm going to have to start doing double albums. It takes a lot of work and a lot of concentration and a lot of effort. You put the energy into it and then somebody at the record company tells you: 'Well, I think the promotion calls for a single album because blah blah blah . . .' and then you have to start editing everything. Take this song out. Take that one out. You have to edit it down to a single album. It's hard to choose which to take off because they're all so different. You just guess or something." D.C.: It's strange. Your whole attitude is 'I'm not going to let anybody screw me - especially record companies' and you seem to be letting them. V.M.: "You've got a point. That's a good point. I love you for that. What do you say? Fair play! Ha." D.C.: That gets you back for Sesame Street. D.C.: When you eventually did become your own producer, for Moondance, did you find things easier in the studios? V.M.: "Not easier. Harder. But I got into it." D.C.: How did you go about making Moondance? V.M.: "How? Well I rehearsed the band beforehand and just told everybody basically what I wanted to hear. Mostly that album was all 'live'. I like to record 'live'. I'd sing live' with the band and then go in and listen to the playback and see if it was what I wanted. Maybe somebody was playing too heavy or too light so I'd say: 'Can you do it this way?' D.C.: And you'd then go and do the whole thing again. V.M.: "Yeah. Do the whole thing again. Occasionally I'll overdub a horn but that's about all. "Sometimes I do it over again to get a better vocal because I'm very self-critical. I'm very critical of my vocals. Lots of times we'll do about ten takes and the first one is the best. The first one is usually the best. Some people say that all getting good takes is luck. I don't think luck has anything to do with it. It's all down to work. "The thing about the business being luck - forget it. I've been working at this job -- it's a job, right? - I've been working at it for ten, twelve years professionally. Almost twelve years. And it's still work. I don't think it has anything to do with luck. For me it's been hard work all the way. And it still is . . . I don't get anything for nothing." D.C.: Surely it was luck that you got the 'come to New York' message from Berns? V.M.: "No. If Bert hadn't called I just would have gone another way. What has that to do with anything?" D.C.: Well, it decided the direction in which you went. V.M.: "I don't think it did at all. I would have gone to the States without Bert. If I wasn't going with Bert I was signing with an English record company ... but how do you know that I wouldn't have gone anyway. What does that mean? That's like saying that you wouldn't be doing this if you hadn't written City Beat. That's a load of tripe, man. That's ridiculous. If you make those sort of comparisons you may as well lock yourself in a cupboard or something. "I'm saying that it's not fate. It's hard work. I don't see how it can be luck - the fact that I knew Bert Berns. It was hard work, not letting Bert take me over 'cos he had a strong personality. There was no luck in that. It was work convincing Bert what I wanted to do 'cos he didn't want to do what I wanted to do. He wanted to do his trip on me, you know? It was very difficult. "There's a misconception there. I don't think that my being successful had anything to do with going to the States for Bert. That didn't have anything to do with my success. I saw my success all the way. It was a step by step thing. It still is. It didn't happen overnight." D.C.: Were you conscious in advance that you were going to be successful? V.M.: "Oh yeah! Oh yeah." D.C.: Was this an ambition or was it just some-thing you were resigned to? Was it thrust upon you? V.M.: "It was the kind of thing that you had to accept. I didn't know. You really don't know anything in this life. But I just had a feeling that I could do things as good, if not better than some people who were making it. Some people who were making it weren't really making it at all. Okay, they were making it as far as the papers go but ... So I thought: 'Well, if he can do it - I can do it'. "Do what you think you should be doing here. That's what I mean by 'making it'. The money doesn't have anything to do with it. Making it and making money are two separate things. Making it is all in your head. I think people in Ireland, especially where I come from, equate making it with money. People say to me: 'Do this. Do that. Youll make a million.' Making it is not peace of mind to them, or being satisfied with what you do - it's money. D.C.: Was music always what you were most interested in? V.M.: "Yeah. I'd say so. Music and writing were the two things. I've always been interested in looking closer at things - not just taking things at face value. I'm interested in breaking down commercialism and brainwashing. The media - how they affect people. Looking at the media with a magnifying glass and seeing where they are. Because most of it is rubbish. I know that a lot of the things that have been said about me are just total rubbish. That got me thinking about it again. At school I'd been really into that. Commercials; how they worked. The brainwashing; all that stuff. So I really got into it again just by reading about myself because it was totally ridiculous. I went: 'How did they arrive at this? How do newspapers brainwash people into thinking this is the way things are when they're not? "Like with me, the brainwash was: 'Belfast Boy Makes Good. Rags to Riches' Who's gonna go for that. I mean, when I was a kid I wasn't poor. It's just totally out of this world what newspapers can do. I know people who think the papers are gospel ... "And records. You know, the Top 10, the Top 20, whatever you call it. That's total brainwash. I mean, they just play the records so much and so often. Hear it comin' at you!!! You can't get away fiom it. I'm sure kids just walk into the store and they've got it imprinted into their brain: 'I Want That One. Jimmy Saville Played That One'. I'm not putting him down. I think he does a great thing. Jimmy does charity things for the hospitals. He's a really good man and I believe in him. But, I mean, how can you beat the system? You can only beat the system by seeing it for what it is. By being aware of where the whole thing sits." D.C.: What do you think of musicians who get involved in politics? Like during the McGovern campaign? V.M.: "I think a musician who gets involved in politics is way out of his depth. Unless it's somebody like Pete Seeger who really knows what he's talking about. I think most of them can't cut it. Guys like Pete Seeger have been through all that and that's why they can talk about it. I think it's terrible for musicians to use their position to influence people like that. They don't have any right. "Music is universal. It's not for one side or the other. It's universal. Black. White. Music is for people. There's no sides." D.C.: Did you ever record any protest songs? V.M.: "No. Yeah. 'The Great Deception'. And . . ." D.C.: 'Richard Cory? V.M.: "Right. That was a protest song. I recorded that with Them. You're right. D.C.: What prompted you to write 'The Great Deception'? V.M: "Well that's just about things that I know about. Like the hippies who aren't hippies. And the showbiz syndrome that's just raping people. And the so-called revolutionary types who do a lot of talking but don't really live the life. That's what that's about." D.C.: You were a pseudo hippie for a while yourself ... V.M.: "No. Never." D.C.: Were you into flower-power and beads? V.M.: "Never in my life. How did you get that impression?" D.C. From photographs. V.M.: "Album cover photographs? Well, I had long hair and a beard but I was never a hippie. A lot of people think you're a hippie because of long hair and beard. Not true. "I had long hair and a beard because where I lived it was extremely cold. That's the truth!" "Why are you laughing? I never had it in the summer time; I always had it in the winter because where we lived there was snow for five months of the year. This was upstate New York. It was extremely cold. If you didn't have long hair and a beard you might as well forget it." D.C.: Good answer. V.M.: "No kidding. That's a good point about the hippie thing, That long-haired thing in Woodstock came from a traditional thing. It's the kind of long hair and beards that painters had." D.C.: Bohemian job? V.M.: "Right. Bohemian job. The town of Woodstock did not like hippies. It was very antihippie. And when the movie came out, the town couldn't believe it. They were mortified. They just could not believe that their own town was going to be ripped apart the way it was. The movie wasn't even there - it was sixty miles away. "Woodstock was a little burgh. A little village. And all the people who lived there were into something and they'd been there for a long time. It was like a really old artist colony. They were just living from day to day until the movie came out and blew their whole thing. "Then all these people started to show up all of a sudden and it became a scene. Which was the exact opposite of why the residents were originally there. People had been living there because they were tired of the scene. They wanted out of the scene." D.C.: It was while you were living in Woodstock that you recorded 4% Pantomime on the Band album? V.M.: "I recorded that about a week before I left because after a while it got out of control. The Band don't even live there anymore." D.C.: How close were you, how friendly, with the Band? V.M.: "Pretty close. I used to hang out with some of them regularly. I still keep in contact. D.C.: Did you ever get to the stage of talking about going on the road together? V.M.: "No. We were just thinking about recording together. Like doing something serious. We were kinda jamming out on what we were doing. We were just jamming it around different ways on that song' But I felt that they could do a lot of things other than what I'd heard. What they do on record is one thing. Well, it's many things but there's a lot more that they do that they haven't put down. And I just wondered why they hadn't put it on a record. "Just the feeling that they put out when they play really together is a very strong feeling. I think they're probably the best back-up band around." Here the conversation goes into what Corrin described at the time as 'the name-dropping bit' - Dylan, Cohen, Stills, Young and so on. Morrison's attitude then is perfectly summed up in his following final remark. - Ed. V.M.: "Let me explain something. I don't really know a lot of people. I know very, very few people in showbiz. I know more people out of it than I do in it. I haven't been one to socialise in that field. There's no call for it. I don't keep to myself but I don't go out every night either. I socialise but it's no big deal. I'm kinda the wrong person to ask about people in showbiz 'cos it's never really appealed to me for some reason. I never go out of my way to get into the scene." D.C.: How did you get your band (Remember the time-lag - Ed.) together? Were they neighbours of yours? V.M.: "Yeah. I was living upstate New York and that's how I met them. Jack Schroer, the horn player, was living downtown - just about a mile from me. He was playing with the Caldwell Winfield Blues Band. I met most of the band in that area. And, like, we played together. I heard their music and they heard most of my music and we clicked. We dug each other's playing up front. "I first got together with this piano player, Jeff Labes, and he's been playing on and off on my records and gigs for a long time. Since before Moondance. He's, like, a friend. He does his own thing. I do my own thing. And sometimes they meet. Sometimes they meet in the middle and we play together. We met in Woodstock and jammed together. He was playing with Caldwell Winfield and, as I say, that was the band that Jack was in. "We did this gig together in Woodstock this was the original Woodstock festival which they have every year. It didn't have anything to do with the movie at all. It's in a little field, a little muddy field. They had the festival every year and it was really mellow. You know, there's not many people there - just enough. "The movie just ruined the town completely. When we lived in Woodstock it was like that. You know, it was musicians and artists and they were just into that. They weren't into commercial things and they weren't into that whole hype scene. When that movie came out it just changed the whole place. The festival in the film was sixty miles away. It's like making a movie in Sligo and calling it 'The Best of Dublin'. That's what went down. People thought that's what was happening in Woodstock . . D.C.: Every night of the week . . . V.M: "That's right. It just turned the town upside down. Made it the opposite of what it was supposed to be. So everybody just started to leave." D.C.: Did the town itself expand? V.M.: "I don't know. I haven't been back since I left. I don't know what happened. It's probably mellowed out a bit because tile movie is kind of old now and all the hype has died down . . D.C.: And this was where the band got together? V.M.: "Yeah. That's how we got together. I told them: 'I dig your playing'. With the guys from Caldwell Winfield, we got together with this other guitar player from Hyde Park, down the line from Woodstock - that's John Platania. We used to get together and jam, just the two of us, so then we put that into what we were doing with the horns and piano. Bass players kinda fluctuated. We got Gary Mallabar to play drums. He was doing a lot of session work. Then we found Dave, you know, Dahvud Schaar (sic)." D.C.: Tell me the story behind St. Dominics's Preview? V.M.: "I didn't write the song with anything in mind, let me make that clear. That song is just a strearn of consciousness. It doesn't mean any particular thing. It's a sketch. I don't know what 'St. Dominic's Preview' means. The words, the syllables, just came out of my mouth and I wrote them down. I was messing around with the guitar. "But a funny thing happened after I'd written the song. I was in Nevada and I picked up a paper and saw an 'ad' about a Mass for Peace in Belfast which was to be held in St. Dominic's Church. So to me that wasn't coincidence. I worked it out in my head that 'St Dominic's Preview' was me seeing that before I looked at the paper. That's what I thought it meant. D.C.: Did you think about going to the mass? V.M.: "No. Why"" D.C.: To follow up the story. V.M.: "Well. I've really never been to Church. But I was in Nevada at the time and the church was in San Francisco. I was brought up as a Jehovah's Witness. So to me it was scrambled eggs. I didn't know which end was which." D.C.: There were flashes of Belfast characters in St. Dominic's Preview. Was it consciously a Belfast song? V.M.: "Could have been. Subconsciously. But it was about a lot of other things as well. San Francisco. Lots of things. I don't think it was any kind of statement. It was just a picture?" D.C: What about 'Listen To The Lion'? V.M.: "What about it?" D.C.: Can you tell me something, anything, about it? V.M.: "What can I tell you? The words say it all. It's Leo coming out of the Virgo in my horoscope. That's as much of an answer to it as any ... I liked that album. D.C.: Did you like the Tupelo Honey album? V.M.: "Well, it didn't really overwhelm me. It was as good as I could do at that time. And, you know, that was it. That's all I felt about it. I didn't dislike it at all." D.C.: We've worked backwards now to Band & Street Choir. What about it? V.M.: "By the time I finished with it I didn't like it because it put me through so many changes. I was doing a lot of gigging and I was under pressure to get the album finished. And some weird business trip went down at the same time. So the album has bad connotations for me. "The Street Choir was originally written for an acapella group and I had a group of people in mind who were the Street Choir. They were living around Woodstock and we used to play together. I asked them if they wanted to sing on this cut. That was the Street Choir. Then people's personalities got all involved in it and then all the old ladies got involved in it and it ruined the whole thing, what it was all about. D.C.: It was this album cover that gave me the impression of you as a hippie. V.M.: "I think that's the impression was meant to be given. I didn't like the album cover. It was taken at a party. It's just rubbish. I didn't want that album cover at all. They just went ahead and did it." D.C.: How much attention do you pay to your album covers? V.M.: "Well I don't really pay any attention at all but I find that a lot of people do. It's very strange because people see an album cover and think that's the way you live. "You got the impression that I was a hippie from that album cover? Yeah. I think most of the band was into it except for John, the guitar player, and myself. I think we were the only ones who weren't hippies. The rest of them didn't call themselves hippies but, you know, they weren't dressed in suits. Ha. It could give that impression. "That's the picture of me in the kaftan and beads? Well, I'd just bought that in Woodstock and that's what people were wearing. There was nothing else in the shops. I see what you mean. The whole album package was very misleading. Even the title." D.C.: The cover painting for Hard Nose The Highway - done by Rob Springett - was a change for you as far as covers go. Did he do that off his own bat or did you help to conceive it? V.M.: 'Well, he asked me what was in my head so we just went for a drive. I dropped him off somewhere and between the time that we left and I dropped him off we just rapped about what was in my head. So he said: 'I've got an idea of what's in your head so I'm going to go home and work on it.' So he just based the picture on what I'd told him. You know, my psyche. That's what came out and it was right on. I mean, I saw it and I said: 'That's exactly what I'm thinking.' The cat's incredible." D.C.: How do you feel about the album inside the cover? V.M.: "I think it's a good album. I'm more pleased with it than I have been in a while. I'm pleased like I was with the earlier albums." D.C.: It's like your second re-birth? V.M.: "Right. A lot of the songs went places. A lot of them conveyed moods and, you know, went home. Here we are again!" D.C.: You've been living in the US for over eight years and you're regarded as a contemporary American songwriter. Do you consider yourself American? Are you into America? V.M.: "From the point of view of getting things done I'm into it. I'm Irish, American and British. I don't think I'm any one of those things. I think I'm Irish. I think I'm American. I think I'm British. I think I'm entitled to be all of those things. I've paid the dues to be all those things, I've paid the dues in all those places. D.C.: How do you feel about patriotism? V.M.: "I don't even know what that means. I've never even thought about it and if I say anything now it's going to look ridiculous. I don't think I have specific country to be patriotic about. As for dying for my country - I wouldn't do it. I don't know what it means. "What has where you were born got to do with anything? I think that's so ridiculous. What difference does it make where you were born? It's a piece of land - it's just something that you can walk on! "I think I come from here, from Ireland. You're right about the roots thing. I think I'm more Irish than any of the other things, I Really do. I believe that. "But what I'm not a part of is the hatred thing.. Well, I hope I'm not. When I was growing up in Belfast I was lucky 'cos I knew all kinds of people. I wasn't on any side when I grew up so consequently I never really thought about it. All I can say is that I'm neutral. I never had any of that ingrained hatred inside me. I was conscious of it in other people but it was very foreign to me." D.C.: How did you react when you watched broadcasts in the States about the situation in Belfast? Had you felt the violence and antagonism in the air before you left? V.M.: "I felt the antagonism but not only in religion. I felt the antagonism in everything. No matter what you try to do in Belfast they're down on it. Everything I tried to do in Belfast, they put the screws on it immediately. That's just the way people are brought up there. I don't know why. Whew!" Part of the van-the-man.info unofficial website |