Interview with Dr & The Medics from Issue 8 of Welsh Bands Weekly, spring 2000


The lanky bloke with the long hair and glasses swept into the pub, as always an aura of self-confidence surrounding him. He swept over to the table where the journalist sat, preparing her questions for the interview she’d wanted to carry out for the past 13 years, and launched immediately into a flurry of words that wouldn’t cease for the next hour and a half.

A former scout leader, born in Knotty Ash Hospital in Liverpool on 7 July 1961, Clive Jackson was for many years – and still is, to some – known as The Doctor, leader of The Medics, that gaggle of “comedy hippies” who instigated the psychedelic revival of the 80s. “A novelty band”, people called them, sneering, thanks to their million-to-one chart-topping cover version of Norman Greenbaum’s Spirit in the Sky, which, by some stroke of luck or genius or both, kept Wham! off the number one spot for three weeks in 1986. What a lot of people didn’t know, though, was that the band had been touring solidly and releasing quality records for about four years before that.

So, The Doctor, then. He’s been living near Brecon for the past thirteen years, giving me the excuse I’ve always needed to get an interview out of him. He’s married to Wendi West, some-time backing vocalist for the band (or one of the Anadin Brothers, as the backing vocalists were known), and they have three children – Austin Thomas Jackson, Luke Calvert Merlin Jackson and Eden Collette Boadicea Jackson – all of whom were born in Wales.

But that’s all by-the-by… I have to shut up now, and give the page over to Clive if I’m going to be able to print even a third of his incessant chatter.

He starts off by introducing me to John, the band’s latest drummer (they’ve had a few), and explaining how they met.

“I was at the Eisteddfod,” Clive announces. “Were you there?” I confirm that yes, I’d been there. “Did you see the Welsh Water stand? There was a radio controlled otter there that I made. So on the way I picked up our drummer in Mid Wales – we were on our way to Derby Rock ‘n’ Blues… he said, ‘where are we off to?’ I said, I’m delivering a four-foot radio controlled otter to the Eisteddfod. ‘Fair enough’, he goes. Next thing is I got a phone call stating that the drummer – there’s two of them that we’d lined up – was going to let us down, so we didn’t have a drummer, so John being a drummer, I said ‘want a gig?’ and he said ‘yeah’, so there he was, delivering an otter one minute… hang on,” Clive is sidetracked momentarily, “I’ve got some nude photos of me and Steve [Medics guitarist] somewhere… we got them done for our last album, Instant Heaven, ‘cos we always do that big image with the clothes and that, so we were bored with that so we did some nude shots of me and Steve.”

It’s all come full circle, I tell Clive. It was because of a party I went to at Clive and Wendi’s house in 1991 that I became interested in the Welsh language – indeed, even realised that a Welsh language existed. And now, here I am, editing a bilingual magazine and interviewing the man who’d inadvertently started it off for me.

“I didn’t try to learn the Welsh language,” Clive says. “The thing I hate about a lot of English people who move to Wales is when they go [puts on posh accent]: ‘Geoffrey’s an accountant in Birmingham and I work in Cardiff, awfully interesting job… but at the weekends we go to Welsh classes, and also I’m taking a course in how to make traditional Welsh cheeses out of leek, you know… it’s awfully interesting…’ and it’s almost patronising, innit? This thing of, ‘oh, let’s learn Welsh, isn’t it a laugh?’ and you’ve got so many people like that, at the end of the day I think it’s more to do with if you fit into the community – sod the way you speak. You either fit or you don’t, and I think there’s nowhere truer than that than in Wales. The thing for me about Wales is that the first time you ever walk into a pub they take you as you stand, it’s brilliant. And you’ve got to remember it was very close to Spirit being number one when I moved there, and the first time I walked into a pub I had to take my hat off to everyone – I’d never had the piss taken out of me so relentlessly! At the end of the day you either fit in or you don’t – we’ve been there for 13 years, but a lot of Welsh people say ‘you don’t live in Wales, you live in Brecon!’ Brecon is Little England In Wales, isn’t it?”

Some history: at their peak Dr and the Medics were selling out 2,000+ capacity venues. What went wrong?

“Basically we didn’t put out any more records,” Clive explains. “I think the great thing about the British music industry is that it’s a double edged sword – the reason it’s so vibrant and always will be is because of the British music press who pick up bands then drop them like a stone. And that keeps it… if we were a band in Italy we’d be going until we were 80! In fact, they still do with us over there. They don’t have this thing of, that’s you, you’re gone now. And in a way it’s bad because there’s still bands that are putting out good music who are suddenly, ‘there’s someone new now, we’re not interested in you’ – but on the other hand that’s what keeps it moving, keeps it the most exciting music scene in the world. And really what happened… there’s still people who never really got into the band. Steve was scanning the internet recently and found a website for Dr & The Medics and it had us down as a novelty band that people never really understood, because all people really know is Spirit In The Sky, but there were four or five years before that where we were selling out the Clarendon and getting indie number ones and stuff, and we did a lot of good stuff after that as well, but it just never sold or the marketing wasn’t right, or the records weren’t good enough.

“One thing we never were was a hit pop band. We cannot write hit after hit after hit. But having said that, it would have been an easier environment for us today, because in those days you had indie charts and it never crossed over – if you did, you’d committed the cardinal sin of having a hit, you’d sold out! If you remember we were packing the Clarendon and the Lyceum, then we had a number one and after that the indie crowd… you’d been stamped as having sold out. And they all just disappeared, literally overnight. So, suddenly you were on a completely different circuit, which doesn’t happen now. Because now, if you’re seen to be an indie band, then main chart success is a part of it. So in a way, had we been around now, people would probably have understood. Having said that, I’ve got absolutely no axe to grind or any bitterness about it because what happened was brilliant.

“When you’re 16 you want to form a band to become number one and tour the world,” Clive continues. “Well, we were number one and we did tour the world! We’d all say at the time – we’d be flying out to America, drinking champagne on the plane – and we’d always say ‘we’ll make the most of it now – act like arses now – because we won’t be doing this again.’ We knew. We did take the bull by the horns. And all the people who’ve ever wanted to be in a number one band and go round and act like fools around the world – we did it, yeah. We weren’t a career band. We never sat down and thought, right, where are we going? What direction should we take? How are we gonna produce the next single? We just muddled along from hangover to hangover, and were happy to do so. I wouldn’t have had it any other way really, ‘cos I think to be different would have been to change the nature of everyone who was involved at the time, and then it wouldn’t have been the same, we wouldn’t have done the stuff we did.

“It’s still very valid. I could have made a fortune and spent it. I didn’t make a fortune but I could have done. What you can’t take away from people is the memories of the times you had and in fact are still having as a result of it. So really, I was pretty lucky.”

I tell Clive that Richard Searle, the band’s former bassist, had once told me that the turning point for him had been when they’d released another cover version, Jeff Beck’s Hi Ho Silver Lining. He’d been so disgusted he’d just fucked off. Was there a lot of pressure from the record company to release singles that the band didn’t want to release?

“To be frank,” Clive says – he is actually always frank – “the reason we recorded that was that someone came up with a big lump of money and said ‘will you record this for me?’. We said yeah, because there was this big lump of money and we had none, so they gave us the lump of money and we gave them the record. And as far as I was concerned, that was it. In the studio we knew it was awful, but someone paid us to do it so we thought ‘fuck it!’ I think we’d had two singles that hadn’t charted before that, but it was because of that, the B-side for it, Black And Blue, actually kicked us off on a whole new wave of songs which survived onto the last album as well. So by doing it and being forced to write a B-side, we thought it was better than the A-side so we released it on our own label and the whole thing sort of took off a little bit again from that.”

I tell Clive that it’s funny seeing him now, after all these years… the Medics had been a part of my formative years – I was seventeen when I got into them and I’m 30 now – and it’s been a long relationship, in a way. I tell him that the Medics often get mentioned in my reviews.

Clive grins. “It’s almost coming round. Younger kids… it’s almost cool to like the band – we’ve survived there with the younger kids. We did our first acoustic gig at Lampeter; I got there early and had a beer, sat on the lawn out there, and a couple of students walked past. One of them goes, ‘he was this mad guy and he had his hair in this big point at the top… anyway, he’s dead now and this is a tribute band to him tonight’! And the number of people who think we’re a tribute band and I’m a lookalike – it’s bizarre! I’ve even had old Medics fans come up saying ‘is it actually you?’! Who in their right mind would form a tribute band to Dr & The Medics?!”

The B-side of the single Black And Blue was this tongue-in-cheek C&W pastiche, Play Your Harp For Me, a song about angels and gin and drinking yourself to death… I tell Clive that I want it played at my funeral.

Clive laughs. “That song came up bizarrely in America – someone had heard it, and it’s now on a C&W compilation of British C&W bands! So some poor sods in America are thinking [dons obligatory Doctor faux-American accent] ‘Ooh, Doctor & The Medics, great C&W band!’ Especially as they probably know we did Spirit In The Sky! If we toured America now we’d probably find ourselves doing gigs like The Good Ol’ Boys with chicken wire in front of the stage!”

What were the high and low points of those ‘glory years’ of Dr & The Medics?

“The Mystery Trips were milestones really,” says Clive. “Taking people to all parts of the country for all night binges. People still come up to me now and say they’d been on a mystery trip – it’s like a bond for life. You can’t really express to people who didn’t go on them just how good they were. A lot of that Alice In Wonderland [their old club in Soho] stuff as well. We’d been number one and then three weeks later we’d be playing down in Gossips to two or three hundred people and it would be packed and we’d be playing all this mad, off the wall type of stuff. The Cult played down there, The Damned, also The Mission did their first ever gig down there as well. The Jesus And Mary Chain did their first London gig there. Christian [Paris, a long-time Medics collaborator] and I carried them off stage because they were so bad! And Alan McGee, the bastard, got so much press out of it – so all that stuff was good. What I’m really conscious of doing now is not recapturing the past, because you can’t recapture it. So that was something then, but now… that was rock ‘n’ roll, that was the Medics every single day. Well, now I have three kids, I’m a father, I have a house and a wife, and now my life revolves with it. So you can never go back to it. You had to be fairly devoted to do what we did. And I don’t really want to do it like that again – I don’t really want to be The Doctor every day, ‘cos it’s fucking exhausting! These days I’ve noticed, I do three or four gigs a week and one or two years ago I’d just bounce off the walls again. Now I’m feet up with a glass of hot chocolate, I’ve toured myself out again! So life has changed, and I’m not trying to recapture those times. But having said that, I’m still having a real hoot doing it.”

Did you ever feel crushed that you weren’t as successful, that you could feel the success slipping a bit?

Clive remains philosophical. “Well, no, not really, because for one reason or another, in between things... 18 months after Spirit In The Sky was number one, I was on a building site mixing cement in the pissing rain in November for £20 a day, and I didn’t have a problem with that. It was just another chapter, it was something I was doing and I was living, and I really didn’t have a problem with it. We were going out on tour in December and I needed cash – I needed to buy food between tours. You can’t just go to the grocer’s and say, ‘don’t worry, I’m going on tour in December’. You’ve got to give them money! The people on the site had a problem with me when they found out who I was. Not even then was I really down – I don’t really know any time when I’ve been that bothered. I’ve never really taken anything that seriously. If the government declared an act tomorrow that made Dr & The Medics illegal, you know, I’d go, ‘oh well, that’s that then’! Because life’s too short, so why look back? Why regret? Just go on, find something else to do. I’ll probably do a Cure tribute band! I can see myself being Robert Smith – the 6’2” version!”

Have there been any of your singles which you thought should have done really well, but didn’t’?

“Well, Drive He Said, which was the last single on IRS, that week Radio 1 A-listed two records – one was Drive He Said and the other was Boy George, a solo single, which got to the top ten. And the record company wouldn’t even release the money to make a video. And it was getting radio play, and we had an independent taskforce look into it, and they said there’s not enough copies in the shops to get it into the top 100. Record companies used to bust a gut to get onto the A list, and there we were, we’d put out a record that was number one, and that, in terms of commercial success, was our last ditch saloon really. It was a real poppy, summery thing, and if that had taken off again, as it was our own single, it could have really taken off. But the record company were so up their own arses. I remember going into our A&R man, sweating like a pig. I said look, we’re on the fucking A list, we should just make a video and go for this now. And all he was going on about was Mungo Jerry’s summer remix of In The Summertime, going, ‘this is gonna be number one!’ So we turned our backs and walked out. I was a little bit pissed off then, I suppose, because there was a chance to go on and do greater things, but it didn’t happen. Nowadays record companies listen to the band. Bands have far more artistic freedom. But in those days they didn’t like you doing your own thing unless they saw it as being a hit.”

Moving away now from the past, I ask Clive what the Medics are up to at the moment.

“We’re touring in two formats at the moment – we’ve got Dr & The Medics, which doesn’t always include Steve because he’s got his production company, Halcyon, but I made a decision about three months ago that I was going to tour full time again, with the Medics, to see where it went. Steve said he couldn’t do it but he’d like to come in on gigs when he can, so I’ve got a different lineup together, who I have to say are playing so solidly – but the sort of gigs we do now, in order to break through we’re doing mainly covers, but Medics covers – we always did do covers – stuff like Walk On The Wild Side, Born To Be Wild, Good Golly Miss Molly, These Boots Were Made For Walking, Gloria, all those sort of songs, so we do that mainly when we’re doing the electric show, but also we’ve put together this unplugged version. The least likely band ever to form an unplugged version would be us! It’s quite funny, ‘cos it’s quite relaxed, chatting away and larking around, and in that we do a lot more of the old Medics stuff – we do Miracle Of The Age, Molecatcher’s Boot, Burn, that sort of stuff as well, so acoustically it works, it sounds great. And that’s just with me and Steve, who always plays with that, and John on bongos!”

Do Wendi and Collette – the Anadin Brothers – still sing?

“Wendi keeps saying she’s retired, but she did the Derby Rock ‘n’ Blues this year,” Clive explains. “She says she wants to be a mother and not do this any more – she says she’s too old to be sticking on mini skirts and leaping around on stage. She’ll probably do the odd few gigs. But Collette still does them when she can – she’s working on a film with Ben Elton at the moment – but one of the backing singers we’re using now is Collette’s mum, Gaby, who’s been a professional singer all her life, and to be honest, she does the Anadin Brother wig and makeup and nobody has a clue she’s Collette’s mum! Medics fans come up and say, ‘Was that Collette up there?’ In fact, we’re doing a gig in Cardiff next week with both Collette and her mum – that’s bizarre, mother and daughter – there’s something perverse about that! Mother and daughter backing singers – I think we must be one of the first bands to ever have that!”

You’ve always been a band that’s liked a gimmick!

“Well, as long as it works! We don’t stand by convention. People say ‘you can’t have Collette’s mum on backing vocals!’ and your first reaction is to say, no of course you can’t… hang on, why not? Why can’t you? Especially at this age – I’m not going to say her age, but she’s probably got a couple of years on Cher. Who’s to say you’re too old to do that? That’s like saying you’re the wrong colour. It’s not about that.”

Are you planning a major comeback?

“Only live,” says Clive. “I’m not even contemplating records, except with Madman Records, our own label. We want to do a two-CD pack. The first CD will be all the singles including Miracle Of The Age, Molecatcher’s Boot, and all the single tracks, and then the other CD will be the rarities and odds and sods such as The Goats Are Trying To Kill Me and The Druids Are Here [their first single, now rare enough to sell for £65]. And we’re gonna do a big booklet with what actually happened as far as we can remember, so that people who are curious about it can buy it – a two-CD pack for £10. We want to get a website too so that we can communicate with people who want to know stuff – and yeah, revive it on the live front.

“We did a gig in Luton recently,” Clive continues, “and Gary Ash, the present drummer for The Cure, came to see us and gave us a note, because Robert Smith had seen the posters and said we should have them supporting us on the next tour. So I ‘phoned him up and asked if it was a real offer. He said that it was, so that could be good because we could do all the original and new stuff to fit in to play with The Cure. And there’s a tour of Australia and the Far East planned for January which is something we didn’t do the first time round.”

So, then, to wrap up: Dr & The Medics are not a novelty band, right?

“Oh yeah, we are,” Clive chuckles. “We’re like a novelty glow-in-the-dark condom that doesn’t lose its glow! Ten months later you look under the bed and it’s still glowing there, rather smelly, and you don’t want to move it!”

Wise words indeed, in The Doctor‘s inimitable, if slightly surreal, style. As far as I’m concerned, Dr & The Medics may have had the occasional chuckle at the music industry’s expense, they may not be everyone’s idea of the perfect rock ‘n’ roll band, they may not have notched up hit after hit, and songs with titles such as The Goats Are Trying To Kill Me and Auntie Evil’s Dormitory were perhaps never destined to become chart toppers.

But ‘smelly‘? Never! The contents of the Doctor’s bag are as fragrant and fresh as they ever were. If you haven’t done so already, there’s never been a better time to get some medication; with Dr & The Medics there’s never a danger of overdose.