Hello and welcome to you, thanks so much for being here. Today’s guest is someone best known as frontman of the group The Stranglers, one of the most long-lived and internationally popular bands from the original wave of British punk. He’s Hugh Cornwell and he’s also enjoying a successful solo career, long after he left the group in 1990.
Want to meet him? Let’s do it. Sandy Kaye. Hugh Cornwell.
How’ve you been? I’m fine. I’m still in one piece. I’m still in good health.
Touch wood. When you say you’re in good health, I do distinctly recall you make your own good health because you’ve always taken very good care of yourself. Well, apart from my crazy days when I was younger, when I didn’t care what I put into my body or how much.
Apart from that period, you know, I went to university and studied biochemistry, which is all about the chemistry of the body and how food affects the body. So that’s always been of interest to me. So I put that all into action and processed food doesn’t come anywhere near me.
It’s super important, isn’t it, especially as we age? Well, the interesting thing is that once you get used to it, then it becomes like a rhythm of your life. The routine becomes a rhythm. You know, routine is a boring word, but rhythm is a very nice word, very comforting word, rhythmic rhythm.
The routine becomes rhythmical and that’s an important part of it is the fact that it becomes repetition. A bit like music, nutrition and health and all those sort of things. That also has its own rhythm.
And talking of rhythm, that’s something that you’ve had for a lot of years because you started out in this music industry as just a young lad, didn’t you? Yeah, I started out as a rhythm guitarist. No, that’s wrong. I started out as a bass guitarist for Richard Thompson, who went on to form Third Walk Convention, who I was at school with.
So I started off as a bass player and then graduated to rhythm guitar after that. Come home with me tonight. Come home with me, little Matty Groves, and sleep with me till light.
Oh, I can’t come home. I won’t come home and sleep with you tonight. By the rings on your fingers, I can tell you are Lord Donald’s wife.
But if I am Lord Donald’s wife, Lord Donald’s not at home. He’s out in the falcon fields, bringing the yearlings home. You were obviously interested in making music while you were still at school.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to teach you anything, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, my musical beginnings started with singing. I’ve always thought of myself as a singer rather than a guitar player.
I was singing when I was three years old, you know, to the flowers in the garden. And I was getting paid for it. My next door neighbors thought I sang very nicely and they used to give me sweets.
So I was a professional at the age of three years old, getting a remuneration for my singing. And my mother said, you shouldn’t be accepting sweets from next door. I said, well, they like what I’m singing.
I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it. I’m a guitarist by default, really. I just do the basics in order to support the voice.
Right. So was it really that experience as a three-year-old that set you on the road to become a singer? Yeah, I guess so. I mean, and then being a junior school, our headmaster called us in one by one, one day.
And then the first guys came out and said, what happened? What happened? And they said, he just asks you what you want to do when you grow up. And I went in there and he said, what do you want to do when you grow up? I said, I want to be a singer. I didn’t even say rock.
I just said, I want to be a singer. And he said, do your parents know about this? And I said, I don’t know. I’ve never discussed it with them.
So the phone call went out and I got it in the neck when I got home. There you go. So did they accept that then? Obviously they didn’t because you, after you left school, you went on to university.
Yeah, they didn’t accept it at all. And I kept my nose to the grindstone to try and do a science career when I wanted to do art. But they wanted me to be a scientist and hopefully a doctor, but I wasn’t good enough at physics.
Like all parents, they wanted their children to do better than what they had in life. That’s why they insisted you went to uni, right? Exactly. Exactly.
I prolonged the agony by going to Sweden to do a PhD. And it was while I was over there that I bumped into all these bad influences, you know, some American draft dodgers and some Swedes. And we formed a rock band.
And of course, I neglected my studies. And after about two or three years, the music won out. And I gave up the studies and brought the most of the band over to the UK to try and make it.
I went off and recruited John Burnell to play bass. And in the first lineup of the Stranglers was Jet John, me and Hans. And Hans wrote the music to Strange Little Girl on piano the first day I arrived in England.
And I wrote the lyrics to it in about five minutes. Just beware When you’re there Strange little girl She didn’t know how to live in a town that was rough It didn’t take long before she knew she had enough Walking home in a wrapped up world She survived but she’s feeling old Guess she found All things cold Strange little girl, where are you going? Strange little girl, where are you going? Do you know where you could be going? Hans got bored and left. And then Dave Greenfield came in and that’s when we changed the name of the band.
Why did you change it? I don’t know, really. The name was Johnny Socks. Well, the character of the band had changed because of the change in personnel.
It was a different flavour. So you became the Guildford Stranglers. But that didn’t last too long because then you became the Stranglers, as we all know.
Yeah, well, we left Guildford, you see. We had to leave the off-licence, so we went to live in this little village. And the Chillingfold Stranglers didn’t quite roll off the tongue like the Guildford Stranglers.
Right. And that’s where it all started, really. When did you find out that you were also a good writer? Well, Get a Grip on Yourself was the first proper song I wrote for the Stranglers.
And I was very pleased with that because I’d been trying for a very long time to create something that the others liked. I was quite proud of that one and they liked it. So we recorded it and it became our first single.
I was very pleased at that, you know, that my first song had become the first single. So it was around that time that I thought, oh, well, maybe I can write songs, you know. A lot of these skills that one thinks you can learn are things that actually you can make up as you go along.
If you want to be a songwriter, then just be a songwriter and make mistakes. And sooner or later, if you’re due to become one, then you will become one. Or if you want to be a film director, just make films, direct films.
And sooner or later, if you’re going to be good at it, you will become good at it. And it’s as simple as that. There are all these things people think that you need to go to a course to learn something.
It’s a case of really suck it and see. You learn by making mistakes. So go out and make mistakes.
And that’s the sort of thing that I think applies to any skill that you can think of, really. Same thing, isn’t it? Yeah, absolutely. That’s great advice.
Who did the band The Stranglers take their inspiration from? What did you set out to be? Who did you set out to be? We didn’t really set out to be anything. We liked songs. You know, John wrote songs as well, and we wrote together.
And I’ve inherited that yearn from Hans, you see, because Hans wrote music all the time. On guitar and piano, when I knew him in swimming. So I got that off him.
So I love melody. You know, I’ve grown up with melody and good songs. And hooks.
And choruses you can sing along to and stuff like that. Great pop songs, you know. Never had you on my mind.
Now you’re there all the time. Never knew what I’d miss till I kissed ya. Uh-huh.
I kissed ya. Oh yeah. Those are the things we’ve been brought up on.
So we really just wanted to write good songs. We didn’t know what kind of songs they were, but we knew we wanted to write good songs. And then, you know, that period of when we were doing all those early shows, there was a very, very sharp edge in the air in England at that time.
It was full of jagged edges. You know, you could cut yourself on the air. You know, it was so sharp.
And everyone was very paranoid and angry. So after a few months of playing gigs around in that atmosphere, we soon got quite tough. And that displayed itself through what we were writing.
So the songs became tougher as well. So at first, you know, the songs were very soft and almost soft country rock. But over a period of about a year, it transformed into this hard-edged thing because of the, you know, the environment we were in.
We were victims of our environment, Your Honour. Don’t you like the way I move when you see me? Don’t you like the things that I say? Yeah, I seem to enjoy it when you’re shocking, but I don’t care, nothing’s happening. Something, something, nothing’s happening.
Change. I said something better. Change.
Why were people so angry and tough at that time? That’s obviously how punk developed, but why? Well, it was a terrible time in England that time. In the early 70s, there was a mid-70s, 74, 75, 76. There was a three-day week.
There were power cuts. There was the rubbish wasn’t being collected off the streets. It was a period of great hardship in the UK.
I’m not sure how much people are aware of that. And that bred this undercurrent of discontent, you know, the haves and have-nots, you know, and that’s how it all started. So your music started to reflect that and obviously, well, as we all know, it got a huge reaction.
Yeah, I mean, it spoke to something people were feeling. So they embraced it and what we were doing, which was great. But then at the same time, they embraced a lot of new music, and I use that term deliberately, at that time that was nothing to do with punk.
I mean, they embraced Elvis Costello. They embraced Blondie. They embraced The Jam and television.
I mean, they weren’t punk bands, you know, as much as we weren’t either. But no-one was complaining because we got an audience and who cares what they call us? Punk time, whatever you like. Take me to the sold-out shows, you know, and making the record.
That’s what I want to do. Everyone just embraced it. Whatever happened to the heroes? Heroes Whatever happened to All of the heroes All the Shakespeareos They watched their own burn Whatever happened to the heroes? Heroes Whatever happened to the heroes? No more heroes anymore No more heroes anymore Did you characterise yourselves as punk and start to dress accordingly to match your audience? Well, no, I think it was the other way around, actually.
It was the bands that started. I got a pair of very, very tight, skin-tight jeans for a pound, brand new, in a market store in Guildford. And I had a jacket that my brother had given me, a pinstripe jacket.
So that was a weird combination, you know, to wear on stage and just things like that. And people saw it and maybe someone had a tear in a shirt and had put it together with a safety pin thinking it would look neater. And look what that led to.
They should have used a needle and thread. Absolutely, given it to their mum to sew up. Yeah, that would have been a lot better.
Had your parents already accepted that this was what you were doing and were supportive then? Well, I mean, my mother sort of accepted it more than my father. My father didn’t know what to think. But I think what bewildered them the most was that it was so successful.
You know, it wasn’t so much the actor doing it, but he’s doing that and people are liking it. What? You know, that was the thing that dismayed them the most, I think. Because it was against everything that they’d built their lives on.
That’s right. And they didn’t have a leg to stand on to comply anymore if you were actually doing it. No, exactly.
I walk on by If I can’t see the tears Then let me breathe I’m private Because each time I see you I just want to cry Never losing you So if I seem so broken in pieces I walk on by I walk on by Foolish pride If I can’t see the tears Then let me hide all the tears And the sadness you gave me When you say goodbye I just go for a stroll in the trees So what do you think was the key to the Stranglers’ success? Hugh says they were simply in the right place at the right time. I’m not sure that’s the whole truth.
This is a Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kaye. It’s a beautiful day. It was an era when great songwriters abounded.
Think Blondie, Paul Weller, Sting or Elvis Costello. Perhaps they all emerged when they did because between 1939 and 59 the world was much more concerned with fighting and recovering from war than cultural change. The kind of change that should have been taking place was bottling up, waiting to happen.
So when the 60s came around, all that change was suddenly set free. The songwriting was good and all the people that were successful wrote a good song. There’s a similarity with what happens in the film business.
You’ve got to have a good script. If you have a good script, you’re more than halfway to making a great film. And it’s the same with the… If you’ve got a good song, then you’re more than halfway to being successful and it’s as simple as that.
You’ve got to have the good material to work from. Can you name your favourite or one of your favourite songs from that period? Well, no. Pride is a sin, you know.
Don’t forget that. Pride is an awful thing to suffer from. I choose my words carefully here.
You know, I’m a man of words and I’m very uncomfortable with pride because pride leads to smugness and smugness leads to contentment and when you’re content you never create anything good. So I try and avoid pride. I’m proud of all the songs.
There’s a whole catalogue but nothing in particular. But I can tell you that straight after that they released a song called Peaches as a single which did very well. In fact, looking back at it, I think one has to look at it as being the first rap record because nothing like it had ever been in the charts before.
There was no singing except the walking on the beaches looking at peaches. It was all just a rap. So that’s quite an interesting slant on things.
Sweat all over my peeling skin, baby That feels real good All the skirts Laughin’ at the sun Laugh me up Why don’t you come on and laugh me up Walking on the beaches Looking at the beaches We’re kind of heading up to the late 70s. You’re still with the band but you start to branch away and make solo albums. Why the yearning to do that? I think we had time off.
I think that was the thing. When you’ve been playing non-stop concerts for month after month after month and you’ve gone straight into the studio and recorded all the songs you were playing live more and more concerts and you do that for a couple of years and suddenly you’re told, right, you’ve got four months off. And you think, my God, what do I do now? And John went off and did a record and I thought, well, that’s a good idea.
I’m going to go off and do one too. And so I’d met this guy from Captain Beepheart’s band, the drummer who I’d got on and really worked with. We became interesting friends when I first met him, Robert Williams.
And so I rang up Robert and said, hey, Robert, let’s make a record. And he said, great, have you got any songs? I said, well, I’ve got loads of ideas, yeah. And books and studios.
He said, where should we do it? I said, well, I’ll come over to LA. I thought, I don’t want to do it in London. How boring is that? I want to go somewhere.
So I said, well, you live in LA. You book some studios. He said, all right, I’ll book some studios.
And I didn’t tell anybody that I was doing this so that our record company started getting these bills from these recording studios in Los Angeles and they didn’t know what it was for because I hadn’t told anyone we were making this record. So that was a bizarre situation. In a white room with blackboards Still no hate in this place Where the sun never shines Wait in this place Where the shadows run from themselves When you start planning things, that’s not when interesting things happen.
I think interesting things happen when they happen on impulse and spur-of-the-moment decisions. That’s what creates the interesting stuff. And that was just another one of those, really.
But you didn’t think to tell the record company to expect an invoice? No, because then they’d start asking me questions. And then they just paid it anyway. Yeah, but they paid it anyway.
They thought, well, whatever he comes up with, we’d better own it just in case, so we’ll pay it. Right. So that first studio album then gave you the taste to do more on your own, obviously, because I can’t even count how many down you are now.
But you stayed with The Stranglers for quite a while after that. Well, I did one just about two years before I left. I did one called Wolf, which was with Virgin Records.
I did a solo album, yeah, before I left. But that wasn’t a premeditated thing, oh, I’m going to do this because I’m going to leave, so I’ll get used to the idea of making records alone. It was, again, it was just a whimsical thing.
I think I had a load of songs that The Stranglers didn’t like. I think that’s what it was. I had all these songs that I’d written, and I couldn’t get them used.
And I thought, well, Christ, I’ve got all these songs. I’d really like to use these. So I found some people that thought the same thing and went off and got a deal with Virgin Records and made that album.
MUSIC The guys in the band didn’t mind that you were doing your own thing as well? I didn’t really discuss it with them. I just did it, you know. I’m starting to see a pattern here.
No, I mean, I think if they did say so, I’d say, well, look, I offered you these songs, you didn’t want them, and I wanted to release them. So that’s why I did it, you know. It’s a pretty good reason, isn’t it? Yeah.
But you were constantly clashing with John Burnell at that time, weren’t you? I was what? Clashing with him. Clashing with Burnell? Yeah. We had our disagreements and our fallouts.
Yeah, we had our disagreements and our fallouts. About professional stuff? Yeah, about everything. We weren’t hanging out together.
When you play in a band, I really cherish this at the moment with the guys I’m playing with now. You know, I get involved in their lives in the sense that we hang out together. I ask them about their lives, you know, and what they’re doing.
And I tell them about what I’m doing and they get a taste of what I’m about and I get a taste of what they’re about. And when we were, the last couple of years in the strength that I was spent in the band, we weren’t doing that. We were meeting in a studio or a rehearsal room like people go to an office.
And then at the end, everyone would go their separate ways. It didn’t feel like I was in a band anymore. It was like this job.
And I acted on a whim, you know. And after one show, I just said, big show, I said, I’m off. You know, I can’t deal with this anymore.
I’ll do something else. How did they react? Dave, when I rang him and told him, I did it by phone the next day or the day after. Dave said, does that mean we’re going to have a meeting? Which I thought was a very interesting reaction.
Jet just said, oh, okay. And John said, oh, well, I’ll be sorry to see you go. I knew you weren’t very happy.
So of all of them, John was the only one that had any sort of a reaction to it. The other two just didn’t seem to bother them at all. Wow.
Had the music suffered because the four of you were not really in each other’s lives much? I’ve no idea. You’d better ask the public that. But it was selling just as well, wasn’t it? I don’t know.
I mean, you know, I made 10 records with the band and I’d had enough and that was it. I don’t think it requires a lot of close examination. It’s just a feeling I got.
I got a feeling in my gut which said I don’t want to do this anymore. I’d like to do something else. And a lot of people in their lives, they reach these moments when you make a decision or you don’t, you know, and a lot of people regret what they didn’t choose to do for the rest of their lives, you know, and I didn’t want to become someone like that.
So 16 years you were with them after forming them. Yeah, I guess it was. It’s very courageous but you’d had a good taste of making your own solo records and then you started to do some work with Roger Cook.
Well, that’s another misappropriation of facts because I’d been working with Roger Cook for two or three years before I left the band, you know. My publisher put us together as writers. I was always writing, as I said, I’d do these songs and Roger wrote as well and the same publishers put us together.
So we’d been writing, meeting up periodically on and off for a couple of years. That was an ongoing thing. He’s a lovely man and a super writer, isn’t he? Yes.
I can imagine the partnership between the two of you would have really worked well. Yeah, he’s a good drinking buddy. Oh, also, nice.
I don’t know if he still drinks but he was a good drinking buddy, I remember. Have you given it up? No, I just drink in moderation, you know. Yeah, that’s good.
So that self-titled studio album was released in 92. By 2004, you worked with another friend of this programme in Tony Visconti. He produced Beyond Eletion Fields, which was a huge solo for you too.
Yeah, I always liked Tony. He’d worked on Strange Little Girl and mixed an album of ours, Feline. Yeah, he mixed the album of Feline.
I always liked what he did with David Bowie’s voice. The voice was the most important thing and everything sat underneath it. And I liked that.
And being a singer, as I said at the beginning, it was important to me that my voice was on top of everything else. So it made perfect sense to work with Tony on that album. I’m dizzy with the good swings that you feel When I’m asked if I know of a way out When every day sees a change of heart Friends and kisses at the start I’ve heard that described as something like a cross between Dylan and Dire Straits with a dash of travelling Wilbury.
Sounds like a great cocktail. It was a great album. Yeah, I remember there was a song on there called 24-7 all about Bob Dylan.
It’s the greatest job in the world being Bob Dylan, 24-7. Yeah, I’ve got fond memories of that album. We play a couple of those tunes.
It’s very nice. Some nice vibes on that album. Hugh Cornwell, you seem to be always someone who reinvented yourself to shape the times and you continue to reinvent yourself.
In 2008, you actually offered a free download on your website because the music industry had changed so much. So you kind of foretold what was ahead, didn’t you? Well, it wasn’t my idea. It was the record company’s idea.
The record company were paying for the record, which was two very, very experimentally thinking Australian guys, actually, based in London. And they said, hey, Hugh, we’ve been thinking the music industry is changing so much. Why don’t we offer this album as a free download? And I said, well, then you won’t get your money back.
And they said, yeah, but it’ll spread the word about Hugh Cornwell a lot better. And I said, well, if you’re prepared to not get your investment back in the sale of the record, then fine. So I went along with it.
And it paid off for them, didn’t it? Well, it got the word out there, you know, I guess. As the light drifts away I’m floating through a vested view As I’m shown to my place As the scenes take the screen I see my lines different every time I’m not sure she exists Boobadam sent you Onwards and Upwards, too, because you kept putting out albums. How many have you had in total now? I’ve no idea.
You’ve lost count, too. Ten strangers ones, and then I’ve had at least ten of mine. And then a couple of collaborations, one with John Cooper Clark as well.
Probably about 12 or 13, I guess. The one you did with John Cooper Clark was 2016. It was an album called This Time It’s Personal, and it was a collection of classic American and British pop songs from your youth.
You dedicated it to your mum, didn’t you? I dedicated it to my mum, did I? Yeah, didn’t you? I just made that up. I might have made that up. I think you made that up.
She would have liked you to dedicate it to her. Yeah, she wouldn’t have known. She wouldn’t have said all those songs.
I don’t like any of those songs. She’d have liked Spanish Harlem. She’d have liked that one.
Right. So tell me a little bit about This Time It’s Personal. Oh, that was John’s title.
He said, Hugh, I’ve got a great title for this record, This Time It’s Personal. And I said, great. He’s a lovely guy to work with.
No one had any idea that he had such a fabulous baritone voice, especially me. And the idea of doing MacArthur Park with him was my idea, and I thought he was going to come along and speak it like an actor or a stand-up comedian. But he started singing it, and singing it very well.
MacArthur Park is melting in the dark All the sweets we haven’t seen flowing down Someone let the cake out in the rain I don’t think that I can take it Because it took so long to bake it And I’ll never have that recipe again Oh no Dr John Cooper Clarke is an English performance poet and comedian who styled himself as a punk poet in the late 70s. The album of oldies songs that Hugh and he made together called This Time It’s Personal is definitely worth a listen or two.
This is a Breath of Fresh air with Sandy Kaye. It’s a beautiful day. Have you been wondering where The Stranglers’ biggest hit, Golden Brown, is? Well, I must admit that with all the banter between us, I completely forgot to ask Hugh Cornwell about it.
What I know is that Golden Brown was released in 1982, at a time when The Stranglers were beginning to expand their sound, morphing into New Wave, and with this track, relatively mainstream pop. The Stranglers spent years denying accusations that the lyrics are about heroin use and trade, claiming that different listeners were bound to hear different things in the lyrics. Hugh Cornwell finally bowed to the drug reference a few years back when he admitted it’s about heroin and also about a girl.
The girl in question was his Mediterranean girlfriend at the time, who happened to have golden brown skin. Golden brown, texture like sun Lays me down, with my mind she runs Throughout the night, no need to fight Never a frown, with golden brown Every time, just like the lost On her ship, tied to the mast Two distant lands, takes both my hands Never a frown, with golden brown Golden brown, fine attempt dress Through the ages, she’s heading west From far away, stays for a day Never a frown, with golden brown It’s a shame she can’t hear it, but my siblings can hear it and about what I thought about her, so that’s how it came about, yeah. She must have been very proud of your success in the end.
I don’t know really, I don’t know. She was always very supportive, so I guess that tells the story in itself. She was always supportive of it, whereas my father didn’t show any interest whatsoever at all.
He never did. But she was always supportive. He did volunteer to drive the equipment to shows, like the other fathers, when I was in a band with Richard Thompson at school, so he was partly to blame for what happened.
Anyway, you know, he should have blamed it. He didn’t have far to look for who caused all this to happen, you know. I’m sure he was secretly very proud also, although he probably couldn’t admit it given his earlier stance.
That’s how dads act, isn’t it? Yeah, I guess so. I guess not being a dad, I don’t know about that sort of thing, but it makes sense. You never had the opportunity to be a dad? I’ve had plenty of opportunities to be a father, but I’ve never actually experienced it myself.
And I don’t say that with any remorse. When Father’s Day comes and the day ends and the phone hasn’t rung and the doorbell hasn’t rung, then I open a bottle of champagne. Can you tell me about that? It may not be something you want to speak about, but did you make a conscious decision that you didn’t want to be a father? Not really.
It’s never something that’s been a goal for me. I mean people have goals in life. A lot of people, they say the best thing I can do is become a parent.
That thought or that yearn, that desire, I’ve never been a victim of it. But I can imagine there would have been plenty of women tugging at your coattails saying, come on, let’s do it, let’s have a child together. I guess that happened, yeah, but it’s never really attracted me.
I think to do something like that you’ve got to want to do it, haven’t you? Or it’s an accident, or it’s an accident. Okay. And you’re always a man on a whim, so planning something would seem I’d imagine really foreign to you.
I think that if I became a father at my advanced stage, it would be a complete accident. There are plenty out there that are even older. And therefore I’d probably embrace it.
Hugh Cornwell, 2022, brought about your latest album, and that one was called Moments of Madness. Don’t know if I need to even ask you why that was titled that, but I think you should tell me anyway. Well, I mean, it was the written and conceived and recorded, completed during that lockdown period that we were subjected to mostly all over the world.
It meant that I was able to work without any interruption. There were no shows coming up, nothing. I couldn’t go anywhere.
So it seemed the right time to make an album. And I found the experience very productive. It’s a very different album for you too, I guess, because the process was different and it wasn’t done on the fly as so many other songs had been written given your busy touring schedule.
This one, you obviously had a lot of time to sit down and think about your observations and comment about social stuff that was going on around you because that’s what the whole album encapsulates, doesn’t it? Well, yeah, but that sounds a bit too neat and tidy to fit into your theory because I don’t rush out songs because of touring schedule. Whenever I make an album, I put the time aside to prepare for it and write the songs and make demos. But with this one, no demos were required because we’d already mastered the demos of Monster into an album.
So that part of the process wasn’t necessary. And it meant that when I came to recording, the ideas didn’t have to be so complete as they had been in the past. There was more of an element of experimentation when we were recording and actually songwriting.
Now I write the song while I’m recording it, really, and I can’t wait to do the next one because I’m going to keep doing that because it seems to work. I’ve been talking turkey for a long time Waiting for the cat moon sun to shine Got a lot of time on my hands and my feet Running from the cold and the dark to the heat Moments of madness Moments of madness Talking to the nobody there in the air Going round in circles, I’m out of air Must be going mad with the noise and the din Plugging up my ears so I can’t hear a thing Moments of madness Moments of madness I remember recording some albums in the Stranglers and it was a bit like painting by numbers. We’d have three weeks in the studio with this producer, blah, blah, blah.
And we’d prepare the songs, we’d write the songs, we’d rehearse them, and then we’d go along to the studio. And because we only had three weeks in the studio, that was just enough time to record songs. So first the drums were done, then the bass was put on, then the keyboards were put on.
It was like making a cake and it was all down to a recipe and it was a very, very boring process. Whereas now, there’s no recipe. I just go in with half an idea and I just let it take over.
So even you don’t know what’s going to come out the other end. Exactly, and you can go in with half an idea and at the end of the day I come out and I think, my God, I had no idea that that was going to turn into this. So are you getting better with age in terms of your writing? Have you changed? Well, I’m a bit more succinct, a bit more efficient with my paintbrush.
It becomes simpler and by becoming simpler it becomes easier and it also makes it much easier to play live as well. This is where experience and age really come into it, don’t they? Yeah. What’s your favourite track on Moments of Madness? Well, at the moment it’s I Want to Hide Inside of You because it’s a primeval message.
I remember someone at school coming up with the amazing statement when I was 15 years old. This kid got up in our class and said, it’s just struck me, everybody, that man spends the first eight months of his life trying to get out of a woman and then he spends the rest of his life trying to get back in. And that struck me at the age of 15.
It was very insightful. I wonder if the guy became a philosopher. And the song has become one of my favourites.
See what the world is coming to Couldn’t make it up if you wanted to Paint yourself to show you’re not dreaming It ain’t only pizza that’s leaning Then again this could be a nightmare Better kick me in the derriere I want to hide inside of you While many artists do, Hugh Cornwell doesn’t listen to music in his spare time. He’s spent much of his time acting on stage and in several films and he’s an avid cricket fan. Hugh is also the host of a film podcast called Mr DeMille FM, which allows him to dig deep into cinema and come up with some pretty extraordinary facts.
Someone posed me a question once and I gave a terribly wrong answer. The question was how many feature films, and when I say feature films, films that have had a cinema release, how many feature films have there been made in the history of cinema? And it’s quite a remarkable figure. You know, I said probably about 8 million.
And the answer is half a million. Really? That’s all? Which is remarkably small. When you think of all the hot Bollywood and Hollywood and the Eastern cinema and African cinema and everything, Russian cinema, it’s only half a million.
It’s remarkable. So it is within our grasps to see the best films that have ever been made in our lifetime. Wow, I’m blown away by that stat.
That’s incredible. Oh, you are accountable knowledge for sure. Hugh, you’re coming to Australia, as we started off, saying what are we going to hear in concert from you, a collection of all your stuff, from The Stranglers right up to current day? Yeah, you got it.
From Nosferatu right up to the current day. You know, we’re even doing, I think we’re doing Big, we’re going to be playing Big Bug on the tour. That took a long time to learn.
It’s age is gone, age is its way across the big league. Aircraft engines menace the black track, steel train. Says hello to many brothers digging holes to save the others on the big red league.
Big Bug on the big red league. Big Bug. Big.
Bug. Black leather patch on their boots waiting for my time. It’s going to dip into most of my solo albums and a good smattering of Stranglers, you know, classic gems.
I don’t want to devote most of the evening to Stranglers songs, but I can’t go anywhere without playing some of them. They represent me as much as anything else I’ve done. Hugh Cornwell, what a pleasure chatting with you.
It’s been a pleasure to speak to you as well. Thanks, Sandy. Take care.
Bye. Since Hugh Cornwell left the Stranglers in 1990, Jean-Jacques Bernal remains the only original member in the band. Hugh’s book from 2001, The Stranglers Song by Song, explains for the first time, he says, the real stories behind the Stranglers extensive catalogue.
In 2004, he also published an autobiography, unsurprisingly called A Multitude of Sins. Thanks again for joining me today. I hope you’ve enjoyed Hugh Cornwell and the Stranglers story.
If you have, I’ll look forward to having your ears again same time next week. Bye now. You’ve been listening to A Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kaye.