ART YOU CAN DANCE TO Graham Parker has been around for awhile and although he is still the critic's pin-up boy (as indeed he has been since his first L.P. Howling Wind was released in 1976) he hasn't really cracked through to the higher echelons of the superstar bracket. Meanwhile artists who admit their debt to Parker are, to use Mr. Meldrum's favourite cliche, 'racing up the charts'. (Ones that immediately spring to mind are Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson). He's had his problems with record companies, particularly in the U.S.A. but that seems to have been solved by signing to Arista over there (the same label that picked up the Sports lately). And it seems that finally the public taste (which in that country as in this is largely controlled by the electronic media) is catching up with him. So Parker is guite optimistic about his future. And with good reason. Squeezing Out Sparks his latest album (before the Greatest Hits package High Times released to co incide with the present Australian tour) is considered by many to be his best. His songwriting, is never less than excellent and he has one of the best rock bands in the world, the Rumour, behind him. What more can he ask for except perhaps the recognition he deserves. In Sydney before the start of his second Australian tour, Graham Parker talked to Stuart Coupe. SC: That's a great T shirt (GP's adorned in a T shirt which says FUCK ART LET'S JUST DANCE...) GP: It's from a group called Madness who are on Stiff — a ska bluebeat group. I don't agree with it but sometimes I do. SC: Why don't you agree with it?' SC: One thing I'm interested in is how GP: Well it iiiisssart. MY ART.... I ; suffer you come out and sing emotional songs for it (much laughter). For God's sake it can't like Can't Be Too Strong every night... be completely true. I don't dance when I write GP: Well we did three months of it in songs, I suffer. But it's true to a certain extent America and every night I got off singing I think. For the group Madness it's definitely that. It was great b ^ a u se the audience loved true because it is a dance group — ska, it. Girls cried and stuff which kind of gets you reggae, which is dance music. into it but you're bound to go through some SC: I guess the idea is to make art that nights when you're not really into it but you're you can dance to. professional enough to go through the GP: Yeah — that's about it. Art that you can motions and nobody knows any different dance to. including yourself. Other nights you just SC: Have you just been touring? really get off on it. GP: No we've been off for guite a bit. In SC: I assume Can't Be Too Strong is August we did some Scandanavian dates. We about an Australian experience? did the Tivoli Gardens in Finland, the open GP: Yes, it is. air festival in Finland with the Clash who SC: You know everyone's going to ask supported us. (laughs). you about it 'cause of the Australian SC: What are they like live? reference. GP: They're great live. They're really good. GP: Yeah, and T'm going to say, 'how They weren't so good that day as they hadn't boring for you to ask me that'. I'm sure been playing all that much and we'd had everybody's read things I've said in The three weeks off after a 3 month American tour Melody Maker and stuff when I was in so we were well on top— we blew 'em away terviewed about it then. completely (Laughs). It was great fun. They SC: What did you say? are good. They've improved a lot. They GP: I'm not going to tell you (laughs). I'm haven't been 'ere yet? I'm sure they'll get fed up with the whole bloody thing. It was an over 'ere soon. Australian experience... I heard Luna Park SC: Is the brass section gone for good? burnt down recently... Sydney Luna Park... I GP: I don't know. I may use them on the won't sing any songs with Luna Park in them next album or I may use some brass if a song again. Well, I never said what Luna Park it needs it but having them on the road we was. found we relied on them and now that we SC: No. but you stuck d picture of it on haven't got them... we were dead worried the album cover. about going on the road without them at first GP: I know and I stuck the wrong... well I and I said 'no. I'm going to stick to it — we ain't going to say. (laughs) That's the closest don't need them — they're not on the LP, I'm going to tell you. they're not on the new songs — we're going to SC: What ore you doing on stage? Is it be playing most of the new songs. Squeezing mainly greatest hits? Out Sparks — so we ain't going to have them GP: There's not much new stuff because we — no brass section' and we did it and it haven't had too much time to rehearse worked great. It worked fantastic. The band because I was in LA for a long time hanging played much better. Much, much better. about. W e've got a couple of new songs, but Everything's much more compact. Much mostly it'll be Squeezing Out Sparks stuff and more dynamic. Howling Wind, Heat Treatment, Soul Shoes SC: Are The Rumour actually touring? off course. We've got a lot of material to Do they go on the road when you're choose from now so it's easy... well it's not having a break? easy to pick a set but we've got all our stuff. GP: No. They tried it but it's really hard SC: Are you writing much? because they haven't got the kind of stature GP: Yeah, I've been writing most of the new that I've got and they've never really sold all stuff. It's going pretty well but I don't want to that many records. People always ask why bring it all on the road and rehearse it all they don't do a set with me but you can't do because we'll get into the studio and we'll that because if you're doing some of my songs have to go through the big trauma of realising and then suddenly The Rumour do a song, it's it doesn't sound good in the studio like it did going to change the vibration of the gig and onstage and change it all again. it's going to be hard to get the momentum' SC: Have you heard about Jack Nitzgoing. sche? (While in Sydney, Cheap Trick SC: Is your guitar playing getting any drummer Bun E. Carlos told Stuart that Jack better? Nitzsche (producer of Neil Young and GP: (Laughs )My guitar playing is in Graham Parker among others) had burst into credible (More laughter). When I'm on me Neil Young's wife's house, beaten her up and own in a room, my guitar playing is raped her). staggering. I keep it to myself. I play the solo GP: He told me all about it. I was in LA in Mercury Poisoning. recently and he told me about it but he didn't SC: You don't have Brinsley hiding tell me the whole thing. Then I saw it in the behind the speaker.... paper. She's dropped the charges now I GP: He plays the old Farfisa organ on it think. because we do have brass on Mercury SC: Is Neil Young married, or living Poisoning when we recorded it. I play a bit of with Nicolette Larson? rhythm on Japan and Local Girls but I just GP: He used to be married. She's got his don't need to because with the keyboards and kid, Ziek, or something. Carrie Snodgrass is two guitarists there's enough going on her name, but he's not with her now. He was anyway.
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with her for about 6 years and Nitszche was knocking her off for a bit. SC: So what actually happened. He just broke ipto the house? GP: Some bloody thing. He hit her around with a pistol or something and she exagerated it somewhat... but he did hit her around a bit. He's a bit of a nutter sometimes. SC: How'd you come to have him producing Squeezing Out Sparks? GP: I dunno. I just thought of it after he did Mink de Ville which sounded good. That was the only reason. He worked out really good, it's just that he's hard to handle. He's just a very emotional person. He's a brilliant person and brilliant people tend not to be very stable. He thought it was impossible to work with our band. After being used to working with American session guys who play like machines to find The Rumour who play very individual — to pull them together as a band he thought was going to be impossible. After three days he said to me 'this isn't going to work' so I just had to talk to him for about three hours and convince him that he was the producer and he was supposed to tell them what to do. He was too sorta shy to do it. I mean, I had to be heavy with him and say 'look, fuckin' push 'em around — tell 'em what to do — and tell me what to do with these songs. We don't know, we're a bunch of idiots. We just stumble into studios, make a record and hope for the best. We wanted this big American producer that we're paying a lot of money for and you're telling me you don't know what to do!' It was like that. It was like dealing with a child and then it turned out O.K. He had a few beers and loosened up and he was great. He was really great. SC: I heard stories about him telling you to. get serious. GP: (Laughs) Yeah, he was going on about things like that. 'What do you mean love gets you twisted? Do you mean it?' Well I suppose so. 'Well why are the band playing dinky, dink dink?' I said I dunno. I don't want them to. I want them to be serious so he said 'Play it like this' and he got on the piano... demonstrates powerful, aggressive piano playing... jing jang jing... serious, slow, meaning. 'That's great Jack' I said, 'Now tell the band'. That's what it was like and sud denly you hear this stuff coming out of the speakers and it's like fuckin' magnificent and I realised then it was right and that we were doing a good thing. So it only took 11 days. SC: Is he going to do future albums? GP: No. (laughs extra loudly). No. I'd like him to. I don't know who's going to do our next one. We're tossing around three or four names at the moment. I dunno. I haven't decided yet. I went and had a talk with him recently when I was in LA and he'd heard that I didn't want him to do it and he was a bit disappointed. What he did, his idea can lead us onto something else I think and I don't need him to do it. 1 can get someone to do it for less money probably. SC: What was the reaction to M ercury P oison in g? (the single aimed at G.P.s exdistributor — Mercury Records) GP: Great. Yeeeahhhh. It was a great reaction actually. The public like it anyway
and Arista (GP's present American label) liked it a lot (laughs). They thought it was great fun. SC: Was there any pressure put on you not to release M ercu ry P oisoning? GP: Well, we wanted to put it out in England but Phonogram wouldn't let us. I didn't want it on the album at all . I just wanted to put it out as a single but they wouldn't let us. It was silly really because it's just a song. It's not going to break down a whole business — a massive conglomerate. It's not going to do anything really. It would actually have done them a lot of good if they'd put it out whereas now Phonogram in England — my greatest ambition is to fuck them up like I fucked up Mercury which is a bit of a shame really because they were OK until the last record when they realised that I wasn't going to sign with them again. We did a whole tour without any support from Phonogram. That was on the last tour of England with the Sports. SC: And they just pulled everything out? GP: Didn't do a thing. Nothing in the shops. You'd be lucky to find the new album in the shops. SC: That's like the situation in America. You were saying last time... GP: Yeah, with Mercury? Exactly you'd go into a shop and you might find some stupid cut out with a terrible picture on it but that's all there was. SC: How did you find Japan? Did you get screaming like Cheap Trick? GP: Yeah, we're not big there but the audience are very strange. They.'re really subdued and really guiet. The first gig we did was in an afternoon. An afternoon show in Tokyo. We went on stage yelling and it was silent. We thought, oh no, the place is empty. There's no-one here. We got on stage and the show was sold out completely and they were all sitting there silently (demonstrates ultra polite clapping). We played about eight numbers and there was still this quiet clapping. I thought, they're a weird lot, so I went out and tried to tell them jokes about giant flying moths and things like that. I started going on about Japanese horror films — 'this song's about a giant flying moth that eat giant dinasour' — and they went (demonstrates Japanese laughter) — they couldn't understand a word — 'this song about ufo's' — (more laughter) — and I said 'come on — get excited — cpme here' and suddenly they went woooooo and charged the stage. There's all these bouncers there (demonstrates bouncer using karate) — there were people delivering karate chops to members of the audience but that didn't stop them. They rushed the stage and I thought great. I'll shake a few hands and they grabbed my hand so tight and started pulling me off the stage. It was like the Western God cometh. They grabbed Brinsley's foot and started undoing his shoe laces and ripping them out and stuff. They changed com pletely from completely servile, oppressed dumbies to maniacs. That's what they changed into so you can imagine if you're a massively popular group they're going to rip you to pieces. They really do go apeshit.