¡There’s always plenty of stuff to do! Interview to James Stevenson by Diego Centurión for Revista The 13th.
Chelsea was your first band, what memories do you have of those years? Well the punk rock times in London, in 1977, were very exciting. There was live music everywhere – and the feeling things were changing. That the old order was getting overthrown. It was dangerous too. If you wore a leather jacket everyone wanted to fight you! Then came Generation X (Generation X) with Billy Idol and Tony James, How did that step, the years of "Kiss Me Deadly" with "Dancing With Myself"? I was only 21 when I joined generation X. It was great to join a band that was successful – Chelsea was never a hugely successful band, more of an underground band. But I think Billy had been planning a solo career before I even joined the band. But it was great to be in Gen X. Billy is very charismatic – he was born to be a star. But surely the big jump was Gene Loves Jezebel, do you think the same? Yes I agree. I didn’t know much about GLJ when I joined – and obviously the circumstances of me joining, with Ian Hudson, the original guitarist having a nervous breakdown, were very stressful. But the first tour I did, 1985 in the US, was electrifying. The band was different to any other I’d been in until then – it was always a unique group. It was challenging – but I grew to love the band. I think some of my best ever work has been with GLJ. Especially the album Heavenly Bodies – I love that record.