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| His Wild Life's Still Going Strong Interview with Boz Boorer I've got a challenge for you. If you're an audiophile who's added any decent heaping of vinyl or acetate to your collection in the last 30 years, somewhere in the liner notes, on the label or stamped on the sleeve of your collection you'll find the name Boz Boorer. Arguably the most prolific guitarist-singer-songwriter to come out of the late-70's/early-80's rockabilly revival, Boz has carved out an enviable niche for himself as the Go-To-Guy for some of Britain's biggest names in pop music. Whether heading up Morrissey's band as musical director or laying down the riffs with Madness' own Cathal Smyth, you can't miss his self-described "twang and jangle" guitar that is so integral to the sound and success of those who are fortunate enough to add him to their line-up. With a new solo effort coming out at the end of September, the now-occasional Polecat took a few ticks to field a Q & A for Madness Central, touching on his involvement in the Velvet Ghost on through to somber thoughts on the passing of another of his collaborators, the late and legendary Kirsty MacColl. Although the word "impressive" is thrown around so irresponsibly that it hardly has any more weight or originality than a bag full of confetti, it's hard to ignore Boz's three decade career as anything but. Interview by Steve Bringe Transcription by Lee "Loobyloo" Buckley |
 Boz Boorer - Droppin' Bombs on Your Heart Photo by Jill Furmanovsky |
Madness Central: Let's start off with the obvious one. In 2000 you took part in a short-lived project Velvet Ghost with Cathal Smyth. How did you get involved with Cathal's band?
Boz Boorer: Well, I've known Cathal for many years now, and it was something that he wanted to do. He'd written a load of songs and I said, “Why don't you come and record them?” I've got a studio you can use, so he did and then it kind of went from there and grew from that really. He put the band together and he asked me to play guitar for him, quite simple.
MC: Well, it came out really good, it was a nice result. The nice part about these side projects such as the Velvet Ghost is that artists get an opportunity to explore musical stylings they otherwise wouldn't normally. Was there a common ground in your and Carl's musical tastes that made this collaboration a natural one?
Boz: Yeah, I mean, have you heard any of the songs?
MC: Yeah, I've heard the entire thing.
Boz: Did you see the video of the show that we did?
MC: Yeah, yeah I did.
Boz: I liked all the songs, they were really good songs and you know, we're just really good friends and then it just kind of went from there really.
MC: What did you bring to the sound of the Velvet Ghost, what did you contribute to it do you think?
Boz: There's a couple of things that I do that I think are a trademark of myself which is a bit of a twang on the guitar which probably comes from my rockabilly roots and the other thing is the kind of jingle-jangle guitar parts that I do and I think they both fitted in quite well with the songs.
MC: Oh yeah, if you take a listen to “Welcome to the Darkside”, that one's got a kind of rockabilly fusion going on.
Boz: Yeah, well that's a perfect example.
MC: There were rumblings at the time when you guys did your one concert and after the first demos, that you and Cathal had written a handful of songs together. Whatever became of those?
Boz: Well, Cathal wrote all those songs, really. I think there was only one song that I co-wrote with him. They were all his ideas.
MC: And which song was that? Do you remember? The anoraks are gonna want to know that one.
Boz: Erm, it's such a long time ago. It might've been called “Check the Fruit”. I'm not sure. (laughs) Something about fruit. But I don't know if that particular song ever got finished.
MC: I don't know, it doesn't sound familiar. It doesn't sound like the ones he had posted up on his website.
Boz: It wasn't any of the songs like erm... God I can't even remember, like “Darkside”, I can't even remember any of the titles.
MC: If you give me just a second I can pull them up.
Boz: Great.
MC: Let me ask you another question while I’m looking for the songs here. Well, here’s a quick one. Where did you pick up the nickname Boz? That's more my own question because I've wanted to know that for many years now.
Boz: When I was at school, when I was a kid, there was one particular kid who for no reason started calling me 'Bozzie Boy' and everyone thought it was funny so for a week everyone called me 'Bozzie Boy' and then the next week it was shortened to 'Bozzie' and then the next week it went down to 'Boz' and it stayed from when I was about ten years old.
MC: Okay, here are the song titles, we've got “Viva Londinium”, “The Weak and The Strong”, “This Friend I Know”…
Boz: “This Friend I Know”. It’s fantastic. It’s a great song.
MC: It should have been a single. If Velvet Ghost ever got off the ground it should have been a single… “My Heart Is True”, “Welcome to the Darkside”, “Why Be Brutal”, “Hoodle La La”, “Bewdley Street”, “The Wizard”… that became a Madness song… and “We Are Love”... that one also became a Madness song, and, erm, “As Stars Above”. I don't see anything here about fruit in this grouping of songs.
Boz: Well, I recognise about half of the titles.
MC: It has been eight years now.
Boz: Yeah, some of the titles might have changed from when they were conceived but I mean Cathal never stops writing, he can pick up the guitar and play songs, and that's how it started really, I said, '”Just come round and get them all out of your head and put them down onto tape so that you can hear them and have them as a collection”. And that's how that started, really, the demos were before Velvet Ghost, and then the Velvet Ghost, we recorded a ton of stuff for them as well.
MC: It was a nice project, some really good stuff and well-received by the Madness fans, the Madness community.
Boz: I spoke to Cathal a couple of weeks ago, and I asked him about the Velvet Ghost stuff and it was such a long time ago that it's not really current or contemporary, you know, it belongs to a certain time.
MC: That's true. Although it is timeless enough. I mean there are some songs on there that are kind of dated, but something like “This Friend I Know”, you could release that at any time and that would be contemporary.
Boz: Well, yeah I just think that at the time, you know, the way he was, what he was doing, and the Madness thing was on the backburner for awhile. He was still being creative but it wasn't a Madness thing, it was something he needed to get out of his system.
MC: Well, he's probably the most prolific of the songwriters in the band so he's always got something going on.
Boz: Yeah, every time I see him he pulls me to one side and sings me a new track!
MC: Well, we don't want to take up your entire time talking about Madness, I would like to move on to some of your other projects, so why don't we start off with “Miss Pearl”. That's hitting the stands here by the end of September. It's your first solo album since 1996’s “My Wild Life's Gonna Get Me Down”. That's like 11 years, 12 years?
Boz: Yeah, I didn't realise, I found a box of records in my studio, I opened up the box and I saw “My Wild Life” which was a 10" album, and I thought “Blimey, I haven't done a record in 12 years, I better put another one out”. I didn't know it had been so long! So I got together a collection of recordings, you know things that had been lying around, some had come out and some hadn't and I just put everything together and picked the best 16 songs.
MC: It's not a bad collection. Amazon.com has got it up there now on the digital downloads, you can listen to samples of it finally so I've been listening in on it a little bit. You know it's kinda got a tougher sound to it, tougher than “Wild Life”. More Johnny Cash and less Carl Perkins. Is this part of your evolution as an artist or is it more of a conscious choice to try something different?
Boz: No, “My Wild Life” was more of an album project. I remember thinking that I needed to write two more songs for it and it was done. Most of that was recorded upstairs in my house. I don't think it really had a proper double bass on it either, so now I have a proper studio across the road where most of that was recorded. I suppose I have evolved in my musical sense but it's not a conscious effort.
MC: I’m looking at the track listing for “Miss Pearl” right now, and if you need a single to pick, “B29” is the one to go with.
Boz: Well, that’s funny, it was released as a b-side of a Japanese single. And the guy who wrote the lyrics, he’s from Philadelphia, but he’s over here at the moment… and as I said it was a single in Japan… I’m just trying to work out how I’m going to do it live. I’ll have to go do some work on that later, to get it sounding good, because it has that sample on it. Yeah, it’s got that sample on it from… I might get in trouble… No! It hasn’t got any samples on it! (laughs)
MC: And “Rockaway Beach.”
Boz: There’s a magazine called Classic Rock I think, they give away a free cd and they put that on it which is quite good. I was always a Ramones fan and that was one of my favorite songs, and it’s kind of an obvious rockabilly feel.
MC: You've been doing gigs with Morrissey… by the way, I went to Craig Ferguson and saw you guys on there, it wasn’t too bad… in the past year or so, and you just did a gig with the Polecats in LA. Is there going to be time to promote "Miss Pearl" with some concerts?
Boz: One London gig, booked for about a week's time, up in Soho in a very small place called the 12 Bar Club and it only holds about a hundred people. It's just a little launch really for friends and the record company just to announce its arrival into the world. We were looking at maybe going over to New York and then maybe Los Angeles, but I don't know if it's getting released worldwide in different territories. I think Germany's taken it but I don't think there's an American label yet. I'm looking at my friend who runs a label in Japan, I think he would be prepared to put it out for me. I'm not sure about America, never really had any dealings with any labels over there. You know, just small independents.
MC: You know a good one is Hellcat Records, Tim Armstrong of Rancid, he's got a label so you might check him out, they're pretty cool. Or my pal's label, Northeast Records. Or Kung Fu. Try Northeast. Garry's cool.
Boz: Yeah I don't know. I will have to address that when it comes to it. I've been so busy with Morrissey for the last four or five years, that when I have a week off I like to go home and see the family whereas before when we had months off at a time I'd go and play weekends in New York and Philly, or I'd go to LA, do a little solo show and I just haven't done those for a few years now.
MC: Well, I missed the Polecats show in LA by two days.
Boz: That was a funny show, a venue downtown, the Crashpad, something happened with the liquor licence or something went wrong and it got changed to The Knitting Factory right at the last minute, so I don't know if too many people knew about it. It was a two-day thing, I think the bill could have been one really good night with the Guana Batz playing and a few of the heavier rockabilly bands from around LA. Our bass player was refused entrance into the country (laughs) so it was a long way to go for one gig. It was always fun playing it, you know for 30 years, we don't really ever have to rehearse.
MC: Yeah, it has been 30 years, you guys started (Polecats) started about ’79.
Boz: Yeah, I think our first record came out in '79, so we'd been gigging around since about '78. Me and Tim (Worman, aka “Tim Polecat”) used to go to punk gigs in '77, and you know we've been friends since around '74, something like that, so you know, since we were about 12 years old. The next thing was to be in a band together and it still is fun.
MC: We’re going to move on to one of my favourite artists, Adam Ant. He just happens to be one of my favourite musical artists, and you just happen to be a major contributor to one of Adam's strongest releases, the 1995 album "Wonderful". How was that experience for you, working with such a renowned songwriting team like Adam and Marco Pirroni?
Boz: Well, I was a big fan anyways, when we use to drive around in the Polecats van we had “Dirk (Wears White Socks)”, and even after that it was “Kings of the Wild Frontier”. I liked the whole thing, and he's a tremendous bloke and I love him you know, I don't know what else to say really, he's a fantastic bloke and he makes me laugh a lot and you know, I think he's fantastic.
MC: Yeah, he's not too bad, I've met him a couple of times and he was always a real sweet man. Adam's returned the favour for you. You worked on “Wonderful” and he worked on that song “Jungle Rock” for your new album.
Boz: It was done a little while back, it was done a few years ago. It was one of the songs that he might've done with Bazooka Joe before Adam and The Ants and he wanted me to sing it so I sung it and overdid the rockabilly stutter with the slide up and he did the backing vocals on it and the comical little talking bits in it.
MC: You also lent your talents to the "Save The Gorilla" campaign with Adam (with an EP featuring a reworked "Stand And Deliver"). Are there other charities you are active with?
Boz: Charities? Well, yeah I'm a great believer in charities. I'm not an active part of any charities but I still get stuff through for “Save The Gorilla”, the “Diane Fossey Gorilla Fund” seems to be having problems. There's a lot of people moving around in the charity now. I think it's a good thing. There was a documentary that we watched that explained the plight of the mountain gorillas and how they were just getting taken out for people to have little gorilla hands as souvenirs. It’s appalling really. But er, it was a thing we were involved in and we tried to help but it didn't get released.
MC: Well, it was a really funky version of “Stand and Deliver”. I ended up finding a copy of it on Napster.
Boz: What the whole thing? We did the two versions of “Monkey Man”, we did the Toots and the Maytals song and the Rolling Stones song, and they’re both called “Monkey Man”” which was probably the best song on the EP.
MC: Even though you are famous for taking part in the rockabilly revival of the late 70's and early 80's with The Polecats, you are probably best known as a major force behind the post-Smiths revival of Morrissey's career. What is it about you that makes you the go-to-guy for established musicians like Morrissey, and Adam Ant and Cathal?
Boz: (laughs) Well that whole thing with Morrissey came about through Cathal, I did a recording session with Morrissey then we talked about getting a band together, then it all went quiet and I didn't hear anything and then suddenly it all went a bit wild. It was about 1991 and he phoned me up and said, “Would you be my musical director?” and I said, “Okay, let’s give it a go”. But I don't know, I never thought of it like that really. I just play really and I play with a lot of different people. I don't know what it is that I do, I suppose it's just personality and style I suppose. I just do what I do and it leads to whatever way it has to lead, you know, whatever I have to play. I don't know, maybe it's a fun thing.
MC: Morrissey has a new album out soon, "Years of Refusal."
Boz: It's finished, we've had a playback and I think it's February when it will be out. Very sadly the producer died, Jerry Finn, he had a stroke, he was on a life support for about 40 days and in the end he died, very sad, but the album is finished, we're taking a break from doing the shows for a little while so when the album comes out it will be with a bang so it's not coming out until February. It's a great album, I will say it's the best thing I've ever done even though that's an overused phrase, it is a good slab of music, every time I hear it it's different stuff that goes on in it that I hear.
MC: I did a little bit of poking around turned up a few song titles I believe are co-penned by you: "That's How People Grow Up", "Black Cloud", is that one of yours? "I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris."
Boz: Yeah, 'I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris', I'm hoping that might be a single too.
MC: How do these new songs compare to previous Moz/Boz creations like "The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get" and "Come Back to Camden"?
Boz: There's not really any ballads on the album, there are no sort of slow songs. They’re thicker, the instrumentation, and the drums are probably a bit more wild.
MC: Like “All You Need Is Me”?
Boz: Yeah, “All You Need Is Me” is definitely a tougher sound, you know a harder edge.
MC: Well I'm looking forward to it, as well as your album.
Boz: It's getting good reviews, which is one thing I've never had with the solo stuff so it's nice to be recognised.
MC: There's Boz Boorer the guitarist/songwriter and Boz Boorer the producer. Are there dynamic differences between sitting in the producer's chair with bands like The Rattlers and The Brewsters and being the musician on the other side of the mixing board?
Boz: Well it's a different process really, a different headspace, when I'm producing I'm trying to get good playing, originality and a spark from the band that I'm working with. I wouldn't rush to pick up a guitar and play it myself, so I might suggest something and they would come up with their own ideas. So I'm always trying to get good playing out of people and maybe something that they wouldn't have normally played had I not been there. So as for playing myself, it's more of a sparky thing, things just come into my head quickly and I write ideas down and go and play them on the track so it's a different thing really. I enjoy producing a lot though. I have a studio in Portugal now, and I’ve just started recording bands there, and I've got a band called “Bunny Ranch”, a Portugese band, and the singer liked it so much he brought this sort of rockabilly-based band called the “Tijuana Bibles” down and I've played it to a few people and they said it's kind of sounds a bit like The Bad Seeds, you know, Nick Cave's band? It's got a really dark side to it, a lot of organic sort of tom-toms, like a swampy feel to it. But these are sessions that I love doing, something that I enjoy immensely.
MC: Songwriter, guitarist, singer, producer... is this why you have your own studios in London and Portugal?
Boz: Well you know I bought a house in Portugal, and I like to go there, there's plenty of room there, plenty of buildings, so I turned two of them into a studio. And In London, I've had it for ten years and it's just a place where I can store my equipment and go and work if I need to.
MC: Here’s a quick one: You and Lyn, 21 years now. That has to be a record in the music industry where marriages evaporate overnight. What's your secret?
Boz: Well I've been married for 21 years and I think I've only been home for about ten of those. (laughs) Which keeps it nice and fresh for me, never go home. Go away for three months at a time.
MC: Going to finish off with a heavy one. Before her death in 2000, you had worked with legend Kirsty MacColl in a number of capacities. Kirsty's death is by far amongst the saddest of tragedies, particularly in the handling (or mishandling) of the investigation by the Mexican government. In countries like the UK (and my homeland of the USA), those responsible would be held to answer without question or hesitation. Kirsty's passing brought to light that things don't work that way everywhere, even in supposedly "western" cultures like Mexico. What has this tragedy taught you about the nature of justice? Is it a luxury that we take for granted?
Boz: I just feel robbed really, I can't explain, it was such a corrupt thing and it was so wrong but you know nothing that's been done would ever have brought her back. It would have been nice just to see some justice, but you know it's just wrong, I can't really put it into words but her mother's had this huge thing, you know, about 'Justice for Kirsty' and I would like to see some sort of closure really. But you can't put it away and it never gets properly solved and it taints all the memories because it is so wrong. But it's such a tragedy and it was at the point when she was going out on tour finally and making great records, she was in a great space in her head too, so it's completely unfathomable.
MC: I live about 200 miles, 300 miles north of the Mexican border and the whole place is corrupt.
Boz: Well, there was the thing about the boat, a diving area, which should never have been there, the whole thing is such a tragedy.
MC: Okay, not so heavy. Even though you've already done plenty this year, do you have anything else planned for the remainder of 2008?
Boz: Not really, I've been going out to see shows, I started off with The Sex Pistols about two weeks ago and my body still hurts (laughs) then I saw X-Ray Spex, the Stray Cats, in fact I went to Manchester to see The Stray Cats the day before yesterday, it was fantastic, a really good gig, but Slim Jim fell over at the end of the show and he broke three bones in his hand so they had to cancel the last three gigs so we went up to Manchester and went out drinking.
MC: Chris Foreman of Madness said he saw you at the X-Ray Spex gig.
Boz: Yeah he was the last member of Madness that I've seen actually, I said hello to a girl that I hadn't seen for years and he was standing there talking to her so, quite nice, I hadn't seen him for a while. Years ago I was an engineer at Chrysalis Records on the publishing side and I ran the studio as an engineer before I worked with Morrissey and even back then I did The Voice of The Beehive demos, so I worked with Woody back then. And you know I've sort of known them all on and off for years. I saw Lee, he was playing at a cancer benefit I went and played at recently in Barnet.
MC: You’re up in Camden, so it’d be hard not to run into them.
Boz: Yeah, so I bump into them all every now and then. It's good that they all still go out you know.
MC: So do you want to finish off with a really cool tale about Cathal then? Something that would embarrass the hell out of him?
Boz: Well, no, I wouldn't do that to him, he means a lot to me and I'd do anything for him, all he has to do is call. I hadn't seen him for a long time and I saw him on a boat going up and down the Thames a couple of weeks ago and it was so nice to catch up. He's got a lot of things going on, he's gonna have a busy year ahead of him, the way he was talking and the plans that he had. A lot of things come to fruition, you know, “Our House” the play thing, you know the musical, I remember him talking about that years ago and I thought, “Is that ever gonna happen?” and of course it has and it's very successful so yeah, I think he's got a busy year ahead of him and I'd like to wish him all the best of luck with it really and he knows that if ever he needs me to do some playing or recording that I'll be there, I'm only a phone call away. He's a very good friend to me.
MC: That’s great, that’s the kind of friendships you want to have.
Boz: It’s wonderful.
MC: Hey, wonderful. You played on Adam Ant’s “Wonderful.” Did you know you get special thanks in the liner notes of Madness’ “Wonderful”?
Boz: Well, I worked quite hard with Cathal and Lee with the arrangements on that record, before it ever got finished, the demos of the tracks. So yeah, it was very early on. I think I did a week down with them, just working on different arrangements and stuff, which was a lot of fun. It was a like a little family and I was invited in to it. It was very nice. I was made to feel very welcome.
13 September 2008
Boz's new album "Miss Pearl" hits the shelves on the 22nd of September (UK) and the 30th of September (USA). Pre-orders can be made at:
The UK
www.recordstore.co.uk
The States
www.amazon.com
You can find Boz online at:
www.bozboorer.com
and
www.myspace.com/bozboorer
© 2008 Madness Central. All Rights Reserved.
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