From: cafe2 (cafe2@netaccess.ie)
Subject: Alex Chilton interview from The Idler magazine (UK)

-Do you feel driven at the moment?

Not in the least.  Well, I feel like... I'm interested in music you know.  There's a lot I have to learn about it, and I 
wouldn't say I'm driven to do that because if I had been driven to do it I would have done it already.  But it's an 
ongoing process.  I always want to grow and learn.

-Do you go out looking for inspiration?

I'm not the kind of person who gets up every morning and goes and works for three hours.

-Do you think you're jaded?

Maybe in some ways.  I mean, I don't look at myself that way.  I know a lot of people do.  I think of myself as 
being one of the most positive, born yesterday sorts of people that there is, but a lot of other people don't seem to 
think that.

-Maybe people think that because apathy is so linked with jadedness?

I don't know; just the way things stand for me, I've got a pretty nice thing going and I'm happy with the way that I 
get by, but I don't feel compelled to work to try and make millions you know.  As long as it goes on this way, I like 
it.  I feel lucky to be able to do the work I can at all.

-How do you space your time?

I'm lazy.  That's not necessarily a good thing, I just love to be lazy.  Just the business of living takes up a 
considerable amount of time.  My year is basically spent making enough money for six months to have the next six 
months off.  I don't feel an urge to work incredibly hard.  Every six months or so I look at my situation and decide 
what needs to be done from there.  That's about as far in advance as I think.  It's the greatest existence I can have.  
I don't know how long it'll last, maybe I'll be back to washing dishes.  Having a publicist or any engine of people 
working around me - I'm not really interested in that.

-But maybe if you got that together you could make a lot of money?

Maybe you're right about that, but I tell you, I've never met anybody in management who was interested in my 
latest album.

-How do you regard work?

Everybody's got to have something productive that they do.  I don't know why, but that's what I think.

-Are you satisfied with your work so far?

I wouldn't say that, I just enjoy the life I live.  I wouldn't say I'm satisfied with anything I've done or anything, but 
I do enjoy myself.

-Do you think you could have achieved more?

Perhaps, but what would I have achieved it for?  I can't think of any reason to achieve anything.

-What do you think of the adulation you get from so many bands right now?

It's good to be recognised, but I've always had that.  In 1977 I'd be playing a gig full of Big Star fans.

-You've always had critical recognition, does that not get boring for you?

Maybe so, yeah, but then again it's nice to just walk around.  Well, I don't know.  Being a little bit famous is 
enough for me.  To have any more people recognising me would be a real problem.  It's only a minor problem now.  
Financially I do all right.  I have been dirt poor.

-You had teenybop-style fame at sixteen with the Box Tops.  Do you think that being so young allowed you to 
absorb fame better so that it hasn't mattered to you as much since?

-Maybe.  I've got nothing against a couple of million dollars coming my way tomorrow, but then again, I don't 
want to be some kind of megastar who can't walk down the street.  I'd rather make loads of money and not be 
recognised anywhere.

-Do you ever think in a businesslike way of how to achieve that?

No I don't.  Being businesslike is just too much, there's no point in that.

-When did you realise that you didn't want too much fame?

A long time ago.  Do you think people really want to be stars?

-Definitely, but maybe they don't know what it is.

A lot of people want to be admired or something, but when they become a star, all of a sudden, it's not all 
admiration.  People who get into it don't know what they're getting into.

-Why are you less well known in Britain than anywhere else?

The music business is so strange in Britain.  Ive made four, five or six albums in the last ten years and they really 
haven't been available for the most part, and neither is my latest one.  Britain is a hard place for anyone outside to 
break into.  If you don't have an English record company, then you're not going to sell any records in Britain, and 
I've never had an English record company.  Other countries are not so protected in their record markets as Britain 
is.  I think that the British think I'm some really obscure artist just because I'm really obscure in Britain.  I''m not 
saying I'm a megastar anywhere in the world but it is a bit better.  Honestly, I wish that I did have more of a career 
in this country and I think it's a big waste that this country and I don't have more to do with each other.

-What do you think of the song Paul Westerberg wrote entitled "Alex Chilton"?

I like it.  Yeah, I think it's one of his really good songs.

-That's lucky.

Yeah it is - I had great apprehensions until I heard it.  I heard another song about me a while back, some guy gave 
me this tape in somewhere like Arizona - some song called "My Sister's Bringing Alex Chilton Home".  I couldn't 
exactly tell what he meant. 

-Do you get a lot of groupies wanting to have your babies?

Maybe a few, not really a lot, but there are always some crazy chicks around as well as crazy blokes.

Do you feel strongly political?

Well, I'm a left winger I guess, but I don't know.  Everybody sees people every day of whom they say, Jesus this 
person needs to loosen up", or, "that person needs to get it together."  I see people that I certainly have a lot of 
thoughts about what they're doing.
-Could you generalise about those people?

Politically I think a lot of people have been brainwashed to believe all of this free market economics stuff.  That's a 
sort of general criticism about the population at large.  They've been so propagandised by fifty years of cold war.

-Do you have an idea of Utopia?

I don't ever think about Utopia because I know I'll never see it.

-You seem to live your life without publicising any strong feelings.

I'd say yes.

-Do you think that's unusual?

No, I don't think anybody who knows a hill of beans about publicity wants it.  Maybe as some kind of political 
something or other.  But I don't see much point in advertising.

-That's not very egotistical.

Maybe it's a lack of being megalomaniacal.

-Were "Underclass" and "No Sex" born from strong feelings?

I wouldn't say so.  Both songs were really flippant and frivolous.  Let me ask you a question.  I'm interested in 
horoscopes, what's your birthday?

-30th April.

And what year were you born in, if you don't mind?

-1970.

Year of the dog.

-At least it's not the year of the rat.

That's this year.

-Yeah that's right.  I went to a Chinese new year party and it was very depressing.  So what does that mean?

Everybody has a card in a deck, each birthday has a card it corresponds to.  I think your card is the four of clubs.

-Really?  That's measly, I could have been the ace of spades or something.

Well, if I had my reference books here I'd give you a reading and interpret the thing for you.  It's pretty profound 
and kinda interesting, I think it is.

-Do you believe it, or is it just interesting?

Well it's sort of a little of both I think.  A long time ago I started reading astrology and I just happened to learn 
more about it as time went on.  But it could be completely wrong for all I know.

-My mother brought me up with all of that stuff surrounding me, so I'm rather cynical myself.

I know I was cynical about it myself in the first place.  When I read it, it said something to me I guess, so I 
decided, okay, well I'll have this one thing that I''ll do.  Palm reading and spoon bending and whatever else I'll 
leave to somebody else.

-There's always the danger of it leading on to worse things and soon you'll be obsessed by crystals.

There are too many interesting ideas around that you can prove to get off on all this New Age crap.

-Do you think there's such a thing as impossible coincidences, fate and omens, etc.?

Not really, but there are some incredible coincidences that try one's lack of faith.

-Are you at all religious?

No, I mind religions very much.  That's another large criticism I have of the world.  Religion, forget it.  Organised 
or even disorganised.  It creates problems everywhere because people get some kind of moral thing going on that if 
people are not conforming to their moral thing then they don't deserve to live.  Religion is a strong promoter of 
that sort of thing.  Man, we're sure getting heavily philosophical here.

-Were you brought up religiously?

No, philosophically but not religiously.  -Ooh, somebody just brought a big bottle of wine into my space.

-So it sounds like you're not AA or anything?

No, I was a heavy drinker for about ten years.

-Was giving up drinking difficult?

No, not in the least.  Quitting drinking was easy.  It wasn't like I was quitting something that I really loved.  It's 
sort of a habit that people get into.  Once again there's all this propaganda around to make people think that 
drinking is fun.  In one way it is, but in ten other ways it's really not.  And drinking too much is not going to be a 
pleasurable experience for anyone who does it.  It's like any other drug.  If you do too much, it kind of takes over, 
and you're not you any more, you're the drug that you're on and, I don't know, there's endless bad things to say 
about drinking, but you know, if somebody enjoys doing it, let them.   It was in the early Eighties that I quit 
drinking, I caught a cold or something one time and it was sort of severe probably because I'd been drinking so 
much.  It took me maybe two weeks to get well, and at the end I remarked to myself that it had been ten years since 
I'd been two weeks without drinking.  I just thought, well it's been two weeks, might as well make it a month.

-You see the same self-delusion with pot-heads who think it's not affecting them, and they only realise after they've 
stopped.

Well yeah, I think pot's okay.  I agree with what you say, but when you put it on a scale next to drinking, on a 
scale of badness, I think pot is miniscule by comparison.  If someone is doing it in a compulsive way, if they feel 
compelled to smoke pot, then it's a problem.  Maybe some people do get extra lazy and sometimes the pressure of 
daily affairs is a little too stressful for them.  They would however still have obstacles in their way even without the 
pot.  Pot just makes them more afraid of them.

-What did you do after you quit drinking?
Moved to New Orleans.  Maybe a year or so I didn't really play music, I had several odd jobs around town like 
washing dishes.  I'd been getting by in various ways and music kind of slipped away.  Rather talk about something 
else.

-Is music your raison d'^Čtre?

No, not really, it's just what I do.

-Why did you get into music in the first place?

Dad was a jazz player, it wasn't something he made a living doing but he played.  There was always a jazz band 
playing round at our house and at the age of eight I would often go to sleep to the sound of them playing.  It was 
kind of cool.  I'd been hanging out with old jazz musicians all my life, and then the Beatles came along.  I got very 
caught up in it.  I was thirteen years old and loved it.  It made me buy a guitar and try to learn how to play.  I got 
active about being interested in music.

-What was Memphis like in the Sixties?

There were various recording artists always working in the studio so I didn't really see them.  It wasn't a big scene.  
We were like the second rank of musicians, they were playing a lot of gigs and that sort of stuff.  But Memphis, 
you know, it's a pretty provincial town, let's face it, and it's not ever going to be a media centre or anything the 
way it was.  I miss that.

-Growing up in Memphis surrounded by music - did that contribute to you becoming a good songwriter?

I don't think I became a good songwriter.

-What songs would you like to have written?

What about "Hide and Seek" by Jo Turner?  There's a million examples of good songwriting, very few of them are 
mine.

-Which of your songs are you most proud of?

Maybe the tune that I like the best, which didn't really have a great performance on the record, but the tune's good, 
is, "Got A Thing For You".  I just think it's concise.  It's got a kind of hit musical thing on it and it doesn't say 
anything, it doesn't... I dunno, usually when I write a song and I don't like it, it's because there's something in the 
tune that just seems so awkward to me and lays such an egg and is so lame that I really can't dig that bit of it an 
that kind of ruins the whole thing for me.  That particular tune doesn't take any really false steps.

-How come you haven't believed all the press about yourself that you are such a great songwriter?

Well, when the press are writing about you, you begin to see that they don't know what they're talking about most 
of the time.  I guess some people start believing their own press.  Sure, at some times in my life I've believed some 
things that somebody's said about me that I shouldn't have.

-So while you might not think your songs are great, you must enjoy playing them?

It's always fun, playing music is just fun.  It's this kind of wonderful participatory kinetic art form that groups of 
people can engage in together, it's like a sport almost.  To get up with a couple of guys and lay down some sounds 
that are really happening is fun.

-Do people's reactions to your music mean a lot to you?

Yeah, sure.  You don't need the majority of people to dig your music for it to be good.  If there's one person in a 
hundred thousand, then that's okay.  If you ask any artist about his career, the things that he does that are the most 
popular are not necessarily the things he thinks are the best.

-To be playing British Invasion style music in the early Seventies was quite unfashionable at the time?

Yeah, I suppose you're right, but I remember a group called The Raspberries.  They came along a year later than 
we did and had a few hits.

-I read that you spent time with Dennis Wilson in the company of Charles Manson.  What was that like?

I really couldn't tell you.  In the three days or so that he and I occupied the same environment I hardly got to know 
him.  He didn't strike me as deeply dangerous, probably because I got to know him only slightly.

-Are you into the Beach Boys?

We toured together a lot and I was always a big fan of their music and still am.

-What do you think about Brian Wilson's situation?

It's hard to understand for me exactly what is going on there.  It just seems like he needs a good kick in the butt or 
something, I dunno.  He needs to go get a job and see what the world is like again, you know?

-Do you have that attitude in general towards mental illness?

In some cases yeah.  Some people just think it's cool to be crazy.  It's everywhere.  You can be okay but if you 
behave in a way that's not okay, before long you're not going to be okay.

-Do you get depressed?

I guess so, but it's been so long ago that I can't remember what it was like.  Being depressed just stops anything 
from happening.  Having thoughts going round in circles in your head is not good.

-Where are you living now?

New Orleans.  Just bought an old place there.  As I get the notion to do it up... it takes effort to do that, and once 
it's done, then a lot of good things can flow from that - having a little fortress all of one's own.  I've spent time just 
finding a place to live and settle down.  I was unsettled - spending six months in Tennessee and six months in New 
Orleans, dreaming about spending half my year in Peru.

-What are you up to these days?

Nothing much, really don't have any plans or any projects.

(Interview by Kira Jolliffe from The Idler, May-June 1996)