Virgin Prunes � �Like a chewable virgin prune�

Industrial music CDs on eBay USA | eBay UK | eBay GER

16 Mar, 2005

It�s late afternoon when we arrive at the Brussels hotel where the band is staying preparing themselves for a DJ set they are to give later on that evening in Brussels. While we not always have the chance to get both Gavin and Guggi together for a joined talk on Virgin Prunes back catalogue reissue, finding a parking spot would result to be the most difficult enterprise of the whole day thanks to an oversaturated city centre. When we arrive David, the EMI promo guy, informs us that Gavin had his sideburns grown longer for a movie he is shooting with Bryan Ferry. When it�s our turn we see a long haired Gavin Friday with Presley sideburns and a wounded Guggi bleeding from his hand... (By Benoit Blanchart & Bernard Van Isacker)

GA. (While Guggi showing his harmed hand bleeding) When we get into the car, I slammed the door on his hand! I don�t like the way it is bleeding� Guggi, do you think we should go to a doctor?

GU. The wound is quite deep I think� and it�s swollen like mad, but it looks worse than it is.

SL. Ok, just let us know when an ambulance is needed. It has been a nightmare, almost a crusade to have these albums released?

GA. (With a smile) Really? Well, what drove me crazy was the lost artworks and then trying to just re-master it and find tapes; the practical side was a nightmare, getting stuff that was 20 years old and that was a little fucked up. But everything is a nightmare if you want to do things good. As far as the labels are concerned: well, we didn�t re-record the music, we just tried to find stuff that was missing. It was rather laborious because most of the stuff had been recorded in the eighties with simple things and gear and I wanted it to sound strong. It was a couple of months of hard work but now it is done. The whole New Rose era? That was a fucking joke! (Editor�s note: New Rose was a US label that re-released some of the Virgin Prunes material) Mute did a good job and I just feel that they are a much more realistic and supportive home for us. I respect Mute, they have fine artists, they like music which is a very strange thing for a record company nowadays! Working with them has been a pleasure so�

SL. Was Mute your very first choice choice?

GA. yes, there were offers from other labels but I was trying to find a home that respects music and they are a good companies. Look, they�ve got Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle, Can, Neubauten, Wire and the list goes on� It�s a good graveyard that�s buried around there. We went through a few legal things but thanks to the generosity of Geoff Travis from Rough Trade who just said: �take it back�, which is great, the members of the Virgin Prunes now own the right on the recordings. You know, at the very beginning we also had our own record label Baby Records on which we released our first EP. Geoff Travis, who had heard a lot of our music, said: �Go and make an EP� and he wanted all stuff to be like �Twenty Tens� and we went and made a very avant-garde EP holding �Greylight�, �Children Are Crying� and �Revenge�. I think he nearly had a nervous breakdown when he heard it (laughs)! So that�s when he told us: �Why don�t you have your own record label?� Then, the next recording he heard, he wanted it on Rough trade. We did �A New Form Of Beauty� which was a very adventurous thing. Right now we haven�t got the time and energy to set up our own record label though. Dave-Id could do it but the world would blow up if he ever ran a record company (laugh)! He would call it �Busarus record��. (Thinks a bit) I don�t want to work in an office and send e-mails all day long to sell the stuff, you know.

GU. (Recovering from the first shock of seeing the blood on his hand) You have to protect your time as an artist! The best way is to get someone who knows and does it for you.

SL. When working on the re-releases you also noticed that you had lost some tracks?

GA. Yes we lost some multi tracks and some were damaged. Seemingly in the eighties, lots of tapes were bad but the idea was to just restore, not remix the albums.

SL. How did Colin Newman enter the game, I remember you had a rather difficult relation with him in the past�

GA. They just suggested to have Colin Newman do a remix. He was trashed in the past by the band but he trashed us too back! But imagine to control the 6 of us, some twenty years ago, it was a nightmare. They wanted to remix �Baby Turns Blue� and I said: why not give it to the man who worked on it twenty years ago? And I quite like the remix though I don�t take remixes that seriously. There are also some unfinished songs but I see it more like a �work in progress� and I see them as very private. The next thing is that we gave Mute a lot of videos, live recordings and performances, all on different formats. We hope to put a DVD out in the next year or so. I found some very interesting live recordings from 1980 and 1981: some stuff that was never recorded because in our early days we used to perform music and then never perform it again. Cleopatra Records and Cherry Red had also illegally taken the video �Sons Find Devils� to release the soundtrack on a CD. They are pure assholes or �arsholes� as we say in Irish (laughs). So these are more like bootlegs but released by an official company.

SL. It�s no coincidence that you do this set here in Brussels, is it?

GA. Benelux countries have always been very friendly for Virgin Prunes. The guy who from the venue where we play tonight (Editor�s note: Ancienne Belgique, Brussels) has been �pushing� a lot for the last ten years to get us overhere. It were countries like Holland and Belgium which first welcomed Virgin Prunes so it�s more like paying respect back to you all!

SL. As far as promotions is concerned, are there any events planned to promote the re-releases?

GA. There are no plans because we have so much to do in our own lives already. I�ve spent a lot of time negociating stuff with Mute and Emi, finding stuff, restoring and remastering it. Now I want to make an album on my own, actually, I�m already working on it. But I have no label at the moment. I�ve already written some of the song but I don�t know how it will turns out because when you go in a studio, things change. We write very simply, with a piano and a voice then we bring the musicians and develop so you can never tell. Maybe in a year I will be here in the same room talking about that. Guggi has his own work, preparing an exhibition of paintings, so you see we do a lot already. And for those that bother to ask, no, the Virgin Prunes are not reforming! This is just saluting the past, we�re just kicking the baby out there, saying �survive, you�re fucking twenty years old!!� We couldn�t reform actually, it would be absolute bullshit. Dave-Id would like to reform (laughs)!

SL. You�re also busy acting in a movie, right?

GA. Yes, I�m involved in the next Neil Jordan movie, �Breakfast On Pluto�, which also includes Brian Ferry, Brendan Gleeson, Laurence Kinlan, Cillian Murphy, Liam Neeson,
Ruth Negga and Stephen Rea, thus I had to have those sideburns (laughs)! and I�m only allowed to shave them off in about few weeks but I might keep them�

SL. You look like Dave Steward from the Eurythmics�

GA. (Looks annoyed� then starts laughing) Did you hear that Guggi! He fucking compares me with Dave Steward!

(�)

To read the complete interview, be sure to buy Side-Line issue 50!

Side-Line issue 50 at Side-Line shop
Virgin Prunes CDs

Content Continues Below

Get your CDs at the following eBay sites:
	eBay USA	eBay België/Belgique
	eBay UK	eBay France
	eBay DE	eBay Nederland
	eBay Canada	eBay Australia

Industrial music CDs on eBay USA | eBay UK | eBay GER

57360

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR DAILY NEWSLETTER

Advertisers

Virgin Prunes � �Like a chewable virgin prune�

More headlines

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR DAILY NEWSLETTER

RECOMMENDED MONEY MAKERS

THANKS TO

SHORTCUTS