Kenny Morris : The John Robb interview

Kenny Morris thank you where where have you been the last 30 years um ducking and Ding and I don't think you've ever been to a punk Festival well not since 7776 so I haven't no and uh I was seen you yesterday in the book room and you're quite impressed by what's going on around here after all these years something you probably with about another 20 people started it's all here yeah yeah that that um that I'm really really pleased about um I'm proud about you as well but like it's what amazed me in the week since I've been here it really really amazed me was like how this could something like this Rebellion doesn't happen anywhere in the world where you get something like 16,000 people from all over the place um coming to one particular spot and you know they when I was look at them all looking at the all and I was thinking gosh you know they they put so much time into how they look with their fabulous hair and and and they've constructed these outfits I wouldn't even say you know that's the best word I can use there were like walking works of that literally so I was like wow do you feel any connection with that from like say it is nearly 50 years ago now and it and when you were a walking work of art 1976 did you have any idea that all this time later this thing would still be going on no no no not at all uh and what's lovely as well that everyone in Blackpool seems to be so kind and amongst all those all the people I've been seeing at this venue throughout the week um they all get get on so well together no animosity no one kicking off uh everyone just being so nice and helpful and and and it was that was something I thought only hippies was good at was it quite different in 1976 was it um was it his friendly then or is it a bit more rivalry in those times loads of rivalry between groups um were many um in 7677 and I guess in 77 you really had to watch your back if you looked anything near vaguely like a punk you just have to worry about Joe public you didn't have to worry about some other kind of um group of um could be you know Teddy Boys or we used to get a lot of bother from them unfortunately but um it was more because of when they the show this show came out Bill Grundy and it was it was live it was like 6:00 p.m. on the Telly I was I was at home watching me Dad and Bill Bill Grandy incited this exist and made uh obvious passes towards suie Su and um it was just horrific and um there there was a blow cup our road just up a road it was a lorry driver and um his kids were watching as well and he was so incised that he put his boot through the TV screen oh wait a minute so that bloke actually existed I thought made up and that was on your road yeah so but when that because of that bill Grundy show I I was kind of trying to explain you had to worry you didn't know who was was around the corner everyone young people in groups were going around with just one thing in mind in mind and that was like to M on site so you had to worry about everyone you know did that did that feed into the music did that make the music more intense yes oh yes oh yes so that whole period 77 was was I think I think 77 was couldn't it couldn't have been a more intense time in the punk period of time some people say well at 76 to whatever 78 79 I I I it's debatable it's my opinion the punk only lasted for 77 it all took place in 1977 77 was the place to be in in in in London was the place to be in 77 no not in America or anywhere else um that that was the best place because that's where everything was happening people bands and people coming over in swarms from America and um to London because they heard about what was going on but um yeah but by the end of 77 uh going into 78 it wasn't really any longer the place to be quite honestly I mean yeah yeah I mean that's the spark when it I mean but you weren't initially a musician were you you were initially at art college I was yeah and you were trying to do a career in art yeah so how did it start for you to actually become a musician um well I I'd play drums once a weekend a little band at school and then um what happened next went to art college and when I started to go to art college by the time I got to camwell school of art to do this degree course in Fine Art Graphics I was already thinking I I I want I have my goals my eyes and my mindset on going to the Royal College of Art that was my that's what I was thinking of course everything changed and um I was introduced to Sid Vicious got into the with the flowers of romance started doing film sets with John ma for uh Dereck jman's Jubilee and um while I was at Campell and this was going on I was thinking okay but when I finished the first year I got first grade which entitled me to if I wanted to take time off to study a particular thing of Interest so I was really Keen to go to New York check out places like the Andy Warhol Factory and other things I had in mind I only read about Max's Kansas City cbgbs all these kind of places but that all went by the by cuz I London was the place to be and I was already hooked I think it I was hooked from the first time I ever saw the Sex Pistols in 19676 at the Nashville it was the first time also I saw Sig vicious but what was it about pistols out that gig and also about Sid that was so captivating well to me when I saw them at The 100 Club punk rock festival for instance I immediately was thinking uh Johnny roton has to be the most engaging um amazing front figure of any band on the planet but the world just didn't know it yet and Sid as well was did you meet him that night then Sid H did you meet Sid that night at the Nashville I didn't but I I was watching him yeah okay yeah I I couldn't take my eyes off him I just i' never seen anything like him in my life I mean the pistols run on the stage for about three minutes and then this fight took place in the front two rows which I'm pretty certainly was instigated by McLaren and but Sid was on the side leaning against the PA and a gold LL Let It Rock jacket and um he was just he he he just made one little attack at somebody in the audience with his belt put the back SL put it back on and um as if nothing had happened and there usual sort of grin that he used to have and then so when I started to show you the I started to see every single sex pist G took place and um Sid was of course one of their best best friend of Johnny's and and and the best follower of the band and of course he invented pogoing which became the norm throughout punked them in no time and I kind of thought well I'd like to get I really have to get to know this guy I just have to and I thought the best way to get acquainted with with that with that by doing that is just get pogram right beside made him shoulder to shoulder so we used I used to do that for ages never said a word to him until he got on stage with with the Banshees um and Marco Peron and Steve San at the H 100 Club at the punk festival for that oneoff performance then I picked up the courage he he walked off stage and I just goes up to him and says oh uh cuz I no it's like he he played the drums he kept them real simple and the symbols real sparse and so when he came off and he'd never played before and he came off and I said to him um oh oh you know my name's Kenya I just want to say uh Morin tuck is one of my favorite drummers of all time and what you just did is really quite similar and he got real shy real humble and was really nice and sort of and but really humbled by me compliment and um oh thanks very much and and then he says y but however I have to tell you that was a one-off for me I have no place behind the drum kit that's not for me I have other plans that was that little did I know that in a short while I'd be in his band he'd be singing playing bass I was in that band for about six months what was that six months like they one of the great mystery footnotes of punk I mean was there a lot of songs what the rehearsal he wrote about five songs really witty funny clever intelligent stuff but he you know he he learned to play bass by listening to Ramon and um so he could he could play anything they could play off but you know so he's he was quite musical he was a lot of people didn't think that or even know that and but then things happened of course they Chang and um when he joined the pistols the flowers was over and um six months later I joined the bandes that was that I mean when you were playing with flowers did you start getting your drum style worked out you have a very distinctive gamechanging drum style I think you know that something that's just evolved over time with the with the Banshees from constantly touring no I mean I only in the short time I was with with with with the flowers U we only had a few rehearsals in the in in the um by The Roundhouse with Clash's rehearsal rooms there and um only a few we never performed never played anywhere no recording of it or nothing so when I started to um when I joined the Banshees in the early days before we signed um it was just we we did do we did rehearse at times a fair bit um while we could and then we'd be touring all the time and as time went on we weren't rehearsing particularly when we got to sign we we Wen actually it seemed that we were WR in all our songs in sound checks literally that's where most of our songs came from we I think once we signed we I don't really remember us rehearsing that much at all mean when you and so the drum sound all every member in the group perfected got better and better like when Steve sephon when he started off that night at the hund club he'd only been on the B he only picked up a bass guitar u a week beforehand he had he didn't know how to play so and you know and that was Susie's first time on stage as well and um and and in my case with the drums it was just that constant constant touring right through 78 to 79 from late 77 no 7879 really that my evoled this drum sound that was my own was I didn't know technically anything about drums just just came between the four of us and it worked it just worked and it just I just got more proficient more was it a conscious decision not to play the drums in a straight Force I could I would yeah I would no interest to me at all so you're applying like an art school idea to playing drums you know playing them in a different way like a different sort of yeah well I I mean I I I just started to my my drum sound started to fit in with su's very STI um voice that she used to use at the time so I kind of um Blended or if you like made my drums fit in beats and everything with HST dearo you know the way she used to sing at the time well I'm sure get me I'm sure this is not true and this is one of those things that sticks in in interviews over the years but Susie always said that they took your symbols away to stop you play Like a Rock Dr I don't think that was true at all I did that was sense that was the first day the first time I ever rehearsed with him and we had um they had an they had a gig coming up in two weeks the group only had four songs I walked in manager when went crazy because I didn't know how to set up the kit that I was given and um but the one thing I did do once I said he got Fu when I set the kit up I removed it not she petty little detail but that's the fact it's an important detail so I got to use you know I always wanted to use the symbols really sparingly I I had one particular thing I have a high hat and I had a crash um didn't want to ride but I used to use this Chinese symbol like an upside down one so when you hit it it go and I used to love that oh yes I I'd use the side drum instead of the high hat going which is definitely your signature yeah the toms which became the toms copied endlessly by loads of other drummers yeah but the other thing as well I I used to not instead of using the base drum like this I used to put my leg right up and go like that with the result was after a couple of years of doing that I couldn't walk in a straight line cuz this leg this leg got really big no kidding and this one was like a shrimp and I was like which way am I going and you also brought John into the band as well didn't you did you bring John I did yeah and that was it so did you knew him before then yeah I did yeah I went to I I uh don actually mentioned to him because at the same art school he in orb and um so I rang him I went to see the show he wasn't there he didn't know I'd been to the show but what I saw of what he did I I was impressed and I thought yes yes yes and but I'd never heard him play and so I rang him up and his mom's house and EM em did and I said oh you know we met J at once anyway at a party he said yeah I said well um just wondering would you'd be interested in uh cuz he in in when I interviewed him in 98 it's so clear from what he said he had this interest in architecture equating what you see on this on the stem of the guitar and the Frets and everything with architecture very knowledgeable about all of that and um so anyhow I hadn't heard him play so I said oh yeah would would you be interested uh and I didn't tell him that we weren't auditioning other guitarists I didn't want to think he had it in the bag know I you got to earn this so I said would you be interested in coming down to Putney doing a bit of a rehearsal to audition for the banshe and then there was this big silence it went on for like what seemed hour was was for ages I heard this big crash and then a silence and then he came back I said what was that he said I was so shocked I fell off the [ __ ] store see you in a week's see you in two days time or something and that was that so he came down Restless history beautiful you must have been aware very early on there something quite special about this lineup it's one of those perfect lineups yes that somehow just Coes is in it you couldn't have been the better person John M he just what what could I say an amazing guitar player yeah again nobody sound like before a game changer not at all yeah yeah so those early rehearsals those early gigs you got the four of you and is he starting to get towards the sounds that must have been very exciting yes yeah with John on board yeah yeah yeah I mean the other guy PT Venton the guitarist we had before don't get me wrong he was a brilliant rock guitar good guitarist but he just didn't fit in personality wise or something and I know it sounds real shitty but it it it does it's going to sound really ridiculous he just didn't look right either it didn't smell right it didn't look right he didn't say he didn't have the same sense of humor not that we had much you definitely had a look though the bands the band looked like a band as well didn't it yes it's not just Susie who's obviously iconic but the whole bands great yes perfect in every way and was that something you were aware of or was that just something that evolved as well no I guess we would have been very Weare at that you know what I mean yeah so when you went in to record the album Steve Lily white do you have a very good sense of what you were doing uh the screen was it was an absolute joy to everyone was happy and and working with Steve G white who was about our age he was a genius and we already could tell that this guy's going to go on to to be one of the best producers in the world and surely has so everything was hunky dory with the screen perfect everything went wrong as as you might imagine um even though the second album join H was got to number 12 in the charts join the scream had had got to number 10 so there was only two between them but the hostility between us was so bad and the disagreements over the Joan H album sleeve and the rails and everything over all of that mck and but the and then and then a manager got in a completely a different producer no no longer see Lily white John and I go hang on why change some try and fix something that doesn't need [ __ ] fixing we want Steve completely ignored by this time John and I were never listened to there was no what's the word um communication yeah there's another thing uh Dynam begins with c there's a lot of words begin with see there was no uh huh no it was all of these things all these words but no no it's like a little competition H um you know when things aren't equal what's that Democratic begins with d d dance dance thank you lady chematic mate thank you yeah so everything went seriously wrong and you know we weren't even talking to each other when we made it made that album Believe It or Not not a word was being spoken to between us it was that bad and in in the very last day of that of of making that album to Absolute horror they had to cheat to actually lock John and I out of the studio for the final [ __ ] mix you got to be kidding so with all this going on we had work to do we had to go on tour we had interviews to do and all the time we're doing these interviews we're having to try and hide all this [ __ ] from the journalists who are interviewing us and then even it just got worse it got better and got worse and worse you know when we went on the join hands tour for instance um uh we we we found out well we actually didn't find out until the day John and I left when we read about it in sounds and it turns out they turned it sound and one of one of them said oh yeah we weren't even going to allow them to do any interviews on the tour wait and and what else weren't we allowed to do take a [ __ ] you know I actually don't so many things they said we they weren't and I said and the guy who interviewed them said oh did you tell did you ask them about this he said is there any democracy democracy going on here I mean how do you make these how do you make decisions and you know it doesn't seem equal and um the guy who answered was Steve said no we we we didn't ask them we told them which was bollocks we weren't told anything we were told nothing about any important when we were going on that tour because you can hear it in the music because the scream the beauty of the scream is that all the instruments are playing lead at the same time yes yeah so the drums are a lead instrument so is a bass so's guitar so the vocals it's very Democratic sounding you're right join hands which is actually a great record probably horrible record to make but does sound great it's very claustrophobic that's what John Savage said in his review of it exactly those words clustr he was the one journalist who noticed that but and back to the music though that sound was lovely because it was all about I I think all between us was about space leaving space for another instrument to breathe um so you let another instrument like the guitar take over it also gave me the drummer a breather it was all very coordinated in that sense you know so I sometimes could stop and it would it cause a it would it would add something a very dramatic sort of like har you know what's happened and then all a sudden come come back in really fast fast and hard you know so yes you're right there I mean had a brilliant drama to it and Brilliant Dynamics and suspense yeah yeah yeah and I guess that was all instinctive as well it wasn't yes it wasn't planed you probably just felt and that's how the music was written in the first place when you're writing the songs you just felt like stopping there and it was just the right place to stop yes indeed like on switch and on jigsaw jigsaw was one of my favorites oh it's great yeah really I mean do you ever listened to those two albums now you know years later I do occasionally what do you still have the same do they evoke the same emotions or do they sound so different so distant that you could think about them in different ways now I I no they feel they they sort of fill me up the same you know wow you know if I wasn't in you know if it wasn't me me I'd be thinking oh my God yeah that's not bad not bad yeah I mean and then we get to the the painful split and abedine in it you know so it's building up there's a lot of tension and you go to the Record Shop to do the signing and that's where it all just well the thing was lot of the the press and that followed pointed to the point of the of the of the um being because of of an alteration with group that took place in the record shop in abedine prior to the evening's gig of course it wasn't the seeds of um of of discontent was actually sewn from the day we signed to polydor that far back to be honest even though we had a a luxurious kind of time making the screen the seeds were already at work in what way in just in in quite a lot of ways actually I mean one of the reasons I after many years I I decided you know it's about time I I I I wrote about all of this and more is because you're doing your book now aren't you yes yeah yeah um it was because I wanted um like I knew John couldn't speak about it and so I thought well I I will because I always knew I had a book in me but since the age of seven and um but I thought well I got a pretty good feeling for some reason I got a hunch that I I know I don't want to write a fiction I'm not interested in writing a fiction or a novel um and I got a pretty good idea that I'm going to lead a pretty interesting uh eventful life let's say and maybe I like might write I write a factual account I'll see and I always knew I wanted to be in a band as well when I was seven years old but I was at school I I came first in a primary school poetry competition and um I didn't know what poetry was was I like I knew that I liked words that rhymed and and it wasin the context of a story but that was as far as it goes and I think that that little thing sort of that that that moment in time that that made me think oh yeah I'm going to write a book one day I will but in in in in in the senior years of my life I I'll leave it till them and I've lived a life yeah so that day in abine then is I mean you didn't really know you were going to leave the band did you it was just no we did actually everything in our power possible to to avoid leaving the band but we also we knew it was inevitable inevitable that by the end of the tour um uh because a lot of people thought that we actually plan to leave that we are going to do such a thing of course we hadn't no way so you know um so we we thought well yes it's going to happen that unfortunately going to have to leave at the end of the tour only to find out and when we read the interview in sounds I was on about about a week after he left the group they the the members of the band were saying oh and that's another thing we were going to kick him out at the end of the tour anyway so there was no going back from there no so even when you you both got the train from aine down to London did you still think maybe tomorrow we'll just carry on the tour or or did you know at that point this is probably over oh we knew for sure there was no going back not at all was that it was a bit obviously was a bit you bumped into suie a couple of times after that obviously at that point in time still a bit raw a bit tense wasn't it yeah yeah uh yeah it was I mean I had one rough night there was was at a Debbie Harry party in in town in London and I was invited to the party and there were some people were saying oh God you can't go there everyone's going to be there and all the record company people were there and everything I said no way I'm not I'm not going to be H up in my Squat and not go down there I'm going to go so I I went and Su was at the bottom of the stairs and um looking up at me as if to say just you dare and I just thought all right and then but about bodyguard what used to be MC Murphy our driver bodyguard was was working at the top of St and he said no no no there'll be no trouble don't you worry about it go ahead and I said oh yeah of course I'm going to go ahead however I did keep my coat on just in case so I gets to the bottom of the stairs I sits down with my back to the people in the hall and the no one was on the dance floor in the middle of the hall and it's a big old church and all of a sudden Steve whacked me in the face from behind like a wet fish and then the next thing I know I'm in right in the middle of the floor with about 10 people on me and I've got my coat up around my head and I'm kicking like [ __ ] in every direction and I didn't get scared thank God but I did get taken out you know lynched up the stairs and I was absolutely Furious because I so much of the problems we had in the band I I I always put the thinger for me and John we always the thinger really was it was all our managers for on my life it everything it was him he was he was he was was but unfortunately Steve and suie always sided with him because they'd known him for years they'd known him since he worked with the pistols in the early days so you know that was the score so when I got to the top of the stairs out comes the manager I was waiting for the manager the old bodyguard had my arms pinned behind my back cuz I said I'm going to do something here and manager comes out and I'm sorry but I just kicked him really hard in the guts and he fell to the floor screaming haha and then Billy Idol comes up with Steve strange from downstairs and said oh God that was disgusting what we saw them do to you that Dreadful let's go off where we're going we'll take you to the who party Chelsea some hotel in Chelsea that's what we did but we like a happy ending and you actually met Susie a few years later in Dublin and was buried you had a little hug and it was all nice it was 1982 actually yeah she came around to my place we we still had a money issue they were still holding on to our all our royalties we are skin and but we had this buildup a royalties that they were holding on to which they said was was because of of of us leaving and the cost of the tour that the GS they had to cancel which that wasn't e also true either because she had Hepatitis B she was going to have to take two weeks off anyway we weren't even told I just thought she had a bad cough she got Hepatitis B because a founded God down her throat yeah so so anyway sh round she comes the money thing and the publishing was not mentioned we never got that money back until 1984 but between Sue and the time when you it wasn't the time or place to be talking about the money we just like you said basically had a hug got on swell buried the hatchet that was that last time I saw suie was when the creatures played in 1999 in Temple Bar sweet yeah yeah and then you still like sort yeah oh yeah every time yeah it was great yeah terrific so we we actually have sadly run out of time I mean obviously this a lot of stories here but they're going to be in the book and the book hopefully will be out next year or the year after you're working on it now yes nearly and also you're living in Ireland and you're doing L of painting as well which is your original love anyway is it so yeah great paintings as well yeah it's another serious form of expression isn't it another voice it's like your cloth as a voice it's a speak you're speaking with what you wear it's a whole statement it's another way of conversing a lot of some of my paintings are really like stories you know they're not and they're not paintings obviously like bowls of fruit or Landscapes I'm not into same when I did photography you know always be of a person often people I didn't know and I used to like taking pictures of people unaware or slightly unaware not posed and and then so yes I made films as well and um let me see so I finished I made a film which got premiered at the in uh International Berlin film festival in 1986 that took me five years to make and an EP record of the soundtrack was released a year later in 1987 and that the film was called Lama Mor which is French for the dead hand but it's written in the ter fairy tale style and a lot of people thought it was a Fairy toe but it's not it was actually a privy information that John McKai had shared with a French journalist over a couple of years when we were in the band so she knew all this all all all the reasons for our discontent and because she was such a brilliant writer still is she penned it took it to a French newspaper they said out the door doesn't make sense no one understands it we want to know why they left what time what plane they train they took you know all this kind of stuff that the other papers was were going to do but she she did this beautiful Fair tale that people's thought was a fairy tale so I'm back and forth anyhow I goes back to a different College in the East End starts getting to make 16 milal film and I starts going to London Paris Britany back back back and forth making this film and I'm thinking I wonder what's I have no soundtrack for this film I don't even know it's going to be called but I'm make I'm being I feel like this camera is leading me to certain places that all it later on make complete Sense on High level and on a deep sort of level if you get me and I just it was felt really instinctive and um somewhere along the line I I asked Dy one day I said hey you know that story you wrote she said yeah I said she put in a drawer somewhere I said can you just read it to me so she sits down she reads it to me and within about a minute or so I'm I'm listening to this and I'm thinking oh my God this is what's going to happen this is going to be the soundtrack to my film Dorothy sitting here with a lovely masculine like voice is is is going to be narrating it I have to go back to London get a fing Studio somehow and record this and also she introduced me to a brilliant classical pianist so it was very sort of it completely the opposite no one expected me to if I was this was eight years on you see and no one expected me anyway to come out with anything which was a Far Far Cry as you as possible from what we know as Punk but it's a beautiful it's a great work it's really good but we've run out of time my life so thanks to Kenny thanks for having me pleasure thank you e e e e e e e e