Interview taken from HermAphrodite #1

Given the way in which conversation was progressing, I asked The Vessel whether he sees himself as spiritually ginger. And was told;

“ Yeah. ( pauses ) D’you know we got a letter from someone saying ‘Who next? Jews?’ And I think, in a way, that that’s a shame; we - like I keep saying - stick to our own timescale and we stick to our own world and our own form of reality, yeah; when I wrote the lyrics to ‘Ginger’ it was because that word wasn’t used much, and it was interesting to use it. But that song was still important to us when we finally released it.”

Though, by this point in human-life, the word is becoming more & more common And mainly as an insult. No other hair colour is singled out in a general block to use as an insult - ‘blondie’ doesn’t have the same venom as ‘ginna’.

“ Mmm; I like the fact that the word has that resonance. But then, because the song was still important to us, even though it’d almost become a cliché by the time we released it... It’s about 7 years old; well, the lyrics and the idea... Initially I wanted to write a musical called ‘Ginger’, a bit like ‘Tommy’. But ‘Tommy’ is about a ginger person isn’t it - it’s more than being an under-dog, being ginger, it’s being outside of society, but being able to see in. That’s the privileged position.

But you’re voluntarily out there...

“ Yeah... Like a pilot is above the world and sees it all as it is, and being ginger is like that, you see that we’re all making it up as we go along.”

Here The Vessel came extremely close to using a visual analogy in explaining ginger to that which I use for those people who wear and look and act how they wish to. Which I s’pose is about being ginger in itself.

“I’d like to be spiritually ginger; but the King of Gingersville would have to give me the key before that could happen.”

And as The Vessel then moves on to tell me that Geri Spice isn’t truly ‘ginger’, I’m starting to wonder whether the massed ranks of Gingersville could whup the ass of Kissingdom...

“ Musically, we are never what you would expect.”

When conversation turns then to the Spice Girls, as is inevitable

( The Vessel does indeed have a Spice Girls story, and this one involves ‘singing teachers’ )

I am told that...

“The public gets what the public wants, as Paul Weller once said - he did say some good things. But I think that what people think about us is that we’re inaccessible, but we’re just as accessible as the Spice Girls, and that is our ambition really, that we will be considered normal.”

Hmm.

I have another theory, this time about music, in that that which you love bestest, and will never tire of, is that which you never wholly understand, although you do come close.

You might not be able to make out all the lyrics, or understand the meaning behind them all, or why the singer is wearing that shirt... but you stick with it. You remain interested even if the tune ceases to have the same impact on you as it did when you first heard it, as there is still an unexplained ‘element’ to the song.

I asked The Vessel whether that was what David Devant...’s music was moving towards.

“ Well we don’t understand what we’re doing.”

But it’s also true that just as a little bit of weird is appealing in itself - people like to be frightened for whatever reason, but then, ( to use a slow analogy, ) even during Dr Who v. few people actually left the room when the Daleks came on, as they enjoyed their fear, and the facing up to it / the back of the sofa.

But a medium cannot be too weird - then its audience doesn’t feel as though it can understand & so be in control that which it is being exposed to. And it might just be that David Devant and his Spirit Wife are too weird for people to understand.

“ Yeah. But that’s just because we, at the moment, operate in a framework where everything has to fit into place. As an example The Spice Girls, they’re not too pretty, not too mouthy; they’re inoffensive... “

But that’s the point - they might endure as perfect examples of the makers of classic pop, but very few people ( or their families ) will be able to listen to their music repeatedly or endure their over-exposure without finding them growing stale. Familiarity breeds contempt, but hazard & mystery can be alluring.

“...People can’t grasp us, but we are accessible, it’s just you have to be like the Spice Girls to be considered accessible. But I’m sure everyone could handle not getting it entirely, cos we don’t get everything anyway.”

There is a lot of David Devant and His Spirit Wife which is instinctive, the band don’t necessarily try to establish the roots or reasons behind an action before going with it.

“ My dad was the first person I saw onstage. He was playing the guitar - singing a

folk song; I have folk roots.( he fingers his hair ) I’m trying to dye them out actually. ”

I didn’t ask of The Vessel’s musical influences, though I do now feel that his roots are, if not solely in folk music, then certainly in stage performing...

What was your first stage experience ?

“ Ali Baba and the 40 thieves.”

D’you reckon that influenced you as well ?

“ Yeah, my dress sense. ( he grins ) No, this is probably my revenge, as I never got the lead role. ( sighs ) I was a thief.”

I nod sympathetically.

“And I had to hide in a cut out pot, I remember that. But before that, I was a lamb, in the nativity.”

What did you have to do - or were you just there to look cute...?

( with a hint of bitterness ) - “ Wear a cotton-wool outfit. And crawl next to Anthony, a Polish boy, who was the shepherd.”

Were there a lot of sheep, or was it just you?

“ There was me and another sheep.”

Were you the sheep that was given to the Lord, or were you just there like ‘Hi, no don’t mind me, give the presents out, I’m just a sheep...’?

“ Yeah, I was just there. It was quite embarrassing, because I had to change in front of everyone. ( he thinks about it ) Did they know how much it was going to affect me when they asked me to be a sheep...?”

I am then moved to inform him of the sheep I saw in a field outside Burley-in-Wharfedale, taking it in turns ( ie actually queuing ) to stand on a man-hole cover. He can offer no explanation, but is quite taken with the idea.

( pleased ) “ ‘Non-Roman’ sheep, you see.”

>>> Part 3

Last revised: 13/05/03