Part 2 of the interview taken ( & edited ) from HermAphrodite #7.

GO TO: Their Film GO TO: Happy Families GO TO: Religious Persuasion

And then moving on...

me - "Would you want a fantastic spangly stage-set?"

David ( as though obvious ) - "Oh yeah !"

Robin- "We're halfway there."

me ( helpfully ) - "Trapdoors ?"

David - "Yeah, we want trapdoors, horses..."

me - "Trapezes ?"

David - "Oh, I don't know..."

Robin - "Shaheena could go on a trapeze. Maybe in a song where she's not featured heavily. She could just go and have a little swing."

David - "Shaheena does want to fly, cos I told her that when I went to see Prince the keyboard player flew."

It'd be so cool.

me - "You could just all slowly rise up on wires..."

David - "Or we could all just get moved down."

Robin - "I could just be suspended up there, waggling my legs in the air, and my drumkit could actually come up to me!"

Now that would be rock and roll. Oh yes.

And then, my mind salmon leaps from that ticklish thought…

me - "What makes you happy?"

David - "Seratonin."

Okay. Smart-arse.

David - "I don't know really. Listening to Joan Jett ?"

Robin has similar problems with the question. In that he has to call for back-up to answer it.

Back-up in the shape of his chauffeur / erstwhile flatmate / bass-player of leading art-pop progressive dub rockers, Airborne. Who isn't really very useful.

Robin - "What makes me happy ? Looking at my drumkit."

Genuinely.

David - "What a moron."

me - "Do you hold your instruments with such regard ?"

Robin - As if. David throws them across the room and then wonders why we can't do the next few gigs."

As he did recently at the Camden Palace. With a very rare and hard to find bass guitar.

David - "At the end of the gig I thought 'I know, I'll throw it in the air', and I looked at Chris our roadie and he was just looking at me like 'what the fuck are you doing'. And it smashed it bits. But it looked good."

Robin - "And since that day it hasn't been used. Because it can't be used."

There's a moral in this, kids.

David - "Yeah. Though I did play it in the film. Because we didn't plug it in."

Ah, what exquisite talent these boys have not neatly segueing into my prospective questions. Let's talk 'Greenwich Mean Time'. How did Rachel Stamp wangle their way into that one?

David - "Puressence were supposed to do it but they got ill, or something..."

Robin ( gleefully ) - "We poisoned them for our own cheap careers..."

David - "So they called our publisher, and they sent them a copy of 'I Got The Worm'..."

And that was that. They not only signed them up but they increased the band's role too. Rachel Stamp are harder to ignore than Puressence.

David - "I think they were just going to be in the background..."

me - And then you decided you wanted to be in the foreground ?"

David - "Yeah! I haven't seen it yet, we might just be in it for about two seconds..."

Robin - "I think it's more like a minute and a half."

David - "And it's out in September, I think."

Robin - "And it's called 'Greenwich Mean Time'."

me - "So is the start of a spangly new career ?"

Robin - "Every day is the start of a spangly new career."

I think that's a possibly maybe. So that's in the future for the band then...?

me - "Are there instruments that you'd like to play - like Rolf Harris' wobble-board - that you just haven't got the chance yet ?"

David - "Rolf Harris' wobble-board ? He'd probably be a bit annoyed if I did."

Boom boom.

David - "If I could make my own...? It'd be, uh, Baseball Bat and Dustbin Xylophone. You get a load of dustbins filled with different amounts of rubbish, and hit them with a baseball bat and they make different notes. That'd be good."

me - "Were you irritating as a child ? In a 'I've Got All The Saucepans Out Of The Cupboard To Play Pop Starr Again' kind of way."

David - "No I wasn't, I was quite quiet as a child. It's quite disturbing - we've got lots of cine-film of myself as a child and I was crying about 70% of the time."

me - "Did you have lots of evil brothers and sisters ?"

David - "No, I had one brother, he wasn't evil."

me - "And he didn't tie you to trees...?"

David - "No. No more than usual."

Okay then.

David - "But what's the story about you tying your sister to the tree Robin ?"

Robin - "Easy now."

He looks a little sheepish. For a split-second.

me - "What sort of childhood did you have ?"

Robin - "Oh, it was FANTASTICALLY depraved."

me - "How open were your relationships ?"

Robin ( starts laughing ) - "Oh, it wasn't like that... Apparently, my mum and dad was tape-recording us, as you do when you're loving parents and want to hear your kids chatting away. And my sister's going 'Robin, why are you tying me up?' and there's me going 'don't worry, it'll be fine, it's a little game..' I was like Chucky."

He used to torture his little brother too.

Robin - "I used to put him on little bikes, with solid rubber tyres, put a ramp in front of him, and tell him 'now the trick is to go for it really fast, and then you'll fly !' "

How Evil Knievel.

And then, in honour of my t-shirt, David is moved to talk of The Sweet.

Who used to be called The Sweetshop. Apparently.

David - "I've got a really good Sweet story: me and Will went to see them recently, the lead guitarist flicked his plectrum into the crowd, and all these people were scrambling on the floor looking for it, and it landed in Will's pint. It was a rock 'n' roll moment."

As was the time...

David - "We did a bit of 'My Name Is Tallulah' when we played the Academy."

And from talk of Jodie Foster...

Robin - "I went to see 'Silence Of The Lambs' at the cinema, and I was SOOO scared. I went there with this girl, and I was holding hands with her, and by the end of the film my hand was wet with sweat. Poor girl."

And if this was you, he sends his sorries.

David - "I was scared when I went to see 'Titanic'."

Robin - "really ? I remember when I went to see 'Jaws' for the first time. It shat me up. I couldn't even walk up the stairs in my parents house..."

David - "Because you thought there was going to be a shark there ?"

Robin - "NO ! They had a shark fishing rod! And I had to move it, I was so traumatised..."

David - " 'Mum, mum, there's a shark in my bedroom!' "

Robin - "The shark can attack in less than two foot of water."

David - "The great white shark can't."

Robin - "Shark attacks, who cares whether it's a blue or a white?"

David evidently doesn't. Cos now he's singing Posh songs at me.

David - "Shark attack..."

me - "Where are they now ?"

They're still out there. He says.

David - "They've changed their name to Milky, apparently."

And they do still have that funky shop with the funky clothes and the un-sellable sofa. He says.

David - "I had a great C-list Celebrity Meeting once; I was walking along the street, and bumped into Pippa from Posh. And we were standing there talking, and then [The Vessel from] David Devant came along. It was bizarre."

We mourn the demise of the David Devant stage-experience: The Vessel no longer jumps through screens during gigs, although the Spectral Roadies do still entertain.

me - "Don't you want weird kettles onstage with you ?"

David - "Not really no, it would be a DISASTER if we did it. It's hard enough getting four people onstage and playing a song at the same time."

Robin - "Want what?"

me - "Magic kettles."

Robin - "What's a magic kettle?"

me - "It's a kettle that boils by itself."

Robin - "Do they exist?"

me - "David Devant have them."

And with that, James disappears to McDonalds. Me shouting 'get a Happy Meal!' at his swiftly retreating form.

Robin - "Yeah, bring us back a toy !"

Currently you get Teenie Beanie Babies with your meal. I try and sell them to the idea. With talk of the multi-coloured worm which I got the day before.

David - "You can get worms? I had worms."

Yuck.

David - "Yeah, it's pretty grim."

me - "How did you do that ?"

David - "I did it on purpose."

Don't do it kids, it's not worth it.

David - "I ate raw steak."

me - "You Eighteenth Century whore."

And then.

Right.

A man and his side-kick come over and try to entreat us into joining their church. Or maybe just popping along to one of their meetings. We take their flyers. And they stay to chat. To us. Who clearly aren't interested. To David. Who knows exactly what he's 'missing out on',

renounced the church for reasons of logic, and tells them flat out that they should go to the library and read some history books about that which they are preaching instead of simply revelling in blind faith.

The pair leave. And attach themselves to another group. Also attempting quiet on a Sunday in the park. David's not happy. Neither's Robin. Or Claire. Invasion of privacy, over-staying one's welcome, ill-thought out lines of conversations & arguments, and generally disregarding other's beliefs.

David - "It just makes me really angry."

So we move off. Gradually. Onto the ludicrousies (?) of the Christian religion...

David - "D'you know, in the bible, the word 'Christ', they've mis-translated it, it doesn't mean 'son of God', it means 'enlightened one', someone who's really well-educated. In the original bible it doesn't claim that Jesus was the Son of God."

Maybe not by his name. But a lot of the rest of it sure did. As I pointed out. But you don't want to read a theological debate with Rachel Stamp. I'm sure you'd rather read about other bible ridiculousnesses... About how the miracle of the water-into-wine at the Wedding at Cana was born of the not particularly holy situation of when the booze ran dry, for example.

Robin - "'Jesus mate, I'm coming down, help...'"

David - "And on the eighth day God came down..."

Robin - "And skinned up a fattie."

David - "That would be a brilliant idea - how many students would buy a t-shirt that said 'On The Eighth Day, God Skinned Up'. We could make a FORTUNE! That would sell as much as that 'I Like The Pope, The Pope Smokes Dope'."

Robin - "Which is like, inane, but genius. 'What rhymes with pope and is so far removed from him as you can get...? Dope!' "

And then my tape stops.

The conversation carries on.

>>> Part 2

Last revised: 26/07/01