Interview: “I think music should have a roof on it” – Something for the weekend

The Irish Sun newspaper (“Something for the weekend” – 12-08-2011)  talks to Gavin Friday about ‘catholic’, Irish family relationships and his upcoming gig at Electric Picnic.

On Irish fathers: “I started writing a lot after the death of my father. Coming from an Irish background family relationships can be strange. Over the generations there was a lot of conflict with fathers and their sons. I didn’t get on great with my own Da. He didn’t understand me and we had this sort of war. “These Irish men didn’t know how to show compassion or love to their own children so it was like this monkey on yer back. But when they’re gone, you go `Wow, is that what I was fighting against? Was that what was driving me?’ That experience had a profound effect on me, but not in a negative way because these are the people who bring you into the world. But the truth is that most of them love their children, they just aren’t very good at showing it. They had the Catholic Church lashing them around the head for decades. Then our generation came along and suddenly started talking back.”We weren’t looking at the Catholic Church or any government for guidance. We were listening to David Bowie and the Sex Pistols, so you told yer Da to `fuck off’ and they thought that we were from outer space.”

On Electric Picnic: “I’m very nervous on one level but then again, I’m very excited. “Although I’m glad I’m playing in a tent. I think music should have a roof on it. I’m on about 9.30pm on the Friday but I don’t think there will be a lot of the Catholic material in the set. I’m looking at dipping into the last 20 years of my career, I might even open with a revamped Virgin Prunes song.”

 

(thx to John for the photo & ocr scan)

Interview: “Songs about love will always be the truest” – Untitled Magazine

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A 7-page Gavin Friday feature/interview in ‘Untitled Magazine‘ (previously known as Carson Magazine – the drama surrounding the name change is amusing – Google it…).

Colleen Nika asks Gavin what decisions went into making ‘catholic’ reality and whether his work on film scores influenced the compositional process:

“I wanted to make another album – the break didn’t necessarily need to last so long, but life gets in the way sometimes. I’d written a lot of songs over the years and I know I wanted to work with someone I’d never worked with before for this one. I knew I didn’t want to be a slave to ProTools, either. You can’t be too calculated going into the process – I wanted to leave room for possibilities. I wanted edgy but someone that I understand -Ken Thomas name came up and it made sense. He’d been around longer than me, worked with Cocteau Twins and Throbbing Gristle, and brings a great drama to his production.”

“It definitely influenced it. I wanted acoustic songs that became cinematic soundscapes. The whole album feels so English; we recorded it in Dublin in my house, but mixed it in Yorkshire. Thomas’s son helped engineer it and I invited friends to play on some tracks – there was a great synchronicity between all of us. We had so many songs to play with, but once we finished “Lord I’m Comin’; and we knew we were onto a winner. It only took us six weeks to record the whole thing.”

Order Untitled magazine (issue #2, 2011) from their website.

Seán Rocks talks to Gavin Friday on RTE 1’s Arena (audio excerpts)

 Seán Rocks Arena RTE1 interview 10-08-2011 by gavinfriday

Interview (French) : “The child has grown up a lot” – Elegy

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Elegy magazine from France asks: “Do you still feel able to see the world with the innocent and primitive eyes of a child?”

Gavin: “I always relate to the child in me. But the child has grown up a lot.”

Elegy: “Are your lyrics always about your personal emotions?”

Gavin: “Yes, they always have been, more or less.”

Elegy: “The best songs on the album talk about love, or the loss of love…”

Gavin: “Up to a certain point, yes. But the loss must be confronted to make it positive. Otherwise we let it turn us into victims.”

 

Interview (Italian): “The gothic prayer of the former Virgin Prunes frontman” – Jam Magazine

Rosella Bottone of Italy’s Jam Magazine talks to Gavin Friday in Dublin and wonders: “While preparing for my interview with Gavin Friday, I’m not sure what kind of person to expect: The austere dark Germanophile who for some reason is on the cover posing as a corpse wrapped in the Irish flag, or the sensitive interpreter who sings these songs, or a more recent version of the desecration that was Friday in the late 70’s when he made his Virgin Prunes the most radical expression of the British new wave, or the bon vivant who two years ago celebrated his fiftieth birthday by renting the Carnegie Hall in New York and rallying U2, Lou Reed, Courtney Love, Laurie Anderson, Scarlett Johansson and other celebrities. It takes just a few words to realise that my interviewee embodies all these attributes, but in a much more elegant and generous way than I expected. “

Gavin: “So through music I was introduced to literature, expressionist cinema, and the avant-garde. When I publish an album I want to create a universe, but at the same time I want to put together imagery of suggestions. And you can ignore them, but they’re still there. I like the idea that someone has ‘catholic’ in his hands and reads Requiem for the Fallen and thinks ‘what the hell is that?’ and then goes to buy a book or it brings them to something else.”

“Music allows you to communicate things that you can not express in other ways. That’s one thing I’ve always done. If I had not had the Virgin Prunes when I was 18 I would have died. I had so much anger to express, I couldn’t have managed without a way out.”

Interview/Article (Italian) – “I do not like to be predictable” – Rolling Stone Italy

A feature from Rolling Stone Italy, subtitled “The Punk that loved to go to museums”.
Written by Angelo Vaggi 

 

 

 

 

Interview (Dutch): “Rock and Roll is over” – P Magazine

From P Magazine (Belgium) another interview with Gavin.

“The worst thing about growing older is fucking responsibilities.”

Interview: “Reclaim the word ‘catholic'” – Mojo magazine

UK music magazine Mojo (who reviewed ‘catholic’ last month and awarded it 4 stars) talks to Gavin Friday in their July 2011 issue.

“It might be 16 years since I’ve released an album of my own songs, but it’s not like I’ve been sitting at home doing my knitting.”

Interview – “You have to move on” – Irish Examiner – 18-05-2011

Marc O’Sullivan of the Irish Examiner interviews Gavin Friday.

Interview (Dutch): “Scott (Walker) liked it when I got lost in the music.” – Vrij Nederland

David Kleijwegt of Holland’s Vrij Nederland magazine talks to Gavin.

On working with Scott Walker:

“It was quite an honour. But at the same time it was one of the toughest gigs I’ve ever played. I sang accompanied by a 40-men and a band of 15. There were dancers, and a strict choreography. It was all very ambitious. On top of that, the music, from his last two CDs, was very abstract. I often had no idea of the key or pitch. I had nothing to hold on to, but Scott liked it best when I got lost in the music.”