I guess I to as almost prepared. The stories in the English papers portraying him as a garrulous kinda guy, the bashful puppydog picture sleeves on the Stiff 45's, the extroverted onstage frolicking with Rockpile; this guy Nicholas Lowe, was not going to be a tough guy to draw an interview out of.

I still wasn't quite ready for the Nick Lowe wall of sound. Despite the fact that both of our gab sessions happened abruptly and almost on the run, Nick started talking almost immediately and rarely stopped for breath or cigarette, expounding-eloquently and in great detail on any subject of my (or his) choosing. The first part took place in a hotel bar, the second in a locker room immediately after he and Dave Edmunds had joined Elvis Costello onstage for a boozy (on their part) "Heart of the City" encore at Elvis's last American concert in Providence^ Rhode Island.

First, a Reader's Condensed bio: 1969: Kippington Lodge formed. 1970: Name change to Brinsley Schwarz. 1974: The Brinsley's sixth album, New Favourites, is produced by Dave Edmunds: contact. 1975: Brinsleys call it quits; Bob Andrews and Brinsley himself form part of the Rumour with Graham Parker; Nick produces the classic Howlin' Wind, as well as Dr. Feelgood. 1976: The first Stiff Records single is Nick's "So It Goes", b/w "Heart of the City". Elvis Costello's first single, "Less Than Zero" is Lowe-produced. The first Stiff compilation features Lowe production on half the record. The infamous Bad Co./Rockpile tour of the States starts—and aborts. 1978: CBS releases Nick's .first album under his own name, Jesus of Cool, or Pure Pop For Now People, depending on your side of the pond. 1979: Labor of Lust released.

Production credits: Brinsley Schwarz, Graham Parker, Dave Edmunds/Rockpile, Elvis Costello, The Damned, Richard Hell, Clover, The Pretenders.

Format: It was either the dreaded Q&A, or set up a mail order firm to offer readers out-takes from this interview. Q&A it is. Although my usual compadre de interview, Therese, was safe at home in Detroit, CBS's Jane Berk did a reasonable impression.

NEW YORK

CREEM: Weren't you supposed to tour with Cheap Trick this spring?

Nick: We were due to do it, and then I didn't finish my album in time, and 1 had to finish mine before Dave could get into the studio and finish his, so we had to put it back. But apparently they had to put back their tour as well, so there's a chance that we may still be doing it with them. It's still in the planning stages.

CREEM: I heard a rumor that you were going to produce them.

Nick: Oh no, no—a bt of other people said that, but they never asked me—ha! And their records sound fine. I don't think T could do anything with them, really. COE it's a—even though their influences are so English, it's a very American sound, which takes a lot of time to do, and I haven't got the patience to get that sound. CREEM: You haven't really produced many Americans at that.

Nick: No... Not really. I've done a couple of singles—Richard Hell...

CREEM: What about the Pretenders—Chrissie Hynde's group?

Nick^: Oh, yeah, I did a single with her, which did quite well in England, it was in the charts—"Stop Your Sobbing." Yeah, it wasn't bad at all. She was hustling me to make that record-well, I was hustling her originally, because I wanted her to do "The Wanderer," y'know, the old Dion song, because it's such a guy's song, 1 think it'd be great fora girl to sing . . .-"Well I'm the type of girl who likes to get around . . ." And with her image [Tough—Ed.] it would've been great. But she thought it was a crappy idea. So . . . I lost touch with her, then she called me up, about six months ago, and said "I've got this idea for a song, a Kinks' song", and I wasn't too enthusiastic, and she kept on and on calling, and then finally she came around, and she played me the demo, and I could see it, you know. But some of the other stuff was a little too ... Patti Smith for mie. Though I've heard some demos of their new stuff and it's really good . . . like Motown stuff, it's not punkoid at all.

Am I too late for CREEM'S So You Wanna beA Rock Star" Contest?

CREEM: What about Dave Edmunds' record? Nick: Well, we're about three quarters of the way through it. We've got another three tracks to do. I've got three songs he quite likes, and I've just got to finish them off a bit ... or he'll finish them off—that's what'll normally happen coz I'll play him a verse, and a chorus, and if he likes 'em, he generally finishes them off. But he's also done qn unreleased Elvis Costello tune, an unreleased Graham Parker tune; really good stuff.

CREEM: What kind of songs does Carlene [Carter] have on her new album?

Nick: Well, I'm not doing the album actually—I just didn't have time to do it. 1 h^id to finish off my own record and there was too much to be done, really, for it to be done right. Again, the sort of music that Carlene makes is different from the sort of records I make, because ... it has to be right, you know, you have to get4t right; and that does take time. The sort of records that I'm known for—it's the fact that they're done quickly—with care, mark you—but the fact that they're done quickly gives them a sound. They're sort of scruffy, the sort of records I do, and that works for the Elvises or the Graham Parkers or the Dr. Feelgoods or whatever of this world, but it doesn't work particularly for that sort of American sound. I would really have liked to do it . .

I was encouraging her to do more of a—not such goody-goody stuff, y'know? Try to change some of the arrangements to more Motowny arrangements—tougher. Which I think will work real well—but you know, sometimes I go raving—she's much younger than I am, she doesn't remember the Temptations particularly, and I'll go, 'do it like the Temptations', she doesn't know what I'm talking about.

CREEM: Hey, I'm not much older than that—maybe it's that you wouldn't hear much Motown growing up in Tennessee.

Nick: No, I don't think you would . . . they don't play that stuff much down there . .

CREEM. OK, what's tjhe scoop on the new record?

Nick [Cheesy voice]: Well it's fan-tastic stuff actually. It's the best thing I've ever done. No, it's all Rockpile playing on the record I've done—on the last one it was a lot of ME on it, and I'm not exactly the most accomplished musician in the world. So it does sound, (a), because they're all the same musicians playing on all the tracks, there's more of a thread running through it, and (b), because they're all very good, it sounds more sophisticated. It's a guitar record, very much a rock 'n' roll record. I haven't gone for a very big production sound or anything like that, it's a very straight-forward rock 'n' roll record. And I think it sounds very Stax—you know, like Stax Records in the 60's, Sam & Dave, Otis Redding—sort of soully, you know. Loud bass—I turn my part up

real loud. That's my privilege!

CREEM: What did you think of the Blues Brothers?

Nick: Never heard it. I hardly ever listen to records, actually-^-just old ones. I never heard that one, though I meant to .

CREEM: Joe Jackson?

Nick: No, I haven't heard his album actually—but he was finishing his album off as we were doing Armed Forces [Cf. this month's Joe Jackson feature—Incest Ed.], at Eden, yeah—so we kind of bumped into him a couple of times just as he was leaving and we were arriving. I understand he's doing well here? Yeah? Good for him. CREEM: Radio seemed to loosen up a bit after the first of the year. . .no new Zeppelin album to play or something, so they were forced to play hew stuff.

Nick: Yeah. :. funny, that. Things are a bit bad in England at the moment, actually; there's either

I turn my part up real loud.

this head-banging hundred-miles-per-hour punk stuff, which to me sounds SO old-fashioned ... I mean to me, I'd rather listen to a Neil Diamond album than listen to that garbage, coz it was good fun in 1976, but now it's totally tame, it's not aggressive or exciting or anything like that. It's either that or else these really twee pop groups—y'know, pure popping away, which I suppose I'm responsible for quite a lot of that. . . which is really a shame.

[Nick's gracious PR, Jane Berk, delivers our drinks, and thereses in on the conversation.] Jane: I used to be a waitress.

Nick: Oh yeah? I used to be a waiter.

Jane: Fun, wasn't if?

Nick': No. It wasn't, actually. I had a crush on the

manager of the restaurant . . . manageress, I should say, and she was really a MONSTER 'woman; but so . . . tasty, I was absolutely besotted. So I had a miserable time when I was a waiter.

CREEM: So Dave and Rockpile will be coming over to do the tour with you?

Nick: Well I don't know when we're touring. But if we do, obviously, yeah. That's the plan...coz I think Rockpile could do pretty good over here; it's a straight-ahead rock 'n' roll group, y'know, which goes over well over here. In England— well, we never play in England anyway, coz it's . . . it's not much fun, gigging in England. CREEM: Why's that?

Nick: Well, because y'know, the television goes off at eleven, you can't get anything to eat, it's not as much fun, and we really like coming over here; .there's always plenty to look at and point at. And the audiences are very good over here for us. Mark you, they are in England, when we tour, which as I say is very rare. But in England at the moment if seems that the less you do, the better it is for you. If they can see you all the time, they go off you very quickly there.

CREEM: It's easy to saturate the British Isles. Nick: Yah. It is. And now it's especially geared to records, as well. You don't really have to tour—it's not as important to tour so much In England as it used to be. So we tend not to play there much.

Yeah, we want to concentrate on that [touring in the States] because it is good fun, and it's not too... I mean, I'm the youngest guy in the group! [general laughter] And so it's hardly "new wave"—which is what they call it. Which is a source of continuing amusement to Edmunds, because I mean— whatever he is—35 or something.

CREEM: Ahhh, he doesn't look it. . .

Nick: He did this morning!

CREEM: So can yo,u honestly say you liked touring the States with Van Morrison?

Nick: Well it was good fun except old Van is such a miserable old fucker. And it's amazing coz he got us on that tour! We were right down there on the list, and it was him who got us on. But d'you know not once on that tour did he ever just poke ! jT his head round the dressing room door and say lg "All right, fellas?" I mean, I know he's very shy, 2 and I know a lot of people like that, who find it hard to mix with people, and everything, but the old Rockpile are very nice chaps, y'know, very friendly types, and there're no moodies in that group atall. It's not hard to approach them, and I would've thought just once he could've—I mean, if you're the support group it isn't really your place . . . Van's band were really nice, to us. We got on well. But I would've thought just once, maybe, he could've poked his head round the door and said "hi". But y'know, I feel sorry for him, really. Notwithstanding, we had a great time, coz we went down well nearly everywhere.

Except some of the Van dates were' a bit unfortunate, coz he pulls a lot of guys, old guys, and they didn't really go for us. And I thought it would be . . . coz to me he's a rocker, Van is, but there were some times . . when they started

playing "Moon Dance" I thought Mike Douglas was gonna come out and start singing, y'know? It was very tame to me. And I saw him years ago, old Van, and he was a rocker. I mean, Van Morrison albums were some of the few I ever bought in my life. In fact I bought Astral Weeks twice, because I wore the first one out.

CREEM: Some people age well, others . . . Nick: Yeah ... I just think he needs a good clip around the ears, that's what I think he needs actually. Stop taking himself so bloody seriously. Coz it ain't that hard to get up—well if it is that hard to get up in front of a crowd of people that really groove on you, and sing a couple of tunes, which comes naturally—he sings like a bloody bird—so it's not that hard for him to do it. . . if it is causing that much pain to do it, why doesn't he go and bolt fucking wheels on Fords? Or something like that? He's be a lot happier. It's just, it's just so . . . rude, y'know.

CREEM: I don't understand the torture involved. Nick: Really! It's only bloody . . . God, it's not exactly Shakespeare, y'know?

CREEM: All things considered, though, I thought you guys'd do much better with your own kind,of audience than with Van . . . You were good with Elvis and Mink DeVille last year.

Nick: Yah . . .it did get better, for us, actually, as we moved-away from—uh, not New York so much, coz Rockpile are popular in New York—because they're much more geared, I think, to what's going on in Engla'nd—you know pie, and Edmunds and all that sort of "new wave" tie-up, but—-the sort of more provincial spots around New York, we didn't do $o well. A lot of universities—we didn't do so well. But where the kids were a bit dimmer I suppose' you-could say [laughs], that's where we did much better. When the intellectuals were in watchin' us, then we didn't do it. They're all tapping their watches, and looking up at the ceiling. And.then, coz Van threw a wobbler at The Palladium, and decided he was going to cancel the tour—which he was later persuaded to resume, in Austin, Texas—we had to get some dates, on very short notice, on our own. And they were real good fun. They were great.

[Discussion of mini-riot I was involved in outside Elvis/Mink DeVille/Rockpile show in Detroit.] CREEM: Well with Van, I guess at least you just get a ticket, go in and $it down—no hassles. Nick: Yeah, Well if I ever got to be a superstar or anything Ivwouldn't do any of those sittin' down places at all. I think they're horrendo. I can't stand 'em.

CREEM: You get in trouble with the bouncers if you stand up .. .

Nick: Yeah. And you can't see a rock 'n' roll group sitting down! It's just not on. And also if you can stand up you can walk round, you can get away from any kind of trouble, or anything like that—if any |ights break out. There's an air of anticipation. Standing up you can mill around and everything...

CREEM: The Van tour's really only the second tour you've done here, isn't it?

Nick: It is really, 'course that's not counting the Bad Company tour, which we got slung off. Only went halfway through that one . . .

I'll tell you the one thing that always amazes me—continually amazes me, over here, which is so different from England, is—kids in England are much more sort of fashion-conscious—they dress up like the grouR. I don't mean literally— dressing like Kiss and going to a Kiss concert. If you see old films of—not exactly Woodstock, coz that was a hippie-type thing—but very early concerts, like the Beatles—they look just like the kids look like today—they wear almost exactly the same clothes. That, to me, is extraordinary. Now, in England, the kids who go to see groups, to rock shows, are much more—they dress up, y'know. That's always amazed mp.

CREEM: You can go to a punk gig in Detroit and half the people look like Ted Nugent.

Nick: Yeah! [laughs] Earth shoes, and those funny jackets without any sleeves—we always call them barrels-with-arms-and-legs jackets. You know those quilted things.

CREEM: Yeah, they've got a lotta those in the

Midwest.

Nick: Blue ones!

CREEM: It's being away, from urban centers, I think. You see kids in cities dressing sharp. . . like New York.

Nick: You've gotta have a bit of courage to walk around looking like that over here of course. In England no one really takes too much notice. The old folks "tut" at you a bit, but over here, I mean, you get the shit beaten out of you if you walk abound lookin' like that.

CREEM: How do they not get the shit beaten out of them in England?

Nick: Well they're used to it over there, -of course . . . kids have always done that. It's like the Mod thing. When I was 16 years old I was a Mod, and it was exactly the same thing. It was all word-of-mouth. The thing about England is, all that sort of elothes/fashion sort of thing is all word-of-mouth. I mean, you see it in back of the

The first rule of making records...is that therefs no ^ _ rules! II

music papers: "Get your punk rock gear here!" But all the coolest things are all just word-ofmouth. When it gets in the magazines—people telling you "This is the way to look"—that's not on.

CREEM: Any favorite American cities?

Nick: I'm very fond of Texas, actually. I like it there a lot. You can have a good time anywhere here. I cannot understand—for so many years, 4he big dream for a band was to go to America. If you were in a group, or if you were a footballer were generally the only two ways you could make a lot of money quick, when you're young in England, without having to get a straight job. And because there's a big market—England's one of the major exporters of that sort of noise...

Yeah! The noise market. And—I can remember that I'd always wanted to come to America with a group—I'd heard all these stories, and when I started knowing some of them that had been over here, I used to pump them for information about it—I'd say "What was it like?" and they'd tell me things. And then I got an opportunity to come myself. And I loved it. And I could never understand these people who don't like cornin' here to tour. It's like goin' on holiday or something. I think it is. It's fantastic. I mean, God, even Eugene, Oregon, or—I dunno—the most obscure place you can think of . . there's

soYnethin' goin' on. Whereas in Englan4— and y'know I'm very patriotic—I like Blighty a lot—Haiifax, or something like that, doesn't have the same sort of attraction at all.

CREEM: There's a lot of variety anyway. They made fun of poor old George Thorogood's accent in England, you know. He kind of has this Delaware drawl...

Nick: I talked with a guy on a plane once, over here, and he was quite a nice chap . . . but the more I spoke to him, the more I couldn't contain myself—eventually I said "I'm terribly sorry to have to say this to you, um, but has anyone ever said to ypu that your voice sounds exactly like James Stewart?" And it did—if had this kind of Uhhh, Uhhh [Stewart drawl]—the way Stewart kind of grunts, you know. And he came ftom the same town as James Stewart—it's near Madison, Wisconsin—some town round that way. And he sounded just exactly like him. Oh, I'm really irito accents, that's real interesting, how you pronounce things.

I've got a number of American friends, and I find I pick up a lot of American slang. I use a lot of recording slang as well—I talk about cutting records, which really gets up people's noses in England: like "We cut this and we cut that"—"Oh yeah, we see, very POSY indeed . . . cut this did you? Oooooh."

CREEM: Your nickname Basher... Didn't you tell the guy at CBS, when you delivered Elvis's first album, just to "bash it down and it'll be all right"?

Nick: Oh, yeah. Yes, I still do that, because I think the reason why there're so many horrible g> records around—and radio comes in for a lot of H stick about this, people say "God, radio is so v bad,"—it's not the radio's fault, it's that nobody's c makirig any good records these days! Or not so many, I think. And because there's somebody, somewhere, who's not literally but sort of written a rulebook about how you make records, and it's got to sound like this, and it's got to sound like that, and therefore they all come out sounding so bland—that's what's gone, I think, is that nobody takes any bloody risks anymore! The first rule of making records, I think, is that there's no rules! And people say engineers—although the guy I work with is great—Roger Pasherian—he's a genius—but you know, sometimes even he will say "You can't do that, because this is gonna 'happen"—and I'll say "WHY can't you do it, because it sounds fantastic!" Just because the needle is going in the red ... a bat is gonna drop out of the sky because the frequency is too high ten blocks away or something. Why can'tyou if it sounds tre-mendous? And . . . sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I must be honest, you know—I've made a lot of crummy records. No, I think that you can afford to break those rules—if it sounds good and it comes out OK, why not do it? if you get a great drum sound from banging a pack of matches against a cigarette packet [demonstrates], why not? Don't have any bloody drums on your record. Do that! One of the best drum sounds I've ever heard is a' rolled up newspaper on a leather chair. CREEM: I heard'something unusual you'd done with drums—

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 43

Nick: Well I've done a lot of things, actually. Drutns are my specialty. I really like fiddling around with them. ■ ' •

CREEM: Hike that tinny, trashy sound you get— Nick: Yeah! Exactly. 1 like that as weD. And 1 know people who've spent hours taping cigarette packets to the top of tom-toms—I mean, I did a session once where a guy sent out for a can of oil, to oil the bass drum pedal. You can't hear that . when all the music's playing! That infuriates me. Coz my job as a producer—I'm not a technician at all—as I think I've said before—my job is to get the artist to perform right. And I think anything that holds them up from that—like sitting around listening to some idiot banging a snare drum all day—you can't get in there and start singing a song after that, with any kind of passion or believability, so that's why I do it quickly. And /that's how you find accidents can—[sings] "accidents can happen . . ." and sometimes it becomes a hook—that actually can become a hook.

CREEM: Do you usually try to record all the instruments on one track?

Nick: If I can. It depends what kind of music you're making. For rock 'n' roll, I'll try and get not only that, but get the guy to sing it at the same time, as well—because you find that they tend to sing with the beat, as opposed to singing over the top of it, and sounding detached from the backing track. Just to finish off what I was saying about drums in particular; I discovered that if 1 get the drums to sound unsophisticated—trashy, like you say—it has the effect of making the record sound louder.

PROVIDENCE

CREEM: OK, we've all heard that you like Cheap Trick . . . who else do you like?

Nick: Well, I really like the Village People! I like all kinds of individual records. Never albums, I don't really get off on albums. I like the Village People,' atthe moment, because I'm very interested in the fact that disco has become . . . not just a joke anymore. And I'm not talking about sales of records, because to the branch of the music business I belong to, disco has always been a joke, ever since Motown stopped. I suppose the last v^hat I call disco record made was "Clean-Up Woman" by Betty Wright. ..still has its roots in the past, if you know what I mean.

Ever since it turned to what basically it is—digital music, computer music—it's rareo when you find a disco record that's witty. They're like the 70's Coasters. Coz it's sort of comedy music, but it's still tough and mean. "Shopping For Clothes" and "Poison Ivy"—those songs were still mean. I'm very interested in the whole disco field—I'm very interested, for instance, in the way it has such gay connotations.

CREEM: Strange for something so gay to appeal to such a broad audience ... Nick: Yeah. And also the fact that there's no disco musicians that are famous, y'know, they're all fucking anonymous. On the Motown stuff, which was my disco, when I used to go to discos, when 1 was 15, 16 years old, it was all Motown, Stax stuff—we all knew who the bass player was, we knew that Duck Dunn played on the Sam & Dave stuff, we all knew that James Jamison was the bass player on the Motown stuff.

Also, ! suppose, 1 have an interest in it— supposedly at any rate—as a hotshot producer. That's what they say. I'm very interested in the fact that it's a producer's medium, as well: CREEM: Didn't Giorgio Moroder get an Academy Award this year?

/Nick: Yeah, for blandest album of the year. But it takes real talent to make a record obvious to people, it really does. In the middle of April, let's say, to make a record that just grabs everybody's attention, and is obvious,ITtakes talent to do that. And I respect anyone who. can do that. I may not actually like it, mysejf, but I respect anyone who can actually do it. With reservations. I mean, I don't respect what I think is the real bland stuff. A lot of the people that people would think I'd think were bland, like the Bee Gees, I think are pretty good, and Abba I think are pretty good. I've said Uhat before. I don't like everything they've done ... There are certain people that are real big that I cannot stand, like I can't stand Neil Diamond, I cannot understand how he's so big, how he's such a sex figure.

There's a lot of 'em. I don't lose sleep over it or anything. But by and large I respect anyone who makes records that takes risks., and that's why I like the Village People. Probably, because they're so huge—they'll start parodying themselves pretty quick. I don't think they're going to be around for a long time.

CREEM: How long were the Coasters around for? Four, five years?

Nick: Well they did real well, obviously . . . but things move much quicker now. You've got to move so fast nowadays. And frankly that's what I like about the music business nowadays—the fact that ideas count so much, and the ability to try to transmute your ideas into vinyl.

CREEM: Whenyou said Dave Edmunds thought it was funny you guys are thought of as new wave . . . actually it's probably more that you're able to change with the times. Stephen Stills is about the same age—

Nick: Yeah, but we have more ability to change than poor old Steve. He's sort of caught up in that thing he's in, whereas . . . The reason that Dave is labeled "new wave" is because of his association with Elvis, me, and Graham Parker— coz he knows those blokes; we go to the same pub, and hang out, y'know. And he likes them; he doesn't particularly like all of their music, coz he is older than all of those guys, and he comes from a different upbringing, if you like, in music.

Nonetheless, the mood that there is in England at the moment, and the music that's coming out of England is really bad— there's nothing. It'll change! It always goes up and down. But at the moment it's bad, because there's no leaders. Elvis is the leader at the moment, but he's busy in America. Besides him ... there's nobody coming up atthe moment. But Dave's aware of this—he's intelligent, or aware enough now to know that those people are hot—the people that he knows,

I suppose—Ian Dury, Graham, ElVis, and a few others. And you can't ignore it—you just can't keep your head in the sand at all about that stuff. Elvis—he even goes and buys Queen albums, or JethroTull albums, or whoever—stuff he doesn't like, but he buys their albums, just so he can, uh, see what they're doing, see what they're about.

They're the leaders, the monetary leaders, anyway. Even if it's just to say "God, Ineuerwant 'to make that mistake, I hate that!" Also he's got a thing about buying records as well—he never gets records for free hardly at all. He has this theory, which I kind of groove on, actually—he says if you buy a record you really want to hear it, because you bought it. If you've had it given to you, you don't care about it.

I hardly ever listen to other people's records, as I told you before—it's mainly Elvis, he tells me about things—Elvis and Edmunds, actually. I'D go around and see them, and they'll play me some things. Elvis has nearly always got the top ten albums, that he plays,... and he'll say "this is shit. . .and that's shit. . ." but he'll alwaysrplay them . . . and really listen to them, as well. CREEM: I'm amazed Qt how easily you can get isolated from AM radio, stuff that's wildly popular . . .

Nick: Well—not so much Elvis, but me and Edmunds listen to the radio mainly. It has the same effect, coz nowadays ... I mean, I really don't think of myself as a producer, as a career, but I'm very interested in all the new sounds, the new beats—you know, people dream up beats, drum beats, and I think the vocals and the drums are the most important things on the record. So you have to be aware of the new styles people are developing. Although I can think 'em up, and frankly I don't want to copy nobody's thing,

. except in the most obvious way. I don't mind rippin' off somebody's obvious thing that they've done ... to me, it's almost an admission: "Did you really enjoy that? I thought it was great, you know, and here's my sort of version of it."

But it's when you get subtle, when you subtly rip somebody off. . . some things that say, Billy Joel—who I think has written some good songs and is a very talented guy—but he's got some very subtle Elton John rip-offs. Why doesn't he rip off the guys, that Elton John ripped off? CREEM: A review of Joe Jackson's album in one of the English papers seemed to peghim that way in regard to Graham and Elvis, t -Nick: Yeah? Well, I've never heard him, as I said. Actually, Elvis really likes him, as a matter of fact. It's basically all been done before, I mean, there's only so many combinations.

It's just so unusual nowadays to hear oldfashioned ideas—unsophisticated ideas, done on sophisticated equipment. Uh, which I've done, on a few records that got big. And I hear people doing it now, but I never get irate about it,

I feel kind of flattered, actuaDy^ because generally the people who've stolen it—well not stolen, but have done it—are people I respect. Because I'm such a music fan, I respect the fact that they saw the humor, if you like, in that I ripped something off so obviously; they knew the spirit in which I ripped it off. It's supposed to be a sort of compliment, because I really am just a fan. CREEM: Your Bay City Rollers songs . .

Nick: Again, I don't know whether I'll ever do those kjnds of records again, because they were kind of in-crowdy... I was really— it was a bit of a pose. If you say "Oh I play pop music", then you really should play pop music, and not just take the piss out of other people. That was good fun then, and I really like that first album . . ,.

* CREEM: Doh'tyou think that you can get away with more humor on records in England than here?

Nick: Yeah, I think that's because over here it's so: much more competitiv/e than it is in England. In, England, if you're in the music business, then you're damn lucky. »

Even now, even though England has had some major superstars, to the man in the street,

they're a bunch of long-haired yobbds, and there1* no respect accorded to them., So you're got to strive a bit, and English people are very quick to pick up on ideas.

Over here—I said this to you about the radio—' I think it's passe to knock the radio—Elvis is still doing it, but. I think that's kind of dumb, because he?s getting played on the radio all the time, so it's like he's knocking himself. It's not the radio's fault, or the radio programmers' fault, I just don't think people are making good records now—and in America I think what's largely the fault is that people aren't prepared to take as many risks as they are in England.

CREEM: Yeah, and a gold record isn't respectable anymore, which is crazy.

Nick: Yeah! Gotta be platinum. Well, I don't mind, because f really do think that when you make platinum records, unleSS you're sort of a real established type lfye Sinatra... if you make a platinum record, I really believe that your standard goes down. I wquld strive never to let that happen.

CREEM: Do you think it'll take another "new wave" to change the music scene?

Nick: Oh, I dunna I don't think that fundamentally things have changed that much from the 50's when rock 'n' roll started. Fashions have changed, but the mood ain't changed that much. And I haven't got a clue what's going to actually come next. I just go completely by instinct. All I know is I'll make Up the old fashions, and they can fuck—they can copy me. And when the day comes that I'm dried up—which will come— when somebody much brighter than me comes along; before too long, somebody \will be much more interesting—I'll get out. SSHN