We’re talking 30,000 pounds for the day, here. An orchestra, it’s a high-end call girl you’re hiring. I really wanted to work with an orchestra and that’s an expensive fancy. That came out on your own label via Cooking Vinyl, finally. Tell me a bit about how 1999’s Apple Venus Volume One differs from Wasp Star. And during that time, we knew we couldn’t record, because we knew if we did they would own it for perpetuity.īut you were still writing. And this dragged on for something like five years they wouldn’t open the cage and let us out. But I thought, “That’s a great idea.” I said, “You’re right! We should go on strike.” And we basically did. I just wanted to write and work in the studio.ĭave Gregory said, “Look, why don’t we do what everyone else does when they don’t like the conditions of the job? Why don’t we go on strike?” And I don’t know whether he said it facetiously or as a joke or whatever. They actually stifled the single “Wrapped in Grey.” And we weren’t touring live because that was my whole thing. Well, what happened was after we made Nonsuch for Virgin, Virgin really failed to promote it. Can you tell me a little bit about where they came from and how you updated them for 2000? I heard a lot of these songs were written in the Nineties. Or some of the bits and pieces in other tracks, I’d think, “Wow! Maybe Dave not being around maybe pushed my brain a bit.” I wasn’t thinking “What would Dave have done?” I was thinking, just, “Oh, we need something at that point.” Like, the solo on “Church of Women,” I was very, very proud of that. So, it was a case of, “Right, just pull these faders down and we’ll redo the things he was going to do anyway, or similar or as good or better.”īut I was very proud of where I got to let rip myself. was a bad taste left in the mouth when Dave walked out. Little riffs and runs and things and thinking, “Well, that’s what Dave was going to do anyway.” But we didn’t use Dave on the album because he left. I was a bit cheeky and I actually used quite a lot of. How do you think that affected the way it turned out? And I think there’s some good strong songs on it and it’s a good blasting, electric guitar, pop record.īy the time you made this album, the only OG members were you and Colin Moulding. That maybe soured it a little bit he left before we finished the album up. But that was probably more into personal struggles with Dave. I had a bit of a downer on it when we first put it out. Go 2 and Wasp Star are the two most unloved of the children. It was the one that people generally don’t regard so much. I know people generally don’t regard it as the best XTC album, but it’s my favorite. Rolling Stone spoke with Partridge recently about the record, the end of XTC and why school is such a drag. “You may leave school, but it never leaves you,” Partridge informs us, barely letting that dire warning sink in before another round of rousing guitars ushers us into the appropriately titled “Stupidly Happy.”įrom there, it’s a tizzy only interrupted briefly by fellow lead writer/singer Colin Moulding’s more subdued cuts, which let us take a break from our dervishes: “In Another Life,” “Boarded Up” and “Standing in for Joe.” Partridge adds to the morass with the delightfully slow slump of “Wounded Horse,” before frenzying once more into the almost frantic love song “You and the Clouds Will Still Be Beautiful,” closing out with “The Wheel and the Maypole,” a mythical, medieval romp that unravels to reveal its sobering center: that everything ends, everything falls apart - and the human race is no different.”Was I so naive?/Of course it all unweaves,” Partridge muses. Wasp Star contains just as many facets as Partridge’s personality, kicking off with the deceptively chipper “Playground.” Bright, sunshine-injecting guitar riffs peppered with a snappy, satisfying snare drum send us running pell-mell into Partridge’s playground, where sneering bullies wait to fall upon their prey. In a recent call to discuss the 20th anniversary of XTC’s last album Wasp Star Apple Venus (Volume 2), he whirled through stories ranging from the time he was so zonked after quitting Valium that he forgot his own name to one of the only times he’s ever stolen anything: a bottle of milk from someone’s porch when he was very drunk (haunted, he went back and replaced it weeks later). Talking to Partridge is like listening to his music: There’s the madcap exterior, but underneath it all thrums something darker, something perhaps a bit wicked. Now, he can’t record without bothering the neighbors, who are outside a bit more than usual in light of the pandemic - which has effectively stopped work on his new album My Failed Songwriting Career, a collection of rejected songs he wrote for other people. He’s pretty sure he had the coronavirus a few months back - plus, due to a rainy winter, his studio door is busted. Andy Partridge is having some particularly bad luck lately.
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