St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 28, 1989

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Elvis Costello is 'livid' no longer


David Wild / Rolling Stone

Elvis Costello may be thought of as the angry young man of the British New Wave, but as he and his wife, Cait O'Riordan, greet me in the elegant piano bar of the Four Seasons Clift Hotel, the 33-year old Costello is looking not particularly young and not at all angry.

Instead, he appears to be jet-lagged, having just flown from his new home in Dublin to San Francisco – site of his debut American show in 1977 – to begin two weeks of schmoozing on this first-ever promotional tour, in support of his new album, Spike.

Considering Costello's longstanding reputation for being difficult with music-industry types and combative with journalists, the strangest sight of all may be that of Elvis Costello sitting calmly on a love seat with O'Riordan, sipping tea and rather amiably discussing his life with a member of the press at the behest of his new corporate home, Warner Bros.

"Elvis is not quite as livid as he used to be," says his friend and colleague Nick Lowe, who produced Costello's first five albums and served as Costello's opening act on his recent solo tour of U.S. colleges. "The thing you need to understand about Elvis is that he's never suffered fools gladly.

Unfortunately, he happens to work in an industry made up almost exclusively of fools."

Costello has plenty of reasons not to be livid these days. He's released Spike to rave reviews and, for an artist whose sales have never equaled his artistic impact, strong commercial response. His solo tour, which he's now continuing in Europe, is a captivating crowd pleaser – and demand is such that he's putting together a band to join him for a summer tour. And, as Lowe puts it, "The guy's completely in love, and that never hurts."

Costello and his first wife, who have a 13-year-old son, divorced in 1985; he married O'Riordan, the former bassist of the Pogues, in 1986. Asked if his current domestic bliss has any relation to the strength of his recent work, Costello says, "Yes, without a doubt. Unashamedly so and unapologetically so."

Declan MacManus (Costello's real name, and the one he used for collaborations with Paul McCartney) has come a long way. He was born in 1955, in London, though he moved to Liverpool with his mother for his last to years of secondary school. She was by that time divorced from his father, Ross MacManus, a big-band singer with Joe Loss, who Costello describes as "the English Glenn Miller."

Costello took an early interest in pop music. By age 11 he was a member of the Beatles fan club, and through his father, young Declan had the thrill of hearing early acetates of Beatles albums that were sent to orchestras to encourage covers. By graduation from secondary school, MacManus was playing guitar and writing songs.

In order to support himself, MacManus began working as a computer programmer for an Elizabeth Arden factory. He also started playing in a folk-rock band, Flip City, around Liverpool. In 1974, he met Nick Lowe.

Two years later, Costello was signed to Stiff Records, a small new label co-founded by Dave Robinson and Jake Riviera (who remains Costello's manager). Working with Lowe, who was Stiff's house producer, members of the northern-California rock group Clover and a very low budget, Costello took enough sick days from work to complete his still-astonishing 1977 debut album, My Aim Is True.

The unlikely looking rock hero emerged with a sound that combined the passionate attack of punk with a profound gift for intelligent songcraft. Soon Costello was a star in England and was signed by Columbia Records in the United States.

Costello (the new name was Riviera's marketing notion) quit his day job and formed his own phenomenal hand, the Attractions — Steve Nieve on keyboards, Bruce Thomas on bass and Pete Thomas on drums — and recorded an even stronger follow-up, This Year's Model.

By most reports, Elvis and the band were a hard-living group, and they stirred up their share of controversy. "You have to understand I had never made my living with music," says Costello. "Suddenly, I had all these ludicrous sort of things to live up to. And I reacted badly to it. That made good copy."

In the next decade, Costello and the Attractions maintained a furious pace: the icy pop of Armed Forces (1979); the soulful Get Happy (1980); the dark, drunken Trust (1981); the Nashville field trip Almost Blue (1981); the ambitious, critically acclaimed Imperial Bedroom (1982); the frenzied Punch the Clock (1983); the confused Goodbye Cruel World (1984); a greatest never-quite-hits collection, The Best of Elvis Costello and the Attractions, Vol. 1 (1985); and two collections of B sides and unreleased tracks, Taking Liberties (1980) and the import-only Out of Our Idiot (1987).

Costello has never become a blockbuster superstar, but persistence appears to have won out. "Veronica" is threatening to become a big hit single. And as Billboard recently pointed out, Spike is his eighth Top 40 album in the '80s, putting him in a five-way tie with Pat Benatar, Rush, Barbra Streisand and Prince for second place in that category (Kenny Rogers is first).

Along the way, Costello managed to find enough free time to produce three remarkable albums for others: The Specials (1979); Squeeze's East Side Story (1981); and the Pogues' Rum, Sodomy & The Lash (1985).

After 1986, Costello kept an uncharacteristically low profile. "People seem to think I just went on vacation," he says. "The fact is, as far as I was concerned, I was working almost all the time."

Increasingly frustrated by the efforts on his behalf by Columbia Records, he sought out a better American deal and settled on Warner Bros. He began a series of collaborations, writing songs with McCartney, Ruben Blades, 'til Tuesday's Aimee Mann and David Was of Was (Not Was).

Spike — on which Costello works with an incredible array of musicians, including McCartney, Chrissie Hynde, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and Christy Moore — is one of his most impressive efforts, reflecting his wide-ranging interests in music.


Do you have a lot of trepidation about starting out on this promotional tour? About having to go out there and be Mr. Nice Guy?

No. The misconception is that I was a two-headed monster to begin with. I only turn into a two-headed monster when people give me justification. All impressions to the contrary, I'm a very nice guy.

Have you heard "Radio Romance," by Tiffany?

Yes. Tiffany's my heroine. She's godlike. I love that record.

Are you serious?

Yeah. I was on a review program, on the radio in London, and they played her and Julia Fordham back to back, and I had to say, "Come on, you yuppies out there, 'fess up.' " I said, "Tiffany sings the hell out of this song. Julia Fordham overemotes, she overextends herself at every turn. And Tiffany's giving this one trashy little love ballad everything she's got."

In America, punk ended up more as a fashion statement.

Yeah, during my first trip here, we went to some club, the Whisky or something, when we first got to Los Angeles, and that was really when I realized that Johnny Rotten had died for nothing, you know?

Do you think music means as much to kids today as it did to You growing up? What music does your son listen to? Does he listen to your music?

Don't know. (Laughs.) He knows about skateboards. He likes "Guns N' Roses."

And do you like "Guns N' Roses"?

Yes, I do. But I like Donald Duck as well. They're both cartoons, aren't they? You know how much my son likes "Guns N' Roses"? You know Swatch watches? There are these little plastic things you get to put on your Swatch to protect the face. He likes "Guns N' Roses" about as much as that. Everything for kids these days is that important.

Kids today have an order of priorities about their accessories to their life in a different way than I did. 'Cause I'd put the record on first and then bother about whether I had the coat that went with it. Now it's like you have the coat, you have the skateboard, you have the sneakers, you have the watch, you have the thing that protects the face of the watch, then you put the record on.

I don't mean to put "Guns N' Roses" down. Heaven knows I think they're really dedicated, and I like that "Sweet Child o' Mine" record —that one that sounds like Led Zeppelin? I think it sounds less pompous than Led Zeppelin doing it. But I didn't like Led Zeppelin to begin with, so you're asking the wrong guy. I like Howlin' Wolf. I like the stuff Zeppelin stole from. I don't need to hear a facsimile of a facsimile of a facsimile.

It's like people in Europe will come ask me what I think about rap, because rap's a very fashionable music to like. I'd say rap's like starlight to me — by the time it reaches you, it ain't there anymore. I really believe that.

You mean it loses meaning when it's removed from the street?

It's removed from the neighborhood that it's intended for. I think that when it's really true, it's for, like, a two-block neighborhood somewhere that we don't live in. And all we can do is admire it at a distance. So the affectation of saying rap's everything, it's the new language — that's just an affectation. It might be a pleasant affectation, like the Teddy Boys, who wore their hair like Elvis Presley to show admiration for the guy's style.

How much substance abuse went on when you were with the Attractions?

The drinking might've slowed a few gigs down, but there was always ways of speeding 'em up again. Whatever we did didn't do any ham, and it didn't do any good. I neither have any time for the confessional aspect nor for the self-aggrandizing: how tough you are because you can survive it. You can either survive it or you don't, you know? But please don't wheeze on about it afterward.

I read a few interviews with Keith Richards, and I thought, "Well, great, he's not self-pitying." Nobody asked him to take drugs, you know? I mean, I did some stupid things, but nobody asked me to do 'em, you know? I did 'em myself. I paid my dues. (He breaks into a Sinatra croon.) I did it my way.

Do you resent questions about your personal life?

Its voyeurism, you know? For years and years, Bob Dylan wrote all these great songs, then he wrote that song "Sara," and people assumed "Sara" was Sara, his wife. But does it matter? It never diminished any of his other songs that we didn't know who he was speaking about — except for those garbage-pail diggers that insisted on finding out who it was. Who cares? If someone like Bob Dylan or myself wanted to put that detail In, we would've written an extra verse saying, "And what I really wanted to say is that woman I split with ... I really hate/This is her name and address/And if you want to, go and burn down her house."

Will your last record with Columbia, Blood & Chocolate, also be your last with the Attractions?

A: We haven't played together for a while, but Pete came and played on Spike a bit. We almost did a charity show recently. So as far as I'm concerned, their nonappearance on this record is down to Steve, and possibly one of the others, looking at the group differently than me. Steve thinks of the group like the Monkees — a four-way thing, an equal battle of egos. To me we're four individuals, but inevitably I have to call the shots, 'cause they're my songs. So when I made up my mind to do Spike the way I did, I said to them, "Listen, fellas, there's four or maybe five songs on the record that we could approach, sometimes in collaboration with other musicians, sometimes just the four of us " And Steve didn't want to do it. He said, "It's all or nothing." I think that's an honest disagreement.

So from my point of view, if there's a good reason for us to come together, then great. But no amount of throwing money out would make us do a nostalgia tour.

Talking about nostalgia, wasn't it ever daunting for a Beatles lover like yourself to be sitting around the piano writing with Beatle Paul?

Oh, yeah, occasionally I'd go, "Oh, God, it's him. Ooh, It's him." But that was definitely a momentary thing.

How familiar is he with your work?

I've no idea. Obviously he knows I don't write Barry Manilow songs, or there'd be no point. The main thing is we're trying to write new songs. We're not trying to write old songs again.

Of several things you have to consider, one is that he's been Paul McCartney longer than he was a Beatle. And for that matter, I've been a solo artist longer than the Beatles existed. By four years. So you know, I'm a professional. I don't have as many hit records to my name, but I have just as many credentials in terms of writing songs. If he was gonna pick anybody to write with, then why not me?

Did you ever question his motivations in writing with you? Did you ever think you were being brought in to make him hip, to add the anger and passion that John Lennon was supposed to have contributed to his songs?

No. But it's just a stupid exercise to talk about things that way. It's like putting together your favorite imaginary baseball team. I hate the way this industry turns people into kind of bubble-gum cards or cartoons, distillations of their personality and what they represent, particularly in the last year or two with John Lennon. I find it very disturbing when somebody who meant a lot to me is suddenly remolded for the benefit of somebody's script, whether it be Albert Goldman's or the makers of "Imagine" or anyone else. So I ain't gonna be involved in any of that crap. It's sentimental nonsense.

What irks you most about your image?

It's just so narrow. It doesn't acknowledge that I'm a person living my life. And most journalists are just not good enough writers a lot of the time to represent people.

Haven't you occasionally been the obnoxious jerk you're supposed to be?

Not really. Maybe once or twice in a confrontation, I would just be exactly what people would think. The French call me Mr. Hate. I'm not Mr. Hate, I'm Mr. Love.

Considering some people think you're the greatest living songwriter, why hasn't more of your material been covered by other artists?

I used to be very disparaging about this. I had some funny covers, and sometimes the motives have not always been right. But if you'd asked me in '77 who I would like to cover my songs. I'd probably have named some of the people who have now recorded my stuff — George Jones, Roy Orbison, Chet Baker, Dusty Springfield, Johnny Cash. I mean, that ain't bad.

God, I was watching Solid Gold on tour, and Marilyn McCoo comes on and goes, "Now we have Johnny Cash." I thought, "Great, Cash is on the program, finally some proper music." He comes out and does "The Big Light," from King of America. I thought I was hallucinating.

But why do you think you're not covered more than you are?

Well, even Bob Dylan hasn't had that many covers, really. If you have an unusual-sounding voice, then people can't separate your voice from the melody. When it comes to my songs, there's sometimes a line in it or something that just puts people off. When I was working with McCartney, he said this thing about the famous line in "Hey Jude" — "The movement you need is on your shoulder." That was supposed to have been a dummy line that got left in, because Lennon took a liking to it.

McCartney's good about that. If the lyric was getting too strange, he'd say, "I can't really imagine Wilson Pickett attacking this. He's gonna get to that bit about dismantling the Russian doll or something, and he's gonna be a bit perplexed by that."

You've got to imagine other people in other styles of music interpreting the song, and that's not a bad criteria. But I don't think it should be everything. Otherwise you could end up being bland.


Tags: SpikeNick LowePaul McCartneyDeclan MacManusCait O'RiordanWarner Bros.Ross MacManusJoe Loss OrchestraThe BeatlesElizabeth ArdenFlip CityStiff RecordsDave RobinsonJake RivieraCloverMy Aim Is TrueColumbia RecordsThe AttractionsSteve NieveBruce ThomasPete ThomasThis Year's ModelArmed ForcesGet Happy!!TrustAlmost BlueImperial BedroomPunch The ClockGoodbye Cruel WorldThe Best Of Elvis Costello & The Attractions, Vol. 1Taking LibertiesOut Of Our IdiotVeronicaPrinceThe SpecialsSqueezeEast Side StoryThe PoguesRum, Sodomy & The LashRubén Blades'Til TuesdayAimee MannDavid WasWas (Not Was)Chrissie HyndeDirty Dozen Brass BandChristy MooreWhisky a Go GoLos AngelesJohnny RottenLed ZeppelinHowlin' WolfElvis PresleyKeith RichardsFrank SinatraBob DylanBlood & ChocolatePete ThomasSteve NieveGeorge JonesRoy OrbisonChet BakerDusty SpringfieldJohnny CashThe Big LightKing Of AmericaWilson Pickett

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St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 28, 1989


David Wild interviews Elvis Costello.

(excerpts from Rolling Stone, June 1, 1989.)

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