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"Ever since rock 'n' roll musicians started thinking of themselves as Artists, the music has been junk," English rocker Nick Lowe said after a recent performance in San Francisco.
He was taking it easy, but only because he seems to live day-to-day. Maybe he's not as well-known as the other musicians he's worked with, but Lowe is one of the moving forces in pop-rock.
He is funny and witty in his use of words and music. He's also outspoken.
"I'm glad Eddie Cochran and Buddy Holly and Otis Redding are dead," Lowe said, "and I wish the Rolling Stones had died with their integrity intact. If Cochran were still alive he'd probably be in slick dress with dry-look hair-do. Yecchh!"
Attired casually in an old black blazer and trousers, Lowe seemed to have only one problem: preventing his mop of hair from continuously falling into his sunken eyes.
"I used to drink heavily," he admitted. "But I've given it up for cigarettes."
Almost overnight Lowe, 29, has become a cult hero in England and the United States. The rock press gave him plenty of attention during the just-finished cross-country tour with Elvis Costello and Mink DeVille. He may have been the opening act, but he was also the producer of headliner Costello's albums, and those of Graham Parker and the Rumour.
Lowe shoved a cigarette through the mop of hair hiding his mouth, struck a match and continued, "I love early rock 'n' roll because it was hit singles, short and to-the-point. I was eight years old when Elvis (Presley) cut his best music, 'Ready Teddy,' 'Baby Let's Play House.'
"I'm not Sha Na Na. I'm not into the past. But the attitude has been lost. People nowadays are afraid to show emotion. Take Smokey Robinson doing 'Tracks of My Tears,' a pop song that makes it solely on the emotional delivery. Same with the Everly Brothers' 'Crying in the Rain.'
"The best rock is made as garbage. Play it fast and get out. But when you try to get perfect, state-of-the-art recordings, you end up making garbage.
"I like music to sound dirty and real, not the perfect and antiseptic sound of Genesis, Elton John, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Linda Ronstadt and Kansas."
To Lowe, rock music is analogous to a vegetable stand. People go for what looks good, music or food. "You go into a supermarket in America and all the fruit and vegetables are so perfect and look the same. But in England the fruit looks and feels awful, discolored with bruises and all. But it's got more taste!"
Lowe and Edmunds share an addiction to American rockabilly and pop songs. They also share a band called the Rockpile. When the quartet toured the U.S. last year Edmunds was the leader. This time Lowe got the spotlight.
"We don't really do many gigs," Lowe said. "We've got a couple lined up in Scandinavia, but the Rockpile charges such an outrageous fee that either we're turned down or else we make a bundle."
Two and a half years ago Lowe inaugurated the anti-big business Stiff Records label with two of the better pop songs of the decade: "So It Goes" and "Heart of the City."
His song output has been amazing. He seemingly can write and perform in any style, and do it with conviction. Check out his Pure Pop for Now People album, recently released in America.
"What's great about right now is that there are no rules any more. You can do anything you want in music. You don't have to spend a week of studio time moving mics to get just the right snare drum sound. Instead, you can bang a rolled newspaper on a chair and come up with a sound that's new and exciting."
Once, when Lowe wanted to get out of a contract with Atlantic Records, he made a single called "Bay City Rollers We Love You," figuring the company would drop him, especially after he added Edmunds and Rat Scabies of the Damned as backing musicians.
Instead, like a scene out of Mel Brooks' "The Producers," the record became a hit in Japan.
On Stiff Records, Lowe put out several singles and EPs (extended play 45s with two songs per side). After David Bowie's Low album, Lowe put out an EP called Bowi. Then there was the Snuff Rock EP, a take-off on snuff films where one of the performers is allegedly killed in front of the cameras. He called the band Alberto y Trio los Paranoias. The four songs ranged from punk to reggae, "Snuffin' in a Babylon." The lyrics were hilarious, but the music was convincing.
Lowe knows his stuff is good, but he hates to admit there is any meaning in the lyrics beyond their face value.
My favorite, "So It Goes," starts with some seemingly abstract lines: "I remember the night the kid cut off his right arm / In a bid to save a bit of power." But soon it is taking a look at globe-trotting diplomats.
"I got the idea for that one from Thin Lizzy. The Rockpile was doing a tour with them, and Thin Lizzy had just written 'The Boys Are Back in Town,' and I loved it. But what I saw going on at soundchecks and backstage was not so good.
"I thought it was bad to have their young guitarist screaming at his roadies in front of the support group. It was terribly rude. So I wrote the song about Brian Robertson, figuring with that first line that if being a rock musician was that much pain, why not just mutilate yourself.
"Then, I couldn't think of anything else to say about Thin Lizzy. I'd just read about Henry Kissinger, and Time magazine ran a story about how politicians make big decisions while on drugs after making long plane flights to summit meetings. It reminded me of Anthony Eden coming off the plane at the Suez Crisis in 1956, all hopped up and speedily shaking hands. I remember because my dad was stationed there at the time."
More than the lyric content, Lowe said he gets off on the sounds of the word rhythms. "If they mean something, too, then all the better!
"But, I don't know how I write songs. When I look at them, they're like someone else has just done them."
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