Aqui una estupenda entrevista hecha a Andrew Paresi, como se recordara, fue el primer baterista con quien Morrissey trabajo en su carrera solista, grabando discos como Viva Hate, Bona Drag o Kill Uncle.
FIFTEEN MINUTES WITH ANDREW PARESI/MCGIBBON DRUMMER WITH MORRISSEY ON VIVA HATE, BONA DRAG AND KILL UNCLE
Curly haired, bright eyed and beaming, Andrew Paresi grandly beckons me through the wide front door of his West London home. We settle at the kitchen table and straight away he’s looking after me, like an uncle. Up, and stirring coffee by the Aga, he’s smiley and chatting, busying himself around the cups and milk. I feel like he’s going to ask me if I have enough money for lunch, check my bag for letters and reassure me that thirteen out of twenty is good enough for spelling….so it is with a fond and quiet smile that I politely decline his very kind offer of coins for the parking meter.
As I unpack my stuff I notice a plate of oatcakes laid out on the table.
“Oh do have one if you like!” he laughs heartily, curls bouncing.
Mr Paresi/McGibbon uses two names. One is for drumming – Paresi, and one for writing – McGibbon. It could be argued that he needs two hundred names as his cv stretches across everything that encompasses the arts. He is theatrical, wildly enthusiastic about music (with an encyclopaedic knowledge of drumming) and a very entertaining and respected comedy writer/director. But above all, he’s a performer.
As we talk, performances and mimicry ebb and flow from him as he smoothly delivers deadly accurate impressions. Blink and he’s Billy Connolly… blink again and he’s Morrissey. It’s like they’re all in there, waiting for their turn.
He has never halted his passions of drumming and writing comedy since parting with Morrissey, and is currently recording a new comedy TV pilot for the BBC with his production company ‘Curtains for Radio’. His latest drumming work can be found on the Franc Cinelli album ‘Good Times’ . His comedy writing of ‘Eric The Gardener’/’Gripper’ stories in the 1990s for Radio One has amassed a cult following and is to be released on iTunes in the coming weeks.
His time as Morrissey’s drummer is well documented in a book and radio show: I was Morrissey’s DrummerIt includes excerpts from Stephen Street, Suggs, Clive Langer and Andy Rourke, but Andrew still had plenty of stories to add about Morrissey, drumming, influences, acting, music… and Jaffa cakes.
Renowned as a constant source of laughter for Morrissey, it’s not difficult to see why he was chosen as first solo drummer. In addition to his precise and powerful drumming on tracks like Disappointed and Everyday Is Like Sunday it’s clear that Andrew just must have been like smelling salts during a period of raw Smiths-grief.
During our interview he revealed what it felt like to make a record with Morrissey: ‘it was agape really. Having that voice in your head while you were drumming was mind blowing’; he described his style of drumming on the albums as hard-hitting: ‘I played the nuts off everything I did’; and when he heard the finished Viva Hate: ‘It sounded fresh, disturbing and beautiful… a serious body of work’.
He doesn’t eat pizza, but if he did, his favourite topping would be quattro formaggi. His favourite drum is a snare (on top of a snare…

he loves a bit of Brass Eye and his favourite Smith is Morrissey. (Well, it was agape, really).
J: Please say your full name.
A: Andrew Paresi. My family name is Andrew Stuart McGibbon.
J: Why the change?
A: In the mid-seventies there was a song by The Goodies called Funky Gibbon and it just got to me at a deep point and I thought, I can do without that. I thought that nobody would take the name seriously so I took a decision aged eighteen or nineteen to change my name to Paresi because my girlfriend at the time was doing an Italian degree and she thought that ‘Andrew Heart Attack’ would sound cool.
J: ‘Paresi’ does sound exotic.
A: … and it stuck. I thought it sounded interesting in a mock-electro kind of way. I’ve gone back to McGibbon for writing/producing/directing purposes but Paresi is the drumming name.
J: So you drum under the name ‘Paresi’ and write under ‘McGibbon’.
A: Yeah.
J: Is that incase Morrissey tries to find you?
A: [laughs] Oh yeah!
J: Did he call you Andrew or Andy?
A: He called me Andrew. Most people do. 0nly people who are upset with me say: [Scottish accent]: “Andy! You know what you have to do! You have to have a vocabulary of sounds!”
J: Can you do a Billy Connolly?
A: “His voice is ‘a down here! He’s a shipyard worker!’ My dad worked as a caulker in Port Glasgow shipyards on the River Clyde. He bashed hot rivets without protective gear into ship bolt holes, as did my grandfather.
J: Did you want to go into that trade?
A: Well my dad did very well and travelled down to London. He said that there was a shipyard Scottish comedy thing. There were a lot of examples of it – Chic Murray was another, born in Greenock like my dad - of people who were just very funny at telling stories. Scottish humour has a lovely, gentle view of life, and a cutting irony and ability to be classless… Mind you, Frankie Boyle fans may disagree!
J: [Laughs] What are you working on now?
A: I just finished working on the Frank Cinelli album ‘Good Times’ produced by Danton Supple, who also produced Coldplay’s ‘X&Y’. I also have a production company – ‘Curtains for Radio’ and ‘Curtains for Pictures’. Our main production M.O. is comedy drama and we do film too.
J: Can you describe yourself in a sentence?
A: I’m an incredibly fascinati… [laughs] no… I’m just battling to be the best I possibly can at whatever it is I am doing. After Morrissey I found it very hard trying to think of what to do at that point. Music was going in a different direction – all samples and ecstasy - so I shifted back to comedy and directing which is what I wanted to do when I was fifteen. I’m passionate about what I’m doing. Oh God I’m starting to sound like Tony Blair now…
J: Things can 0nly get better…
A: [Juts out jaw, adopts terrifyingly accurate Morrissey voice]: ‘Things can 0nly get better…”
J: That is a very good Morrissey, I’ve got the shivers.
A: Well is it Morrissey or is it Professor whats-his-name?
J: No I think the D:Ream prof is higher pitched.
A: [Adopts Prof Brian Cox voice]: ‘Oh that’s right yes, it’s a higher pitch, it’s up here, with the sun, which rotates around, and can I have my knighthood…’
J: [laughs] I think your Morrissey impression might be the best I’ve ever heard. Have you ever done ‘Morrissey’… to Morrissey?
A: No, but we had some funny times.
J: You have a reputation for being one of the people that made Morrissey chuckle the most. What makes him laugh?
A: We just used to muck about. I used to insert words into his songs and tell him stupid jokes that made him laugh. We mucked about with titles and names. I did develop a Morrissey accent but I was very cautious [adopts Morrissey voice]: ‘because it’s fun to do because it’s all so beautiful’. 0nly if you really love the guy can you do it with any real sense of humour.
J: I think it’s clear that you really did love him, didn’t you?
A: It was agape really. Having that voice in your head while you were drumming was mind-blowing. You can feel so many emotions in yourself while you’re playing with him. I felt like I was Dennis Davis playing with Bowie – this is it – if I’d had a heart attack “Paresi” while playing with him… to me that would have been a kind of noble end.
J: Tell me about what it was like to drum with Morrissey.
A: I played the nuts off everything I did. The main attraction with him was that everything was completely unconventional. He was carving these beautiful poems and then attaching them to pieces of music. You’re in that bizarre experimental laboratory when you’re not really sure what a chorus or verse is yet. So you’re playing, not knowing where everything is, and the chaos of that is just truly joyful! There’s nothing like it. In Bona Drag and Kill Uncle there were moments – I remember with Mark [Nevin] and we were sitting at the back of the studio when we’d recorded Our Frank and we were killing ourselves when we heard ‘I’m gonna be sick all over your red pullover and see how the colours blend’. It was hilarious! The concept of songwriting was being re-invented by Morrissey. For me, it was just awesome.
J: It really must have been incredible, putting your stamp onto everything like that.
A: It was incredible, but the person who was under the most stress was Stephen Street. He was producing, playing bass and putting the songs together and he was under the kind of astonishing pressure that probably comes once or twice in a lifetime.
J: How did you meet Stephen Street?
A: I was in a band called A Pair of blue eyes. We had been told that we were ‘the thinking person’s Curiosity Killed the Cat’. CBS asked Stephen Street to come in and mix the first single You used to go to my head. He was going ‘where’s the click? How is this drummer keeping in time?’ And they were like: ‘There is no click’. I think that impressed Stephen, particularly the power at which I hit the drums, which was not fashionable at the time.
J: How would you describe your style of drumming?
A: I was very American in my style, punky and funky. I hit the drums hard. I was influenced by early Motown; I love those grooves. I love Frank Zappa’s various drummers, people who understand groove and are technically proficient especially Steve Jordan and Travis Barker and W S Holland from Johnny Cash’s band. Neil Conti [Prefab Sprout] was another drummer that hit hard at the time, but it wasn’t the preferred style if you like. It wasn’t the ‘drumming du jour!’
J: Did Morrissey know that you had played with Jim Diamond and Bucks Fizz?
A: Stephen had said something like: ‘whatever you do, don’t tell Morrissey that you played with Jim Diamond or Bucks Fizz, because this will send the wrong signal out’. Stephen was trying to keep everything in place. He knew that things could go awry in the recording of Smiths albums. He just wanted to know that the drumming thing was sealed and he didn’t have to worry about it. As a producer he was cautiously removing issues that might be a problem before they even happened. So I had to do a Stalin-ist whitewash of my musical background there.
J: I know that Stephen gave you his denim jacket to wear when he first introduced you to Morrissey, but please tell me what you were wearing before!
A: Well I had a different style, I was still in that 1982 Man at C&A era. I was wearing wacky jumpers. This one looked like a knackered television set – I’ve still got it in a bag somewhere… actually, hold fire there! [goes into hall, rummages in bag, returns to room]. This was the jumper I was wearing when I recorded Viva Hate!
J: What? I really like that jumper! So Stephen said: ‘no you can’t wear that?’
A: 0nly when we had to go out to a nightclub. He was just trying to prevent anything going wrong…
J: Wow. He catered for every whim.
A: Yes, I think at that time, the pressure was on and every nuance had to be managed in detail. Stephen is a consummate producer and is always aware of details. He is in incredibly professional.
J: Did being surrounded by this creativity inspire you to write songs?
A: I did, but I wasn’t a great keyboard player and I liked big juicy keyboardy… dare I say it post-modern jazz chords. Kevin [Armstrong] very helpfully decoded one that I had written into a guitar friendly version and played it and it came pretty close to getting a vocal on it, called ‘Angie’. At the time of Bona Drag there were a lot of fantastic songwriters around. Clive had written Shipbuilding for heaven’s sake. It was brilliant to be involved as a drummer but at that point in my musical cycle I really just was like the little boy trying to get a scribble in. I’ve composed plenty of music since then however, in ‘I Think I’ve Got A Problem’, starring Suggs, Bob Monkhouse and Bill Nighy, The Sinclair Singers and other music.
J: I love the drums on Disappointed.
A: I’ll play them for you. It’s a challenging rhythm. I’ll write it out for someone, someday. It’s a left hand start, a tricky one, but once you get into the roll of it, it’s a rhythm I was very proud of. It was like a steam train, like two bits of drumming going on at the same time.
J: Thank you. So you live here with your partner, Tanya?
A: Yes. I haven’t got children, not to say that I’m not capable of making them! Tanya had kids already from a previous marriage - and now they have children too - so I’m a ready-made grandfather! [Adopts ‘Victorian’ persona]: I’ve instructed the children to call me ‘Grandrew!’ I’m not old enough to be Granddad.
J: Your time with Morrissey is very well documented in ‘I was Morrissey’s Drummer’.
A: To me there was just a great comedy show to be made there.
Also available in the book ‘I was Douglas Adams’s Flatmate’.
J: It’s very funny. Do you think he’s ever heard it?
A: I don’t know. There’s no bitterness of any kind. How I saw things at the time. It’s quite self-deprecating.
J: In the book/recording you describe yourself working with Morrissey as ‘simply travelling with greatness and putting its cat out at night’
A: [Laughs]. The people who really strike you are the people who have an inner space, a force field, a buzz if you like, and you can feel your heart palpitating a bit more because there’s something enormously special there. You have to give that part of your life to it. I don’t think you can make a deep emotional commitment to any music at all unless there’s love there.
J: You have described mealtimes with Morrissey as like dining ‘with Jesus at the last supper’.
A: There’s a specialness; a weird quality… If you’re going to be working with what we now know is one of the greatest English rock poets of the twentieth century that may be studied three hundred years from now – that won’t always come with ‘hey matey let’s go down the pub’ - though that did happen. Somebody like that will have a great deal of quietude. He would often get up before the rest of us and I remember once we had a chat, and he said something along the lines of: ‘Andrew, most people are lucky to have one talent, and you have so many, where do you begin?’ It was a thoughtful and supportive thing to say to me. Funnier if he’d said “… and you don’t even have one… so what are you going to do?” [Laughs] It was a brilliant experience and I left with good grace.
J: Did you hear from him afterwards?
A: Several times, quite recently actually, he was going to come over and have Boxing Day dinner with us when we were in LA. It didn’t happen for one reason or another.
J: How does he communicate with you?
A: The odd postcard… now it’s morse code. I have quite a few faxes that were flying around from the Kill Uncle days, but they are beginning to fade because of that paper. They are very funny, it’s very witty stuff.
J: What’s your favourite Morrissey track to drum on?
A: Disappointed is something I’m very proud of, and Girl Least Likely To. In terms of power, November Spawned a Monster. And for just the inventiveness of it, Hairdresser on Fire because of what he was singing, ‘busy clippers’. But the track I’m most proud of is Late Night Maudlin Street because it changed a genre in a way. I was able to play very ‘loopy’ improvised drums towards then end of that. It’s an incredible song.
J: What’s your favourite album that you worked on?
A: It has to be Viva Hate. Just for being asked to play on it. In the early stages I was coming down to play 2-3 tracks a day for a week at a time and it seemed that there was a real head of steam building between what Stephen was writing, what Vini and I were playing and what Morrissey was singing. Closely followed by elements of Kill Uncle. Mute Witness is absolutely stunning. There was actually a song called Kill Uncle that we did a backing track for and a vocal. It survived for a nano second! And Bona Drag – Striptease with a difference, Oh Phoney. I wish there had been a better reaction to Ouija Board, or November. Radio One just couldn’t cope with Mary Margaret O’Hara’s middle vocal section. I remember Morrissey and I were in the car and Nicky Campbell cut it off just before and Morrissey was like: ‘Oh. It’s like having my lungs cut out of my body’. It was an epic song, but at a time when epic songs weren’t popular with the powers that be.
Andrew signs my Bona Drag
J: So you didn’t ever perform live with Morrissey?
A: I think from his perspective there just wasn’t a band there for him. Stephen is a great bass player, and Vini is an outstanding artist too… it’s sort of… I don’t know why it didn’t happen. Where he was headed he needed to have a band who looked how he felt. Although I was disappointed I understood. He went back to work with Andy and Mike again, then we came back together. There was just that expectation… people started arriving from the corporate rockabilly sector and that’s what he wanted to do.
J: What emotions ran through you when you heard the finished Viva Hate album for the first time?
A: Incredible pride and satisfaction and a real sense that this was clearly a serious body of work. It sounded fresh, disturbing and beautiful. On a personal note I was thrilled with how up in the mix my drumming was. This was a great validation for what I’d been working toward and was unusual. I am grateful to Stephen Street and Morrissey for recognising the drumming as a key forward facing element in the album’s sound.
J: Who was with you when you first heard Viva Hate?
A: Stephen, Morrissey, Vini, assistant engineer Steve Williams and I think Nick Gatfield from EMI - who continued to spot and develop great talent like Amy Winehouse.
J: What about when you saw Suedehead and EDILS climbing the charts?
A: Absolutely hyper-thrilled. This was drumming I was fantastically proud of and to hear it on the radio prior to release and on the A-list at Radio One was just amazing. Nothing has come close to those moments. Especially after it went to number one. That was amazing. Around the time of the Viva Hate release I was in a smoky old pub in the Wandsworth/Battersea environs - before the yuppie plasmodia had a foothold in the area - and they were playing the album in the pub. Next to me were veteran drinkers and smokers, many unemployed in the area as a result of the dreadful recession. I was with a group of friends and one of them yelped out ‘hey it’s Andrew drumming on this everyone’. I’m quite modest and was calcified with embarrassment. I thought I was going to be lynched. This was a roll-out the barrel-Mrs Mills-Rockney pub. But to my surprise I got smiles, drinks raised and the guy behind the bar said ‘This is a great record mate - have one on the house’.
J: What did you think of the more ‘controversial’ tracks like Bengali In Platforms and Margaret on the Guillotine?
A: Bengali was the first of Stephen’s backing tracks we recorded as a group. We did three takes. The third one had it. I’d worked out a drum Rudiment fill for the end of each chorus section except that I didn’t know then what made the chorus or the verse. I recall Vini’s lovely acoustic guitar playing and it came across as a very beautiful backing track. In my mind I’d started making up tunes that might fit round it and even thought of some words. Silly words I kept to myself obviously. When I heard the finished version I recognised it as a pean, if you will, to double isolation. Margaret on the Guillotine was a very passionately delivered end track. The sound effect at the end makes the proposition ruthlessly satirical. Music is one of the few non-judgmental, hurt-free emotionally rewarding experiences left.
J: I love the drums on ‘Break up the family’. Did Stephen create the Percussion or was that you?
A: This is one of my favourite tracks. Stephen Street had created a percussion loop made with AKAI 1000 samples of a cabasa, triangle and bongos. I asked for this backing loop, a click track if you like to be turned up loud in my headphones. I then payed a tight rhythm on the kit to remain absolutely close with the loop by playing a steady, funk groove style BUT stripping it down so that I played the last 16th semi of the second beat bass drum note a grace to the third beat of each bar. So it went bs (b)b s with 8’s on closed high hat over the whole thing. The 0nly time I left this was to accent the end phrase of each chorus with four sixteenth note snare fill ahead of accenting 3 AND 4 in the last bar (“wish me luck and say goodbye”

. I went the ride cymbal in the middle eight but kept the same 8’s note pattern. Yes one of my favourites and a chance to groove up in a low key brit funk way, but not too much!
J: Wow. Thanks for sharing that. I’m sure any keen drummers will be glad of it. What do you think of Morrissey’s later work? Do you keep in touch with his music?
A: Yes. I loved Vauxhall, The more you ignore me, Alma Matters, Quarry, Ringleader… they were all brilliant.
J: What does he think of your work now? Does he know what you’re doing?
A: Yes I think he may have followed it. There’s a track called Melanie (Inject Yourself) that I did with Radio One when I worked there writing music and bits of comedy after I live in a giant mushroom for Eric the Gardner on the Clive Bull show. He may have heard it.
Lyrics to Melanie (Inject Yourself) a Morrissey parody composed by Andrew used on Radio One:
Oh Melanie, you say you really love me
You say that I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to you
Oh Melanie, you keep telling me you love me
You say that I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to you in this cruel world
Oh Melanie, honestly
If what you say is true, why do you continue to
Inject yourself, Inject yourself, Inject yourself
Ahh, the drug may have sex appeal, but I know what you feel isn’t real
And I can’t bear you when it wears off
Oh Melanie, you say really hate me now
You say that I’m the worst thing that’s ever happened to you
Oh Melanie honestly
There’s something really troubling me.
If what you say is true
I’d rather you continued to
Inject Yourself, Inject Yourself, Inject Yourself
Oh the drug may have sex appeal, and I know what you feel isn’t real
And I can’t bear you when it wears off
I can’t bear you when it wears off
Oh Melanie – (I wouldn’t say no?)
J: Have you always done voices? Do you hear the voices first, then they become characters that you write about?
A: Definitely. I came from a school - Salesian College - that had a lot of funny people in it. Kevin Day and Catherine Tate went there. It’s closed now but is currently being used to film ‘Bad Education’ with Jack Whitehall.
J: How did you come to write ‘Eric The Gardner’ and the other characters for Radio One?
A: Kevin Greening heard I live in a giant mushroom and then Matthew Bannister asked me to come in and do some bits for Radio One to do lots of characters. I made a deal with Kevin that all these characters – surreal, edgy ads, stories, sketches and stuff - would appear out of nowhere in between records then disappear again. He never back referenced them or me on his show. We were getting away with incredibly subversive stuff on a prime time breakfast show.
J: Were you able to influence the playlist when you were on the Radio One breakfast show?
A: The Boy Racer was on the playlist but it was 0nly on B or C list and we were trying to bring it more attention. There was no way we could physically play this record more times, so I came up with this idea which was that Kevin would say: ‘Coming up, we’ll be playing the new Morrissey record’ and then we played Melanie: Inject Yourself. Kevin would never back announce it, 0nly forward announce it, then afterwards say ‘and we look forward to hearing the new Morrissey record tomorrow.’ This was a way that we could keep the single mentioned.
J: …and keep the fans happy. What a brilliant idea.
A: All Morrissey and Smiths fans are very intelligent and enormously sensitive and vulnerable. They are the people who should be protected, loved and looked after.
J: That’s very kind.
A: It flies in the face of how humanity normally works.
J: If Morrissey was to walk in here right now and say ‘Alright Andrew?’ what would you say?
A: I’d drop everything (except my trousers). I’d be right there.
J: What if he was coming round for snacks with you? What would you put out for him?
A: Well it’s Earl Grey tea for him, isn’t it?
J: According to Jonny Bridgwood he’s an Assam man.
A: Assam, okay that shows a total lack of awareness on my part that I will have to correct straight away! I should know Morrissey’s tea! Right… well… I’ll put out a range of teas!
J: [Laughs] What would you put out to eat?
A: Well my memory of him is that he enjoyed chocolate quite a lot. We used to raid the cupboards at Hook End Manor. It would be something like digestives or something very fattening, with no possible retreat from becoming fat. Morrissey would be like: ‘I’ve found this!’ Oh, now what was it he used to like…?
J: Breakaways? Jaffa Cakes?
A: Jaffa cakes and Maltesers in catering sized packs. We weren’t very rock and roll…
J: What’s your favourite biscuit?
A: Oatcakes
J: The Nairn’s chocolate oatcakes are delicious.
A: Oh I haven’t tried them.
J: What’s your favourite Morrissey track?
A: Suedehead. Everything just comes to life on that, but a close second is Everyday is like Sunday, and a close third is November Spawned a Monster. Other Morrissey songs I loved - The More You Ignore Me, We hate it when our friends become successful and He Knows I’d love to see him (very special and gentle song). And of course Girl Least Likely To and The end of the family line.
J: Favourite Smiths track?
A: The Headmaster Ritual. I love Johnny Marr’s Rickenbacker playing, and his attitude. As a piece of work he just makes it sound like you’re in the path of an express train and you can’t get out of the way of it.
J: Favourite comedy?
A: Victor Lewis Smith’s Ad Nauseam series, The Day Today or Brass Eye.
J: Did you ever take the drug, ‘Cake’?
A: Many times. It takes four days to recover. It’s chaotic!
A: I loved the show because it had this combination of individuals including Steve Coogan and Chris Morris who all wanted to do their own thing. It was explosive, rather like a band on the edge of destruction with members like Lee and Herring, Armando Iannucci, Patrick Marber, David Quantick, Jane Bussmann – all heavily talented people. In that moment, they nailed it and pulled the rope ladder up behind them. It’s a satire on the form of news, but also very funny and fantastically surreal.
J: Favourite set of clothes to wear?
A: I have Comme des Garcons suit that I love, other than that it’s jeans and jumpers that look like broken down television sets.
J: Favourite member of Bucks Fizz?
A: I thought Jay Aston was very attractive and would make an ideal wife for someone [Laughs]
J: Are you a vegetarian?
A: Yes, since before I played with Morrissey. I don’t eat meat, eggs, wheat and various things because of allergies. I don’t drink any more. I’m really boring.
J: Favourite pizza topping? Would you eat a pizza now that you don’t eat wheat?
A: I don’t, but if I did it would be Quattro Formaggi, although I don’t eat so much cheese now.
J: Are you mostly vegan then?
A: Pretty much, yes, but I still drink milk.
J: Favourite Smith?
A: I think they’re all great. I know Andy because he did the show with me and he was wonderful. But it’s Morrissey. It has to be.
J: Favourite restaurant?
A: The Ledbury on Ledbury Road Notting Hill. It was raided in the riots. I made a lot of money that night. Did some time for it [laughs].
J: You done your bird. Like that guy in The Cornwell Estate that you wrote for the BBC.
A: Yes! ‘0nly nine moons’
J: I love that you had the wonderful late Geoffrey Hutchings hide in a small cupboard.
A: Yes that was the idea, he was on the run. He had to keep hiding because he had done something. I thought that the best character was Keith Butler who had to come to terms with his transgender wife.
J: Ah yes. You played the priest – trying to console the guy, awkwardly with what Jesus would think…
A: Yes that’s right [adopts Priest voice]: ‘I can’t recall a story like that, in the old or the new testament’. [Laughs]
J: Who’s your favourite showbiz pal?
A: Well I keep myself to myself but Suggs is one of the funniest people on this planet. He cracks me up. We had a lunch once with someone who was supposed to be representing a TV channel. During the lunch it became clear that she had no connection to the channel at all, and it was just because she wanted to meet Suggs. It was absolutely hilarious, he was very funny.
J: Madness videos are brilliant and funny.
A: Yes the thing that’s gone a bit is the mickey-taking, UK stuff. People being funny is one of our greatest exports, we got a hint of it at the Olympic ceremony opening, but I feel music is becoming stodgy with big agents controlling everything. Subversion is the meat of creativity and without that music can fall by the wayside.
J: Suggs is another poet, as is Terry Hall.
A: He - Suggs - is a highly cultured guy, but he is ‘himself’. He is at one with who he is and it’s genuine, honest, self possession. Sheridan Smith is like that too. I’ve directed her a few times. People love her for it and it shows in her work.
J: Favourite song of all time?
A: How soon is now is in there. Some Bowie – Ashes to Ashes is brilliant. I loved I wanna be your dog by The Stooges and was bowled away by the beauty of a mid eighties Randy Newman song called Real Emotional Girl (From Trouble In Paradise). Any Major Dude by Steely Dan, anything by XTC and strangely going back to childhood with Ruby by Kenny Rogers. Little Children by Billy J Kramer. Other than that – a drummer’s type of music is too esoteric to be known. I have a genuine love of The Band. Levon Helm was a hero. East Tennessee songwriters like Dolly Parton and the Porter Wagoner thing from the 60s and 70s. There is something very honest and beautiful about this period of American blues/country, pre-commercial Grand Old Opry, and the Gram Parsons thing that happened which we now know as Americana. Everything’s got to have a label these days! Frank Zappa was the king of uniting great comedy, deep and subversion anarchy with mind blowing music. Anything from Freak Out! Onwards, especially The Black Page from Zappa in New York.
J: What’s your favourite drum?
A: The snare drum. I’ve invented this device where I have a snare drum and then a smaller one sitting on top of it. It’s a tighter skin so you can do more stuff on it. It has the depth and power of a big drum and it doesn’t sound wimpy. I love drums. I’m 100% musician.
J: Could you drum as soon as you picked up the sticks at sixteen?
A: It took me a while to get the groove I learnt drums playing with a big band every week at college. It took me away from academia but I got to understand scores, percussion and just playing in a wind band/orchestra setting rather than exclusively in a punk band gave me a different insight to drumming.
J: Can I see your gold discs?
A: Sure!
One of many gold discs in Andrew’s studio
J: Can we tempt you to join twitter and host our @mozarmyquiz one week?
A: I’d be delighted!
Andrew signing my records and CDs with @knittedMoz.
J: Finally, could you write a note to my mum?
A: Of course I will.