The New Cue #414 September 16: Peter Perrett
Good morning,
Welcome to a refreshed Monday edition of The New Cue, engineered now around a weekly questionnaire.
A couple of weeks ago I, Ted, visited a recording studio hidden behind an MOT garage in Islington, North London, belonging to Peter Perrett, the highly articulate, super-charismatic medical-miracle who is the former leader of The Only Ones.
With The Only Ones, Perrett appeared as one of the most melodically arresting British singer-songwriters of the post-punk era (and arguably the pre-punk era too). Serving up such wonders as 1978’s Another Girl, Another Planet…
And the majestic The Whole of The Law, written for the great love of his life, Zena Kakoulli, with whom he eloped as a teenager to escape her vengeful father. They married in 1970, when he was 18.
They remain together, though their journey has not been smooth: after three Only Ones albums between ’78 and ’80, Perrett made just one further record, in 1996, before he emerged from four decades of heroin addiction and related illnesses in 2017 with the solo How The West Was Won LP, his career-arc suddenly, surprisingly rejuvenated. Addiction, however, has left both he and Zena with chronic lung disease. Perrett then compounded this when he caught Covid at a Fontaines DC after-show, spending two weeks in hospital where he also broke his hip after slipping in triage…
But free from addiction, Perrett’s creativity has nevertheless been ferociously unlocked. With his two sons backing him on guitar (Jamie) and bass (Peter Jr), Perrett released the brilliant Humanworld in 2019 and is about to unleash a magnificent, sprawling double album featuring guests such as Johnny Marr and Bobby Gillespie called The Cleansing in November. At 72, he’s reaching a creative peak.
Find out more about the nooks and crannies of his life after the jump. Although producing The New Cue is extremely satisfying work, it is labour-intensive. Please do consider taking out a modest subscription if you value or enjoy it at all, so that we can continue providing these editions.
Thanks,
Ted and Niall
Start The Week With…Peter Perrett
It takes Peter Perrett a few minutes to recover from his journey first down the narrow stairs of the tiny two-up, two-down Pathway recording studios to let me in, and then back up again to sit on his sofa and answer our questions. Everything wears him out these days, which makes the soon-come arrival of his double The Cleansing album even more miraculous.
“My mind is active again,” he says, with a benign smile. “If I’m not artificially subduing it, music is the only thing that gives me that pleasure. There feels a certain urgency because my body is crawling on its knees and my mind’s dying on its feet. Miraculously, I’m able to amuse myself by writing and recording songs. I realise how lucky I am.”
The Cleansing is a eyes-wide-open journey through his life, while also unflinching in the face of its imminent end, whatever shape that takes. “It’s to do with the reawakening of the senses and the pleasure gained from that,” he agrees, “even if it’s a morbid pleasure.” Listen below to the first single, I Wanna Go With Dignity, featuring Bobby Gillespie:
The album was mainly produced in the room we’re sitting in, which is where Perrett is happiest. “Recording the songs is a pleasure, but everything that comes after is work.”
We agree to try and buck that.
The Life and Times of…
Peter Perrett
What was the first record you loved?
Like A Rollin’ Stone, by Bob Dylan. That was the first record where I thought, ‘My world has changed.’ The second record after that was the first Velvet Underground album. Like A Rollin’ Stone was the first time that I fell in love with a voice that I felt was communicating with me.
With the Velvet Underground it was just the sound of heaven and hell on one record. It was completely cathartic. I was lucky to discover it in September ’67, which was a long time before the rest of the world. You felt like you were the only person in the world who knew a secret.
And the last record you loved?
That’s difficult because I will age myself. The last record I really loved was Lou Reed’s Dirty Boulevard from his New York album.
Also, Romeo Had Juliette from that album. That was his renaissance really. He’d done shit for quite a long time before that. Those two songs are as good as any of his solo stuff.
What is your earliest memory?
I have vague memories of my childhood, but to position them in order at my age is not easy. One would be picking up the dog’s ball, the dog growling at me and then the dog disappearing because he was put to sleep for growling at me. A black and white springer spaniel. Really cute. My parents were terrified because it had been a difficult process to have me in the first place.
What is your daily domestic routine?
I wake up. I do my Five Rites, which are my five Buddhist rites – look it up online. At the moment, I do thirteen of each. You start off with five or seven of each and gradually increase by two. I do it twice. Once before breakfast, once after. I started doing that recently to get myself relatively fit for upcoming gigs. Then, if I need a shave, I shave. I had a shave today because I was meeting you, a special event in my life.
Then I go out for a walk, around ten thousand steps. My friend Douglas Hart started taking me on these walks to rehabilitate me after my broken hip. Without him, I walk up through Newington Green, around Clissold Park, back down the New River Walk. When I’m not with Douglas I do not deviate as I’m bad at making decisions. The swans have disappeared from my walk, though. That’s starting to depress me a little bit. They were a comfort, ‘Yeah, the swans are still here.’ But now they’re not. What, there are swans in Leytonstone, on Hollow Ponds? Hundreds?! You’ve got my swans!
Who or what is the love of your life?
Zena. Fifty-five years together. She’s put up with me so far. Lots of people wouldn’t have.
What's your worst habit?
Falling in love.
When were you most creatively satisfied?
Now. In the ‘70s, I only thought about having fun. I never thought that I was creating art and needed to give it the attention it deserves. Living without it for decades made me appreciate how lucky I was to have it as an outlet. Now, in the lyrics to my songs I am able to say something valuable. Whereas in real life I am just an idiot.
Has anyone you've met ever made you feel starstruck?
Lou Reed, I suppose. Starstruck to the point where I was unable to talk to him. I was a big Velvet Underground fan, but the original incarnation never toured England. In 1972, Lou had a band called The Tots and we went to every gig south of Cambridge. Eventually they started talking to us after the shows. They had a holiday let on the corner of Beaufort Street and the King’s Road in Chelsea, and they invited us back there. We’d just go there after every gig and hang out. A part of the attraction for the band was that I had an ample supply of hash, which they didn’t get in New York. They’d never seen such large lumps of it. That was an icebreaker.
Who or what is the greatest influence on your work?
Dylan and Lou Reed are the people I look up to. For ages in the ‘70s I tried my hardest not to sound like Lou Reed. That’s why we were called The Only Ones: I’m an individual! So, once I’d lost my mid-Atlantic accent people compared me to Syd Barrett. Really, we’re influenced by everything that happens to us every day of our lives from the moment we’re born. I’m hoping that this new double-album goes to places that are unexpected.
What would people be surprised to learn about you?
That I’m still here.
What are you scared of?
I’m scared of Zena dying before me. That’s the only thing I’m scared of. I’m not scared of spiders. I used to be scared of spiders, but heroin cured me of that. When you’re stoned on heroin, it’s just a fucking spider. I’m not sure I’d cope with Zena dying. I’d probably find solace in someone else, but I’d ruin their life because part of me will have died.
What do you wish the 18-year-old you knew?
That drugs can be harmful. That lungs were built to absorb oxygen. That anything that interferes with that process will make you pay for it in the end.
What one book would you recommend we read?
Because it introduced me to his other works, Slaughterhouse 5. I do like Kurt Vonnegut, he makes me laugh.
What was the home you grew up in like?
It was a flat that had two bedrooms, because one bedroom had been chopped in two. It was in Forest Hill, South-East London. Later, when my parents were still living in the flat, I had enough money to buy the house and ended up being their landlord. My dad insisted on paying me £6 a week rent: we had a weird relationship. I treated my parents like the enemy growing up. I had no interest in their lives whatsoever. I didn’t want to know what they’d done in the war. They sent me to boarding school, which I blamed them for, and set about successfully getting expelled from. It was like the school in the film If. I ran away when I was 12. They prevented me from doing what I wanted, and in the 1960s you felt you were creating a new world that would right all the wrongs of the old world. I didn’t want my parents to impinge on my way of life.
Eventually, I did find out about their lives, but mostly after they were dead. In the ‘70s, I met my half-sister. She was born in Palestine, living in New York. Turned out my mum was Jewish. Before, all I knew was that her family had died in the war, that had escaped to Palestine from Vienna, but I was more concerned with The Velvet Underground than looking beyond that. My father was in the Palestine police. My mother, it turned out, had my half-sister in 1942, but then met my father and fell in love. They used to court in the King David Hotel, which was later blown up. My mother, I think, was traumatised by the violence leading up the creation of Israel in 1948, having already been traumatised by WW2.
What's the best advice you've ever been given?
I didn’t heed it, obviously, but my father said you cut off your nose to spite your face. And he also said that you are your own worst enemy. I thought he was just a silly old man – but in hindsight, there was a little bit of truth in there.
What's the secret to a happy relationship?
Truth. Being honest to each other. That is what has kept Zena from walking, I think: I’ve never lied to her. I’ve divulged all my indiscretions. I think she believes that is an admirable quality in a human being. Also, we make each other laugh. The older you get, that is a survival tool that helps you not want to kill yourself. Each day that we don’t kill ourselves is a revolutionary act. I’m lucky to have a partner to share the journey. We share a gallows humour.
What's your greatest regret?
Inflicting my disease on Zena. She resisted taking hard drugs for the first five years that I was taking it, but eventually she succumbed. That’s my regret because her lungs are even more damaged than mine. We used to share everything exactly and she’s a smaller stature than me, so her lungs suffered more than mine even. In 2015 she had six weeks in hospital. I wrote the most depressing song I’ve ever written then, which I haven’t released yet. I have to save it for a posthumous album: it’s too depressing.
When and where were you happiest?
I was happy in 1976 when the Only Ones were in the process of forming. I thought I was happy when I was taking drugs, but it was an illusion.
What's your favourite film and why?
At the moment, La Strada. It makes me cry every time I watch it. When I was young 8 ½ was my favourite film, because intellectually it stimulated me. Now that I’m older, I like the emotional stimulation of La Strada. I like crying, and laughing, because it’s something I didn’t do all the years I was doing drugs. Being over sentimental, over sensitive is something to enjoy after not being able to feel for a long time.
Which living person do you most despise?
It’s going to be political and if you venture any of your political opinions you are going to alienate and upset half of the people. That’s the way democracy has been fashioned, to be a fifty-fifty thing…but I shan’t be going into that otherwise another hour will pass! [we have just spent thirty minutes discussing the Middle East off-the-record].
Do you have a temper? How does it manifest?
I used to have a terrible temper. The earliest that I can remember it manifesting was when I was eight. I’d been out playing football but couldn’t get into the flat. My anger built up to the point where I smashed all the heads off all my mother’s roses. She loved gardening. My dad immediately took the bicycle he’d bought for my birthday back and beat me with the thorns of the roses. At boarding school, I’d become so enraged that I’d just punch the first person I saw. The biggest attraction of heroin was that it calmed me down. It is a medicine. People take it for both physical and mental pain.
Which talent would you most like to have?
Being able to breath properly. I could jump around on stage then. I could play football again, which I really, really wish I’d played more when I was physically capable. Is breathing a talent?
Do you have any phobias?
Pleased to say I have none of the prevalent phobias that people have: Russophobia, Sinophobia and Islamophobia. I am well-adjusted.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Surviving. Surviving with the person who is my soulmate and the reason why I need to keep living.
TK