The New Cue #432 October 28: Gavin Friday - singer, composer, U2's creative director and former Virgin Prune.

"This guy grabbed me by the throat, took out a gun and put it to my head..."

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin…

Many years ago, at a time known as the 1970s, in the Northside of Dublin, near a suburb by the airport called Ballymun, on a road named Cedarwood, there lived a group of boys who met at a house party when one of the boys, a gatecrasher named Fionan, was caught raiding the fridge. They were 14-years-old. A mixture of Catholics and Protestants, each reared in households dominated by strict patriarchs, they nevertheless belonged to a new rock’n’roll generation of Dubliners, their ambitions about to be set ablaze by the coming punk storm.

They forged a lifelong fraternal bond, going as far as renaming each other based upon their appearances. Derek Rowen became Guggi, his brother Trevor became Strongman. Fionan became Gavin Friday, Paul Hewson - who’d caught Fionan stealing at that house party - became Bono. David Evans became Edge. “Do we live in Lypton Village now?” asked Bono of the others. Laughing, they all agreed that they did.

Lypton Village was their arty street gang, and, like all arty street gangs, they splintered into bands. Bono and Edge formed U2. You may have heard of them. Edge’s elder brother Dik soon swapped guitar playing with U2 to team up with Guggi, Gavin and the others in The Virgin Prunes, their flight of extreme art-punk fancy. If you wish to understand how subversive and confrontational the sight and sound of The Virgin Prunes performing a kind of theatrical gothic music hall, while fronted by men in make-up and often skirts was in late ‘70s Ireland, please enjoy this 1979 performance on Irish TV institution, The Late Late Show:

While not quite matching the commercial heights of their brethren in U2, The Virgin Prunes nevertheless enjoyed a good career, mostly forged in the goth heartlands of central Europe - particularly France - before splitting in 1986. Guggi became a painter of some renown, while Gavin Friday grew into a man of many successful strings attached to his bow: he produced soundtracks and film scores, wrote songs for others, such as Sinead O’Connor, and delivered a half dozen of his own solo albums - the most recent of which, the throbbing electro confessional Ecce Homo, he crafted alongside David Ball, and released last week.

Since the mid-80s, he’s also been U2’s Creative Director. Ted called Gavin at home last week for our Life & Times Questionnaire, but first he asked him what exactly U2’s Creative Director does.

“It’s as simple as this,” he explains, affably. “When we were 15 and starting to write songs, they’d play something and I’d go, ‘That’s great, but where’s the hook? What are you saying in that chorus?’ Fifty years later, I still do it. When Joshua Tree went off, I got a call from Bono saying, ‘We’re playing to eighty thousand a night, but everyone is blowing smoke up our arse: will you come watch a few shows and help us make it better?’ And that that was the start of it, a more sophisticated version of what we were doing at 15. Mates say it as it is.”

That settled, we begin our main task. Enjoy the edition, see you on Wednesday for some Pixies action.

Ted and Niall.

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The Life & Times Of…Gavin Friday

What was the first record you loved?
Marc Bolan, T-Rex. I was the eldest in my family. I’m 65, so I was born late ’59. There was no record player in the house. I had nothing to do with the sixties, the Beatles, any of that. It was 1971, T-Rex on Top of the Pops. I fell in love: Ride a White Swan, Metal Guru.

And the last?
Lankum, the Irish band, their album. It’s an extraordinary thing that’s going on in Irish music. It’s no longer the didily-eye thing. It’s a ritualistic, pre-Christian Celt, almost a Pagan thing…sort of what the Virgin Prunes were about. If anyone is alive who may have seen us, we were quite ritualistic too:

But there was something extraordinary about the Lankum album.

What is your earliest memory? 
It’s tragic, in a lowkey, minor way. I remember sitting on a wall with my cousin Lorraine, who’s basically the same age as me. She pushed me off the wall and I hit my head. I had to go to the hospital, and I think I subsequently wore an eye patch for a year or so. I was about two or three.

What is your daily domestic routine?
The dogs. Walking the dogs. I had two, one of them died recently. They’re long-haired dachshunds and I absolutely adore my walk with the dogs. It became my mindfulness thing. I don’t bring the phone. It helps me work things out, to get away from computers, get away from the noise, and to see nature the way dogs do, that changes you. Looking around thinking, ‘Jesus, I never fucking knew this!’ It’s a routine whereby if I don’t do it, I’m in trouble.   

Who or what is the love of your life?
I have a partner, a man called Patrick. And I have one dog left called Stan. So, Patrick and Stan are the loves of my life.

What's your worst habit? 
Away from the smoking, which I still do if I’m wired or drinking, ooh…I find it quite hard to say no. I’m a Libran and they say Libran are slow to make their minds up and when they do, they’re very stubborn. So, indecisiveness – sometimes.  

Has anyone you've met ever made you feel starstruck? 
Two people. And I’ve met an awful lot of people. I’d just finished my second solo album, Adam and Eve, and we were working in New York. I’d got the final CD version and I was leaving to go back to the hotel, then Dublin. It was pissing with rain. I saw this person walking in the rain with a big fedora hat and a cane: ‘Oh my God, it’s Quentin fucking Crisp!’ Walking in the rain in SoHo, New York. I went up to him, ‘Quentin Crisp?’ ‘Oh hello!’ It was the full Quentin Crisp performance, just like when you’ve seen him on TV. I gave him a CD – why?! ‘I don’t have a CD player, but I will put it on my mantlepiece.’ I was actually a little starstruck.

The other time was Leonard Cohen. I was working with U2 in Los Angeles, I think the 360 show. I was furiously writing my notes in front of the mixing desk and someone tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Gav?’ Yeah, yeah! ‘Gav!’ I’m working. ‘Gav!’ I spun around and there was this small man just standing there: it was Leonard Cohen. ‘Hello Gavin, I was told to introduce myself.’ I actually went, ‘I’ve got all your albums!’ Like a ten-year-old. He just smiled. Later that evening we did sit and talk, and I met him subsequently, but he made me starstruck.

Who or what is the greatest influence on your work?
Who is complex, but there’s no doubt that Bowie opened up that door. For kids who grew up through his greatness – which went on to his death – one of his gifts was as a diviner. He introduced you to other bands, to books. I didn’t know who the Velvet Underground were when I was 12, but I did when I was 13 when he told us; I didn’t know who Jack Kerouac was, but I did when Bowie said I should. Trying to read Jean Genet because I thought it was about The Jean Genie. I didn’t have a clue, but he opened a door that revealed a world to me and I’m indebted to him.

Then, in France, where The Virgin Prunes were unusually successful, in the old days if you did an interview the journalist would take you out to dinner. It’s mad. I’m talking about the ‘80s, when journalism was talking for four hours, then a dinner, then drinks back at the journalist’s house, and they’re talking art, literature, spitting while they talk. This one guy took me to his big old apartment and played me this video of Jacques Brel, his last performance, in Paris in 1967. It was that shock of Bowie in ’72, Lydon in ’76…I have no idea what he’s saying but I understood everything. I became an obsessive. He influenced me on a performance level more than anyone. There’s nothing fey or bespoke about it. He was blood and guts, he could talk about tiny emotional things or politics, sex, violence, he was the A-Z and back again for me:

If you could go back in time, where would you go?
Not too far, because I think I’d be shovelling shit like a peasant. University for me was the Virgin Prunes, because we went to different countries, cultures, toured for six years in central Europe. I fell in love with Brecht and Weil, Germany between the wars. I’d love to be at a performance of the Three Penny Opera with Lotte Lenya in the lead role, in Berlin in 1928.

Lotte Lenya performing The Three Penny Opera.

What one book would you recommend we read?
The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde. One of the first books I really read. It’s Faust, it’s art, it’s selling your soul to the devil. It so beautifully written and actually the only book he wrote, as opposed to plays, poems, essays.

What was the home you grew up in like?
It was Cedarwood Road, the infamous road where most of the Virgin Prunes and Bono came from. Northside, Dublin. I lived in the cul-de-sac, which was Catholic and the top end was Protestant. Working class, but upper working class. It was rough because Dublin in the 1970s was. The ‘70s, 80s weren’t fucking fun economically in Ireland, or England. Dublin was rough. Like Liverpool or Manchester, you get a fucking headbutt if you look the wrong way. The fighting Irish. I don’t have any fuzzy feelings about growing up in Dublin.

U2’s Cedarwood Road, live in Paris in 2015, dedicated here to ‘Gavin, Guggi…’

What's the best advice you've ever been given? 
My mother always said, ‘Trust your instincts: if you think it’s an arsehole, it usually is an arsehole.’ I would put that in almost everything in life, in people, in work, your environment. Trust your instinct.  

What's your greatest regret?
When I was younger, I was quite troubled, angsty. A volcano. A kid filled with rage. I probably regret if I hurt anybody. I said very cruel things: I never hurt anybody physically. But as a kid who was bullied, I became very good with a tongue of fire. I could fucking annihilate someone. I may have said harsh things that hurt deeper than physical hurt. Mark E Smith was very good at that too, yes. Oh my god was he! And I got on really well with him. I wasn’t a bit afraid of him. I found him gentle. But yeah, he could take down a building. Just the scowl could do it. It was a defence mechanism he turned into an art form.

Gavin Friday providing guest vocals on Copped It by the Fall, in 1984.

What's the worst thing anyone has ever said to you?
I’ve had some pretty bad things said to me! The way I looked as a young man, my god. In the Virgin Prunes our clothes were our bullet proof shields against all that stuff. I had a very hard time with my da, but I’m lucky as when he was dying he apologised to me so I don’t really have anything. If someone is a cunt, then that’s on them. I sound very mindful, but you sort of have to be. Don’t hold hurt and hate, it’s like a cancer.

When and where were you happiest?
I sound like a miserable bastard, but I don’t care. I think if life is a scale of ten, then happiness is three. I do know that I started to feel more relaxed with myself in my forties. It was pretty tough until then. But in my forties I went, Oh fuck this. Actually, I know one my happiest things: sitting in the dining room with six or seven of our mates, having dinner, a few bottles of wine, and we’re chatting. Not chatting about work, just chatting and laughing. That’s just the fucking business. Going to bed after laughing and talking? I love that.  

What's your favourite film and why? 
I have many. But me being an arty fucker, it’s The Night of the Hunter, by Charles Laughton, who was the Hunchback of Notre Dame. He directed one movie, which was this. Robert Mitchum is the lead actor. It’s like…David Lynch, Neil Jordan, Tom Waits all these people have carved entire careers out of it. It’s a fairy tale that frightens the fuck out of you.

Can you cook - what's your signature dish?
I can cook. I like cooking. I usually cook for eight people, but on what you call boxing day we have a thing called the Lost Souls Party where people who have no family come. So sometimes you are cooking for fifteen and I don’t mind that, squashing a chair in. But it’s pretty basic. It’s roast chicken, potatoes, I Iove a good stuffing, ha! I can do a lasagna, I can do this, but it’s basic. It’s just a roast, really.

Which living person do you most despise?
I’m not a fan of Donald Trump. Not a fan of Putin, either. But mostly Trump is who we should worry about right now. I think he’s a pig.

Have you ever broken the law? 
Yes. I’ve been arrested a few times, usually for looking how I looked in the Virgin Prunes. There was an incident, I remember, coming home on the bus in 1980. I had on the dress and the hair. I got upstairs on the bus and there are these skinheads up there, ‘Oh no, what the fuck!’ I was battered so much that the bus drove directly to the police station. When we got there, the five guys that did it kicked out the back window and jumped down, ran away. The police came in, grabbed me by the hair and threw in me in the cells. The bus conductor was telling them, ‘He didn’t do it!’ I was also arrested in Texas during a show, onstage, for wearing a feather boa during a song called Mr Pussy. I was told, ‘You better get that thing off your neck and stop being profane or else we got ways of treating people like you.’ They shut the gig down and the police came. That was 1996 in Texas.

When and why did you last cry? 
I cried when my dog Ralph passed, a year ago. Two days before that, Sinead O’Connor died. I cried then. If you’re tired or jet-lagged, E.T can get you. But the last time I physically broke down was for Sinead and my dog. A song can come on by her and I’ll go now. I had the privilege of working with the girl many times, so lots of her songs can do it. You Made Me The Thief of Your Heart, because we made it together:

But Jesus, listen to Noting Compares To You and you’re in a puddle.

What is your pet peeve?
Oh, so much. I’m really going off airports. Flying to the city of London from here, sometimes you have to say ‘Oh, give me twelve hours.’ For a fifty-minute flight. Flying, travel has become horrendous. Torture. I can’t stand it. Another thing I can’t stand, if you go to the supermarket and shopping trolleys don’t do what you want. They have their own way of directing. I’ve got a bad back and they’re pulling you everywhere. They weigh a ton, they’re pulling you around…I say it to my mates about the tyranny of trollies and they’re, like, ‘Are you alright there, Gav?’

What's the closest you've ever come to death?
I remember being in Amsterdam on the Each Man Kills tour. We had two girls in the band, clarinet and cello players, and Maurice Seezer. We’d finished the tour and had had a few glasses of champagne, a bottle of wine, and we were walking in beautiful Amsterdam, but we didn’t know where we were going, we were just walking and talking. We walked up this street and every antenna in my body went, ‘Fuck!’ This guy came up, grabbed me by the throat and took out a gun, put it to my head. ‘Give us your wallets!’ The girls start crying. I could see he was as high as a kite. I think I’d learnt over the years to relax in situations of high stress, and I just said, ‘Look, the girl is crying. Of course, we’ll give you our wallets, but we’ll give you our money, not credit cards…’ I talked us out of it. The four of us then crossed this little bridge and I went, ‘WHAT THE FUCK!?’ But I could feel him pulling the trigger. I thank all the bootboys who used to batter as a kid in the Virgin Prunes because it gave me that antenna for violence.

Do you have any phobias?
A lot. I really don’t like heights. I don’t like safety belts – that’s bad, I know. I don’t like the claustrophobia. But fear of heights comes from when I left school at 16 and I knew I was going to form a band, but I was made to get a job by my da on a building site, to make a man of me. Day one, the brickies sacked me. Day two, the chippies sacked me. Then the plasterers. Come to Friday, I was working with the roofers. It was when the scaffolding was all up. I got to the very top and I froze…they had to get the fire brigade, after an hour, to bring me down.   

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Being still able to make music the way I want to. Doing it my way, which sounds easy, but you know how tough the music industry has become in the last twenty years. So I’m proud that I’ve stuck to my guns.