Dig It! Magazine

Martin Newell is a poet and musician who was kind enough to agree on doing this interview with me.

He recently started doing gigs after years of not doing them and he also has a new album out called K7 which is definitely worth listening to as it is another great piece of art.

I am very honoured and happy to be able to share this with whoever may be reading my article. Hope you enjoy!

Your most recent album is definitely a success, you started doing gigs after years of not doing them. How do you feel about it all?

Well, I’m being careful about gigs because there are too many terrible old men of my age, and younger actually who are doing gigs lumbering around like amnesic bison.

I came from a tradition of rock and roll where you kind of dressed up in a silly fashion and it wasn’t so serious and I want to do that but obviously, one of my problems with it is that it takes up an awful lot of time and energy to go out and be good. 

You know it’s actually a bother to dress up and to learn the stuff and not being admired in musicianship, and a lot of guys my age just play a lot of blues and stuff which, not to disparage the blues, but I’m not interested in doing it because it’s not my music and it’s not my roots.

I came from the English Suburbs, in the south because I’m fashionable as it may seem and these are the things that have influenced me and these are the stories I tell because no one cripples with an old bluesman who sings about watching the railroad tracks or something. I don’t know that because that’s not where I grew up, I mean when you’re English, it would be very dark if you were about to sing about road 66 or something, I’ve never been there! On the other hand I’ve been to the corner shop!

You are the pioneer of indie music, with many musical inventions, what do you think of today’s music if you keep up with it?

I do actually keep up with music. I like young hip-hop guys, it’s kinda minimal and they don’t seem to be obeying any of the rules that a serious rock musician would do like you gotta do this! you gotta have that, And here comes the bass and the drums and the guitar solo!

So I’m not very interested in that. I’m interested in how you’re gonna sound with just a beat and then you put some weird sound on it, then the voice comes in. The only people I can see doing that are young black British guys and women. They seem to be going at it with a completely different angle and what I don’t like is the kind of disco stuff people put out, it’s just a wedge of sound with the same line repeated over and over again, and I think this is what young people like but no it’s not what young people like! It’s what record producers and executives think young people like.

No one of my age or below me seems to think young people are any different, they’re human beings, they must be the same people like I was. I didn’t like what the radio was playing in my generation when I was younger. I thought it was bad and it was done by sort of these rather condescending gentlemen talking down to the kids ‘let’s play this rubbish over and over again’, some piece of rubbish by some fat bastards who I hate and still do but they don’t understand what’s going on.

How does inspiration strike? Is there a go to way of capturing them in the moment?

I’m gonna start recording an album soon. Inspiration just strikes me, it just happens, it’s a mixture of a feeling and something I may have observed and I make notes, just write out things worth remembering or I see a person hobbling over the street right now or someone else was having an argument, you can just start to write those details down like a novelist and then the tune might come up and also you need to be at a work station really. 

Also it’s like a well, if i’m writing a lot for a little bit, the well fills up naturally, but you do have to be at a work station. You’re not gonna get up in the morning with a hangover and then go to the pub and then maybe smoke a joint and be like ‘alright! I’m in the zone now so i’ll start writing.’ Which is very cliché to do and I’m not like that. I think ‘Hey, I’m gonna do an album’ so I get up early, put a great shirt on and then go to work just like everyone else and I think that’s funny.

Do you have any crazy stories or fan encounters while you were on tour or doing a gig?

Yeah I do! I’ve been gigging lately and that’s the first time in ages, I’ve been bloody amazed by it! I go on stage and there’s this roar that comes from people and sometimes the whole audience knows all the words which I’m flabbergasted by. I used to have to work for it a lot in the old days.

When I was doing music in the first few early years really, when I started I was about 19 to up till my mid thirties people of my age didn’t like and didn’t understand what I was doing. They weren’t interested in what I was doing and sometimes didn’t like what I was doing and were vocal about it too. Especially other musicians. They thought it was strange that I wasn’t doing what they were doing. They thought there was a prescribed way of doing rock or you need to have this attitude. They’re all people who are like me or older who are very keen to tell you ‘I was a punk. I was an original punk” and I thought: I was around all that time and I wasn’t a punk, I was never a punk. I saw no reason to get my hair cut or start wearing ripped clothes or anything because I always liked diligence and a some sort of showbiz flash and camp. I’ve always liked that.

On the other hand, I didn’t like the show off-y rock bands, like Coldplay. I know they’re very important and I know they’re all supposed to be really nice guys, but the fact of the matter is whenever I see a picture of them, they all look like a group of floor layers. See, all that money they make they could wear something really good like space suits but they chose to be carpet fitters. I don’t know why they do that! *laughs*

The other night when I was at the theatre, I was in the dressing room and it was freezing so I thought Well I’ve got a boyband wig here and I’ve got an 18th century hat so I thought which one should I wear? Why don’t I wear them both! And it looked pretty good *laughs* and it did look good on stage because I know that people who have seen me were like what the fuck is that old guy doing? But it’s entertainment, when you’ve got a chance to play for people, you might as well entertain them! Sing a few songs, it’s humour, I’m as much of a comedian as I am a poet. I don’t see why I can’t do all of them.

Captain Sensible who is my dear friend and colleague, he plays in the band called The Damned, he was a hippie in the first place, and I said to Captain: ‘I’ve got to do this TV thing and I’m wondering whether I should dress up like this or that’ and he said ’I’m the wrong person to ask, my dignity went out the window fucking years ago!’ *laughs* 

He’s another clown, he’s really good. He might go on stage dressed like a British schoolgirl, and one day he came out dressed as a chef! Or a pantomime or a court jester, so he’s a kind of a man after his heart really.

But most musicians take themselves far too seriously, but David Bowie and Prince were good, these are good guys.

Back to the question, I’ve been applauded and appreciated by fans and my manager who is usually in office and does a bit of singing but she’s an extraordinary woman, she sets up the merch table, and during the break between my two sets she makes me come out and sign everything which is a really good idea. So instead of being a star, i’m out there just signing things and meeting people and it’s really nice! It’s nice to be appreciated. 

There’s this one place called St Pancras Old Church which I’ve played, every time I play there somewhere in the second half, I come on stage and the bell rings. I was just about to play a song and I said ‘you know what! I don’t think -because I always try not to swear in church because of respect, because I do swear a lot-, I try really really hard not to. So I said I don’t think i’ve sworn once tonight! And suddenly this bell goes dummm like that! And the whole audience just broke off and it did it again so that was pretty funny *laughs*

But apart from that, nothing outrageous happened, although I do occasionally meet people from the past, people I haven’t seen in ages and that is both moving and sort of slightly shocking but that’s all.

Is there something you’ve always wanted to talk about while being interviewed but no one seemed to ask?

Umm, not really, I’m going for anything really. I don’t really have any hobbies and I wanted to do music and writing and I ended up doing it and I’m quite happy doing it. I’m quite good at office work. Bu there are certain things I’m quite good at, I can brew beer! I used to brew beer, I taught myself how to in my 20s because I had no money and wanted to be drunk, so I got myself a book and learned how to do it and became quite popular with it. So people would come around my house and things like that, and I like cooking, I’m no good at it but I’m a reasonable cook. 

And I like to subject myself to a certain amount of real life, where I live, which is a small town, some of the people know me, but because of the internet, there are people who just thought I was a kind of failed musician or a peculiar person who did a bit of writing but they didn’t actually realise I was one of England’s most published living poets or that I was a pop star to certain people or some kind of rock star. They didn’t believe it and they thought it was fake because I have a small house and  I don’t do anything extravagant , I don’t go around driving a Rolls Royce because I can’t drive because i’m dyspraxic, but they realised ‘he really did all that stuff!’ and now they don’t know what to say or how to treat me anymore so it’s a bit strange. Sometimes I see people nudging each other on the street, newly moved in people from London, and they look me up on Wikipedia and it’s odd, it’s kind of revenge as well, which is great.

How did you get the name Cleaners from Venus?

We actually can’t agree on that. It was me and Lol in the pub and somebody said, why don’t we call ourselves Cleaners From Venus? We actually don’t remember! Because he was always stoned and I was always drinking, but it was something we would’ve called ourselves anyway because we were both cleaners at the time. Scrawny young guys interested in music really, we didn’t think anything would happen! 

Songs that are now known to millions, especially in America and Australia and we could only do it on a Monday because that was the only day we had off for music and I had a girlfriend at the time who wasn’t crazy about me doing music and one day Lol came around and we made a track and something technical happened with the tape and while I was trying to sort that out, I spilled water over it and then the carpet went up in flames! *laughs* a real Cleaners From Venus recording session.

So that’s how we began and we didn’t take it seriously because we made a few cassettes and when we played it to people who were a bit more conventional, they heard all these songs about aliens and screechy noises and people shouting and they’d think what the fuck? They were shocked at how uncommercial it was and now it’s all famous because there’s a generation that actually understands what we are doing, even though they are very lo-fi.

If somebody said would you like to go and record these songs at abby road studios? we would’ve been there on the next bus! Because we couldn’t afford the train *laughs* we just never had the money.

We were a couple of dysfunctional individuals who met each other and started making music, but in the end, at hearts we are musicians, the music did emerge on its own and it got better gradually I think.

Because i’m old, i’d do something different but I still put sheep noises on everything because there’s always a place where you’d find a sheep somewhere in the record because I find it funny when you got something serious going on and then you hear a farm animal intervene because that does happen quite often and I just leave it on the tape

Last few words..

We’ve got a new record out called K7, I’ve got a couple of months to start a new one and then in March, I go back out to do some more gigs. (More on that, check Martin’s instagram or website!)

Thanks for reading!

I do not own any of the pictures seen in the article. For info or anything head over to @digitmusicmagazine on instagram or email me at: digitmusicmagazine@gmail.com