The Word Boy-- Star Hits, October 1984
When you meet up with Green of Scritti Politti, you'd better know about "criteria," "infantile disorders" and "reactionary America." Uh, my little brother ate my homework, says Mark Coleman. Scritti Politti are hardly your average pop group and Green Gartside, as you've no doubt realized, is much more than another pin-up boy with a good voice. The band's very name--Italian for political writing--should clue you in to Green's intellectual leanings. Interviewing Scritti's lanky singer/lyricist is something like meeting a professor whose course you're failing; he snorts and sighs with impatience, turns questions into answers and vice versa, scribble cryptically on every available sheet of paper while talking, pretends to doze off then delivers devastating critiques, staring intensely all the while with those disarmingly clear hazel eyes. So much for "How would you spend a rainy day?" What follows are some selected pearls of Green's wisdom, recorded live at the soapbox.
The first Scritti was myself and two other guys. I had been inspired by punk rock, so I set out to make a do-it-yourself record. I didn't have anybody to play my songs, so I got this old school friends of mine and taught him bass in three weeks and then we found a drummer who'd had a kit for four weeks. That first record was critically well-received in the U.K., so I began to take things a bit more seriously. By that time, 1980, we were into post-punk Britain and the emphasis was on improvisation and anxiety. Soon that became a little claustrophobic and repressive, so I set out to write some proper pop songs. That resulted in an album called Songs To Remember, which was poorly executed. It may have some charm, I don't know. Around that time, everybody from Spandau Ballet to the Human League and ABC were messing about with dance music--Brit funk--an appalling thing. I thought it'd be a good time to work with bona fide Americans, then I met David Gamson and Fred Maher and we hit it off quite well.
When we tour, we're going to do it on our own terms. It's more agony than it's worth. I've only played about 20 gigs, but at a few I got sick--I mean I physically vomited--before I went on stage. And then it got to the point where if I had to play a gig that night I'd be sick all day, then it got to the point where if I had two gigs the next week, I'd be sick the whole time. Just because you write a song doesn't mean you have to have the predisposition to get up in front of people and perform it.
...as a place though I find the people a bit difficult at times. I find how reactionary America is politically quite frightening, and the fact that Americans are very unwilling to participate in politics and discussions quite unnerving. But I do like Black American music very much.
I used to be on Rough Trade Records, and everyone on the label would go into the Rough Trade record shop and post their Top Twenty of the week. That was a ridiculously juvenile and arrogant little pastime, but people would do it. And the weirder and more obscure stuff you could pack your Top Twenty with, the better. I got so heartily sick of this. The ultimate way to be different was to put in stuff that really was popular, contemporary and exciting like the Jacksons and Shalamar.
There are only records that will successfully or otherwise fulfill a certain criteria at certain times and those criteria are kind of historically determined rather than being determined by the unconscious of any individual or a handful of individuals.
None of the listeners have any access to the emotions and intentions that inform the song. They're just presented with a piece of plastic with you wailing on it and smacking your guitar--which is only interesting for so long. And I'd rather that somebody else did that than me. There'll always be suckers that come along and do that.
...and you can sing in a squeaky voice if you want to. I physically changed how I sang from something that was laconically English and very influenced by people like Robert Wyatt (British art-rocker turned leftist folk singer--Politically Correct Ed.) to something that was more influenced by a certain school of black male singers. Not that I think I'm anywhere near the same category as them.
I've got the top two floors of a place in Islington (a London neighbourhood). There's a nice square outside, lots of trees. It's a very old house, over two hundred years old and it's got lots of charm, character and someone else's furniture in it.
...I used to have a fascination with going back to pre-industrial England. When I was very small I used to mime to records with the tennis racket. Then after about the age of eight I never thought of being a "pop star" until punk rock. And then I didn't ever think of becoming a "pop star"--I thought about making music.
I didn't ever want to be a solo singer--I like the idea of a group much better. It's much more of an honest representation of how the music's made--it is sort of a social activity. Also, I would feel very uncomfortable appearing solely responsible for it all. I'm not always the most outgoing of people. I mean I'm not bad, but...
So I'm quite looking forward to doing something else. Which isn't to say I'm tired--I really enjoy what I'm doing now, but I wouldn't like to be doing it forever. I was going to be a barrister (Britspeak for lawyer--Semantics Ed.), I quite fancy being a barrister. Or going back to academia or writing or something. But something totally removed.
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