The Hit magazine - November 1985 
Interview by Marc Issue

Green of Scritti Politti may or may not be the Cleverest Man In The Known Universe. But the fact is that books of big words helped get him where his is today - out of jumble sale suits, into the charts, and writing songs for Chaka Khan.

Scritti Politti began among a group of friends at art school in Leeds. They moved to London, released several singles in the lale '70s including 'Skank Bloc Bologna' and 'Bibbly O Tek', then Green's failing health caused a lull in their activities.

They returned in 1981 wilh a classic single 'The Sweetest Girl' which is covered by Madness on their new LP. 1982 saw the release of their first LP 'Songs To Remember', which turned out also to be their only album in the original line-up. They left Rough Trade and all the members of the band drifted apart - everyone is vague about the exact circumstances.

Green reappeared as Scritti Politti last year, turning out numerous hit singles - 'Wood Beez', 'Absolute', 'Hypnotize', 'The Word Girl' and 'Perfect Way' - all of which are to be found on the glamorously packaged and impeccably turned out 'Cupid And Psyche 85' LP. Current line-up: Green Gartside (guitar and vocals), David Gamson (keyboards), Fred Maher (drums).


Scritti Politti shock expose!
How's that for a kick-off? Contrary to popular legend, Green Gartside does not know everything. If it's convenient to call Green the Cleverest Man In The Known Universe, that's only because it's convenient for pop writers to assign pop stars with their own special superlative.

For some reason I started off by asking him if he was technically minded at all. The Scritti Politti records are amongst the most seamless and polished of pop sounds, after all...

"No, I'm not particularly interested in getting into the works of things. I suppose I could, but David (Gamson) knows more about sequencers and stuff than I do. There's no necessity for me to know about them. I take an interest in them, but I couldn't fix it if any of it broke down."

"I don't know how televisions work, I don't know what keeps jet aircraft in the sky or anything like that, I genuinely don't. There is something fundamentally troublesome about keeping all those tons of metal in the air... but I'm happy for those things to remain a mystery to me."

"There are other things that I'm quite interested in sorting out what there is to say about, like power or ideology. But televisions and toasters... no."

Green Gartside is one of us after all, surprise surprise. Now we can get on with the interview. The influence of Green's studies in politics, language and philosophy can be jolly frightening to some people. How for instance do such things affect his day to day business of being a pop star?

"Lloyd Cole, I think, said that for all I know about Derrida (highbrow French author), it isn't going to help me write hit records. But it's partly through my reading that I stopped doing 'marginal music' and went towards 'mainstream music'. It was theory, really, that propelled me out of Rough Trade and into... whatever the mainstream entails. So arguably it does have some effect on your commercial standing."

"I've been getting back into reading again lately. It gives you something else to get a sense of accomplishment with, when you've got through it, so when you put that down and pick up a guitar or whatever, it seems that much better somehow. This week I've been trying to write a new song, and to finish off a song I've been doing for Chaka Khan, and to read some Derrida. It makes for great days!"

"I get up and decide what I'm gonna do first, and say I'll go and do a song, then I'll get fed up with that so I'll go and do a bit of reading, and I make progress through all three of them... and then in the evening I go out and get smashed!"

"I've written the tune for the Chaka Khan song, and it's going on the next album, so we start recording in two weeks."

Is this Chaka Khan song the first you've written for someone else?
"Yes. They got in touch and asked me to do it... she's a 'fan', she likes what I do, and we'd met a couple of times and we were supposed to have done some things together before. I'm writing the song and singing on it with her and I'm co-producing it..."

How is it different, writing for someone else?
"As far as the melody is concerned, the tune and so forth, it's just like something I would have written for myself. The lyrics are more trouble than I thought they'd be. I'd feel awkward dropping in my references to... wordy Frenchmen, in a song she has to sing, and yet I still want it to say something."

Do you feel sincere about being a pop musician, or do you feel like a 'Pop Star', in quotation marks?
"Yeah, I feel sincere about it, although I think sincerity for its own sake isn't always a good thing - I'm sure Hitler was sincere, you know? There's no particular merit in sincerity, but if the question is whether I take what I do seriously, then yes, definitely, because it gives me more pleasure than anything else I know, to write and produce music..."

What about the public routines involved in being a Pop Star?
"Those do get increasingly uncomfortable. When you're languishing away at Rough Trade, you're thinking all the time that the glossy pop magazines are full of herberts, and they ought instead to be talking to somebody worthwhile, like me - which is a ridiculous attitude, but you can't help having it. But then once you get there... all I can say is I'm getting more uncomfortable with it."

What do you think about the original Scritti Politti records now?
"I feel a whole mish-mash of things about them, which range from fondness through guilt and embarrasment. I think essentially there was something wrong in the way we went about things, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was."

Can you separate the idea of making memorable music from the idea of having hit records?
"It's funny, you get into a position where the charts are very important to you, but the music that influences you, that matters to you, has nothing to do with the charts at all. A record's position in the charts has never influenced its significance for me one way or the other, and I'm sure that will always be the case."

"I don't see it as competitive. Making records that aren't hits doesn't stop them being good records, or important records. One tries... you don't try to have hits, you try to make records that sound nice... I think."

How and why would you stop?
"A number of things would occasion me to stop. A sufficient degree of success, or a sufficient degree of failure."

"A lack of confidence would occasion me to stop, and that's something I'm always prone to. The other thing would be displeasure at all the machinations that have to go with making music, if it's to be brought to the public's attention. One of those things will get me."

Assuming that it wasn't enormous success that got you, assuming that you didn't make enough money to lounge by a pool reading books for the rest of your days, how might you occupy your time?
"I'd probably scoot back to academic life for a while. I don't know really. I can imagine trying to eke out some sort of existence in Hollywood. I can also imagine going to live in the Caribbean and working in a factory or a garage or something."

"The Caribbean is a great place, I've been there three times now and it agrees with me terribly well. It'd be a nice place to go and die. I'll probably do none of those things."

"I was trying for a while to be a lawyer. The idea of law interests me somewhat, but there are a lot of problems - law in the High Street can be just a long succession of people buying houses and wanting divorces."

"I dunno... I was brought up to worry very much about what I would be doing for the rest of my life. Right from when I was small, I was always led to think about what I would be doing when I was 40. Once you've stepped out of all that, it's difficult to think about the future..."

It strikes me that Green's hopes, fears, dreams and desires have not been drastically affected by his studies. Basically he wants the same things that almost all the other pop musicians I ever spoke to wanted.

True, he has a rather different vocabulary to the Robert Smiths and the Paul Wellers and the Marc Almonds, but there is one very simple reason why Green Gartside has elected to pursue a 'career' in pop music. It suits him down to the ground.