Originally published in Rave-Up #6 (1983)
Interviews by Devorah Ostrov
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| Stiv fronting the Lords of the New Church - 1984 Photo: Devorah Ostrov |
One afternoon in 1981, I was hanging out at Stiv's London flat, chatting with a mutual friend. I hadn't been there for long when Stiv and his girlfriend Stacy (Anastasia Maisonneuve) ran upstairs from doing their laundry. At the top of the stairs, Stiv proudly announced that he'd formed a new group called The Lords of the New Church. "Great name!" I exclaimed. But I wondered, "Will it fit on a badge?"
Two years later, the Lords were touring the States for the second time in promotion of their eponymous debut LP on I.R.S. Records. The morning after their show at the Old Waldorf, I interviewed Nicky and Stiv at the hotel.
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| Nicky Turner on Portobello Road - 1984 Photo: Devorah Ostrov |
Part One: Nicky Turner (Lords' drummer/former Barracudas' drummer)
Q: Remember when you told me that Stiv and Brain were going to play at Le Kilt as a surprise? But then it fell through...
Nicky: Oh, yeah!
Q: Was that supposed to be the first Lords of the New Church show?
Nicky: No, that was when I first met Stiv. He was going to do a show with Brian, Glen Matlock, and Terry Chimes. He just never got anything together. They probably could've played about three songs.
Q: Is that when they asked you to join the band?
Nicky: Yeah! I was playing with the Barracudas that night, and I saw Stiv afterwards. He said, "You should come down and play with us." I said, "Great!" And then the French thing came up at the same time. We did one rehearsal and I said, "Let's do it" — free champagne, trip to Paris first class, all expenses paid.
Q: Were there any hard feelings when you left the Barracudas?
Nicky: Jeremy was a bit upset. He asked me to hang on in the hope that something might happen. But...
Q: Could you tell that the band was going to be successful from the beginning?
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| "Live for Today" 45 promo material (I.R.S. Records 1983) |
Nicky: I knew it would be big. And I know it's going to be much bigger. When we first got together, we had like three or four numbers and two of those were covers. In Paris, we did "Just Like Me" by Paul Revere and the Raiders. We did "I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night," a song from Stiv's Disconnected album, and "Girls Girls Girls" [the B-side of the "Open Your Eyes" single]. And that was it. But it just felt so good!
Q: How quickly did things progress after that first show?
Nicky: It took us about six months after that French gig to actually start playing properly. We did lots of support gigs in London; lots of little gigs with ten people. After we did the album, things started moving a little bit. We did an English tour, the first half of which was totally disastrous because the album hadn't come out, and no one came to see us at all.
Q: No one knew who you were?
Nicky: Not really. We tried to play it down because we wanted it to be a new band and stand up on its own. That's why we just put our surnames on the album, to try and keep it as low-key as possible. We didn't want people to have any preconceptions about the music. We weren't the new Dead Boys or the new Damned or whatever.
Q: I want to ask you about the change in music and style from the Barracudas to the Lords. Which is the real you?
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| The Lords outside the York Hotel in SF - 1982 L-R: Stiv fiddling with a camera, Dave pointing, Brian talking to Nicky & Nicky reacting. Photo: Devorah Ostrov |
Nicky: The real me? A namby-pamby pop star or an out-and-out revolutionary? I don't know. I've forgotten what the Barracudas were like.
Q: I have photos. I can refresh your memory.
Nicky: No! No! I'd rather you didn't, actually.
Q: I've heard that the band will be recording a new album soon.
Nicky: We're starting recording on April 26. It'll be out in June, I should think. Then we'll be back here again for about three months or so.
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| Nicky with the Barracudas - Dingwalls 1981 Photo: Devorah Ostrov |
Q: Three months? Wow!
Nicky: We have to do it. This is our "main market," as they say. We're not big in England at all; it's all Culture Club and very fashionable bands over there. We haven't played in England in the last nine or ten months. We've only played in Europe and over here. We'll get out there at some point, I suppose. With the next album, we'll play some more gigs there.
Q: Have you guys written anything for the next album yet?
Nicky: Uh... You know how lazy we are. We've got that song "Black Girl White Girl," which we played at the end last night. And we've got "Live for Today," which we did with Todd Rundgren. That's about it.
The phone rings and I excuse myself. As I reach the door, Nicky calls out...
Nicky: I was acting the real pop star the last time we were here, wasn't I? Drinks and drugs and debauchery...
Q: Are you behaving any better this time around?
Nicky: Noooo! Haha!
★ ★ ★
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| The Lords of the New Church outside the York Hotel in SF - 1982 L-R: Brian, Stiv, Nicky & Dave Photo: Devorah Ostrov |
Part Two: Stiv Bator (Lords' frontman/former Dead Boys' and Wanderers' frontman)
Stiv: I ain't in too great of shape. [He pulls up his sleeve to display his swollen arm.] I've got to get it drained out, but that's what the end of tours are for.
Q: Yesterday, you asked me about Anton LaVey and the Church of Satan in San Francisco, and you and Stacy had a Wiccan wedding last year... Are you into black magic as well as white magic?
Stiv: I'm into studying the occult, all different forms. Not necessarily for practice, but you know... The wedding... It predates Judaism and Christianity in England. It's the way people used to get married around the time of the Druids. I read about the ceremony and really liked it. It seemed more natural. For instance, the Druids — or the "Wiccans" — before they cut a limb off a tree, they'd say, "As I take from you, you'll take from me someday." They were a culture that was in tune with the Earth's magic.
We got married inside a five-candled pentagram with salt around it. And it was blessed by a sword. Everybody was kind of scared when they first saw it, but after they heard the words that we said... which were: "Join us as soul mates for eternity." The wedding lasts for a year and a day. If you want to continue, you just say the vows again.
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| Stiv (with Brian James) - 1986 Photo: Devorah Ostrov |
Stiv excuses himself to run down the street for breakfast. He returns a few minutes later with a Hostess cupcake and a carton of milk.
Q: Tell me about the political stance of the Lords. This seems to be a new development for you lyrically.
Stiv: We got political... Well, it first started when I was living in the desert in about '79. I was staying with a bunch of different bands when I first came out to LA — Pure Hell, Cheetah and me, Levi, and Angie Bowie... It's a weird combination! We were living right near the Spawn Ranch in the Mojave Desert, and I did a lot of acid sitting in the desert, thinking... I started putting down a lot of ideas. I was reading [The Book of] Revelation.
The politics, though... It's like when you're living in the eye of a hurricane, you don't see the damage. When I went to England, I could finally see what America was doing to the world; the effect it was having. From being outside it and being so close to Europe, and Russia's influence... So, this album is more or less blatant. I had all those chances to say something and never did. I thought this time — if it's my last time — I'm going to say it.
Q: This certainly isn't your last album, though.
Stiv: No! But just in case there's a born-again Hinckley in the crowd, you know.
Q: It almost happened in San Diego. I heard someone shot you with a BB gun.
Stiv: Yeah, close but no cigar.
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| The Lords open for The Police at The Golden Summernight concert in Germany - September 18, 1983 |
Q: What happened when the Lords played at the Old Waldorf last time? A lot of your fans were disappointed afterwards.
Stiv: Yeah... I was drunk off my ass. I kept missing the mike; I couldn't find it. In fact, that's the only thing I really remember onstage from the last time — walking around trying to look for the mike.
Q: I know you're still working on material for the second album, but Todd Rundgren produced "Live for Today"...
Stiv: Tell you what... Turn off your tape recorder for a second, and I'll play you "Live for Today."
He pops a cassette into a Boombox and plays me the Lords' toughened-up cover of the Grassroots 1967 folk-pop tune (originally called "Let's Live for Today"). When the tape finishes, Stiv picks up the conversation.
Stiv: After we finish the album, we're doing some dates in Germany. We were supposed to do Australia with the Police, but that fell through.
Q: How can you possibly play to the same audience as the Police?
Stiv: We did it in Gateshead, England. We won over most of the audience; they liked it. It's all like leather... We bring out their dirty dreams or something. I'm sort of the Anti-Sting!
* You can read my other interviews with Stiv here:
