It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 5:21 pm

All times are UTC




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 4 posts ] 
Author Message
PostPosted: Mon Aug 09, 2021 7:25 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Thu Jul 07, 2016 10:18 pm
Posts: 421
A little while ago someone uploaded to Instagram images of an interview with PJ from Les Inrockuptibles I'd never read before. It doesn't include anything groundbreaking but it's interesting in being an early article which shows Polly at her most brittle and awkward.

You can read the original text here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CR9vi58Jipy/. I think we've seen all the photos before. Of course what follows is what was originally English speech, translated into French and then translated back again. I ran it through Google Translate and then went through it to render it into a reasonably English idiom, but the initial paragraph where the writer is trying to set the scene is a bit obscure - I can't really get to the heart of the statement about fat and pigs - and there are a couple of odd bits. For instance, where PJ talks about Automatic Dlamini the word 'bande' can mean either a music group or a cassette tape, and which it originally was makes a difference to the sense of the sentence. Any French speakers can have a better go, perhaps!

And if you've never been to England's West Country, it really, really isn't like this.

11.6.1992
PJ Harvey, bare-breasted on the back of Dry, already record of the year: "This nudity isn’t mine, it’s the nakedness of our music." Between fat (totally lean music) and pork (in the mess of nature) rustic Polly Jean receives us in her own mournful country.

Interview: JD Beauvallet
Photos: Renaud Monfourny


Une Saison Blanche et Seche [A Dry White Season - allusion to a novel and movie]

Yeovil – the back of beyond. ‘L’Ouest-lointain’, the Far West, or West Country, as the English dismissively describe it. For them, it’s the equivalent of our Bourganeuf, Creuse. You’d swear you were in a bad Italian movie: The Sheriff of Yeovil or Fort Yeovil’s Not Answering Anymore ... The biggest concentration of Range Rovers in the world. But this isn’t Sentier or Deauville: they’re sheet metal vehicles covered with mud, carrying pigs, sheep, agricultural-strength rubber boots. There are more pigs in the fields, sheltered in huts straight out of Quest for Fire, than humans in the streets. To get here, you have to go past the menacing rocks of Stonehenge and accept the existence, as in Berry, of witches and dark forces.

PJ Harvey’s rock was born in the rock – her dad quarries, her mum carves, Polly sculpts. It’s Stone Age music, from the rustic to the basic. We are in the wastelands of Thomas Hardy, and nothing seems to have changed since Tess of the D’Urbervilles: "Of all the dreary and desolate places in the region, this was the most depressing. One could not find further from the beauty that artists and nature lovers look for in the countryside. It was negative, tragical beauty." Yeovil, the home of lost causes: a few young people try to forget their idleness by gathering around an austere church. But boredom wins every time. So we go to Tesco, a supermarket teleported in from Colorado, an outrageous symbol of modernism in this forgotten countryside. There’s nothing to do, and that’s why PJ Harvey loves nature.

Polly Jean likes to say 'at home', "a la maison”, as if the closed door of the family farm was enough to push back the emptiness that her role must impose: locked up in two ways, withdrawn in a small room which saw the birth of the terrible ‘Dry’ or ‘Happy and Bleeding’. The yokels have a genuine mistrust, you can almost imagine the cloves of garlic on the doorposts to repel the Evil One. Deep England does not like to talk. PJ leaves in London the rehearsed speeches of pop stars more focused on their public image than on their records. She believes she has nothing to sell, and only talks to us half-heartedly. A dismal, anonymous pub - "This is where I used to come when I skipped school" - by appointment - "If it were up to me, I would never have come to see you." She’s 22 years old, with an intimidating aplomb and eyes that would make the boldest looks turn aside: PJ Harvey will fight to the last to repel intruders. A much-loved witch.

You can't say I was particularly happy with the success of our album Dry. Of course I'm glad people bought it. But at the same time, I haven’t got used to it, used to this idea of success. I was not ready for this and I’m going through a very difficult time. The worst time of my life. I can't get used to such personal songs, written in my bedroom, ending up with anyone in the whole country ... It disturbs me greatly. The press damages me a lot. I'm just starting to realize how twisted people can be. They give a totally falsified image of me, disappointing me a lot. I lost a lot of illusions, I came to hate interviews ... Now that I’m in a strong position, I’ll take the opportunity to refuse to play this stupid game. If I make music it's only because I like to play, not to sell myself. I am absolutely not interested in seeing my photo in the newspapers. It's very dangerous for my music. I’d like to be able to devote myself to it a lot more, not to feel this disgust, this weariness. I had no idea what to expect. I didn't expect to end up as though I was on the sand of the arena.

You live in the open countryside. How has success affected your daily life?

My life has been turned upside down. Sometimes for the better: now it's very easy for me to think only of the music, of making a living from it. And that's what I've always wanted to do. But most of the time, it's for the worse. For the first time in my life, I know who my real friends are, the masks have fallen ... It saddens me a lot, some of them look at me from a different perspective. They are so convinced that I’ve changed that they end up changing themselves. My old schoolmates, the ones who pushed me around in the corridors, now treat me with awe like I'm no longer human, ask me for autographs. I hate this kind of situation. That's why I’m meeting you here, in Yeovil, and not in my little hamlet. Over there, people wouldn't leave us alone for a second.

Many musicians accept success as confirmation of their talent. Don't you need recognition?

I never needed to have it confirmed that our music is good. I don't think it is, anyway. That people buy Dry doesn't change my opinion of the record in any way. I can't understand how people manage to love it so much. This is just a starting point, nothing great. What I’m writing at the moment is much better. And even with that, nothing pleases me, everything disappoints me. I don't get any satisfaction from my work, only frustration. Dry’s songs were worth it when I wrote them. But I’ve learned a lot since then; those pieces are antiques to me. I've already written the second and third album in my mind, I know exactly where I want to go. I don't want to get stuck on Dry.

Two albums already prepared: not many groups can boast such ease of writing.

But it's not easy, never! It's exhausting, depressing, it drives me crazy. I end up hating myself every time I write. I’m in one of these periods today: I feel good for nothing, zero ... It's been like that since the first day, I’m unable to be happy with myself. I was expecting things to get worse, to come under pressure now that we've signed with Island and have to release an album early next year ... But no, nothing has changed, it’s always this exhausting. And then I have additional motivation now: I know my songs will be heard. This is the first time I've written knowing it. Not a word of Dry was supposed to be heard by anyone. I needed to talk to me, that's all. I have always liked to write; prose or even just words have always fascinated me. And the day I was given my guitar, it seemed natural to me to write lyrics to put to music. No one was allowed to hear my songs. I thought of them as a confrontation with myself, a necessity. I always need to be faced with a sheet of paper. It’s not really therapy, because nothing has been cured yet ... Therapy is playing in concert. There, yes, I have the impression of taking care of myself, of getting better. That’s where I find the most pleasure. It's not just a way to vent my anger and frustration, it's also the easiest way to laugh and have fun. My main source of happiness.

Rubber boots are my whole life

I tried to leave the Dorset countryside and settle in London. I lived there for six months, but couldn't hold out. I had to come back here. It was the first time I left home, my parents. And everything descended on me: the record, the press, success ... It was too heavy for me to carry, I had to come back to the country. I need to live away from all this agitation, not to be part of the music business. Those people helped me, they showed me how much everything in music depended on money. I’ve lost a lot of my faith in human nature since I went to London. Men disappointed me a lot. I much prefer to live here, with my parents.

Did you miss their protection?

I’ve never been a protected, coddled child. It’s a completely false image the press tries to stick to me. I never lived as a recluse, there were always lots of people at home. My parents organized jazz and rhythm'n'blues concerts in the surrounding villages and the groups slept at our house every time. We were full every weekend, bands from London were fighting to get here.

I find it hard to imagine rubber boots on your feet in the fields …

Yet that’s my spitting image! I love nature, animals. The fields, wellie boots, it's my whole life (smile) ... I take care of the sheep all the time: I feed them, I bottle-feed some of them, take care of the lambing. I go horseriding and take long walks, these are my favourite activities. I wake up very early in the morning, play the guitar for hours, take care of the house, the gardening, help my dad with the lambing in season – that’s what I’m doing now. Animals are wonderful company: I have two cats, a few sheep. We had a dog and cows, but they died. I much prefer being with them than with show business people. I don’t like the crowd, the people. I need to be alone, in calmness. I like the silence, not to see anyone.

We often talk about the frustration of young people living in small provincial towns: the impression of being forgotten, trapped.

That’s something that I felt too. There have been times of enormous frustration. But all of this was swept away the day I moved to London. Then I began to appreciate my countryside is really worth. Even though I sometimes feel like I live isolated from the rest of the world, I think that's an advantage. It drives me to extremism in a lot of areas ... I try to get the most out of everything I do. At the moment it’s music. I don't know what it will be like in five years. I want our music to become more and more extreme. I think it's a normal reaction when you've had a childhood like mine, far from everything, far from everyone. It forces you to live your passions to the end. This is the only way to meet my needs. Even if I haven’t succeeded yet. So I try, again and again. Even if it means driving myself mad with rage.

Isn't this frustration even worse for girls in the countryside? They’re supposed to become good housewives, good mothers, without ambition.

Girls are expected to conform to stereotypes even more, that's true. Yesterday evening, in the small pub in my village, the boss said that a woman's role was to cook, to clean, to work ... My family didn’t understand it that way, they argued. And I was there, in the middle, I couldn't say anything. People here are like that, that's just how it is. It doesn't especially make things that difficult for girls like me, those stereotypes are easy to resist. Nobody forces you to fall into this ease, this laziness. I’ve never considered myself as a rebel, in a struggle with society. After all, maybe it’s other women who are the extremists and I’m the normal one. All the girls I was at school with refused to become housewives, they all got out of it one way or another. I never felt I was a prisoner of the local mentality. Except around 15 years old ... There, yes, I got into the trap, I wanted to run away. Cities fascinated me, I dreamed of them. Coming here, to Yeovil, was already an expedition for me, a big day out, I was going to the town, there were shops, all those things that you never saw in the village. I was scared to see so many people, so many things.

How did you see the future then?

It kept changing. For years, my only ambition was to become a vet, then a nurse. It was around 11 years old that I started to have a passion for music. I then learned the sax and then played in a few jazz groups. I was even part of a big band for quite a long time (smile) ... Then I started playing the guitar and I realized that I liked music more than anything. My latest passion up till now was sculpture. Last year I even landed a place in a London college. But the record came along and my studies fell apart. Without it, I had would have left for three years of studying sculpture.

Were you happy to be a little girl, or rather a tomboy?

I was a real tomboy, until I was 14 when I wore a skirt for the first time in my life. I dreamed of being a boy, it almost became an illness. My only company was my brother's friends. There wasn’t a single girl in our gang, nor were there any in the area. I never had any girlfriends, girls didn't interest me and were totally foreign to me. To be a tomboy to that degree is bordering on unhealthy. All I was interested in was playing war with the guys from the village. We were building military camps in the fields, we were fighting non-stop. I above all didn’t want girls around us, they pissed me off with their stupid dolls.

Didn't that worry your parents?

I never asked them that question. I’ll ask them tonight when I get home. But they must have been worried when they saw me reach the age of 14, still acting as a boy ... My parents weren't the type to lecture me. They were very open, straight from the hippie generation. I could do whatever I wanted, they never pushed me in a specific direction. For them, children must do what they want, even if it means learning from their mistakes. They’re delighted that I make a living by making music, they often come to see me in concert, they’ve always supported me. It is also for mum that I recorded a cover of ‘Highway 61 Revisited’ by Dylan. For her, he’s a kind of god, an icon. The only reason they organized concerts in village halls in the villages around was because they wanted the music to reach here, to bring this area to life. And the public came in droves for these groups. All these blues or boogiewoogie musicians then came to sleep at the house. I was 10 years old and I loved their company. They gave me saxophone lessons, I swore by the blues. The neighbours looked at us askance, we were the family of hippies to them. My father operates a sandstone quarry in which my brother is a team leader. I worked there myself for a year, delivering the stones. But it made me unhappy, I felt like I was in a bind, so I went to study.

Hippies were a reaction to the postwar generation, that of their parents. Was there a bit of discord between you?

There was no reason to rebel. We were yelling at each other, but not in an abnormal way. I realized how lucky I was at school, when I saw how the other kids were being educated. The others never knew how to react to me, they thought I was a little boy. Most of the time, my hair was shaved ... I was singled out, they thought I was weird. But I found it all normal, I never considered myself a rare beast, as someone unique. I am commonplace. Before music, I didn't have the slightest passion. I spent my life reading, that's all that interested me ... Burroughs is my favourite author. I like the absence of taboos in these American authors, that they call things by their names. They’re not bothered by our modesty, they go to the heart of things.

There's a strong feminist tradition in English literature, the Virago Press. Did that attract you?

I’ve never read any of those books. Feminism is far too broad and collective a concept for me. I can only understand things on an individual level, on a small scale, mine. It’s not selfishness, but I can’t think in a global way.

You live surrounded by strange objects. You’d swear there were runes, talismans, objects of worship.

(Embarrassed) ... I'm not superstitious. But I have a real fascination with objects that give me pleasure to look at. And it turns out that most of these objects are religious. I had a passion for religion for a long time, I spent my nights reading the Bible. I thought I would find all the answers there, understand everything. No one gave me the slightest basics of religion, I had to learn everything on my own. So much has been said and done in the name of this book, I had to know what was in it.

Are these readings accompanied by a feeling of guilt?

No, I’ve never been overtaken by that sort of feeling. But I have values, I remain faithful to a morality. I don’t even understand how I could ever doubt it.

Your lyrics are very raw, very personal. Have you ever been embarrassed to sing them in public?

That’s never happened to me. When I write these lyrics, they’re very personal, but as soon as I sing them in public they no longer belong to me. It's as if a different person takes over then. It becomes a spectacle, these words escape me ... The more time goes by, the less close I feel to them, so some of my songs mean nothing to me today. If I feel them too far away from me, I stop playing them, forever.

Could you talk about sexuality as openly with your friends as you do in your songs?

No. In my songs, I’m content with talking to myself. Others, friends, don't count. I write for me, and me alone. But I could talk to people about sexuality easily, that doesn’t bother me. I find it very strange that the English systematically refuse to broach the subject. Nobody finds it shocking in France, but here it’s taboo. I don’t understand why my lyrics caused such a stir, I find them very soft. Accusing me of pornography, what a joke!

Does singing such lyrics in front of an almost exclusively male audience give you any particular pleasure?

It’s because of that that the songs work. It's a pleasure to sing ‘Sheela-na-gig’ ("Look at these my child-bearing hips/ look at these my ruby-red ruby lips ...”) in front of men. But I never make a point of making them feel uncomfortable. Looking down on people doesn't give me any particular pleasure. I'm just happy to make people react, that they’ll go quiet when I sing. By disturbing them, I force them to listen to me more attentively. But there’s no enjoyment in intimidating the men in front of me. Any reaction to my music makes me happy, whether it’s shyness, a good big laugh or an insult. The other day some guy called me "miserable cow" in the middle of a concert, that pleased me.

With the risk of attracting perverts.

I have already had a few. They come to see me at the end of the concerts and send me unbelievable letters ... I don't even think their reaction’s motivated by my words, just by the photos they’ve seen. I didn't expect people to be so possessive, that they’d spend so much time thinking about me, alone at home ... Their letters scare me, because I feel they’re obsessed.

Lyrics like yours inevitably attract this kind of fantasy.

Not just the lyrics, the image as well. But that's not what I was looking for. Everything is misinterpreted, I take it as a personal failure. The back cover of Dry (Polly bare-breasted in a bath) couldn’t be a better match with the music inside… It’s that simple: it's not a portrait of me, it’s a portrait of our music. It’s its nakedness.

The cover of the NME, where you appear naked from the waist up, caused a scandal, especially among feminists. It is hard to believe that this choice could be so naïve.

The reactions to that cover-shot were grotesque. To me it didn’t signify anything at all, just an unimportant photo shoot. There again I failed, people only saw the bad side, not the goal I was looking for. I honestly thought that I was doing our music justice, that the photo perfectly explained our record. But it's a fiasco, people have only retained that one image, which no one’s linked to the music. And then there was an irony [to it] that no one wanted to see. Too often people expect me to be serious, the mouthpiece of my generation, all that bullshit. They don't even give me the right to humour.

Is that public image completely false? Would we be surprised by your humour, lightheartedness, a good-natured side, if we met you day by day?

This PJ Harvey that I see described in magazines, it's not me, she has nothing to do with the self I know. But that suits me perfectly, I can distance myself even better. People would be surprised, because they think they know me from the press, who are lying. Deep down I am very violent, but this frustration accumulates, piles up and only comes out in my music. That's why I need it so much. Otherwise, I would explode. The band is my only safety-valve.

My best friend is dead

I’ve never been part of any trend. Anyway, there was no trendiness in my village. So I listened to records on my own. Only my parents’, they were more than enough to keep me happy. After a few years, I met Automatic Dlamini, a local band that I played with for a long time. With them, we recorded non-stop. We had plenty of material to make an album but that didn't interest anyone. Today a lot of people want to grab the tapes and run out, but I’ve got confidence in the band. They’re too honest to pull that dirty trick on me. I played guitar in pubs, that's where their singer found me and asked me to join his band. Then I discovered the Pixies, Tom Waits and Nick Cave, who really impressed me. They’re older than me, in their 30s, and all have amazing record collections.

Before them, there were only mum and dad’s jazz and blues records?

Yes, as well as the old Rolling Stones stuff, which I always end up coming back to. There was nothing else for me. I never went to a club, because there weren’t any. Captain Beefheart was also among my parents’ records: it’s him I’ve listened to the most in my life, even today.

So you never had to explore. The records were served up to you ready [lit: came fully cooked].

I had my spiritual guides, I’d never bought a record in my life. They were always there for me, I didn't need more. I never had that thirst to discover again and again. Already I don't have time to listen to everything that people lend me. I try to make up for lost time, to listen to what is happening today. But I’m not convinced by what I hear.

Do you have any interest in female rock?

It’s never interested me. People tell me all the time about Patti Smith. You can ask my manager: I've only heard her once in my life, it was Horses, in his car. I thought it was wonderful and I’d like to listen to it calmly, but they don’t give me the time. It's ridiculous, all this time I spent saying that I’d never heard Patti Smith, I should have spent listening to her albums. I’ve never even seen a single photo of her, I’d like to know what she looks like. So I can’t say whether the comparisons are justified or not.

You can feel that her songs are driven by anger. A very direct tone, totally uncluttered music - that's what connects you both.

It is anger that drives my songs – I don't feel the need to put them in shape, to put makeup on them. The work of production, of arrangement, I do in my brain. If a song comes out, it's finished, ready to be recorded. There’s no question of tinkering with it, of modifying it. But I know I’ll change in the future. Simplicity, that nakedness coming straight from the blues, is what suits my songs best today. At home, we didn't talk much, we didn't waste words unnecessarily. We only told each other the bare minimum, so that when one of us spoke, we listened to them, because they were getting straight to the point. I really hope that this economy of words is reflected in my records, that's what I'm trying to do. Get rid of the fat, again and again. But I never get there. I’d like to manage to get rid of everything useless in our records, so that they’re even barer, simpler, and therefore more powerful. The important thing is not what gets said, told, discussed, but what isn’t. So I spend my life censoring myself, erasing word after word. But in a few years, I’ll probably want more space. Don't forget that I played for years in a big band, that I love symphony orchestras. Maybe my songs will evolve in that direction.

Yet we feel you’re fascinated by the guitar.

My guitar was more important than anything during my teenage years. I got robbed a few days ago, which explains my bad mood. A magnificent Gretsch I wrote all my songs on, I loved it like a friend. I really feel like I'm in mourning, that's why I'm all in black today. My best friend is dead.

You evoke the theme of motherhood in ‘Sheela-na-gig’. Is this a major concern?

Until now, I always answered no. But I'm not so sure anymore. It's quite an attractive idea, I can easily imagine myself as a mother in a few years. Why, are you making me an offer?


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Aug 10, 2021 3:53 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Sat Apr 09, 2016 2:23 pm
Posts: 468
Thank you for posting and editing the translation, AineteEkaterini. I always find these early/mid 90s interviews with Polly quite hard to read; it's obvious she was not ready for success and it had a bad effect on her mental health, resulting in deep unhappiness. It's a miracle she didn't give up this career and somehow managed to find balance and peace of mind later on.

I don't think I've ever heard of her guitar getting stolen, by the way!


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Thu Aug 12, 2021 3:54 am 
Offline
Moderator
User avatar

Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2009 5:22 pm
Posts: 2398
Location: ~ +38.4, -122.7
Thanks for transcribing and posting this. I don't think I've ever seen this. Fascinating stuff. She was SO incredibly open then.

This predates even the earliest article (1993) transcribed at the archived room509.net website:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080530160230/http://room509.net/sr/frame.html
(which can be seen by entering the room509 'front page' and clicking on 'articles').

I remember the stolen guitar story. I seem to recall it was eventually recovered with help from folks at the old pjharvey.net website:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050901030338/http://pjharvey.net/
I think it was found for sale somewhere and someone was able to contact her guitar tech.

It's a shame you can no longer navigate the old website easily (at least not without enabling flash). The old website also had a forum, which was constantly being spammed so they eventually shut the forum part of the website down. The site wasn't monitored by anyone from PJ's management and of course she never looked at it or posted on it. I recall at one point H&HW contacted her management to tell them the site was completely hosed. After that they gave up on it and came up with the plain vanilla site that exists today.

_________________
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JelqPcoaAB8"


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Thu Aug 12, 2021 2:46 pm 
Offline

Joined: Fri Jan 18, 2019 2:18 am
Posts: 212
Dr. Dark, if I’m not mistaken there’ve been plenty of pre-1993 interviews transcribed on the internet for a very long time… since the 90s? I’ve read countless Dry-era interviews. I agree the Les Inrockuptibles one is a cracker, though.

Re: her guitar, did she immediately find another 7609 to buy after the first one was stolen? Because there was just a very brief period where she was playing another massive Gretsch, but with a cutaway body (perhaps a Country Gentleman) before the Broadkaster returned. A matter of a handful of gigs, really. So if fans on the Internet had a hand in locating the stolen one—which would’ve been several years later—that would be rather extraordinary! I’m assuming of course that the Broadkaster is the one that was stolen, and not the cutaway Gretsch, because it’s the Broadkaster that was her near-constant guitar from 1991-1993. I’ve always been curious about this theft and wish I knew the whole story.


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 4 posts ] 

All times are UTC


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 69 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum

Search for:
Jump to: