Million Dollar Basher
Pub-rock prototype. Punk auteur. Loyal friend. Inveterate raconteur. Gentleman songwriter of some repute – that’s NICK LOWE, who invites
MICHAEL BONNER over to his Brentford pad for a leisurely wander through a discreet but exceptional career. Plus RY COODER and
ELVIS COSTELLO pay homage: “His geniality may have has been at the cost of his legend.”
NICK LOWe has always had an awkward relationship with success. “Me and Huey Lewis used to knock around together when he was with Clover,” recalls Lowe. “I sometimes used to meet Huey in the ’80s at the height of his fame. You’d walk down the street with him, people would come up to him or shout out of their car windows. He loved it. I said to him, ‘Huey, this is a fucking nightmare.’ He’d say, ‘Oh, man. It doesn’t harm anyone, I just write them an autograph.’ Fair dos. But that’s never been for me. I’ve always felt like an outsider. And rather enjoyed being an outsider.”
The least comfortable of rock stars, Lowe never thrived in the spotlight, preferring instead a career along the periphery of mainstream success. Such a position allowed him youthful freedom in his first band, Brinsley Schwarz, and then as the in-house producer for Stiff Records before, briefly, actually being a pop star got in the way. Since then, Lowe has re-emerged as a kind of meditative nostalgist, crafting bittersweet songs that have brought him a satisfyingly modest public profile. “I’ve become very skilled at not completely disappearing,” he says dryly.
Today, Lowe is at home in Brentford, the leafy west London suburb where he has lived for 30 years. Initially, Lowe moved here because his then manager, Jake Riviera, also had offices in the neighbourhood. Coincidentally, The Damned’s Rat Scabies – another figure from Lowe’s past – lives close by; he and Lowe often bump into one another in the local Morrisons. In fact, Lowe owns two properties – one for family, one for work – and he greets us at the door of the former, dapperly dressed in a crisp short-sleeved white shirt and v-neck tanktop. Like Lowe himself, the house is stylish and well maintained. One wall of the living room is neatly stacked with books and vintage board games, including Cluedo and Connect 4.
A miniature figurine of Lowe – a gift from a Japanese fan – sits on a shelf, while Lowe’s old bass rests on a stand by an armchair. Lowe sits at the dining table, beneath a full-sized pub sign for the Duke Of Wellington, salvaged from a junk shop. Tomorrow, he flies to New York to receive the Independent Icon Award bestowed upon him by the American Association of Independent Music. “Although I’m extremely grateful and flattered, my overwhelming instinct is embarrassment,” he says. “I’ve written a handful of good songs and been associated with some good records. But I think most of what I’ve done is pretty ho-hum. I suppose I’m getting to the age now when I think it’s time to give the old boy a bunch of flowers for all his service.”
Lowe does a neat line in witty self-deprecation. He seems mildly baffled about why he’s doing an interview at all. “I didn’t know they were coming out,” he says when told that a reissue of albums from his ’80s era begins in July. Later, he reveals that his goal is to get his songs covered. Most famously, Curtis Stigers’ version of “(What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding” on the soundtrack to The Bodyguard earned Lowe a million in royalties, but Lowe’s desire to outsource his songs to other artists is further evidence of a deeper aversion to fame.
“He’s a perfect example of an Aries,” laughs Dave Robinson, Stiff Records co-founder. “Aries like power without responsibility, they’re very creative. I call it panicking in the face of success. But I think he realised when fame might come it could fall on him to do a large amount of work. He didn’t want to do that. Nick would always slope off before success.” CONveRSATION with Nick Lowe takes the form of a series of lengthy, often digressive anecdotes. There’s the one about his only real proper job, as a journalist for the Uxbridge
Advertiser: “You had to do a few late-duty chemists and what was on at the local Gaumont, then they’d shove you out to interview the local vicar.” Or that time in the late ’60s when his first band, Kippington Lodge, had a month-long residency at the PN Hit House in Munich: “Half an hour on, 15 minutes off, pretty much all night. And at weekends, you play all day and all night, starting at lunchtime.” How about Brinsley Schwarz’ illfated gig at the Fillmore east, where their manager charted an Aer Lingus jet to fly out dozens of journalists, only for it to go disastrously wrong? “The whole thing was a fucking fiasco. But in retrospect, it was great!”
What links all these colourful yarns is Lowe’s deep-seated love for American music. In childhood, that was his mother’s record collection – “Nat Cole, Sinatra. Peggy Lee, Doris Day, Dinah Washington. A lot of show tunes” – or the blues courtesy of American Forces Radio. Later, Lowe acquired a taste for a rootsy form of folk rock.
“The Brinsleys were against the high-heeled David Bowie mob; they had a check-shirt attitude,” says Dave Robinson, their manager. “The songs were very marijuana-led. Long jams. very Crosby, Stills & Nash.”
“We loved The Band,” says Lowe. “After the fateful trip to New York, the Brinsleys embraced communal living at this funky old farm in Beaconsfield. We got a call one morning saying, ‘The Band are supporting CSNY at Wembley. They haven’t done a show for a while and need to brush up. They don’t want somewhere in London, can they come out and use your place?’ They brought in Garth’s Lowry organ but used all our amps. We sat on the flight cases outside and listened to them run through these tunes we loved so much. Then off they went. They barely spoke to us, but that didn’t matter. They’d used our amps, but we couldn’t believe as much as we tried, when we
“I think most of what I’ve done is pretty ho-hum” NiCk lowE
plugged back in we still couldn’t sound like The Band.” More promisingly, the Brinsleys landed a support slot on a UK tour supporting Wings. “The band were all in one hotel room late at night, playing acoustic guitars, having a smoke,” says Robinson. “There’s a tap on the door and it’s Paul McCartney with a bottle of Scotch. ‘Hey, what are you doing?’ They have a drink and a toke and they start playing ‘She Loves You’. There’s an embarrassing moment as word had gone out McCartney didn’t want to have Beatles contact of any kind. But Nick and everyone starting singing harmony and McCartney joined in. They were there until four in the morning singing Beatles songs. The following day, McCartney put a Beatles song into the set and by the end of the tour he was doing about three or four.”
oveR coffee, while Larry the whippet sniffs hopefully round the chocolate biscuits, Lowe shares his thoughts on rock biogs. “I’m only interested in a band’s early days,” he says. “As soon as they get famous, I couldn’t care less. When they’re having a terrible old time, I enjoy that as well. The rest of it, when life’s a lark and everything’s going great in the studio? Yeah, well…”
In which case, this would be the point where Nick Lowe loses interest in his own story. In the early ’70s, a visiting American band, eggs Over easy, took up residence in the Tally Ho, Kentish Town, playing crisp, three-minute songs; they became the unlikely patient zero for pub rock. “They were stars in this very small world,” says Lowe. “At one point, we went and found our own place in Holloway – an Irish pub with a sunken dancefloor in the middle of the room and a little stage at one end. We thought, ‘Man, this is absolutely perfect. We can fit 200 people in here, no problem.’ We went to see the governor. He was very dismissive – ‘I’ve never heard of you fellas.’ So we said, ‘Look, give us your worse night. Tell you what, you don’t even have to pay us. See if you like it. After that, we’ll come to a deal.’ The place got totally rammed. There were people hanging off the ceiling. But the manager freaked out. He said, ‘I can’t have this! This is way too much work. Pack your stuff up and fuck off!’”
The circuit opened up after that with the Brinsleys, Dr Feelgood, Kilburn & The High Roads, Ducks Deluxe and more taking up rowdy residence in a nexus of London pubs – the Hope & Anchor, the Red Cow, the Dublin Castle, Lord Nelson, Newlands Tavern among them. With such power came little responsibility – a situation to Lowe’s liking. “It was a hoot,” he says. “We were a little band of renegades.”
The frolics continued when Lowe became involved with Jake Riviera and Dave Robinson’s Stiff Records, working as the label’s in-house producer. “Their definition of success was very strange,” explains Lowe. “It didn’t necessarily mean having a hit, just as long as it entertained in some shape or form. Stiff had a few hits, but they were modest. We were more interested in mucking about at the back.”
Such disruptive tendencies aside, Lowe nevertheless managed to oversee a number of key releases, including The Damned’s “New Rose” and Neat Neat Neat album. “The main thing I remember about Nick was the constant cigarette between his knuckles and the bottle of cider on the side of the desk,” says Rat Scabies. “Pathway Studios was incredible small. The control room was about the size of the average shower. You could only fit Nick and the engineer in and my abiding memory is seeing them from behind this plume of smoke and the occasional raising of a Bulmers cider.” “Nick was a great producer at Stiff,” says Dave Robinson. “He was very quick, very throwaway – Bash It Down And Tart It Up, as they say. But he was very clever at picking out the key bits of a song that really made sense.” “The real strength with Nick is his taste and his choice,” continues Scabies. “When I spoke to him a little while ago, he
said, ‘I just sat there, you guys did all the work.’ Yeah, but he was the one who said, ‘This is the take we’re going to use.’ I suppose you’d call it a pop sensibility. That’s why I think he did a great job. He steered the ship and he choose the best material.”
Lowe also struck up with elvis Costello, going on to work on his first six albums. “elvis used to come and see the Brinsleys whenever we played in the North West,” says Lowe. “I first met him in the pub across the road from the Cavern, The Grapes. The next time I saw him was on the platform at Royal Oak tube station. I was going to Stiff and he had just come from Stiff. He’d bought a copy of [Lowe’s debut single] ‘So It Goes’. He said, ‘I’ve got all these songs. I’ve sent demos to people and I never hear back. So I’ve started making appointments, going to the offices, getting my guitar out and playing. either they get embarrassed and chuck me out, or they like it but don’t come back with anything.’ I got up to Stiff and Jake was playing his tape. ‘Man, this guy is fantastic!’ Originally, they thought about signing him as a writer. He had a song, ‘Mystery Girl’, they thought would be good for edmunds.”
“edmunds”, in this instance, is Dave edmunds, Lowe’s chief mischiefmaking accomplice and sparring partner in Rockpile among other projects. “We used to go down to Rockfield,” says Lowe. “edmunds would arrive at 10 o’clock at night, just as we were leaving. If you walked past the studio, you’d hear in deafening volume whatever he was working on – alone. Then he’d leave at eight the next morning when you were having breakfast. Get in his Jag, and off he’d go. I thought, ‘He’s the bloke we should be hanging out with. He should be doing our records.’ Later, we used to get thoroughly hammered in the Churchill on Kensington Church Street, plotting, ‘Oh, but what if we did this… what if we did that…’ Night after night, like sad old gits.”
edmunds signed to Led Zeppelin’s Swan Song label and, in 1976, Rockpile – billed as ‘Dave edmunds’ – went on their first major American tour, supporting Bad Company. “We completely tore it up,” remembers Lowe. “The crowd went nuts, causing the displeasure of Bad Company – or, at least, their people. We’d play 25 minutes, but they kept cutting us back. even better! We’d play our four best tunes and then go off. The crowd would go crazy. We’d look at our watches, shrug and mouth, ‘Sorry!’ Then we were in the Comanche Inn out near the airport having a fantastic time with the thirddivision groupies. So why would anybody want to become a big act? We had a ball. But we never worked at it. We played the same set for three years. We had it in our hand, but the only people who didn’t want us to succeed was us.” Lowe explains that the reason he continues to enjoy a following in America is largely down to Rockpile. “On a good night, we were good. But quite often we were terrible. We used to do very well in Scandinavia, too. There’s a band in Sweden who specialise in Rockpile, with the Nick Lowe element surgically removed. It’s Dave’s act, really, but they sound like Rockpile.
Rather better, actually.”
LOWe exited the ’70s cushioned by good fortune and modest success. Much in demand, he produced four albums released during 1980, with credits on two more. Meanwhile, Lowe’s first three solo albums – Jesus Of Cool (1978), Labour Of Lust (1979), Nick The Knife (1982) – suggested a rosy future lay ahead. He had married into American royalty, too – Carlene Carter. Although his father-inlaw’s condition – then in the service of a lifestyle of wildly varying quality – may have struck a cautionary note with Lowe. “I knew Johnny Cash at a very peculiar time. He was struggling, not doing good work and he shamefully got fired from CBS. He was running a very big show with a big band. Lots of people with their hands out, lots of mouths to feed. He was playing worse and worse places. He was also in a lot of pain, drinking and taking quite a lot of prescription drugs.”
Lowe is quick to underscore the kindness and grace of Cash – a man who made the transatlantic crossing to stay with Lowe dressed in full Man In Black regalia. But his father-in-law’s humbling condition prefigured Lowe’s own decline during the ’80s. “I was in quite a bad way,” he confirms. “I was taking quite a lot of drugs and drinking a lot. My schtick had run its course. I was getting too old to be a pop star who couldn’t come up with another pop.”
Nevertheless, Lowe is sanguine about the records he made during this period – “There’s moments on all of them,” he says. “Party Of One, Pinker And Prouder Tha Previous. I was anti this huge production sound in the ’80s. I wanted to make records that were small. Make a statement. A small sound, but a big statement!”
There were also agreeable musical collaborations to be had – including a loose creative partnership with Ry Cooder, Jim Keltner and John Hiatt that prefigured Lowe’s own creative rehabilitation. “Hiatt called me up, he said, ‘Look, I want you to come and play bass on this record [Bring The Family]. I’ve got Ry and Jim Keltner to do it. We’ve only got four days to do the whole record and Ry had made it clear that he isn’t necessarily going to be there for the whole thing. He’ll come for the first day, and if he likes it he’ll stay!’” Despite such unpromising circumstances, it proved such a satisfactory experience that they reconvened in 1992 for a standalone project, Little Village. “We were supposed to write, I suppose, a bit like the Wilburys, all contributing songs,” Lowe explains. “Warner Bros let us spend thousands of dollars in the studio, which was the worst thing! But we did a lot of fantastic touring behind the Little Village album. I’ve got a lot of bootlegs that are way better than the record.”
Over the subsequent decade, Lowe refashioned himself as a torchy balladeer, beginning with 1994’s The Impossible Bird. “I had time to reflect,” he admits. “I thought, ‘I haven’t done too badly here. I’ve produced a few good records, I’ve had a couple of hits myself and written a few things that were pretty good, I’ve got my drug habit out of the way.
“You always catch a groove with Nick” Ry Cooder pays tribute to his friend “P eopLe often ask, ‘What about nick Lowe, anyway?’ if i’m pressed for time, i simply say, ‘born to play bass.’ Uncomprehending looks from the folks. ‘What i mean is, nick is a natural musical man, unobstructed by methods, tablatures, rules and regulations.’ Ladies sometimes ask, ‘but is he a nice man?’ i say, ‘Lady, one of the absolute nicest, i should judge.’ Which comes through his musical writings, his lyrics. things we all can understand. the common touch, they used to call it, but distinctive and original. oK? ‘and one thing’s for certain, you always catch a groove with nick.’ Uncomprehending looks from the folks.”
So if it’s all got to end now, I haven’t done too badly. But why is it I feel that I haven’t even started yet?’ Then I remembered Cash saying to me, ‘What you got to do, Nick, is be yourself.’ I thought, ‘Fuck me, is that the best you can do?’ Don’t hand me that. If I go to see someone I don’t want them to be themselves, I want them to be magnificent. But Cash was right. Life is a lot easier if you don’t put on much of an act. It’s less tiring.”
When we meet, Lowe is processing some recent bad news – the sudden death of co-producer Neil Brockbank. It is the second close friend Lowe has lost in as many years, after long-time drummer Bobby Irwin died in 2015. “I’m lucky to have always had people like that around me, who actually told me what they thought,” he says in a moment of uncharacteristic solemnity.
“Nick always was a bit of a wild boy,” says the singersongwriter Geraint Watkins, who has played keyboards with Lowe for the past 20 years. “But there comes a time when you can’t do that sort of thing any more. He likes the fact we’re all mates. When Bob died, it’s not like he was going to hire a drummer to play on the songs. He wants Bob to play on the songs.”
GeNTLeMAN songwriter. Inveterate raconteur. Loyal friend. Lately, though, Lowe has found a new string to his bow: elder statesman. Via associations with acts like Wilco – with whom Lowe toured in 2012 – Lowe has found himself with new, younger fans. “I’ve tried my best to make that happen,” he nods. “They’re all welcome, all the people who’ve stuck with me down the years. But if I had to go on tour and just play to those people, a sea of old folks, and behave like I did when they first heard of me, 30 years ago – some people have to do that, to put corn on the table – that would be frightful. I’ve worked quite hard to avoid being in that situation.
“But now you can’t move for people in their sixties and seventies doing fantastic stuff,” he smiles. “Bob Dylan, Paul Simon. Leonard Cohen, until recently. Now I’ve used the fact that I am getting older as a real advantage, so people will say, ‘Man, I wish I was as old as that guy. I can’t wait to be as old as that guy.’”
Lowe enjoys his frequent visits to America, “doing leisurely tours, decent places, staying in reasonable hotels”. More often than not, he’s booked to play theatres, wineries, taverns and ballrooms. They seem appropriately bucolic settings for Lowe as he enjoys the fruits of his vintage years. “It suits him,” says Rat Scabies. “I don’t think he’s one of these people who wants to be ultra-famous, but I think he likes to be recognised for what he does. His whole method is that he quietly gets on with it in the background and no-one notices ’til somebody happens to ask, ‘Who did that?’ ‘Oh, it’s that Nick Lowe fella.’”
That said, Lowe has not released an album of original studio material since 2011’s That Old Magic. “I’m doing a couple of new songs in my show that are pretty good tunes,” he says. “But a new album? For the moment, I’m done with it. It’s so expensive to make the kind of records I know how to make, which are tried and tested, with real musicians in a studio. Nobody makes records like that any more unless they’re Springsteen or U2, huge acts.
“When I was young,” he says, circling back to the start of our conversation, “I thought that people who wrote the songs were sent down from outer space somehow. My first band, Kippington Lodge, was a pop group. They were doing quite nicely before I arrived. They didn’t play on their own records, but the records they made with session men sounded great. As soon as I persuaded everybody we had to play on our own records, that’s when it all took a serious dip. But if you wanted to have any kind of lengthy career, you had to get on and write your own tunes. You get your idea and you slam down whatever comes up to get the job done. Because you’re a kid, you don’t wait for it. I take it a lot more seriously, I suppose, now. Rightly or wrongly.”
“I thought people who wrote songs were from outer space” NiCk lowE