‘Marriage is a way of civilising the savage’
Bobby Gillespie on his new duet album with Jehnny Beth, and being a romantic
A‘There were a lot of people who weren’t really friends, they were party people’
s frontman of Primal Scream Bobby Gillespie is considered a godfather of the indie/dance hybrid that gave popular music in these islands a shot in the arm in the Nineties. Their seminal Screamadellica album won the first Mercury Prize in 1992. Jehnny Beth fronted Savages the rightly acclaimed London post-punk band who were themselves nominated for the Mercury Prize for both their albums Silence Yourself and Adore Life in 2013 and 2016 respectively.
After Jehnny Beth joined Primal Scream onstage in 2016 for a cover of Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra’s song, Some Velvet Morning, plans were hatched to work together in the future. The result is Utopian Ashes, a duets album, that given both their indie rock inclinations is one of the more surprising releases of 2021.
‘It was Andrew Innes, the Scream guitarist who came up with the idea,’ Gillespie explained to me on a Zoom call a couple of weeks back.
‘We went to Paris and did two sessions and out of that came Remember We Were Lovers. We were really excited about that. Initially, it had been a kind of stately Kraftwerklike electronic song but I began to imagine it as like a late sixties/ seventies soul ballad, something like
John Lennon’s Jealous Guy.’
It’s a long way from Primal Scream songs such as Loaded and Movin’ On Up or Savages’ Adore or The Answer. Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra’s work was a definite inspiration as well as Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris and Scott Walker.
‘But we were not consciously trying to emulate anybody, right?’ the 59-year-old Scottish singer says sharply.
‘Your Heart Will Always Be Broken has that kind of soft lilt that Emmylou and Gram had, that kind of soft country-pop thing. But I didn’t think about that when I was writing it, I just wrote it.
‘Sometimes I’ve thought Primal Scream should make more music in that manner. We have a feel for country, soul and ballads. I think with Primal Scream we went too far down the road of electronic music. I really loved [2006’s] Riot City Blues, that’s 17 tracks of high energy rock music.’
Utopian Ashes’ nine songs chart the arc of a marriage or longterm relationship that ends in heartbreak for both parties. I joke to Gillespie that, as a middle-aged single man, it reinforced my belief that I have been wise to never tie the knot. With that, the normally serious Glaswegian throws his head back, shrieks in laughter and claps his hands.
‘Oh, that’s brilliant!’ he giggles. ‘We can use that as a tagline to advertise the album… “I listened to the album and never wanted to get married!”.’
He continues to laugh then smiles and says: ‘Yeah well… I still believe in marriage although the couple [in the songs] don’t have to be married. I believe in romance. I’m a romantic. When you commit to somebody and you have a family, the two people become this other thing. It’s a way of civilising the savage. If you become a father, you must become a role model. How can you become a role model if you are out taking drugs all night and running around getting crazed? You have to pull yourself into line and that takes self-discipline. That’s something that some of us have to work at very hard.’
Gillespie’s reputation as a hellraiser sometimes overshadowed his importance as a musician. On the album’s final song Sunk In Reverie, Gillespie sings ‘All these latenight parties bore me to the grave’.
Gillespie has been married to his partner for over 15 years. They have two children Wolf and Lux and his excessive use of drink and drugs are in the distant past. I ask him what he thinks now of those times and the people he associated with.
‘There were a lot of people who weren’t really friends, they were party people. I’m not saying they were bad people; they were night people,’ he says.
‘There are certain people you have to cut the lines with because having any kind of relationship with them becomes dangerous if you are trying to get clean and have a new way of living.
‘I’m not anti-partying or people who take drink or drugs. I go out with people who do and I’m still their mate. I don’t do it [drink and drugs] because I end up in a mess. They’re not the problem, I am.’
As we say our goodbyes, he shouts to his publicist who is recording our call:
‘Hey Penny… Penny…’ and then addresses me: ‘We need to take that tagline of yours about not getting married.’
I laugh. ‘No seriously. Penny, take the tagline. We can use it in an advert. It’s brilliant.’
I haven’t seen it used yet but they’re more than welcome to it! Utopian Ashes is out now