Despite being grounded by a seemingly paradoxical levity, which comes across in the form of wry humor throughout our interview, Peter Murphy, a leading light in the gothic underworld, has remained an enigma for over three decades.
He first came to prominence with the preeminent goth band Bauhaus - their seminal cut "Bela Lugosi's Dead" being forever imprinted in the minds of those who appreciate the dark side thanks to its inclusion, and Murphy's mood setting appearance, in Tony Scott's 1983 cult horror classic The Hunger (which starred Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie, and Susan Sarandon).
Comprised of Murphy, Daniel Ash, and brothers David J and Kevin Haskins, Bauhaus had an initial lifespan of four years from 1979 to 1983. Following the band's demise, Murphy went solo, while his three former-bandmates regrouped under the Love and Rockets moniker. Both camps went on to enjoy a level of commercial success in the US that surpassed anything their former band had achieved. Murphy's third solo album, Deep (1990), spawned the #1 modern rock hit "Cuts You Up," and his fourth, Holy Smoke (1992), a #2 on the same chart with "The Sweetest Drop." Cascade (1995), with its unabashed romanticism and melodic drive, and Dust (2002), an atmospheric recording steeped in the mysticism and tradition of Murphy's adopted Turkish homeland, are also more than worthy of note.
However fans refused to let the corpse of Bauhaus rest in peace, its legend having grown in the years it had been confined to the crypt. After much speculation and several false starts, Bauhaus reformed in 1998 for the Resurrection Tour. The band was revived again for an unforgettable 2005 Coachella appearance, which opened with Murphy singing "Bela Lugosi's Dead" while hanging upside down from the rafters. This time the quartet stayed together long enough to tour both the US and Europe (including some dates with Nine Inch Nails) and record an album, Go Away White (2008). But the bats left Bauhaus' bell tower, seemingly for good, shortly after the album's release, following an emotionally charged breakup that continues to have an aura of finality.
Appearances on stage (
and descending from the rafters) during Nine Inch Nails' 2009 farewell tour, coupled with a cameo as "The Cold One" in the third Twilight film, Eclipse, in 2010, exposed a new generation to Murphy's mesmerizing vampiric presence. With a new album already complete (his first since 2004's ill-fated Unshattered, which was beleaguered by record label issues), he embarked on the Dirty Dirt Tour in the summer of 2010 while he looked for a suitable distribution channel. In March of this year, it was announced that Murphy had signed with the Nettwerk Music Group, and on June 7 the long awaited new full-length,
Ninth, finally achieved its release.
Having attempted to catch up with the elusive minstrel numerous times over the past few years, SuicideGirls pinned Murphy down for some quality phone time the day the video for his new single "I Spit Roses" hit the web.
Nicole Powers: Where are you right now?
Peter Murphy: Where are you? [recognizing the accent] Are you in England?
NP: No, I'm in Los Angeles.
PM: Oh dear, poor thing.
NP: It's not that bad really.
PM: It's horrible.
NP: Well, I live just outside LA in the land that time forgot...
PM: Well that's all right then.
NP: I noticed the new video for "
I Spit Roses" has just gone live. That's a pretty gorgeous video.
PM: Isn't it great?
NP: It really is. Where did the idea for that come from?
PM: It came from the song itself.
Justin Coloma had written a treatment for it...I was on tour in the U.S. this last spring and we cobbled the idea together very quickly. I wanted to make a video that looks like a million dollars but only cost $5,000. Justin and his wife,
Linda Strawberry, who did all of the hand painted backdrop scenes, came up with a treatment. I then transformed his ideas into more of the meaning of the song, which was about an attempted mutiny. It worked out well I think.
NP: "I Spit Roses" refers to the breakup with Bauhaus right?
PM: Well not the actual moment of the breakup, but one that represents it in a way...When you get people confronting you without compassion it becomes abuse in a sense. Rather than respond confrontationally, I actually literally stuffed my mouth with rose petals and spat roses over them. It was kind of [saying] 'Okay, shut-up and plug in, and just play, stop arguing.' That was it really. It was an act of great beauty and kick ass at the same time.
NP: The following track on the album, "Never Fall Out," that's just such a beautiful song. I melt to that one.
PM: Thank you. That's what it's about. They talk about certain artists being dark, but I was always luminescent as it were. And when it comes to falling in love with me, you'll never fall out. Basically that's the song...The whole album is kind of filled with monikers of self-labeling...It's very much full of swagger, and warm between the legs as well as heart expanding stuff.
NP: It's interesting that you talk about the luminescence, because you're stuck with this 'Godfather of Goth' label, but I've always found your songs really bright and uplifting, a brilliance against the black so to speak.
PM: Thanks, yeah. David J used to say, 'No, no, no, the light comes out of the dark.' I said, 'No, darling. Light extinguishes the dark.' So that's kind of the way of saying it, isn't it?
NP: I know that you study and practice Sufism, which is the mystic side of Islam. I was reading a quote that absolutely fascinated me where you talked about how
Sufism appealed to you because it was truly monotheistic and didn't give the devil too much power.
PM: Yes, right.
NP: There was this wonderful quote where you said: "the Devil is very dangerous and has very distracting aspects, but he's very easily put away by a smile."
PM: Yes.
NP: I just loved that quote.
PM: ...I think it's the Judeo-Christian model, which has been twisted over the years by man's hand as it were, and taken into Paganism and nigh on polytheistic Pagan archetypes like Father, Son, and Holy Ghost and all that stuff. It's all been skewed, but in the Judeo-Christian religion they mistakenly cite Jesus as God himself, incarnate. Well then in that myth you get the Devil able to tempt Jesus himself, which is tantamount to saying the Devil is equal to God in that he can tempt God...So therein lies the dreadful Catholic fear, the Christian fear of the Devil, because he's equated with [or] in alignment with God himself, which is a complete fucking heresy anyway...Even the notion that you're born evil with sin and in need of cleansing is absolutely tantamount to anti-Christ if you like. It's not Christian in its essence.
In Islam, and more so in the Sufi teachings, which are perennial and the heart of all teachings really, that's clarified, the relationship between the Devil as it were and the Creator. The devils are just our egos I guess in modern day language...So yeah, it's very much been part of my lyrical world throughout, even before I was drawn to Islam and Sufism. I realized that I was always a Muslim in that sense. In fact, I know this sounds controversial, but everybody is born pure Muslim in a sense because Islam simply means surrendered. That's why when they asked me, 'When did you convert?' I said, 'I never did convert. I was always myself.' So yeah, isn't that great, the idea that you're smiling at the Devil.
NP: Well I see that in your work.
PM: Good. Thank you very much.
NP: And it's not like I see a difference post 'conversion.' It's as if it's always been a thread there...this theme of exploring the dark side, but always with a nod and a wink...that you can put the Devil away with a smile
PM: Hopefully, and still not denying the fact that it is a real pitfall. Hell exists right here, as does Heaven...
NP: What's your definition of Hell?
PM: I wrote it in one song I think -- I wonder whether it's right and still stands up now. I say, "
Whirlpools whirl, And dragnets drag, Hell is not the fire, Hell is your belief, In yourself as the higher." [lyrics from the song "
Dragnet Drag]. So the idea that one is superior to anyone or anything is like a hell in a way isn't it?
NP: The idea of your ego overtaking you?
PM: I suppose so. I mean it's something to live with. I'm not a spokesman. I'm not a sage in that sense. I wouldn't ever presume to really know the whole truth. I'm a rock star. The thing about truth and all that stuff, mysticism and spiritualism, is that it will always take you back to yourself. You're the starting point, and the end, the be all and end all. I'm this person who is...I am charismatic, I'm gorgeous, I can sing like an eagle and I'm one of those one-offs - like Frank Sinatra, Mohammed Ali - that type, one of those. And I have to live with that, and I accept it [puts on an intentionally overdone American accent] totally. I embrace it totally.
NP: You joke about being a rock star but you shouldn't be so dismissive - especially as a lyricist since you have to open doors to parts of your mind that would
send other people mad just to see what pours out.
PM: You're right. I do tend to be a little bit flippant about myself in a way, because I think that we're prone to modesty aren't we really? We'd rather understate rather than overstate...
NP: That could be the British in you too.
PM: Yeah, that's what I was about to say. So you're right. I mean, I am a poet as well, and I am extremely serious about what I do. I think I'm probably the vintage hipster rather than the Godfather of Goth, you know.
NP: I'd never saddle you with the hipster label, not because you're not hip, but because of what hipsters have become.
PM: But what they've become is like what Goths have become, you know, you've got to try to get people back to where it's at.
NP: Right, anything that becomes commodified and sold in Hot Topic...
PM: Branded. What's a brand? I'm not a brand. I'm not a Hershey Bar thank you very much...
NP: You talk about sort of the commodification of Gothic culture and hipsterness.
PM: No, I didn't say that...
NP: I guess we were kind of joking about that...
PM: Either way...Seriously speaking, I don't ever denigrate any other artistic outlets. I think Bauhaus and myself did kick off, in part, what is the Gothic culture in a way, but that's now gone so far into its own world that it's its own thing. And I think it is a very, very interesting culture - because it is a culture - it isn't just a group of music fans...They're people who are interested in literature, poetry, painting, film, and [who are] also wanting to express themselves.
It's a self-taught culture, and it also manifests in its own different way in every country. I mean, the Americans, every Average Joe now is wearing a black bloody T-shirt with a little goatee and spiky hair, but they have no clue probably about us...Then in Europe there's a whole different attitude, it is very European and very Renaissance almost.
NP: Your home is in Istanbul, but I noticed this time around your bio says you're 'currently living between Istanbul and New York...'
PM: It's a bit old now, but
Ninth was made in upstate New York. It was a result of living up there from 2005 until 2008 or 2009. I've been going there for three months every year, living up there, absorbing that life up there, and being with artists up there. There was an artist community there too. David Baron, who's the co-producer of the album who co-wrote a lot of it with me, and also working a bit with Sarah Fimm, who's a purely independent artist who I've championed since 2005, amongst other new artists that I've been finding. Every tour I do now I take out a new artist with me, an independent artist.
NP: Right, you actually launched the career of Jewel didn't you? You took her out on tour.
PM: Yeah Nine Inch Nails, Jewel, all sorts....
NP: But it was through Sarah Fimm that you found David Baron who produced this album.
PM: Yes.
NP: How does the working relationship function between the two of you?
PM: I met David during a Sarah Fimm session where I was guest vocaling on a couple of tracks. One's called "
Crumbs and Broken Shells" and the other one that is out there is called "Strange." I'd got my eye on him straight away. I thought he's the person who I'd want to work with. And he happened to be moving upstate to his house in the Catskill Mountains...And Sarah also moved up there...So I ended up going up there and staying at Sarah's studio house. Also David Baron's house was just over the way, so I lived between those places up there.
David and I just started to write, and started to talk about my next album...We wrote it in fits and starts over about six months or so. Once I got the money raised - all the songs were arranged, written and ready - it was just a case of choosing the location, which was a converted church up in the Catskills, which had a great recording room. The last piece of the jigsaw was to bring in my band who've been playing with me for five years, and adding another brilliant guitarist called John Andrews to the combo. We literally played and recorded them in a week up there. Of course David and I edited it afterwards and added certain strings, harmonies, and stuff like that. So that's how it came together.
NP: When you and David write, how does that work?
PM: I've got lots of songs around anyway in my head, and I've got lyrics always around...David would program a prototype idea...and I would put a vocal down and start to shape that song. Then I would leave it at that stage of the work so it was left fresh. We'd work very fast, very quickly, and just built up a repertoire.
NP: What about David first appealed?
PM: ...He and I do meet on a very intellectual level in terms of musical ideas and musical things that we like. I was surprised that he knew of
The Residents for instance, which are very obscuro. So from that to his overall sensibility of what works in America...Plus he's aware of a lot of music from Europe, and from my early period, so he's got that language which we meet on very much. But then musically speaking I have to pull it elsewhere - do you understand? Because I didn't know how to define myself, because I never had to think about who I am and what I am. I just am, you know, and I do it like that. But we would have lots of dinners - I'd been living at his house and watching him work - I liked his astuteness. He's intelligent and objective too. He allows the artist to be themselves, in a sense, but then he places something on it. But then that's where we get to work together since I'll redirect things. There were certain pieces that he would come up with which he was ready to throw away - he didn't feel at all. I said, 'No, hold up on that one.' There were a number of those songs that I could envision in my head as working which he couldn't. It's a good partnership in that sense.
NP: Where were you getting external inspiration from? I know that you've done some writing for the Self Knowledge Global Responsibility organization?
PM: Well I would say my education in Turkey is a wellspring...I always want to say I'm in rock and roll but not of it...That may sound elitist. It's not meant to, but I do like to keep myself clean of any influences in a way. I don't hold flags for any particular movement in music. I tend to ignore most of what's going on. [I think there's] two kinds of music, one good and one bad. I don't necessarily adhere to fashion and I don't look for ideas in books. I prefer to let the ideas be of myself. I think the best statement of advice is not borrowed but it comes from the person, you know.
NP: There's that lyric in "Velocity Bird" where you say "Be yourself if you want to be me."
PM: Well, I'm worshipped by some members of the audience. It's beautiful to see, and I love them for that because that's what I wanted. I'm a performer. I'm like a magician or mystic jester, all those things, very charismatic, and that's very important, that relationship between the singer, the performer and his audience. Ultimately, if I don't own that, and I say well, "If you want to be me, be yourself," that kind of sends it back; That's only me because I'm being myself.
NP: Being of aware of that level of fan worship, that's got to be daunting to live up to, and scary because of the responsibility?
PM: No, there's no responsibility, other than courtesy. If somebody comes to you with great love and awe, the potential in that is to turn them back to themselves and say, 'Hey, you can do this too. You're fine.' It's kind of like you don't even have to move and you can have a great effect on people.
NP: I guess that's why the live shows must mean so much to you because you're directly there with your audience, experiencing that physical relationship and getting feedback.
PM: It's a conversation too. There's nothing worse than cynical old bastards with poor music standing there like they're so bored of it and exhausted with this wonderful amount of money and fame, and yet hipsterdom is so...
NP: You see that's why I hate hipsterdom, because it's too cool for school. I love the people who are not embarrassed to be enthusiastic and show it.
PM: I agree with you, so you tell those wannabes with stick legs and pointy shoes and stuff that that's not hip...You tell 'em girl.
NP: When you take that stance, when you're deliberately and dutifully trying to be cool, it's a lie, because deep down you've got to love something.
PM: You know what? It's also part and parcel of finding...when you're young you are hip, whether you're hipster or not. It's good to find a community in some way...But all hipsters should listen to Roxy Music's first album, they should listen to Velvet Underground...they should listen to Nico. They should listen to me, of course, but I'm too humble. No, no, they don't even have to listen to me - they should just look at a photograph of my eyes.
NP: [laughs] And they'll "Never Fall Out."
PM: Yeah, totally, there you go. They should listen to Radiohead's
In Rainbows for sure - that's hipster.
NP: So how are the live shows going?
PM: Really good, really good, great. I'm doing what's called underplays at the moment...I'm playing these very unlikely places that I shouldn't really play. Because I shouldn't play them, I am playing them - you know what I mean? They're really small places, very intimate events.
NP: I saw that you were doing the Troubadour. It's such a gorgeous, intimate venue.
PM: Exactly. A couple months ago I played the Mayan in LA, that was on the pre-album warm-up tour of the United States. I'm going to be working this album for a year or two at least. I'm going to be touring a lot.
NP: So we're going to see a lot more of you Stateside.
PM: Hopefully, yeah.
NP: I
read that you were planning on spending a little time on the Left Coast to pursue more on the acting front?
PM: I don't know how to get into that whole community but I'm pretty sure now I could give something to that. So I gave myself a week while I'm here...I found my name really does count, even in the film industry. Within a week I got some very interesting meetings with directors, and there's some really good feeds in the work there, so that's good.
NP: I was also reading a
Rolling Stone piece where you talked about how you wanted to be in the
Neil Gaiman film of
The Graveyard. It's so sad that that's project's on hold because that would have been ideal for you.
PM: It is. I'm in contact with him, so hopefully that will happen.
NP: You're in contact with Neil Gaiman?
PM: Yeah, but that's not to say he's offered me anything. Don't go saying that...He's very interested, and we're in contact.
NP: I'm just geeking out because that's two areas of geekdom colliding -- you and Neil Gaiman.
PM: I mean, he nicked my whole image for that fucking character in his comic books.
NP: Did he tell you that?
PM: No, but he did. It's based on my image...That's fine, absolutely. I'm not criticizing. I thought it was great.
NP: What would be another dream role for you?
PM: Anything acting alongside Sean Penn, or any Clint Eastwood film, anything by Coppola or his daughter, that type of area. I'd like to make my own film one day.
NP: I could see you in a Clint Eastwood vampire Western.
PM: Yeah, it's true, but I'd also like to play a very straight, serious dramatic role too.
NP: Getting away from
Eclipse and the archetypical cameo.
PM: Cameos are fine, but I like to keep moving...I'd love to be in like
Mystic River or that type of film.
NP: You're kind of a Renaissance man. You also used to incorporate dance into your performances too.
PM: I definitely still do, and my wife, Beyhan, who I met in 1982, one of the first things that I did with her was to get her to choreograph me for
Hollow Hills...We did it for some music program, and she's been very much an informant of my work...She is the artistic director of the national contemporary dance company in Turkey and has been so for years. She's amazing. I've lived inside and in her work for years in the contemporary dance theater, so that's been part of my life.
NP: Have you written music for any of her works.
PM: Yeah, one of them I did.
NP: As a creative spirit, what's left that you want to do?
PM: Well I want to do a
Dust follow-up album, and I do want to get really big so that I can put on some wonderful theatrical events as part of my show. Part of that would be also to do a joint thing with Beyhan, my wife, whereby she creates a dance theater piece for my music...Obviously it would be me, it would be my show, but it would be very much part of her. It would be us two doing it. That's one thing that needs financing because you have to bring a load of dancers with you...It wouldn't be shaking your ass dance, it would be contemporary modern sort of art.
NP: I'm a fan of Martha Graham technique.
PM: Totally, that's where my wife trained when I first met her. They're trained almost Spartan-like...She could physically in her thighs - she's a small woman - she could scissor me in and I could not [escape]. It was like, what the fuck?
NP: I can see that because I've done that Graham technique. For all of your disapproving of California, Martha Graham actually grew up in Santa Barbara.
PM: Oh no, I don't disapprove of California. I get scared in LA, that's all.
NP: Well I do in one respect: because of how much I love contemporary dance I find it shocking that there's so little recognition for Martha Graham here in California.
PM: She's like a giant in American culture isn't she?
NP: But you'd never know it living in her home turf.
PM: That's outrageous...
NP: Well, it's been such a pleasure chatting to you. Thank you so much.
PM: And you too. You've been great. You've been really good. Thank you for all your knowledge about what I do. It's always a great compliment to have a journalist really truly know and have listened. Very perceptive.
NP: It's been such a gift having the time to spend with this album. You get so busy in life that you don't have time to
really listen to things, but when you're doing an interview you get to concentrate; I've spent the last four or five days with this album, going to sleep at night with it on my headphones. It's been such a pleasure just to let my mind drift to the lyrics and let the music take me places.
PM: All that's left is that we get naked together. I'll leave you with that one warm between your legs. Okay?
