Ralph Steadman is certainly one of the last of his kind. One of the radical cartoonists and caricaturist of the 60s who co-created the idea of gonzo along with Hunter S. Thompson who he collaborated with on a number of projects including Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
In the past decade or so Steadman has been indulging his personal passions such as wine with books like The Grapes of Ralph and the creation of the Hunter S Thompson fist print.
Steadmans latest work is another book on wine called Untrodden Grapes. The book follows Steadman to the best of the world's wine-producing regions from Chile to California, South Africa to Alsace, with Steadman providing illustrations for all the eccentric characters along the way.
Buy Untrodden Grapes
Daniel Robert Epstein: Hey Ralph, what are you up to?
Ralph Steadman: I was trying to write my book on Hunter S. Thompson. Dont ask me about Hunter Im sick of the name.
It sounds to me like youre on a conference phone.
DRE: Can you hear me a little better now?
RS: Well, its alright, but its slightly echoey. I was just wondering. I rather had imagined conference phones to be there whenever I talk to publishers on the phone. Theres like six other guys there and theyre all sitting on golden thrones. When in fact youre all sitting around a desk with a phone between the lot of you. I always imagine a great hall and my voice is booming out from speakers and people are taking notes and passing judgment.
DRE: You have a romanticized view of the world of publishing.
RS: I do indeed. I think theyre so wonderful, publishing people. Theyd never screw you, they really love you and they love humanity. Bless their hearts for being so wonderful.
DRE: They dont care about making money either.
RS: No they dont. Theyre trying to save the world for Christs sake.
What is SuicideGirls?
DRE: Its like Playboy with punk girls.
RS: Is there anybody committing suicide within this organization?
DRE: They might be. Theyre in LA and Im in New York so I dont know what theyre doing out there.
RS: With a name like that, they should commit suicide, so they do and thats that. Rather than the ending, its the beginning.
Ok Im at the site. Is this a woman wrapped in plastic? Oooh. Is that a whole issue?
DRE: We call them a set of pictures.
RS: A set. Its an amazing set of sheer erotic joy.
DRE: You should do a book of these girls.
RS: I dont write books about sex, but perhaps I should. Ive been missing out. Hunter missed out there. He really fucked up there. He should have been writing sex books. Hed have been good at it.
DRE: Instead of politics.
RS: Oh I think so. He used to think I was a suckfish.
DRE: Whats a suckfish?
RS: You dont know what a suckfish is? Holy God man? Where have you been living man?
I looked up suckfish to learn exactly what he meant because he called a lot of people suckfish. A suckfish attaches itself to the lean underbelly of a shark looking for a meal. It wont attach itself to a fat shark whos just eaten but it will attach itself to a lean shark because its about to eat, then the suckfish gets its free meal. Because when the shark eats, it throws meat all over the place, so the suckfish is able to grab and eat. Thats something you could apply to many politicians of all sorts, which is what Hunter used it for.
DRE: Why did he call you a suckfish?
RS: He used to say, Youre feeding off me Ralph. But I think he fed off me too.
The thing about the drawings we did together, especially in the early days and in some of the later days, with Lono and things like that. The drawings seemed to encapsulate what it was he wanted to be. He wanted to not just be a recorder, recording things as they happened, but he wanted to be an artist as well, like a photographer. He wanted to capture that moment so the writing would be real. It would just come out of him like stream of consciousness. Thats was really what gonzo was. That is the essential essence of gonzo. If they set up a Hunter S. Thompson foundation it would be for such writers. The young kids that want to write as they feel.
DRE: Shall we talk about Untrodden Grapes?
RS: Dont talk about Untrodden Grapes! You werent going to talk about grapes!
It looks good and its funny. It does say something about wine but it doesnt drone on like so many wine books do. Its a putrefaction of juices that go bad. But it goes bad in the nicest possible way. So thats really what my book is about but it is fun as well because of the various interesting types in it and I tried to capture them. Such as the elegant people like the Basque women with moustaches and people like that. I dont think its a wine book. Im no Tom Stevenson so I dont know wine like that. He is a serious wine master who understands every nuance of fermentation and what happens at every stage but Im not that interested. I make wine myself.
DRE: Really!
RS: Yes, Ive had a vineyard for 15 years with a 100 vines and I could make a decent sort of interesting Pinot Noir. I also made some German varieties of wine. Everybodys doing it, its crazy, its lovely, its better than gardening cabbages.
DRE: You dont like cabbages then.
RS: I like cabbages, but I dont want to talk about them. I wasnt going to do a book about them next. I was thinking of not doing them and then deliberately going for something like parsnips. You can make a nice wine from parsnips.
DRE: Really?
RS: My father used to do all that stuff. He tried making wine out of mushrooms but it defeated him because you simply cannot make wine out of fungus.
DRE: What kind of mushrooms?
RS: Magic ones of course.
DRE: No shit.
RS: No, he didnt. Were talking about someone who lived in North Wales in the 1940s.
DRE: Magic mushrooms werent as popular then.
RS: They were unknown. Ill be there were some Welsh farmers there who knew about magic mushrooms there and would find them too.
DRE: Yeah, Ill bet.
RS: Its that the whole business of magic mushrooms being like peyote. Its hallucinogenic, its perfect and its natural.
DRE: When did your interest in wine begin?
RS: The wine company, Oddbins, had a catalog every year and in 1987 they got in touch with me and asked me if I knew anything about wine. I said, Not much except its nice to drink. But I dont drink German wines. They said Why not? I said, Well, theyre too masterful. I like French wines for their eloquence. Thats the one thing they have not learned in the new world, that wines have an eloquence to them in France. They still have that peculiar ability to grasp the very essence, the character, what the grape is trying to say. A grape is like a barometer, it picks up every single nuance of what is in the weather and what is in the soil. Whether its a good summer, a bad summer, this is why they get good and bad vintage. Those things fascinate me.
DRE: With the drawings in Untrodden Grapes, some of them are straightforward, and others have more of that famous quality that you add. How do you choose which pictures are normal and others get that touch?
RS: I think what happens is that some of the pictures just fall away. They simply have no attraction for me whatsoever. Ive got loads of drawings and suddenly theres nothing about particular drawings. They simply dont have anything. Its like doing an audition with a lot of actors, some you dont choose and some you do. With pictures, certain ones have something and are saying something. Thats what happened with the Hunter thing, going back to gonzo. The importance of what I did with Hunter and how it worked was that I could almost hear his mind working. I felt it enough to make it in my own version of what he wanted to do himself. He wished hed been the artist and the writer. He didnt want a photographer; he wanted someone who would become part of the story and I was dumb enough, innocent enough and crazy enough at the time to fall in with it. Thats how it took off because he couldnt believe that he found someone that did this.
DRE: Are you less crazy now?
RS: Not in spirit. I dont go out of the house and go to parties and shit now. Thats a sign of getting old. Im just looking at this crazy site. Its a naughty site and its intriguing so I look at it. SuicideGirls is quite interesting, but how suicidal are they. Theyre full of shit; theyre not suicidal at all.
DRE: I got to speak to Johnny Depp this past summer.
RS: Hes a nice guy. When I met him I was charmed by him.
DRE: He a very nice guy and he said on the day that Hunter killed himself, he was working and he kept on working because even though he felt bad about Hunter, he knew that Hunter went out on his own terms.
RS: Absolutely, so in one way you feel bad but in another way you feel glad. Can you imagine Hunter in an old peoples home in a wheelchair looking at someone else in the same room, sitting there all day long and always saying Weathers not so good today or That nurse is rude? or something like that.
DRE: I really cant.
RS: Hed say, Where could we get a drink? What the hell are we doing here? What am I doing in this fucking place?
DRE: What were you doing on the day that Hunter killed himself?
RS: The day before was Sunday the 19th. I had just finished signing all The Curse of Lono book sets for Taschen books. I was very surprised and curious as to why Hunter had signed all 1200 of them mechanically and obediently because it was absolutely against his character. He would have fucked about for months saying I was going to do it, Ill do it tomorrow or something. Every one was fully signed because sometimes he would just write HST, but this time hed signed every one Hunter S. Thompson.
He was that uncompromising in most things in his life. But he also was, in a strange way, a polite southern gentleman whod try to be as nice as he could to people. When he came to stay here in 1980 I told him my mother-in-law lives in the big house next door. But she decided that because he was coming she would go stay in London with her other daughter. Hunter said to me, You mean you put an old lady out of her house just because of me? I always knew you were a mean bastard.
DRE: You were a suckfish.
RS: Yes, I was a suckfish.
DRE: Had you spoken to Hunter before he died?
RS: I met with him in person the October beforehand and Joe Petro, who did the fist print, was with me. When we left Joe said to me, I dont know why Ive got this feeling, but I think this is the last time well ever see him.
Hunter did tell me 25 years ago, Id feel real trapped in this life right now if I didnt know that I could commit suicide at any time.
DRE: Holy cow!
RS: So he told me that then and he showed me all of his guns. He had a myna bird called Edward. He used to put his hand in the cage and grasp Edward and say, Edward, as far as I know there is no bird god who is going to save you now, Edward. You are doomed Edward. This bird would be screaming, trying to get into the safety of the cage or whatever. It was amusing to torment him.
DRE: What a character he was.
RS: I never met anyone like him and no one else will take his place.
DRE: How was that fireworks display where you guys blew up his ashes?
RS: It was Hollywood-ized in a way. It was not quite as I imagined it because there were half a dozen different fireworks which went boom, boom, boom and all of them had some of the ashes in it. The best way would have been to blow it out across the valley and have it explode in midair. That would have been my idea.
The interesting thing about that was that he thought of the whole episode in 1977 but he always wanted it to go off once a year to remind people that he was still around.
DRE: I noticed that there havent been any animated cartoons of your work. Is that correct?
RS: Yes, I cant stand the idea of me drawing the same picture over and over again until we get the thing moving. If somebody else wants to do it thats a different thing. When I asked Terry Gilliam if he would make a film of Fear and Loathing. He said, Well ok Ralph but I dont want any of your fucking drawings in my film.
Ive got a thing on the wall of my studio thats by Terry and it says on it, For Ralph who has influenced me far more than he would ever want to know. Meaning that hes ripped me off many times. But it doesnt matter, hes a good filmmaker.
DRE: Why didnt he want your drawings in the film?
RS: I think he said it would influence the thing. In a way it would take it away from him. If hes making the film, he doesnt want my drawings competing with the thing and its a plain pity. But if you look at the road at the end of the film my drawings come up as the road surface and he drives over them. Its kind of fuck you Ralph, I made the film.
DRE: So no one ever asked you about doing an animated film?
RS: Its been mentioned. Theres a guy called Alex Cox, who was the guy who was first going to make the film and Hunter went mad because he didnt want a cartoon film. He feared my drawings in many ways. They played too big a part in the book. When it came out it was noticed in Rolling Stones because the drawings were huge. They competed with the story, but nevertheless they gave the story some visual imagery that was somehow easily recognizable. I think it upset Hunter after a while.
DRE: Do you have children?
RS: Yes, I have five and three grandchildren.
DRE: Do any of them draw?
RS: Everybody draws. You draw, dont you?
DRE: A little.
RS: Everybody draws, its nothing special.
DRE: Your drawings are special.
RS: Well, maybe mine. My son, Theo, plays guitar beautifully. He got married last year and has a baby. Henry wanted his brother Theo to give a speech at his wedding and be the best man but Theo couldnt do it because he was so nervous. Instead he brought his guitar and sang. All the waitresses were just falling all over themselves because hes a lovely singer.
DRE: Have you ever seen any Ralph Steadman tattoos on anybody?
RS: Yes, Ive seen them on somebodys ass and somebodys breasts. I would personally like draw one on somebodys ass and on somebodys breast but Im discouraged by certain members of my family not to get involved. But it is a nice fantasy.
I have actually done it for Marsha Hunt who had had a baby with Mick Jagger. I drew grapes and two people in bed across her breasts for Telegraph Magazine way back in the 60s. That was nice. I had drunk gin all day so it was a wonderful experience. I was able to put my head between her breasts and go bl-bl-bl just to bring myself back to my senses. There were other people in the room by the way, it was not rape, I tell you.
DRE: Do you do drugs anymore besides wine?
RS: No, I think Ill stick with brandy and beer. I gave up whiskey. I used to drink it with Hunter and it was just silly. I think that was part of the craziness again, getting fucking drunk and being completely muddled.
DRE: When did you quit taking like hallucinogens?
RS: In 1990 I took Peru coca leaves because I needed them for mountain sickness. I wish I could grow them over here because theyre hallucinogenic but much more invigorating. They can make you work for five days without sleep or do whatever you want without sleep.
DRE: What are you doing now besides the Hunter book?
RS: The Independent in London just ran a thing called Steadmans War. Its about the war, about torture and about all the shit thats going on. Dick Cheneys there talking about the dark possibilities of torture in the war, trying to justify it in the name of finding out whether someones going to blow up a building. Thats total bullshit. The UN charter says that in no way can you inflict pain in a premeditated way on anybody ever.
DRE: A few months ago I found out that Dennis Hopper, who directed Easy Rider, is a Republican and a Bush supporter.
RS: I cant believe it. He must be so dumb. Its so beyond belief.
I wrote for this piece about the war where I wrote, As for Iraq, we didnt bomb it into democracy. Thats just what the world needs, the most powerful leader in the western world who really and truly believes that God told him to do it. Hes a bloody terrorist, thats what he is. He represents a massive public stupidity, a human tsunami which he claims that those who believe in his enshrined gobbledy-goop go to the Promised Land with a sacred passport and the rest go to hell. It is George W. Bush who has politicized religion and created hell on earth. I want to go to hell because an awful majority have already gone there and they need me and all my kind because we appreciate all their faults.
DRE: I dont believe that Bush is that pious.
RS: Hes not pious; its sheer egotism to say that God told him. Its sheer, dyed in the wool, depraved fundamentalism. The whole of fundamental Christian religion is a depravity. It stops people from thinking for themselves; it gives them a mantra thats total bullshit.
DRE: Have your politics ever wavered since the 60s?
RS: No, not at all because Ive always been individual, Im not saying right or left, just mine. Back in 1977 I went to the Friends of Israel there and saw everything from the Golan Heights down to Gaza and the camps that they were at the time. I walked on the Sea of Galilee. The thing is, I can still be a friend of Israel, but I need to believe in the autonomous state of Palestine, its rights and its permanence. Our diplomatic intentions to smooth their turmoil are a wonderful and gracious gift of reimbursement of what is already theirs. It is not generous, it is right. George doesnt realize that. The Americans that are blowing the ass out of Afghanistan, use the Taliban as a reason. If you need a reason, yes they did some terrible things and they probably still do. Their idea of democracy, if there is one, will never be our idea of democracy, but that doesnt mean to say that there arent good people somewhere in there. Im sorry were going off on politics now, but Ive had enough of Hunter. He had enough of politics too. Im sure part of the reason he killed himself was because when Bush got back in he couldnt stand it. Its another four years of gibberish. I think Bush ought to be impeached. Hes trying to turn a lie into Gods truth.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
In the past decade or so Steadman has been indulging his personal passions such as wine with books like The Grapes of Ralph and the creation of the Hunter S Thompson fist print.
Steadmans latest work is another book on wine called Untrodden Grapes. The book follows Steadman to the best of the world's wine-producing regions from Chile to California, South Africa to Alsace, with Steadman providing illustrations for all the eccentric characters along the way.
Buy Untrodden Grapes
Daniel Robert Epstein: Hey Ralph, what are you up to?
Ralph Steadman: I was trying to write my book on Hunter S. Thompson. Dont ask me about Hunter Im sick of the name.
It sounds to me like youre on a conference phone.
DRE: Can you hear me a little better now?
RS: Well, its alright, but its slightly echoey. I was just wondering. I rather had imagined conference phones to be there whenever I talk to publishers on the phone. Theres like six other guys there and theyre all sitting on golden thrones. When in fact youre all sitting around a desk with a phone between the lot of you. I always imagine a great hall and my voice is booming out from speakers and people are taking notes and passing judgment.
DRE: You have a romanticized view of the world of publishing.
RS: I do indeed. I think theyre so wonderful, publishing people. Theyd never screw you, they really love you and they love humanity. Bless their hearts for being so wonderful.
DRE: They dont care about making money either.
RS: No they dont. Theyre trying to save the world for Christs sake.
What is SuicideGirls?
DRE: Its like Playboy with punk girls.
RS: Is there anybody committing suicide within this organization?
DRE: They might be. Theyre in LA and Im in New York so I dont know what theyre doing out there.
RS: With a name like that, they should commit suicide, so they do and thats that. Rather than the ending, its the beginning.
Ok Im at the site. Is this a woman wrapped in plastic? Oooh. Is that a whole issue?
DRE: We call them a set of pictures.
RS: A set. Its an amazing set of sheer erotic joy.
DRE: You should do a book of these girls.
RS: I dont write books about sex, but perhaps I should. Ive been missing out. Hunter missed out there. He really fucked up there. He should have been writing sex books. Hed have been good at it.
DRE: Instead of politics.
RS: Oh I think so. He used to think I was a suckfish.
DRE: Whats a suckfish?
RS: You dont know what a suckfish is? Holy God man? Where have you been living man?
I looked up suckfish to learn exactly what he meant because he called a lot of people suckfish. A suckfish attaches itself to the lean underbelly of a shark looking for a meal. It wont attach itself to a fat shark whos just eaten but it will attach itself to a lean shark because its about to eat, then the suckfish gets its free meal. Because when the shark eats, it throws meat all over the place, so the suckfish is able to grab and eat. Thats something you could apply to many politicians of all sorts, which is what Hunter used it for.
DRE: Why did he call you a suckfish?
RS: He used to say, Youre feeding off me Ralph. But I think he fed off me too.
The thing about the drawings we did together, especially in the early days and in some of the later days, with Lono and things like that. The drawings seemed to encapsulate what it was he wanted to be. He wanted to not just be a recorder, recording things as they happened, but he wanted to be an artist as well, like a photographer. He wanted to capture that moment so the writing would be real. It would just come out of him like stream of consciousness. Thats was really what gonzo was. That is the essential essence of gonzo. If they set up a Hunter S. Thompson foundation it would be for such writers. The young kids that want to write as they feel.
DRE: Shall we talk about Untrodden Grapes?
RS: Dont talk about Untrodden Grapes! You werent going to talk about grapes!
It looks good and its funny. It does say something about wine but it doesnt drone on like so many wine books do. Its a putrefaction of juices that go bad. But it goes bad in the nicest possible way. So thats really what my book is about but it is fun as well because of the various interesting types in it and I tried to capture them. Such as the elegant people like the Basque women with moustaches and people like that. I dont think its a wine book. Im no Tom Stevenson so I dont know wine like that. He is a serious wine master who understands every nuance of fermentation and what happens at every stage but Im not that interested. I make wine myself.
DRE: Really!
RS: Yes, Ive had a vineyard for 15 years with a 100 vines and I could make a decent sort of interesting Pinot Noir. I also made some German varieties of wine. Everybodys doing it, its crazy, its lovely, its better than gardening cabbages.
DRE: You dont like cabbages then.
RS: I like cabbages, but I dont want to talk about them. I wasnt going to do a book about them next. I was thinking of not doing them and then deliberately going for something like parsnips. You can make a nice wine from parsnips.
DRE: Really?
RS: My father used to do all that stuff. He tried making wine out of mushrooms but it defeated him because you simply cannot make wine out of fungus.
DRE: What kind of mushrooms?
RS: Magic ones of course.
DRE: No shit.
RS: No, he didnt. Were talking about someone who lived in North Wales in the 1940s.
DRE: Magic mushrooms werent as popular then.
RS: They were unknown. Ill be there were some Welsh farmers there who knew about magic mushrooms there and would find them too.
DRE: Yeah, Ill bet.
RS: Its that the whole business of magic mushrooms being like peyote. Its hallucinogenic, its perfect and its natural.
DRE: When did your interest in wine begin?
RS: The wine company, Oddbins, had a catalog every year and in 1987 they got in touch with me and asked me if I knew anything about wine. I said, Not much except its nice to drink. But I dont drink German wines. They said Why not? I said, Well, theyre too masterful. I like French wines for their eloquence. Thats the one thing they have not learned in the new world, that wines have an eloquence to them in France. They still have that peculiar ability to grasp the very essence, the character, what the grape is trying to say. A grape is like a barometer, it picks up every single nuance of what is in the weather and what is in the soil. Whether its a good summer, a bad summer, this is why they get good and bad vintage. Those things fascinate me.
DRE: With the drawings in Untrodden Grapes, some of them are straightforward, and others have more of that famous quality that you add. How do you choose which pictures are normal and others get that touch?
RS: I think what happens is that some of the pictures just fall away. They simply have no attraction for me whatsoever. Ive got loads of drawings and suddenly theres nothing about particular drawings. They simply dont have anything. Its like doing an audition with a lot of actors, some you dont choose and some you do. With pictures, certain ones have something and are saying something. Thats what happened with the Hunter thing, going back to gonzo. The importance of what I did with Hunter and how it worked was that I could almost hear his mind working. I felt it enough to make it in my own version of what he wanted to do himself. He wished hed been the artist and the writer. He didnt want a photographer; he wanted someone who would become part of the story and I was dumb enough, innocent enough and crazy enough at the time to fall in with it. Thats how it took off because he couldnt believe that he found someone that did this.
DRE: Are you less crazy now?
RS: Not in spirit. I dont go out of the house and go to parties and shit now. Thats a sign of getting old. Im just looking at this crazy site. Its a naughty site and its intriguing so I look at it. SuicideGirls is quite interesting, but how suicidal are they. Theyre full of shit; theyre not suicidal at all.
DRE: I got to speak to Johnny Depp this past summer.
RS: Hes a nice guy. When I met him I was charmed by him.
DRE: He a very nice guy and he said on the day that Hunter killed himself, he was working and he kept on working because even though he felt bad about Hunter, he knew that Hunter went out on his own terms.
RS: Absolutely, so in one way you feel bad but in another way you feel glad. Can you imagine Hunter in an old peoples home in a wheelchair looking at someone else in the same room, sitting there all day long and always saying Weathers not so good today or That nurse is rude? or something like that.
DRE: I really cant.
RS: Hed say, Where could we get a drink? What the hell are we doing here? What am I doing in this fucking place?
DRE: What were you doing on the day that Hunter killed himself?
RS: The day before was Sunday the 19th. I had just finished signing all The Curse of Lono book sets for Taschen books. I was very surprised and curious as to why Hunter had signed all 1200 of them mechanically and obediently because it was absolutely against his character. He would have fucked about for months saying I was going to do it, Ill do it tomorrow or something. Every one was fully signed because sometimes he would just write HST, but this time hed signed every one Hunter S. Thompson.
He was that uncompromising in most things in his life. But he also was, in a strange way, a polite southern gentleman whod try to be as nice as he could to people. When he came to stay here in 1980 I told him my mother-in-law lives in the big house next door. But she decided that because he was coming she would go stay in London with her other daughter. Hunter said to me, You mean you put an old lady out of her house just because of me? I always knew you were a mean bastard.
DRE: You were a suckfish.
RS: Yes, I was a suckfish.
DRE: Had you spoken to Hunter before he died?
RS: I met with him in person the October beforehand and Joe Petro, who did the fist print, was with me. When we left Joe said to me, I dont know why Ive got this feeling, but I think this is the last time well ever see him.
Hunter did tell me 25 years ago, Id feel real trapped in this life right now if I didnt know that I could commit suicide at any time.
DRE: Holy cow!
RS: So he told me that then and he showed me all of his guns. He had a myna bird called Edward. He used to put his hand in the cage and grasp Edward and say, Edward, as far as I know there is no bird god who is going to save you now, Edward. You are doomed Edward. This bird would be screaming, trying to get into the safety of the cage or whatever. It was amusing to torment him.
DRE: What a character he was.
RS: I never met anyone like him and no one else will take his place.
DRE: How was that fireworks display where you guys blew up his ashes?
RS: It was Hollywood-ized in a way. It was not quite as I imagined it because there were half a dozen different fireworks which went boom, boom, boom and all of them had some of the ashes in it. The best way would have been to blow it out across the valley and have it explode in midair. That would have been my idea.
The interesting thing about that was that he thought of the whole episode in 1977 but he always wanted it to go off once a year to remind people that he was still around.
DRE: I noticed that there havent been any animated cartoons of your work. Is that correct?
RS: Yes, I cant stand the idea of me drawing the same picture over and over again until we get the thing moving. If somebody else wants to do it thats a different thing. When I asked Terry Gilliam if he would make a film of Fear and Loathing. He said, Well ok Ralph but I dont want any of your fucking drawings in my film.
Ive got a thing on the wall of my studio thats by Terry and it says on it, For Ralph who has influenced me far more than he would ever want to know. Meaning that hes ripped me off many times. But it doesnt matter, hes a good filmmaker.
DRE: Why didnt he want your drawings in the film?
RS: I think he said it would influence the thing. In a way it would take it away from him. If hes making the film, he doesnt want my drawings competing with the thing and its a plain pity. But if you look at the road at the end of the film my drawings come up as the road surface and he drives over them. Its kind of fuck you Ralph, I made the film.
DRE: So no one ever asked you about doing an animated film?
RS: Its been mentioned. Theres a guy called Alex Cox, who was the guy who was first going to make the film and Hunter went mad because he didnt want a cartoon film. He feared my drawings in many ways. They played too big a part in the book. When it came out it was noticed in Rolling Stones because the drawings were huge. They competed with the story, but nevertheless they gave the story some visual imagery that was somehow easily recognizable. I think it upset Hunter after a while.
DRE: Do you have children?
RS: Yes, I have five and three grandchildren.
DRE: Do any of them draw?
RS: Everybody draws. You draw, dont you?
DRE: A little.
RS: Everybody draws, its nothing special.
DRE: Your drawings are special.
RS: Well, maybe mine. My son, Theo, plays guitar beautifully. He got married last year and has a baby. Henry wanted his brother Theo to give a speech at his wedding and be the best man but Theo couldnt do it because he was so nervous. Instead he brought his guitar and sang. All the waitresses were just falling all over themselves because hes a lovely singer.
DRE: Have you ever seen any Ralph Steadman tattoos on anybody?
RS: Yes, Ive seen them on somebodys ass and somebodys breasts. I would personally like draw one on somebodys ass and on somebodys breast but Im discouraged by certain members of my family not to get involved. But it is a nice fantasy.
I have actually done it for Marsha Hunt who had had a baby with Mick Jagger. I drew grapes and two people in bed across her breasts for Telegraph Magazine way back in the 60s. That was nice. I had drunk gin all day so it was a wonderful experience. I was able to put my head between her breasts and go bl-bl-bl just to bring myself back to my senses. There were other people in the room by the way, it was not rape, I tell you.
DRE: Do you do drugs anymore besides wine?
RS: No, I think Ill stick with brandy and beer. I gave up whiskey. I used to drink it with Hunter and it was just silly. I think that was part of the craziness again, getting fucking drunk and being completely muddled.
DRE: When did you quit taking like hallucinogens?
RS: In 1990 I took Peru coca leaves because I needed them for mountain sickness. I wish I could grow them over here because theyre hallucinogenic but much more invigorating. They can make you work for five days without sleep or do whatever you want without sleep.
DRE: What are you doing now besides the Hunter book?
RS: The Independent in London just ran a thing called Steadmans War. Its about the war, about torture and about all the shit thats going on. Dick Cheneys there talking about the dark possibilities of torture in the war, trying to justify it in the name of finding out whether someones going to blow up a building. Thats total bullshit. The UN charter says that in no way can you inflict pain in a premeditated way on anybody ever.
DRE: A few months ago I found out that Dennis Hopper, who directed Easy Rider, is a Republican and a Bush supporter.
RS: I cant believe it. He must be so dumb. Its so beyond belief.
I wrote for this piece about the war where I wrote, As for Iraq, we didnt bomb it into democracy. Thats just what the world needs, the most powerful leader in the western world who really and truly believes that God told him to do it. Hes a bloody terrorist, thats what he is. He represents a massive public stupidity, a human tsunami which he claims that those who believe in his enshrined gobbledy-goop go to the Promised Land with a sacred passport and the rest go to hell. It is George W. Bush who has politicized religion and created hell on earth. I want to go to hell because an awful majority have already gone there and they need me and all my kind because we appreciate all their faults.
DRE: I dont believe that Bush is that pious.
RS: Hes not pious; its sheer egotism to say that God told him. Its sheer, dyed in the wool, depraved fundamentalism. The whole of fundamental Christian religion is a depravity. It stops people from thinking for themselves; it gives them a mantra thats total bullshit.
DRE: Have your politics ever wavered since the 60s?
RS: No, not at all because Ive always been individual, Im not saying right or left, just mine. Back in 1977 I went to the Friends of Israel there and saw everything from the Golan Heights down to Gaza and the camps that they were at the time. I walked on the Sea of Galilee. The thing is, I can still be a friend of Israel, but I need to believe in the autonomous state of Palestine, its rights and its permanence. Our diplomatic intentions to smooth their turmoil are a wonderful and gracious gift of reimbursement of what is already theirs. It is not generous, it is right. George doesnt realize that. The Americans that are blowing the ass out of Afghanistan, use the Taliban as a reason. If you need a reason, yes they did some terrible things and they probably still do. Their idea of democracy, if there is one, will never be our idea of democracy, but that doesnt mean to say that there arent good people somewhere in there. Im sorry were going off on politics now, but Ive had enough of Hunter. He had enough of politics too. Im sure part of the reason he killed himself was because when Bush got back in he couldnt stand it. Its another four years of gibberish. I think Bush ought to be impeached. Hes trying to turn a lie into Gods truth.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
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Great interview! I'm jealous, I wanna hang out with great minds and get drunk too!