Foetus through the lens of Lydia Lunch
Interviewing Foetus (a.k.a. Jim "J.G." Thirlwell, Clint Ruin, etc…) felt much the way I'd imagine getting beaten into submission in some perverse yet fun-loving sex act might feel. I remember finishing the interview and wondering whether or not it went well. At around 1½ hours, it was clearly my longest interview, and looking back, I'm glad I did it while my punk rock sensibilities were on overdrive (1996, the release of Foetus' 'York' album) and not now, while they are slowly but surely dwindling, rendering me somewhat of a sissy. For some reason, interviewing (and offending) a rock star with whom I'd been fascinated for many years, left me remarkably unfazed. I'd been following Foetus' work for some time, and had become essentially obsessed with the New York City 'No Wave' movement created by such artists as Foetus, Lydia Lunch, Richard Kern, Cop Shoot Cop, Henry Rollins, Emilio Cubiero, Roli Mosimann, etc. I insulted Foetus numerous times during our discussion, but for some reason, his irritated retorts (said in a peculiar mixture of Australian, British, Finnish and American accents) felt surprisingly soothing. Also, some of our interview may or may not have been 'off the record,' but it was too ambiguous to tell exactly what was and was not acceptable to print. So here it is, almost in its entirety. Jim, if you're reading this, thanks for the intimacy - and let me know if you want me to take something off.
TGM: "Hi Jim. Jeremy [Thirst Ear rep at the time] just told me that you gave him a very cool playschool doll."
JG: "Well, people need presents."
TGM: "I wanted to start off by telling you a story about the first time I ever heard Foetus. Well, I didn't actually know that it was Foetus at the time - I was nine years old.......and I had this baby sitter - and she and her brother would come over to baby sit my brother and I. So this was 1985 - when 'Nail' came out....."
JG: "You were 9 years old in 1985, oh my god."
TGM: "I know! My formative years with Foetus! Anyway, my babysitter's brother would play the 'Nail' album all the time for us. And eventually I became totally in love with the song 'Anything.' [JG giggles] And so I'd go and sing it to all my friends at school in 3rd grade, not realizing of course who it was by. "Fi, fi, fo, fum, it takes two to tangle, it takes one to come...etc" Later on when I realized it was a Foetus song, I thought it was hysterical. I doubt I had any idea what the song was actually about.
So congratulations on the new record: It's called 'York: First Exit to Brooklyn.' It's excellent. "
JG: "You like it?"
TGM: "I do. I'm a big fan of Lydia Lunch - and I was hoping you'd team up again."
JG: "Yeah, I'm not sure we will again. But I'm sure at some point we'll do something else. But Lydia Lunch isn't exactly the most...anyway, you know...not the most musical....well....."
TGM: "So what are the differences between your new album and some of your previous work?"
JG: "Well I think it's the most ambitious work that I've done. What the hell was I thinking? I almost ditched on the project - almost 5 times. It was like, 'good god, get me the hell outta here.' It was ridiculous. The people who I enlisted had never even met each other before and I independently brought them to my house and taught them the musical themes and stuff like that. And Lydia would fax me her writings and stuff like that. And I was like oh my god. It was such a big thing for me to bring together. And no one had met before. And it was like, I'm not going to do this, I'm not going to do this. And actually I was talking about it with Jennifer and Oren from Elysian Fields, and they were telling me, 'you have to do it, you have to do it.' And I kept saying, 'I don't want to do it.' Because I didn't want to do it - I was trying to pull out of it. But it was like a really tough thing to pull together, the whole idea was…the whole libretto that I pulled together, and I wrote down the score which everyone had to read. And I had these kitchen clocks, and we started them at midnight. Started from there - and I was downstage. And I was poking them with my tin whistle. Like 'Ok, here you go - now, now!' You know, like poking the trumpet player and poking the trombone player, whatever. Telling Lydia, 'shut up, shut up.' So the whole thing kind of came together, and I mixed it the next day. And all of a sudden, there you go. And it took a long time to get the sleeves together and stuff - and here I am sitting in the offices of Thirsty Ear, who released the album. I think that they're going to come in and beat me up."
TGM: "What were some of your musical influences when you were growing up. What kind of music did your parents listen to when you were a kid?"
JG: "My parents had nothing to do with my musical tastes. But you want to know the first band I ever saw?"
TGM: "Sure."
JG: "You really want to know?!"
TGM: "Uh, yes?"
JG: "It was 'The Monkees.' It was like 1966 or something like that. I was a tiny little kid. I went to school and I went and saw the Monkees and my Mom used to knit me these wool hats.......and I went to school the next day. I had seen the Monkees the night before at, if you can imagine, the equivalent to Madison Square Garden, but in Melbourne, Australia. I was all lit up - 'I saw the Monkees last night, I'm wasted.' So the Monkees were the first band I ever saw. You want to know the second band I ever saw?"
TGM: "Yes."
JG: "The second band?!"
TGM: "Uh, yeah...I would LOVE to know...!"
JG: "Gary Glitter! Want to know the third band I ever saw?"
TGM: "Yes, very much."
JG: "Gary Glitter! [giggles] I went and saw Gary Glitter chronically. And when I was in Australia, - I gotta say I've been a music fan for a long time - and when I was in Australia, I saw Gary Glitter. I saw Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Wings, Elton John, Rick Wakeman…really bad stuff. Then you know what - 1976. Oh my god! You know who I saw? The Saints! I thought that was either the worst show or the best show I'd ever seen in my entire life. I couldn't work it out. It was amazing, Chris Bailey, the singer from The Saints - by the end of the show he had gone through an entire bottle of Jack Daniels and he was making out with a girl in the front row. And I thought it was the most incredible thing that I'd ever fucking seen. And so I fell in love with that, you know. But I mean, before that I'd been to the Ramones and The Boys Next Door [Birthday Party], and at that same show all the Boys Next Door were there. And the other thing was David Bowie..."
TGM: "That was my first show actually. 'The Glass Spider Tour."
JG: "Are you serious?"
TGM: "Oh yeah! That was my first concert. I was 11 years old. Peter Frampton was there and everything!"
JG: "Wow! You want to hear a funny story? [TGM: Sure] I'll tell you 2 funny stories - about David Bowie. Well, when I was growing up, I was totally into Mott The Hoople, T-Rex, Gary Glitter and David Bowie. That was my thing. The last couple years I was so into David Bowie. Are we recording? I mean I hope we're not."
TGM: "Yes...we are."
JG: "Oh no. You want to hear the David Bowie story? I've got a great David Bowie story."
TGM: "I totally do, but I'm not going to turn the tape off during your story...!!"
JG: "Ok. Oh my god.....Oh my god. So I was with my ex-girlfriend and I was saying to her, 'look is it over with us?' And she was saying, 'well unless you can change your life in this way and blah blah blah....' and I was like, 'Fuck that. Look, tell me what do you want from me? What do you want from me? Are we going to have a relationship?' And so I got so mad at her - and we were at this after show party for David Bowie. And she was drinking her drink, and I took her glass and smashed it on the ground, cause I was so pissed off. Anyway, I was going to storm out of the whole party - and it was when David Bowie was playing with Nine Inch Nails. And I was going to storm out - but it was an open bar, so I thought, so much for storming out, I'm going to have one more drink before I go. And this guy comes up to me and says, 'Trent and David want to see you.' And I was thinking, 'who the hell is David?...the guy that does their lights or something like that..', not thinking it was David Bowie. So anyway, I get escorted to the VIP room, and I sit down in the middle of Trent and David. And I turn around to David, and I say to David, 'Give me a great big kiss.' And he gave me a great big kiss! Oh, he totally gave me a great big kiss! And so I was bitching to him about my ex-girlfriend problems, and stuff like that. Anyway, I kissed him on the lips. So we're talking for a while…and I know Trent from way back. So anyways, towards the end of the night, David says, 'Well we're going to go back to the hotel room,' and he points to Iman, who's been sitting there - and I didn't even notice that she was there. Anyway, Darit [??], my girlfriend or ex-girlfriend or whatever she was at that point was standing on the outskirts of the VIP room. So I said to David, 'Before you go - see that girl over there... - go up to her and say something like 'Foetus isn't such a bad guy.' And he actually went up to her and said that. He actually said that! Then she came back to me on the phone and said, 'how dare you do that?! The one time I get to meet David Bowie he says something like that!?' And I was like, 'You wouldn't have met David Bowie had you not been such a bitch to me!"
TGM: "Good reverse psychology! That's funny."
JG: "Here's another great story. Me and my bass player were going to the show in D.C., and we got there really late cause we got lost and stuff like that. And I was backstage talking to someone, and David came up and tapped me on the shoulder - he had just come off stage and I had brought him all these presents. And David ran away after tapping me on the shoulder, and I was about to fall over because I love David so much. And then he comes back, 'Where's Foetus, where's Foetus?' I couldn't believe it. And I gave him my presents. And we were sitting and talking, and I just about fell on the floor. For David to say that to me - it was like I was in heaven."
TGM: "Tell me about your educational background? Both musically, and otherwise."
JG: "I'm taught as an art teacher. And I actually taught people art, and stuff like that. Do you want to hear my ridiculous stories about that? [TGM: Sure..] My educational thing was - jesus christ - it's a long story. Ok. I was away on vacation. I wanted to be a technical student. And it was not to be. And so my Mom enrolled me in Melbourne State College, which I didn't know was an educational school. So I turned into a student teacher. A student art teacher. I first started teaching Kindergarten kids. And then later on in the suburban city schools - the all girls school. And I was a punk rocker. I had green hair - looking at this girl's ass. Very confusing. And I was in this school, I was teaching them how to do nazi propaghanda. And in my lunch hours - and I was driving a volkswagon at the time, and I would go to the local shopping mall and totally steal stuff and fill up the back of my Volkswagon. I was so out of control. So naughty, so naughty! Anyway I used to fill up the back of my van with records and clothes - during my lunch break. Then I would come back to school. I would just sit there and wait for the cops to go. Even now I'm going through the desk here...."
TGM: "What is your musical background."
JG: "Nothing. No training."
TGM: "Let's talk about the many different incarnations of Foetus....[There's 'Foetus, Inc', 'Foetus Interuptus', 'Scraping Foetus off the Wheel', 'Foetus Eruptus', 'Foetus All Nude Review', 'Foetus Under Glass', 'Phillip and his Foetus Vibrations', 'You've got Foetus on your breath', Foetus Over and Uber Frisco', 'Foetus in Bed', 'Foetus Art Terrorism', etc, etc, and then there's 'Clint Ruin' and of course 'JG Thirlwell'] What's the reasoning behind all the different monikers? Is there a specific reason for any or all of them?"
JG: "There's no reason for it. It's being preverse. It's naughty. I like to be naughty."
TGM: "So when was the first time you started working with Lydia Lunch? I have a Richard Kern Film ['Fingered'] that you did the music for - that Lydia was in. Then there's Stinkfist..."
JG: "I did stuff. My and Lydia did stuff. You know, there was no agenda. I mean, we've done so much stuff: The Crumb, Stinkfist, all sorts of stuff. You know, I hate to say it, but it's really none of your business. For god sake, we started with immaculate consultance [?].....but there was stuff before that..."
TGM: "I meant strictly professionally, of course. I didn't mean personally..."
JG: "Well there was tons of stuff before that."
TGM: "Uh huh, well moving right along.....many of your songs are pretty sacriligious...you've got: 'The Only Good Christian is a Dead Christian', 'Satan Place', 'Dying with My Boots On', and then you also have many songs not necessarily about Judaism, but certainly about the Holocaust: 'I'll Meet You in Poland Baby', 'Enter the Exterminator'...etc. So I'm curious about your religious background."
JG: "Mine? I hate them all. You know, I wish I could be more.....I hate them all. I hate them all."
TGM: "So then were you raised any specific religion?"
JG: "CSV [??] It's so unfair, I think they're all so unfair."
TGM: "You've also written numerous songs about police, and other bureaucratic forms of governance. (Pigswill, DI-1-9026, etc..) You clearly have an aversion to law and order - or certainly a perverse relationship to it. Rumor has it that you wrote 'Nail' from inside a prison in Helsinki. So I'm wondering what kind of run-ins you've had with the law. Where did your problem with the law begin?"
JG: "[Giggles] You're so cute. Well, you really want to know? [TGM: Yes] Well, ok. God. Well you know, I was in jail a couple times, in Helsinki. And that's where I wrote the sleeve to 'Nail'. That's the way it came about. I was also in jail in London. In London they were total dicks. They were so nasty to me. And, uh...oh god.
TGM: "We can move onto the next question if you'd prefer.."
JG: "Yes, I would."
TGM: "Ok..."
JG: "You really want to hear my stories about London?"
TGM: "Only if you want to tell me. But yes...of course."
JG: "Ok. Ok, ok, ok. When I was living in London, I got stopped in London for possessing speed. And then I was taken to jail with a big - well, I had a little bag with me. And they assumed what was in this bag was written by me, and it wasn't. It was written by Lydia. And, 'What, are you a fag? Are you a fag.' You know the writings said, "I've got a blah-ty, blahty, blah and a blah-ty, blahty, blah.' You know, it was assumed that I was having a closet full of closet people. So anyway, I can't say what it said on the air, you know. [TGM: This isn't being broadcast as we speak, actually..] Well it said, 'I've got me a closet full of men, and a lot of fuck.' That's basically what it said. And then I got locked into the fuckin' cell. I was sitting in the cell for 7 or 8 hours. And this guy was going, 'Ok. You live on the 15th floor.' And I'm like, 'Yes, I live on the 15th fucking floor.' And he goes, 'There is no 15th floor.' And I'm like, "Ok, ok - there is no 15th floor.' And I mean, for god's sake, I lived on the 15th floor! You know. I've been in jail. I've been in jail. So anyway, I mean, that's one of my jail experiences. And the other was in Helsinki - 'Helstinki'... I was there for 2½ days and it was disgusting. But they were really nice to me. So that's what you wanna know..."
TGM: "Similarly, many of your lyrics have been perceived as misogynistic. 'Don't Hide it, Provide it', 'Fudge Punch' - which actually comes up on the new album, I noticed..."
JG: "You wanna hear about that...?"
TGM: "Yeah..."
JG: "It's not misogynistic at all. You think it's misogynistic?"
TGM: "Well the work certainly deals with violent sexual acts and perversion....which is all relative of course, but come on..."
JG: "It's a fucking joke. Don't you know? It's ironic."
TGM: "Like house on Fire' - I shall assume you're not racist...?"
JG: "I mean God, that's so insulting. For god sake, me of all people. But you know that right? [Oddly enough, giggles and flirts] I would totally turn my back on that. I push the envelope, you know? But people don't get it."
TGM: "Well, most people don't get it."
JG: "Yeah."
TGM: "So you did the artwork for most of your albums. And some magazines. And much of your artwork deals with Japanese images and repetitive patters, so what's the fascination there?"
JG: "It's like repetitive swastika images."
[The phone rings and (Foetus) interruptus-es us...so we chat about something else. Then:]
TGM: "What's the meaning behind all of the little sayings in your liner notes? Like on 'Foetus Art Terrorism' you've got 'If you're gonna get down, get down and pray', or 'Harry and Pink with a sweet little stink', 'Out of the fire and into the grime' - from 'Dirtdish'…the Wiseblood album, 'Say what you mean and say it mean', from 'Ramrod, Boxhead and Smut', and then on the new 'York' album, you've got 'Turn out the lights and hide the razor blades'. Why?"
JG: 'Naughty but nice. I think they're funny. But I don't feel the need to justify them. You're 'aksing' me to. You're 'aksing' me to. [More bizarro giggling and flirting] You're asking good questions.
TGM: "Thanks. I certainly hope so. So, how did you get involved - and please, I mean this strictly artistically, not personally - with Marc Almond from Soft Cell, for Flesh Volcano!? [Marc Almond of 'Tainted Love' fame.]"
JG: "I just did. He wanted my ass. [giggles again and that's it for that question]"
TGM: "Any touring in the near future?"
JG: "I hope so."
TGM: "With Lydia maybe?"
JG: "No. I myself."
TGM: "What are some future projects you'll be working on?"
JG: "Bust', the new album. And then a compilation album of remixes that I did for AMFAR [??], and then the soundtrack of 'Atrocity Ambition' [or something to that effect]."
TGM: "Last question: How would one go about getting the Faust/Foetus 7" Is it even possible to get that?"
JG: "How do you even know about that?"
TGM: "I'm a fan?"
JG: "You should have told me. You should have told me, I would have brought one. So here you go, call Jeremy. I'll bring one in. And I'll have him send it to you."
TGM: "Thank you, thank you!!!"
JG: "That was such a fucking amazing show. I was sitting by the side of the stage watching Stereolab. It was so fucking good. And to have Faust - to play with Faust, forget about it. What a show. It was so good. It was so good.
And
to finish, JG does a station ID for Two Gun Mathilda.
At the time, her radio show was called 'Aural Enema'
Click here to hear it: