The Day of the Raygun Cometh! interview

There's no meaning to it whatsoever, it doesn't mean ANYTHING. Before, everyone was saying ‘Oh Getting The Fear, what does it mean’, and then it'd take fucking an hour to explain what it meant and by that time the interview would be over.

Bee The Process never existed (laughs), it never existed, no. It was supposed to be The Process (Spot the marginal difference). They got it wrong on the billing because Gen (Genesis P–Orridge) was sort of saying “Then there's Bee, The Process” and so it just got advertised as Bee The Process. The Process was just a one–off laugh. (Some laughed fewer than others, points out a weary member of the audience) It was gonna be something that was gonna be something but never was. (Pause for giggling) That's quite good!

Oh, it's gonna be half of Getting The Fear, sort of…it's gonna be very similar to Getting The Fear, but it won't be as restricted as Getting The Fear was. There was too many sort of conflicting views and attitudes which sometimes works coz you get a lot of input from all, but with Getting The Fear it just restricted us, instead of doing more we did less.

Well, no all the pressure that we had was from a record company who fuckin' fucked us up the bum, they really did! I mean, it was good like everyone said you've got all that money and you've sold out but those bastards that said that didn't have to go in everyday and deal with 'em. Like we had endless arguments about what we were going to be. We were trying to establish an identity and they were trying to establish one for us and that was all so conflicting and so that stopped us doing things. Getting The Fear couldn't function anymore. Getting The Fear was getting fucked from all orifices.

Just us really. We don't want to change the world as we know it or anything like that or move mountains, we just wanna enjoy what we're doing and get a buzz out of it. (More giggling)

Yeah! Get a kick out of it then.

What it was going to be and what it is now are two different things. We wanted to get a record out really quick to sort of finish off Getting The Fear and to round it all off, and so we thought of doing a Getting The Fear song because Getting The Fear never did enough. There was never enough out. The only thing that was released was a load of shit, and so we wanted to get something out that sort of tied it up, and that's what it was gonna be. It was gonna come out ages and ages ago on a fairly small indie label, and just finish it off and then give us more time to set up what we're doing now but it developed into becoming more of what we're doing now so we decided to write a new song for the B–side rather than doing another Getting The Fear song, and it just developed, and the way it's come about is much more natural.

No it's not!

Trees and flowers, young love, anti–nuclear songs, vivisection songs…no, really, but truthfully, what are we singing about…just the same old things.

No! It's not sex really. It's just different emotions, different feelings, just things that inspire me, which is usually…

Music, people, sex, drugs, you know I think it's more creating moods, like the A–side of the single sets one sort of mood, and the B–side is more dreamy. Actually that's what the stuff's like now, a lot more dreamy so you can listen to it when you're really out of it. It's just bliss!

No, it's not…everything I'm saying in this interview is a lie!

Well, that's what interviews are for, interviews are for liars. It's good doing interviews, though it's better when you do know the person, and I can't lie to you Louise, I can't tell you lies, can I? But then again I could. There's times and places to get deep and meaningful and this really isn't it.

There's just one or two lines which I didn't wanna change, coz I'd got used to them, coz I didn't really think ‘Rise’ would ever be a single when we wrote it, so I didn't compromise and once it's written I really hate changing words. That guy that tried to change my lyrics at that infamous radio station.

That was some session we did. In ‘Sometimes’ there was a line that said “I'll break your neck in two” and the guy said ‘No, you're gonna have to change that’ and I said “Why? It's nothing”, and he said ‘This is the BBC. We can't have things like that going out on the air. We have to set some standards’ but I said “You can't really say that because this is going out between whatever hours and at that time we have fucking programmes showing people getting beaten up and having their necks broken, so how can you on one hand say that and then show things like that”, but I don't mind censorship at all, I think there should be censorship of everything!

Well I didn't care about that then, coz there was some that were reacting and that was good. I didn't really get through to everyone, if you get through to one person that's enough. But I didn't write music to get through to people anyway, at all. I mean, music is a good medium to inspire people and get through to them but if the whole point in doing it is that then it's pretty lifeless really.

Firstly, coz I can't help it. Who'd employ me? I can't help it and even when it's looking really shit you'd never think of quitting, that's one thing you'd never think of doing, quitting. Because I don't know, sometimes it's real shit but you enjoy it and it's worth it for the good times.

Yeah, I really enjoyed that. The tours were, I don't know, I've done loads of gigs with different bands but with Getting The Fear it was great, coz it was more like you'd turn up at the gigs and you'd see like all these people that you knew would be there.

Stealing your drinks and things. But you could always borrow cigarettes off them.

I want to be a page three girl! Can I be hunk of the month?

Have you seen the one in Forum? There's one in Forum and it's in big letters saying “HE HAS A BOLT AND THREE RINGS THROUGH HIS COCK!”. It's fuckin' well good!

Well, no. I had then, now I've just got a bolt. That ring goes in as well but you can put three rings in it.

There's no pain. I don't like pain at all…but I'd much prefer physical pain to mental pain. Being in love is painful sometimes. It's beautiful, I enjoy being in love, it's good.

It does actually, don't it? But just remember the moral of the story is it's much easier to trip up while you're skipping!

Don't read it. It's all lies!

That isn't true. I didn't say that. It's all them talking for all of the interview, I might've not said a word coz he didn't put anything.

I didn't say that. There's nothing that I said there at all really. Actually the reason that I did that was because at the time RCA were fuckin' trying to get us in Jackie and Oh Boy and I said “Get me an interview with Forum” and they said, no, they wouldn't, so I thought well I ought to really do it now to stop them bastardising us, and me, and making us out as Wham or something, so if I do things like that then things like that can be dragged up later, you know what I mean.

No everyone thinks they are but they're not, the only songs about sex are ‘We Struggle’ and ‘Rise’ really, the others have sort of…sexual overtones…I'm not being very committed in this interview at all, am I, have you noticed?

NICO! I think Nico is one of the most underrated people of the century. She's amazing! Like we went to see her and all the time these fuckin' shits (were) shouting out for Velvet Underground songs and like the cover of a Bowie song she did and it's really annoying coz she's done albums like the Desertshore album which is just amazing. It's one of the best albums ever, and it'll just go straight over people's heads, and it's really frustrating. She's one of the sad casualties really I think. It's very sad.

Yeah, well, I just think she's fuckin' absolutely amazing.

The beginning…I was raised in Barnsley, which is a dreadful place, north of Watford Gap, a mining town full of miners. The only two miners I ever liked were me dad and me brother, so at the age of 16 the decision was either becoming a miner or a musician.

No, actually I was a dental technician for about one and a half years which was okay.

No one! I just handled the false teeth! I did that for ages. That was quite good fun really. I used to meet all sorts. And then I went from that to being an audiovisual technician in the Health Education Department which was great fun, coz I was looking after all the slides and films of sort of various sexual diseases! It was great fun. Perhaps it's where it all started! But then we had films of all various parts, sort of parts of anatomy, sort of enflamed balls, y'know and they were sort of quite odd! So I stuck that for about 6 months. I was working with bands at the time, and then I decided to move to London. So I moved down to London and started working with a dreadful band, doing work just in Japan, not in England, and that took up about one and a half years, which was really good in a way because I got ripped off. They made loads of money but I got ripped off, but I got…In a way it was like a sort of apprenticeship in doing various musical things like TV and radio interviews. So it was a good education, and then I decided that I hated the music, which I did, really hated it, and I wasn't getting paid at all, so I said “Right I'm gonna quit this sort of band” and then the management company threatened to sue me if I quit. They said ‘Okay, you'll never work again if you leave’, so I said fine.

Yeah, actually, yeah! They still fuckin' hassle me actually. So I quit that and then after that I was working with the infamous Roland Rat, the guy who put his hand up his bottom, not his own bottom but Roland Rat's bottom. I was working with him on this sort of project which never got off the ground which would've been amazing if it had. We'd got this sort of film we were gonna shoot. This guy was writing it for us. It was an amazing script. The imagery in the film was brilliant, really perverse, but really tasteful and good but the guy committed suicide before he finished it so we had to stop. And then after that lot I met these people from Bradford, who were in this sort of band. What was that band? I forget their name, Southern Dance Gang…and they were in this band, and we had one and a half years of having a laugh and getting used and abused! And that basically is Bee's life.

Yeah.

It was actually really good. The screenplay that he did was fuckin' well good. It's quite sad really. That is what one of the Getting The Fear songs was about—‘Death is Bigger’, coz that is what the film was gonna be called: Death Is Bigger.

I don't think I can act at all.

It's easy to lie to a person coz you get feedback from the person, whereas (with) a camera you don't, do you? It's just sort of a round hole. And I can never lie to round holes! But no, I couldn't act, unless it was in something like Coronation Street. There's not too many arty films with northern accents in it, are there really? It's difficult to lose, well I don't wanna lose me accent, it's okay, I don't mind it.

It comes from the food that I eat, comes from me diet! I don't know. I might look like a wimp, a squirt but I don't know.

(With) The thing in Japan, we had a lot of success out there, and it was going really well, and if I had not been getting ripped off we'd have made loads of money. But it's really shit when you look through magazines and you hear records and they're fuckin' dreadful and you think “Hang on, everyone's gonna think I'm like that”, and it's fuckin' really disheartening.

Fuck all. No, no, don't put that. A chance to enhance, a chance to dance, a chance to prance…about like you do! We're offering us. I'm offering me and Barry's offering him. I love feedback from people. That's one of the reasons why we carry on and why we do it coz there's nothing better that when you've got 45 minutes onstage!

I love dreams. A lot of the songs I wrote are about dreams. Dreams can affect people a lot without 'em realising it. They can change your views of a certain person. They can make them more important or less important. I used to write 'em down a lot, not so much now but occasionally. The best dreams I've had are drug dreams…

They threatened to put ribbons in me hair if I didn't have it cut, so I said “Okay”.

I was friends with the bullies, coz they lived near me! I remember once someone threatened me and the bullies got him!

Everyone's a pervert! You tell me someone that isn't. I'll show you a liar or a Christian! People love hearing about perverse things!

Thirteen year olds buy your magazine? Ask them to write to me!