One day, we were sent to this flat in Wandsworth. We went to see
the Polish landlady, Mrs Sprogis, who lived in one of the huge Edwardian houses
on Wandsworth Common. I was looking for a landlady who’d be a pushover
because I wasn’t going to say: “I’m an ex-art student, I’ve
come here to be a rock ‘n’ roller.”
Mrs Sprogis took us down the road to see the flat, moaning on the
way about the state the previous tenants had left it in. It looked like they
had used it to drink beer and repair motorbikes in because it was full of beer
bottles and oil cans. We were so desperate we assured Mrs Sprogis we would tidy
up the place.
The flat was huge – the entire ground floor of a four-bedroom
Edwardian house – and it was £20 a week. The entrance was Edwardian
cheap grand and there was a suggestion of cherubs. The living room was divided
from another room by three panelled doors.
Because we never had any money to heat the place, we used to keep
the doors shut and sleep in the back room. The previous tenants had shoved some
of the furniture into a potting shed and when it got cold we burnt it.
I had a horsehair mattress and made a bed base out of Sunblest crates, which
I wired together. There was a dining room and beyond that a kitchen, which
was divided up to accommodate a bathroom.
I ended up getting a job in the pop business – working at the
Corona lemonade factory in Earlsfield. While I was at Corona, I read about a
new label, Stiff Records. I decided to make a tape of some of my songs, using
an Eric Clapton tape which I had to wipe as I didn’t want them to think
I actually was Eric Clapton. I just sang my songs into a cassette player and
took my tape in.
The next day Jake Riviera from Stiff rang and said he was calling
about my tape. I started apologising saying they could record over it, then I
heard him say he loved it and wanted me to record a single. Nick Lowe produced
my first record, Whole Wide World, which came out on Stiff’s compilation
album, A Bunch of Stiffs, in April 1977.
Nick Lowe introduced me to Ian Dury and we hit it off because he’d
been an art student. His girlfriend, Denise, played the bass, and she camped
out with us for a while in the front room. She used to practise and we started
to play some of my songs together. One day, Ian came over to the house. I think
he thought we were having an affair. He was thrilled with our music and said, “What
you need is a drummer.” He made me get an enamel washing-up bowl from the
garden and he played it with a couple of Biros. Ian was a very rhythmic person,
he used to go: “Hit me with your rhythm stick, hit me, hit me.” He
started to compose that song in No 1 Melody Road, which I thought was utterly
fantastic.
I went on the Stiff tour [as Wreckless Eric] with Nick Lowe, Elvis
Costello, Ian Dury and Larry Wallis in autumn 1977. Suddenly, I got £50
a week. I used to get drunk a lot. Whole Wide World came out as a single and
got to No 1 in the alternative charts. We were the new big thing. I split up
with my girlfriend – I think I got famous and completely confused.
After about 2 and a half years I moved on from Wandsworth because
it was a long way from everywhere. Later on, I found myself driving down some
American freeway on the way to a gig thinking: “Yeah, I was happy then.”
INTERVIEW: LOUISE
JOHNCOX |
