When I look back at the footage of the Brazilian tour today what you can see -- accurately reflected, and for me at least, painful to observe -- is the band becoming... well, just normal.
Suddenly tired of being the space aliens and tired of those magical days back in 1984-5 when we were feeling so different, so special, going to clubs with pink hair and living out our whole life as if were some Blade Runner or Mad Max dream. In Rio it all seemed so very far away and I personally felt tired of wearing high heels and hair extensions and just wanted a holiday. Or was it that we’d just had enough and wanted to stop fighting the perception of who we were? Just wanted to hide from who we’d become; hated by the press, laughed at, no longer dangerous?
It’s made me reflect on a lot more than that. Was I not really the real thing then? Had I just been living out a fantasy, and now I was bored with that moment and ready to move on to the next?
I’ve worked with some extraordinary musicians in my time and there is one thing I know for sure. The really great ones, the ones touched by God or whatever you want to call it, are born that way. It’s not a choice or a fantasy, they just ARE. Johnny Thunders was that person, for real, 24 hours every day and died being Johnny Thunders. I found it hard to work with Andrew Eldritch and often cursed his refusal to play the game and make himself more successful. But now I realise that to him it’s not a game, not an act. He has to be that difficult, introverted fucked-up artist who can’t and won’t compromise because its in his DNA. Even if it kills him in the end as it did with Johnny or Kurt or Amy - as we all know, the list is endless...
Am I different? I like the game, the role, the creating of the monster. And I know I can BE the monster myself, until I get bored and then I just move on to another game. Fanatical and uncompromising in the moment, obsessed with the detail and relentless. But no, in my heart, what I know is, I wouldn’t die for it.
In Brazil I just wanted to be the player in the band enjoying the success. In a way I feel we let down the Brazilians. They expected the Space Aliens, the Replicants of Rock and Roll, the ultimate fantasy band. What they got was a rock band on holiday, not acting the part and not dressing for it either.
It also showed again that I wasn’t really the Machiavellian manager, controlling all the moves, the TJ Bosss character I had sold to the group right from the start, the one with an answer for everything. Now I just wanted to be me again.
We certainly lived the excessive life in Brazil that’s for sure, but they didn’t get Sputnik, they got a rock band on holiday. Ironically we were playing brilliantly by then and the music sounded really great, but for a band whose image was as important -- if not more important -- than the music, well as I said, I can’t help feeling we let them down.... Watch the Rio Sucks video. I couldn’t edit it and it speaks volumes.
What you see is as far removed from those original first photos of the band in the subway at midnight as you could possibly get. We had looked like no other band on the planet. Now when I look at the Brazilian footage, I see exactly what we had become - five blokes by the swimming pool in our swimming shorts having a laugh.
Hindsight’s a wonderful thing isn’t it?