“When we got on stage we were both terrified of getting up there. I never understood people who don’t get any stage fright. We still do to this day. There’s you and your mate on stage and also the feeling of blagging it. And we’d find solace in each other, a bit of comfort in each other”.
“Pete was big on the performance poetry scene. I was always really impressed with Pete for doing that. I still recite his poems.”
“It was a dream. It was like something else. Waterloo (station) was the gateway from where I’m from into London, and it’s been in loads of my songs and album titles…That was the place. It held such assignment for me. I felt this kind of weird distant belonging. Every inspirational character in my life had a place in there…It just had everything that life and literature and culture and music and art had ever presented to me.”
“Once Pete nicked my shoes. We had the same shoes, and I had to be barefoot. And it seemed like the worst thing in the world. It didn’t occur to me I could probably get away with wearing someone else’s trainers. I could have found some shoes!”
“We were kids then. The reason we’ve been able to come back together now is that we accept each other for who we are a bit more. Being accepting that you’re like that, and I’m like this, and that’s alright.”
“Our differing choices in drugs came between us in quite a big way. The drugs that make you die or homeless…I wanted to avoid and I wanted my friend to avoid, my friend who I cared desperately about. I couldn’t accept it or work on a clever way of corralling or convincing or counselling…I just went batshit crazy every time.”
“We did Top Of the Pops. And Peter did that classic watching Top Of The Pops at home seeing his band singing his song without him in it and someone else there. And it must have been horrendous for him, man. It didn’t occur to me at the time. It must have really broken his heart and I feel horrible for that.”
(Discussing Peter breaking in to his flat). “It wasn’t our finest hour really. But it’s a testament of our love…our love for each other as brothers and friends that we manage to overcome these things.”
“When he was coming out of Wandsworth (Prison)…I had to get there at the crack of dawn…I just wanted to get to the prison gates and say, “It’s alright, and I’m sorry, and you’re sorry”. When we saw each other… it had always been so highly charged our relationship, ever since we made a pact together back in the days when we first met saying, “It’s going to be all or nothing”. It’s been so emotionally charged, we’ve such a deep investment in each other, that it was par for the course.”
(About Dirty Pretty Things) “I was happy to have a few things off my own bat which people responded to…And we did have some good times. But essentially I got a lot of my energy for songwriting and performance from the heartbreak and the staggering turmoil that I’d endured, and it was staggering…Just when I felt like I had a bit of closure, we got back together again.”
“We’d spent years communicating through the press, writing little bits in songs to take a dig at each other, or say that we love each other. Just knowing each other would hear them and pick up on them.”
Distraction Pieces Podcast, 2016
highlights from carl’s podcast
Published
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