1) What originally drew you to
write about the KLF? And why at this particular time?
The initial spark was Jim Reid’s
article in The Observer about the money burning back in 1994. I had been aware
of The KLF before that, but I hadn’t paid them a great deal of attention
because I was a metal head and therefore not allowed to listen to dance music (those
were the rules). But that account of the burning stuck in my craw and I clipped
that article, which was the first time I had ever clipped an article from a
newspaper. I’ve still got it. I might be meeting Jim Reid soon, so I might get
him to sign it.
The burning has bugged me ever
since. When something makes no sense I can’t digest it and move on, and the
only way to work through it and flush it out of my system was to turn it into a
book. And all the other people who should have stepped up and written the KLF
book over the last couple of decades have studiously failed to do so, so
eventually I had to accept that the job was falling to me.
As for why now - it all happened
in a bit of a blur. I sat down to write a novel called The Brandy of the Damned
and the next thing I knew I had written both Brandy and The KLF. I see them
very much as sister books, with similar themes being explored in both fiction
and non-fiction, so I’m always pleased when people read them together.
2) Were you ever tempted to
approach Drummond and Cauty for their input?
That was original idea, but the
book had other plans. Many journalists had asked Bill and Jimmy all the obvious
questions about why they had done what they did, but the results were always lacking
and unenlightening. That approach didn’t seem to get us anywhere, so another way
was needed. And as the book progressed doing it without them seemed increasingly
in the spirit of the thing. When you’re writing about people who would take
huge chunks of Abba or The Beatles on a whim, to use for their own ends, trying
to be official or asking nicely felt wrong.
I met Jimmy recently and he was
such a nice guy that I’m glad I hadn’t spent time with him beforehand. It would
have coloured what I wrote, and for the worse. I wouldn’t have casually
referred to them as attention-seeking arseholes or fuckers if I knew how
likeable they were.
I can’t think of many other
stories that I would take the same approach with, but this one needed the
totally independent view, I think. An official book would have a tone of “hey,
remember us, we did all that stuff back in the day,” and that wouldn’t have had
the same impact.
3) The
KLF story is littered with highlights, from The JAMMs burning their records in
a Swedish field to the Brit Awards and burning the million pounds on Jura;
which bit was the most exciting to research and write about, for you?
That’s a
tough question. It’s a rigorously edited book where anything that didn’t
completely grab me was chucked out, as it had to start full-on and not let up.
So I do love all the stories in there. I have a soft spot for the Brits
performance, though, as the disconnect between what the band were going through
and how the audience perceived them is so wide.
4) Your book is filled with
strange coincidences, or synchronicities as Jung called them; In the Cosmic
Trigger Trilogy, Robert Anton Wilson talks about how disconcerting
synchronicities can become, when you start looking for them. What was the
oddest coincidence / occurrence you came across when you were researching The
KLF?
Hells Teeth, writing that book
unleashed a shit storm of synchronicities… I wouldn’t know where to start. I
suspect that’s part of the reason why my memory of writing it is such a blur
now. I was tempted to call the book ‘Turn Into The Wave’ at one point, as that
was what it felt like. Fortunately the ‘banishing ritual’ ending worked nicely and
things have returned to their normal, manageable level of weird. For me at
least. One of the great things about being a writer in the Twitter age is that
it is easy for readers to tell me how the book is affecting them. I love
getting those tweets.
5) What do you think the legacy
of The KLF is now? It seems like the music and art worlds are becoming more
businesslike than ever - did they fail?
I’m not sure whether subjectively
declaring that The KLF succeeded or failed is that important. The path they
took was more interesting than the destination, or so it seems to me.
6) On a similar note, do you
think it would be possible for a band to have that level of success / impact in
today's record industry?
Oh completely, bands just need to
reappraise what they are doing and why they are doing it. They’re unlucky because
they’ve grown up in the X Factor era where the idea that you have to be serious
and career-minded is constantly drummed into young musicians, to the extent
that their relationship with their muse becomes a loveless marriage of
convenience. Many successes are people who have fallen upwards rather than
climbed their way up there, and the path of chaos can take you to the same
place as the path of order, if you stop struggling and let it. You need to
remain focused on creating something pure and thrilling and which makes people
feel something they haven’t felt before, and the rest is just a leap of faith.
7) What are you working on next?
Ah – thanks for asking – I’m nearing the end of a long-gestating dream
project of mine, an alternative history of the 20th century. I say
‘alternative’ as almost all 20th century histories are written by
politicians or political journalists, and they tend to take the view that it
was the politicians who were important in shaping that era. As a result they talk
endlessly about the geo-political significance of Suez or the Bay of Pigs
instead of getting to grips with relativity, modernism, chaos maths,
psychedelics, quantum mechanics, postmodernism or the psychological impact of the
Apollo programme.
I take a different view, in that I don’t think we can learn a huge
amount more from the politicians of the age, but we can learn a hell of a lot
from the artists and scientists and madmen, and I think that approach can bring
a new understanding about 21st century life and the modern networked
age. That book won’t be in shops until 2015, I’m afraid, but look out for it as
it’s shaping up nicely.
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