Nikki Sudden
of the Jacobites and solo artist

photo by Andy King

From Berlin, December 23, 2003

 
LK: How long have you lived in Berlin, and how do you think that has had an effect on your music?

Nikki: I don’t think I’ve been here for too long, and I’d like to move somewhere warmer. It’s so cold in winter. I mean, everywhere, but in Berlin it’s really cold. I’d like to live in Greece or Italy I think. As far as my music, I really don’t know. Obviously wherever you are colors your music, but I remember being in Paris once, and I wrote a whole bunch of songs. I actually didn’t leave the apartment for three or four days so I got the atmosphere of Paris, although I wasn’t walking the streets or anything. But when you speak of Berlin music you think about Lou Reed’s Berlin album, or Nick Cave, that sort of stuff. Most people do, but I don’t think I’ve really done anything of that nature. Do you think it colors my music?

LK: Well, I don’t know. It’s kind of a difficult question. Anytime you’re in a different city it seems to always affect one’s mood.

Nikki: Although I live here, some years ago, I was in my flat for four weeks. And I only spent about 20 or 30 days there for the whole year, actually in Berlin. And you think, “Why am I paying rent/”

LK: Talk about your handmade guitar.

Nikki: I always wanted a five-string. Keith Richards open G Tuning. I was trying to get in touch with Ted Newman Jones, the guy who used to build Keith’s guitars. But Ted Newman has stopped making guitars. I went to two guitar guys in Berlin, and I went to both of them and asked what they thought, and one was cheaper than the other one, and I thought, Oh, I’ll go with this guy. I don’t know which one makes the best guitars, probably the more expensive one, but one had the scratch plate and he was going to get a trade off of E-bay, but his mother would up buying this piece of solid silver which cost about $800, and this was just for the scratch plate. I thought, “Ohhh…Sorry about this bit, but I have a budget.” And it’s got the original gold Doubloons. Forgeries. Because the guy that built it, his father was a dentist, and we had a coin forger and he forged four Doubloons for the volume and tone pots. It’s beautiful, and it’s great to play, and it’s colored my new album quite a lot. I think half of the songs on it, I played entirely on the five-string. I’ve got one Telecaster, and if I had two I could do one as a five string, but I’ve never had a guitar made for me before. I just wanted to make the guitar that I have always wanted. I want to get a Bouzouki with a guitar body. I played Bouzouki on this album, and it sounds like an open-tuned 12 string.

LK: Can you talk about the first music you heard as a child that really inspired you to want to play?

Nikki: I liked The Who, and I had pinups of the Small Faces on my bedroom wall, when I was about 8 or 9 years old, and used to watch The Who on Top of the Pops, and Ready Steady Go. And then the first single I really went to buy was “She’d Rather Be With Me” by the Turtles, and I went to this record shop with my mother, and I was 9 or 10 at the time, and my Mother taught me how to buy. She was like “6 pence is a lot to spend on a record.” And then she talked by out of it. And then I heard “Debora” by Tyrannosaurus Rex, the first T. Rex single, and for some reason I thought it was the worst thing I had ever heard in my life. I didn’t listen to Rock and Roll or Pop music for the next few years. I was listening to Gilbert and Sullivan, and things like that then. Then in 1971 my brother was like, “You have to hear this great song, Jeepster by T. Rex,” and I heard it, and from that moment I was hooked again. Because I missed about 3 or 4 years, I don’t know why, I was going through a weird thing. I got Baptized, and went through a little brief religious thing, but I got over it pretty quickly. I got Baptized by my own choice, and things like that. As soon as I heard T. Rex that was it. I thought if I was listening to music, I should be playing it. So the next week I went out and bought a guitar. I got a really cheap acoustic guitar for 6 pounds. The action was about half-inch. It as impossible to play. Then I got this really cheap electric guitar for about 15 pounds. About a year, year and a half later I bought a decent guitar that wasn’t difficult to play. When you have a guitar with decent action, there is such a big difference. But you’re not going to keep it up unless you’re really meant to be playing. If you’re not meant to be playing, then you shouldn’t be playing guitar. If you’re not being a musician you shouldn’t be alive as well; something like that.

LK: Are there any newfound influences, not necessarily new artists, but anything you have been reading or listening to lately that you have re-discovered that you like?

Nikki: I’ve always liked Dave Swarbrick in Fairport Convention. And the Dave Swarbrick box set came out recently, but that’s not a re-discovery. I’ve always listened to Swarbrick. To me seeing Swarbrick is like seeing Keith, or Jimmy Page; It’s got that magic to it. What have I been listening to recently? I’ve been on tour for the last month. I’ve been listening to Maria McKee, Rod Stewart, T. Rex; I’ve been listening to a lot of Charlie Patton recently. I’ve got the Charlie Patton box set which is brilliant, and that and the “Anthology of Folk Music,” the Harry Smith thing. Most of the time I listen to “Treasure Island,” my new album.

LK: Do you want to talk about that a bit?

Nikki: Yeah, sure! I don’t know if you’ve read anything about it, musicians always say this, but everyone told me, and I know, it’s my best album ever. Musicians always say, “It’s my best album ever.” So many people have heard it. That’s one of the reasons that it’s taken so long for it to come out. Started recording it July last year, 2002, and finally finished it about 3 or 4 weeks ago. (December 24^th, 2003.) I didn’t have a clue what was going to be on the cover. I kept changing my mind, and I know that nothing is perfect, but I wanted it in gold, wanted the cd’s to be pressed in gold. We did these photos, and sometimes when the photos are being taken you just know that that’s a great photo. You can tell, because you can see it reflected in the lens, or reflected in your mind. So, I had that feeling with the first photo session which I did with just me and the drummer. And then we did another session with just John, Stephane and myself. John Barry, my English bass player, and Stephane Doucerain plays drums. And I got Stephane to dress up as a pirate, and John just dressed up as a pirate anyway because he felt like it. We bought a few 200 year old muskets, rifles, and pistols for the photo session, and if you really get into it…it would be great to dress like that all the time. You tend to get into a bit of pantomime, like Adam and the Ants when they did the pirates, but if you feel natural wearing clothes…

I got this beautiful Bicorn hat. This friend of mine in Germany is a hatmaker, he’s made me one Tricorn and four Bicorn hats. He made me another one the other day. They’re beautiful. I just have to get used to wearing it, because wearing it walking around Oxburg, about four in the morning 2 or 3 nights ago, everyone just turns around and stares at you. Walking along the streets everyone thinks it’s like a Napoleon hat, and it’s so cool to wear. I bought a top hat the next day, it was the first time I had a new one. I’ve always had kind of bashed up ones, with the brim falling off and stuff like that, but I bought a brand new top hat for the first time in my life, and that’s great to wear. But if you wear it a lot, people just turn around and stare at you. They’ve got great imaginations, like you must be a big star, or something like that. Completely baffle the underground, like “What’s he doing? His driver must have run off with his wife or something…”

I like cool clothes. I don’t actually own any bad clothes. I haven’t got any bad clothes. I have a couple of average things, I got rid of those about 4 or 5 years ago. I wouldn’t feel natural wearing jeans and a t-shirt. I couldn’t go onstage wearing jeans and a t-shirt. That’s the ting with the whole grunge thing. I used to love Neil Young, but, 1. When he played with Pearl Jam, and 2. Then going onstage wearing baggy shorts…That’s a fashion crime. That’s disgusting. Men should never wear shorts. When I stayed with Peter Buck, we were the only two guys in that town that wouldn’t wear shorts. You’ve got to have some sort of dignity!

LK: Talk about Slow Fear.

Nikki: It makes me think of Slow Death by the Flaming Groovies. I can’t remember how Slow Death by the Groovies goes.

LK: What about Lamppost and Television?

Nikki: Lamppost-The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I used to watch tons of T.V. when I was a kid; I knew every program that was on. My parents would get in front of the set and I could reel of what time and which channels. I had to T.V.’s in Berlin, the first one I inherited from my brother, and that broke down pretty quickly. And then my friend gave me one, and the volume worked but the picture didn’t. So you would watch Stones bootleg videos, and I had the bootlegs which you could play at the same time, and try to sync them up with each other. No, I don’t do T.V. at all. One of the reasons I’m living in Germany is that I couldn’t watch it anyway because I don’t understand a word of German.

LK: Pink Fuzz.

Nikki: Pot Scratchings.

LK: Black Feather Limbo.

Nikki: Black feather boa, kind of a Marc Bolan thing on Top of the Pops.

LK: What about Modern Orange Sky?

Nikki: Sounds like an R.E.M. song title.

LK: Mermaid and Pharaoh.

Nikki: This is quite a cool combination. In the sixties and seventies, even the crap bands used to look cool. Why do bands just look like any kid in the streets now? They don’t look like musicians. Emerson, Lake and Palmer used to look cool; Deep Purple used to look cool, everyone looked cool in the seventies. It was so great. The sixties were great. Punk bands looked cool as well.

LK: How do you feel the modern musician fits into what some call, “modern society?”

Nikki: You’re pre-disposing the fact that you would think musicians fit into society, the used to I suppose more, didn’t they? Unfortunately most musicians fit in perfectly with society, which is why they’re so boring, and why society is so boring. It’s like to get pierced, to get tattooed, and shave all of your hair off. There are three rules of rock and roll: 1. Never get fat, 2. Never loose your hair, and 3. Don’t get tattooed unless you’re into playing heavy rock.

I haven’t got a radio. I’ve got tons of albums. But I never listen to the radio. If you know what’s going on, you can find out what’s good. My favorite new bands like Primal Scream are 20 years old. There’s a band from Seattle called the Turn-Ons, and they are really good, but they’re friends, and I don’t know if friends bands count. I’ve got a lot of friends that make absolutely awful music, but I’ve got a lot that are good musicians as well.

The last Supergrass album sounds a lot like T. Rex. They’re a good band. I don’t know if they’re going to get anywhere. Anyone who is any good doesn’t get played anywhere.

LK: I’m always worried about younger generations who don’t have older siblings that can turn them on to good stuff.

Nikki: Epic got a copy of Jeepster weeks before I got into it, and he was my younger brother. He used to come to the beach with us. I used to love the Beach Boys and stuff. I didn’t know “Smile” and stuff like that, at first but then he really got into the Beach Boys and started playing them. That was really good…I really miss that Epic.