Interview with John Craven. July 1978.

He's been away for a year. Now he's back with a new album. Evan Paris catches up with John Craven on the sea-front at Colwyn Bay.

EP - God, it's bloody freezing here.
JC - Yep.
EP - You've been away for a year. What've you been up to?
JC - I've been recording this album.
EP - Right. You split up with Cathy Carrow.
JC - I did.
EP - What happened?
JC - No messing about, huh?
EP - You know me...
JC - Well, what can I say... I screwed Kirsten May; Cathy dumped me. Simple as that.
EP - Why'd you screw Kirsten?
JC - Have you ever met her?
EP - Yeah.
JC - And you're asking me that?
EP - She's a very attractive woman.
JC - Well spotted. No. I er... got... we got drunk and for some reason we decided it'd be a good idea. And that was that. Things'd been patchy with Cathy before that though.
EP - Yeah?
JC - I think I'd already given up on it.
EP - So you screwed her best mate.
JC - Something like that. It was an error of judgement. Can we not go on about it?
EP - Ok. You then set fire to your boat.
JC - Mm.
EP - What was that about?
JC - I don't know.
EP - And this left you homeless.
JC - I actually set fire to the boat before Cathy threw me out. I think I did it as a sort of desperate attempt at saving the relationship.
EP - Interesting approach.
JC - Yeah.
EP - Didn't work.
JC - No. So I slept at Clustcwyr for a bit.
EP - Yeah. Didn't you and Petra from Dirywio have a bit of a coming together there?
JC - She beat me up, yeah.
EP - Why?
JC - She was rejecting my drunken advances.
EP - Oh.
JC - So I left, and slept on Ike's floor in Sheffield for a bit.
EP - Yeah?
JC - But then Linda...
EP - His girlfriend?
JC - Yeah. She through me out for getting him paralytic and bringing home some young girls, and then er... throwing up in the wardrobe.
EP - That's rock'n'roll.
JC - Ha. Well, no... That's a... hefty dry-cleaning bill that I had to pay.
EP - Oh dear.
JC - So then I found myself in a hotel in Morecambe.
EP - Morecambe?
JC - Don't ask me why. I don't remember.
EP - Oh.
JC - And I started writing the new album.
EP - Hah! Yes. The New Album...
JC - Yes. Are you alright?
EP - I'm very cold.
JC - Yeah. You said.
EP - So you wrote it in Morecambe?
JC - Yeah. Well some of it. And I recorded it there too, into my reel to reel.
EP - You took that with you?
JC - It was one of my worldly goods.
EP - I see.
JC - When I burnt my boat I was clever enough to have everything of value at Cathy's. Which ended up being my reel to reel, my tapes and my record collection.
EP - What about the blue meanie, and your instruments?
JC - They're kept at Clustcwyr.
EP - Oh. Ok.
JC - I keep my records there now too.
EP - I'll know to break in.
JC - Don't even think about it. Anyway, I'm renting the flat there now.
EP - Why are we doing the interview here then?
JC - Well I don't move in till next Wednesday.
EP - Oh.
JC - I'm in a b&b here till then.
EP - Right. So you recorded the album in the hotel room in Morecambe?
JC - Well I started recording it there. And I carried on in some other hotels up and down the coast.
EP - I see. Very, um... arty.
JC - Yes. It's a concept album, I suppose.
EP - Well there's no suppose about it. It's all one big song.
JC - Very Jethro Tull...
EP - Yes. You've gone all prog on us.
JC - Funny you should say that. I bumped into Camel while I was recording it, and stole Mel Collins for a weekend.
EP - Saxophone. Yes. Isn't BIll Bruford involved too?
JC - Yeah. Mel phoned him up. They're only on the record a little bit... There's not a lot on it apart from me and my guitar, so it's not that progressive. It's very back to basics.
EP - What happened to Ike then?
JC - Ike's got a new band in Sheffield, called LCD. It wasn't a nasty break-up or anything. He just lives in Sheffield and it were getting impractical. He wanted to form a band o'er there.
EP - So is this the end for Metal Headed John Craven?
JC - Yeah. It's just straight John Craven now.
EP - How's that effecting the live set-up?
JC - There isn't a live set-up at the moment. I'm having a rest while I... sort my life out. This album's been a sort of cathartic exercise in one way or another and... now I'm going to do a bit of aimless travelling to sort myself out.
EP - I see. Sounds all rather heavy.
JC - Not really. I just fancy buying a few records. Take my mind off things. I'm er.. gonna go round every city in the country, and sample their pubs and record shops, and see which place wins.
EP - Right. Won't that be quite expensive?
JC - I've got some writing jobs lined up. Your sort of thing.
EP - Music journalism?
JC - Yeah. I er... did it before, when I lived in New York.
EP - Yeah. Well tell us a bit more about the new album then.
JC - It's called Life and Death in a West Coast Resort, and it's the story of this bloke, Jack Mullanty, who leads a fairly boring life in a seaside resort.
EP - Sounds a thrill a minute.
JC - It's not meant to be a thrill a minute. It's meant to be a ponderous examination of the futility of human life, or something.
EP - I must say that, having heard it, it isn't as boring as we might be painting it.
JC - It's half an hour of me strumming and wailing in a hotel room. It has its moments, I think.
EP - The fans are going to hate it, of course.
JC - What fans?
EP - The fans that weren't alienated by the last album.
JC - No. They've moved onto Dirywio now, since Ike left.
EP - So who's going to buy the new album?
JC - Dunno. I'm sure it'll go down alright. I'm not that bothered really.
EP - No. Um... It's not as experimental as Death Bitch Queen.
JC - No. Like I say, it's just me and a guitar, in a hotel.
EP - But even there it could've been you bashing three shades of crap out of a guitar in a hotel. But it's quite normal.
JC - It's just a simple strummy record. Basic, gentle...
EP - Steeleye Span.
JC - Get lost. I take it you don't like it.
EP - Like you say, it has its moments.
JC - Alright. I won't do it again. Not that I intended to anyway.
EP - No? What's next?
JC - After I've done some shopping? Who knows... But probably quite heavy again. I'm more at home with heavy stuff, I was... just a bit out of sorts with this one. Like I say, it were a sort of cathartic thing. Write a miserable dirge and get it all out of my system.
EP - I see. Well you did a good job of it.
JC - Make your mind up.
EP - I like it. It's nice enough. It's not fantastic, but it's alright.
JC - Better or worse than Craven "A"?
EP - I don't know. I've been thinking about that. They're quite different. I think it's about as good, but it'll probably end up being worse.
JC - You're probably right.
EP - But it's only slightly not as good. It's not worse so much as not as good. Do you see?
JC - Not really.
EP - Never mind, it's fine. It's better than Emotions.
JC - Emotions? Oh. God... Adam and Jo's record...? Have we not discussed that before now?
EP - No.
JC - It's a couple of years old now though, innit?
EP - Yeah. Shall we discuss it?
JC - If you like.
EP - What did you think of it?
JC - I thought it was a load of rubbish.
EP - That's alright then... Not just me.
JC - It were really bad, and frankly, I'm embarrassed that you should've mentioned my new album in the same breath.
EP - Sorry. I was just trying to illustrate a bad record as opposed to a good record.
JC - But by making such a comparison, you drag my record down.
EP - It's the cold. I can't think straight.
JC - Shall we go inside?
EP - What a tremendously good idea. I bet I can't hear a thing for the wind when I come to writing this down.
JC - Sorry. I never thought of that.
EP - Never mind.

Life and Death in a West Coast Resort is released on 14th August.