"Change thee way to perceive and change all memory." Old TOPI proverb

Legendary industrial music pioneer Genesis P-Orridge and the latest incarnation of his band Psychic TV were in Birmingham in early July 2005, headlining the Supersonic music festival. Although the gig was cancelled, due to a bomb scare leading to the evacuation of Birmingham city centre, I did manage to talk to all members of the band about their ongoing projects and enthusiasms. The current lineup of Psychic TV (or PTV3, as they refer to themselves) comprises Genesis Breyer P-Orridge on vocals, Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge on samples and percussion, Markus Persson on keyboards, David Max on guitar, Alice Genese on bass, and Morrison ‘Eddie’ Edley on drums.

During his 30 years in the music business, Genesis P-Orridge has adopted many different guises, from the crew-cut and camouflage uniforms of the Throbbing Gristle days, through the shaven-headed shamanic guru figure of early Psychic TV, to the loved-up smiley-face-adorned ravemaster of the late 80s and the dreadlocked crusty look of the early 90s. These days, as part of his self-declared ‘Pandrogenous’ identity-cum-art project, he has a blonde bob haircut and a pair of breasts (D-cups, he later informs me) under a T-shirt bearing the self-defeating motto ‘Stop looking at my tits’.

The interview given below was conducted backstage at the Supersonic festival in July 2005. In March 2006, as the new issue of Judas Kiss was preparing for publication, I contacted Gen to ask for an update on progress on the new album, and received this email in response:

We’re in Oakland, near San Francisco, doing the final mixing down of the new PTV3 album with Baba Larriji (formerly Larry Thrasher), who is mixing producer. It’s called Hell Is Invisible...Heaven Is Her/e, and there are 11 songs – seven new ones and four definitive versions of classic old songs. Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs plays guitar on two or three tracks. The CD will come out on Abstract Records through Plastichead Distribution, and is now scheduled for release in early September 2006. After the album release, we will be (de)touring the USA and Canada in September. Then the UK and Europe in October and November... and, as promised, we’ll come back to play in Brum for the people who didn’t get to see us at the Supersonic festival!

So what are Psychic TV up to at the moment?

Gen: We’re in the process of recording a new CD, the first studio album since 1995's lost masterpiece Trip Reset. We’re recording, producing and mixing this album ourselves in our own studio. We intend to team up with Birdman Records of San Francisco for licensing and distribution. The new CD will be released in early spring 2006, and PTV will be touring North America, Europe and the former USSR throughout 2006 to support the project.

Most people will be familiar with Gen’s background, but what are the musical backgrounds of the other members of PTV3?

Alice: I was in a band called Sexpod for a long time in New York, and Eddie was in a band called The Toilet Boys.

Gen: David Max was, and sometimes still is, in a band called HIT, a very psychedelic, Syd Barrett-type band.

Has it been daunting for new members of the band to step into Psychic TV and attempt to fill the shoes of earlier members? After all, Psychic TV is a band with a 25-year history now.

Jaye: No it wasn’t, because I’d heard a lot of live tapes, and a lot of the music was really free-form, and there was so much room to improvise. So I didn’t have to worry about any kind of previous construction.

Alice: I was never intimidated. I think the only question I ever asked myself was, is someone else going to be mad at me for taking their place? I never thought I had bigger shoes to fill – you know, yeah, they are big shoes to fill, but I just have different feet, so it doesn’t matter!

Gen: That’s a nice way of putting it!

Gen, I know you spent your adolescence in Solihull, so for you this is kind of a hometown gig. Do you have any special feelings about this place or any place, come to that?

Gen: No, I don’t, and I never really did. I was born in Manchester, in Victoria Park, just around the corner from where the first Factory club was, but when I was growing up, my parents moved around a lot. I learned not to become attached to friends at school or where I lived, because I never knew when I would see them again. I became very self-contained. I don’t make many friends, and I’m very particular who they are. I expect long-term loyalty, because that’s the only way I can view it. I’ve never had short-term friendships. The same with places. They’re just where I did stuff. I go where it’s possible to do things, and when they’re not so possible anymore, I move somewhere else.

In the early 90s, you went into self-imposed exile in America, and I saw a lot of interviews with you around that time where you very much celebrated America as the land of the free and the home of the brave. Has that changed for you since 9/11 and the war on terror? Is America still the land of the free?

Gen: You’ve got to differentiate between politicians and people, as disenchanted as I am with the way America’s running politically and economically as anyone else with a brain. I wish it wasn’t that way, but that’s a whole separate issue. I’m also disenchanted with the people in charge of Britain, France, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Thailand, you name it. They’re all assholes! That’s one of the things I picked up in America, I love that word. The way they say ‘Aaassholes’!

Do you think of Psychic TV as a political band now, or has it ever been?

Gen: I think in a way the fact we exist is political.

Eddie: It’s hard not to be political, because we’re all people, but as far as commenting directly on any specific politics or public consciousness, I don’t think so.

Gen: In the studio, we were finishing off the war song, and then I said, ‘Oh God, I’ve finally written a political song!’ But war’s been going on a very long time. It’s still generalised.

Well, you covered ‘Eve of Destruction’, and that’s a protest song.

Gen: Yeah, but I didn’t write that one. I wrote the new one with the band, and so it’s better! And it’s not specific, unlike [‘Eve of Destruction’], which says, ‘The eastern world, it is exploding / Violence flaring, bullets loading / You’re old enough to kill, but not for voting / Even the Jordan river has bodies floating.’ And they always say if you write a political song, don’t mention real names, because otherwise it’s fixed in its time, and then it gets dismissed later, when history’s written and changed.

Is Psychic TV a spiritual band?

Jaye: Absolutely, yeah, because that’s how you connect.

David: For me, that was one of the main reasons to be involved, because it’s spiritual, and exploring a mindful dedication to love and communication.

Alice: We love what we’re doing, it’s not about creating anything bigger than what we are, it’s just about being who we are, in that moment, and allowing ourselves to exist and be real and breathe.

Gen: When you look at the belief systems that all of us have at various times been interested in, one of the most common threads is balance, living in balance with the world, or as the Native Americans say, ‘Walk through the forest and leave no trace.’ I don’t feel very respectful of the human species as it behaves with its technology. It’s leaving a terrible trace, and that trace is bound to come back and bite us, because that’s the nature of the planet.

Alice: New technology and old religion…

Gen: Yeah, can you imagine a worse combination than that? Dark Ages religion and modern technology.

There’s no formal link to TOPY [The Temple of Psychick Youth] these days, I think?

Gen: No, but there’s still a link to the attitude. The attitude is still relevant. But everything changes with time – as it should.

Could you explain the thinking behind Pandrogeny?

Gen: It’s a whole extra subject to Psychic TV, and really you’d need to do another interview for that, but briefly, it’s about evolution and the future. It’s saying that the human species is still prehistoric. We’ve created a futuristic technological environment, but we haven’t bothered to create ourselves in the image of the environment. We’re behaving like prehistoric animals from 30 or 40 000 years ago, and the environment is different. It doesn’t have to be brutal and violent any more. It’s about reminding people that consciousness and philosophy and relationship with the universe are just as important as inventing a cellphone. If you create the toys but you don’t have the comprehension to understand how wonderful they are, then you’re going to run into terrible problems, and that’s what’s happened. Basically, we stand for evolution and the future, and the future has to be a different species, a different way of being altogether, with or without bodies.

Gen, meeting and talking to you is the fulfilment of an ambition I’ve had for many years.  I know that you’re rather given to hero-worship yourself, people like Aleister Crowley, William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Brian Jones, of course…

Gen: I would add Don van Vliet to that list. I’ve really rekindled my excitement and respect for Don van Vliet [Captain Beefheart].

So I wanted to ask each of you which living person you’d most like to meet.

Alice: The Dalai Lama, because there’s such a sense of peace and compassion about him. I’m not sure that I would even say anything, it would just be nice to be in that presence.

Gen: Actually, I think that’s a great answer. I wouldn’t mind meeting His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I’ve met his spiritual adviser, and that was quite remarkable. I’d ask him – why? How do we finally get people to wake up and evolve, is what I would ask. Is there any way at all?

Jaye: It’s very sad, because two of the people I’d like to meet are dead. One of them was Quentin Crisp, and I did get to meet him before he died. I met him in this café in New York he used to sit in quite often, and I bought him lunch, and Gen and I spent a few hours with him. I admired him for his fantastic bravery.

The other person was Jonas Salk, who was known for developing the polio vaccine, and he was a really smart man. He said that we don’t have any exclusive right to exist on this planet, we need to find a way to co-exist. We don’t have a right to conquer illness, just to mutate it or ourselves so that we can both share the planet.

And the third person would be Captain Beefheart. Gen and I have discussed going to try to find him. I want to take him a cheque personally, because he’s been so underrated, so ripped-off, so abused, so financially exploited, and I think he could possibly use that cheque right now.

I think he’s a painter these days, isn’t he?

Jaye: Yes, he’s a painter. I’d like to go and buy one of his paintings, no matter what it looks like, just to support what he does, because I feel like he’s been under-supported in the past, especially in recent years. He should have gotten a lifetime achievement award.

Gen: Yes, I totally agree with that.

David: First of all, I was going to say nobody, but that’s bullshit. Probably, I would say Arthur Lee [of psychedelic band Love]. I felt that he was a true American visionary of the 60s, and the best songwriter, and he also lived an incredibly crazy life.

Gen: I heard he went to jail.

David: Yeah, in the 90s, a couple of times. In the 60s, he was the godfather of that psychedelic sound, but he never really got the credit for it. Now, even people who consider themselves hardcore 60s fanatics have never heard of Arthur Lee.

I remember reading that when The Doors were just starting out and gigging in LA, their ambition was to be as big as Love.

David: Yeah, obviously Love was never that big. The Doors were great, but Arthur Lee was such an incredible songwriter.

Markus: This is a tough one. I’ve been very lucky so far in my life, in the paths that I’ve crossed. It’s just like a fairytale, I’ve met some amazing people, so I’m just going to wait and see who else I have the pleasure to meet. I always wanted to meet Genesis, and that’s happened, and I agree with Captain Beefheart, I’d like to ask him where all his sounds came from, and how come nobody’s been able to duplicate them. Maybe Gibby Haynes [of Butthole Surfers], because he’s been a big influence. I’ve been a fan since I was eight or nine, so that would be a thrill, even though I’m sure he’s an asshole.

(In his later email, Gen commented, ‘Since your interview, another of Markus Persson's wishes came true! Gibby Haynes came to the studio and recorded extra vocals on our song ‘Maximum Swing’, so Markus met his idol, and Gibby was great, not an asshole at all!')

Eddie: There’s lots of people I’d want to meet, but if I had to put it in a nutshell right now, it would be Nick Cave and [beatnik poet and artist] Brion Gysin. Gen introduced me to Brion Gysin’s work, and I recently read a book, which moved me to the point where I thought I would have liked to spend time with this person and absorbed some of that energy. And Nick Cave has been a huge influence on me from the very first thing he ever did. I’ve seen the progression and been so emotionally moved by the music that he’s writing, and it just continues to get better. I bow to Mr Cave!

I’m going to wrap this up with a final question for all of you. I want to quote a line to you from ‘Roman P.’ – ‘Are you really, really free?’ And if so, what is the price of freedom?

Alice: I’m as free as I can be at this moment. I think I’m pretty free, but there’s always something that holds you on a leash.

Markus: You know, whenever we play that song, I ask myself that question. My goal from the get-go was to try to live the freest life, and there are times when I feel freer than ever.

Alice: He’s the freest of us all!

Markus: There’s no denying, I do everything I want to do. I definitely pay the price, because I do things without thinking of the repercussions. Then there are times when I’m stuck in a hole, analysing everything that I’ve done. So although I’m free in my mind, my mind is also my biggest prison. On the whole, my life is definitely free, but I keep trapping myself!

Gen: Oh no! I’m just a great mishmash of chains holding me down. That’s why I’m so active. I’m constantly trying to snap them all. I don’t like being in a body. I don’t like money. I don’t like the way the planet is. I don’t really admire the human species very much, as to how it behaves. Life for me is one great struggle to feel free for even a split second – but I’m working on it.

David: That’s a pretty tough question! I would say I believe in free will, but in a probabilistic / deterministic framework. That is that, yes, we are free, but there’s also a certain determinism. I believe in free will and destiny, I think they both exist at the same time.

Eddie: No! I’m not really free, but I spend every day trying to become more free. I mean, there are things you can’t change, you’re bound by government and that sort of thing. Every day, I think, is a process of becoming more free. But I don’t think that I will truly be free until I’m dead.

Jaye: Oh boy, what a question! Not fully, but it’s a lifelong project. And I have a few more years. I’m working on it. I’m constantly analysing my situation, in minute detail. I’m free from most things I can be free from. I’m probably still Public Enemy Number One, for myself and for others, but if you come back in ten years, I’ll have a more complete answer for you.

Alice: That’s what makes us a well-balanced band, because some of us are free and some of us aren’t!

Gen: Being free and thinking free are two different things. I think free, and that’s cost me an awful price at times. As for being free, we don’t have enough control over day-to-day circumstances to actually physically be free, but that’s what I would like to contribute towards. That’s why I work so hard.

Further Information

A separate part of this extensive interview with Psychic TV appeared in August 2005, in issue 007 of Zero Tolerance magazine: www.ztmag.com

[taken from an email from Genesis P-Orridge]
The current Psychic TV release is Godstar - Thee Director’s Cut (double CD) on Voiceprint Records, PO Box 50, Houghton-Le-Spring, Tyne and Wear DH4 5YP, England. www.voiceprint.co.uk Voiceprint are the only official and legal distributors of all Psychic TV back catalogue. All other product is either a pirate or a bootleg. You can also buy all official Psychic TV product and merchandise direct from our online webshop at www.genesisp-orridge.com, which is also the best and most reliable source of news, tour dates, ideas, documentation and projects relating to Psychic TV and its members. Always go to www.genesisp-orridge.com to be sure you are acquiring legitimate releases, as there are over 75 Psychic TV bootlegs out there that we know of!