Sparks: The band where eccentricity meets high art
Over video link from his home in Los Angeles, Russell nods enthusiastically: 'We can recreate our Whomp That Sucker cover!'
As Sparks prepare to share their new long player, MAD!, it is from the surreal vantage of being an overnight sensation 60 years in the making. Since 1971, they've been putting out reality-distorting pop that, at various moments, recalls Queen, Kraftwerk and the emotions you experience watching a David Lynch movie. They've had hits, appearing on Top of the Pops after 1974's This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both Of Us went to number two in the UK; the track would later be embraced by voguish Brit-rockers the Last Dinner Party, who covered it in Dublin last year.
Along with the brilliantly catchy tunes, the Maels have turned eccentricity into high art, radiating a studied oddness unlike anything else in pop. During one tour, Russell would play the keyboard with comedically extended arms that made him look like a life-size muppet. And when they went on Top of the Pops, John Lennon was so struck by what he was watching that he called up Ringo Star to say he'd just seen Marc Bolan collaborating with 'Hitler' – a reference to the frizzy hair Russell sported in the 1970s and the tooth-brush moustache Ron wears to this day.
Their charm and their weirdness made them beloved – yet their audience was modest and, in the best sense, cult-like. It wasn't until director and lifelong Sparks fan Edgar Wright eulogised them with his 2021 documentary, The Sparks Brothers that they returned to the mainstream of popular culture. Their subsequent movie-musical Annette cemented their comeback, but it was the Sparks Brothers that grabbed the headlines, thanks to the participation of Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, Taylor Swift producer Jack Antonoff, fellow Californian Beck and others – all happy to gush about their fandom of the Maels. This has led to the extraordinary situation of Ron (79) and Russell (76) rolling into Dublin this year with the buzz of a brand-new band.
'It's not the traditional career path where, after having 27 albums and now the new one with our 28th album, things are on the rise for a band,' says Russell. 'It's really special. Since the time when Edgar Wright did the documentary on Sparks a couple of years ago, more people that previously weren't exposed to Sparks were made aware of Sparks. And people that had been lurking in the background and not exactly following every move that we've been making, I think the documentary helped reawaken those people, too. And so since that time, and then also the movie musical that we did – I think the two movies combined, it has helped to push the profile of Sparks higher, which is great.'
In the film, Wright traced the Maels' journey from the early years as Americans obsessed with British glam rock through to the 1980s days as electro-pop pioneers and their subsequent adventures in everything from art-rock to indie pop. He also made the case that the group were innovators who brought humour and self-awareness into songwriting and pioneered the use of synthesisers in music, with projects such as 1979's No.1 In Heaven – produced by disco kingpin Giorgio Moroder.
'Most of the artists he went to – we don't know them personally at all. So when Edgar said, 'Oh, this week, I'm interviewing, you know, Flea, and I'm in interviewing Jack Antonoff, I'm interviewing whoever you know'. We went 'what' ?,' says Russell.
Despite living in LA all their lives, rubbing shoulders with the great and the good of Californian music isn't their thing. 'We're maybe shyer in that way to be going out and talking to other musicians. Edgar is brazen. He just says, Hey, 'you like Sparks, right?' 'Well, yeah, of course, I like Sparks'. That's his approach.
"And it was so nice, that he went out to all these people that he did know. Or even some that he didn't know, I think, at the time, and but thought, 'I'm pretty sure they must like Sparks'. More times than not, he was right. We didn't know most of the people personally that that he that he approached. It made it all flattering.'
The movie's success hasn't unduly impacted the Maels' songwriting: the new album is classic Sparks, brimming with shapeshifting melodies and madly catchy choruses. The lyrics run, as ever, from the surreal to the heartfelt.
'There is sincerity to what we do,' says Russell. 'Sometimes, if you couch the sincerity in something humorous it's taken as being light or something like that. We always feel it. Even in songs of ours that have a humorous side to them, maybe there's the other flip side to it that has an emotional side to it. On the new album, there's quite a few songs that we feel have a strong, emotional and melodic content. Those songs in particular – they're relationship songs, but relationship songs hopefully done in a fresh sort of way.'
Sparks in 1975: Russell Mael and Ron Mael. Picture: Evening Standard/.
Wright's movie also showcased the darker side of the music business. Despite the success of This Town Ain't Big Enough, and the accompanying album, Kimono My House, the industry never knew what to do with Sparks. So, for many years, it ignored the siblings, who had grown up in the wealthy LA suburb of Pasadena Palisades. They were left to make their own way, yet they never became bitter or resentful.
'You have to do what you feel is right,' says Russell. 'And all the peripheral stuff – what's going on the industry, all that kind of stuff… It's not the important thing. And you sometimes get consumed by thinking that it is important.
"I mean, it is in a certain in a certain way. Then the most important thing is doing what you do creatively. And then you hope that someone will be able to take what you've done and kind of disseminate it to more people in a good way. And sometimes it happens. Sometimes it doesn't. Those kind of forces are out of our control once we've given our our music to them.'
They've noticed a change in their audience when they go out on the road nowadays. The older fans are still there, but now they are joined by Gen Z-ers, many of whom came to them through Wright's film.
'We're fortunate that we have a devoted fan base that that either has stuck with us from the beginning or, like, from things like the documentary, have discovered Sparks more recently, and are passionate about the band and feel it's kind of a their own club. Especially when we tour we get to see it more first hand how passionate people are for what we do.
"And also we're able to do songs from all eras of our career. People are surprised by us doing songs maybe that are more obscure from albums that weren't as visible at the time. The situation for Sparks right now couldn't be better.'
MAD! is out now. Sparks play National Stadium, Dublin, July 15 and 16
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
a day ago
- Irish Times
Bob Geldof: ‘I never read about myself. I can't stand the stupid f**king things I say'
Bob Geldof has yet to sit down to Live Aid at 40 , the BBC's gripping and expletive-filled account of how he wrangled some of the world's biggest pop stars into appearing at the era-defining 1985 charity concerts at Wembley in London and in Philadelphia . 'I never watch anything that I'm in. I never read anything about myself. I can't stand the stupid f**king things I say. I can't stand looking at my crap hair and all that sort of stuff. But I know about it and the response has been amazing. I was in Britain on the 'anniversary day',' he says, referring to Live Aid's 40th 'birthday' on July 13th. 'Even calling it the 'anniversary day' is weird to me.' Live Aid at 40 portrayed Geldof in a largely laudatory light. There were quibbles about the lyrics of the 1984 Band Aid single, Do They Know It's Christmas? Ethiopian politicians were offended by the song's title, explaining that, with their rich history of Christianity, they were perfectly aware of the birth of Jesus. [ Live Aid at 40: Bob Geldof emerges from this less sanitised version of events seeming somehow more admirable Opens in new window ] But the film's wider message was that Geldof had done something extraordinary by cajoling music's brightest lights – most famously Freddie Mercury and Queen – into coming together to raise millions for the victims of the Ethiopian Famine. He is pleased the documentary was well received, and that the anniversary hoopla has refocused attention on the plight of so many in Africa today. 'The nicest thing I read was that the greatest achievement of Live Aid was, in this world of indifference, [it] put poverty in Africa back on the agenda 40 years later.' READ MORE Geldof (73) has a reputation as a garrulous interviewer and someone prone to going off on a tangent. However, he is chatty and considered when talking to The Irish Times ahead of a performance next weekend by his group the Boomtown Rats in Co Waterford. It's possible we've caught him at a good moment. He's out on the road, leading the band on a 50th anniversary tour and playing to packed houses (a new compilation record, The First 50 Years: Songs of Boomtown Glory, follows in September). Though Live Aid and his campaigning have arguably eclipsed the Boomtown Rats' melodic punk pop, music is still his first love – and on stage, he burns with the same anger that has been a defining quality of his band since they played their debut concert on the campus of Bolton Street Institute of Technology in 1975. His rage came from his experience as a young man coming of age in the near-theocracy that was 1970s Ireland. He wasn't the only one to bristle under the dead hand of the Church – but he spoke out about it where others refused to. That need to lash out was the driving force behind the Boomtown Rats' first single, Rat Trap – inspired by his experience working in an abattoir in Dublin and observing how Catholicism and a life of narrowed horizons had beaten down and hollowed out his colleagues. He was only getting started. He and his band were more or less blacklisted from Ireland after Geldof went on The Late Late Show in 1977 and denounced 'medieval-minded clerics and corrupt politicians'. He also had a go at some nuns heckling from the audience – telling them they had 'an easy life with no material worries in return for which they gave themselves body and soul to the church'. The appearance caused a furore – even the unflappable Gay Byrne looked shocked. The Boomtown Rats would not play again in Ireland until 1980. It was a price he was happy to pay – a point he made clear in the 2020 documentary Citizens of Boomtown, released along with a well-reviewed comeback album of the same name. Bob Geldof: 'I have more or less the exact same opinion as everybody else on the disgrace, the horror of Palestine.' Photograph: Chris Hoare/New York Times Geldof performs with The Boomtown Rats at Leixlip Castle in 1980. Photograph: Paddy Whelan 'There was certainly a focused anger with me,' he says today. 'Perhaps less so with some of the others [in the band]. An inchoate undetermined rage was definitely the fuel. If there was this society that was just stuck, and there didn't seem to be any way that it could unstick itself, we would just go – along with hundreds and thousands of others. But in our going we articulated, I think, that rage – either literally in the songs or in the sound we made.' Decades on, a new generation of Irish musicians has taken up the baton – most prominently the Belfast-Derry rap trio Kneecap and Dublin/Mayo indie band Fontaines DC, who have advocated fiercely on behalf of Gaza. Does he see something of himself and the Boomtown Rats in those artists? [ Citizens of Boomtown: 'Bob Geldof drove me out of my f***ing mind' Opens in new window ] 'As I said, rock'n roll is essentially an articulation of the hitherto inexpressible. If there's something bothering you and you're inherently musical it will find its way. And it is something that seems to catch the zeitgeist. That's why these things become popular. The attitude of Fontaines and Kneecap ... there's a direct line back to Little Richard. It's corny and obvious but it's true.' The distinction, he believes, is that music is no longer at the centre of the culture of protest. It isn't that bands today care any less than their predecessors or that their fans are any less invested. But society no longer looks to music for answers in the way it once did. 'The difference is that ... this is contentious, but why not? I think that rock'n'roll as the spine of the culture was a 50-year phenomenon,' he says. 'In my lifetime rock'n roll was the arbiter of the social dialogue. The role of music has been taken by social media. Pop was our social media.' Everything changed in the early 21st century, he believes. The internet assumed dominance, and music became just another art form rather than a lightning rod for dissent and challenging the status quo. Bob Geldof and Darren Beale of The Boomtown Rats on stage at the Exit Festival in Novi Sad, Serbia, earlier this month. Photograph:'The year 2004 was when Google first made a profit. And 2004 was when this new thing appeared called Facebook. From that point on [music reverted to being] like music in the 1920s, '30s, '40s. Brilliant artists, brilliant writers, wonderful music. Fantastic songs. 'That doesn't mean music has lost all meaning. Just that it is no longer a pillar of social protest. You will always remember the feeling when you first kissed a girl, first kissed a boy. That will always be there,' he continues. '[But] it's been taken over by social media. Social media will take what a band has to say and amplify it. But then again social media is not a broad technology, it is an isolationist technology. So it has less impact. And while these bands make great music and they are fantastic bands, I'm not sure it will have the resonances that pop once had.' Geldof grew up in Dún Laoghaire, Dublin. His mother died of a brain haemorrhage when he was seven, and he was raised by his father, who managed restaurants around Dublin. The singer later attributed what The Irish Times once described as his 'premature independence' and habit of pushing back against the status quo to the absence of a mother and his father's long working hours. Having left Ireland and taken on various jobs in Cambridgeshire and Canada, he returned home and founded the Boomtown Rats in 1975. After one of their early gigs, a woman walked up and asked if she could sleep with him – an exchange he had never imagined possible in 1970s Ireland. At that moment, he understood that being a rock star could change his life. Relocating to London, the band had huge success with singles such as I Don't Like Mondays. The country myself and the Rats left was a very closed society, which ultimately led to a highly degenerate political body — Bob Geldof Geldof entered a relationship with TV presenter Paula Yates . They had three daughters and eventually tied the knot, though the marriage fell apart after Yates embarked on an affair with Michael Hutchence of INXS, with whom she had another daughter. Hutchence died by suicide in 1997. Yates suffered a fatal heroin overdose in 2000. In April 2014 there was further tragedy when Geldof and Yates's 25-year-old daughter Peaches died , also of a drug overdose. In a statement, Geldof said the family was 'beyond pain'. Geldof is widely admired, but he is not above criticism. After Live Aid, he was accused of encouraging a White Saviour attitude towards Africa. The naysayers have included Ed Sheeran who said last year that his vocals were added to a new remix of Do They Know It's Christmas? without his permission. His contribution was taken from a 2014 version of the song, and Sheeran said that, were he asked to participate today, he would decline. He quoted an Instagram post by singer Fuse ODG, who said undertakings such as Live Aid 'perpetuate damaging stereotypes that stifle Africa's economic growth, tourism and investment, ultimately … destroying its dignity, pride and identity'. Geldof and Paula Yates in 1979. Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images Live Aid: Geldof and fellow musicians on stage at Wembley in 1985. Photograph: BBC/Brook Lapping/Mirrorpix/Getty Geldof, along with his contemporary Bono, has also been attacked for staying 'quiet' about Gaza. Last year, singer Mary Coughlan said: 'We all saved the world when Bob and Bono were talking about saving the world, and I couldn't understand what was different about this situation in Gaza. Why would they would be so quiet about it?' 'Well of course I have opinions, like anybody,' he says of Gaza, adding that, as a trustee of the Band Aid Charitable Trust, his work with Africa is his primary focus. 'Whether I like it or not, I am associated with Africa. I've spent 40 years … Every day, I wake to at least 10 Band Aid emails about the latest situation. [The charity is] still building hospitals or … dealing with children Sudan. Or dealing with the ruined bodies of gang-raped women … And trying to give them some semblance of a future life. That's what I wake to every morning and have done for 40 years,' says Geldof. 'So you'll forgive me when I speak I stay focused on that where I know from whence I speak. I can literally do something about that. I have obviously more or less the exact same opinion as everybody else on the disgrace, the horror of Palestine. And, as you know, the answer to the issue of Palestine – it's not as if it's unresolvable. It is a two-state solution. And one way or the other that will ultimately occur. ' He points out that in 1984, nobody was taking a public stand about the famine in Ethiopia. He was the first musician with a platform to do so. Today, there is a chorus of voices about Gaza. 'There was an opportunity to give a focus point,' he said of Live Aid. 'There are plenty of focus points with regard to Palestine. But nothing is going to happen there until the wanton killing is stopped.' What about the argument that Ireland and Britain have flipped positions since Geldof was an angry young man? Once hidebound by religion, the Republic has blossomed into a poster child for progressive values – or so we like to tell ourselves. Meanwhile it has become voguish to paint post-Brexit UK as a wasteland of hollowed-out town centres and red-faced men in Wetherspoons complaining about refugees. [ The unsung Irishman behind Live Aid. Not Bono, not Bob, but Paddy Opens in new window ] 'I'd be wary of the starting point with regards to Britain ... It's a dynamic and creative country. Regardless of what you think, it's still the seventh biggest economy on the planet. In Ireland's case, it is transformative. I come back to what I always thought the country could be. That is not to say I don't know very well indeed the contemporary issues. I follow it rigorously and avidly. My family are in Ireland. I'm back all the time. I follow the politics etc. Having said that, the country myself and the Rats left [was] a very closed society, which ultimately led to a highly degenerate political body.' Bono makes an interesting point in the Live Aid documentary about he and Geldof, being Irish, having a folk memory of the Famine. Geldof wasn't aware of Bono's comments – as he says, he didn't watch the series. But he does wonder if being Irish did help put a fire under him. In one scene in the BBC film, he browbeats Margaret Thatcher into essentially removing VAT from Do They Know It's Christmas? He looks her straight in the eyes and talks without fear or deference – something it's hard to imagine even the most ardent English punk rocker doing. [ Live Aid spurred me into becoming a GOAL volunteer on the ground in Africa Opens in new window ] 'One of my pet theories is that punk is largely the product of the first generation of the Windrush people [ie migrants to Britain from the Caribbean] and the first generation of the 1950s mass migration out of Ireland. I don't think it's an accident you had Elvis Costello, Shane MacGowan, George O'Dowd [aka Boy George], Johnny Lydon, Morrissey, Johnny Marr, the Gallagher brothers. A very antsy attitude. Then you had the actual Irish like us. Some of us were friends some of us weren't – rivals or whatever. I always got on really well with Johnny. We always seemed to get on well with each other. Did it make a difference with Live Aid? I don't think anyone was surprised it came out of the Irish community.' The Boomtown Rats play All Together Now at Curraghmore Estate, Co Waterford, over the August bank holiday weekend. The First 50 Years: Songs of Boomtown Glory is released September 19th
The Irish Sun
6 days ago
- The Irish Sun
Queen Elizabeth II's gowns including her wedding dress go on display to mark her 100th birthday
QUEEN Elizabeth II's wedding dress forms part of a majestic display of her outfits to mark the late monarch's 100th birthday. In the largest exhibition ever of her clothing, 200 items will go on show at 4 Queen Elizabeth II's wedding dress has gone on display to mark the late monarch's 100th birthday Credit: PA 4 The Queen married Philip in 1947 in this Sir Norman Hartnell gown Credit: PA 4 A stunning evening gown worn by the Queen in 1956 is also on display Credit: PA 4 The Royal Collection cited evening wear as a 'vital component of the Queen's wardrobe' Credit: PA It will include dresses worn in every decade of her life before she As well as the one from her 1947 Caroline de Guitaut, exhibition curator and Surveyor of The King's Works of Art has also written an accompanying book, Queen Elizabeth II: Fashion and Style. She said: "Over the course of Queen Elizabeth II's remarkably long reign, her distinctive style became instantly recognisable around the world, bolstering the British fashion industry and influencing generations of designers and couturiers. read more on the queen "Only now, as the late Queen's fashion archive comes under the care of Royal Collection Trust, can we tell the story of a lifetime of thoughtful style choices - from her hands-on role and understanding of the soft power behind her clothing, to the exceptional craftsmanship behind each garment." "In the year that she would have turned 100-years-old, this exhibition will be a celebration of Queen Elizabeth's uniquely British style and her enduring fashion legacy." The Royal Collection cited evening wear as a "vital component of the Queen's wardrobe", with members of the public able to see "stunning examples that reflect the evolution of fashion trends throughout the Queen's long reign". Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Style is at The King's Gallery from spring to autumn 2026, with tickets on sale this November. Most read in Royals Harry and Meghan made the Queen's last years a complete misery - they'll NEVER be forgiven
Irish Times
7 days ago
- Irish Times
Four music books chart unconventional lives in the industry
Musicians in the pre-punk period of the mid-'70s 'aspired to artistic status ... and rock in general had a renewed sense of ambition', according to 1975: The Year the World Forgot , by Dylan Jones (Constable, £25). This generation of music acts, which included the likes of Genesis, Steely Dan, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Joni Mitchell and Queen, was who punk rock would fight against. It aimed to replace their mature, erudite music with pared-back, stripped-down, revved-up pop songs. Jones, a prolific chronicler of pop music and the people who created it, is refuting the perception of pre-1976 being the preserve of prog rock bands such as Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. 1975 was the paragon of adult pop, he writes. A year rich with masterpieces such as Blood on the Tracks (Bob Dylan), Young Americans (David Bowie), Horses (Patti Smith), The Köln Concert (Keith Jarrett), Born to Run (Bruce Springsteen), Another Green World (Brian Eno), and The Hissing of Summer Lawns (Joni Mitchell). Across 21 albums, Jones smartly covers the songs and music as well as the geocultural milieu that nurtured and enveloped them. An excellent book that, thoughtfully, closes with a '75 from '75' playlist you can listen to on Spotify. READ MORE Eamon Carr: 'I found the cumulative effect of the horror stories I was reporting on from the North difficult to shake off.' Photograph: Eric Luke Pure Gold: Memorable Conversations with Remarkable People , by Eamon Carr (Merrion Press, €16.99), contains recollections of a different but no less important time, when journalists could interview people without the presence of PRs and their clipboards. Pure Gold gathers a series of interviews (culled from an assortment of mislaid cassette tapes) that Carr, a former member of Horslips and a long-established journalist, conducted in the late 1980s and early 1990s with a motley crew of people. The list is as impressive as it is eclectic: Eartha Kitt, JP Dunleavy, Josephine Hart, Brenda Fricker, Shane MacGowan, Rudolf Nureyev, Jack Charlton, 'Mad' Frankie Fraser, John Mortimer and more. The collection is much more than a conversation between two people or, God forbid, a set of predictable questions that too often receive rote responses. As well as insightfully deconstructing the interview process, Carr has a knack for going off-piste, judging the mood of the interviewee and burrowing down as far as possible. Earnest indie rock bands, he writes, answered questions with quotes that 'were homogenous, interchangeable'. Not so the interviewees here, who pounced on Carr's puckish, innate curiosity with a speed that less engaged inquisitors can only dream of. Keith Donald has played with The Pogues, Van Morrison and Ronnie Drew. There is enough of a life story in Music and Mayhem , by Keith Donald (Lilliput Press, €18.95) to fill in many hours of questions and answers, but the meat, so to speak, is in the reading. The career musician, now in his 80s, is best known, perhaps, for being a member of the groundbreaking ensemble group, Moving Hearts. Donald's peaks and troughs in life are documented with assured pragmatism. 'My days are numbered' is the kind of first chapter opening sentence that sets the scene for what follows (spoiler: it isn't pretty). From trusted boundaries being broken to grasping an instinctive love of music, from being diagnosed with lifelong PTSD to embarking on, writes Donald, 'a thirty-year internal battle between attraction and revulsion, emotionally up when the drink kicked in, down when it wasn't available, the rollercoaster of addiction'. Music courses through the book, needless to say, but the 'mayhem' of the title runs it a close second, and often the two are locked in a battle for supremacy. Stitched into the fabric of each is a distinctive history of Ireland's fledgling music industry. It is one populated by showbands ('human gramophones that rehearsed and learned three new songs every week'), Moving Hearts ('unlike any band I'd played with') and shoals of business sharks and redemption. A life lived? You bet. One could say the same for US rapper Tupac Shakur (1971-1996), who is regarded not only as one of hip-hop's most influential figures but also, through his music and activism, a torchbearer for highlighting political injustice and the marginalisation of African Americans. Late rapper Tupac Shakur was shot aged 25 in 1996 in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas. Photograph: Al Pereira/MichaelWith the primary motivation of presenting hip-hop's most noted nonconformist, Words for My Comrades: A Political History of Tupac Shakur , by Dean Van Nguyen (White Rabbit, £25), maintains a firm balance between placing Shakur within the context of the Black Panther movement (both of his parents were party members) and avoiding the usual biographical cliches of hero worship or downgrading unsavoury aspects of the subject's life (including a conviction in 1994 for sexual abuse). There is also much to admire about Van Nguyen's industrious, thought-provoking research, oral histories and thorough critical analysis of Shakur's significance. Those looking for a strictly linear approach will be disappointed, but anyone (Shakur fans or not) interested in hip-hop history and Black radical political ideology will, with some justification, love it. Dean Van Nguyen places Tupac Shakur within the context of the Black Panther movement. Photograph: Daragh Soden Another unconventional life is outlined in The Absence: The Memoirs of a Banshee Drummer, by Budgie, aka Peter Clarke (White Rabbit, £25). Merseyside-born Budgie studied art in nearby Liverpool, where in the mid-1970s he joined fledgling punk bands the Spitfire Boys and Big in Japan. He is best known, however, as the drummer in Siouxsie and the Banshees, which he joined in 1979 until their dissolution in 1996. Afterwards, he and Siouxsie (with whom he was romantically attached) formed The Creatures. Following their divorce in 2007, Budgie continued in music. His most recent work was a 2023 collaborative album with former Cure drummer Lol Tolhurst and Irish musician/producer Jacknife Lee. English Punk and New Wave musicians Siouxsie Sioux and Budgie feature in the Creatures' Right Now music video. Photograph:The Absence, however, is anything but an orderly trawl through back pages. Rather, it is an evocative, lyrical memoir of boyhood; from 'on the walk back to the guesthouse along the Golden Mile, my dad and I would stop to buy a takeaway of fish and chips' to remembering after-show hangers-on 'Siouxsie might play along… almost as a game, but most times she would get irritated, snap, and tell them to f*** off'. He also reflects on a doomed marriage: 'Our intense love was real, as was our intense anger and disgust'. A bold, bracing retelling of Goth beginnings and unhappy endings.
