Peter Murphy Interview ZigZag Magazine Nov.1985.

 Gills-pallor-grey but smiling, Peter Murphy ambles over to the tape machine in Beggars Banquet and slips another cassette into the slot.
Already a poster for a compilation album ('The Light Pours Out of Me' - Peter Murphy) has bemused. A disco inferno ransacks the room. Struggle for the link . . . until,'final Solution' by Pete Ubu!
The whole album isn't covers is it?
"No. Just those two."
The nightclub's won't know what's hit 'em. With the sheets now draped over the Dali estate, the mattress now conceals a lethal circus canon. Murphy, abetted by the tie-less Howard Hughes, has come back at full throttle.
You had to do something like this, towards noise, or become Andy Williams.
P.M.:"Suppose so. That's obviously what you think. There was a sigh of relief when Dali's Car ended. Bit of a strain. It was built on the theory that marriages made in heaven work and they don't. It promised to be good, the demos were exciting but that's the only stage it reached.
At what point, looking back, did you realise?
"The first day we started recording. It was immediately apparent that the crossover between me and Mick wasn't going to happen.
Why didn't you just knock it on the head?
"Because we'd gone in so far, spent so much money. I don't think the music was that horrendous."
People's main impression was one of pratting around,with an elegant lie going in the interviews.
 "It wasn't lying,it was respect for another human being. I'm not slagging him off now. We talked about the album but evaded talking of future work."
 (Evasion is a lie I suspect ...)
 "I must admit there was an element of a conscious intellectual idea of what was different ..."
Enough!
The mess was tidied up and Murphy and Hughes, (previously with The Books and part-time pianist for The Associates) were then free to resume a union that had briefly begun before Dali's Dilemma.
 "We fancied each other at the time," recalls Peter. "Thought, 'There's someone that looks a bit like me!'"
 "So we spent the night together," dribbles Howard, staring longingly into his partner's eyes. "and thought we'd do a few things."
Why the cover version?
  "One, because I was short of tracks and two, I was looking around for covers that would allow me to do a real belting vocal, which I love doing."
Belting is much evident. It's all so wonderfully noisy. Presumably you prefer this energy?
 "It's not how much you spend, it's the energy that's in it. It's let your hair hang loose and have a good time. I asked Ivo to be involved because he's got the suss I really like. He's really just stripped of the pretentions you usually come across with producers. It isn't a definitive statement. No album ever is. Lyrically there's a definite thing going on but there's no concept. As it went on, a style turned out."
 The police, looking for a fifty year old Eskimo, tragically blast Howard Hughes apart. As Preparations for a street party take shape I have to ask Pete's opinion. Are they good or bad.
 "No, Pretty sick and frustrating. Just a result of the climate and culture wars."
Would you take part in Red Wedge?
 "No, I'm not a political animal, I'm more an overseer of the whole thing, more involved with what might be called a philosophical point of view. I've never been involved with mainstream society, I've always been an outsider.
Errr ...
 "I see through a lot of things in a very naive way ... other ways of approaching problems than the conventions of political thought."
Who would you say yes to?
 "Some old geezer in Turkey who says, 'That's a load of bullshit ... what about trying this?' I'd say yes to that."
(Does he mean Weller?)
"I'm not a judge of Weller. I'd probably think, 'Why doesn't he get on with writing good music?' Society's problems can never be resolved by political means. They can certainly be changed radically but the problem of the human condition remains."
Now, if you hadn't done this new dance hall rave, wouldn't the game have been up?
"No. I could have gone on been the big 'star' people were talking about but I didn't. It was more a thing I wanted to get away from. Part of it was intentionally trying to lay low people's expectations of what I'm gonna do next"
"Like Pete says," adds the loyal and affable Howard Hughes (short fingernails in case you're concerned), "there's always a big gap between preconceptions and the actual reality."
And he did turn down the third Maxell advert, because the "story- board sucked", instead of just pocketing a fat fee. "If it had been as mega as the first one I'd have done it but they wanted me to go through space with this dolly bird. The sound they were getting from Maxell tapes was putting them into a state of ecstasy in space! Really daft."
Would the Idea that Mike Read made love to your music appall you?
"Someone told me I'd die of AIDS on Paris. I wake up especially to watch Saturday Superstore. If I get a hit, Beggars might say, 'Listen 'ere, Saturday Superstore's up for grabs, please do it'. I'd be too embarrassed I imagine."
Wouldn't you like to answer all those phone calls?
"Would you?"