I Am The Resurrection: The Return Of The Jesus Of Cool

*Nick Lowe speaks candidly to MOG*"I didn't think anyone would be talking about this record come the end of 1978, let alone 2008," says Nick Lowe, of the 30th anniversary reissue of his debut solo album Jesus Of Cool, in the shops and on-line this coming February. Self-effacing as ever, he's still trying to find his feet after the blanket praise heaped on his 2007 release, At My Age, so the idea of his first forays into long-playing popdom still being worthy of discussion has left him bemused, to say the least.Nonetheless, one of the last true gents of the music business took the time to telephone Mogger Terry Staunton, and answer several questions about his well-respected roots as a solo performer.*First up, it has to be said that Jesus Of Cool is a marvellous name for an album...*"It was a journalist called Tim Lott (of erstwhile UK music magazine Sounds) who actually coined the phrase in an article he wrote about me, and we all just rocked with laughter when we read it. We just thought, 'Thank you very much - that's the album title'."*It was changed to Pure Pop For Now People for the American release. Was that because the suits at the record label were jittery about the "Jesus" reference?*"Yes, they were very jittery, which might seem incredible thinking about it today - or maybe not. I was never privvy to the internal memos that went back and forth between Columbia Records in the States and our London office, but there was absolutely no question of us ever getting to call the record Jesus Of Cool in America. But of course, we rather enjoyed that, we didn't protest. We thought, 'Great! Two album titles! Fantastic!' It absolutely fell in line with the stuff we were doing on purpose. My old label Stiff Records was always very mischievous, putting records out in wrong sleeves, sending the wrong artist photos to the music press, all that stuff. We were all dyed-in-the-wool record collectors, trying to create our own rarities."*"Pure Pop For Now People" was, in itself, typical of the playful slogans that were such a part of Stiff's label copy and promotional material.*"That's right. The Americans didn't offer that as their own alternative title, it was something we came up with ourselves. But I'm sure there were people at the American label who didn't get the irony of it, who thought 'That's more like it!', like it was some serious and bold proclamation from our camp. In those days there was still a pretty straight element to most major record companies, but nowadays I reckon everyone is hip, to some degree or another. Even the dreary people are a little bit hip these days." *The album wasn't recorded over one labour-intensive period of time, was it?*"No, I did it in dribs and drabs, really. It's very hard to remember the recording of it, as evinced by the booklet credits. Some of the tracks I have no recollection of where they were done, or who played on them, so it was nice to get in touch with a few people I'd not spoken to in years to get a comprehensive listing of the specific musicians - but we all had different memories of the time, so it wasn't always that big a help. There are certain cuts where more than one drummer has sworn to me that it was them who played. In those cases, I've listed them all to save arguments."*Could it be that there's stuff you recorded a couple of times, but you're unsure which version was finally used?*"Maybe, but I was never really one for doing demos at that time, so there isn't more than one recording of most things. I always used to say that the demos were invariably better than the finished thing, so having done the song once that was gonna be it. The demo was the finished track."*You were always fairly honest and open about your, shall we say, "homages" to other people's songs in your own material on the record.*"Ah, you mean, my 'sampling', for want of a better word..."*Well, things like Music For Money, which was seen as a partial rewrite of 10cc's Art For Art's Sake. Were you ever looking over your shoulder and thinking that perhaps you'd borrowed a little too much?*"Um, yes, but when I think back to it now, it was a time when I was very ambitious. I'd done my apprenticeship up and down the motorways of England and Europe, endless tours as a member of Brinsley Schwarz, and suddenly I found myself at the front of the queue, as it were. Finally, it was my turn to do something, and all I really knew was that I didn't want to play the Establishment game, as I saw it. I wanted to create a persona for myself as a sort of maverick and a risk-taker. A mischief-maker, really, someone who operated under no flag. I don't think I've changed much, in that respect. So, it was all part of this persona I was trying to foster, with these really obvious 'steals'. My attitude was always, 'So, sue me'."*Some "steals" were more obvious than others, though. Several press reviews of your first single, So It Goes, pointed out its similarities to Steely Dan's Reelin' In The Years.*"Yes, there's that little descending chord sequence. Having said that, Phil Lynott had already pinched it for Thin Lizzy's The Boys Are Back In Town, so maybe I wasn't stealing, as such. It was more that I was receiving stolen goods! There were times when I thought, 'Oh, blimey, you'll never get away with this, Nick', but it was all part of a bigger, albeit somewhat vague, plan."*Was that the thinking behind the series of portraits on the sleeve, yourself pictured in various stripes of fashionable(?) garb, holding ever more ludicrous guitars?*"I can't remember that we talked about it too deeply, we just thought it would look great. I think it ended up looking quite striking, and it was a real fun thing to do. It was the work of good old Barney Bubbles, who did a lot of sleeve art for the pub rock crowd and for Stiff."*The album includes the 50s-style teen ballad Little Hitler, and the following year you produced the Elvis Costello track Two Little Hitlers. Was that a case of someone actually stealing from you for a change?!*"No, it was me unashamedly nicking from Elvis! If I remember rightly, he was originally thinking of calling his This Year's Model album Little Hitler. He toyed with it for a while, but went off it, so I asked him if I could nick the title for a song of my own. Of course, Elvis grabbed it back with a little twist when he came to do Armed Forces." *I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass was the album's big hit single, but it's a song you've rarely played live since.*"I've always had a pretty glib reason for that. My contention is that there's not really a song there. It's a really great record, but not much of a song. I just had this little idea in the studio, but the addition of Andrew Bodnar on bass and Steve Goulding on drums, both from Graham Parker's band The Rumour, what they added to it really turned it in to something. Up until then it wasn't really anything. My general rule is that if you can play something on an acoustic guitar, it's a pretty good song, it's something everyone can join in with. But you can't really do that with Breaking Glass, I don't think. You get sort of fed up with it after about four bars."*Alongside The Rumour, you also drafted in various members of The Attractions, Ian Dury's Blockheads, and your own colleagues from Rockpile. There seemed to be a little gang of musicians all playing on each other's records back then - a New Wave clique, for want of a better expression.*"I suppose so. We all knew each other, because we'd all come up through the pub rock scene at the same time. I know I said I've never worked under any flag, but pub rock would be the only one I'd ever own up to. The thing about pub rock is that it's been so maligned down the years, I've even used it as a disparaging term myself on occasion, but there were a lot of good people operating in that world, making some really terrific records. Whether you ultimately think Jesus Of Cool is one of those records is entirely up to you..."The 30th anniversary edition of Jesus Of Cool, featuring a bonus ten tracks of B-sides and earlier Stiff Records releases, is out in February