Interview with Ben Pritchard 12 June 2006, part 2

Ben Pritchard was interviewed by Anthony Meirion in Manchester a month after leaving the group, along with Steve Trafford and Spencer Birtwistle, a week into the 2006 US tour. This is the second part of the interview, part one is here.

AM: Weren't you supposed to appear on Henry Rollins' show in America?

BP: Yeah we were.

AM: I seem to remember that a while back Henry Rollins wanted to reissue The Fall's back catalogue on his own label in the way that Sanctuary has ended up doing. Talks went on for ages but eventually Mark quashed it, then Rollins was quoted as saying something like 'Mark E Smith is a genius but he's also an asshole.'

BP: Yeah, I don't think Mark Smith is too arsed about Henry Rollins, I don't think he's too bothered about him at all. Henry Rollins seems to make quite a big deal out of Mark but I don't think Mark's too arsed about him. We were supposed to be doing his TV show but it was one of the only times he wasn't gonna be there so it didn't really matter either way whether we did it or not.

AM: So The Fall had been recording a new album before you left?

BP: Yeah, we recorded most of it in Chopper Studios in Lincolnshire where the Artic Monkeys did their album and Razorlight recorded there. Grant Showbiz came down to produce it. We had 10 days booked, we got down there for about 5 or 6 days just recorded with the engineer, recorded a load of songs and then Grant Showbiz came down a bit later on. D'you know what? We recorded about 14 songs.

AM: A whole album's worth?

BP: Absolutely. More than that - an album and a couple of singles.

AM: So what's going to happen to that? The Fall had a whole album recorded with that band!

BP: I don't know, he had studio time booked in L.A. We were gonna spend a week in the studio but we'd already recorded the album. I went to a meeting with Mark in town and I dont know whether he was joking but he said he didn't like any of it and wanted to get it all re-recorded which is a stunt he pulls if he hasn't got any lyrics. If he's got no lyrics for his songs he makes us waste studio time by re-recording stuff but it really doesn't need re-recording.

But we were panicking thinking once we got to the States if he hadn't got anything ready by then he was gonna make us waste our time, and then nothing would've got done. That just would've been horrible. See, all these things we were supposed to be doing, just looming over us, we wouldn't have been in any fit state to do any recording. No one felt creative, no one felt...I don't know...

AM: What were those new recordings like?

BP: They're alright - y'know from what I've heard. Systematic Abuse, The Boss is on there. White Line Fever we covered as well, that's the cover for the album. But I don't know, he may have just got his new band in the studio and re-recorded it all, recorded a whole new album or might have asked his new band for songs, I don't know, it depends.

AM: I can't see them sticking around for very long.

BP: It's not feasible, he's gonna have to get himself a whole new group. He's not talking to any of us. Y'know, I didn't expect him to be all nice, pally-pally...I don't know. A lot of things have been said since we came back. He doesn't see that we left as being his fault. He doesn't understand that we left as a result of what he was doing. As far as he's concerned we're in the wrong, we did something really bad.

AM: You abandoned him.

BP: Yeah. We didn't abandon him at all, he abandoned us mate. That's what he did, we couldn't talk to him, we were just the butt of his jokes all the time. Nasty, horrible little pathetic jokes and insults. Making Spencer go and sit somewhere else cos he didn't want him sat next to him, just pathetic things like that. You don't need it, you're the other side of the world, away from all your family and friends and you're being told where to sit by your boss. Y'know, it's not nice. You're a group.

AM: The thing is if it had gone on, one of you may have snapped.

BP: Well, possibly. I've come close a few times but I've always kind of...No!

AM: Mark and Neville used to have spats on stage, he used to be there shoving Mark into the drums.

BP: You can't do that, you could seriously damage him.

AM: He's only a frail guy...

BP: He is, very frail. Y'know when he fell over, he fell over and broke his leg on a beach. He fell over on sand and broke his leg. He broke his hip and his leg when he fell over in Newcastle. Y'know, you can't hit him. You can't and you don't wanna be the guy responsible for killing him.

AM: No, that's true.

BP: Sod that. No, we had to take the high road. It was in the Evening News that he said he'd sacked us all which is kind of what you expect. It adds to the mythology of him, he sacks all his lineups at ridiculous moments but if that's what he wants to tell people, then fine let him do it. I'm not bothered, I'm not gonna split hairs over it.

AM: I wanted to ask about 'Are You Are Missing Winner' - it's not really well publicised that whole period, it sort of came out of nowhere.

BP: (laughs) It's a horrible album.

AM: Well, the first four tracks were fantastic.

BP: What were the first four tracks?

AM: Jim's The Fall, Borgeosis Town, Cropdust, My Ex-classmates' Kids.

BP: Yeah, Cropdust is brilliant, they are the best tracks on the album.

AM: It kind of goes downhill after that but there's great stuff on it.

BP: It was a very miserable experience making that album. We were recording it in a studio where there were rats running around. There was a weightlifter's gymnasium above us, you'd be recording a take and suddenly you'd hear BOOM dropping barbells and dumb-bells on the floor and you'd have to stop and start again. We had a break in the middle to go and do this Bulldog Bash which was embarrassing. It was a miserable experience. We did this biker's bash called the Bulldog Bash. Terrorvison played the same night as us, and we played at 5 0'clock in the afternoon and it was just horrible. Horrible, horrible experience. We didn't go down well, it wasn't The Fall's kind of scene, there was no one there watching us. They were all bikers, everyone was outside getting tattoos or watching the Drag car racing. Y'know, watching mud wrestling - that was going on outside, no one was interested in hearing groups (laughs). You can tell from the sound of the album, it kind of reflects the mood of the time.

AM: It is a strange record.

BP: I wasn't there a lot of the time they were recording that album. Just cos I couldn't deal with it. Ed Blaney, Jim, Spen, Mark, Steve Lloyd the producer was there. I didn't really know anyone, it was my first time recording and it was a miserable, horrible experience. Also Brian Fanning was spending a lot of time there, he plays guitar, Jim Watts is a guitar player as well. I felt out of place anyway but being surrounded by guitar players who are constantly 'Oh I'll play the guitar on this track' you just end up being sat there. I mean cos Jim, and rightly so, he writes his songs on the guitar, he wants to play guitar on them, fair enough. But I wasn't used to writing songs, I'd never been asked to write a song before and I ended up just being sat there. Then 'Go on, get Ben to play guitar, he can do it' y'know you feel like a charity case (laughs). I played on Kick The Can, Jim's The Fall...I don't play on a lot of it to be fair.

AM: It was rushed wasn't it?

BP: Rushed. Two or three weeks, it was done. He needed the album out, the group needed the money for it.

AM: That was I think the only one to go on sale at gigs before it's official release.

BP: Well that's right, I've not heard it for years. I like The Acute, that's quite good about keeping your cap on your pen and your dick in your pants (laughs).

AM: So if he asked you, would you go back?

BP: (long pause) I don't know...I suppose I'm gonna cross that bridge if it comes to it. I don't know...I think a lot of things have been said from him to me and from me to him. It's not like I can go back and think things are gonna get better, the situation's gonna improve - it's not. The only way that environment is going is just down. I mean, hopefully this American tour, judging by the sound of him on that Dragnet interview, he sounded quite with it. I think us leaving has made him kind of like 'shit I need to get my fucking arse in gear a second here'. Maybe not as far as his behaviour is concerned but his attitude toward the gigs. He had three guys there that he doesn't know. One of them had a fucking huge beard and I know he would have fucking hated that (laughs). The amount of times he made me and Steve shave, he's not a beard man (laughs).

AM: And that's one hell of a beard, like Grizzly Adams.

BP: I know, I've seen the photos. He'd hate that - that is not the Fall image.

AM: He seemed very chummy with him, I suppose he has to be.

BP: He will be, he has to be, he has no choice. He would've had to pull out the charm card every day of that tour. He didn't do that with any of us. Y'know he was an absolute monster sometimes. He has these three guys he doesn't know, he knows they're doing him a favour, he's got to keep them around. He can't afford to piss these guys off cos the record label will be running short of people who are gonna help him.

AM: It must've been a nightmare for the record label, it probably didn't do The Fall any favours with all that hassle for them.

BP: I feel really sorry for the label but no, they are very loyal to him. They've put up with a lot though, they've put up with a great deal off him.

AM: They're an American record label aren't they?

BP: Narnack Records, yeah. We were signed at one point to Slogan from the UK which was a subsidiary of Sanctuary but in America they had Narnack Records who were taking care of things in that side of the world. They could've thrown in the towel when we left. See, they're based in New York where The Fall have a massive following. The last six or seven gigs we've played in New York have been absolutely outstanding. The Asterisk and North By Northwest, we did the Virgin Megastore, the Knitting Factory God knows how many times and that's always a good show. I feel bad it ended the way it did. The thing about this group, and I said this to Mark it was always gonna end like this.

AM: So you've spoken to him?

BP: I've not spoken to him but I've had text messages from his wife's phone that he's been dictating so I know he's there and I've replied to them and I did say to him this was always the way it was going to end. No one ever walks away thinking job done, time to move on. Everybody either gets fired or pushed away. And I feel bad because I made a lot of sacrifices for that group. It's a shame...I don't know what's gonna happen now.

AM: You knew him for a while before you joined the band, would you consider you to be friends?

BP: Yeah but he's always had that mentality that he doesn't like to get pally with bandmates but I've spent a lot of time with him outside of work. He only lives 10 minutes away, if he needed taking to town or if he needed a bit of company or if he needed something doing it'd be me he'd call and I'd do it. I don't like to let the guy down, I've always respected him, still do.

AM: He can't really ask anymore than that from people.

BP: Well I don't wanna say he doesn't appreciate anything, that's not the word. He doesn't respect people that respect him. When people look up to him or if people say they're influenced by him he doesn't like it. He's always slagging off Franz Ferdinand because they say they like The Fall. He's constantly slagging off Bloc Party because they say they like The Fall. He doesn't like people who look up to him. I always made a point of treating him like a boss, just somebody who pays my wages. If he wants me to do something, I'll do it. I never used to really enjoy spending time with him socially. I don't really get on with him socially, I find it very difficult. Most of the time we end up just sitting there and depending what state he's in, he'll just talk. You just have to sit there and listen. Sometimes he'd want to meet and he'd want to talk about business. Those times were fine but I always really felt a little bit uncomfortable socialising with him. He's a hard guy to connect with, you can feel like you're connecting with him, sometimes he turns the charm on and he can be charming. And he is a very generous guy, he'll always make sure you're alright no matter what mood he's in. If he thinks one of his band members has fallen on hard times he'll do what he can to help you. But.. I dunno, he's a strange character.

AM: He's a lot of people, you never know who you're going to meet...

BP: Yeah, on a daily basis you see three or four sides of him. If you get him in the morning and he's had a good night's sleep, he's fresh and he's just got out of the shower he's alright. You can talk to him and he'll talk to you, he'll ask you if you're alright and everything will be fine. Then half an hour later, he'll just turn on you.

AM: So even in a good phase, he'll drink a lot?

BP: He doesn't even drink to get pissed that's just him, he's a drinker. He doesn't do it to achieve anything, he doesn't do it cos he loves the feeling of being pissed and angry because I can't believe for a second he enjoys it. Cos he doesn't just get angry he's fucking ferocious, furious so he can't be drinking to get that way, he just drinks. That's the way it's always been and I can't imagine he'll stop.

He got barred from here. He came in one night and he'd been to the shops around the corner and bought a load of cans of Holsten Pils. He came in about 10.55pm and he got served for a pint and he was sat talking to a load of his cronies. He tried to get another pint but couldn't get one and was sat talking to his mates with an empty bottle and just started opening his cans of Holsten Pils, topping up his mates' beers (laughs). He got barred just so he could have a bit more company for a bit longer.

He really alienates himself and then hates it when he's on his own. But you get to the point where you don't feel you can go over and talk to him.

AM: That's classic drinker's behaviour, wanting company but driving people away because of the drink.

BP: There is a really nice guy in there somewhere. I've seen him , I've met him a few times. There's a really nice guy and a really talented guy and a really intelligent guy but he's just too influenced by too many outside things, whether it's speed or beer or whatever it is.

AM: Does he still use a lot of speed?

BP: (long pause) Yeah he does, of course he does, that's his tipple - speed and alcohol. They're not a good mixture cos he'll take his speed and he'll be up for three or four days on end and all he's doing is drinking, drinking, drinking. Don't know how he does it.

Eleni phoned me up about a week and a half after we left from America 'I want to thank you for leaving. The band are brilliant, they are really good. Everything is wonderful, there are no arguments.' I said 'Well, brilliant - that's what you want cos if we had stayed there would have been arguments, we wouldn't have been playing brilliant and the gigs would've been shit.' 'Oh er, well umm you lied to us and you stole money.' 'Uh no Eleni, no we didn't. We left because of Mark's behaviour.' And she'll defend him to the hilt and I said to her, look you don't see it anymore, you're blind to it. 'Oh but that is what happens when you are married. You stand by and defend your husband.' I said well alright, fair enough, I understand that Eleni but this is a little bit different. Physical violent attacks are not we should have to deal with on a daily basis. We should be worried about how the gig's going to go. If our guitar or bass playing or the drumming are going to be right, making sure that everything's perfect. We shouldn't have to be worried that the singer's going to attack us again before the gig because we've stopped off for a hotdog at the service station. Like we're wasting time... fucking hell we can't do anything. You can't eat, if you went for a meal even on your day off, you'd come back and he'd be waiting for you 'What you fucking doing? What you fucking doing, eating? Fucking useless cunts.' What? I've gotta eat, me. He puts you down for getting hungry!

That's all the time anyway but when we went to America it just got worse. Its always been like that, even when Dave and Dingo were in the band, and different people have different ways of dealing with it. Some people can't deal with it and they bail but Mark creates this us and them, this split down the middle. There'd be Mark and Eleni, whoever they bring along with them as their guests, his sister or Safi who does the videos and then there's us. And we can only depend on each other, we can only rely on each other to get ourselves out of the shit. Cos Mark could fucking leave us - and he did on the tour in America with the broken leg, he left us with no fucking money, no flight tickets home, he just fucking left us. We had to start getting deposits back for the hire vehicles, we had to get money together for our flights to Chicago. Our flight to Chicago was a non-refundable ticket that wasn't due for two weeks. He didn't care, he had all the money from all the gigs. He had Ed Blaney with him, he had his wife, they got home fine, no problem.

AM: Why did he do that?

BP: Ed Blaney had convinced him that Roy the tour manager had been stealing money from him which is absolute bullshit. Again, its the games - somebody's a thief, somebody's a liar, somebody's stealing money.

AM: He would appear to be vulnerable to people taking advantage of him...

BP: He's more with it than people realise but you're right. A lot of people do abuse the situation, encourage him with speed, encourage him with alcohol and then when Mark's at his happiest, when he's absolutely flying, that's when they strike. 'Can I have some money Mark? I'm a bit skint.' 'Yeah, sure cock - there you go.' That's what happens with Mark, thats what's happened all his life. Sometimes he gets wise to it which makes him as hard as he is but still people do it to him. Then ultimately what ends up happening is the people who aren't ripping him off, he accuses of ripping him off. People that are doing, he doesn't see it.

AM: So you're really the more loyal faction but he doesn't see it and you end up being scapegoats for the ones who are exploiting him?

BP: Yeah, we're not ripping him off, we're not thieves. We don't get paid enough to say we're doing it for the money. We do it cos we love doing it and we understand the group we're playing for, what that group's achieved and where they are in the history of music, they've made their mark. It was good to play for them but...bloody hell. He's a fool to himself, he is, I totally agree.

AM: It seems ironic that MES is such a visionary in many ways and can see clearly what others don't, yet appears to miss many everyday things.

BP: Yeah, the things that he sees clearly is what he's made up in his head. What's really going on around him he doesn't see. The only thing he focuses on is his distorted slant on people and on the world. Especially people, about whether they can be trusted or not. Y'know, the nicest person in the world...My Dad! He accused my Dad. My Dad's never stolen anything in his entire life. He's an ex-army man, he's been working as a mechanic for the fucking post office for 30 years, he's about to retire. Mark's accusing him of printing Fall t-shirts on the side and selling them. Making money on these t-shirts whilst we're in America. I was like, 'What? What the fuck? Where does he dream these things up?' (laughs). My Dad's done nothing but stay at home and chill with my mum and watch TV, enjoy his life. He's got nothing to do with The Fall. T-shirts? He doesn't even wear t-shirts!

It's illogical but that's what he sees clearly. He convinces himself - MI5 are watching him, the CIA are watching him. No they're not Mark, they're not.

AM: Didn't he sack Jim Watts saying my MI5 contacts tell me you have been diverting Fall funds to heavy metal bands?

BP: (laughs) That's right! It was something as ridiculous as that. My MI5 mates, that's right. Well, Jim was accused of leaking Country On The Click on the internet.

AM: Yeah, wasn't it Jim's mix originally?

BP: Yeah and people on the Fall website have turned round and said the first person I got it off was Jim Watts. That really didn't help his cause so when Mark put two and two together, that's why Jim got fired. [Note: no-one associated with The Unofficial Fall Website got the original mix from Jim Watts and we certainly did not leak it on the internet.]

ANTHONY MEIRION 2006

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