Julian Cope

Cope A Load Of This! Exposed meets Julian Cope.

Ahead of his appearance at Off the Shelf Festival, Exposed spoke to Julian Cope – previously the frontman of English post-punk band, The Teardrop Explodes. Since leaving the band in 1982, Julian has dabbled in plenty of things: various musical projects, writing books on post-war rock culture in Germany and Japan, and becoming a respected scholar in antiquarianism. We spoke to him about his debut novel, One Three One, and to find out what we can expect from his Sheffield appearance.

Hi Julian, how are you today?
I’m very well, thanks for asking. I’m heading to Liverpool Unity Theatre to present my debut novel later today, which I’m looking forward to.

So where are we speaking to you from?
I’m back at my place, in the village of Avebury. Well, it’s more a collection of Hamlets than a village, but I like it. We’re literally a couple of miles away from the large stone circle which is situated here; but, then again, there are also a lot of inbred people here – but you have to draw the line somewhere, right?

Yeah, you’ve got to weight such things up sometimes. You’re also heading to Sheffield in October to perform in Off the Shelf Festival. Do you know the city well?
Ah, man! I know Sheffield very well indeed. I played here with The Teardrop explodes at The Limit Club in October 1979. It had a great atmosphere, you know?

The Limit certainly has a legendary status amongst Sheffielders. You must have a great memory to remember the date exactly?
Not really man, it’s just that some moments and places stick in your head. Balfy (TTD keyboardist) had sex in the lift! I think the people watching us were fairly nonplussed by our performance but it was always a great crowd down there. Sheffield had some really good looking women, you know? And, as a young band, it was funny because you’d want to act real cool like f*cking rock stars, but you really did want them to come up and talk to you.

It’s great to hear that the city made such a good impression on you! You’ll be reading from your debut novel, One Three One, upon your return to Sheffield. The story grapples with a range of themes: time travel, drug use, football hooliganism, rock ‘n’ roll and Italian road trips to name a few! I’d love to get your opinion on each – but I don’t know where to start!
I can offer you a simple opinion: just write about what you know. That’s the main advice that I was given when I was first planning a novel, and that’s precisely what I did.

So do you have a link with football hooliganism, for example?
Oh, f*ck yeah. I mean, I wasn’t personally involved, but I had a drummer who was one of the main protagonists for the Millwall firm. I swear, he was about five foot five but an absolutely nutter, you know? But he was such an interesting bloke. I also remember holding a rehearsal for a band member and this tall guy walked in – I’d previously been informed that he was a football hooligan for West Ham – and he just walked up to me and said, “you know, I’ve kidnapped your kind before” – of course, I put him straight into the band.

Did the theme of drug use in the novel have a bit of an autobiographical aspect to it?
Yeah man! Most of the book is inspired by personal experiences. You see, I’ve experienced a lot of things which no novelist will ever have experienced; I’ve met people with incredible spirit and things which you hear and learn from those experiences don’t usually make sense until later. Such experiences teach you about those sort of truths.

Is that what the novel is about then, truth?
Yes. It’s about searching for the real truth and the f*cked-upness of what I call the semblance of truth. You see, there’s truth and then there’s the semblance of truth. When you’re a kid it’s almost impossible to see the truth, because schools, parents, etc just give you a semblance of the truth. For example, as a kid, you can try so hard to believe in Santa – but then you can see the half-wrapped Skalextrics set on top of the cupboard. The novel deals with getting the truth out of people.

The 23rd Off The Shelf takes place October 11 – November 1. See www.welcometosheffield.co.uk for more.