Therapy? Profile—Interview with Andy Cairns

by Craig Young for earpollution (April 2000)

“I’m bitter, I’m twisted, James Joyce is fucking my sister!” It’s the opening lines from Potato Junkie off Therapy?’s Pleasure Death EP, and I can’t think of a better way to introduce the brilliance of these Irish punkers. Sometime around 1993, that little gem of a song got stuck in my head and I’ve been in love since.

Not quite the pomposity of heavy metal nor the trendy fashion that is punk today, Therapy?’s music might best be described as clever, visceral, and adamantly fuck-all in attitude and approach. Inspired by the likes of Big Black, Hüsker Dü and the like (and who the hell isn’t, really?), this band has had more than its share of ups and downs over the past ten years. Their start lies in the meeting of ex-drummer Fyfe Ewing and singer/guitarist Andy Cairns at a concert in the late ’80s. Bassist Michael McKeegan was soon brought in (they’d been borrowing his bass guitar for demos, so it was only a matter of time really). Building their chops and songbook, their first gig in the summer of ’89 would still be some months away, but soon after that there would be no turning back. The band recorded and released several demos, tapes and 7″ singles on their label, christened Multifuckingnational, and it wasn’t too long before Wiiija Records caught on to them and released two EPs, Babyteeth and Pleasure Death.

Stepping back to the attitude and sounds they first began with, Suicide Pact is dark, loud, creepy, irreverently brilliant—simply, it’s Therapy? back on top of their game.

Then in ’92 A&M picked the band up, and shortly thereafter released their first full-length, Nurse, which went Top 30 in the UK. ’93 saw Troublegum, a perfect combination of punk attitude and an impeccable sense of pop melody. It would storm the charts and end up selling over 500,000 copies. And with guitars firing off like a Gatling gun over the opening lines, “My girlfriend says that I need help / my boyfriend says I’d be better off dead / I’m gonna get drunk, come ’round and fuck you up / ’cause you can’t change my life / but you can hide the knives,” how could it be anything but brilliance!

1995 saw the release of Infernal Love, an album with good intent along the lines of Troublegum, but one that ultimately got overburdened with the band’s illicit habits and record company execs hovering behind them, pushing and pestering for the next “big thing.” Suffering from internal pressures, Therapy? almost caved in. Fyfe had left and Andy and Michael were struggling to pull it together. They found the glue they needed in cellist-guitarist Martin McCarrick (who had laid down cello tracks on the previous two releases) and the drumming of Graham Hopkins. Reformed and re-energized, they released Semi-Detached in 1998, an album that had a much happier feel than either the dark longings of Infernal Love or the bitter observations of Troublegum. Then, when it seemed like they’d found their stride again, the Seagram/Polygram merger forced the shutdown of A&M England, and Therapy? found themselves almost back to where they’d begun eight years previously.

Down, but not out, they mustered the strength that got them going in the first place and set about to record what be Suicide Pact—You First, their latest release out on ARK 21 Records (Miles Copeland’s well respected label). Stepping back to the attitude and sounds they first began with, Suicide Pact is dark, loud, creepy, irreverently brilliant—simply, it’s Therapy? back on top of their game. The album clearly shows a band making music and trying to satisfy no one but themselves; a group who couldn’t care less really if anyone is paying attention. Well, we definitely have been!

I had the pleasure of speaking by phone with Andy recently, and although 5,000 miles separated us, you couldn’t disguise his happiness at where the band are currently at and how good things are looking for them down the road. However, said happiness couldn’t prevent the line from breaking up, so it took two days to pull the interview off. As well, by the time you read this, the band will have made their first appearance at SXSW in Austin, Texas which, by all eyewitness accounts, was nothing short of fucking amazing, and which is, of course, why we all love them so dearly. The band should be back in the States for a proper tour later this summer, and I suggest you don’t miss out. Thanks to Versa and ARK 21 for setting up the interview and for supporting a band on their own terms, and thanks to Andy (an amazingly nice person) and the rest of Therapy? for ten years of fuck-all great music!

It was just beginning to get very, very tiring. Everything seemed to be going wrong and there didn’t seem to be any kind of light or respite in any of it. Everything seemed to be failing.

earpollution: How does it feel to have regained the title “Heavy Fucking Metal?”

Andy Cairnes: Ha ha ha! That’s a slogan on one of our t-shirts and it’s just something we’ve stuck by over the years. Kinda funny…

earpollution: The new album’s great! How are you feeling about it?

Andy: Yeah…we’re really happy with the album. We went back to the drawing board with the band. We kind of disappeared up our own backsides a little bit about 1995, 1996. We had a lineup change and we changed record companies, so when we changed labels last year we thought it was a good time as any to get back to a rock ’n’ roll, garage-y kinda sound—a lot more live and a lot more raw. Put the energy back into the band, really.

earpollution: Well, it’s definitely there!

Andy: Yeah!

earpollution: The period between the release of Semi-Detached and the recording of Suicide Pact seemed to be a rather bleak period for Therapy? What happened with the collapse of A&M and how did you find yourself on ARK 21?

Andy: What happened basically is that we had a four album deal with A&M, and Semi-Detached was the fourth album. Then Seagram bought Polygram and they decided to close down A&M in England, so there was no one there to offer us an option or anything. And maybe that was a good thing because I think we’d run our course through that whole alt-corporate-crossover-rock kinda thing. It wasn’t getting us anywhere and we weren’t enjoying ourselves.

Then in January 1999, we were about to start going around and approaching other labels when Graham, the drummer, broke his arm. That was just such a really dark period for us. We didn’t have a drummer and we didn’t have a record deal. Myself and Michael had financed the previous six months of touring ourselves. That cost us a lot of money…money we’d made on Troublegum and Infernal Love. It was just beginning to get very, very tiring. Everything seemed to be going wrong and there didn’t seem to be any kind of light or respite in any of it. Everything seemed to be failing. We lost members of the crew who’d been with us for seven years; they’d gone to work for other bands. We weren’t really getting along or getting on at all.

ARK 21 were kind of the ones that told us they’d do whatever we wanted. We told them we were going to record cheaply and quickly, and we told them that we weren’t going to try and make a commercial record. They said, “Yeah, fine.” The most important thing is that ARK 21 were one of a very few labels who were going to give us an American release. We thought that it was very important to get a chance to come over and play in America again. We didn’t play in America with Semi-Detached, and we only did a handful of shows with Infernal Love.

We don’t have any great plans to crack America or anything like that. We just have a fan base over there that we want to console a little bit…that’s all.

earpollution: Now you’re scheduled to play SXSW this year, correct?

Andy: Yeah! We’re really excited about that! We’ve never been and it’s just one of those things that’s quite legendary and talked about. I’ve talked to bands that have played SXSW and I’ve talked to friends over there and they say that it’s just fantastic!

We just wanted to get a record out worldwide and a label that was easy to get on with and regain our artistic control. And we’ve managed all of that. As long as the record gets out and people can get it then it’s cool regardless.

earpollution: Do you have any other confirmed U.S. dates?

Andy: I think we’re doing a New York show two days after SXSW…I’m not entirely sure about that. All day we’ve been on the phone trying to organize a handful of gigs over there. The plan is to come over and do SXSW, New York, and maybe another three or four gigs, and then we’re hopefully going to come at the end of the summer and stay there for two or three months and play everywhere we can.

There’s quite a few Therapy? fan sites in the States and we’ve done a number of interviews for people there. A lot of our favorite music is from America anyway. We love playing there, we enjoy ourselves and we always have a great time. We’ve played around Europe for so long and for so many years…it’s always kind of nice to break out and do something different. There’s a completely different attitude in America.

earpollution: ARK 21 seems to be a bit of a strange place for Therapy? alongside the likes of Belinda Carlisle and Paul Carrack…

Andy: Yeah…I suppose for us that’s true, but they offered us a worldwide deal. And they didn’t seem to have any other rock acts on the label which means that we’ll get priority, as opposed to if we’d sign with another label that had ten rock bands on their roster. Depending on the sales of your last album you go further down the priority list.

So it seems okay. We talked to quite a few people, but I dunno… It was like being back to scratch again. We just wanted to get a record out worldwide and a label that was easy to get on with and regain our artistic control. And we’ve managed all of that. As long as the record gets out and people can get it then it’s cool regardless.

earpollution: It’s my understanding that you financed Suicide Pact yourselves before you’d even confirmed a record deal with anyone.

Andy: The album was recorded and self-financed. So we basically sold it to ARK 21. We didn’t actually sign the deal until after the first tune was finished. So when we were in the studio our whole mindset was that we were going to release it on our own label and get distribution worldwide. At the last minute ARK 21 stepped in…

earpollution: Was it your plan to release it on Multifuckingnational, then?

Andy: Yeah, it would have been on Multifuckingnational! We’d exhume it and bring it back from the dead!

Hate Kill Destroy was a track that was very, very lifeless when we were playing it. We just couldn’t get into it, then one night we ended up getting drunk playing it naked…that seemed to work.

earpollution: Suicide Pact was recorded in a relatively short amount of time, yet you still found time to take some creative license on how some of those songs were put to tape. I’m curious as to what the stories are behind songs like Hate Kill Destroy, God Kicks, and the album’s neurotic closer, Whilst I Pursue My Way Unharmed.

Andy: The most important thing for us was to write an energetic record. The stuff we were listening to at the time was stuff like Fun House by The Stooges, early Black Flag, stuff like that. We thought that we’d rehearse the songs inside out and then go in and get them done as rock ’n’ roll as we could. After all the depression we went through at the start of last year, the most important thing for us was to have fun while we were making this record. Hate Kill Destroy was a track that was very, very lifeless when we were playing it. We just couldn’t get into it, then one night we ended up getting drunk playing it naked…that seemed to work. God Kicks was a big power ballad initially and it really sounded awful. Head, the producer, said he wasn’t getting it at all. We’d just finished reading an article on The Blair Witch Project taking the States by storm, so we decided to go out and record it in the woods. It actually worked out okay…just Martin and I out in the woods with a DAT recorder.

earpollution: Have you seen The Blair Witch Project?

Andy: Yeah, we got a chance to see it. Quite enjoyed it. I didn’t actually feel any great sense of dread while I was watching it, but afterwards the film stayed with me. I found myself thinking about it quite a bit, whereas with most films I usually don’t—they just kind of leave my brain when I come out of the cinema door unless they’re really, really powerful. But that one did.

earpollution: So what’s the story behind the recording of Whilst I Pursue My Way Unharmed?

Andy: We finished recording the album and Head was mixing it and he would do little bits and pieces of boring stuff that we weren’t into. So we were bored and had another two weeks booked in the studio. So there’s this really soulless shopping mall in Milton Keynes, which is a really soulless new town in England, and we decided to record six hundred and sixty-six seconds of the ambience of people passing by, their children, those working in the stores. And we put that in the background on the headphones while we did a jam. We were listening to an awful lot of Mogwai and Slint; a lot of that post-rock stuff. We didn’t think it was really fitting with the rest of the album, but we wanted to put it on somewhere because we had real blast doing it.

earpollution: Listening to the vocals on the album, it sounds like you’ve been spending a fair amount of time under the influence of Captain Beefheart.

Andy: I wanted to have some more of my voice this time around, and I was listening to a lot of vocalists like Iggy Pop and Captain Beefheart. I really enjoy Beefheart, he’s got a great sense of play in his voice.

earpollution: During the recording of Suicide Pact you found some time to record a short video called The Speedo Menace.

Andy: We made a thirty-minute horror film about a guy wearing swimming shorts terrorizing the inhabitants of the studio.

earpollution: Ha! Ha! Ha!

Andy: It’s like a really, really bad “B” movie. I don’t know really what we’re going to do with it. We might try to release at some point with the album.

With Troublegum and Infernal Love I’d write everything on a four-track and then bring it in. Now it’s mostly the four of us sitting down and working out ideas as we’re jamming.

earpollution: [The phone line starts to crackle and Andy apologizes for the background noise. He’s been on a phone sidestage at the venue they’re playing that night, and the opening band’s soundcheck has been making the interview nothing less than like trying to be heard next to the roar of a jet engine. We decide to pick up again the next day and I catch up with Andy in a hotel room about an hour before Therapy? is scheduled to play.]

Andy: Hello, Craig. Sorry about last night. Clutch was soundchecking and it was just impossible. I couldn’t hear a thing.

earpollution: That damn loud rock ’n’ roll… How did the show go?

Andy: It was absolutely fantastic! It was great.

earpollution: What songs have you been playing?

Andy: Well, we’ve been concentrating mostly on tracks off the new album, then we do some stuff off our first two EPs [Babyteeth and Pleasure Death], songs like Potato Junkie. Then we play things like Screamager, Die Laughing and Nowhere that were all quite popular. It was a pretty full-on rock ’n’ roll show. Very energetic.

earpollution: Before Clutch doomed our first attempt at an interview yesterday, we were talking about your soon-to-be Oscar-nominated horror film, The Speedo Menace. Did you write a soundtrack to go along with it?

Andy: Yeah, we did a soundtrack. Martin had an old cello, a Moog synthesizer, and some old Korg organ, and I had a battered acoustic and a drum machine. We just kind of shot the stuff live and lit things with little lamps and torches and then made up the soundtrack accordingly. It’s really funny and we’re going to try to get it out some way for the fans ’cause it was good fun.

earpollution: We also talked briefly about how you considered resurrecting the Multifuckingnational label to put out Suicide Pact.

Andy: We didn’t actually sign with ARK 21 until we’d finished recording it. So we’d paid for all the recording time ourselves. When it was done, ARK 21 came along and offered us a worldwide deal and tour support, which worked out well because Michael and I had already spent a lot of the band’s funds to take us out on the road to promote Semi-Detached. After that and paying for studio time for the new album it kind of got to the point where it was good for someone to come in at the last minute and cover the cost of the album.

earpollution: With all the work that went into Semi-Detached and having it not sell as well as you’d expected, do you still feel it’s a strong album? I’ve read in some interviews where you seemed like you weren’t pleased with its sound.

Andy: Yeah…I think it’s a good album. Half of it was kind of caught in that post-Troublegum melodic three-and-a-half minute songs. Other songs like Tightrope Walker and Tramline were veering more towards what we’d wanted to do. But I think it was good. I think the only thing was the fact that it was the first studio album we’d made as a quartet, and because of that Graham and Martin didn’t really let themselves go in regards to the creative process. I think they felt it was like the days of Troublegum and Infernal Love, where I wrote all the songs. That’s kind of changed now; it’s more of a band thing and we share all that now. With Troublegum and Infernal Love I’d write everything on a four-track and then bring it in. Now it’s mostly the four of us sitting down and working out ideas as we’re jamming. It’s a group process and it’s good fun.

The very first track we did was the first one on the album, He’s Not That Kind Of Girl. Within the second take we all looked at each other and smiled ’cause we knew everything was on the way up again.

earpollution: The winter of ’98-’99 was not a happy time in the Therapy? camp. With the demise of A&M, Graham breaking his arm, having to finance a tour and then looking at financing a new album yourselves, did you ever seriously wonder if you’d have to leave the band and get a day job again?

Andy: I’ve always known that I’d do stuff with music, but I think at that point… You suddenly realize that the money you’re making out of the band you’re paying out so you can continue to work…which was ludicrous. Any money I’d saved for the future had been spent. Me and Michael had talked about saving up to open a little studio…all that was spent just going on tour. Also, at the same time my grandmother—my favorite grandmother—had died. And on top of that I had a minor operation on my right eye, which had an infection.

I just remember one day I’d come around from the anesthetic with a patch over my eye and my grandma dead, and I just hit this point where I was asking myself if it was really worth it. But then we went back into the studio and started recording. The very first track we did was the first one on the album, He’s Not That Kind Of Girl. Within the second take we all looked at each other and smiled ’cause we knew everything was on the way up again.

earpollution: That energy shows up well in the album. The songs are really punchy and brilliant, and that dark sense of humor and fuck-all attitude comes across in spades. It’s obvious that not only are you cohesive and together as a band, but you’re clearly doing it for no one but yourselves.

Andy: That’s what we wanted. To be honest with you, if we’d gone in and tried seven or eight takes of a song and then looked at each other, we’d have been, “Right, let’s pack up our bags and leave.” It really was like year zero—back to the start. And it was brilliant. We love the album, the fans love it…we go on tour every night and the shows are rammed full of people and the songs are going down like a storm.

I think with a lot of people that follow us around it was a sigh of relief, too. It can be very frustrating for a fan whenever your band seems to have lost a bit of focus. People are very quick to announce your demise. But we stuck at it and we’re getting a lot more attention now. People are coming around and picking up on the band again.

I think we got a bit lazy in the mid-’90s. You’re touring nine months a year, you’re doing loads of TV shows and all that crap. And at the end of the day you get lost. You get caught up in the lifestyle.

The easy thing to do would have been to give in. But I didn’t think the time was right and neither did Michael. He and I have been together for the duration of the band. We have made a lot of mistakes, but when we finished the album we sat down and looked at each other and said that we were really proud of this album and it’s a good starting point for where we want to be.

We’ve taken more control back into the band and the whole creative process. It’s made things much more exciting. I think we got a bit lazy in the mid-’90s. You’re touring nine months a year, you’re doing loads of TV shows and all that crap. And at the end of the day you get lost. You get caught up in the lifestyle.

earpollution: Did you feel like you were losing your sense of identity?

Andy: Yeah, you end up losing touch with what it’s all about, really.

earpollution: Do you think Suicide Pact would be what it is if the past year hadn’t been so hard?

Andy: Oh God, no. I think if A&M had still existed and we would have gone in and made the album it wouldn’t have been anything near what it became. We had demo’d some stuff before Graham broke his arm, and we looked back on the tracks we’d done then and there’s a version of Hate Kill Destroy and Other People’s Misery, and they’re nowhere near as powerful as they actually ended up. I think it took all that to give us our fighting spirit back.

There is something true to be said about the fact that when the odds are against you…I don’t know whether it’s adrenaline or nerve or whatever…but it actually comes out a lot more. When you have to try you do give that extra effort.

earpollution: There seems to be a distaste with the band regarding Infernal Love and the time surrounding its recording. You’ve said before that you “stretched the band too far and overstated the obvious.” What was wrong with the process and do you feel the album could have been better had if been done differently?

Andy: I think what kind of happened was everyone who was around the band at that point. We came from being a cult band with an album (Nurse) on A&M to all of a sudden selling 600,000 copies of Troublegum in Europe within six months. We were really flabbergasted… We were doing lots of shows, playing massive venues. And all of a sudden the record company’s attitude toward us changed and we got offered another two album deal. The money was better, the hotels were better. But all of a sudden when they realize that you’re selling records, then everybody starts having an opinion. So what happened was that we finished the Troublegum tour in December. We thought about taking a half year off, but the record company was pressuring us. We were sort of riding a wave of success so we told them we’d go into the studio and write an album there.

We turned on the guitars and fired up the amps and the producer went, “Okay guys, what have you got?” And we said, “Absolutely nothing.”

The band wasn’t getting on at all and we went into the studio with absolutely no ideas. We literally turned up at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios with no songs. We turned on the guitars and fired up the amps and the producer went, “Okay guys, what have you got?” And we said, “Absolutely nothing.” So we wasted thousands of pounds in the first few weeks just jamming. At this point the band was hardly speaking to each other. I had a couple of ideas, so I’d go into a room and come back with a couple of songs and everyone else was so fucking exhausted that they didn’t question them. The thing was that the day we finished the album it was twelve o’clock in the afternoon, we got on a train to London, stayed the night and the next day flew off to Japan to tour Troublegum there. So we’d just finished a new album and we weren’t even sure of what we thought of it, but we were off on another five month tour.

It was just very unfocused. I mean, sometimes I look at it now and one thing I do think is good is that it spat in the face of Britpop. Troublegum was a pop album before Britpop come out, and it would’ve been so easy for us to write a really, really melodic album like Troublegum: Part II and ride that whole wave. But I think there’s something quite…I dunno…funny about the fact that we were in frilly shirts with fake moustaches playing this kind of slightly gothic, melancholy rock. Heh.

earpollution: You recorded Hüsker Dü’s Diane on Infernal Love. Why did you choose that cover?

Andy: A&M got Anton Corbijn in to do the photograph. He wanted to do it in Portugal, so we…heh…we got flown over to Portugal. The cover shot for Diane was just a candid shot at the end of the day. We were fucking exhausted and we’d been traipsing around and at the end of the day we asked if we could just go get some food. We were down at the beach and I took my shoes off ’cause I was exhausted and Anton just kind of snapped that candidly.

earpollution: So…umm…how did Grant Hart feel about you covering Diane?

Andy: Oh! Covering Diane… Shit, I thought you meant the photographs for the cover!

earpollution: No! No! That was a good story too!

Andy: Ha ha! Fuck me…sorry man. No, we always used to jam it because we were massive Hüsker Dü fans. You know, like them we were a three piece where both the drummer and the guitar player sang. We started out playing Hüsker Dü covers when we were first out playing around Ireland. We went in to do it as a B-side and Martin was around recording his parts for Bad Mother. I’d been listening to a lot of This Mortal Coil that Martin had around, and I asked if we could take out all the guitar parts and just put a cello quartet in it.

I was very, very brokenhearted because I didn’t want to offend him so I got his phone number, rang him and said, “Look, if we’ve offended you we will never, ever play that song again. I’m really, truly sorry.”

When he first heard it, Grant Hart was being interviewed by Kerrang! magazine and he asked them why we’d changed one of the lines in the song and why there were cellos. And I think the reason for that was that I’d sung it very late at night and I’d forgotten one of the lines. I was very, very brokenhearted because I didn’t want to offend him so I got his phone number, rang him and said, “Look, if we’ve offended you we will never, ever play that song again. I’m really, truly sorry.” And we talked for a bit and he said, “No, I just wondered why you changed the line without asking me.” And it’s cool now. We did a show in Brixton—a solo show—and he gave me a lovely photograph from a show he sang in Ireland. It was really cool. If he’d said that he hated the version we would never have played it again.

earpollution: Do you still keep in touch with Fyfe?

Andy: No. I mean, there’s no animosity there…there’s no divide. He’s just totally into his own way of life and thinking. And when we parted ways it was all very amicable. I wish him all the best, he’s very talented. I dunno. I think… I think it’s just one of those things. It’s like an old girlfriend, where sometimes it’s better not to stay friends.

earpollution: I’m learning that…

Andy: I’ve got a lot of fond memories, and I think it’s kinda good. He’s gone his way and now he’s happy and we’re happy with Graham and Martin.

earpollution: It’s well documented that during the Troublegum/Infernal Love years the band was living the rock ’n’ roll hedonistic lifestyle to its fullest. There was that article you wrote for Details back in ’94 where, among other things, you talked about getting serviced by a groupie in the shower while two others folded and packed your clothes. Now a few short years later you’re happily married and have recently become a father for the first time. And lest we forget, belated congratulations on both the marriage and your new son!

Andy: Hey, thank you!

earpollution: How have living life on both ends of that spectrum affected you as a person and Therapy? as a band?

Andy: I think it’s actually calmed me down and has made me concentrate more. It’s given me a great deal more focus. I just love being in the band and playing, and what it does is that whenever I’m away from the band I don’t worry about what’s happening with it. Before when I was alone I would have gone home, sat around all day and just thought about things, and would have made myself really depressed thinking about all the negative things going on in the band. Now I go home and I spend time with people I love and care about, and when I come back to the band I have a totally clear head and I’m completely fine.

I think it took something like that to sort me out, because I was kind of pretty much in a downward spiral.

You know, we don’t come jumpin’ onstage dressed in designer clothes and sort of stand ten miles above the audience and act like we’re the stars and they’re the peasants.

earpollution: So are the rumors true that you named your son Johnny Ramone?

Andy: Ha ha! No, he’s called Jona Ramone. Jona was the name of my wife’s grandfather. And Ramone, just ’cause we like the Ramones. When he turns seventeen, if he likes he can opt to change it to Joey!

earpollution: Fantastic! I had the honor of interviewing Joey Ramone last summer and the thing that impressed me the most about him was how humble he was regarding the road he’d been down and how genuinely thankful he was for the Ramones fans, without whom success wouldn’t have been possible. I see a lot of similarities between your fans and his; they’ve stuck by you through thick and thin. What do you think it is that’s kept their loyalty?

Andy: Umm… I think maybe because a lot of people that I talk to that are fans. Some people say… I think it’s because I’ve never tried to set myself up, none of us have tried to set ourselves up as icons. I think we’re kind of fallible characters, so I suppose people see some of themselves in that.

You know, we don’t come jumpin’ onstage dressed in designer clothes and sort of stand ten miles above the audience and act like we’re the stars and they’re the peasants. The way we look—the working-class attitude and the way we come across—I think a lot of people can identify with that. There are highs and lows and they do stick with you. It’s probably not the most glamorous and I’m probably not the greatest rock star material to start with, but I think that the people who stick with us can sense that. You know what I mean? It’s kind of like we’re all in it together. I don’t want to sound corny, but we’re one of them if you know what I mean.

earpollution: I do. I think people can readily tell how genuine you all are as both a band and as people, and I think it makes fans appreciate you all the more.

Looking at the cover of Suicide Pact, is there any symbolism to the four masks on the cover?

Andy: Nah, we just can’t afford the same kind of masks Slipknot can!

earpollution: Is that you wearing them?

Andy: Oh no, that’s Nigel Rolfe. He’s the same guy that was on the cover of Troublegum. He’s an old friend of ours, an eccentric six-foot-four guy who’s a professor at the Chelsea College of Arts. He’s also a performance artist who tends to do exhibitions. He really loves the band, has for years, and we had a chance meeting at an airport while we were recording the album. He said he had some time off to do some artwork, so he came over to the studio, hung out with us for a day and came up with the idea. I think it’s suitably surreal and fits in well.

I don’t like putting so much emphasis on a song and then putting money into a video and crossing your fingers that it will “break” the band out. We just want to do it the old-fashioned way: do loads of live shows and blow people away.

earpollution: I was looking at the band’s official website the other day and you had Atari Teenage Riot listed as one of your Top 10 bands.

Andy: My big thing at the moment… I really like Digital Hardcore stuff, things like EC8OR, Hanin Elias, Shizuo, things like that. And I like the last Alec Empire solo album. But I really, really love all the new stuff coming out on Sub Pop like The Go, Gluecifer, The Hellacopters, The Yo-Yo’s and the Murder City Devils.

So it’s either like really noisy, distorted splatter bricks or else kind of noisy old school garage rock ’n’ roll. Stuff that sounds alive again. So much of this “alternative” stuff is like Gary Numan meets…whatever. You know, I don’t really get it. That fishnet, makeup crap… I don’t really get it,that whole side of alterna-rock.

earpollution: Everyone’s gotta do their cover of Cars.

Andy: Yeah, that’s the one everybody’s got covered.

earpollution: If I’m not mistaken, you’re friends with Pitchshifter.

Andy: Yeah, they’re friends of ours. We first did a show with them in England in 1991 where we supported Pitchshifter. We got on really well with them. Then we did another show with them at Darby and one in Liverpool. Then we did a remix for them back in ’94. They got Biohazard and people to remix stuff from one of their albums, and we remixed Triad. They’re really lovely people—really genuine. Jon’s a really nice guy. Pitchshifter are brilliant, and I think as a band they’ve just gotten better over the years as well.

earpollution: I’ve been told that you’re not releasing any singles from the new album.

Andy: Yeah, no…we don’t wanna go down that road again. I don’t like putting so much emphasis on a song and then putting money into a video and crossing your fingers that it will “break” the band out. We just want to do it the old-fashioned way: do loads of live shows and blow people away.

earpollution: I always used to look at Therapy? singles as being something for the fans. You guys put out so much in so many different formats that it became a quest to make sure you had every release.

Andy: After Troublegum and Infernal Love, A&M just went out of control and everything got ludicrous. Some guy would come up and listen to Semi-Detached and he’d hear four demos and go, “Yeah, man, that’s a single!” All that kind of bollocks. Then they’d be sittin’ there trying to hope for a high chart position and all that crap. And it’s like, we’re not up there with the big guns. We’re not up there with the Metallicas and Guns N’ Roses. We’re not going to get up there—it’s not going to happen. We’re not going to do the big power ballad, we’re not going to do the big emotional rock standing on a mountain thing. It’s not happenin’. And I think the more they tried to push us to do that the more we backed off.

earpollution: For most of the band’s career you’ve generally avoided bringing the politics and emotions of Northern Ireland into your music (with, I believe, the exception of the liner notes to Infernal Love, where there’s mention of a tentative peace process going on). While I realize it’s not your intent for Therapy?’s music to become social or political commentary on the situations there, it seems to me that there are a couple of songs on the new album that appear to address some of what it’s like to experience life under those circumstances. I’m wondering if I’m correct in thinking that, and if it’s a result of you growing and changing as a songwriter and coming to terms with having grown up in Northern Ireland.

Andy: Yeah, there’s been mentions peppered all over our songs from Day One about Northern Ireland, but it deals more with individual characters. We never want to go down the road where it’s “us against them” or “black and white” or “fuck the system,” and what not. That’s not the way it works because it’s such a complex issue. We deal with a lot of colloquialisms. For example, God Kicks, it’s an old phrase about kickin’ with your left foot means you’re a Catholic and kickin’ with your right means you’re a Protestant. It’s little analogies like that that we talk about.

I’ll never be content. I’ll always have a restless side to me. But in regards to the music, it’s really cool now. I’m really, really proud of what we do and I can hold my head up high.

Six Mile Water off the album is actually a river that joins a couple of towns that me and Michael were born in, Larne and Ballyclare in Northern Ireland. It’s just little things about everyday life. People seem to forget that underneath what we see all the time on television and on the news, there’s actually normal people living ordinary, mundane lives. It’s kind of littered with these outbreaks of catastrophe and violence, but they’re genuinely trying to get on with their lives underneath it all. That’s the kind of problems we address. I can never see myself havin’ a fists-in-the-air kind of rallying chant.

earpollution: “James Joyce is fucking my sister!” from Potato Junkie might come close…

I have a bootleg of a show Therapy? did in Stockholm back in March of ’94. Before the show you were interviewed by a female writer who asked you if Therapy? had any “purely romantical songs.” You replied, “I sort of write from the darker side of love. I can’t write songs about ‘I’m happy, I’m in love, hip-hip-hooray.’ Because that’s not the love that moves and motivates me. Because that’s when it’s all over. Whenever you’re content, then it’s all over. It has to keep moving, it has to keep developing, it has to keep fighting…it has to just keep stimulating you. Love has to keep stimulating you the whole time. If I can do it, anyone can do it.”

To me it seemed that the love you were describing could easily be the life that has been Therapy? And now that you’ve come up on the 10th anniversary of the band, are you happy with the road Therapy? have been down? Would you have changed anything? Are you content?

Andy: No, I don’t think so. Hindsight is such a wonderful thing, you know! I’m totally happy at the moment. I suppose people at the record company and people in management would say that the thing to do back then was go and lose a bit of weight, act like a rock star, make Troublegum: Part II, and go up that kind of career ladder until you reach Metallica-size. Somewhere in the back of my mind I never thought that that was ever going to happen. I’m really, really happy just where I am. I feel absolutely fantastic. I mean, we’re going onstage in about an hour and ten minutes and I cannot wait! I’m not pacing up and down the room going, “Oh God, I have to have one more gin and tonic before I go onstage!” The gig’s sold out and I cannot wait to play!

I’m just really, really looking forward to getting better. I wouldn’t change a thing actually. I don’t know. I mean, I’m not content. I’ll never be content. I’ll always have a restless side to me. But in regards to the music, it’s really cool now. I’m really, really proud of what we do and I can hold my head up high. So no, I wouldn’t change anything. I think it’s meant to be the way it is.

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