Adam Ant Interview - Part 2

This is a continuation of the interview conducted between Michael "Atters" Attree and Adam Ant, published in issue 60 of The Chap, Dec/Jan 2012.

Do you think there may be an afterlife? Reincarnation?

Yes, I think that there is. I think I'd like to come back as a dog - One of my dogs, because of the treatment they get.

You genuinely feel that people can come back as creatures?

I see no reason why not. I went to a spiritualist church once, and I think it's quite a great help and relief to certain people that really do miss their dead partners. I'm not cynical about it and I feel that you do come back as something; because in a way, certainly in a dream-state, or deja vu ... there are situations where ... I did meet my doppelganger once, in America. He was exactly like me. That can't just be a coincidence. There are two of you walking around in the world and I think there are previous lives. Why do I feel comfortable when I'm in a Georgian house or anything to do with the Regency? I don't know. It's quite an interesting experience going to a spiritualist church: it isn't like church, it's kind of like a service, the people that actually do it are very gifted and they get very exhausted, it's quite a burden. And I do believe that certain people have a 6th sight, but I like to keep it private. Religion, that's your business.

Are you religious?

I'm spiritual, I believe in God. A higher power than me, or I'd have no guilt or conscience whatsoever, and I do. I've read as much about religions as possible: Jesus, Mohammed, the Buddha - they're all the same agents on earth but we just interpret them differently. It's all the same kind of doctrine, but it's quite right. The only thing I would say about organised religion would be that it's sort of controlling and it makes too much money, and they're always on the ponce for money and none of that's being thrown back into the things they're professing to solve. I went to the Vatican and it made me feel so small; I mean you go there and it's just gigantic ... and I'm very interested in going in and looking at the statues of the saints, as I would do, say, in Mauritius on holiday, of the Shivas and the temples, and these beautiful Pantheon Gods they have ... they literally go and get revenge, they go and give offerings to this god, to get revenge on people who have fucked them over. That I find quite intriguing.

One of my interests is the paranormal. Have you ever encountered the supernatural?

My grandfather was a Romany gypsy; he was born in a caravan in Oxford. My grandmother was blind and she could tell various things and read cards and stuff, so I'm quite a superstitious person, but not to a silly extreme. But I just don't mess with it. If you're going to mess with that, if someone's going to read your fortune, make bloody sure they're real, because if someone does read your fortune and they're the real deal, be very prepared to hear something you may not want to hear. It's kind of auto-suggestive. Have I encountered the supernatural? I did once; I stayed with my dad in Burlington at this house by the sea that his boss owned. And one night he went out and there was noises in the house and there was a horrible thump, a really bad thump, and we all got up - my grandmother, my mother - we all got up, ran to the stairs and said "Look dad, stop mucking about!" and then my dad came home about an hour later. And they found out that this guy had committed suicide, he'd hanged himself from the staircase and the body had broken and rotted there for a couple of months. And those things are a bit scary. But when you tap into that, go into it with an open mind otherwise it can freak you out. When I was a teenager, some of us did the Ouija board thing, although I didnÕt do it, and there was something about "I'm outside on Steven Street - help!" and I lived in St John's Wood, on the estates. And we found out later that Steven Street was the previous name of the street. In the Victorian era they'd changed it. It was really very terrifying. I think there are definitely poltergeist situations, where you just get things happening.

Are you a mere vessel channelling the undead?

If you put me out into the middle of the Lake District, I will start sketching, drawing and writing poetry; I might think I'm Robert Burns. I might start quoting, er... beady bubbles winking at the brim ...[we'd had quite a few tequila-laced beers at this point] I love reading, but I don't have the time when I'm working, but if I go to a place like Berlin, I'll get up at 6am and go for a walk. And it intrigues me if I'm in the East End/Brick Lane in the morning, before dawn, that's a wonderful place. Wherever I go, I swallow up and absorb everything around me and that goes into my writing. I have to be. And I love the way things make me feel and I know if a place has a bad vibe. I can't analyse it, and I think it's better left alone, but it's kind of an abstract thing, it's like trying to describe the colour red - you can't do it. So you leave it alone, but if you do go into it, have a bit of a backup, as it gets a bit scary. Have someone with you, someone who knows what they're doing. I think there are definitely some bad things out there if you get into that stuff.

When last at your house, I noticed a superb array of Regency period James Gillray and George Cruikshank cartoons. Please do enlighten me about those.

I went to Hornsey School of Art, I did graphics and appreciated the architect Alan Jones. Art has always been my saving grace, being able to draw. I design a record cover and stuff for Adam and the Ants; I storyboarded all the videos, so I had control of that through that medium. In the regency period there was a way that someone could just sit down and draw a caricature or say something without speech - just draw it out; they were doing stuff then that would make Private Eye look like kindergarten. The Prince Regent used to pay them not to bring them out. And they're beautifully drawn, some of them. Hogarth himself was quite a mysterious man, there's very little known about Hogarth. They were the first pop stars; before they did an engraving, they'd put the artwork in coffee shops and working people could go and buy, like, The Rake's Progress and pin it up in their workplace, and then they'd wait for the exhibition.

Did you like school?

Yeah, I went to St Marylebone grammar school, which is like a poor man's Tom Brown's school days. The masters wore capes and we did Latin and Greek, and Rugby. I was the hooker, so I had the shit beaten out of me every Saturday. It was like Ripping Yarns, the Michael Palin thing, wearing caps when you were 16, having your head shoved down the toilet on the first day by the bullies. We had a very good art teacher called Arty, he was just bloody so camp. You'd come in late and he'd say "Who taught you to draw, love? Let me show you how to hold that pencil," and things like that. Then Warhol came along and he said "Bloody joke!" IÕd go to the Warhol thing and I loved it, but he was great a real old character. He used to just get so drunk when I was in the 6th form, I'd end up taking the class and they'd be a right bunch of hooligans. He'd say things like "Have any of you ever heard of the word 'Fuck'?" There were some right nutter teachers at my school; they'd climb the school rafters like mountaineers. Some of these were completely mad. They were like rejects, kicked out of Cambridge for doing something disgusting. Our rugby master used to drag boys out by their hair,; there was a French master who had been in the French Resistance and he used to clean his nails with a flick knife ... it was hysterical, my school, it was mad.

Do you think dreamtime is important?

I think dreams are very, very important if you've got the time to remember them. A lot of the surrealists used to do that: Dali used to have a pad and he'd wake up and that would probably really help him out, wouldn't it?

Well, on that ethereal note, shall we end? Unless you have some final words?

I'm looking forward to being in The Chap. I've got a copy of the first edition when it first came out.