Richard Thompson - musician

Interview, Dec, 1994 by J. Mascis

The folk-rock legend, as told to Dinosaur Jr's J Mascis

Since founding Fairport Convention in the late '60s, Richard Thompson has melded his characteristic Celtic-textured guitar style with trouble-torn, somber songs, piercing the darkness with poetic vision and emotional forthrightness. Last year's three-CD retrospective Watching The Dark: The History of Richard Thompson (Rykodisc) was a comprehensive introduction to some of Thompson's finest moments with Fairport, with his former wife, singer Linda Thompson, and as a solo troubadour who's still pounding the pavement. The new Thompson tribute record, Beat the Retreat (Capitol), features a newer generation of rockers like X, REM, and Bob Mould, and older folkies from Loudon Wainwright III to June Tabor, covering the songs that have made him legendary.

We asked Dinosaur Jr's J Mascis, who contributed the sonic maelstrom of a cover of "I Misunderstood" on the record, to interview Thompson.

J MASCIS: Where do you live now?

RICHARD THOMPSON: Los Angeles and London. I live in Hampstead, a leafy suburb of London, and in Santa Monica, another leafy suburb.

JM: You got a hot car for L.A.? For cruisin' around?

RT: No, no, I drive a very pragmatic car.

JM: Why do you tour so much?

RT: I like playing. It's part of writing; I try stuff out.

JM: Do you have any instructional videos out? You should make one for witty onstage banter.

RT: I'm working on one. It's going to be revolutionary. I can't divulge its secret dimensions, but it's going to be a pretty groundbreaking kind of instructional video that will leapfrog people to stardom.

JM: Whenever I've seen you, I've been most impressed with your in-between-song chatter.

RT: It's born out of fear.

JM: I can never think of anything to say onstage.

RT: But I think that's better. I never used to say anything--people used to think I was really interesting and moody. And then I started making jokes. I think it was playing solo opening spots for people, where the audience might be hostile or indifferent.

JM: I think it's great. It's something I can aspire to. So how do you feel having a tribute album?

RT: It's like being bitten in the dark. By a beautiful woman. [JM laughs] Who's pretending to be a small but persistent insect.

JM: Excellent.

RT: It's like being taken to the zoo when you were a kid and discovering that the animals really can talk. [pauses] That's sort of what it's like.

JM: Were you, uh, freaked-out?

RT: It's like finding out on your mother's deathbed that she was really a geologist.

JM: Ummm. Is it strange to have one while you're still alive?

RT: Perhaps they know something I don't. Perhaps I am dead. How do you tell when you're dead?

JM: Ummm . . . dunno.

RT: Maybe you just open a door and you go into a different room. How do I feel? Flattered, embarrassed, kind of moved. I actually thought it was going to be a tribute in the Roman sense, where they send a couple of princesses as hostages and pay me so much gold a year, but it didn't happen that way.

JM: [laughs] Do you do any exercise?

RT: Play tennis.

JM: Do you ever have tennis elbow?

RT: Most of the time. I just smile through the pain.

JM: I have it from playing guitar.

RT: Guitar elbow. Fender elbow.

JM: High-action Fender elbow. I went golfing on Saturday and my friend got some golf shoes. I'm not cool enough for golf shoes.

RT: I've never really played. I've done bits of it, the driving range and putting. I think it's a good game, but it's a game that I don't have the time for.

JM: Oh yeah? Well, what are you doing all day?

RT: Everything else.

JM: Do you like playing live with a band?

RT: I like both. It gives you a fresh look at how you arrange the songs.

JM: I tried it solo. Acoustic. It was really scary.

RT: I think of it as a measure of what I do. O.K., if you're any good, get up there on your own without any props or crutches. It becomes a sort of test.

JM: I think you've passed.

RT: Well, you have to keep passing every time.

JM: How long have you been touring now?

RT: Including days off, about twenty-seven years.

JM: So who did you used to play with in the '60s?

RT: Everybody who was around that scene--Pink Floyd, Traffic, John Mayall's Blues Breakers.

JM: That's cool that you're playing tonight in Brooklyn. I have a friend who lives in Brooklyn and actually told me about you in the first place, years ago. You're her favorite. You and Andy Partridge.

RT: Honored to be in the same sentence.

JM: I had never heard about you when I was in high school. I was into Deep Purple and punk rock.

RT: Wow, you've been around. [laughs] We used to open for Deep Purple.

JM: Really? I've been on a Deep Purple resurgence, actually. We got this video of their history. It's so amazing, better than Spinal Tap.

RT: Where do you write songs? At home?

JM: Yeah.

RT: Do you have a set place you go to write?

JM: No.

RT: I heard a great story--it was Doris Lessing or someone. She said that for years she'd wanted a writing room at her house. And there's a cupboard underneath the stairs and she thought, Well, I'm going to convert it into a writing room. She actually got the cupboard cleared out and she found that she couldn't go through the door. She writes everywhere else.