Jason Pierce, the only permanent member of British psychedelicoutfit
Spiritualized, soundsgenuinely chuffed when we inform him, during a call to his homelast month, that he was top of Nick Cave's wish-list for thisweek's All Tomorrow's Parties festival in Australia.
"Oh, he's so sweet," the softly spoken Pierce says. "He's said somereally complimentary things at the right time, you know, when youneed people to say good things, and that really meant a lot to meat the time, so it's great to hear."
Pierce, who jointly led influential drone-rockers Spacemen3 in theearly 1990s, is referring to the lull in his career after a seriousillness left him so close to death with double pneumonia that hisgirlfriend was offered grief counselling. He spent a month in anintensive care ward, and weighed just 38kilograms when discharged.
Although initially unmotivated to get back into music, Pierceeventually returned to the music he'd been working on beforefalling ill, but infused the album -
Songs in A and E - withsamples of life-support machines and ethereal instrumentalinterludes.
Eerily, the tracks written before his illness contained manyreferences to death, dying and drugs. Not that the drug referencesare a surprise; they have always been in his lyrics and artwork andthe Spacemen3 album title
Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugsto became the band's unofficial motto.
Yet the notoriously evasive Pierce won't be drawn into any cliched"near-death experience changed my outlook" sound-bites.
"It probably changed me a bit, but I can't really answer thatbecause I'm kind of inside of myself," he says.
What about his much-documented love of chemical fun? Has hisillness made him better behaved?
"I wish it kind of worked like that ... but it doesn't actuallywork like that.
"Some things have got much more special, but I don't know how muchof it has to do with that - maybe more than I'll allow myself tobelieve," he offers cryptically.
"But I've never been that badly behaved," he adds, laughing. "Well,it depends on your definition of bad behaviour."
In the wake of his recovery, Pierce "fell into" performing asAcoustic Mainlines, doing unplugged versions of
Spiritualized songs and covers, with afour-piece gospel choir and a small string section. I tell him Ican't imagine his music performed acoustically.
"Nor can I," he says. "The idea of sitting around with an acousticguitar on your lap is so far removed from my definition of rock androll. I've always thought of acoustic as something where you sitcross-legged and listen. It started as a one-off show with DanielJohnston (cult eccentric American singer-songwriter and visualartist) and it was really special. So we ran them for a year but atthe end of that year we plugged back in. But now it's areinvigorated electric show," he says of the coming ATPperformances.
"We wanted to keep the power and the glory of the acoustic shows,so we kept the gospel singers and the electric set became a littlebit more song-based."
Pierce, who played the Dirty Three-curated ATP in Britain lastyear, isn't keen on talking about himself, but is animated whendiscussing ATP. "Because they're curated, the spread of music isnot as broad as most festivals - but I mean that in a good way," hesays.
"Nick's taste is pretty eclectic; it veers wildly but it's still akind of narrower thing than most festivals.
"There's a lot of events now where although the music appears to bethe selling point, it seems it's more about people gathering andhanging out with people like you. ATP attracts a more musicalcrowd."
He is excited by the prospect of seeing the Saints perform live butdisappointed he may miss the Don't Look Back gig at which the bandwill perform the album (I'm) Stranded. "I'm a big, big Saints fan,"he says.
"The first time we touched down in Australia, we went to Brisbaneand I kind of had this dream that I'd see the Saints on everycorner. In actual fact, I just saw an ibis on every corner."
We discuss the rest of the line-up - "It all sounds really, reallygood to me," he says - and the fact Cave has mentioned his desirefor bands to get up on stage with each other.
"Nick and I have played together on the same bill a number oftimes, and, I think, it kind of raised the bar for me. But I'mscared now! I suppose maybe that's something I could do," he says.
"It is the type of festival where you're more likely to findsomething you weren't expecting rather than something you'vedefinitely gone to see."
Kylie NorthoverSpiritualized start their Australian tour this week:
Jan 8 - Hi FI Bar - Melbourne VIC
Jan 10 - Mt Buller All Tomorrow’s Parties - Mt Buller VIC
Jan 15 - Brisbane Riverstage All Tomorrows Parties - Brisbane QLD
Jan 16 - Sydney Metro - Sydney NSW
Jan 17 - Sydney All Tomorrows Parties - Sydney NSW
Jan 18 - Sydney All Tomorrows Parties - Sydney NSW