#TBT a Cover story interview I did with Joe Jackson in 2008, in Berlin, Germany where Joe had a flat not far from mine. I was a columnist for the ExBerliner magazine for 14 years, my monthly column was called “Ask Dr. Dot” but they also paid me to sometimes interview Rock and Pop stars since I know them personally and speak fluent German and English. Here ya go:
‘Steppin’ Kraut
Sub:
Legendary British musician Joe Jackson confides in star columnist Dr Dot about his career and new Berlin home
You know Joe Jackson, the British singer, composer and musician, famed for hits such as ‘Steppin’ Out’, ‘Is She Really Going Out With Him?’ and ‘It’s Different For Girls’. He’s won a Grammy, written film music for Francis Ford Coppola, and collaborated with everyone from Marianne Faithful to William Shatner. Growing up in ordinary conditions in the south of England, with success he has become an urban cosmopolitan, with residences in London, New York and – since last year – in Berlin – where he is continuing his fight against the prohibitionists of the anti-smoking movement. Sexy sex-columnist and star masseuse Dr Dot invited Jackson to her Kreuzberg apartment for a confidential chat. .
Do you sometimes regret having moved to Berlin?
**Je ne regrette rien. I was living in London before, and it’s become a nasty place: expensive, hectic, horrible traffic, CCTV everywhere. Everyone is stressed out and when you go into a pub, people aren’t relaxing; they’re getting as drunk as possible and shouting at each other. Berlin is **so much more free and relaxed. At the same time, it’s so interesting. There’s great drama here, as you walk around you’re constantly reminded of momentous events.
Does the scene here have any influence on your own musical ideas?
The music scene isn’t my first priority, to be honest. London has more variety, and New York is better for jazz and Latin music. Then again, in Berlin I’ve discovered the Balkan Beats phenomenon, which I love – the wildness and the sort of un-cool coolness of it. As for influences, I feel like **everything is an influence. It all sinks in to the cooking pot of the unconscious and sort of bubbles away. Every now and then I dip a spoon into it and hopefully dish up something tasty. But at that point I can’t tell you any more which ingredient came from where.
In the bonus DVD for your new album **Rain, you give viewers an interesting inside view on this city by pointing out some odd places, like the Karl-Marx-Allee.
You thought that was interesting?! One German paper said it was ‘clichéd’ and it probably was. Sure I’ve found my own odd, quirky corners of Berlin, but I want to keep them to myself. So I end up saying predictable things like, ‘Isn’t it nice to sit by the Landwehr Canal in Kreuzberg on a summer evening?’ But it **is nice.
Do you still think in terms of ‘East’ and ‘West’?
I can’t help it. I started coming to Berlin in 1979. It would usually be on a tour bus from Hamburg. You’d go through two checkpoints and then have to stay on this one road through the GDR. There was one truck stop where we’d always stop to buy East German vodka at, like, 50 cents a bottle. Finally this bus, knee-deep in clanking bottles, would arrive at the Wall and go through another two checkpoints. The West Germans were always mean, while the East Germans were easily bribed with a couple of audiocassettes and a T-shirt.
Anyway, finally you’d be in this intriguing, slightly sinister place. Oddly enough, even though it was a sort of island, enclosed by a wall, it had a sense of freedom and spaciousness. Now it has even more.
You’re an unapologetic smoker. Are you pleased about the Constitutional Court’s partial reversal of the smoking ban?
What I like is that it recognizes that bar owners have some rights, and also that bans hurt business – these things are denied in the UK. What I **don’t like is that it only addresses the issue of the ‘level playing field’. This was the phrase used in England to justify a total ban; they said it was the only way to be ‘fair’. Personally I don’t see how imposing a total ban on everyone is ‘fair’, but respecting the property rights of bar owners and freedom of choice for customers is not fair. But that’s the twisted logic of anti-tobacco for you. People have this naïve idea that they’re noble souls in white coats fighting to save the world … in fact they’re a prohibitionist movement who’ve worked themselves into a position of great wealth and power, and many of them are very nasty people. I mean, I’ve met them, and debated with them, and they’re not the sort of people you’d want to have a beer with.
In your fight to defend public smoking you even use the term ‘anti- smoking fascists’ for those who openly oppose your pleasures. Would you consider yourself a ‘pro-smoking fascist’?
Well, I’m not trying to force anyone to smoke, while they’re definitely trying to force me not to. And smoking in a bar is not ‘public smoking’. A bar is private property and it should be up to the owner. I can live with a choice of smoking and nonsmoking places, but the best solution is just to have a good modern ventilation system and encourage tolerance. The antismoking movement encourages intolerance.
Smokers and nonsmokers have co-existed for hundreds of years, and now they’ve driven this big wedge between us, divided people into the ‘normal’ group and a stigmatized group. This is certainly fascist. As for ‘secondhand smoke’: Dot, I know you don’t like smoke, but I promise you that if you really looked at the evidence, as I’ve done, you would have to come to the same conclusion. It’s nonsense. For every study that shows a tiny, unproven, hypothetical risk, there are six that can’t find anything. And many antismoking activists are well aware of this.
You just turned 54 in August, but look healthier and younger than most of your contemporaries. Is smoking a good recipe against aging?
I think it’s all about moderation and balance, but also about not denying yourself pleasure. I’m in pretty good shape. It could be the healthy diet and exercise – or drinking the blood of young virgins. Probably a bit of both.
Since your first hit single, nearly 30 years ago, you’ve sold millions of records, won a Grammy (for ‘Symphony No.1’), written music for Hollywood films (e.g. **Tucker) collaborated with Todd Rundgren, Ben Folds and Marianne Faithful, and even sang a duet with legendary actor William Shatner. Do you have more goals in life? Anything you would consider ‘a dream come true’?
I’ve always liked the idea of writing for the theatre, but could never see a way to do it that wouldn’t be cheesy. Hopefully our project on Bram Stoker is it and will actually get staged. I’ve been working with a writer and director for a couple of years about Stoker and how he became twisted enough to create **Dracula! It’s a really cool piece, not a Broadway musical, something quite strange and different. I have another project on the back burner, too, which is a tribute to Duke Ellington, with a lot of different people contributing – not necessarily jazz people. Beyond that, it’s all a great mystery. Which is nice.
In your autobiographical book **A Cure For Gravity, you wrote about your experiences before you became successful.
One thing that intrigued me when I was writing it was how horrible experiences, like gigs that were just so god-awful you wanted to die, become funny in retrospect. So I was wondering if I could do some really awful gigs and appreciate the humour then and there. Like, I play the drums a bit but I’m really bad. Maybe I could get a group of equally bad people together, and play some horrible dive somewhere and actually enjoy it this time around. So if anyone needs a really bad drummer, bear me in mind.
Special thanks to Joe, who is normally very private and too busy for interviews, and my friend Björn for his question contributions. Dr. Dot
Steppin’ Kraut
Sub:
Legendary British musician Joe Jackson confides in star columnist Dr Dot about his career and new Berlin home
You know Joe Jackson, the British singer, composer and musician, famed for hits such as ‘Steppin’ Out’, ‘Is She Really Going Out With Him?’ and ‘It’s Different For Girls’. He’s won a Grammy, written film music for Francis Ford Coppola, and collaborated with everyone from Marianne Faithful to William Shatner. Growing up in ordinary conditions in the south of England, with success he has become an urban cosmopolitan, with residences in London, New York and – since last year – in Berlin – where he is continuing his fight against the prohibitionists of the anti-smoking movement. Sexy sex-columnist and star masseuse Dr Dot invited Jackson to her Kreuzberg apartment for a confidential chat. .
Do you sometimes regret having moved to Berlin?
**Je ne regrette rien. I was living in London before, and it’s become a nasty place: expensive, hectic, horrible traffic, CCTV everywhere. Everyone is stressed out and when you go into a pub, people aren’t relaxing; they’re getting as drunk as possible and shouting at each other. Berlin is **so much more free and relaxed. At the same time, it’s so interesting. There’s great drama here, as you walk around you’re constantly reminded of momentous events.
Does the scene here have any influence on your own musical ideas?
The music scene isn’t my first priority, to be honest. London has more variety, and New York is better for jazz and Latin music. Then again, in Berlin I’ve discovered the Balkan Beats phenomenon, which I love – the wildness and the sort of un-cool coolness of it. As for influences, I feel like **everything is an influence. It all sinks in to the cooking pot of the unconscious and sort of bubbles away. Every now and then I dip a spoon into it and hopefully dish up something tasty. But at that point I can’t tell you any more which ingredient came from where.
In the bonus DVD for your new album **Rain, you give viewers an interesting inside view on this city by pointing out some odd places, like the Karl-Marx-Allee.
You thought that was interesting?! One German paper said it was ‘clichéd’ and it probably was. Sure I’ve found my own odd, quirky corners of Berlin, but I want to keep them to myself. So I end up saying predictable things like, ‘Isn’t it nice to sit by the Landwehr Canal in Kreuzberg on a summer evening?’ But it **is nice.
Do you still think in terms of ‘East’ and ‘West’?
I can’t help it. I started coming to Berlin in 1979. It would usually be on a tour bus from Hamburg. You’d go through two checkpoints and then have to stay on this one road through the GDR. There was one truck stop where we’d always stop to buy East German vodka at, like, 50 cents a bottle. Finally this bus, knee-deep in clanking bottles, would arrive at the Wall and go through another two checkpoints. The West Germans were always mean, while the East Germans were easily bribed with a couple of audiocassettes and a T-shirt.
Anyway, finally you’d be in this intriguing, slightly sinister place. Oddly enough, even though it was a sort of island, enclosed by a wall, it had a sense of freedom and spaciousness. Now it has even more.
You’re an unapologetic smoker. Are you pleased about the Constitutional Court’s partial reversal of the smoking ban?
What I like is that it recognizes that bar owners have some rights, and also that bans hurt business – these things are denied in the UK. What I **don’t like is that it only addresses the issue of the ‘level playing field’. This was the phrase used in England to justify a total ban; they said it was the only way to be ‘fair’. Personally I don’t see how imposing a total ban on everyone is ‘fair’, but respecting the property rights of bar owners and freedom of choice for customers is not fair. But that’s the twisted logic of anti-tobacco for you. People have this naïve idea that they’re noble souls in white coats fighting to save the world … in fact they’re a prohibitionist movement who’ve worked themselves into a position of great wealth and power, and many of them are very nasty people. I mean, I’ve met them, and debated with them, and they’re not the sort of people you’d want to have a beer with.
In your fight to defend public smoking you even use the term ‘anti- smoking fascists’ for those who openly oppose your pleasures. Would you consider yourself a ‘pro-smoking fascist’?
Well, I’m not trying to force anyone to smoke, while they’re definitely trying to force me not to. And smoking in a bar is not ‘public smoking’. A bar is private property and it should be up to the owner. I can live with a choice of smoking and nonsmoking places, but the best solution is just to have a good modern ventilation system and encourage tolerance. The antismoking movement encourages intolerance.
Smokers and nonsmokers have co-existed for hundreds of years, and now they’ve driven this big wedge between us, divided people into the ‘normal’ group and a stigmatized group. This is certainly fascist. As for ‘secondhand smoke’: Dot, I know you don’t like smoke, but I promise you that if you really looked at the evidence, as I’ve done, you would have to come to the same conclusion. It’s nonsense. For every study that shows a tiny, unproven, hypothetical risk, there are six that can’t find anything. And many antismoking activists are well aware of this.
You just turned 54 in August, but look healthier and younger than most of your contemporaries. Is smoking a good recipe against aging?
I think it’s all about moderation and balance, but also about not denying yourself pleasure. I’m in pretty good shape. It could be the healthy diet and exercise – or drinking the blood of young virgins. Probably a bit of both.
Since your first hit single, nearly 30 years ago, you’ve sold millions of records, won a Grammy (for ‘Symphony No.1’), written music for Hollywood films (e.g. **Tucker) collaborated with Todd Rundgren, Ben Folds and Marianne Faithful, and even sang a duet with legendary actor William Shatner. Do you have more goals in life? Anything you would consider ‘a dream come true’?
I’ve always liked the idea of writing for the theatre, but could never see a way to do it that wouldn’t be cheesy. Hopefully our project on Bram Stoker is it and will actually get staged. I’ve been working with a writer and director for a couple of years about Stoker and how he became twisted enough to create **Dracula! It’s a really cool piece, not a Broadway musical, something quite strange and different. I have another project on the back burner, too, which is a tribute to Duke Ellington, with a lot of different people contributing – not necessarily jazz people. Beyond that, it’s all a great mystery. Which is nice.
In your autobiographical book **A Cure For Gravity, you wrote about your experiences before you became successful.
One thing that intrigued me when I was writing it was how horrible experiences, like gigs that were just so god-awful you wanted to die, become funny in retrospect. So I was wondering if I could do some really awful gigs and appreciate the humour then and there. Like, I play the drums a bit but I’m really bad. Maybe I could get a group of equally bad people together, and play some horrible dive somewhere and actually enjoy it this time around. So if anyone needs a really bad drummer, bear me in mind.
Special thanks to Joe, who is normally very private and too busy for interviews, and my friend Björn for his question contributions. Dr. Dot’
