| Billy Childish is a man responsible for vast quantities of art: be it music, poetry or painting, he has never been less than hugely prolific. In fact much of his work was produced over a thirteen-year stretch on the dole, and a lot of the music for which he is probably most well-known ~ from The Pop Rivets and The Milkshakes right through to Thee Headcoats has been self-financed. Over the past year or so he has also made his mark as a novelist entertaining books. For a man who once sang, "I'm so lazy, don't get up till 12o'clock, no time for working, never want a job" he seems restless to say the least. | "Everything should be done nice -you know, nicefurry pigs enjoying themselves, people cooking you something nice to eat, people lifting their hats to each other and saying good day" |
IDLER: What time are you getting up these days?
CHILDISH: Isuppose 9.30. I used to be good at not getting up but you lose these skills. I used to be able to stay in bed until about twelve, and when I was drinking I used to manage until two or three cause I would only get up when my hangover wasn't there.
IDLER:When did you last have to get up and go out to work?
CHILDISH: It would have been about 1980. I did a couple of weeks at a mental hospital as a ward porter. I think that was the last time.
IDLER: Do you consider what you do as work?
CHILDISH: No. My mother always said that I don't really do anything because I don't have a job. No, I never thought of it as work because I never wanted a job. I didn't want to go to school and when I left school and worked in the dockyard for six or seven months I really loathed it. So I stopped doing that and I thought "Well, I don't want to work, I always wanted to be a painter." When I was a kid I read about Van Gogh and I thought I'd be a painter because I liked doing pictures at school, and my mum asked me what I was going to live off and I said I'd live off my brother ~ because that's what Van Gogh did. I said this when I was about eleven I suppose.
IDLER: You knew when you were eleven that you never wanted to have a job?
CHILDISH: Yeah, because I wanted to be a painter. That isn't work as far as I'm concerned ~ stay at home and do pictures is what I wanted to do. But then of course I went to art college and I didn't get on with them at all. It was as bad as being in the dockyard. They tried to throw me out, so I left. Then I went to St Martin's and I got expelled from there. You see I don't want a job, I don't want to be a writer, I didn't want to write a second novel novel ~ I just happened to. And I've got no ambition to be a painter ~ I just like painting. I don't have any ambition to be famous. I wouldn't mind, but I don't want these things as jobs. jobs involve turning what you do into misery ~ Becoming a professional destroys the fun of it; the idea of being something is just horrible.
IDLER: Did you feel like there was a world of opportunity awaiting you when you left school?
CHILDISH: No, because they told me that there wasn't. They told me there was a rude awakening.
IDLER: You've mostly lived in Chatham in Kent, do you prefer that to a big city like London?
CHILDISH: Yeah, definitely.
IDLER: Is London too stressful?
CHILDISH: Well yeah, and also space you can live in a house in Chatham or a bedsit in London ~ not much of a choice for me. I wouldn't mind living in London if I had a million quid to buy myself a gaff somewhere central with a wall around it. Really, I'm just one of those people who wants everything. That's the same with work, not wanting to have to do anything. I could never understand why a menial job was the worst paid ~ I thought it should be the best paid. None of it makes any sense. When I was at school they told us it was going to be computers, leisure time and job-share, and I thought "Well that don't sound too bad". It turned out to be true, but the leisure time was called the dole.
IDLER: What should happen?
CHILDISH: Well if all the work is being done and all these companies who've got rid of people are still making money and they don't need to employ people ~ well fine, but they should still pay them. it's very unfriendly, the world, like that.
IDLER: Do you have a television?
CHILDISH: No, but my mum's got one and I try and watch it, but I smashed up three televisions when I did have them because I just can't stand what's on them.
IDLER: Did you chuck them out of the window?
CHILDISH: No, just push them off the table or hit them with a stick ~ I've more respect for the window. I used a friend of ours once ~ she's a big German girl, and I picked her up and used her as a battering ram to knock one over.
IDLER: Did she mind?
CHILDISH: No, she was quite up for it. It's just that I like things where people apply their intelligence and look at things properly. I really like intelligent things, or if they're going to be dumb, just totally dumb and not pretending they're intelligent. So obviously I've got a problem with most things.
IDLER: Do you enjoy eating?
CHILDISH: I really enjoy eating. When I was a kid I only ate egg and chips and chocolate until I was about eighteen, and then I found out about food a bit, and now I'm quite a good cook. When we used to go on tour in the old days Bruce (Billy's long time musical collaborator) would always say "McDonalds!" And I would never eat in a fucking shithole like that, even when I was a shithole myself.
IDLER: You're not ke'en on fast food then?
CHILDISH: No, I like things done with care and done nice. It's like the music we play ~ it's home made. I like organic farming and things where people don't fuck things up and that would apply to everything. If someone does something because they want to, it will probably be nice. I think love and attention is what I like most, I like receiving it, and I like to try and give it back sometimes as well. I really do believe that, I think love and attention would be it ~ I mean, who wouldn't want that?
IDLER: Do you think people are unpleasant because that's the way they've been treated?
CHILDISH: That is definitely true. This is why I try and do things with love and attention, although it is an effort to break that cycle. And to do it with a sense of humour as well, not being precious. Like nouvelle cuisine, that fiddling and poncifying is as irritating as someone not giving a shit ~ you want something robust and wholesome. It's cause and effect ~ if you are friendly to someone or hold the door open, you've got more chance of them being friendly and doing the same for you. There'll still be some people who'll let it go in your face, but you step over that otherwise you become bitter, and becoming bitter is losing. It's giving up, it's got nothing to do with life. Everything should be done nice.
IDLER: Right down to the smallest details?
CHILDISH: Everything you know, nice, furry pigs enjoying themselves, people cooking you something nice to eat, people lifting their hats ro each other and saying "Good day". The fact that it isn't like that doesn't mean that you have to buy into it and just do it shit the way everyone else does.
IDLER: I know you don't drink anymore. Why did you stop?
CHILDISH: I was jaded about it, my personal relationships were falling apart, my liver was falling apart. I'd reached the end of doing that.
IDLER: How old were you when you started drinking?
CHILDISH: Twelve. I'd get drunk every weekend from about that age, then I stopped, and I really got back into it in my late teens. By my mid-twenties every night I'd think "I don't want to do this anymore", but it just took me that long to actually stop. Right in the middle of it I hated it, I loathed it, but I needed it.
IDLER: So it wasn't social drinking.
CHILDISH: No, I had to drink.
IDLER: You'd drink on your own?
CHILDISH: Oh yeah, it's necessary sometimes. It's not as dangerous as committing suicide. If you feel that desperate, alcohol can be useful. It saved me from killing myself, but I still think it's appalling that people get that fucked up by life that they need to drink.
IDLER: What do you think are the things that do that to people?
CHILDISH: I think they just get smashed by life ~ I mean who can blame someone for having to drink after work because people have to do so many things they don't want to do.
IDLER: Do you think it would be better if people were more stubborn?
CHILDISH: No, I think it would probably be better if everyone was nice and cosy but it's quite unlikely. I just that society is unconducive towards balanced friendly individuals, because it makes demands on people which aren’t nice. Like sending them to school and making them learn things not for the benefit of themselves, but for the supposed benefit of society. Not that I've got an answer to it all, well I have ~ start drawing.
IDLER: Or don't stop drawing.
CHILDISH: Don't stop would be even better. Involve yourself in creativity, because that's where everything is ~ all young things are there.
IDLER: Do you genuinely think everyone can be creative?
CHILDISH: Of course they can. Everyone is creative, whether or not people are going to say this is a work of genius. But who gives a shit? Because most works of genius probably aren't, it's only a matter of opinion. I don't think it's necessary to be good at something to do something. If you've got to be good at it you'll never do it. I think it's essential to do a lot of things and not be good at them.
IDLER: Are you going to write another novel?
CHILDISH: I'm writing two at the moment. I haven't been asked to write. them, I just bloody write them ~ I wouldn't if I didn't have to, the thought of it pisses me off.
IDLER: What are they about?
CHILDISH: One's called Sex Crimes The Future and it's about me and this girl called Tracey [artist Tracey Emin ~ Billy’s ex], and the other one I'm doing the working title Naked Odyssey, and some of it takes place in Greece when I was fourteen. After my mother had TB my father came home and we actually went on a family holiday to Greece, and I lost my virginity there. So I thought I’ll write a little story about that.
IDLER: Was it romantic?
CHILDISH: It was romantic. A nice American girl called Theresa who was fifteen at the time - an older woman.
My Fault and Notebooks Of A Naked Youth Billy's two novels, are published by Codex.