The band’s former bassist left Talk Talk in 1988 after the release of the masterpiece Spirit Of Eden, and has since recorded or produced several albums including the monumental Out of Season with Beth Gibbon (Portishead) in 2002. A bit mad scientist, isolated and confined with his wife and daughters in the English countryside, he has just published the twilight Clockdust (Domino Recordings), an album of rare delicacy which owes as much to Jacques Brel as to Joy Division, even to Cab Calloway. How is it possible ? Explanations with the person concerned, as caustic as English can be.
So, like that, according to your Instagram account, you DJ for your daughters during confinement and you play them electro with Speedway by The Prodigy to challenge them. And you don’t last until the end of the piece! After being part of Talk Talk and recording an album with Beth Gibbons, do your daughters know that you are considered a music legend?
Paul Webb (bursts out laughing): No, and you could say they don’t have much respect for the old man that I am! They know that I have made music and that I still do since I have a studio at home, in a barn, but I have never forced them to listen to the records that I recorded with Talk Talk or Beth.
I looked everywhere and couldn’t find why you chose this pseudonym Rustin Man. What is he hiding?
Paul Webb: I didn’t want to make music under my own name. When I was in Talk Talk, I could play a role, hide behind the image of the group. It’s the same approach for what I do solo, I hide behind a character. I am just an illusion, a kind of mark. So it’s both me and someone other than me that you hear on this record. The name Rustin Man came to me while playing on “rusting man”, the rusty man that I am gradually becoming (Paul turned 58 at the start of the year). I am decomposing, I am gradually falling apart.
You know that in French, the word “patch” makes you think of a bandage that you put on a wheel that has just punctured…
Paul Webb: I didn’t know but I like that idea too.
Two albums in a row, one in 2019, the other in 2020, while the first with Beth Gibbons dates back to 2002. What’s happening to you? You’re in a rush ?
Paul Webb: It took me a while because I built my own studio and I wanted to take the time to experiment, to learn to play certain instruments that I didn’t master. I also wanted to find my voice, my singing voice (Paul did some backing vocals in Talk Talk but mainly played bass). And then I wanted to give time to time. I use it as an instrument, a filter to sift things. I recorded the songs for Drift Code (released in 2019) and Clockdust at the same time, then I spent two to three weeks deciding which track I kept for which record. I first published Drift Code, and so I gave myself time before listening to the Clockdust tracks again to refine them as I saw fit.
You said that Clockdust was designed under the assumed influence of Jacques Brel. But how did you discover it? Via English covers by Scott Walker or Marc Almond, or in the original French version?
Paul Webb: I really like listening to music sung in a language I don’t know. It creates a strange feeling, you can fantasize about the meaning of the song much more easily. On the French side, I was very interested in Serge Gainsbourg and Jacques Brel (Belgian, obviously, editor’s note). One day, my brother brought me back from Paris a box set dedicated to Brel which I wore out from listening to it on my turntable. I also knew the fabulous English cover of Jackie by Scott Walker which left a lasting impression on me.
Did you already have in mind the emotions you wanted to convey with Clockdust’s songs?
Paul Webb: Yes, and no. I wanted the songs to come from the heart, to have soul with an atmosphere that was both “claustrophobic” and naive. As if they were shy songs. I also wanted them to be sung as if by an actor in these old films from the 40s and 50s. A sort of narrator. For the title Old Flamingo, I am the voice in the head of a little girl. His father is one of those old school gangsters. He knows he is reaching the end of his road. He wants to protect her and tell her that he loves her. I wanted the singing voice to be soft, quiet. Even gangsters have children…
When you were a teenager and you met Lee Harris (future Talk Talk drummer) in Southend-by-the-Sea, were you listening to this very cabaret type of music, or the Cab Calloway-style jazz that Clockdust sometimes refers to?
Paul Webb: No, I was really into reggae and electronic music of the time (Cabaret Voltaire, The Human League, etc.). But when I was younger, when I was 5/6 years old, I remember that we listened to Frank Sinatra or the fabulous Mills Brothers at home. The microphones used had, and still have, incredible sound. Some are worth fortunes, up to 20,000 Euros. I have a sort of nostalgia for that era, which was not at all rock’n’roll. No, not nostalgia… Let’s say that the voices of this era give me sensations, emotions. I can’t say that I’m nostalgic for that era since when I was with Talk Talk, I wasn’t thinking about that music at all and I’m someone very anchored in the present. For example, I have a lot of trouble remembering specific things with Talk Talk… For me, it’s a thing of the past.
Do you still remember playing in front of 75,000 people in a stadium in Greece in the early 80s as the opening act for The Clash?
Paul Webb: Yes, vaguely. But I don’t think it was The Clash, more like The Cure. You know, when I was on stage, I was really into the music. I didn’t pay much attention to what was going on around me.
You mentioned microphones from the 1940s, but you use a lot of them yourself. Up to six to record in your studio…
Paul Webb: Yes, I use it creatively to multiply sound recordings with an instrument, a guitar, a bass. Then I work a bit like a painter by choosing which take I’m going to use in a piece. Each microphone gives a different color, a different nuance. It’s a process that I find very organic. That’s how I worked on Drift Code and also on Clockdust.
If you went back in time and met the kid you were at 13, what would you say to him? What advice would you give him?
Paul Webb: Not much. Maybe make more music, record more songs, write more songs. But youth is first meant to be wasted, right?
How did you start making music? With Lee joining a reggae group called Eskalator?
Paul Webb: I started by taking piano lessons, then I joined a marching band like a lot of kids. Then, I started playing bass because in all the bands I went through, there was a guitarist, a drummer but there was always a bassist missing. With Lee, we started doing concerts very young. To tell you the truth, we were even too young to be allowed to drink alcohol. Then, I went to an art school. And I met Mark (Hollis, editor’s note). I always wanted to be a musician. But before Talk Talk, I was pretty obsessed with a band like Joy Division, the Doors too. I was very attracted to a certain darkness in the music.
Many British critics compare Rustin Man’s music to that of Robert Wyatt or to pieces by David Bowie. Is this a good or bad interpretation?
Paul Webb: I like both. I must say that if I compare myself on the vocal side with these two singers, it is something that completely escapes me. I would rather say that I am very influenced by a certain atmosphere, that of Berlin in the 30s or 40s, cabaret music. I’m a very visual person, and I remember a lot of old black and white films, and a certain lost innocence that showed through in the images of the time.
You say that you are not nostalgic, but you still seem very anchored in the past. Do you have any regrets about Talk Talk? A detail, but is it true that the group was first called 300 Cubs?
Paul Webb: How do you know that? Yes, it’s true, we were first called 300 Cubs but we only had to keep that name for one, two, maybe three weeks, before renaming ourselves Talk Talk. On regrets… how could I have any? Talk Talk remained honest until the end. The group stopped right when it needed to stop. A perfect trajectory that I accept and which I like.
With time, and the sudden disappearance of Mark Hollis at the beginning of last year, speculation has been rife among fans of the group. So I just ask: do you know if there are any unreleased Talk Talk tracks somewhere, perhaps buried in a trunk, under a tree in the English countryside?
Paul Webb (amused): No. I’m sure that it’s not the case. There is no treasure to be found. If there is one, it’s on the records we recorded. Nowhere else.
Regarding Rustin Man, what directions do you plan to take for the rest of this project? You mentioned your taste for electronic music…
Paul Webb: I just know the next record should take less time. I’ve already started working on a few pieces. What I want, what I’m looking for, is to be surprised.
When the confinement is over, will you tour with a group in Europe? Possibly with Lee on drums (he participated in Rustin Man albums)?
Paul Webb: With Lee, I don’t think so. He is busy on his own project. I plan to do some shows with Rustin Man. For now, we have three dates in November this year but none in France. It is planned that I will go on stage with a band in which there will be the bassist of the group Dez Mona (Nicolas Rombouts), a Belgian group whose album Hilfe Kommt I produced in 2009. I can’t wait to play the pieces of Rustin Man on stage and see how they evolve.
Comments collected by Frédérick RAPILLY (April 2020)