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(clock ticking)

- Clocks ticking all over the world.

- [Narrator] Mechanical clock works, LEDs, liquid quartz,

overgrown sundials, huge, big, small, tiny,

ticking, heartbeat, bombs, countdown to everything.

You see it's all about rhythm.

The beat goes on it's set aside.

(funky music)

dreams the skeleton key.

Chaos chants my beautiful ones

my best girls, marry me, wed me to possibility.

I Jacob Marley do take the soul of the night.

The beauty of contradiction and paradox is my bride

she in turn give me a wild wild ride.

- [Interviewer] What would you be doing when you turn 50?

- I've discussed this a lot with my brother.

And we've discussed how when I'm 60 years old actually

how I wanna be living down the house

at the end of the street and at 3 AM there will be

feedback and stuff coming out of the house

and then all the little kids will cross the road

to come out of the, you know when they walk

past my house and I can be as rude and

obstreperous as I like to people because I'll be old.

That's what I want to be doing,

being rude and obstreperous.

(orchestral music)

- Rowland kind of emerged onto the scene

with everything intact.

And I know a lot of people will say this about him

but he was just Rowland, he dressed in a certain way,

he had all his kind of influences in place

he knew exactly the way he wanted to play

he knew exactly the way things,

he felt things should be and should sound

he knew absolutely what he hated and despised

and there was no way ever you could

play him anything to change that.

He was locked into a kind of concrete

point of view about things and this is hugely inspiring.

(punk music playing)

- Around the time I met Nick he was

just starting to take songwriting seriously.

- We just started to hang around

more and more together and become friends.

- are you embarrassed about brushing your teeth?

- No I never brush them.

- Are you a homosexual?

- Spit it out Nick.

- Is punk homosexual?

- Um.

- (mumbles) okay.

- Okay, okay I agree.

- I remember we'd be driving to parties

in the car crammed full of people

and he'd say if we had an accident

the whole future of rock and roll's wiped out.

- And I used to see him when we were out

sort of always on the move always walking

through the crowd with leopard skin shirt

and OCT photos of himself on Model Of Youth.

- He was a bit intimidating 'cause he was

a 16 year old person with this presence

he was telling us that our band wasn't

very good but he liked our talent.

- I didn't really feel like buying it on face value

I think I pretty much told him that at some party

once too you know, well it's about time you did something

rather than just talking the talk.

I hadn't seen much evidence of him

doing anything after a few months he still

I hadn't heard him play a note still.

So I was a little dubious about whether there

was anything behind it or whether

he was just a well read dandy.

- [Man] One, two, three, four.

(punk music)

- I met Olly Olsen at a party I think.

- Rowland and I really hit it off

because we were interested in similar things.

We loved bands more like Television

and things like that.

- The day after I met him we formed

the band and wrote a couple of songs.

- And they both were such great song writers

and performers and I can still remember their songs.

- [Interviewer] What kind of music does your band play?

- It varies a lot, it says a lot

which most nu wave bands would think

was sort of un-energetic and sort of ideas type.

We're much more based on ideas than most other bands.

- [Interviewer] What kinds of ideas?

Are they largely destructive ideas?

- No. - No.

Not at all.

- Pretentious.

- Incredibly.

- They were pretentious little gits

but you know it's all right.

- They were absolutely consumed by themselves.

- Inspired and confident, just sort of

taking his rightful place as a kind of

heir to a throne of fame and creative glory.

- Everyone was waiting for it to all come together

and it was just the inevitability

that it was gonna be genius.

(Young Charlatans playing )

- [Interviewer] What are some of the (mumbles)

- Model of youth.

- Seems so distant.

- My Empire, Broken Hands.

- [Interviewer] What's Broken Hands about?

- Self mutilation.

- Suddenly The Young Charlatans were along

with these amazing songs and The Boys Next Door

songs started changing pretty dramatically

at the same time.

- Two guitarists both incredibly strong great players.

Two songwriters who wrote similar

but quite different material.

There was like this tension and that tension

created this energy that wasn't necessarily in your face

but it just, it's underlying edge was just magical.

(Young Charlatans playing)

Olly'd write songs like Accident and Drowned.

Rowland's would be like She's Not The Chosen One

and Broken Hands about punching a wall

because some girl wouldn't go out with him.

And Shivers, which is absolutely romantic.

- [Interviewer] What do you think?

- Songs that mainly have something to do with us.

Lots of times there's some played characters and stuff.

- It was always a mystery that

Young Charlatans survived as long as it did.

- We did 13 gigs I think and then Olly left the band

for what was like the fourth time

and it seemed like little point in

continuing this sort of cycle of Olly leaving the band.

(Shivers by The Young Charlatans)

♪ I've been contemplating suicide ♪

♪ But it really doesn't suit my style ♪

♪ So I think I'll just act bored instead ♪

♪ And contain the blood I would've shed ♪

- When I was 16 when I was still at

Swinburne Community School I wrote

this song Shivers which was intended

as an ironic comment on the way that I felt

that the people I knew were making hysterical

thing what were essentially high school crushes.

It started off being a very cynical song

about their behaviour and the way that they

talked and acted about being in love.

Which I found to be incredibly insincere

and really blown out of all proportion

although I'm hardly one who can speak,

I have a little glass heart

pinned to my sleeve most of the time.

- He wrote Shivers when he was 16.

This is really extraordinary that song.

The chorus gets where I can hardly even speak,

I hardly even say that chorus 'cause it's

just so great and so moving.

(Shivers by Rowland Howard with The Boys Next Door playing)

♪ And the sound of her name ♪

♪ Sends a permanent shiver down my spine ♪

- Then when it was recorded by The Boys Next Door

Nick sort of interpreted it completely differently

and now the song is to most people's minds

is something completely different

from what I intended it to be but that's

always the danger of writing anything

is it's open to interpretation.

- I used to dread Shivers coming up in the set

'cause it required a certain amount of efficiency

it required a certain amount of talent to sing

'cause it had a kind of melody and stuff.

♪ My heart is really on it's knees ♪

♪ But I keep a poker face so well ♪

♪ That even mother couldn't tell ♪

♪ That my baby's so vain ♪

♪ That she is almost a mirror ♪

♪ And the-- ♪

- Like most songs that people write

and particularly songs I write

they take upon a life of their own

and that song just happened to convey

a sense of sincerity about... in the most obvious way.

♪ I've been contemplating suicide ♪

♪ But it really doesn't suit my style ♪

- It was tongue in cheek

it wasn't a straightforward help me I'm so

sensitive thing there were layers to it I think.

- When you're very young and you start out

you have incredibly strong beliefs and

you tend to do things that are very forceful

and very focused I guess because you

know what is black and what is white

and there's absolutely no grey area whatsoever.

(rock music)

- That it was something that was so total

and that's so loved by everybody

and that kind of talked to everybody

and all of that stuff that a

great song should be able to do.

But on the other hand you write that

you can hang your fucking guitar up

and go and do something else.

It's just so accomplished.

♪ My heart is in ♪

- I suggested that in the interest of

making the record that Rowland's voice

sounded really good doing Rowland's songs.

But I was voted out by Nick who said

I'm the singer I'll sing the songs".

♪ But my baby's so vain ♪

♪ That she is almost a mirror ♪

♪ And the sound of her name ♪

♪ Sends a permanent shiver ♪

- I was never able to do that

song justice especially back then.

Rowland must have been kind of

squirming every time I sang it.

- It was never turned out the way that I wanted it to be.

And so it was a sort of frustrating experience.

- I really wish he had of sung that actually.

I wish he had have sung that when we recorded that

because it was his song and he should have sung that.

(birds chirping)

- Rose thorn rose thorn.

God how she overwhelmed me.

The magic of details rose from her like cigarette smoke.

I reach out and grab her perfume around me like armour.

This black Irish sorceress.

I hear her voice deep in her throat calling my name.

Sweetheart.

Despite the lazy cat grace walk

she's at my side now I could not raise my eyes

could not look at her.

Rose Thorn, Rose Thorn.

I miss that.

(gentle rock music)

♪ I know a girl called Jonny ♪

♪ She's a bullet , she's a villainess ♪

♪ In my sIlver dress I'm the disastress ♪

♪ Combing out her long straight hair ♪

♪ Jonny bangs the drum ♪

♪ Jonny bangs the drum ♪

♪ Jonny bangs the drum ♪

♪ Jonny bangs the drum ♪

♪ She's my narcotic lollipop ♪ ♪I put my fingers in his mouth ♪

♪ ♪ She's my narcotic lollipop ♪ ♪I put my fingers in his mouth ♪

♪ ♪ She's my narcotic lollipop ♪ ♪I put my fingers in his mouth ♪

- I think Rowland was in love with

very much every woman he ever met.

- God yeah, he was really, he was just

always insanely in love with somebody

who wasn't in love with him.

- And that's why all of his songs are about pining.

- He was very passionate about

things and very deeply romantic.

- Tragic romantic.

- He had a mad crush on Gina.

- Gina Riley that's right Kath And Kim.

- It might have been Janine,

he was really crazy about Janine.

It might have been Lisa it might have been Anita.

- Broken Hands was about Lisa Creswell.

- As soon as he went to art school

he met Lisa and Anita and was instantly

in love with Lisa and then in love with Anita.

- They were all in love with the other one.

- I was at this party that Rowland was at

and a bunch of us was at and the music

was very very loud I remember.

And Anita Lane walked in.

- She was, you know, stunning.

- We started to have this conversation together

and all I remember was that I couldn't

understand a word that she was saying

'cause the music was so loud.

- Nick and Rowly and Pierre

was sort of a bit of a threesome.

- By the end of that conversation

we were boyfriend and girlfriend.

- [Woman] They're all tall and dark and hilarious.

- Rowland also was very interested in Anita romantically.

- I would have thought so

I mean everyone did I certainly was.

- The first time I ever saw Rowly he was

playing pinball with Janine,

the bass player on The Esplanade.

- Rowland was in love with Janine.

- I remember thinking that Janine was really old

'cause she was like 25 or something.

- She was really kind of disdainful of Rowland

being such a sensitive slim young fellow.

- He was quite a frail person.

- [Woman] I don't think people

sometimes realised how he felt.

- Didn't have that primitive thing going on.

♪ Changing all the boys into girls ♪

♪ She's my narcotic lollipop ♪ ♪I put my fingers in his mouth ♪

♪ She's my narcotic lollipop ♪ ♪I put my fingers in his mouth ♪

- he had a crush on me but I at that stage

I just thought he was like 17 or so he seemed.

- Genevieve somehow found her way into the mix

And I started going out with Genevieve.

- I went out with Nick for about two minutes

and during that time Rowly became my best friend

he was always there because of Nick.

- Then she started going out with Rowland.

- He became my confidante and he was fantastic.

- And then I went back with Anita I think

something happened like that.

- I'd go to parties and he'd be sort of

always hanging on the clothesline

or leaning up against a speaker beside me

sort of entertaining me with a

dry commentary on the proceedings.

- Rowland finally got a fantastic girlfriend

an amazing girl who he was in love with

fell in love with him.

- He was standing on top of a really tall stool

on top of a table and I was hanging

onto his legs and looking up and I suddenly

just knew that I was totally smitten.

- As a couple they were a trip

(laughs)

- And then that was another kind of creative team.

- And were inseparable and impenetrable.

- And it was just bliss.

We were so happy and comfortable together.

- They wanted to get married like that (clicks fingers)

they weren't practical enough.

- He was very happy.

- Yeah he was.

And I think Genevieve was too she seems--

- Yeah.

- Surprised that she suddenly realised--

- It was him all along.

♪ Oh my oh my I've had a vision and it's looking very grim ♪

♪ Brush my hair, cut my teeth, sign my life away ♪

♪ The Christian thing to do would be to take my time ♪

- He was a real definitely a courtship

on from Nick to Rowland.

♪ The kitchen door is locked I can't hear a sound ♪

♪ Press me down, cut me up if you're lucky then ♪

- But I think it was doubt because he had this

other thing planned for himself.

His own star.

♪ Take my pulse again ♪

(piano plays)

(Boys Next Door playing)

♪ A Catholic scam ♪

- Rowland's influence within the band was massive.

- and all of a sudden there was

this other dimension to the band.

- The sound was so much more interesting.

- I think he gave them a bit of an edge.

- It was magic.

- I think he moves them right away

from being a sort of power pop band

into being a band that was a lot more experimental.

- So it was just something that was

truly original and extraordinary about

what Rowland brought to the band

that changed the sound and widened the options

of what that band could actually achieve.

- He was playing Hair Shirt I think

and suddenly the noises started emitting.

- Switched all of the vibrato on

and just went onto this feedback kind of thing

that just sounded amazing it was just incredible

it just kind of turned this wall of explosives

which we hadn't really heard before it was quite exciting.

(distorted rock music)

- He developed, almost from the beginning

had a guitar sound that was

absolutely unique it was extraordinary.

(distorted rock music)

- There's a line you cross on stage

where you sort of go beyond being aware

of what's going on so much as just

you're not thinking any more about it.

- As soon as he's played two notes

you knew it was Rowland Howard.

There was just a kind of combination of pedals

and guitar and the way he played and that defined the sound.

- There was certainly a way of releasing

a lot of anger and emotions that

I had no other way of releasing.

- You wouldn't have thought Rowly

would be the one to give them some kind of rawness

because people would have thought of him

as the delicate flower and them as the manly types.

- It's almost like The Boys Next Door

sound sort of morphed around Rowland's guitar

and then they sort of became one.

- Suddenly all bets were off and they scampered

down in a different direction.

- One of our records is kind of half recorded

somewhere and the Rowland had joined

and the other half was recorded.

And there's this kind of gulf between

what we were and what we were with Rowland in the band.

- They were signed to Mushroom when I joined the band.

After I joined the band nobody from Mushroom

ever ame to see us which was nice.

- When we went and worked with Tony

on the recordings that became the side B

it was pretty much like the band in the studio

with an engineer who was actually

the craziest member of the band.

- So they just turned up at the studio

Richmond Recorders where I just

happened to be the house engineer

and the rest is history as they say.

- He was just fantastic.

- It was to do with using effects

in a way that no one else had used them.

Like plugging things into each other

that probably shouldn't be plugged into each other

and causing all sorts of feedback

and chaos and things like that.

I suggested using some corrugated iron

to surround his amp and therefore

put contact mics on that.

He loved the idea of that song The Friend Catcher

where he basically did a guitar in one take

without really touching the guitar

which is something I'd never seen before.

He had it all feeding back so it

was just this constant noise.

And every time he hit one of the

switches the noise just changed.

It would go deep it would go high it was symphonic.

(guitar reverberation)

(rock music)

- He was one of the first guitarists

that I didn't know what was going on.

- He sounded totally unique I had

no idea where he was coming from.

- When I heard these guitar songs...

- He was like a guitar hero when there was

there was no guitar heroes.

- Rowland's guitar playing it was not

gently whipping it was hurting.

- It was like some weird science fiction

character playing guitar.

- When we first heard that it

sounded like came from outer space.

- The more I listen to it I realised

all these sort of different degrees of subtlety.

- Who's the guy who plays that guitar?

It has to be him, he looks like that guitar sounds.

- You could tell how sensitive he was

just by the nature of the sounds he created.

- This spectral man suffering from malaria

Rambo pulled from Africa and given a guitar.

(experimental rock music)

- Rowland for a long time kind of hung around

with me at Saints gigs and Radio Birdman gigs

and stuff like that.

And had this perception of me as being

really inarticulate and a punk

or something like that.

And he was kind of impressed by

the kind of idiot savant aspect of my nature

of which I still carry around,

except I've forgotten the savant bit.

Anyway he was kind of I think slightly depressed

and disillusioned when he came over to my house

and found a whole lot of Dostoyevski books on my shelf

he was going "you read this stuff?

"I thought you were for real".

The English language is one of the most

versatile in the world and has such

an enormous history because it's spoken

in so many countries there are so many words

and so many variations and slang words

and ambiguities involved in it

and it just sounds really good when it's sung

there's lots of good words that you can sing

like ectoplasmic and stuff like that.

- We were definitely into the same sorts of things.

Left field literature, that Dadaists...

He himself was a huge Duchamp guy

much more than I was actually.

Alfred Jarry.

- Nick and I were heavily influenced

by that type of thing and obviously

the idea of having some kind of school of thought

approach is a very attractive one.

- This had a big influence over

what he did lyrically I think for a long time.

And it had a influence over what I did

lyrically for a shorter time.

I kinda went off onto another tangent completely.

- When I was in The Birthday Party

and to a lesser extent with Crime

I had to learn how to write songs

that were capable of being used

as a vehicle by other people.

So I had to stop writing songs that were

directly from my heart and start writing

things that were far more ambiguous

and could be interpreted by somebody else

as something that they wanted i.e. Nick Cave

as to something that he wanted to represent.

- And he continued to write I think,

these absurdist styles lyrically.

Songs increasingly so actually as the band went on

with kind of quirky guitar lines and absurdist lyrics.

- I found that I'd actually forgotten

how to go about writing more than

a couple of songs every year that were

Rowland Howard songs that express--

(woman yells)

- Me.

- I became aware of his lyric writing

when begrudgingly The Birthday Party

seemed to do a Rowland song now and then.

And it was very different lyrically

than what Nick Cave was putting across.

They always seemed to be very very romantic.

Like heart not only bleeding but kind of

stabbed in several places and bleeding horribly.

- When I'm writing about certain things

particularly subjects that are

of emotional intensity it's very hard

to write down all these words about

how appealingly tragic your life is (mumbles)

it's hard to take seriously.

Obviously humour is a defence.

(distorted music)

- Really heroin amongst the St. Kilda crowd

was the drug of choice it was cheap,

it was freely available,

it was all over St. Kilda here.

And it was strong.

- Friends of ours were doing it and we happened to

be there at one night when they said "do you want some?"

And we just did it, you know no notion that

it would ever be something in our lives.

- It was very very gradual before people

started to realise that they were actually

thinking about it all the time and it

started to become a daily occurrence.

And then it sort of took over to a really large degree.

♪ Insect, insect, insect, insect ♪

- We had this utterly demented idea

that people on the other side of the world

had superior taste than the people that lived here.

- We bought one way tickets and we went to England.

- Nick and I wrote this song called Happy Birthday

and it was originally called The Birthday Party

and we thought that would be a good name for the band.

- We ended up there under really bad circumstances.

- It was just incredibly difficult for the first year.

- Like 10 people living in a one bedroom flat.

- We all stayed there I think with our various girlfriends.

(Nick the Stripper by The Birthday Party plays)

- Taking me to this very dark squat

see the candles burning here and there

and someone would kind of flitter past

that was Anita and then somebody else

saying hi and looking down.

It was just a really weird little scene

the drug thing was all happening.

- It was quite a struggle 'cause we had

to really start from scratch again.

- And none of us had any money

and I got malnutrition it was pretty ugly.

- Rowland took London personally

like as if someone had built it to make him unhappy.

But he may well have taken the world in that way.

- Germaine Greer had said this thing

the in Australia you never feel so lonely as

the first year or so of living in England,

I'd never felt so Australian.

- We went from being big fish in a tiny pond

to being frog spawn in an ocean, it was bad.

- Somehow we'd gone from whatever we were in Australia

on that plane trip once we landed in London

and we kind of absorbed the massive disappointment

of our situation and the absolutely retarded

bands that were playing there at that time.

They were nothing like we thought they were gonna be like.

- Suddenly there a surge of very shiny new pop

with synthesisers and suddenly it was

Boy George and Haircut One Hundred

and Spandau fucking Ballet.

- It was really shoe gazing

bullshit that was going on there.

- But the NME got it wrong and went with this.

I remember distinctly reading certain

people who shall remain nameless

and they embraced it and it was all

cocktails and foppishness.

And I think The Birthday Party was seen

as somehow old fashioned and rockiest

was the term that they used.

- There was a review of one of our

records I think actually, the first record

that said obviously we'd spent time

out on the Nullabor with the natives

or the Aboriginals this was kind of serious.

- We found it rather sick making and

decided that we really had to take out

the metaphorical mallet and hit

our audience over the head with it

to achieve some kind of reaction.

(The Birthday Party playing)

- Epic, grotesque, bizarre, strange,

wonderful, funny characters on stage.

- The rawness and the singularity of what

everyone was doing like Tracey Pew's bass sound

it's just so on it's own and Rowland never really

integrates into the bass he just sits on top.

- One thing The Birthday Party

had was tension, in spades.

- We went to New York in 1981 and the NME

sent a journalist, Barney Hoskins along with us.

I myself had always thought that New York would

be a fairly sophisticated blase sort of place.

And we did our first show and got

thrown off stage in 10 minutes.

And I just thought my god this is all wrong

we've been playing Australia in RSLs

and a hundred miles out of Sydney

and we don't get thrown off stage.

And here we are in New York and we've

had the power turned off after 10 minutes.

Then we did our next gig and this is the literal truth

one person came and that was a Polish girl

I'd met the night before and I said

I'd put her on the guest list.

And then the next gig we did was at The Ritz

which is this really big mafia style club

and they let us play for 15 minutes before they

threw us off stage because they said

that we were trying to incite a riot.

So we'd done three gigs in New York

and played for approximately 25 minutes.

It was really fantastic, it was just great

to have that feeling that you were

capable of upsetting people so much

by the time we'd reached Chicago or LA

we were playing to really packed clubs.

We played The Ritz and they thought we were

gonna 'cause a riot and they escorted us off the premises

with a team of bouncers because we were so

huge and muscular and threatening.

- I think they played again and there was like 2000 people.

And I remember walking up and seeing

the queue go right round the block

and I just thought this is gonna take off

beyond even their comprehension.

- Things would happen and they

would influence us to the extent

that we would reaCt against them

because we usually found them to be

so lacking in any kind of power

in the emotion and things that were being portrayed

and that drove us on towards trying to

make things that were a lot more intense.

- We changed hugely and our live shows

became highly confrontational.

(The Birthday Party playing)

- The more we stuck, ourselves out on a limb

and the more we tend to be abusive

towards particularly the English

people in populous, the more popular we became.

Once we'd finally quit their country

saying that it was a sinking ship

that we were sick of supporting

we became hugely popular.

It was really bizarre in the fact

that insults came back as bouquets.

(The Birthday Party playing)

- They were like exorcisms, personal exorcisms.

- They sometimes seemed to be on the verge

of chaos but never quite falling into chaos.

(Birthday party continues playing)

- They were very very powerful and exciting

and the sound they made was horrendous.

- Totally feral and totally out of control.

- I'd never seen a group that was

so filled with contempt for their own.

- I'm not gonna say scary but...

(The Birthday Party playing experimental rock and screaming)

♪ Want some more regrets ♪

♪ That we have to kill ♪

♪ Then ♪

- We had an enormous amount of hubris and

we were firmly convinced that we

were certainly as good as it got.

- It was for them unheard of that anyone

from Australia would be coming

and playing music and doing shows

that put a great swathe of

English bands into really bad light.

We were just better.

And they knew it.

♪ Some velvet morning when I'm straight ♪

♪ I'm gonna open up your gate ♪

♪ And maybe tell you 'bout Phaedra ♪

♪ And how she gave me life ♪

♪ And how she made it in ♪

♪ Some velvet morning-- ♪

- When we played in Phoenix, Arizona

we played Some Velvet Morning we finished

the song and this boy who was standing up the front

said, "hey you know Lee Hazlewood lives in this town"

and I just went oh my god.

And he goes, "yeah I run this record store

"and he comes in all the time"

and it was just frightening for me

because he's about as close as I come to

having an idol 'cause I think he's one of

the greatest song writers that's ever existed.

- The doorbell rings and it's Lydia Lunch.

And she swans up the stairs and she's

all curves and sex on legs and actually asked me

if I would go out for a while so

that she could talk to Rowland.

And much to my continual bemusement I actually went.

- I had nothing to lose so why not leave

whatever it was I didn't have behind

and go to London to pursue Rowland S. Howard.

- Rowland's vibe as a singer and a guitar player

I thought was really successful the

way he teamed up with Lydia.

- We just felt an immediate bond.

- What made you record These Boots Were Made For Walking?

- Um Rowland.

- They're almost like folk songs

and that's why I think of Lee Hazlewood

songs in particular they have a quality

about them that doesn't pin in

any sphere of time whatsoever.

- Especially with Some Velvet Morning

which is such a perverse song anyway,

Lee Hazlewood being such a perverse songwriter

an American classic of the weirdest order.

♪ Some velvet morning when I'm straight ♪

♪ Flowers growing on the hill ♪

♪ Dragonflies and daffodils ♪

I was the magicians apprentice

fuck I was 12 years old

we were moving all the time Melbourne, London, Berlin

I was his psychotic sidekick

the boy wonder to Modos masked man.

(speaking foreign language)

- We went to Berlin and were kind of

received with open arms into this

community of people that actually

on some level reminded us of Melbourne.

It was frenetic and anarchic and really creative

that didn't have the same prejudices

and the kind of superior way that

the British had about our band.

- Berlin the mid 80s that was a very long story.

I was gone for eight years from Berlin

I lived in America and I returned

in 84

and came back to a different city.

It was a very exciting moment in the history of Berlin.

It was a very lively music scene

and especially this bunch of Australians

who landed from a different planet in Berlin.

- Their appearance almost changed everything in the scene.

Clothes and how to behave and talk

and walk even and look like.

Everyone had that spiky hair

all of a sudden and pointy shoes.

- They looked always like birds to me

especially in the Winter.

Berlin has this incredible amount of Siberian crows

they come in the thousands and they live

in Berlin during the Winter and sometimes

the sky was dark with these black crows

and of course from all that (mumbles)

I don't think anybody wore any other colour than black.

And they had this vampirish life

as soon as daylight came up they were gone

and when the sun went down they showed up again.

- The war was around and it was a tight

group of people and they all took more or less speed.

Whereas the Melbourne crowd they brought

over the heroin into the music scene.

- There was a hush when they showed up somewhere.

They were really big, they were the biggest thing in Berlin.

- [Woman] The Birthday Party were the cool boys

of Berlin for a while and all the

girls wanted to sleep with them

all the German girls.

- Rowland was an important figure for Berliners at the time.

He made legendary sounds and had this

strange stagger on the stage.

He was our Geoffrey Pearson,

we all thought he was even better.

I met him quite often standing at a bar

in some of these clubs after the show.

But he was not talkative, Rowland was not talkative.

- Lydia Lunch was making a record and we

went into this studio called Thomas Funk Studios

in Berlin and there was Blixer all wrapped

up in his rubber suit with his seatbelt

like a beauty queen from another planet.

Nick had made sort of best friends with

Blixer and they were hanging around

and all of a sudden Rowland was just on the out.

- I think Rowland always felt he wasn't being appreciated.

I think he felt as a guitar player he was

but as a song writer et cetera.

- His songs were getting very often into

a place that didn't really suit the band all the time.

- Nick is a very competitive sort of fellow.

Rowland'd sort of probably was quite precious

about the way he wanted his songs.

- We started going in a different direction

lyrically, my lyrical style changed.

- I don't think it was that comfortable

for Nick singing his songs because they

were about subject matter and so forth

that Nick was away from at the time.

- It came to a point where I think

Rowland was really hurt and so he

stopped attending meetings or when wages

were being done would turn up after

the others had left or before the others.

It was hard.

- I think it started being difficult for him

to feel fully realised in the band.

- It came as a bit of a shock that nobody

really vocalised at the time until the last meeting.

- He always thought of them as a sort of gang

it wasn't just music it was everything, friends.

And Rowly just couldn't understand what he's done.

- I just cannot sing anymore of these songs.

It's got to finish.

- Basically a phone call I remember from Nick Harvey

who decided that it wasn't working

or something wasn't working within the group.

Probably quite an astute observation from him.

- Rowland's response was "I'm really surprised".

And I said what are you surprised about?"

And he said "I'm just surprised you did it before me".

- I was happy to go along with anything

but it was like oh, all right.

- Nick was very much like that's a really good idea,

that's a good idea I think that'd be good

it's just the right thing to do

it's kind of running out of steam.

- We're no longer a band and it was a shock

it was a real shock.

- When there's that huge sort of investment in something

and you're just in it and you're in the present

it's very barbaric that's what animals do

they're just in the present and they have

no future and they don't really care about the past.

(slow guitar playing)

It was the retraction of friendship

or the retraction of warmth or

the lack of connection that really hurt him.

- To our minds we'd been procrastinating

and not really achieving anything for ages

but when I look back on it,

it was literally about four months.

The Birthday Party broke up within a month

or was it two months, Man Or Myth were playing

here in Melbourne which was The Birthday Party

minus myself doing songs that I'd written

which I found fairly appalling.

And I was gotten fairly disillusioned

with things for a long time and I sat

around didn't do anything.

Then one day Mick Harvey rang me up

and he said words to the effect that

I was wasting myself and he was shipping

Simon Bonnett over in a crate from Australia

and would I like to play guitar?

- [Man] Mick Harvey and I had been enormous

admirers of the two very different incarnations

of the group that happened before.

- And then I started seeing two bands

there was Nick And The Bad Seeds who

have Blixa Bargeld as their guitar hero

and there were Crime And City Solutions

with Rowland as their guitar hero.

And you would have thought it would have

been a shame that Birthday Party was gone

but actually it was twice as good.

When I decided to make a film in the city of Berlin

sort of a tribute to Berlin, portrait of Berlin

really was the first idea for Wings Of Desire.

And for a while I didn't have any characters

was just looking for characters to allow me

to show the city in the widest sense.

Until I found my guardian angels.

But one thing was clear from the beginning

both The Bad Seeds and Crime And City Solution

had to be in that movie because

musically that's where Berlin was.

And from behind the band all of a sudden

Rowland was the key character because he was

staggering in front of the camera

and I watched him more than anything else.

It was sort of choreographed the scene

with Rowland and his stagger.

In hindsight Simon was a little disappointed

we were not enough on him.

- It was really nice having the band

captured on film by the man who'd

filmed Beauty And The Beast it was great.

And I think it works far better

than the Bad Seeds sequels.

- He did shoot The Beauty And The Beast

in my book is still the most glorious black and white film.

He made countless movies.

I think Beauty And The Beast is the

black and white masterpiece.

And of course (mumbles) really gave us the look

for ways of design influence the film.

(gentle music)

- I found myself in a group that wasn't

anything like I'd expected it to be

and wasn't really what I wanted to be doing musically.

And there was no room for anything throwaway.

And I really tended to feel like a bit

of a bull in a china shop like if I didn't

restrain myself the whole time

I'd just smash the little glass frame

that held things together.

So it was a really physically uncomfortable thing

(dog barking)

like that dog out there, for me to do

because I just felt really held back

and restrained the entire time.

- I did lose sight of them and Simon

went to Los Angeles and for instance

I never saw These Immortal Souls

although I really liked their music.

And followed Rowland's solo career

and everything he did afterwards

and sort of kept in touch but I never met him again

because he left Berlin and I never ever met him again.

- I'm just waiting for the rest of my peers to get here.

(mumbles)

that is incredibly sophisticated

technology that we use i.e. guitar, bass, drums.

- Then came These Immortal Souls

and it was just wow, it's Rowland.

There he is.

- Ready?

(Rock music These Immortal Souls playing)

it was a really easy group to form

because as soon as we started playing together

everything sounded really good.

- He loved idiosyncratic playing

and he thought in These Immortal Souls

we were all very idiosyncratic.

- I personally don't find my ideas

interesting enough to think that I

could carry off the whole thing with my ideas

it would just mean that basically

there was no mystery in it for me

because I'd know everything beforehand.

- We immediately started playing with him

when we'd go there and we got SST Records

interested and they released their record here.

- They were always giving us shows.

And I think our first show was supporting Sonic Youth.

- I feel like with this group I have

the support of the other people in the group behind me.

To a certain extent I have a certain amount

of veto power just as the singer in any group does

because if the singer in a group is not convinced

by and idea then obviously they're not going

to do it sincerely and it won't come across well.

Which was a situation I'd run into

in the past quite a few times.

It's just that now I'm in a position to do it myself.

(These Immortal Souls playing)

- And then we did other tours of Europe

and we went to America for five weeks

and it was fantastic.

And we got better and better every night that we played.

- These Immortal Souls were a terrific band.

A good gig would be just absolute joy.

- They lyrics still have that real intense

you know, one of his songs weighs ten more pounds

than anybody else's, full of the weight of blood.

- Like showing somebody a song that you've written

I still find it really painful.

♪ I was strictly Insomnimaniacla ♪

- They were amazing, more than Crime.

They should have been a big band.

- I'm trying just to devote all my energies

towards These Immortal Souls so that people can

understand and comprehend that this is

a group that I have and which is a long term thing

and not just a flash in the pan.

- He was nearly a good leader but he wasn't quite

he wasn't very forthcoming with encouragement.

- He could be a hard task master at rehearsal.

It was like he had such a defined

feel or vision of what he wanted.

- He was really good at first and

then he became increasingly...

You could not get a good word out of him.

And occasionally I would hear something

from Genevieve, oh that Harry he thinks

you're a wonderful bass player.

And you'd think, really that's

not the impression that I get.

How did I wind up in the same field as Rowland?

What a stupid thing to do.

I don't mind being in Rowland's shadow

I couldn't care less actually it's a good

shadow I love Rowland's shadow.

(laughs)

(Don't Explain by Nikki Sudden and Rowland S Howard)

♪ Hush now ♪

♪ Don't explain ♪

- He's playing Glasgow and it

was him and Nikki Sudden just two guys

I think Rowland has a gold shirt

and Nikki Sudden had a gold jacket

there was a lot of gold on stage.

Just Rowland and the (mumbles)

and a twin reverb classic.

It was free form guitar playing and it was incredible.

I think I went backstage or maybe seen them in the hall

but I remember just saying "I wanna fuck you"

(laughs)

♪ Don't explain ♪

or something like that, something really really ridiculous

I fucking love you I wanna fuck you so be it.

- Nikki and Rowland were very close

they had toured and they made records

together so they were very very close.

You could see they actually really loved each other.

- I really like what he did then

and that's a prime example of Rowland being

super relaxed in the studio.

- He'd done this song with Nikki, Don't Explain

a cover of the Billie Holiday track.

It's my favourite thing he did actually

and with Nikki who I also love as a friend too

and I remember Nikki saying "go on sing, sing"

and Rowland was really reluctant to do

lead vocals and he was saying "sing".

And I think it was Nikki's encouragement

I think Rowland was a bit insecure initially

but I'm glad he did sing no one else sounds like that.

♪ Hush now, don't explain ♪

Nikki was obsessed with 19th century Britain

and 18th century Britain, like colonial Britain.

Wrote about it all the time and

like to dress like a dandy and read

all these old books and stuff.

He had a huge collection of antiquarian books at the time

and of course Rowland was like that

with his cravats and everything and

his cigarette held just so it was fantastic.

♪ You know that I love you ♪

♪ And what loving does ♪

- I think that women like that sexuality

in a far more poignant and sensitive

and incisive way than any man ever has.

- Rowland always had good relationships

with women and saw them as people

in spite of his mad crushes.

- They've all been intelligent women

they've all been very opinionated women

they've all been very strong

they've all been very demanding women.

- I guess he wasn't afraid of my aggressiveness

the way that some more macho guys

are very confronted by me.

- I think that a lot of the best

singers of all time have been women.

- when I moved to New Orleans in 1990

it just seemed to me, urgent that I bring

Rowland there because it just seemed the

atmosphere would definitely be conducive

for the kind of music that we both needed to make together.

- I remember going to New Orleans and I

felt more at home than I had anywhere else

because it had sort of heat and I just felt

like it was more like my natural environment somehow.

- He read loads of books that were set around there

he loved it, it had French influences

and slave influences and Indian

just so many things bubbling up.

- Nature is evident there whereas Europe

nature's not particularly evident

not in the same way it is in Australia it was different.

It was sort of interesting because I'd never

really considered myself to be Australian before.

The concept is kind of swap, voodoo, romantic,

lush, co-mingling of these energies.

It's great also because the live shows

were Harry Howard and Rowland Howard

so that was just a musical sandwich

that was delectable from the word go.

- Harry was on the tour as well

he was playing bass so they were an interesting

it was interesting to see the two of them

playing off each other.

- And Lydia she's got many sides to her personality

some very sweet and some not so sweet.

- Harry was very shy and very smart and reserved

and very un-rock, very straight

not doing drugs, maybe drinking a little

and I just threw a knife and it stuck in the wall

next to his head and I just said,

I don't even know what I said,

"don't piss me off Harry".

Of course he hadn't it was just like...

Rowland just smiled.

- Rowland had a pronounced aversion to bananas.

At first I thought he was kidding

but whenever bananas would appear in the dressing room

he would denounce them as an evil fruit

- She was a good band leader.

You did get a sense that you were working as a team

for someone who had high expectations

and wanted you to do well.

- I would provoke him with bananas

I remember one time invading his hotel bedroom

wearing a crown of a bunch of bananas

and dancing provocatively on his bed.

He was horrified, truly horrified.

- At first it was like immortality

the sleeping mask, illuminexecnce

instinct up and down my spine like a big electric cat

medicinal vapour trailing curls in my nostrils

my vision tunnels I crash and burn

one long moment

(cicada softly chirping)

- Rowly and I weren't in a very good state

health wise I don't think at the time.

Which must have impacted on things.

We worked with Tony who was in a similar way.

- We were spending a lot of time looking for drugs

and not a lot of time recording.

In fact I can remember an instance

of going into the studio and all sitting around

looking at each other feeling pretty grim

and going off to score, that has to be about the end of it.

- His drug use increased around that time

and he became a bit more chaotic.

And I became less close with him over that period of time.

(guitar strumming)

- At the end of our relationship in London

I actually said to him a few times

that I couldn't cope with the lifestyle

and the things that I had to do

rotten jobs I had to have in order to get money

and suggested that maybe we should part company

and he hated that, no he didn't want to be left.

You just can't give up while you're together

it's just impossible, it's exponentially

more difficult than giving up alone.

And one night he'd got something

and I had been feeling really good

for about three weeks and I was out with

Harry and Chris Yuse and a couple of girls

and I didn't want to go home I didn't want to use.

I stayed up all night I went to Highgate Cemetery

in the morning I didn't get home till 11.

He said Jen I wrote a song and it

was a song called Shut Me Down.

♪ So long soldier ♪

♪ We're deep in dutch ♪

♪ I can't ignore it ♪

♪ I miss you so much ♪

♪ I miss you so much ♪

♪ I miss you so ♪

- I just sort of realised that for a long time

I'd been in England because people had

been telling me that I needed to be there

but I was just having a miserable life

and I just thought this is stupid

because I'm not playing music because I'm miserable

I'm here because I'm supposed to be playing music

so I just moved back to Australia.

And I just spent too many years away from my family.

- That was one of the major reasons

that Rowland came back to Australia

was to be nearer his mother.

She was lovely, Lorraine, she was a strange

mixture of things she was really independent in a way

I think you'd have to be, married to Jock

and she used to go on adventures on her own

which I really admires and Rowly did too.

- She was very demonstrative and loving

and would say I love you so much,

you're so beautiful you can do anything you want

she'd say, you can do anything at all that you want.

- His father is just incredibly absent emotionally

and when you talk to him he's always right.

- Dad's intrinsic problem of if anyone got close

to him then they became more threatening to him.

- I think he adored us when we were little, little

and once we got to about three and started

becoming real full people he just couldn't cope

with us at all, didn't know what to do with us

and shut down on us.

- He was so sure that nothing his son could do

would ever make any impression on anybody else.

- It's kind of biologically impossible

to stop seeking your parents approval if you're 4 or 40.

So he had that ongoing struggle of trying

to get his dad to acknowledge what he'd done

and being constantly disappointed that he wasn't.

Rowland continued to be-- - Hurt.

- Quite severely hurt sometimes.

It was very sad to see.

Rowland sort of retreated more into his creative world.

He just got closer to mom instead.

(quirky organ music)

- I was probably three and he was

I suppose my mom's boyfriend at the time.

And so I don't really remember meeting him

I just kind of, he's basically been

in my life since I can remember.

(growling)

- Are we there?

- It was very romantic 'cause it was very chaste.

There was this very old fashioned I guess courtship.

And I used to drive him to his shows

and stuff and be a chauffer for him

once I was single it quickly turned into a relationship.

(guitar strumming)

- Rowly would play remarkable sets at these

various pubs and there would be

10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 people in the audience.

( guitar strumming)

- Just before we got married in the first year

of us living together he started writing

and recording Teenage Snuff Film.

- There was a point before Teenage Snuff Film

where I thought I'd really like to

do something with Rowland because I think

my bass playing is complementary to his guitar style.

So I actually wrote a couple of

bass riffs on my little T84 track.

One of them was (imitates bass guitar)

♪ This is a warning ♪

♪ They're going to hit me ♪

♪ This is a sign ♪

♪ They don't get out of big things ♪

- Just kind of called me up and said

I wanna do this solo album

I wanna do an album and would you help me?

And I said, yes.

- People had said to me look, don't put

out Rowland's record you'll regret it.

And I was like, you don't understand

you think of Rowland as,

I've known Rowland as a 15 year old kid

we've got a better relationship than that.

- Little did I expect that it would be just

me and him recording all the basic tracks together

I think apart from two songs I think

all the basic tracks are just him

playing guitar and me playing drums.

♪ And I tried to speak ♪

♪ But I could not ♪

- I just reached a stage where I didn't want

to have to argue with people about stuff anymore

I didn't want to have to have three other people

agree with what I wanted to call the album

or agree with what songs were on the album

I wanted to just be able to say this is the song

and if somebody played something I didn't like

to be be able to say, well you can't do that.

- He was making an album so I had

to have an album as well.

So I wrote some songs and he would

fret the chords and I would sit on his lap

and strum the guitar and that got recorded.

(Rowland singing)

- That was a really great time for him

musically he was really inspired.

- One of the whole points of the record was

to retain something of the sparseness

and the intimacy of the solo shows

I'd been doing and just to have some

kind of space in the music.

I think we achieved that really well

it was a very simple record and I think it

was probably the simplest thing I'd ever done.

- We all lived in a share house in Windsor

and that was just on constant rotation

we knew every lyric, we knew it backwards

and we all were just obsessed with that record.

(Dead Radio by Teenage Snuff Film playing)

- I'd lost my brother I'd been quite

hideously dumped by my boyfriend

within a year and I was listening to

Teenage Snuff Film on repeat.

- And there was just this beautiful ache to

the way he would put a lyric into a song.

- Some writing was just beautiful.

- There was a deadpan sarcasm to his voice

that really intrigued me that I hadn't heard before.

I hadn't heard anyone sing like that.

I found it hilarious actually.

- There's so much humour in his music.

There's like, wit while he's ripping your heart out.

- It just felt like a perfect piece of work

that captured a moment, the moment could have been 24 hours.

- Yes put that in your top, I don't know, top 50 easily.

- 24 hours in the life of Rowland.

All of this happened.

- It's an album that seems to have a long term effect--

- It's kind of timeless.

- Yeah it's timeless it's still affecting people now.

- I don't need religion I've got this.

(Dead Radio continues playing)

- We lived with each other and we cared

we loved each other so I guess he kind of

just became a parent in a way.

- Up until that point he adored Rowland

he was sort of all over him and then

as soon as we became a couple he

rejected him pestiferously.

- It seemed that he could remember very well

what it was like to be a little kid

and that it wasn't that far off.

Rowland looked after Tom during the day.

So he got him to kinder and picked him up

and spent more time with him in those

early years than I did really.

- We kept devising plans to throw my

arch nemesis at creche into the bin, Robbie

and we'd go and go to his house and pretend

to be cops and scare him and I don't know why

I didn't like Robbie but I didn't.

- My fantasy was that Rowland and I

could at least just live together and

enjoy our relationship and kind of develop

that without any other unnecessary stresses.

- There was lots of murder just in general

with it was someone a little bit violent

and it would be boyish violent for me

and I guess there was a little bit

of a sinister edge coming from Rowland as well.

- It was fantastic those early years were

probably amongst the happiest in my life

if not the happiest, probably

the happiest in my life really.

- I spent a lot of time especially before I was at school

just the two of us hanging out and that's probably,

yeah they're my fondest memories is the early days.

When it was all really fun.

- [Man] I light another cigarette

and as I cut my hands around the flame

the whole place explodes

but nothing happens a lot around here

it was just the old lady, the pigeons.

One of which is the pooch situation

as I have come to think of it.

About the dog skull with her walking stick.

Has up and clamped his spring loaded jaws on the victim.

Snapping and pumping like breakfast.

- He had actually spent a couple of years

writing a novel which was keeping him occupied.

And he was writing that when I met him.

- The first one is about someone who

traverses the realms of reality through

sleep and dream and it actually helped by a drug

and his father is someone who sells or makes the drug.

- [Man] England, go to London, England turn left (mumbles)

and keep on up to the first bend.

(voices whisper)

least appealing part of this place

I found a strange (voices whisper)

started to happen when I first started to remember

find you through the neon signs and the

weather of the whirlwind (voices whisper)

shoulders with the gunshot rolling deep across the bay.

- I think he was only completely drug free

for a couple of months before he buckled.

- I didn't find out until after they'd split.

And then memories came through

and it kind of all clicked.

- I tried a million things and suggested that,

well maybe you could just use every second week or whatever.

But then I succumbed and got into trouble myself

and that was the thing that ultimately it meant

that our marriage had to end.

(Dead Radio playing)

- What I do remember is wanting to see Rowland

and knowing that he felt quite guilty

and wanting to reassure him that I

didn't hold anything against him anymore.

- Until about five years ago I would have said

that I didn't regret what I've done.

It was all my time spent taking drugs but now

I really regret it it's change my life forever.

And I've just lost so much of my life

and so much time that I could have spent

doing things that would have been really meaningful for me.

It's just been wasted.

Just a waste, thrown away.

(quirky music)

- He used to talk about something called black milk a lot

and he wrote a song about it and it's not just

a drug reference it's the whole feeling

of this thing that's dark and beautiful

and sort of sticky sweet and hypnotic

and it sustains you and feeds you

and makes everything really beautiful and amazing

but at the same time there's a

fatal flaw and it's like poison.

(Autoluminescent by Rowland S Howard playing)

♪ I am blinding ♪

♪ Autoluminescent ♪

♪ I am white heat ♪

♪ I am heaven sent ♪

♪ I was a nightmare ♪

♪ But I'm not gonna go there ♪

♪ Again ♪

- He seemed so diminished by his heartbreak

and he kept saying he was a

three time loser and lost everything.

I just couldn't see him evicted.

- They had no choice really in a way

they were just so closely linked.

- After about one and a half years he managed to stop using.

It was an odd time 'cause he was trying

to get on Inteferon as well and the

psychiatrist wouldn't let him go on it

because he had problems and he was still

sad about his marriage break up

and Inteferon makes you depressed.

But eventually he convinced them and by the time

he was on Inteferon he'd completely stopped.

♪ I'm soaring through outer space ♪

♪ There is no better place ♪

♪ To be ♪

at first I'd been promising him that he'd feel fantastic

and he didn't, and he'd say to me

"you said I was gonna feel much better I feel like crap".

But he got through it.

♪ I'm greater than God in light ♪

♪ I am dangerous ♪

♪ I cut like the sharpest knife ♪

(applause)

- He got every side effect under the sun

and they wanted to take him off it

because he got so thin and his bloods

were all over the place but he insisted

he wanted to get rid of it and he was

so pleased he'd got rid of heroin, he'd got rid of Hep C.

He was still not feeling great but gradually

about six months after he stopped Interferon

we moved in here and he started going out,

he was playing all the time.

People were responding to him in a really different way.

People were catching on to the idea that he'd stopped.

- Rowland would ask me "how do you want this album to sound"

and I said "I want it to sound like the

the glass of wine's there and the ashtray's there

I want it to sound like that".

And he went, (inhales) "right".

So he knew what I wanted.

- He would never want to rehearse though Rowland

so we had to show up and do everything

just raw which was kind of infuriating.

Though it worked out well.

- He was producing hate rock and he had this

huge fascination with Jon, just everything about her.

- We only saw him a couple of hours a day mind you

he was very very exhausted on Interferon.

We had him two hours a day, three to five.

Little cat would stroll into the studio.

- Having him in the studio was as much about

his aura as it was about what he was saying.

- You could actually talk about a concept

in a much more, on a higher more abstract level.

- I think we played the song to him once

and then he just went in there and played it.

And we were all just sitting in the control room

just like -- - Oh yeah.

- Check this out.

- I think I was just almost laughing

hysterically how good it was.

- Sounded great Rowland.

- I can do better if you want.

- He mentioned something about Bianca

meeting this rather tall quite crazy young girl

and I could tell in his eyes there was a

certain interest beyond just the fandom

that I guess he would normally get through his Myspace.

- I just kind of approached Rowland

as fan girl ultimate fan girl.

- Bianca gave Rowland a hug that lasted

maybe two minutes and Rowland told

me and Connor that he hadn't been

hugged like that in maybe six years.

He finally got the hug that lasted.

- Went over and said to him

"I never wanted to be this person but

"you're just the best person in the whole world".

And he said, "I don't know about that".

And I said "but you're the best

"fucking guitarist in the whole world"

and he said, "yeah thanks".

- And that was it he was smitten I'm telling you.

- They were such a great couple.

They're tall and they were very commanding

to see them both together.

- And after the initial I'm with Rowland S Howard thing

I didn't really think about that so much anymore.

It was just the person that I loved.

- Ah there we go.

(strumming guitar)

- Coming along the other side of the bay

with his arm around a beautiful girl

and his guitar in hand just swanning along

was Rowland S Howard true to form.

- He did have a respect for women too

I think he just liked them as creatures

I think he proffered the company of women to men as well.

- Bianca was fantastic for Rowland

he had a bit of a spring in his step

a bit of a strut, he was laughing a lot more

and he was also far more exhausted

than I'd seen in a long time.

- I said to Rowland once, "when do you kind of grow up"?

And he said, "you're asking the wrong person".

I don't think that he felt like

his youth was a lifetime ago.

- I had some things to do.

(crowd laughing)

- [Crowd Member] What?

- It was a busy eight years.

I think my particular journey through music

has been very slow and it's taken me

a long time to achieve the confidence

that I needed to do my best work.

- He'd been sick for a long time

and he'd been on Interferon, gotten rid of his hepatitis

and then he fell in love and then they

wanted him to make another record

and he was really happy about where his life was going

and then he got sick again.

- Once we were doing the Pop Crimes album

there was a huge amount of interest suddenly

this groundswell of interest in what

Rowland S Howard might be doing this month.

- There was talk about international tours

about European tours there was talk

about American tours there was a

genuine excitement in the record he'd just made.

- I've got some new songs tonight

which is a frightening--

(crowd cheers)

and one that scares me immensely okay.

- [Band Member] One, two, three, four.

(rock music plays)

- He and Brian and Mick were recording the

basic track and he sort of said you find a sound.

He found me in the kitchen of Birdland

with a plastic cup and a mirror

it sounded like a tortured donkey

"it sounds terrible, quick record it".

- Everything was looking up and it was great

and he was just so pleased just to wake up

in the morning and feel okay it was such a luxury.

- I find it remarkable that most people

don't seem to see the world as being

essentially a very sad place because I think it is.

- He wanted to know 'cause he thought

I could understand because I've been paralysed,

what do you tell people when you think

you're never gonna walk or you're gonna die one day,

what do you tell them?

- He realised that his last album would be his last album.

- I know it was enormous help to him me doing it,

it was a fantastic experience for me too.

'cause I really liked both the recording sessions

and got an enormous amount of artistic enjoyment

out of working on those records.

- He was really enthusiastic about this record

and he was really keen to promote it

and play gigs and it was great

and there was a whole new audience

that was coming through and all of

that was energising for him.

It was just a shame we had to stop.

♪ The night so deep that I trip or drown ♪

- One day he was out and I put it on

and it was just so great and I played it

over and over again and I always heard

Rowly come in the door, you know footsteps, keys

so he must have heard the music from outside

and sneaked in really quietly.

And he'd come round behind me in the lounge room

and I was just sitting at the computer

playing things over and over again

and I think saying things like, I don't know, "oh Rowly".

And then I think Golden Age Of Bloodshed came on

and I think I started crying and

all of a sudden he was just there behind me.

I was really shocked at how much he needed me to like it

and how pleased he was that I liked it so much.

And it was just really beautiful.

♪ The signs in the sky won't let up ♪

♪ The clouds assume the shape ♪

♪ Of Catholic girls with uzis ♪

♪ All of them on the make ♪

♪ All of them out to make a million ♪

♪ By the time they hit thirteen ♪

♪ And it's all in the colour of the old sun setting ♪

♪ This brand new age of bloodletting ♪

♪ And it's all in the eyes of me ♪

♪ I'm suspicious of my wife ♪

♪ I suspect she left long ago ♪

♪ I recall my finger on the button of the ejector seat ♪

♪ But I can't recall letting her go ♪

♪ The electric Christ has canonised her ♪

♪ She's surrounded by a chemical glow ♪

♪ It has to be said ♪

♪ It's today's edition of the book of the dead ♪

♪ It has to be said ♪

(guitar strumming gently)

- There's a version of You Are My Sunshine

by Brian Ferry from like 1973 or something

and he just makes it the most appallingly

sorrowful song that you've ever heard in your life

and it's incredibly slow and it goes

for about seven minutes or something

and it's just so fantastic because

this song that has become...

The virtue of the use of the word sunshine

has become perceived as something that is

upbeat but it's actually about someone

who dies and is consequently very sad.

And I think The Carnival Is Over is

intrinsically, achingly sad.

(ticking)

I step through the gates of St Louis Cathedral

I'm surrounded by an absence of rows

cathedral rears up before me, huge and calm.

Cypress trees bear witness to nothing

sway and ruffled, slow dancing on the wind of rain

and I know, I know that every clock, watch and chronograph

just snap to the grid and it's now 11:22 AM

my second step down the park the sun comes out.

Bright and stolen gold.

I inhale deeply, there is no sound

but the rush and crackle of burning tobacco.

I look up at the sky's reflection

pools of water glisten at my feet.

For one small moment the silence is broken

by a sound hard and fast at my heels.

In that moment I'm impossibly quiet

and heavy and heavier than I can bear.

They sky tilts on it's axis

and I'm staring straight into it's mould.

I close my eyes and look into heaven.

The sun explodes behind my eyes

a heartbeat and the sky goes out.

In another they're all gone.

Angels hall I feel a shadow form over me

and my eyes can no longer open.

As I stare up into awaken blue, there is no weather.

And I realise that for the first time now

I am only in dream.

(gentle orchestral music)

Rowland Howard.

(Autoluminecent by Rowland S Howard playing)

♪ I am blinding ♪

♪ Autoluminescent ♪

♪ I am white heat ♪

♪ I am heaven sent ♪

♪ I was a nightmare ♪

♪ I'm not gonna go there ♪

♪ Again ♪

♪ Into the black hole ♪

♪ The house of no contest ♪

♪ Make mine a meteor ♪

♪ Rise me above the rest ♪

♪ I'm soaring through outer space ♪

♪ There is no better place ♪

♪ To be ♪

♪ I'm bigger than Jesus Christ ♪

♪ I'm greater than God in light ♪

♪ I am dangerous ♪

♪ I cut like the sharpest knife ♪

♪ I'm going nova ♪

♪ And I hope I can hold her ♪

♪ In ♪

♪ Into the darkness ♪

♪ I gave away myself ♪

♪ Slipped on the spiral stairs ♪

♪ Tumbling down the well ♪

♪ I fell on a soft spot ♪

♪ I'm white heat, I'm white hot ♪

♪ Again ♪

♪ Again... ♪