Poly Styrene, X- Ray Spex 2006

Uddevallakassetten/Witting interview with Poly Styrene from X- Ray Spex
Dec 2006

W: When did you start to play in the first place?

P.S: I started perfoming at the age of 5 in the primary school playground, I used to write and sing songs about the dinner lady who used to force me to eat meat when I wanted to be a vegetarian. I also used to protect and feed the stray cats on a local bomb site that was left after world war 2. I used to sing ‘Baby Face’ from Thoroughly Modern Millie to the stray cats that lived there, they were my 1st live audience, I guess I was about 7 or 8. I adopted the name Poly Styrene when I was in my mid to late teens and decided to form X-raySpex packing out Odeon Cinemas up and down the UK and rest I guess is history!

W: Is it more fun to play nowadays or was it more fun in the beginning?

P.S: It is always more fun when knowbody knows who you are. As when you are known you have a lot more to live up to!

W: What does punk mean to you, is it only a word or is it a lifestyle?

P.S: I have always been a new wave romantic internally, & punky rather than punk. Punk means a low life and I try my god damned hardest not to fit that bag or tag. I live a fairly alternative lifestyle and I have been living this way before the word punk became a fashionable name for a certain music genre.

Is there any good bands in England today?

P.S: Yes! I like Goldblade because they are fun and John Robb is a gorgeous hunk that makes Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious look like his vomit. There are also lots of good bands where I live in East Sussex I some times sit on a panel and judge them at Battle of the Bands and you know the quality of these kids playing is phenomonal, it is such a hard task.

W: What do you know about Sweden? What’s typical Swedish?

P.S: Sauna’s, Blondes, Blue Eyes, Somalian Refugees and Non Smoking Vegetarians. I have been to Sweden and it is a very special place in the history of my distant memory.