The Sisters Of Mercy - Różności - Wywiady

by Don Watson (unknown origin ?)

RAZOR SHOCK!

DOOM ROCKER'S 'PRANK' EXPOSED!!

DON WATSON reports...

HOW ODD this all looks, reflected in the opaque black lenses of Wayne Hussey's absolutely Ian Hunter shades.

Backstage at sheffield, The Sisters of Mercy's new guitarist sits in the corner and stares. And what he sees is...hair! Sprouting from everywhere. It's like some perverted post punk rewrite of The Furry Streak Brothers Comic - all back combed and black clad, swigging vodka and orange mixes from large Pepsi bottles. Broad grins peer out beneath 'have you got planning permission for that haircut' mop tops.

One thing is immediately apparent - in the six-month absence from activity, The Sisters of Mercy have not been whilling away their time at the local barbers.

Andrew Eldritch predictably holds court: as usual he looks like something exhurned for a second autopsy opinion.

Hussey sits staring blankly, his lurid purple and pink shirt buttoned up to the nexk, although the collars curl rebelliously away from the neat diagonal.

Recently it's been debatable whether Eldritch has been continuing the Sisters' campaign for world domination with a strategy of the quietest cunning, or whether - and the second
possibilty is the most popular - he's simply flipped his lank black wig.

Look over the independent charts for the past six months and you'll find The Sisters of Mercy a continuing presence, featuring twice and sometimes three times in the higher reaches. In the parade of glory that is Uncle John Peel's Festive Fifty, only New Order/Joy Division featured more frequently.

If Morrisey has emerged as the primary provincial megalomaniac come good, then Eldritch is creeping up behind. Yet at the time when the Sisters seemed poised on the verge of success Eldritch had schemed for, the band as such didn't really exist. Or at least that was the impression created by his any, and increasingly confusing, communications with the NME.

"Sell the wife, sell the kids. I'm not coming back - ever!" ran the first postcard, postmarked Los Angeles and addressed to Barney Hoskyns. "Does he really imagine anyone actually cares, " Hoskyns drawled in typically laconic fashion, unceremoniously dumping the missive in the nearest bin.

"Tell the world I'm still alive" was the instruction from the second one - addressed to me and postmarked Rio de Janeiro. "Does he really imagine anyone actually cares," commented a passing Hoskyns...

Rumours of the band's break-up spread. The records carried on selling.

Shortly afterwards a T-Zer appeared, from an apparently knowledgeable source, maintaining that Eldritch was in fact sitting at home in Leeds, wearing cowboy hat, imagining he was in New York and indulging in Jim Morrison fantasies. Eldritch was upset, but instead of jumping in the bathtub, he reached for the phone.

"Sorry did I wake you?" he asked as I croaked a grouchy hello into the reciever st the other end. "I tend to forget the time difference."

As my semi-sleeping brain cells struggled with the idea of a meridian suddenly established between Leeds and London he added, "I'm in New York." The line crackled. That's nothing, my line crackles when I ring Carnaby Street.

The upshot of the conversation was that The Sisters of Mercy still existed. They were about to undertake a British tour. BUT he, Eldritch, would not going to be singing with them. They had, he maintained, found a ringer - a reptillian pretender almost identical to himself but sporting a thick black beard.

That's it! I reflected, he's obviously off his acid-rocker. He thinks he's got some Performance type Doppelganger!

"Funny you should mention that," he said. "When I'm rich and famous I've always wanted to buy that house in Notting Hill where Performance was set."

More original than thinking you're a teapot, I suppose.

All the same the idea was quite compelling - Eldritch having spent so many nights in feverish calculation that he'd sent himself quietly insane, begun to believe in all those rock star fantasies of his.

Hence this traipse up to Sheffield to tug at the beard of the so-called phoney Sister. Of course all I found was a clean-shaven Andrew Eldritch, still maintaining he'd been in New York when he'd rung me.

"I still find it really funny that people keep making the Morrison comparisons," he says. "It's quite an interesting idea to play with. Until they find some other comparisons, and then I'll play with that."

At that moment it occured to me precisely who Eldritch had reminded me of on stage at Sheffield. In full length velvet coat and shoulder trailing black hair, droning the words of
'Heartland', he bore a striking resemblance to the pre-rockabilly days of Les Grey of Mud.

But the joke goes on.

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