DEVIL’S ISLAND featuring A Permanent Shadow
Welcome to this weeks edition of Devil's Island! Every week we maroon a band or artist on the island and see what they get up to, how they cope with being all alone on a small island in the middle of the ocean. It's not your average desert island and we'll see just how each person copes with the extreme conditions.
This week when we arrived at Devil's Island we find A Permanent Shadow sat on the beach. The island is far from their home, so how did they end up here and how did they cope with life on Devil's Island?
Find out now...
Welcome to The Razors'e Edge and our somewhat lovely, warm desert island. Don't worry about it's name I'm sure it's not as bad as that would suggest.
So you're marooned here on this island, but before you ended up shipwrecked you chose one album that you couldn't live without. Which album did you each chose and why?
Station to Station by David Bowie. It’s the perfect record for me, just six songs long, all of them are incredible, there’s not one redundant note on this album. The singing is insane as well. I don’t think there’s ever been a better album.
Just behind that palm tree is a shack for each of you to stay in, with enough space for you to put up a poster on the wall of one album cover. What album cover do you each chose?
That would be The Idiot by Iggy Pop. It’s a great cover shot of Iggy impersonating a Heckel painting, shot by Bowie. I like its arty bleakness.
There's also a bar on this here island. But alas each of you only get to choose one drink for the entirety of your stay. What's your tipple of choice?
That would possibly be a Frappuccino Chai or something else without alcohol. I’ve been teetotal for almost 20 years now. I think in my teens and twenties I had all the beers and liquors I was supposed to have for a lifetime.
Your suitcases were lost when your ship sank, but you each managed to salvage one item of band merch. What’s the merch and for what band?
I have a band t-shirt of The Cult that I bought after one of their gigs in the early Nineties which I cherish a lot. I think it’s a counterfeited shirt, the quality is really poor. The Cult are an amazing band, no-bullshit Rock and Roll par excellence.
You’re sat on the island thinking “I’m stuck here on this island with my bandmates for eternity”… who would you rather have been shipwrecked with?
The good/bad thing is that I have no bandmates per se as A Permanent Shadow is rather a solo project under a band name. Some female company would be nice I guess, preferably someone with a bit of musical knowledge as well.
There's a walkman in your pocket, on the tape inside is the recording of the one live show that stands out for you. It could be any show, from any band, anywhere in the world. What show is on that walkman?
It would be a Lou Reed bootleg from Milan 1989. It has the most amazing live version of the song Rock and Roll, one of my all time favourite tunes. I saw Lou Reed in 1989, albeit in Munich, and the show blew me away. I was a little boy back then. Still one of the most memorable shows I’ve ever witnessed.
You're getting desperate, you decide the only course of action is to put a message in a bottle and hope someone finds it. Your message could be to any member of any band, but should be the most suitable for a rescue attempt. Who is it?
Madonna or Paul McCartney. They have enough change to pay for an expensive rescue team. Would they bother? That I’m not so sure of.
You've been stuck here for a while and food supplies are running low. There's only one thing for it... which fellow band member gets sacrificed to help the others survive?
Again, as a solo artist I would have to start self-cannibalizing. I’d probably start with my bum which is not big but there’s at least some meat on it.
Finally, when the ship sank you each managed to save one person from the wreckage. That person is the one musician that has influenced your career the most, shaped your way of thinking and your outlook on life. Who did you save?
Out of the three cornerstones of my musical landscape two are no longer with us – Lou Reed and David Bowie – so I would save Iggy Pop, though I think he’d rather save me than the other way round. He’s still a very fit guy.
