Robert Lloyd: Yeah, it was. If you listen to "Total Luck" and "Going through the Motions" on the album, you can hear these weird things. But if I'm honest with you, why I did that was the BBC used to pay you by how many members were in the band.

(We all crack up.)

Robert Lloyd: And we realized that when we did the first session. It was like 70 quid per person. So we were really pleased. That was the most money we'd ever got for doing anything. When we went away, I said, if they ask us to do another one, we're going to get some more guys in to bolster our pay.

Splendid: You'd think there would be lots of really big bands.

Robert Lloyd: But when The Prefects split up... I don't even know why. It just split up.

Splendid: Was it interpersonal stuff?

Robert Lloyd: No, not as far as I'm aware. I think Alan the guitar player, who ironically enough is now playing in The Nightingales, wanted to go to college and get a job. I think he was just fed up with being skint and hanging around with a bunch of losers.

Splendid: Yes, what is the upside to that?

(Laughs)

Robert Lloyd: So, he kind of packed it in.

Splendid: Was he the one you went to school with?

Robert Lloyd: No.

Splendid: Because in the album notes, there was one that you went to school with and two others you met through a classified ad.

Robert Lloyd: No, (the one I went to school with) sort of disappeared. We were really young -- I'm talking about 16 or 17 -- and he got some girl pregnant so he had to get some sort of job and provide some money. So he'd already left the band. And it all comes around in full circle, because about a month ago, I got married. And her first husband was this very bass player you were talking about. She wasn't the girl he got pregnant. So we're like this little incestuous unit.

It fell apart and I felt that I didn't want to stop making music altogether. But by this time, we were really fed up with the kind of punk stuff, and that's how "Going Through the Motions" and those songs came about. We were playing -- because we were labeled as punk we were playing on the bills with these really shit bands like Sham 69 and The Damned. So we started... we said, what we're going to do is play slow, really long numbers. And we went on a kind of antagonistic tip.

Splendid: You know, that song reminds me of The Stooges' "We Will Fall".

Robert Lloyd: That's a good song.

Splendid: You've said that you started doing longer songs like "Going through the Motions" because you couldn't fill up your set time.

Robert Lloyd: Yeah, it started as an improvisation. It always an improvisation until we recorded it for John Peel. Once you've recorded it, it's a song, isn't it?

Splendid: Had you had any contact with The Velvet Underground?

Robert Lloyd: Yeah, I loved The Velvet Underground.

Splendid: In the Prefects album, you can hear The Buzzcocks in some of the songs, but also this droney kind of stuff that sounds kind of like The Velvet Underground.

Robert Lloyd: But it wasn't a conscious effort.

Splendid: Oh yeah, it never is.

Robert Lloyd: I loved them... though I always preferred Nico.

Splendid: Did you ever meet her?

Robert Lloyd: Yeah, we played with them. As The Nightingales, we've had some fun things like that. We've supported Nico. We've supported Bo Diddley. The most amazing thing about Bo... because he turned up in England and just kind of picked up an English band, and so he turns up. And we've already been asked, so can Bo use one of your amplifiers? He doesn't use his own gear. So he takes his guitar out of the case, plugs it into the amplifier and strums it. And he sounds just like Bo Diddley. You know what I mean? It didn't matter that it was our amplifier.

I've seen him with his trousers down, Bo Diddley.

Splendid: Is that a good thing?

Robert Lloyd: Well, I don't know. It's a wild thing. He was on stage, so I decided, well, I'll go steal some of his beer, so... (We are all laughing again.) I didn't realize he'd come off the stage to do a costume change that required him to strip down to his underwear. And I heard, "Is that you, Robert?"

Splendid: You guys toured with The Clash on the White Riot tour. Any good Clash stories? You guys weren't friends.

Robert Lloyd: No, we weren't friends. They considered us disrespectful.

Splendid: What does that mean? Were you stealing their beer, too?

Robert Lloyd: Sort of. It came about... we'd done the one gig with them at the Rainbow because The Slits wouldn't play. The Slits did the rest of the tour. So we were just doing the one gig. And we were playing a town close to the one where we lived, and we went to see them. Obviously, we knew the promoters from the Rainbow show so they let us in for free. And we went along to see it. We always liked The Slits and the Subway Sect. They were our... I wouldn't say buddies, but we got on okay with them. So we went to that, and that particular night, The Buzzcocks' bass player, a guy called Garth whom we used to get on real well with, but he just went mental that night and he quit the band. So The Buzzcocks said, we can't do the last four shows, whatever. So the promoter said, the good news is that The Prefects are already here. They can take over.

Splendid: You had your instruments with you?

Robert Lloyd: Well, the story actually was that three of us were there, and the one that wasn't, we asked to carry the guitars down to the show and we used The Subways' back line. So that night, we got put up in a hotel, probably for the first time in our lives. And there was a mini-bar and there was room service. And I didn't realize that even the Clash... it was like no room service, no mini-bars, you have to pay your own way. We kind of raped the mini-bar, and you know, it was like, hey, look at us, we're in the group. So the next morning, The Clash's manager kind of went ape-shit at us. He said, from here on in, you're going to have to sleep on the bus. We were whinging, you know, that we'd started at the last minute and we hadn't got a change of clothes. So they gave us a bunch of Clash tee-shirts, and we all turned them inside-out. We wouldn't... and they just took this as a real insult. And we went to the next town, and the mayor of this town came to meet The Clash. They were shaking his hand and that sort of stuff. Their photo got taken and they were in those kind of special uniforms, and leaping up and all this stuff. And we started singing "We're a garage band." And no one told us the band wore suits. I think we were expected to be grateful and kind of in awe of them.

Splendid: It's ironic because The Clash was selling rebellion.

Robert Lloyd: It was a fantastic thing for us, though, Jennifer, because before the Rainbow gig, we'd done two shows and one of them was at someone's private house. Then we got offered the Rainbow gig with The Clash. Thankfully, The Buzzcocks were kind enough to offer us two supporting gigs before then, so we could try and be good. But when we got to the Rainbow, we were getting paid 50 quid or whatever it was. When we got to the Rainbow, we got charged by Bernie Rhodes, The Clash's manager, he charged us 25 pounds of our fee to use the Subway Sect's drums. Because he was also their manager. We got put in a dressing room, and they gave us four small cans of beer. And backstage, there was a full-on bar, a star's bar where people like Siouxsie and Billy Idol were swanning in, but we weren't allowed in. It was just all that kind of thing. And The Jam, this was the tour when they had the big Union Jack behind them. We thought that was stupid and we were dropping matches, trying to set it on fire.

Splendid: It sounds like you were nothing but trouble.

Robert Lloyd: Well, the best thing about it was, we were a punk band, a straight punk band, and we thought The Clash were great, and we just thought this was a kind of a movement that we want to be part of. But then when we looked -- our fifth gig was in London -- and you just saw what assholes they all were. And they were just rock and roll bands that just wanted to be as famous and as starry-eyed as anyone else. So we were instantly disillusioned. Whereas I could have wasted years of my career before I got that disillusioned, you know? So it was good to get a wake up call before you waste any time. I could have wasted years thinking that it meant something.

Splendid: You were disillusioned with the punk ideal. Were you also disillusioned with the punk music? Did you eventually learn how to play well enough that you didn't want to be associated with this idea that anyone can play?

Robert Lloyd: Yeah, I never got that.

Splendid: I remember talking to Richard Lloyd about that, and he was like, we were not a punk band.

Robert Lloyd: We couldn't play very well, but that idea that anyone could pick up a guitar and learn some chords and form a band, it was never... If you've been going to shows for the last few days, you understand why that's simply not true. So much of it is just useless crap. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. You know, it's ... musically, I still love The Ramones. I still love the Pistols.

Splendid: What about The Fall?

Robert Lloyd: I like The Fall. The Fall are good. You know, Yvonne Paulette was my girlfriend for quite a long time.

Splendid: Have you heard the new one, Country on the Click?

Robert Lloyd: No, I've heard some John Peel stuff that they did. A few sessions and that sounded great. But otherwise, no, because they release so many records. It's been a decade or two since I sat down and listened to a record of theirs. But I get along with Mark. I always liked the band, when I heard them, but I'm not like a devotee. It doesn't upset me if I go a decade without hearing them. And then when I hear them, I think, yeah, they're good.

Splendid: Were you playing music the whole time, or did you go out for a while and come back?

Robert Lloyd: Erm, I don't know...there have been periods when I didn't write music. I was a mailman for a few years. I used to be a horse racing journalist. But I've always made music on and off. When The Prefects became The Nightingales and made some records... we were making them for labels like Rough Trade, Cherry Red -- Independent labels that were not really doing anything for us. So I went to Rough Trade and said I wanted to start my own label. If I paid for the recordings, would they manufacture them, and then we'd split the money 50/50. (He cracks up laughing.) We'd split the profit... okay now. And they said, yeah. So I started this label, and it was to put out Nightingales records, but then I started to put out records for other people.

Splendid: Who else did you do?

Robert Lloyd: I had this jazz punk feminist vegan lesbian Jew called Toxic Shock. I had this experimental avant garde band called The Bonbites (?). A comedian called Ted Shippington. A skiffle group called Terry and Jerry. And then I actually cracked it smart, because I did this band called We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It. Do you know them at all?

Splendid: No, I don't, but it's a great name.

Robert Lloyd: They were a bunch of teen-aged girls. And made a record with them. They'd only done two gigs. I just happened to see their second gig, and asked them if they'd like to make a record. And they thought I was taking the piss. They were so young at the time that we recorded the record by like... Vicky would say to her parents, I'm staying at Tina's tonight, and all this. So they'd come straight from school and do the record and then sleep under the mixing desk and then go to school the next day. We pressed up a 1000 singles. And it just flew out.

Splendid: When was this?

Robert Lloyd: 1985, I guess. But anyway, to cut the story short, we said it was a limited edition, but we didn't say how many there were in the limited edition. So we just kept on pressing them, and we made the same cover, but a different color every time and a different colored vinyl. And they were really bright haired and bright clothes. In England, people just went mad for them. They were on the cover of every magazine. Everything from the teenaged girl magazines and on kids' shows ...

Splendid: Sort of like the Spice Girls.

Robert Lloyd: A punky Spice Girls. But they were on the NME. They were on John Peel. But also on Saturday morning kids' shows with cartoons and all that. They had a goofy thing. We ended up selling truckloads of records, and every record company in England wanted to sign them on. One thing, I regret not doing. Because this label was run out of my own home, my answering machine was full of messages, but people obviously didn't realize it was my own home and they thought they were getting in touch with .. I'd got my girlfriend at the time to be their manager. Because I wanted... it sounds manufactured, but, I thought it should be an all-female thing. So they didn't realize when they were calling Fuzzbox's manager, it went to my home. It was like, oh, this is Rob Dickens from Warner Brothers Records, and we want to sign Fuzzbox, and what are they doing with that loser Lloyd. I was going to make a record out of all this. And I intended to. I thought at the time, it's inevitable they're going to sign a record deal, but what I want to do is to compile all these messages and release it on a flexi-disc. But I didn't do it in the end. What happened is -- I'm sorry, I said I'd cut a long story short. I'm terrible about this. You have to cut me off.

Splendid: No, this is great. I'm enjoying it.

Robert Lloyd: Eventually, it was obvious that for the girls to fulfill their potential, shall we say, it was obvious that they would have to go with a bigger company than me. I didn't have any money. What money I did have we just spent on stupid things, you know. So eventually, they did decide to go to Warners. I did manage to persuade Warners that if they signed Fuzzbox, they had to put out a compilation with The Nightingales on it, with everybody on it. And also, this was at such a time, in the mid-1980s, where Warners themselves were worried whether the band's credibility would be blown out the window if they signed directly to Warners. So what we worked out for their first few records was that Warner would pay for their records and all the promotion, but they would still be on my label. So we actually had some hit records with this band. I've produced Top 40 records. And Warner said, we want you to produce them. I said great, because they were fun to work with, just mad as fish. I went away for four weeks that it took to make this record. The Nightingales at the time, they were just fed up that I was on call all the time. I was spending more time working with Fuzzbox than with my own band. I just thought I'd carry on writing and see what happens. What did happen was that I wrote some new songs and ended up doing a solo session for John Peel. So there was a stage... I've been overtaken now, by a long way, by The Fall, but there was a time when myself and a guy called Kevin Coyne had done more sessions with John Peel than anyone else. It was more or less on a basis of, as and when you have four songs you want to record, come in and record them.

Splendid: That's a good deal. I think a lot of the bands here would sell their souls for that kind of arrangement... if they haven't already.

Robert Lloyd: Absolutely. So I went in and recorded these albums, and there was Mark Riley who used to be in The Fall, who is now quite a successful DJ. A radio DJ.

Splendid: There are a lot of people who used to be in The Fall.

Robert Lloyd: Yeah. But he'd got a little label, and he'd heard this Peel session and said, do you want to make a single for my label? And I said, I don't really want to do it, because I'm just fed up with releasing records that no one's interested in. They seem like some kind of vanity project now, you know? My wife's always impressed when I take a copy home, but... well, even that wasn't true. She never liked my music. But my friends were impressed. So I said, I don't really want to do it, and he said, like, oh, go on. So I said, okay, and I ended up doing two singles for his label, and the second one was quite a poppy song, quite catchy. And by this stage, it'd been 13 years since I'd formed a band, and this single came out, and I got three phone calls. Atlantic Records, London Records and Virgin Records, all rang up saying, we're interested in signing you up. And I thought, this can't be for real.

Splendid: Did you have any qualms about going with a big label?

Robert Lloyd: Noooo. I want to be popular. In an ideal world, it would be good to be liked, you know?

Splendid: People seem to really like the Prefects reissue.

Robert Lloyd: Yeah. It's very American... largely American people that like it.

Splendid: Is that because the British people already knew about you?

Robert Lloyd: I don't know. It's got great reviews in England and it's been played on the radio.

Splendid: You said you're writing new material.

Robert Lloyd: Always, always writing new material.

Splendid: How's that going? I know the Prefects stuff is all from 20 years ago or more. It must be pretty different from that.

Robert Lloyd: I think over the years, and this is not a brand new thing, but it's just sort of evolved. But it's gotten more individual with the way I write. Certainly when The Prefects started out, there's a few tracks even on that CD, and lyrically, it's pretty derivative. Like anyone could have written.

Splendid: The first song sounds very much like the Buzzcocks.

Robert Lloyd: (pause) I don't know what the first song is. I've got to be honest with you. I haven't listened to the album. I've listened to specific tracks, but I've never sat down and listened to the whole thing.

Splendid: But lyrically, you've gotten better.

Robert Lloyd: Yeah, lyrically, because that's what I do. You probably gathered that from the show last night. I mean, I like the music. Don't get me wrong. But it's very verbose...

Splendid: Who writes the music part?

Robert Lloyd: It can be any of us. Sometimes I write the whole thing, la, la, into a cassette machine and people kind of learn it. Sometimes I write a lyric and give it to one of the band members. Sometimes someone will come along and say, I like this tune, and I'll put some words to it. Sometimes you're in a rehearsal room and you jam away and I'll start ranting over the top. It can be any of those things.

Splendid: The band is really good. They seem to be very in tune with each other.

Robert Lloyd: Well, it's quite remarkable that that's the case. I've been very lucky because a few months ago, October -- in fact, December; no, October -- we did a tour in the UK. I'd got a five-piece band that recorded the seven-inch singles. And it was me and Alan who was in The Prefects. And it was Eamonn who was on bass and had been in The Prefects and The Nightingales. The guitar player was a longstanding Nightingale. It was only the drummer who was new.

Splendid: The drummer's not an original member?

Robert Lloyd: He's new since the drummer that I'm talking about. So I'd got a band that was basically Prefects and Nightingales people. And we did our first gig in the UK, the very first gig, and the next day I got a message from the drummer saying, I don't want to do the rest of the gigs.

Splendid: It was that good, huh?

Robert Lloyd: Yeah, he said, I don't want to play with you any more. And the weird thing was we played in this town Leicester, and Aaron, who played with us, he'd come to the gig. And I got talking to him and I'd given him a CD, and he was a drummer. So when this drummer said he was not playing with us anymore, I rang up Aaron and said, will you do the rest of these dates? And it was like, well, when do they start? It was like three days' time or something, the next one. He says, I'm a painter and decorator man, where am I going to learn an hour's worth of songs right away? But he came along and learned 13 songs. So he became our new drummer. That was how it was. We played our last UK date in December. And this year, we started organizing this thing. The one guitar player plays with a guy called John Robb who was in The Membranes. You know them?

Splendid: I know the name.

Robert Lloyd: And now he's got a band called Gold Blade. He got in touch with me, and said, basically, I want to concentrate on Gold Blade, so I can't fit The Nightingales in anymore. So I was like, great, we'll have to do it as a four-piece, which is not ideal for The Nightingales because a lot of it is two guitars working against each other.

Splendid: So if you could find another guitarist...

Robert Lloyd: Oh, no, I'm sick to death of musicians. They're too difficult. They'll just piss you off. So he tucked it in. So I said, okay, there's the four of us. I got married a month ago, and I went to India on honeymoon. So I'm on honeymoon and I got a message from Alan's wife, whom I'd left in charge of things. So she says, you know Eamonn, the bass player. He said he's not going to America. He doesn't want to go. And I said, what do you mean he doesn't want to go? We bought him a ticket, 600 quid? She said, oh, no he won't go. Because we hadn't got Visas or anything. He says he doesn't want to get arrested, and he doesn't want spicy food in Texas, or he thinks it's going to be too cold in Chicago. Everything's going to be too much of a problem. I said, great, this is a kid who joined the band when he was a teenager...

Splendid: You know, my husband plays the bass if you're ever really stuck.

Robert Lloyd: So basically, we were fucked. And I'm in India, so I can't do anything about it, and not only can't I do anything, I don't want to. I want to read a book and lie on the beach with my wife, you know? So it was a nightmare. We had two weeks before our first gig in Chicago. And Aaron the drummer who had come in at the last minute said, I've got a mate who plays the bass and he said he'll come to America, but you know, you're going to have to cover his fare and stuff. Eamonn's ticket was nonrefundable, so we'd already spunked away 600 pounds, which is a lot of money for us. So when I'd got back, I got through to Alan, and he said, yeah, Stuart's up for it, Helen's booked his flight. Let's start rehearsing. And then Alan's like, I can't do it this week, blah, blah, blah. So we'd got a gig ...when did we play Chicago, Mark, what day of the week was it?

Mark: Wednesday.

Robert Lloyd: So we played the day before, which was the Tuesday. We recorded a radio program in Chicago on Tuesday. So Stuart, the first time I'd even met him was one week before we did that radio session. We just got together and had a few rehearsals.

Splendid: But he knew the drummer.

Robert Lloyd: Yeah, they'd played together before. But he'd never met me or Alan. He'd never even heard of The Nightingales or The Prefects. The point of that story being, anyway, I'm very pleased when you say that the band sounded really good, because it's literally less than a fortnight since they started playing together.

Splendid: What are you doing next? Are you going back to the UK now?

Robert Lloyd: No, we go to New York tomorrow. We play Rothko in Manhattan tomorrow night, and then we've got a couple of radio interviews the next day. Then we record for WFMU, which we were talking about. Then we play somewhere in Brooklyn on Thursday, but I don't know where it is. And then we go home. And then probably that's when Stuart and Alan will say, I don't want to play with you anymore. So it's a real slim chance... if we do get to come back to the States or play in the UK, you can bet your mortgage, really, that the next time you see The Nightingales it will be a different band than you saw last night.

Splendid: I'm glad I caught you when I did, then.

Robert Lloyd: I hope I'm wrong, because I'd like to keep them. The nicest thing is that I've actually been getting on with them, you know? They're not whingers. Actually, Aaron's a bit of a whinger. You've got that on film, all right?

Splendid: I could take it out of the tape.

Robert Lloyd: No, because he is.

Splendid: It must be kind of a tough lifestyle.

Robert Lloyd: What, being in this band?

Splendid: Being in any band and travelling all the time.

Robert Lloyd: No, it's brilliant. You know, okay, I kind of miss my wife and stuff, but I mean, I'm 45 years old and I never thought The Nightingales or anything I had anything to do with would be playing in Texas. I can't stand these bands... I remember once being in a hotel in London somewhere. I don't know why I was in a hotel. Obviously I'd played there. And the Inspiral Carpets were in the bar. They were talking to me and it was like, oh, we're flying out to do some TV show in Germany today. And he was just like, we've got to fly over to Germany and wah wah wah. And you know, don't be in a group. Be a bloody bricklayer if you want to stay at home. Why on earth does anyone get in a group and then whinge about having to travel? Oh, I've got to do this for the radio...

Splendid: I was talking to Mike Watt a couple of months ago and he still sleeps in the van sometimes.

Robert Lloyd: I was actually clever this time. I did something good. I went to see the UK Trades and Industry people and the Birmingham Cultural Development people. I managed to get a lot of funding to bring The Nightingales over as an export in arts. So we're still going to be out of pocket at the end of it, but we actually... I thought, right, we're all old men.

Splendid: You're 45. I'm 43. I don't want to hear any of this old stuff.

Robert Lloyd: Well you look good on it. But we're past this. We're quite excited about it. I know it's kind of de rigeur with bands. It's uncool to be excited. Everything's got to be, you know, it's just a thing we do kind of thing. But I was excited. It was like, hey, we were going to get to go to America and all the rest of it. Let's have a good time. So once I managed to get this funding in place, we just booked hotels in every town. People who heard we were going away would say, have fun, and we're going to have fun. Whatever happens. The gigs might get canceled. Anything could happen. But we'll have fun. It's not a chore. It's a pleasure to be here. So it's good.