Music Interview: Dr Robert/The Blow Monkeys

SH: The Blow Monkeys are on the road a hell of a lot – do you still enjoy touring?

DR: I still enjoy it – even the things that used to annoy me, like getting on the tour bus, and soundchecks and grotty hotels… They don’t annoy me anymore – it’s all part of the journey and it’s a buzz and a privilege to be able to do it, especially in this world right now, where there is so much stress, anxiety, and negativity. To be going round the world playing songs to people isn’t a bad thing to be doing.

It’s part of the job description. What else am I going to do? I’m not going to make a living out of streaming. 

When I moved to Spain, I had ideas that I was going to become an olive farmer, but they soon evaporated.

There are financial aspects if you want to keep a band together… When we play live, we share everything equally – we’ve been together a long time… It’s like a family thing…

The live thing is the core of being a musician. We get to try out new things, which, for a band of our age, can sometimes be a bit risky, but I much prefer that, which is why we make a lot of new albums.

When I’ve seen The Blow Monkeys play live, I’ve always been impressed by your guitar playing – do you think people see you more as a vocalist than a guitarist?

I think it hasn’t served me well down the years – on some of those older album sleeves, like Animal Magic, I look like the geezer from A-ha! They changed my cheekbones and gave me different coloured eyes. The teeny bopper girls would turn up at gigs, look at me, and go, ‘He’s not the same as the picture on the sleeve…’

We weren’t what they were expecting – there was a disconnect there, but I went along with it for a little while, because it was good fun.

I didn’t do myself any favours, posing about on Top of the Pops, without a guitar and with a feather boa, but I always thought that was what it was about – having a bit of fun.

When we broke up the first time, in 1990, after Springtime for the World, and I started doing gigs with just an acoustic guitar, people realised that I could actually play.

So, you’re self-taught?

Yes. I’ve been playing since I was 14, when I was busking. 

I’m not a great guitarist, but I’m better than people think, let’s put it that way.

I went to Australia when I was 14, and my elder sister was learning to play – when she went to work, she’d left a guitar around and a book called Eagles Made Easy.

By the time she’d got back, I’d learnt the whole book, and I took to it – even though I didn’t like The Eagles.

I was a big fan of early rock and roll, like Eddie Cochran and Buddy Holly, and then I got into Marc Bolan, who was a great and underrated guitarist – they’re easy songs to play when you’re a kid, things like ‘Get It On’ and ‘Hot Love.’ 

They’re fundamentally rock and roll tunes, and there was something in that DNA that entered me and became part of my feel and what I wanted to do. 

I still play every day – just for the fun of it, as it probably releases good chemicals. I’ve got a bad acoustic guitar out here that I deliberately chop away on.

Curtis Mayfield, who you played and recorded with, was a big influence on you as a songwriter and a guitarist, wasn’t he?

Oh, man, when we played with him, I tried to have a strum on his guitar, but I couldn’t make head or tail of it because he’d tuned it to open F sharp, which was all the black notes on a piano – it made it very tight, you couldn’t bend the strings and all the chord shapes were different. That’s what gave him his individual sound – he couldn’t play a normally-tuned guitar. 

I learned so much from him – he’d been through it all… He’d had records banned – the record that we did together, [‘Celebrate (The Day After You)’ – an anti-Margaret Thatcher song] was banned too. That was so ridiculous – it wasn’t exactly going to bring the government down.

He became a friend and a bit of a mentor to me – we’d speak on the phone quite often. It was a real life-changing moment for me.

Let’s talk about the new Blow Monkeys album, Birdsong, which is being released on the Creation Youth label…

It came about because where I live, the producer, Youth, has got a studio in the same village, and I often go there for a cup of tea.

I went round there about a year ago, and Alan McGee was there, sitting at the kitchen table. I’d met him before. I started strumming an acoustic and he said, ‘Robert – do you know this one, do you know that one?’ I used to busk, and I have a capacity for learning other people’s songs – Alan calls me ‘the human jukebox.’ 

So, he asked me if I knew ‘Buick Mackane’ by T.Rex, and I said, ‘Do I know it? C’mon…’ 

He then said, ‘I want to manage you, and I want you to make a classic Blow Monkeys record.’ 

So, I thought, ‘OK…’ I wrote all the songs within two weeks. I said to myself that I wasn’t going to think too much about it or censor myself, but I thought about what the essence is of what we do – there’s a kind of funkiness to it, especially now that Crispin from Galliano is in the band. 

So, I fired from the hip, and I think it really works – it’s a proper soul-funk thing with weird lyrics. (laughs). 

I’m excited about it – Alan is so great to work with. He’s still the kid in his bedroom, listening to music. He’s such a music fan. 

You recorded the album in the UK…

We did it at Paul Weller’s studio, he wasn’t there but he gave me a very good deal, and he has a great engineer called Charles [Rees]. I produced the album with him.

It was great – the album before was done remotely and I’d been working like that through COVID, so it was good to be together in the same room again. Paul has a lovely set-up there. He and I don’t see each other very often, but we work over WhatsApp – I co-wrote his single, ‘Rise Up Singing.’

That was on his last album, 66. That must’ve been great for you…

I had to pinch myself because it’s Paul. I love him and he did such a great job on it. There’s a proper humility to him, which makes him easy to work with.

You’ve been working on some other projects too – you produced an album for Peter Capaldi, called Sweet Illusions, which came out early in 2025…

Yes – where I live, in the valley, I go for breakfast in a café in another village. That’s kind of how the social scene works here.

One day, quite a long time ago, I said to my wife, ‘I think I just saw the guy from The Thick of It… I wonder why?’

A mutual friend said, ‘You did see him – he plays guitar, and you should get together…’ 

So, that’s what we did, and we just got on well, playing and jamming on songs. Peter is a musician at heart – that’s what he started out as. He loves the company of musicians, and he loves to play.

I said he should do something and that I would help him… I was half-joking, but I knew that he would love to do it.

We did an album a few years ago called St. Christopher and then I hooked him up with a label in Glasgow [for Sweet Illusions], which seemed like the perfect vehicle for him. He’s such a great writer – he’s got the ability to inhabit a song, and his lyrics are fantastic, as you’d expect, as is his delivery. His guitar playing is great too – there’s a lot more of it on the new album. I think it’s been well received – it’s a real buzz to be involved.

There are two doctors behind it – Dr Robert and Dr Who…

There is that, but neither of us are real, though…

We should also talk about the great new, stripped-down album you’ve made with singer-songwriter and guitarist, Matt Deighton – The Instant Garden, which came out in May this year. It was inspired by early Marc Bolan – Tyrannosaurus Rex – as well as folk artists like Fred Neil, Tim Hardin and Nick Drake… 

I suppose it has all those elements… it’s like magical realism… It just sprung out of nowhere.

Matt Deighton and I worked together on the Monks Road Social project, and we always said we should do something… 

I’ve got a friend called Laurie Gane, who has a studio in Anglesey, which was the perfect place to do it.

We recorded the whole thing in four days, and we just sat opposite each other…. I was still writing the songs in my head going up there. It was spontaneous, but there’s something about Matt… He’s a fantastic guitarist – he’s miles better than me. He has a fluidity that he puts over everything, 

I didn’t want the record to be a Tyrannosaurus Rex pastiche – you’ve got to be careful with that – but there are elements of that. Matt also has his English gothic folk thing going on. I think it’s unique.

Birdsong by The Blow Monkeys is out now on Creation Youth records.

The Instant Garden by Dr Robert & Matt Deighton is out now (Last Night In Glasgow).

theblowmonkeys.com

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