Confession Sessions: A Guy Called Gerald

DJ Magazine
5 September 2003
Page: ??

The Rev T. Irwin discovers the `Voodoo Ray' creator is quite a funny guy during his confession session. Lock up your pet cats!

On your new single you're going through the 'Strangest Changes'. What is the weirdest transformation you've gone through in real life

"Coming back from America to live in the UK. It's like you're seeing everything from a different angle, all the little quirks and things you've never seen before. You realise how English everyone is."

If you could change one event from your past what would it be?

"My education. I'd love to have a government standard education, a proper education, not the one that was handed to me."

If you could change one event in world history what would it be?

"The building of the Vatican, that would make a big difference. I see it as the root of a lot of bad things, it's a silent menace."

Your brother David Simpson is singing on the B-side to the single, 'Danger'. Did you fight when you were in the studio?

"I try and get him to do a song on every LP and I've never had a fight with him, never. I don't fight. We argue every now and then but not about what happens in the studio. It'll be something like politics or rap music, that's what we argue about.

"He likes rap and I think it's crap. It's not music. The stuff Public Enemy was releasing was proper but the stuff now is just a load of crap. All this Beemers, Rolexes, bitches and niggers, I'm not into that stuff, it's part of the problem. Living in Brooklyn for five years, I've seen that all that stuff is the root of the problem."

You were brought up with a gospel background but do you have a favourite church song?

"I was brought up very religious, my mum used to go to loads of different churches. Pentecostal, gospel, all of that. The first time I heard live music was in a church.

"My favourite church song is 'Bomb The Vatican', I made it myself. Someone actually tried to persuade me to join the satanic religion but I'm not religious in any way - I'm what they call preligious.

"Religion started as a family system, people would worship their ancestors, until someone in the village decided to make it into a company. Preligious people don't believe in any of that bullshit, we're more into nature."

Have you ever done anything truly wicked and did you get away with it?

"I have done something I consider wicked. When I was about seven or eight I killed a cat but I still think about it now so I didn't get away with it.

"I love animals but it was one of those things. I was growing some potatoes in my mum's back yard and it kept shitting on them, and being a kid I was convinced it was doing it on purpose.

"One day I snuck outside and I've seen it there but it didn't see me, so I've thrown this brush thing at it. Then I got him by the tail and threw him over the wail. I didn't realise but he was in shock, so that was it, he was a goner. I felt really bad about it afterwards. I'm sure those potatoes didn't taste very nice."

There's a story that the vocal sample on your classic 'Voodoo Ray' tune was meant to say "voodoo rage" but you ran out of sample time. Fact or fiction?

"It's fact. It was from an old school sound library record and I couldn't get the whole thing."

Is it true that a dodgy label boss stole your royalties from 'Voodoo Ray' and spent them on a sweetshop?

"Yeah, the early royalties from when it was first released. The first time he got paid by the distributor he got a brand new car and a sweetshop and then disappeared, it was like it was all he wanted out of life.

"He also spread a rumour that I'd sold the record to him for a drum machine. I thought it was funny for a while but then I thought, 'I can't have him saying that'.

"Even today people get confused about who that record belongs to. So please tell everyone I do actually own that track 100%! And if any-one's interested in licensing it, they can contact me at Gerald@guycalledgerald.com"

If you were to buy a shop, what sort would it be - and no record shops, please!

"It'd be a shop reselling Apple Macs, something to do with computers and software. It'd do really good business nowadays."

You lived in New York for a while. As an unbiased Mancunian, who is most rude, New Yorkers or Londoners?

"New Yorkers, definitely. They're rude, man! They've got something they call a New York minute, which is actually about 0.5 of a second. That's about as much time as they've got for anyone who hasn't got anything for them and as long as it takes them to work it out.

"It's just little things, like I couldn't go into a shop in Brooklyn and say, 'Please can I have one of them'. It'd have to be, 'Let me have that, gimmee one of these'. If you say please, they think you're trying to distract them while your friend's robbing the store round the back."

You are on the train and a very rude man with a can of beer starts cursing and abusing the other passengers. Do you tell him to shut up or ignite him?

"I'd sit there and enjoy the entertainment, but if he got really abusive I'd get a can of WD40 and a lighter and torch him."

Have you told the truth at all times during this interview?

"I have, apart from the bit about the WD40. I'd never torch a wino on a train."