Since first appearing on the British scene in the mid-’70s as a founding member of new-wave act XTC, Andy Partridge set about failing his way to the top of the pop charts. While XTC did experience modest success—a U.K. top-10 single (1982’s “Senses Working Overtime”) and a U.S. modern-rock number one (1989’s “The Mayor Of Simpleton”)— Partridge has emerged as an influential figure who has somehow eluded the fame and fortune accorded to lesser peers.

Partridge nevertheless has assembled an enviable body of work beloved by a small-yet-devoted fanbase that worships him because of, not in spite of, his particularly English brand of eccentricity. He ceased touring altogether after suffering a breakdown onstage at a 1982 XTC concert in Paris; Partridge’s then-wife had thrown out his supply of Valium, resulting in a debilitating battle with stage fright that would haunt him throughout his career. While XTC has been largely dormant since 2000’s Wasp Star (Apple Venus Volume 2), Partridge remains as busy as ever. He recently released Fuzzy Warbles Collector’s Album (encompassing nine volumes of XTC-era outtakes, demos and radio rarities) and Monstrance (an experimental two-CD set with XTC/Shriekback keyboardist Barry Andrews and drummer Martyn Barker). Both releases appear on Partridge’s own Ape House label.

MAGNET caught up with the 53-year-old Partridge at his home in Swindon, a sleepy southwest suburb of London, finding him in a garrulous mood just prior to an evening’s carousing with former XTC guitarist Dave Gregory.

It’s cool that you and Barry Andrews are playing together again. How did that come about?
We didn’t discuss what we were gonna do; it was just the intention to do something. I bumped into him on the street about 10 years ago. Hadn’t seen him in years. He just happened to be in my town, walking down my street. He was visiting his parents or whatever, and I said, “I’d love to do some improvised music, and you’d be my keyboard player of choice.” I had this loose idea at that time: It was as if the Soviets had invented rock ’n’ roll and were beaming it down from some tinny sort of Sputnik. [Laughs] He said “fair enough,” we talked for another five minutes, he went his way and I went mine and I didn’t see him for another 10 years. And then I met him again, because he actually moved back to town because he was making metal furniture in London but had moved to Swindon for “affairs of the heart,” shall we say. There was no discussion whatsoever about keys, about anything really, other than, “Are they rolling in there? OK, then go!” We never sat down and said, “The next piece has got to be hypnotic, pulsing, a representation of man’s inhumanity to man” or any of that. I’ve no kind of concept of what kind of keys these pieces are in; we just played instinctively, Barry, Martyn Barker and me. The best actual pieces, I guess, the things we liked, we kept. In three days we did about eight hours and threw six and a half hours away, then kept the best hour and a half.

Maybe this is a logical segue to your Fuzzy Warbles work, because you’ve said in other interviews that songwriters really shouldn’t throw anything away. Songs, even failed ones, are like old clothes that should be kept around somewhere for the inevitable day they come back into style. Should I assume that there’s something worth using in that six hours of throwaway music?
There are things you could do with it; we talked about taking the unsuccessful pieces and hacking them up, getting the oxyacetylene cutter on them and laying piece over piece, the solo from one thing that wasn’t necessarily great, the keyboard or drum from something else, and smash together something that was far greater than the not-happening individual parts, if you see what I mean.

The Andy Partridge mash-up, if you will.
Right, the mash-up of the things we were going to throw away! We’re throwing away about six and a half hours of it, but of the hour and a half we kept, I think some of it is pretty damned good.

I found Fuzzy Warbles immensely entertaining to listen to, but not nearly as entertaining as going online to watch this huge community of Andy Partridge and XTC fans pick apart these scraps all the way down to the molecular level.
Yeah, the bitches, they can say some hurtful stuff! [Laughs] Some lovely stuff, too. I tell you, the Internet has created “the geek shall inherit the Earth.” There’s no way back now: You can take apart the atomic structure of something all the way down to the individual atoms, and they love doing that. You know what? If I was interested to that extent in a musician, artist or writer, I guess I’d want to pull apart the molecules to find out what made them tick, too. When I was younger, anyway; I don’t have any peers at this advanced age. [Laughs]

You wrote some liner notes to the Warbles series about the first time you watched porn.
God, it made me want to throw up for a month!

You compared it to the studio experience of how people really make music, like being amazed and simultaneously repulsed by it all. “This is how music is really made in studio?” The unknown, no matter how bad it is, remains enticing precisely because it’s unknown. Then once it’s not, the magic’s gone.
Oh, sure, then once you get over the sickness, you can’t get enough of it! Same with porn, same with studios.

The ironic part is that the Internet provides the perfect enabling medium to consume the output of both.
If you haven’t taken a virtual tour around [Prince’s] Paisley Park Web site, you should. I get the same feeling as if I were up on some “big melons” site or something. [Laughs] The same visceral thrill. I don’t see how Prince could have written “slave” on his cheek, though. Go tour that site and tell me that he shouldn’t have written “rich bastard” on his cheek instead. It’s so lush, it’s so massive.

Second Life before there was one—Planet Prince.
Is he a Mormon? Church of God the Plumber? What religion is he, anyway? What division?

He’s actually Jehovah’s Witness, and a fairly devout observer, at that, from what I read, anyway.
Jehovah’s Shitness, ah, yes. In that case, Paisley Park should have been built inside a mountain, where the receptionist has you married off and jamming with dead musicians or something, even before you’ve died. “You’re gonna be playing tambourine for Brian Jones.”

The Brian Jonestown Massacre guys would dearly dig the irony of this conversation right now.
You know, I was asked to produce them once. If I’d have looked into it I wouldn’t have touched them with a barge pole because of the problems, you know. The last thing you want is drug problems and stuff like that, but I like the idea of them more than I like what I’d heard, actually.

They seem to have gotten their act together recently. I saw them at a music festival this summer and I’ve never seen them (and Anton in particular) with their shit more together than on that night.
I thought I could have made them sound just like they wanted to sound. That whole Satanic Majesties vibe. That’s very disciplined stuff. I was talking with someone today—I’m not name dropping, but I’ve got to drop the name to tell you the story. (Noted producer) Hugh Padgham popped by today and we went out to lunch. We decided that after they could afford money for drugs, the Stones forgot how to write songs. Which is basically true. As soon as the heroin and coke and whatnot kicked in, the songs became shit. They were more interested in catching up with their dealer than they were writing tunes. We’re a bit off the Beatle track here, aren’t we?

There are plenty of bands out there today who are very influenced by your work. How often you get asked to produce bands?
I got asked regularly to produce people, but I said no to everybody, and after a while people just stopped asking. I got kind of sick of the social-worker aspect of it, you know? I found it had very little to do with music and more to do with being a nanny and making sure the alcoholic guitarist gets to the studio on time and doesn’t fight too much with the singer, who can’t stand the bass player. In the meantime, there’s no music being done here.

Do you ever hear bands on the radio who—
You mean bands that sound like we used to do? Sure, all the time. I think it’s kind of odd, actually, that everyone wants to sound like it’s 1979 again. I lived through it, and it just sounds like dress up: “Let’s play skinny ties, tight trousers, sharp angular guitars and hiccup vocals.” I’m not interested in that. I’ve been through that station on the trip already.

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