Louise Wener strides into the studio foyer wearing a handsome Blur T-Shirt and an expression of mild apprehension. She's here recording Sleeper's debut album. And she's resting from the fall-out created by her last spate of interviews. On the back of the lust-crazed three minutes that was 'Delicious'- she talked about how young people really ought to be fuelled by frantic hedonism, why the moral outlook advocated by lentil-chewing PC-ists was a tissue of fibs, and how it was time female sexuality discovered a new vernacular. The result, naturally, was minor controversy, and an enviably increased profile for her group. She admits to a measure of cynical contrivance in all this- and she's quielty happy about the results.
Louise was born at the start of the 1970s. She grew up in Liford, arrived at Manchester University at the tail-end of the '80s, and founded Sleeper 18 months ago. During her 24 years, she's been a Labour Party activist, a trainee feminist, a poverty-plagued no-hoper living in squalor... and an aspirant star who's come to the conclusion that ll people are basically selfish and you should ssqueeze as much pleasure from your short and brutish existence as in humanly possible. Hence the pland for the interview: a survey of the musical, cultural and polical tumult of the last thirty-odd years, seen through the eys of someone whose outlook on the world is coloured by influences from four different decades. We begin.
"I think of hippies and dope, I suppose. The '60s are always sold as being this really intellectual time, and yet the whole counter-culture thing always struck me as being really anti-intellectual: escapist, really. I don't think any of that was as radical as people like to think.
"People think it was this time of liberation: taking lots of drugs, thinking about things, rebelling, taking a stand. Maybe it was, but a lot of it strikes me as simple hedonism. I don't think all that much came out of that stuff.
"Sixties Music? I still listen to The Beatles and the Stones. Theres that whole thing about which you'd rather have been in- the Stones were on the side of hedonism, and The Beatles seemed in the more cerebral aspects: creativity, being artists. I'd rather have been a Stone. They were having a better time, weren't they?
"And Bob Dylan's a big influence. There's this view of him as the archetpal sad '60s hippie, singing 'Blowin' In The Wind' or whatever, being dippy- but he was incredibly vitriolic. His lyrics were brilliant. I don't think you can write lyrics and not be influenced by Bob Dylan. And imagine being the person who introduced the Beatles to smoking dope...
"Would I have been one of those people who was throwing rocks at policemen? I think I would. everyone feels like that when they're young. And I can understand the anger that people were feeling at that time. There was a lot of really disgusting stuff being done: what happened at Kent State when they shot the students, the Vietnam war... I don'tsee how you coudln't have got worked up about it.
"The thing is, there's this whole background of incredible tension to the '60s: the Cuban missle crisis, civil rights, people being assasinated. It seems quite exciting. That what people miss, the whole turn-on about Them-and-US situations. They don't really exist anymore.
"They were going through the Cold War: there was a real enemy, and it was in focus. I think people felt happy with it- like, Yes, there's something to hate! I think people are a bit lost at the moment. What you get now is paranoia about mugging or people getting scared of haiving their cars stolen. Nothing like a proper enemy.
"And then there was the generation gap. That was brilliant. That's what you want: you don't want to be asssociated with older people ; you don't want ot be like your parents..."
"My parents looked really strange in the '70s. I've got a really brillant photograph that must have been taken when i was about three. My dad's got incredible sideburns, my mum's got these Edna Everidge glasses on my sister's wearing big flares. They looked scary.
"The '70s was that whole Me generation thing, wasn't it? I think everybody got sice of being compassionate after a while. They turned in: it was just me me me me me me...
"What are my memories of it? Very hot summers, looking strange, The Bay City Rollers, power cuts, thethree-day week. And I remember having older friends who were into punk rock, seeing people going around dressed very weirdly...
"I do think the spirit of punk was quite impoortant. At the time, I think it was genuinely scary to a lot of people. People were thinking, God, what are they doing? What are they up to?
"Before punk, you had to be on a major lable, there were set pop stars, and you had to like one of them. But punk really invented music from the streets: anyone could make a record without it being contrived and over-produced. Anyting that makes music more pluralistic has to be a good thing.
"Do I remember Mrs Thatcher winning the election? Yes. And I remembered all the hysteria about her. I miss Mrs Thatcher quite a lot, actually. It's true! She was an utter bitch, but there's something attractive in a quite evil way about her. There's nothing to admire, but there's something fascianting about someone who can send shipfuls of young blokes to their deaths and get back into goverment as a result. I think she was an archetypal tyrant, and that's what polictics is essentially about..."
"Whenever I think about the '80s, I always think of something very bland. It's all a bit nothingy. There's no central feature to it. I suppose I end up thinking of really, really duff music. Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet... I listened to the charts like everyone else, but I was really into Bowie and the Stones then.
"Do you remember Live Aid? Yes. I was on a kibbutz in Israel when it happened, and it was on the only telly we had. I totally admired Bob Geldof; I remembered him sitting there saying, Right! Fucking send some money in...
"The think is, with politicians, it seems like they just sit around tables and nothing really gets done. And then you get someone who comis ina nd just cuts through the shit, and says, This is how it is.
"People are starving, and you must do something aobut it. People are going to die. I think what he did was really admirable, really brave...
"I know people think charity's really shit, because it should be up to governments to take care of things, but i don't think governments should take care of everything for you. You can't just sit back and say, Let the politicians sort it out. That's too easy. It's up to all of us.
"And no, that's not Thatcherite. It doesn't mean that governments should be operating the way they are- but it's really important to get involved personally, to touch things individually. It's too easy to not give a shit.
"And I think the AIDS outbreak in the '80s was really important. So many investigations have gone into AIDS,and nobody really knows the true story about it yet, so everyone's very insecure. If you look at the way it was presented then- those iceberg adverts, the whole attitude of, We're all going to die- it was absurd. I think you always get that when there's confusion. It's not the right response.
"You should question it. Like, people still don't know what causes AIDS- it's become accepted that HIV is the cause, and it may well not be. Peter Duesberg (Nobel-winning proponent of idea that HIV isn't the cause of AIDS- Science Ed) has become a real hero of mine: what he has to say is fascinating.
"You've got the Wellcome foundation bringing out AZT, because they believe that HIV is totally responsible for AIDS- and AZT may be killing people more than AIDS is.
"You know, people are getting cast out of their communities in Africa because they're HIV positive... and it may turn out that HIV isn't the cause.
"People are too accepting. I think we've got to calm down about it. Let's get to the truth of it: a lot of people are dying because of our lack of knowledge.
"Do I believe in The Caring '90s? Not really. I just think there's less money about- and as soon as there's a bit more money in circulation, people will get back to behaving like they did in the eighties.
"It feels like a time of panic. People are running around with all these moral problems, all these dilemmas. And you've got that Stoke Newington stereotype: they're PC, they eat lentils, they read the Guardian, they wear sandals... and they probably go home and fuck their wives up the arse! I really think those people are hypocrites.
"I was surrounded by people like that at college- and I was really into it at the beginning. I was into feminism, I'd read a bit of Andrea Dworkin (feminist icon who thinks all penetrative sex is a violation- PC Ed), and then I just thought, What am I doing? This is arse. A lot of the things they object really aren't that objectionable. And you can't put a hold on language; it prohibits self-expression. There's a really funny Alan Partidge sketch where he ends up saying 'Andrea Dworkin: shut up and shave!' We had that scratched into the run-out groove of one of our singles [Delicious- Vu].
"What do I think of John Major? He's uniquely boring, isn't he? He should still be living with his mum, with his ham sandwiches in a pastic bag. There was this superb picture of him I saw once, and you could see that he had his shirt tucked into his underpants. That summed him up totally.
"I do think that when the AIDS thing is sorted out, there'll be an incredible backlash, and there'll be a more liberated way of thinking. Everybody's been uplight for so long... we'll go out and shag ourselves stupid, and there'll be a resurgence of the whole idea of youth.
"And the whole female sexuality thing will take off a lot more. It started to, and then a downer was put on it. But I think women will eventually have as much right to self-expression as men."
"I have been surprised by a lot of the reactions to the things I've said- and the whole idea of this supposed sex fixation got a bit odd. You have two songs about sex, and suddenly it's the big thing, like that's all I'm about.
"The thing is, I think it's hard to put irony across to people. We are quite tongue-in-cheek. And someone said in The Sunday Times that my whole aim was to shock people. I don't think I've said anything shocking at all.
"It has made me wary. I think bits of it were patronising: people
saying, She's a bit naughty. And I did hear that someone said, it you're
going to interview Louise from Sleeper, ask her to give you a blow-job while
you're there. That was just incredible."
