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Fresh Air
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Russell Brand: Standing Up To Addiction
TERRY GROSS, host:
This is FRESH AIR. Iâm Terry Gross.
When I tell you that my guest today is a very funny British actor and
comic who sometimes goes too far and can be very offensive, but is
mostly very funny, a lot of you will be thinking Russell Brand. On the
other hand, a lot of you probably never heard of him.
Russell Brand is quite famous in England and quite controversial. Heâs
been fired from MTV and resigned from the BBC last fall, over a huge
public outcry over a radio program he co-hosted.
Just last week, the BBC was fined 150,000 pounds over the incident. More
on that later.
Brand is starting to become known in the U.S. he played the self-
absorbed, over-sexed rock star in âForgetting Sarah Marshallâ and last
September hosted the â2008 MTV Video Music Awards,â during which he
acknowledged his relatively unknown status here.
(Soundbite of â2008 MTV Video Music Awardsâ)
Mr. RUSSELL BRAND (Author, âMy Booky Wook: A Memoir of Sex, Drugs, and
Stand-upâ): English people present will be able to testify that Iâm
famous in England.
(Soundbite of applause)
Mr. BRAND: Admittedly, fame does lose a little of its cache when you
have to tell people that you have it.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. BRAND: And English people always say to me, ah, I bet you love it in
America, not being famous. It must be a relief. Do you love it? I
(censored) hate it.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. BRAND: My personality doesnât work without fame. Without fame, this
haircut just looks like mental illness.
(Soundbite of laughter)
GROSS: That hairdo that Russell Brand described is long and ratted-up.
Weâll talk more about his look later, too. Brand has a memoir that was a
bestseller in England and is now a bestseller in the U.S. Itâs called
âMy Booky Wook,â and itâs about his difficult childhood, his sex and
drug addictions and his life in comedy.
Parents, youâve probably gotten the point by now, that parts of this
conversation arenât for young children.
Russell Brand, welcome to FRESH AIR. When youâre in the United States,
and youâre doing standup with a new audience, are you trying to take
advantage of that now and kind of in some ways trying to start from
scratch with people who donât much know who you are, like not totally
recreating yourself but asking yourself if I was starting over again,
what would I do, maybe differently?
Mr. BRAND: I think it is a new opportunity to uh - it gives you the
reptilian opportunity to shed parts of your skin that you donât like,
although a reptile would never do that. I think itâs a pretty wholesale
skin-shedding that they go in for, but it does allow me to be a bit
selective.
I do think yeah, I wonât highlight that aspect of my personality. What I
will highlight is, you know, this particularly quaint part of my English
eccentricity.
GROSS: Now in the clip we just heard, you referred to your hair as
something that would just be mentally ill if it wasnât for the fact that
you were famous. Letâs talk about your look.
Now, you often wear really tight, hip-hugging leather pants, a shirt
thatâs unbuttoned to your mid-chest, chains around your neck, mascara
under your eyes, and you have a moustache and beard and long, almost
like teased hair. And in some ways, you look like a pirate with a taste
for leather and chains and God knows what else. So how did this become
your look?
Mr. BRAND: The reason I feel that it is an ingenuous way for me to dress
is, it happened quite organically that â you know, like, that Smiths
lyric, I wear black on the outside because black is how I feel on the
inside â I dress sort of kinky because generally how I feel.
GROSS: So a lot of Americans know you for your role in âForgetting Sarah
Marshall,â a really funny comedy written by and starring Jason Segel, in
which you play this very self-absorbed, completely narcissistic rock
star whoâs very sex-obsessed and dresses kind of like exactly the way
you do.
And Iâd like to play a scene from the movie before we talk about it, and
in this scene, like youâve stolen away Jason Segelâs girlfriend, and so
you and that girlfriend have gone to a resort hotel in Hawaii on
vacation.
At the same time, heâs inadvertently gone to the same hotel to, like,
nurse his wounds, and he runs into you, and mayhem ensues, and itâs all
horrible, but then he finds another girlfriend.
So in this scene, youâre meeting in the lobby of the hotel. Heâs had a
very good night with his new girlfriend, and you are in the process of
going back without your new girlfriend, his ex, going back to London.
And so hereâs the scene.
(Soundbite of film, âForgetting Sarah Marshallâ)
(Soundbite of whistling)
Mr. BRAND: (As Aldous Snow) Hey, all right, mate.
Mr. JASON SEGEL (Actor): (As Peter Bretter) How are you today?
Mr. BRAND: (As Snow) Yeah, Iâm good, Iâm good. Are you okay?
Mr. SEGEL: (As Bretter) Am I okay? Iâm better than okay, my friend.
Mr. BRAND: (As Snow) You seem sprightly.
Mr. SEGEL: (As Bretter) I had a great time last night.
Mr. BRAND: (As Snow) Congratulations. Well done, well done.
Mr. SEGEL: (As Bretter) What about you? Whatâs with the bag?
Mr. BRAND: (As Snow) Oh right, yeah. Iâm off back to England, mate.
Mr. SEGEL: (As Bretter) Oh, you and Sarah are going to England?
Mr. BRAND: (As Snow) No, no, no, Iâm just going alone.
Mr. SEGEL: (As Bretter) Did you guys have a fight or something?
Mr. BRAND: (As Snow) Yeah, it was really â how you served five years
under her, I donât know. You deserve a medal or a holiday or at least a
cuddle from somebody.
Mr. SEGEL: (As Bretter) You were only here for a week.
Mr. BRAND: (As Snow) Well, I donât know. For me, that one week of it was
like â sort of like going on holiday with, I donât know, I wouldnât say
Hitler but certainly Goebbels. It was like a little holiday with Hitler.
Mr. SEGEL: (As Bretter) Jesus.
Mr. BRAND: (As Snow) Oh well you know, hey listen. At least itâs clear
now for you two to reconnect.
Mr. SEGEL: (As Bretter) Oh no, no. No, you know what? I have a good
thing going on with Rachel, and I want to see that through.
Mr. BRAND: (As Snow) Or maybe, you know, you could have both of them,
Rachel and Sarah. They got on all right, didnât they, at dinner? So
maybe.
Mr. SEGEL: (As Bretter) You know what? First of all, Iâm not that kind
of guy, and even if I was, I donât think that I have the sexual
competency to really pull that off.
Mr. BRAND: (As Snow) Yeah, this is a gift. Okay, well I think my rideâs
here. So Iâm going to skedaddle, then, before anything else happens to
me, before life gets any more daft. Is someone gonna take that? Listen,
donât let them grind you down. Take it easy, eh? Hey, look at my driver.
Iâm gonna have sex with her.
(Soundbite of laughter)
GROSS: Thatâs my guest, Russell Brand, with Jason Segel in a scene from
âForgetting Sarah Marshall,â which is now out on DVD. Did you feel like
you were playing a satirical version of yourself?
Mr. BRAND: Yes, I was because the process of me getting that part, it
came about thusly. I went for an audition to play the part of Aldous
Snow, if that was indeed the characterâs name at that time, who was
originally intended to be a nebbish, bookish, you know, Poindexter-type
individual, like an English Hugh Grant, bespectacled character.
I went in there, did the audition. Jason and Nick Stoller, the director,
and everyone, they really liked it, and said but this man is clearly not
a bookworm. Weâll just rewrite the part and make it exactly how he is.
And so in a way, itâs very flattering because it means they like me. In
another way, it means they think I canât act.
GROSS: Well, funny you should mention that. When Jason Segel was on the
show, he told his version of the story of how he ended up rewriting the
part for you. So letâs hear that clip, and then I want to ask you about
it. So listen to this.
You wrote a character thatâs played by Russell Brand in your film, whoâs
a pop star, whoâs deeply in love with himself and has also stolen your
girlfriend.
Mr. SEGEL: Yes. Do you want to hear an amazing story about casting
Russell Brand?
GROSS: Yes.
Mr. SEGEL: That part was originally written to be a young, British
author. Like, I picture like a Hugh Grant type. And so weâre holding the
auditions, and people are coming in and doing these terrible, fake
British accents and wearing suits, you know, three-piece tweed suits and
everything.
And so about halfway through the day, weâre just exhausted, and we feel
like weâre never going to find somebody, and then in walks Russell Brand
in his full regalia.
Heâs wearing leather pants. Heâs wearing a shirt unbuttoned to his navel
and just, like, it must have been three pounds of necklaces and his all
teased. Heâs wearing eyeliner, I mean just totally wrong for the part.
And he walks in, and he has the nerve to look at me, the writer, and he
says you have to forgive me, mate. Iâve only had a chance to take a
cursory glance of your little script. Perhaps you should tell me what it
is you require.
And I literally went home that night and rewrote the movie for Russell
Brand to be a British rock star. I couldnât imagine anyone to be more
jealous of or intimidated by if they were dating your new girlfriend
than Russell Brand.
GROSS: Thatâs Jason Segel, telling the story of how he cast my guest,
Russell Brand, in the film âForgetting Sarah Marshall.â
So Russell Brand, had you really not read the script when you showed up
for the audition?
Mr. BRAND: Yeah, but theyâd only just given it to me. Itâs not like Iâd
had it ages. Iâd had it about â someone gave it to me about an hour
before, and so like I didnât have a proper chance to read it. I wasnât
trying to be deliberately truculent. It was just, like, that was the
truth of the situation.
And itâs lovely to hear someone talking about me in that fashion. Itâs
proper good for egotism, but like you know what, Terry? What happened
was that when Jason told me that story of like, Russell, when you came
in, you said Iâve only had a chance to have a cursory glance at your
script.
He told me that. I said I would not have said that. That is really,
really rude, and I would never say anything like that. Iâm an
Englishman. Iâm a gentlemen. Thatâs unforgivable. Iâd never say it.
And of course, itâs all been filmed because itâs an audition. They
showed me it, and I did say that. I canât believe it.
(Soundbite of laughter)
GROSS: Makes you wonder about the rest of your life, doesnât it, what
you think youâre doing, and what youâve really done?
Mr. BRAND: To tell you the truth, Iâm an unreliable witness of my own
existence. So perhaps my autobiography should be dramatically re-edited
by people who were actually there.
(Soundbite of laughter)
GROSS: So more on the subject of Jason Segel, thereâs another clip I
want to play for you from Jason Segel, and this is talking about his
current film, and thatâs the film, âI Love You, Man,â in which he plays
this kind of, you know, a bachelor who, like, doesnât want to get
married.
He wants a series of flings. He doesnât want a committed relationship,
and he lives in this apartment that he set up just with like videogames
and instruments and things just for guys, just for his, likeâ¦
Mr. BRAND: Committed man-child type character.
GROSS: Precisely, precisely. So hereâs Jason Segel, talking about how
you figured into his interpretation of that character.
Mr. SEGEL: Sydney was a late bloomer, and so heâs kind of terrified of
monogamy, and you know, heâs a bit of a womanizer and really values his
guy friends.
Heâs a little bit mysterious. I donât want to give too much away, but
he, you know, heâs got this attitude that I donât possess in life, which
is this is who I am, take it or leave it, which is what really drew me
to playing that part.
It sort of reminded me of my friend Russell Brand, who I did Sarah
Marshall with.
GROSS: Oh, heâs terrific in your film, yeah.
Mr. SEGEL: Oh thank you. Well, he has that quality in real life, as
well, of this is who I am, you know, accept it. And Iâve never had that.
Iâm the kind of guy who, like, stays up until midnight thinking I wish I
hadnât said that thing to that guy. I hope I didnât hurt his feelings.
And then Iâll call the next day and apologize, and theyâll have no idea
what Iâm talking about. Thatâs sort of how Iâm bent, and it was nice to
sort of play the opposite.
GROSS: So thatâs Jason Segel, talking about my guest, Russell Brand, and
by the way, Russell Brand has a new memoir, and itâs called âMy Booky
Wook.â
So Russell Brand, do you see yourself the way Jason Segel does, as
someone who really doesnât care what anyone thinks?
Mr. BRAND: No. I think of myself as being utterly tortured by
introspection and self-analysis, burning the midnight oil, reflecting
endlessly on traumas, what the French would call Lâesprit de lâescalier,
the thing you should have said but only remember on the stairs after
youâve left the room. Iâm forever thinking of things that were funny to
say just a little too late.
But you know what? Itâs so lovely to hear how Jason â this is a good
format for a radio show. I wish you would just interview everyone thatâs
ever met me and get them to say nice things about me, and Iâll just
sagely nod along, yes I am great.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. BRAND: Plus I heard you say something nice about me, that you think
Iâm fantastic in that film. That gave me a little twitch, if you donât
mind me saying so, Terry.
So in spite of being deeply flattered by the idea that I could be
perceived as a living-in-the-moment, hedonistic, bacchanalian warrior
for truth and beauty, Iâm as neurotic as the next man, and the next man
in this case is Jason Segel.
GROSS: But in some ways, comedically, it seems like you donât really
care what other people think, that you will do daring things without
worrying about the consequences, and thereâs been lots of consequences.
Youâve been fired from, like, so many broadcasting positions in England.
Mr. BRAND: Yeah, well thatâs true, Terry. I mean, as a performer, Iâm
very, very confident in what I do. As a person, that is, I suppose,
where Iâm a little more doubtful, introspective and analytical.
But as a performer, Iâm very confident in my work because I feel like
Iâm in alignment with something. Thatâs what I feel. I feel that when
weâre doing something well - whether it be cooking, making love or
performing - I feel that when itâs done well, you get out of the way of
nature. You allow natureâs rhythms and frequencies to move you.
What I feel is that the stuff about me that works is not really me at
all. Itâs just getting out of the way of a kind of frequency thatâs
everywhere.
GROSS: My guest is Russell Brand. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
(Soundbite of music)
GROSS: My guest is Russell Brand, and he has a new memoir called âMy
Booky Wook,â and he is a British comic and actor whoâs recently started
to really make his mark in America through movies like âForgetting Sarah
Marshallâ and through hosting the âMTV Video Music Awardsâ ceremony.
Letâs take â letâs talk about one or two of the really like risky things
that youâve done that have been really controversial and that ended up
getting you fired, because Iâm interested in what you were thinking
comedically when you did it. Letâs start with dressing as Osama bin
Laden on your TV show the day after September 11th. This was September
12th, 2001. Tell us what you said on your broadcast in this bin Laden
costume.
Mr. BRAND: What happened, Terry, that one recalls the horror of that
time and how obviously deeply moved the whole world was by that dramatic
trauma of, you know, the most horrifying act of terrorism in history.
And what was so â like me, at that time, I was a crack addict. It was on
heroin. I was out of my mind. So to see something so genuinely dramatic
and awful happening in the world, it kind of, it really, really moved
me, and I didnât really know how to deal with it.
I didnât have the facility to write a poem or to, you know, think about
the real effects of an event like that on the victims. All I thought was
my God, what is happening in the world?
And I remember I was hanging out with my drug dealer that day,
Gritty(ph), and we were smoking a lot of crack and heroin. Iâd been
aware of al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden for a while. So I felt, you know,
and this is what was really crazy of me.
I felt a little bit â you know, like, if you really like a band or a
writer, and then that band becomes the biggest band in the world. I kind
of wanted to go hey, I knew about this for ages, you know. Iâve known
about this for a long time.
So I had to almost re-pledge my commitment in a ridiculous, drug-
induced, you know, tribute by dressing up that day. Thatâs all â you
know, it was an insane thing to do and not something I would ever try to
justify and never would repeat without, you know, drug and alcohol.
But I donât know if youâve ever taken crack, Terry. It makes you do some
very, very eccentric things, you know. So my point was really, I
suppose, just trying to align myself somehow with all of that chaos, but
you know, in retrospect, it was a very disrespectful and foolish thing
to have done.
GROSS: Now you quote in your book something that you actually said that
day, dressed as bin Laden. Do you want me to quote it, or do you want to
say it?
Mr. BRAND: Yes, please do. Yeah, please tell me.
GROSS: I hate it when I do other peopleâs routines. This is always so
awful.
Mr. BRAND: Come on, Terry. You canât do any worse that I did.
(Soundbite of laughter)
GROSS: So what you said was come on, guys. Get over it. It was
yesterday. Weâve got to move on now. We canât grieve forever. And in a
way, like years later, you can look back at that and say thatâs really
kind of funny because itâs taking that kind of advice of, like, you
know, you must get over it, you must move on, and using it in such an
incredibly inappropriate way.
Mr. BRAND: Precisely, yes.
GROSS: When no one could possibly have gotten over it yet. So youâre
taking this kind of self-help bromide and really making it seem just
absolutely ludicrous, but it could also be very offensive to people
because everything was â the wound was justâ¦
Mr. BRAND: Absolutely, of course. And I was always â like, I was sort of
obsessed with being original at that time and not a lot else, and I
think one has the privilege of that perspective when youâve not been
personally affected by an incident.
Obviously, had I not been on drugs and had stopped to think about the
reality of that situation, and you know, the people that died that day
and the effects it has had and continues to have on people that lost
loved ones because of that terrible event, then that â you know, I would
have had a very, very different perspective.
But through the haze and crack and heroin, all I saw was an incredible
new spectacle, and look at the way it was presented to us, the
iconography of it and difficult to say sensationalized when it is
clearly such a sensational event.
But subsequent events proved that it kind of, you know, sort of was used
as a mandate for some, you know, terribly destructive foreign policy,
and I suppose that kind of hysteria is what I tuned into.
GROSS: You know, you make it really clear in your memoir, where your
fans and the people who donât like your work already know, which is
that, you know, you â as you said, youâve been a heroin addict, a crack
addict. You appear to have a very addictive personality. But Iâm
wondering, like as a comic, as somebody whose world is centered around
being funny, how is that affected by heroin and crack? I mean, does
being funny matter on a heroin high?
Mr. BRAND: It doesnât seem as important because nothing seems as
important when youâve got heroin. One of the key components of opiates
is that it diminishes the significance of all else.
You know, if youâve got heroin, nothing else really matters. Everything
comes in second. In fact, Iâve often thought that opiate addiction,
opium addiction particularly, is like the materialization of the
abstract idea of need.
Most of us have an idea that weâre missing something from our lives.
Some of us think of it as God. Some of us think of it as a new pair of
shoes or the success of a football team that we follow or the craving of
the embrace of an absent lover.
But with heroin, once youâre addicted to it, those needs, those abstract
needs, that hole that I feel is within all of us, doesnât seem to be
nameless, some unknowable entity, but the clearly, material, definable,
accessible drug of heroin.
You donât think oh God, what is it, I wish I had a new girlfriend or a
new car. You think Iâve got to get heroin. Once you align that physical
addiction with that kind of psychological need, your life just has a
very clear linearity. I want heroin. I want heroin. I want heroin. Itâs
just a tiny, cyclical loop of futile desires.
You know, and in a way, in the rest of my life and in other peopleâs
lives, it seems we pursue similarly futile endeavors, but just you know,
there is just a bigger carousel. You donât notice it as much. You know,
the futility of consumerism is less obvious than the futility of heroin
addiction but still the same paradigm.
GROSS: So writing comedy when youâre doing heroin, is that hard to do? I
mean, do jokes come to you? Does humor matter? Do you care? Are you any
more or less funny?
Mr. BRAND: Terry, at the time, when I was on crack and heroin, I was a
lot, lot less funny, you know, because I was a self-indulgent maniac up
on the stage.
You know, Iâd be up using heroin on the stage in front of an audience. I
used to go into butcher shops and buy loads of animal entrails and
skulls and offal and smash up skulls and batter them all up with a
hammer and kick them into the audience.
I was much like â you know like GG Allinâ¦
GROSS: May I just interrupt you and say ick?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. BRAND: Yeah, no, it was crazy days, Terry.
GROSS: That sounds horrible.
Mr. BRAND: It was pretty awful. But I was just interested in the
spectacle of self-destruction. You know, it was so â heroin addiction
was so centrifugal to my life as it with all drug addicts that it
overwhelms all of your being, really.
So to answer your question about humor, I mean, I was occasionally funny
by accident when I was a heroin addict, never knowingly. You know, I
mean, it was â it consumes you to such a degree, itâs difficult really
to write a well-constructed joke or to let the part of you thatâs
beautiful and amusing flourish because, really, you just become a vessel
for that addiction.
GROSS: Russell Brand will be back in the second half of the show. His
memoir is called âMy Booky Wook.â I am Terry Gross, and this is FRESH
AIR.
(Soundbite of music)
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Iâm Terry Gross, back with British comic and
actor Russell Brand. Heâs best known in the U.S. for his role in last
yearâs film comedy, âForgetting Sarah Marshallâ as the self-absorbed,
sex-obsessed rock star. And heâs known for hosting the MTV Video Music
Awards last September. His memoir, âMy Booky Wookâ is now an American
bestseller. Heâs more famous in England than here, and his broadcasting
controversies have added to the fame.
I want to get to, like, something else you did that was really
controversial that you resigned over.
And the person who is in this bit with you ended up being suspended for
several months, and itâs a prank that was very famous in England, semi-
famous in the United States. And this is when you called Andrew Sachs,
who is an actor now in his 70s, who is best known in America as one of
the co-stars of âFawlty Towersââ¦
Mr. BRAND: Yeah.
GROSS: â¦the British comedy series. And so he didnât show up for an
appearance on your radio show.
Mr. BRAND: It was actually a phone interview, but he didnât answer the
phone andâ¦
GROSS: Okay.
Mr. BRAND: â¦just to give the situation a little more contextâ¦
GROSS: Thank you.
Mr. BRAND: Yeah. I loved âFawlty Towersâ growing up, thought it was like
the best comedy. I loved Monty Python. I loved John Cleese. I loved
âFawlty Towersâ so much. I grew up listening to the audio cassettes of
that show. Now Andrew Sachs was due to come on our show as a phone-in
guest, booked by our producers because the previous week, an anecdote,
during which it was revealed Iâd had relations with one of his
granddaughters who was a member of the Satanic Sluts burlesque dance
group had come out on my show.
It had been mentioned, oh, yeah, didnât it - like, you know, another
guest on the show said, Russell, did you have sex with that â Andrew
Sachsâ granddaughter who happens to be in the burlesque dance group, the
Satanic Sluts? I said, yes. As a matter of fact, I did. Now one of the
producers subsequently booked Andrew Sachs to come on and guest the next
week. So there would be a kind of elephant-in-the-room interview in
which we would subtly allude, perhaps, to these ideas - not mention them
at all, but the listeners would know, thus providing a kind of a bit of
cheeky, naughty comedy.
But what actually happened is we, Jonathan Ross - whoâs the best
broadcaster in our country - and I ended up leaving accidentally a kind
of ridiculous answer phone message, very much â and then very much in
the vain of the film âSwingers,â left subsequent answer phone messages
trying to retract to the original one, but actually hugely exacerbating
the situation.
GROSS: And in those messages, there were references to this relationship
that you had with his granddaughter, whose stage name, by the way, is
Voluptua.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. BRAND: Voluptua, no less. Yes.
GROSS: So, anyways, he was very offended. She was offended. Go ahead,
yeah.
Mr. BRAND: He was. Yes. It was accidental. You see the thing was that â
the distinction I always feel compelled to make is between a deliberate
prank with intention and sort of mad, giddy accident. It wasnât like,
okay, letâs call up Andrew Sachs when and then â and only then - we
shall announce that I had sex with his granddaughter. The intention was
not to mention that at all. And then in a crazy moment - actually not
even myself, Jonathan, as I say, the best broadcaster in our country,
blurting out â he - I was on the phone leaving the message. Oh, hello,
Andrew Sachs. I respect you. I respect your lineage. Youâre great actor
- all things I truly believe. Then in the background, Jonathan blurted
out: He f-ed your granddaughter, like, you know, in a sort of giddy
adolescent whirling moment of irresponsibility. And then we â oh, no.
Hang up. Hang up. Oh, no. What have we done? What have we done?
So it was already on the answer phone and everything. And I said, right,
okay. The only way we can make the situation better is by leaving
another answer phone message. And in the subsequent ones, all we did
with apologize, but, you know, in a kind of, I guess, frivolous way. And
thus â I suppose what happened is because, like, you know, if any - the
people that are aware of Andrew Sachs in your country will know him as
Manuel, the waiter from âFawlty Towers.â
I loved that show so much. I only thought of it - I also thought, thatâs
Manuel from âFawlty Towersâ Iâm leaving a message for. And that in the
end, listening to that answer phone would just be Manuel from âFawlty
Towers.â I didnât think, oh yeah, that was 30 years ago. This is his
granddaughter. I just went, oh, itâs Manuel from âFawlty Towersâ and
just thought of the whole thing as kind of a frivolous jape, you know,
and - but really, it would have been upsetting for Andrew Sachs, which I
obviously apologized for. But what then ensued was media hysteria with a
privately-owned English media, used it as an opportunity to destroy the
publicly funded BBC, an ongoing campaign that continues to this day and
will continue until the BBC is destroyed. So I got caught up in a
massive storm.
GROSS: Well, let me say, according to what I read in The New York Times,
after the show â after your radio broadcast happened, there were two
complaints to the BBC. But then one of the tabloids wrote an article
about it, and as a result of that article, there were tens of thousands
of complaints.
Mr. BRAND: Yes. Because theyâ¦
GROSS: And thatâs what youâre referring to.
Mr. BRAND: Precisely, The Daily Mail, the newspaper in question, this is
â this newspaper has a huge agenda to undermine the BBC and, in fact,
undermine any organization that it sees as liberal. Now Iâm not
suggesting that the case of me and Jonathan Ross leaving that silly,
silly answer phone message is any great liberal cause. But what I am
saying is that The Daily Mail took that opportunity to attack a very
beautiful and brilliant institution, the BBC, and that they wonât â they
donât care â The Daily Mail donât care about morality. All they care
about is conformity, you know.
And Iâve got a career thatâs somehow representative of kind libertine
values of sex. But the radio show that, you know, that I used to make
here at the BBC was always kind of anarchic and a little bit crazy. Now
we crossed the line in that particular incident, but the ensuing
publicity and furor was never about the incident itself. Itâs more about
conformity and making sure people donât have the kind of liberty to
express themselves, and that the BBC and publicly funded media and the
ethics implied within the nationalism are destroyed.
GROSS: Now, I want to talk to you a little bit about what itâs like to
get that level of anger directed at you, as well as the BBC. Now you
said after hosting the video music awards in the U.S. that you got death
threats because you said some things about the - you said that you made
fun of the Jonas Brothers with purity rings, and you called â Iâm trying
to remember what you called President Bush.
Mr. BRAND: George W. Bush. I said - well, the joke was right, because
hereâs how this it makes sense. I said, you know, Iâd like to â hello,
on behalf of the rest of the world, Iâd like to urge the people of
America to vote for Barack Obama. Now, I know a lot of people â racists,
I think theyâre called - say America is not ready for a black president.
But I know America to be a free-thinking, forward-thinking, liberal
country. After all, youâve had that retarded cowboy fellow in the White
House for eight years.
We all think thatâs very liberal over in Europe, because in my country,
he wouldnât be trusted with a pair of scissors. Right? So a frivolous,
daft little joke about it. But, you know, some people â supporters of
George Bush and people of that political persuasion, did send death
threats. But for me, you know, a death threat, you know, Iâm aware that
Iâm not immortal. Death is going to come regardless of the death
threats.
GROSS: So whatâs the difference between the American way of expressing
anger at you and the British way of expressing anger? Like, did you
death threats in England? You know, like, when you become a public
target like what - would you make a comparison for us?
Mr. BRAND: Yes, I would. I mean, in England I think any actual death
threats â I think because of our English system of politeness, I think a
death threat would be considered rude. But some people did roll their
eyes.
(Soundbite of laughter)
GROSS: A death threat would be considered rude, I like that.
(Soundbite of laughter)
GROSS: Thatâs my guest Russell Brand and his new memoir is called âMy
Booky Wook: A Memoir of Sex, Drugs, and Stand-up.â You write in your
book that your father use to listen to self help tapes in the car, and
the message you took away⦠TEXT: Mr. BRAND: Yeah, Anthony Robbins and
all that.
GROSS: So, the message you took away from of all this was, you can do
anything you want. Can you talk a little bit more about the impact of
growing up with self help tapes?
Mr. BRAND: Well, yeah, (unintelligible)â¦
GROSS: This is a very self help country. Yeah.
Mr. BRAND: (Unintelligible) is the Mecca, right, of self help. I mean
like, you know, so self help as in Scott M. Peck and Anthony Robbins and
those kinds of guys. Yeah, he was always â my dad was involved in
(unintelligible) weekends and stuff, and from time to time he was very
much into success and self improvement, like an entrepreneurial child of
Thatcherâs Britain. And he would listen to these tapes â they were all
about yeah, you can do it. You want â you can achieve what you want,
donât take no for an answer type stuff, you know. And I was used to
always hearing that from probably when I was five years old - that in
âFawlty Towersâ cassettes ironically. So like, it made me sort of feel
like, you know⦠My dad also had this belief, which is a curious way to
view the world - he said it in this way, not so articulately, perhaps,
as this, not so unnecessarily loquacious and verbose, but the message
was the same. This is what my dad believed.
The world and existence itself is a malevolent force that wants to
destroy you. Everyday, youâre gonna be attacked undermined and antipathy
will shroud you and the worldâs going to bring you down and destroy you.
Only if you fight from your core, with every ounce of your being, to
succeed, would life stand back and go, right, well this oneâs serious,
let him through. The only way you can be successful is by waging war
against being. And thatâs kind of the opposite of Buddhism, but in a
way, it does show you that you can, you know, you can achieve stuff with
fervor.
GROSS: Boy, are you fighting that influence now, to see the world as
this antagonistic thing that youâre in constant opposition to?
Mr. BRAND: I do try to, I mean, because sometimes there seems evidence
that the world is, you know, oppositional and antagonistic. But yeah, I
donât want to see the world like that. I want to see the world as
beautiful.
GROSS: My guest is Russell Brand. His autobiography is called âMy Booky
Wook.â More after a break, this is FRESH AIR.
(Soundbite of music)
GROSS: My guest is Russell Brand and he has a new memoir called âMy
Booky Wook.â As we record this, the G-20 is still meeting in London. You
participated in the G-20 protests. You werenât there like, breaking
windows of banks or anything, but you were out there protesting what?
Mr. BRAND: The protest was aimed towards change in ecological and
economic policy. I donât think thereâs a strong contra-argument for
whatâs happening economically. There were not many people saying, well,
this was working well or the bankers are doing a fine job. So I was just
there, as Iâve often been, in public protests, because kind of - I enjoy
the energy and I like to believe in change and I believe in peopleâs
right to protest and voice their opinions. Itâs kind of different for me
now that Iâm, you know, famous in this country, itâs difficult to become
part of a crowd so effortlessly.
GROSS: At an earlier protest, in 1997, you got arrested for pulling down
your pants in public. What was the point?
Mr. BRAND: Oh, showing off really. I mean, I was just a proper little
show off when I was growing up and I was on drugs, so those two things
together - I just meant like, you know. I - again it was a documented
protest. It was anti-capitalistic, people smashing stuff up, there was
loads of craziness, if you will - which I always found kind of exciting.
And I would just like to get involved with them, be a part of it. And I
think the stripping was â I just didnât have any better ideas. So, it
was really quite a unimaginative way to show off and, you know, some
awful photographers that recorded that incident.
It was around the Statue of Eros in the middle of Piccadilly Circus, one
of the busiest part of London and a focal point for the protest for that
day. I was surrounded by members of the metropolitan police force. I
stripped myself naked, and as I took off my final layer of clothing,
they folded in around me like (unintelligible), dragged me off. I
pretended to have an epileptic fit because, you know, I was told to do
that â itâs a good way, if youâre ever being harangued by the police,
and getting them to release you, is to say youâre epileptic, that youâve
lost your bracelet, pretend to have a fit and, you know. As I did that
they released me. I sprung once more to my feet, only in time to be
cuffed and arrested.
GROSS: Do you think it was result as an exhibitionist?
Mr. BRAND: Yes, I do. I suppose, but at least now Iâve got some art(ph).
GROSS: Right, right. So is that a kind of thing youâd ever do again?
Like strip in public, I mean likeâ¦
Mr. BRAND: Never.
GROSS: â¦never becauseâ¦
Mr. BRAND: No way, thereâs no need for it. Itâs ridiculous. Iâm just,
you know, making another film with Judd Apatow at the moment, and the
director of that movie, Nick Stoller, who directed âSarah Marshallâ
called me the other day and asked if I would mind showing my bottom. And
I have to think twice about it. I mean, I think Iâm going to asked to do
it. I think itâs necessary for the story, and also itâll give people a
laugh. But itâs not, you know, stripping off naked (unintelligible)
makes me feel embarrassed.
GROSS: Embarrassed. Now thereâs something that I wasnât sure youâd feel.
Givenâ¦
(Soundbite of laughter)
GROSS: â¦given all the things youâve done in your life and career, I
wasnât sure embarrassment was necessarily part of the repertoire.
Mr. BRAND: I think you have to feel embarrassment to vanquish it, you
know. I mean like, often my material is written by virtue of this
process. (Unintelligible). Like something embarrassing will happen to
me. Like Iâll, for example, give Dame Helen Mirren a pair of dirty
underpants. And then as I walk away from there, I think, Oh my god, what
youâve just done? Youâve just given Dame Helen Mirren, your dirty
underpants as a finish - a wrap gift on âThe Tempest,â that youâve just
been making with Julie Tamor. Then only as I walk away, do I realize
thatâs a really inappropriate and stupid present and I think right,
never tell anyone about that. Youâve done a very stupid thing, the less
people know about it, the better. If you can inhabit the number of folk
that know, the less people know how daft you truly are. And then the
next impulse is that means itâs funny, tell everyone.
(Soundbite of laughter)
GROSS: Right, like you just said why in the world did you give her a
pair, a gift-wrapped pair of your dirty underwear? Like what, what is
like remotelyâ¦
Mr. BRAND: They werenât even wrapped.
GROSS: â¦funny about that, was it?
Mr. BRAND: I tell you, it wasnât meant to be funny and they werenât gift
wrapped. I was holding them in my hand as I was leaving the set, I was
rushing to get a plane. Iâd been wearing these underpants all day long.
Thankfully as I left the set there was a clean pair of underpants in my
dressing room. I had to rush, rush, rush the get this plane. I took off
the dirty underpants I was wearing and I put in the clean, spic and span
ones, rushed out my dressing room, didnât even have time to pack the
dirty underpants Iâd been wearing, rushed in the corridor.
There was Dame Helen Mirren in all her substantial glory. Hello Russell,
youâre leaving us, she said, kissed me full on the lips as she always
does. Well, I shall miss you, youâll wonderful to work with not as bad
as everyone said, ha, ha, ha. Itâs been lovely working with you Dame
Helen Mirren. In your eyes I silently reflect, does the Oedipus Complex
seem bizarrely logicalâ¦
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. BRAND: â¦this powerful matriarch, this goddess, this reason to align
maternity with sexuality. And as I noticed I was holding the dirty
underpants at head height for some, you know⦠I had my hand like a close
line - where I was nervous. I was sort of â I guess, trying to hold them
far away from the conversation so that they didnât intrude upon us. But,
you know, it made them more obvious. I saw, just as I was departing,
just as Iâd got out of that situation without embarrassing myself, I
noticed, for a moment, her eyes flick towards the underpants. Then a
voice said - and I recognized that voice, for it was my own - oh, Dame
Helen would you like these underpants? And she looked terrified, but
then said oh, thank you, because sheâs polite, because she is a dame â¦
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. BRAND: â¦because a dame has an obligation to be polite. You cannot
play the queen of England if you donât have impeccable manners. She did
not have the option of throwing these underpants in my face. So she took
them and as far as I know, Terry, she has them to this day.
GROSS: I will ask you again, why in the world did you think she would
want them?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. BRAND: I didnât think, I panicked, I panicked. I the look on her and
I couldnât think of anything to say. Itâs not like I thought, oh, this
is a good idea. Itâs like some other part of me took over. I saw her
look at the underpants, you know, there was like a voice of madness. You
know, someone you think is a little bit mad like, you know, wedding
ceremony you can always at the point that goes, do you think this two
people should get married, if not speak now or forever hold your peace.
Every person in the world always think that you should shout something
at that moment, you know, and sometimes I do.
GROSS: So did you talk to her about this after the fact?
Mr. BRAND: No, she gave me a copy of her book though. She sent a copy of
her book to my house and it said, to a genius, love from mere mortal -
signed Helen. But then I checked and she has meant to send it to Sacha
Baron Cohen.
(Soundbite of laughter)
GROSS: I want to ask you about the title of your book âMy Booky Wook.â
Mr. BRAND: Yes.
GROSS: Donât take this is the wrong way, thereâs something so cutesy
pooh about the title, and itâs so, itâs so - like youâre not at all a
cutesy pooh person. So I keep trying to figure out why is it called âMy
Booky Wook.â
Mr. BRAND: Itâs paradoxical, right, because it is so much harrowing
material and darkly humorous material in the book, I thought if I call
it âMy Booky Wookâ somehow castrates the potency of some of the darkness
and why not do that. Also itâs a tribute to the brilliant writing of
Anthony Burgess specifically in âClockwork Orange.â Alex is always
saying oh my gotty(ph) woks(ph) using made up words and mangled grammar.
And I think through this dissonance it makes you acknowledge that you
take on board a lot of information without questioning it. So a daft
word like âMy Booky Wookâ is a kind of registers in a way that my
struggle, or my life till now, doesnât, you know? âMy Booky Wook,â it
sounds funny to me.
And I like the capacity of language to interrupt the way we think, to
make us address, through poetry, how beautiful the mundane can be, and
how mundane that which seems slick and appealing actually is. So there
is a hugely intelligent argument for calling a book âMy Booky Wookâ that
is somehow menacing and dark, but also I just thought it was, to use
your phrase cutesy pooh.
GROSS: Well, Russell Brand, itâs been great to talk with you. Thank you
very much.
Mr. BRAND: Thank you very much Terry. Itâs been a joy to be on this
show. I would appreciate it. Particularly like it when you play
complements that has been paid to me by colleagues.
GROSS: Weâll collect some more and have you back.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. BRAND: Thank you, thank you very much. Itâs been lovely.
(Soundbite of laughter)
GROSS: Russell Brandâs auto biography âMy Booky Wookâ is now on American
bestseller lists. This is FRESH AIR.
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Princeâs New Triple-Play
TERRY GROSS, host:
Prince has always been a pop star who prides himself on doing the
unexpected. And his latest unexpected move is to release a triple-album
set called âLotusflow3râ with little advance notice. It consists of two
albums of Prince Music, plus another disc of Prince Songs sung by a
protege - singer Bria Valente. Rock critic Ken Tucker has a review of
this sudden avalanche of Prince.
(Soundbite of song, âFeel Good, Feel Betterâ)
PRINCE (Singer, Musician): (Singing) Feel better, Feel good, Feel
Wonderful, Feel better, Feel good, Feel Wonderful, Hey I could tell by
the color of your energy field, You thought this game was over chemical
peel, You try to do me like my good brother Steve, But I got another
funky trick up my sleeve, Expecting me to freak on you a little bit
more, But you get nothing but well-wishers and flowers galore, I mean no
harm, I still got your back, You can come and drink my wine, as a matter
of fact. Feel better, Feel good, Feel wonderful.
KEN TUCKER: I have got another funky trick up my sleeve Prince sings on
last songs, one of 21 new tunes plus another 10 created for the singer
Bria Valente. All of them are gathered together in an abruptly generous
three disc set. Thatâs almost three hours of new music with songs that
range from a raucous full band jams, to precise pop songs such as this
one called âForever.â
(Soundbite of song, âForeverâ)
PRINCE: (Singing) If I never get to hold your hand, If I never get to be
your man, Thatâs ok, cause Iâve got other plans, Right now, right now,.
If I never get to kiss your lips, If I never get to feel your hips,
Close to me, Thatâs ok, I ainât gonna trip, Not now, no how, Cause Iâve
got 4ever (forever), 4ever (forever), Eternity is just one kiss away, So
they sayâ¦
TUCKER: The third disc in this collection, singer Bria Valenteâs album
called âElixir,â is a collection of smooth jams that will sound familiar
to anyone who likes the easy listening radio format. As Prince told the
Los Angeles Times â I got sick of waiting for Sade to make a new album.
And so, using the thin voice of Valente, he made a slick album that
doesnât leave much of a residue.
(Soundbite of song, â2Niteâ)
Ms. BRIA VALENTE (singer): (Singing) 2Nite in the shadow of darken room,
and faith(ph) lit under the glow of the moon. Fingers winding circles in
my hair. Hold me in penetrating stares, I ainât going nowhereâ¦
TUCKER: The business aspect of this release is a contrast of Princeâs
portrayal of himself here as a trippy party loving guy. Heâs selling
âLotusflow3râ at only one retail outlet, target stores, and on his Web
site. Prince is still ambivalent about record companies, trying whenever
possible to operate as an independent agent, making his money largely
from concerts and Web site music sales.
(Soundbite of song)
PRINCE: (Singing) Still I come to believe that life imitates music,
(unintelligible) turning for you, he canât hang with you.
(Unintelligible) want to be rock stars, you do what they do. Thereâs no
future for you. Thatâs the live of a fool. No more candy, no more candy
for you. Itâs too funky, you canât handle the groove.
TUCKER: For this triple album, Prince wasnât taking any chances. He
chose to showcase his new material by doing a three night stint on one
of TV most mass audience middle American outletâs âThe Tonight Showâ
with Jay Leno. This is the family friendly Prince who also opted to keep
his profile high in 2007 by playing the Super bowl halftime concert with
no resulting scandal. He is even into covering oldies for the nostalgia
crowd as with this fine cover of Tommy James and the Shonedells old hit
âCrimson and Clover.â
(Soundbite of song âCrimson and Cloverâ)
Mr. PRINCE (Singer): (Singing) I donât hardly know her, but I think I
could love her, I hope she walks over, Iâve been waiting to show her.
Crimson and Clover, over and over.
TUCKER: Through out this collection, the author offers some his usual
vaguely hippyish, easily ignored peace and love philosophy on tracks
such as âColonized Mindâ and âDreamerâ. Since becoming a Jehovah âs
Witness in 2001, heâs dialed back the vulgar language and sexual
imagery. Heâs still mixing James Brown, Jimi Hendrix and George
Clintonâs P-funk with smooth falsetto ballads. The result is Prince
Music that will either leave you feeling heâs still hitting high points,
or that youâd rather dust off your copies of âDirty Mindâ and âPurple
Rain.â You can certainly debate his ambition at this point. Me, I like
the old but Iâm also really glad Iâd bought the new stuff.
GROSS: Ken Tucker is editor at large for Entertainment Weekly. He
reviewed âLotusflow3râ the new triple album set by Prince. You can
download Podcasts of our show on our Web site freshair.npr.org.
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Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.