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fredthe3rd


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Hello Mark! Seeing as we have a published author on the site I felt it was high time we gave him a grilling. So, Question 1: Have you got any plans to write any more books?

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Sturdy


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Hi Fred.

1. No.

Next!

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fredthe3rd


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Q2 what's your day job?

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Sturdy


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2. Variously, support assistant at the schools music service in Leeds; provider of techy gubbins for people who teach deaf children; and looker-afterer of an autistic child in a primary school.

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fredthe3rd


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I assumed you were a journo! Q3: How did you go about getting a book published?

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Sturdy


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3. I spent quite a few years messing about with it, sent a very early draft to Omnibus when I first started in '96 but they weren't interested - maybe cos I was only 17 and didn't really know what I was doing. Later on, when I was a bit more on top of it all, I sent 3 finished chapters to a few publishers and Omnibus decided they'd go for it. I was just very lucky I guess.

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fredthe3rd


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It doesn't sound like luck. You'll be delighted to know I've run out of questions already! My interviewing skills somewhat lacking. Has anyone else got any burning questions?

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Sturdy


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This is all a bit surreal!

Question for Fred: how did you guess my ego would be sufficiently large to want to do something like this?

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fredthe3rd


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How could you refuse? Plus it tickled me to picture you reading that title.

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Jazza


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If you were denied the deal first time round, did you consider just dropping the idea? And did the fact that you didn't have a publisher hinder your progress in getting to talk to past members at the beginning?

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Sturdy


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Hi Jazza. No, it never made much difference really. It was never a definite "no" from Omnibus, more a "hmm, maybe not quite now, keep in touch though" sort of thing. I was determined I'd get it published somehow, even if it meant putting it out myself. Also, I very quickly got in far too deep to consider turning back.

I don't think it made much difference to getting interviews either. My memory of this is a bit vague but I think only a couple of people asked me what the plans were for publication. In those cases I think I may have been guilty of slightly talking up the level of interest I'd had from publishers at that point!

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Sturdy


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On reflection, the one area where having a publisher earlier on might have made a difference is getting input from the band themselves. Jarvis himself was probably never going to go for it, but there might have been more of a chance of getting taken seriously by Rough Trade or the rest of the band if I'd been able to phone up in 1999 or whenever and say "hi, I'm going to write this book and Omnibus Press are putting it out next year, want to be involved?". As it was, there was something like a six-month turnaround between getting the contract and my final deadline, so I didn't have much chance to do that (although I did try).

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Eamonn


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Well yeah, and you got Nick in the end. Who strikes me as the most straightforward/chatty in the group so it was great to read his thoughts throughout the book.

You did seem to get the odd new quote from Russell, but considering you probably know him/have met him more than Nick or the rest of Pulp (I might be wrong, that's just the impression I've gotten), would you not have liked to spend more time hearing his views, or was it not until after the book that you felt you knew him enough to have felt comfortable pestering him a bit more?

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Jazza


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what initially gave you the idea to write the book -was it just a passion for pulp and writing, or was it triggered by something else? Do you think you will do a revised edition including the reunion? (I know that there is a thread for that but I'm just asking to see if the idea has got any further/ if the tour has gathered more enthusiasm from your publishers - hopefully!)

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Sturdy


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Eamonn wrote:

You did seem to get the odd new quote from Russell, but considering you probably know him/have met him more than Nick or the rest of Pulp (I might be wrong, that's just the impression I've gotten), would you not have liked to spend more time hearing his views, or was it not until after the book that you felt you knew him enough to have felt comfortable pestering him a bit more?

A lot of the Russ quotes came from conversations with him over the years, although towards the end he answered some questions via email (on the provisio that it was all factual stuff rather than anything too subjective). I would have loved to do a full interview with him, but his position was basically that as Jarvis wasn't going to be involved, it wouldn't be fair for Russ to give his side of things as it would all have been a bit one-sided.



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fredthe3rd


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Aw, everyones a better interviewer than me! Q: Did Jarvis not want to be involved because it would have turned into a bitch fest? Therefore now that they're fwends could you ask again?

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Stephen


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Q: What's Russell like via email? I can't imagine him having embraced technology too well. I also imagine him to give very curt answers. Or answer in an overly dry manner.

Q: I've always had an enjoyable image in my head of the teenage Sturdy, floppy of (blonde) fringe, gentle in manner and fanboy extraordinaire getting a little nervous and rather teased in his meetings with a dozen or so 30/40-something bluff Yorkshireman who hadn't, generally, been interviewed before. Was it a daunting experience meeting the various ex-members...?

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Sturdy


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Jazza wrote:
what initially gave you the idea to write the book -was it just a passion for pulp and writing, or was it triggered by something else? Do you think you will do a revised edition including the reunion? (I know that there is a thread for that but I'm just asking to see if the idea has got any further/ if the tour has gathered more enthusiasm from your publishers - hopefully!)

The idea just came from being a massive fan like you say, and quickly ending up with a head full of geeky facts much like everyone else round here. What gave me the confidence to do it, I guess, was when those various other biographies came out in 1996 that really weren't very good and read like they'd been knocked up in a weekend with a couple of NME interviews to hand. I knew that anything I did would be better than that, so just got stuck in.

I don't think the revised edition's going to happen now. I would have loved to do it, but there wasn't a lot of interest from the publishers. They weren't convinced there was a market, and I think they were further put off because it meant they'd have to do the index again (seriously). Therefore, it's out of print at a point when interest in Pulp is at the highest it's been since before the book came out. Go figure.

Obviously there are other options for doing a new version - possibly going to a different publisher or even the DIY route. I've just got other priorities now though, which means I'm only realistically going to do it if someone makes it very easy for me!



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Sturdy


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Stephen wrote:
Q: What's Russell like via email? I can't imagine him having embraced technology too well. I also imagine him to give very curt answers. Or answer in an overly dry manner.

Q: I've always had an enjoyable image in my head of the teenage Sturdy, floppy of (blonde) fringe, gentle in manner and fanboy extraordinaire getting a little nervous and rather teased in his meetings with a dozen or so 30/40-something bluff Yorkshireman who hadn't, generally, been interviewed before. Was it a daunting experience meeting the various ex-members...?

Russell was/is very courteous via emai. Curt and dry is probably right too though!

Looking back, I probably got off very lightly with my awkward teenage / early 20s interviewing skillz, probably helped by the fact that when they were my age the people I was talking to were doing Peel sessions and making albums and they seemed to get taken seriously! They were all very patient.



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Sturdy


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fredthe3rd wrote:

Q: Did Jarvis not want to be involved because it would have turned into a bitch fest? Therefore now that they're fwends could you ask again?

You'd have to ask him why he didn't want to be involved - I think there are several perfectly reasonable possible reasons. The 'bitch fest' option hadn't crossed my mind!

I'd ask him again if a new version of the book was seriously in the offing.



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fredthe3rd


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I hadn't considered that angle until you said " I would have loved to do a full interview with him, but his position was basically that as Jarvis wasn't going to be involved, it wouldn't be fair for Russ to give his side of things as it would all have been a bit one-sided." - it would only be one-sided if Russell was saying something negative about Jarvis?

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Sturdy


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Stephen wrote:

Q: I've always had an enjoyable image in my head of the teenage Sturdy, floppy of (blonde) fringe, gentle in manner and fanboy extraordinaire getting a little nervous and rather teased in his meetings with a dozen or so 30/40-something bluff Yorkshireman who hadn't, generally, been interviewed before. Was it a daunting experience meeting the various ex-members...?

I've just remembered, Wayne Furniss did call me a "bloody weirdo" when I asked him to sign my copy of Your Secret's Safe with Us. (I think he meant it in a nice way though.)



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alphi


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Hi !

I think I'll ask a few questions as well.

How did you managed to get in touch with all the people involved with Pulp's life (well, at least the one you interviewed) ? How were the convinced to give you some of their time? Did you manage to have some recommendation?

And what were the main points on which you focussed your interviews? I'd like to do something similar about The Divine Comedy, but the main points I'm interested in are factual information, which only people from records / tours companies may have and not the musicians. I recently found a way to contact a former French tour manager of TDC, but I did not get any response. Same thing happens when I try to contact some venues... And as for the record companies, as long as I'm not a kind of blogger who can promote things, they won't spend a second with me...

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Sturdy


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fredthe3rd wrote:

I hadn't considered that angle until you said " I would have loved to do a full interview with him, but his position was basically that as Jarvis wasn't going to be involved, it wouldn't be fair for Russ to give his side of things as it would all have been a bit one-sided." - it would only be one-sided if Russell was saying something negative about Jarvis?

Not necessarily. That might have been part of it, but I think more generally his concern was that the two of them would have had different persepctives on events that had happened 10 or 15 years beforehand. In other words, what was being presented as "the story of Pulp" might have ended up being more like "Russell's story of Pulp". Does that make sense?



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fredthe3rd


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Yes.

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