SWEEPING UP AND SAVING SOULS - A Conversation About Writing, Records And Coffee

Steven Storrie and Olivia Metcalfe

Songs played; Bright Eyes ‘We Are Nowhere and It’s Now, Tom Waits ‘Whistlin’ Past The Graveyard’, Simon and Garfunkel ‘Homeward Bound’

SS Well let’s see here. Did you know coffee was discovered by a farmer in 9th century Ethiopia when he realised all his goats were going crazy from eating the beans. Explains a lot, huh?

OM Definitely

And in India a woman can legally divorce her husband if he doesn’t bring her coffee every morning.

Now that’s a pretty good rule.

So how is your writing going?

Yeh, it’s alright. I’ve done a couple more poems. I’ve brought along some of my older stuff.

And the music?

Yeh I’ve written a few. I need to get it sorted when my throat gets a bit better.

Now’s the time; you’ve got that bluesy rasp to it!

Haha yeah I was singing in the car and it was, like, S Club 7 or something and…

Haha bluesifyin’ S Club 7!

OM SS (together in husky voices) Reach… for the stars!

SS Haha works for me! I’ve basically quit everything to focus on writing. This time next year I’ll know if it was the smart move. If I’m sitting out there with a cap and beat up guitar singing for change, I’ll know it was the wrong decision.

OM I’ll probably be out there with you!

I’d rather beg in California, somewhere warm. I don’t want to beg anywhere cold. How were your holidays?

Ah it was good, ended up doing drunk karaoke.

Did you have that voice?

Haha no but it was three treble vodkas and they chose the song.

They chose the song?

Yeh, 'Barbie Girl'!

Really? Brave to put yourself in someone else’s hands…

Went down a storm.

That’s two songs you’ve got for your terrifying blues covers album of pop songs

From the year 2000 or so…

Any casualties?

No not this year. Last year Shannon hit Amber in the face. Smacked her right in the face. Gave her a black eye

Nice!

Same again next summer for a joint birthday. How was yours?

Well I had a touch of Ebola, nothing to worry about. Over it now. Spent my summer volunteering in a church, doing menial duties, sweeping up, saving souls. Ended when the priest got arrested for drunk and disorderly. Terrible scenes. Still hard to believe, really. Let’s not talk about that. Tell me about how you got into writing.

I’ve always liked it. I’ve always been a proper bookworm.

Same. I used to sit and read the local paper to my Grandmother when I was 4. Probably says more about the quality of the local paper than my precocious reading talents…

I used to hang out at the local library when I was a kid. I didn’t have that many friends hahahaha

Yeah

Read all the horror section…

Point Horror! The Babysitter, The Lifeguard, loved all of those…

I’d just sit and read all day

Me too. I used to sit and watch the old guys with their hats and beards and think ‘wow I can’t wait to be like that. I can’t wait to sit around reading all day’! Of course, they were probably lonely, or dying, or both. Some were really cool though.

I did my work experience in a library. Just sitting around reading and eating cakes all day

The dream…

Pretty cool

You should be a librarian! I used to go all the time. I don’t think kids have that now do they?

Well my sister is 15 and she never goes. Just sits on her IPad…

Ooohh…

But my parents used to read to us as kids…

Yeah that’s important. So how old were you when you started writing?

Well, it was when I had my own computer. I used to sit all summer writing stories. Must have been 12, 13…

Have you still got them?

Yeah I might have them somewhere.

Be fun to read them back. You wanna read something now?

Yeah ok. ‘Still Wine and Paper Cuts’.

Still wine and paper cuts

Downing spirits to release my mind

Seems the only way

Way of release, way to rewind.

New methods of destruction

Different tools of war

Killing me slowly

Unstoppable, I’m above the law.

Il start a commotion

Make sure I’m alive

Cause this sure as hell

Is no way to thrive

Promised you’d be there

Can’t speak anymore, who am I?

Seems the only way now

Is to paint a mask and lie.

Always making comparisons

Maybe happiness isn’t impossible

The nightmares will stop

But I doubt this is probable

So we keep trying

Batting our boats against the shore

Nearly but never arriving

Never really flying

That’s cool. So where did that come from?

Well, still wine, used to drink that quite a bit…

Write about what you know…

And the boats against the shore is…

Gatsby!

That’s one of my favourite books of all time.

Mine too. He never really got close to that again. Winter Dreams is ok. There’s a great piece he did about the 20’s and The Jazz Age called ‘Echoes of The Jazz Age’ which is really sharp. You can see where Hunter Thompson was born in that. What else do you like?

Catcher in the Rye, The Bell Jar.

Catcher in the Rye is perfect isn’t it? The dialogue is so naturalistic. Seems easy to do but it never is. Plath is good. Emily Dickinson, too. Hemingway. The short stories are so impactful. I got some Dorothy Parker the other day. “If you want to know what God thinks of money, look at the people he gave it to.” Amazing. True. What about your record collection? You’ve got some cool stuff lately haven’t you?

I picked up some Beatles, some Johnny Cash…

I love Johnny Cash…

Got a lot of Fleetwood Mac…

Go Your Own Way!

Rhiannon!

I’ve got a lot of Springsteen, Neil Young.

I got Hatful of Hollow.

Yeah I saw that. My Dad used to have loads. The Beach Boys, The Beatles, Elvis. But we went to watch football one day and when we came back I went to play some Beach Boys. It was that amazing greatest hits collection from the 80’s, had the pink bikini on Volume 1 and the white bikini on Volume 2. Anyway, they were all gone. My Mam had thrown them all out. ‘You never use them’ she said. I was devastated. There goes my inheritance, ya know?!

Ohhhh

That Johnny Cash one, though. Did you hear that ‘lost’ album they’ve just done? I know you heard She Used To Love Me A Lot.

I loved that.

Me too, great song. They did a great job with the video, too. Black and white. In a diner. Loads of symbolism. They say the 80’s was his worst period. If that’s what he was doing in his worst period then he was still better than everybody else.

Totally

Very visual, great writing. Tried to see if there was something to steal from it haha. I only seem to have to leave the house these days and something happens. Yesterday I tried going for a run. Got bit by a dog. That ended that…

I’m going through a bit of a blank spot at the minute. Nothing’s happened.

Come jogging with me…

Well Sunday, I think, at the end of the night, I was sat with Amber, collapsed, having a smoke. This guy comes up, he’s from Sri Lanka, got frizzy hair. Starts praying in front of us, preaching about God. Then he says because we’re ladies we’re probably looking forward to having babies and settling down!

Was that an offer?!

Hahaha

Sounded like an offer…

We were going ‘Keep away’…

Only here would you get a Sri Lankan priest with frizzy hair praying at your feet. Worshipping at your feet.

Then this angry gay guy, really camp, came and sat next to us and was, like ‘I’ll knock him out for you if you want?’

Ha!

We were going ‘no, thanks. No violence is needed…

But other than that nothing has happened!

Haha yeh.

You wanna read us some more?

Yeah, ’Fading Light’.

A wandering ghost

Seeing things that others don’t see.

Feeling things others fear,

trying to be alive.

There’s a fading light

A dismantled heart,

Falling in the night

In welcome unknown arms.

Smoke rings

And white jagged lines.

Carry me away on manicured wings,

Away from the pain.

Guess you’re always there

Shadow from my childhood.

There’s an amount of care,

but you never understood

You and I are similar

Something I can’t escape.

Hair and heart black as tar,

But you never understood.

Only thing they all couldn’t fix

Is the bitter emptiness inside.

Stones and sticks

Words mean nothing

Cool. Were they written about the same sort of time then?

Yeah. There’s a bit about my Dad in there. We get on but we don’t get on. Hair and heart black as tar. I look like him, I’ve got black hair…

I love that line…

There’s a fading light, that’s The Smiths ‘There is A Light That Never Goes Out’…

Is that your favourite song by them?

I think I’d go with Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now.

It’d be Panic, for me. I like that you write personal stuff. Raw.

Yeah all my stuff is quite personal. That ‘take me away on manicured wings’ is about going through heavy shit and having my friends, who are quite different to me in a lot of ways, help pull me through.

So are you only writing poems?

I want to get into short stories, maybe a novel.

Definitely read Raymond Carver, Bobbie Ann Mason. Hemingway’s short stories; as I say, are peerless for me. There’s always something to write about.

Yeah I don’t really mind, as long as life is interesting.

‘May you live in interesting times…’

Yeah. My friend always says you’re not here for a long time you’re here for a good time.

Perfect words to end on.

Thanks

Thank you.