Warren Ellis: “This book allowed me to reconcile with my brother”

It is a literary UFO. Joyfully crazy, abundant, “Le Chewing-gum de Nina Simone” now makes Warren Ellis, multi-instrumentalist, composer and pillar of the Bad Seeds, an outstanding writer.

At 57, the prolific Australian delivers with this story a singular testimony. In 1999, like a talisman, he appropriated the chewing gum left on his piano by Nina Simone after one of her concerts. The thing exercises such influence over the artist and his entourage that it will be an integral part, twenty years later, of the exhibition dedicated to his accomplice and friend Nick Cave. By recounting the journey of this simple waste that has become an object of worship, Ellis dissects what constitutes his art, between spiritual quest and transmutation. “Nina Simone’s Chewing-gum” thus avoids the pitfall of autobiographical complacency to better reveal its author, in hollow, in a striking sleight of hand…

We are ideas in the making

You explain throughout this book that you wrote it almost in spite of yourself.
Warren Ellis: I had to be harassed, pushed. Then came the analysis of my creative process, of which chewing gum has become the metaphor. We are ideas in the making, like this piece of rubber transcended by those who studied its case.

You describe this process as an alchemical process…
I grew up in a small town in Victoria [Ballarat, haut lieu de la ruée vers l’or australienne au milieu du XIXème siècle, ndlr]. To create, for me, is to patiently seek a vein. Nick [Cave] and I can spend hours improvising in the studio. I saw three simple musical notes become huge pieces.

I need to be scared.

To read you, it is assumed that instinct governs your career. Is this the case?
I imagine so. Security pisses me off, I need to be scared. People who assume they’re savvy leave me lukewarm. I have neither the time nor the inclination to indulge in complacency. I come from a working class background: even if I was not aware of it as a teenager, music was a way for me to escape from my existence. I was also raised in the Christian tradition, the idea of ​​the existence of a God. The stage, specifically, is a unique place of communion for me. I’ve been clean since the end of the 90s. Before that, drinking, getting high, allowed me to perform in public. Once sober, I wondered how I was going to be able to do concerts again with the same form of total abandonment…

The music allowed me to twist the neck of a lot of my ailments

Surprisingly, you give a new image of yourself over the course of the story: that of an emotional and anxious man…
Music allowed me to put an end to a lot of my ailments, we all need this kind of life rafts. I saw Lou Reed, Jerry Lee Lewis, damaged by illness, old age, transfigured on stage. Each time it was incredibly powerful and emotional. At twenty, one throws oneself shamelessly from the top of a wall of amplifiers. Forty years later, the situation is quite different.

The Melbourne music scene, from which you come, has suffered its share of losses in recent years. Was the book made in reaction to these bereavements?
No. I didn’t want a morbid book. I preferred to focus on the positive rather than give in to themes that I had given too much importance to so far. “Chewing-gum…” was also written in reaction to the Trump era, to the gloom linked to the Covid. In 2020, I went from the prospect of a two-year world tour to an interstellar void in my agenda, a phenomenon unprecedented in thirty years. The “Chewing-gum…” was also born from this.

You who have lived in France for more than two decades have said in the past that you do not understand French humor at all…
It’s still the case, even though I got used to it. Mine is typically Australian: caustic, stiff, cold. I remain faithful to my origins. I spent the first 25 years of my life in Australia: they were incredibly educational. We were pushed to be creative, to go out. If there is an Australian voice that is heard in these pages, it is also this one.

I never considered music as a job: the day I do, it is better that I move on

The sum of your work in recent years is impressive: soundtracks, albums composed with Nick Cave or Marianne Faithfull… Not to mention Ellis Park, the sanctuary that you recently financed in Sumatra, dedicated to the protection of local fauna. Why this frenzy?
It was a very prolific period, it’s true, in many areas that were sometimes unprecedented. In a way, I work therefore I am. When that’s not the case, I can be difficult to live with. And this even if I have never considered music as a job: the day when it is the case, it is better that I move on to something else.

What inspired you reactions to Blonde [film d’Andrew Dominik dédié à Marilyn Monroe dont il a coécrit la partition]when it was recently released?Honestly, I didn’t expect such outrage. I was with Andrew when the deluge of criticism fell on him: I didn’t want him to take it alone. I had already experienced this when “Ghosteen” was released [album des Bad Seeds de 2019]. Some comments had nailed the disc to the pillory: “Boring to death”, “Nick Cave is screwed” – this kind of joy, while this music comes from elsewhere. Its conception is one of the most beautiful weeks of my life. The hatred that Blonde has suffered is just as inexplicable.

Andrew has been accused of trampling on the memory of Marilyn Monroe. Gold Blonde is a fiction – not a biopic

The film certainly left its audience puzzled –
[Interrompant] But I don’t care what the public thinks! I have nothing against criticism, as long as it is constructive. Personally, I like to be pushed to my limits. When it’s not, I find it vaguely insulting. Coltrane or Bowie have never made the same record twice: we can be grateful to them. Andrew has been accused of trampling on the memory of Marilyn Monroe. Gold Blonde is a fiction – not a biopic. It was the first distinction to be made before laminating the film… But that, people don’t care about. That says a lot about our time, conducive to slashing everything. There is no longer any room for debate: everything is settled by lawsuits on social networks, without discernment.

Speaking of discernment: has your book acted on you as a revealer?
Yes, quite unexpectedly. I’ve been through several therapies with varying results – some leaving me worse off than when I started them. Writing “Chewing-gum…” allowed me to see certain aspects of my life in a more lenient light.

Artistically, I also built myself thanks to this perception of the supernatural

The supernatural is an integral part of the story, populated by appearances – the first of which, staggering, takes place when you are only a child. What rational explanation do you give to these phenomena?
[Catégorique] None. Why should I? When you’re a kid, the imaginary supplants the real: I’ve seen it many times in contact with my two sons, Jackson and Roscoe. Artistically, I also built myself thanks to this perception.

If the book made it possible to reconnect us, my brother and me, its very existence is largely justified…

The notion of accomplishment dominates these pages, ultimately…
“Le Chewing-gum…” above all allowed me to reconnect with my older brother, to talk about this famous apparition which we had both witnessed. To my great regret, we had been estranged for years. If the book has allowed us to reconnect, its mere existence is largely justified… Sometimes things fall from the sky without us understanding why. It is miraculous.

“Nina Simone’s chewing-gum” by Warren Ellis, Editions La Table Ronde, 224 pages, €28.50 (already published).