Adam Green in conversation with TONY CLAYTON-LEA
What’s on your rider?
Hummus, comics, pigeons, sluts, bacon, egg and cheese, borscht.
What would be on your fantasy rider?
Tortilla chips, oysters, morphine patches.
What’s your pre-gig ritual?
I used to smoke pills but I quit drugs. So I drink 10 beers and then I sing a vocal warm-up routine. It’s all arpeggios sung with a monkey-voice that I learned from a famous German opera coach named Eddie.
How do you get to the gig – limo, taxi, walking?
I try to walk because I’m usually just parked outside.
What’s the best gig you’ve been to?
The comedian Rick Shapiro around the year 2000.
And the worst?
MGMT in Australia. I am a fan normally, but they were completely uninspired that night.
Who is the most famous person to have shown up at one of your gigs?
The Olsen Twins came once.
Most embarrassing on-stage moment?
The time I got kinda “drunk” on non-alcoholic beer.
Chatting between songs – good or bad?
If Leonard Cohen can talk to the crowd, I’m sure that everyone can.
Groupies – would you?
I don’t very often find somebody I like to have sex with. When I do, I’m an animal, though.
How many roadies does it take to change your lightbulbs?
I like to have a few people on tour who have no purpose being there. I get lonely and bored, so I need to know there are people more lonely and bored than me.
Have you a special stage wardrobe?
There is a girl named Shennan who made my tasseled outfits for the Sixes & Sevens tour, and leatherstudding guys who make me these kinky outfits that go with high-waisted bellbottoms.
Do you like to meet and greet fans after the gig?
I usually am drunk after the concert and if people find me I will usually hang out with them.
Any useful stage tips?
Sweat a lot and dance.
What’s the worst thing ever thrown at you?
Me.
Who’s invited to your aftershow party?
Dracula, goth-girls, transvestites and people with last names that are the same as colours.
- Adam Green plays the Academy, Dublin on Tues and Speakeasy, Belfast on Wed
