Interviews
White Light White Heat
Interview by Bill Flanagan. Published in Musician no. 126 - April 1989
Lou Reed and John Cale remember Andy Warhol
REED: Some of the things that apply to Andy apply to all of us. There are things that I think are very universal, and Andy probably make Andy more of an approachable person. Through the lyrics of the songs. If you knew him and you knew the situation – and John and I spoke about this at great length – you could see things from his eyes and experience things perhaps the way he did. And some of the situations he found himself in were analogous to situations everyone finds themselves in.
MUSICIAN: Well, that's one of the most impressive things about the work for those of us who got our image of Warhol from books like Edie. We come to the show with the idea that Warhol was this cold, calculating figure - and you immediately get us to consider him much more sympathetically. The second song, "Open House," has the lines: "My skin's as pale as the moon outside! My hair's silver like a cheap watch! I want lots of people around me as long as they don't touch." You do a brilliant job of disarming our prejudices.
REED: Yeah, that was exactly it. "Small Town," the first number, seemed the way to ease into the show, because we thought, "People are bringing a lot of notions to this show before we ever play a note. How can we get their toes in the water without smacking them over the head, and before we let the electric instruments go as far as they're going to go?" It seemed like that little cabaret number was the thing that answered that. I think it disarms you a bit; it's not what anyone expected. And in" Open House," John and I had spoken a lot about – particularly with the spate of unattractive books that are out...
CALE: Hear! Hear!
REED: ... what we thought of Andy and how to present it, and what did he do and how did he do it from our points of view. It was very much wrapped up in some of the things we felt were very strong character traits that he literally brought to New York with him.