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: It requires something of the audience. You're talking about one of my favorite directors, it goes without saying...
CALE: ... When in A Touch of Evil...
REED: ... the camera angles are incredible. I mean to this day I'm sure you know if they're showing something on TV and I look over there – "Orson Welles movie! Stop everything! Let's look at this!" Touch of Evil was particularly wonderful. Andy had that ability with some of his movies. In no way to denigrate Paul Morrissey's movies, but the earlier movies that Andy directed, where he didn't move the camera at the beginning – I was really so struck by it, as I was by so many things that did. We wanted to bring some of that up in this piece. He was not this little tinkertoy society plaything that he's being made out to be.
MUSICIAN: The fourth song, "Work, "is the first time in the show that Lou Reed speaks in his own voice. We've had three songs from Andy's perspective and now Lou Reed or the Velvet Underground enters as a character.
REED: Yeah, that's true. In that case it's no longer just an anonymous third-person narrator; it's the Velvet Underground talking. Lyrically there are a lot of devices we can use, and I thought that one brings you a little step closer; gives this ring of authenticity. If I use the word "I" they immediately say, "Ah, it's true. He's singing from a first-person experience." We kind of save that, 'cause sometimes when you do that, people sit up and say, "Uh-oh, here come the real goods." And what we're talking about is a work ethic. That's not what Ultra Violet talks about.
MUSICIAN: I haven't read her book.
REED: I haven't either, but I've been told about it. I don't think she has a work ethic.