Fischerspooner have been the reason for many a great night out in London for Loverboy, from seeing them play live in the much-missed Astoria, to losing it in Ghetto to ‘Emerge’ or spinning ‘Never Win’ in nearly every set we’ve ever played. They epitomised electroclash and have gone on to reinvent their sound many times over. Now, after Casey‘s salacious summer on Fire Island, the band have reformed and are ready to unleash SIR, their ‘aggressively homosexual’ new album, preceded by the single, ‘Have Fun Tonight’ and an upcoming show at Brooklyn Steel on 27th October. So we figured it was time to talk.

As with many of Loverboy interviews, they don’t tend to be of a conventional nature. The catalyst for this convo was us posting one of our favourite TV performances up on Instagram – that of Casey on Top of the Pops with Kylie Minogue and yes, that’s the only Kylie that matters….

 

 

 

So, Casey, you’ve said SIR is an ‘aggressively homosexual’ album. I felt Scissor Sisters’ did something similar with Nightwork. Being from similar backgrounds, do you see similarities between your albums?
I love that record and I actually toured with them during that time. I was so damn proud of them for using that Mapplethorpe image for the cover. But I think there is more despair and confusion in SIR. It’s a very different time in the gay community since Nightwork came out.
Sex, love and technology have exploded in a massive way. It’s a blessing and a curse. I’ve found myself in the most amazing of situations, building new friendships with strangers I’d have never met otherwise. But I’ve had to negotiate with love and lust and intimacy in ways I didn’t expect. I thought I knew how to have love and sex in my life and stand strong outside of heteronormative ideals. My heart has been crushed and crushed again. I’m just now able to stand up and be vulnerable. I’m still searching for my dream of what love should be.

Bonus points for your Rachel Stevens reference there, Spooner. Now, let’s take a look at this iconic photo you have blessed us with. Talk us through that night. What’s it been like coming back to the stage this summer?
I’ve had a great time doing club gigs this summer. Some are announced, some aren’t. It’s kinda how we started doing gigs. We’d play anywhere and with whatever resources were available. I wrote ‘Have Fun Tonight’ inspired by The Pavilion in The Pines.
I found myself homeless and heartbroken in The Pines last summer. I really connected to Arianne Grande’s song ‘Into You’. There was a sexy sadness that really struck a chord with me.
We ended up in the studio writing one last song for the album. I knew I wanted this kind of wistful romanticism in a dance track. Andy LeMaster wrote this beautiful chorus and everything took off from there. Boots got involved and we ended up with a queer dance ballad about polyamory. I was so happy when Vito invited me to perform the song over Labor Day weekend during FunTea at The Pavilion. It was the perfect time and place – right where it all began.

Photo: Greg Endries

Are the shows are lascivious as they seem? What’s the most scandalous thing that’s happened?
Yes. They are quite sexy. My favourite moment was when I stopped singing in Berlin and just made out with my favourite dancer. He was so insanely hot and the tension between us was palpable. In the past I would have felt that it was totally unprofessional to give into this kind of urge. Now that the topic is desire, I just let myself go.

How will the show at Brooklyn Steel differ?
Everyone is gonna have a great time. We are staging it as a club night. The Carry Nation with DJ before and after. I’m gonna jump off stage at the end of the show and just keep dancing. There will be hot GOGO boys like Will Wikle and great drag shows from Tyler Ashley, The Dauphine of Bushwick. Basically all my favourite queens in NYC!!!!  And now we are planning the after party with House of Yes and Ricardo Tavares from Harder. But what will you wear??!?!?! And how long will it stay on?!?!??!

After this summer on Fire Island have you felt like revisiting SIR and making changes before its release?
No WAAAAY! I am ready to share this album and all its creative with the world. The time is NOW. I’m already about to lose my mind waiting. I’m so damn excited. I’m about to explode.

With your new album SIR, you’ve been working with Michael Stipe, which sounds totally unexpected. What kind of sound can we expect from this album?
He set me free as a vocalist and a lyricist. He taught us a great deal about songwriting and shared his process with us. The sound is still very Fischerspooner but the songs are more emotional and expressive. He encouraged me to invest more. He created a safe place for me to let go and share. This album is intensely personal and I have been through many changes during it’s creation. He captured that. He was my first gay lover and boyfriend in 1988 when I was a freshman in college. He was a great influence then, encouraging me to be an artist. He gave me the strength to dream coming out of a conservative Southern town. He’s come back to me 30 years later and again given me the permission to grow. It’s an incredible and deep bond. I’m blessed as fuck.

Yes, we only recently read that he popped your cherry! How has your relationship changed over the years?
It just keeps getting better and better. I like to be friends with my ex’s. It may take time but eventually they are my best friends and my closest bonds. To be so close with someone who is also your producer can be intense but it’s that intensity that yielded such deep  emotion and creative.

We should talk about what brought us together. Top of the Pops…
That was a crazy amazing experience. I was obsessed with her album Fever – I mean I even bought a CD Walkman in Barcelona while I was on tour just so I could listen to it. Then her creative director reached out to us asking to collaborate and it was a dream come true.
They wanted me to perform with her on Top of The Pops – we had done a remix that she loved. Her stylist came to New York and toured our studio. We decided that they should just knock us off so we gave them our video ‘Sweetness’ to copy. We gave them our show projections, let them steal our look and even the tear away moment I always did at the end of a performance. On the day I actually had a terrible cough and was deathly ill. The entire taping I was just trying not to cough on camera.
Before shooting I asked a journalist at NME what I should do with her during the performance. He said I should slap her very famous ass. We staged it but the camera guy missed it and then Justin Timberlake stole the move for the BRIT awards. I was robbed!!! Hahahaha….

Fischerspooner really were the flag bearers for the electro-clash movement. Was that a blessing or a curse?
What an amazing time. When technology, music, fashion, performance and the internet collided creating a global grassroots movement! It was so cool. We were punk. We made it happen outside of the system. The future happened and we were in the centre of it. I’m so proud and thankful I was a part of this unique moment in culture. I still see some of the ideas we started in the most popular forms of entertainment.

Odyssey is one of our favourite records of all time. But you’ve said in the past, ‘Odyssey was really about being on a major label, Capitol, an icon of classic American music, then trying to embrace that cliché and take it apart.’ Did you feel Odyssey true to your spirit?
Odyssey was a very difficult time for me. I had dreamed of success and being able to sustain myself as an artist but the freedom and the resources raised new issues. I had never been able to invest all my time and energy into being creative and it was a disaster. I didn’t know how to create boundaries or limitations. I worked so intensely that I lost perspective. At one point I hadn’t seen the sun for months because I spent all my time in the studio. I was in this coffin of a vocal booth, alone for hours and hours. Warren and I had a great deal of conflict as well. He was wrestling with the idea of his dreams of being a musician coming true. Our relationship was strained and our process became heavy. We had always made music, performance, film and photography simultaneously. But once we had signed to a major label that creative process changed. I’ve learned my lesson and now I am constantly creating all elements at once, not just music. They feed each other and inform our creative team.
The night before Odyssey released I remember feeling sad and disappointed. I felt trapped. I felt like the record wasn’t mine and that I would be supporting it for years to come. I still never listen to it. It was the darkest success for me. I was angry that I had fallen prey to the cliché of the second album slump.

Finally, we are named after Mariah’s iconic track ‘Loverboy’. So in the grand tradition, we ask everyone this, what’s your favourite Mariah song?
Honestly. I’m more Whitney.

Fischerspooner play Brooklyn Steel on 27th October.
Follow Fischerspooner at www.fischerspooner.com, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Photographer: Greg Endries