Childish Behavior
by Gretchen LaBudde
for Stomp and Stammer Aug. '07

The cult of Billy Childish ferments and expands in a fecund barrel of snarls and guitars, vibrating colors, and subversively misspelled poetry and manifestos. Hailed by fans across the globe as the greatest garage-rocking poet ever, he's a punk maverick who favors early rhythm & blues. He has recorded over a hundred albums, painted a thousand or so paintings in a self-taught slash-and-go style, and written over 30 collections of poetry and four novels.

Often mimicked but hardly duplicated, the working class lad from Chatham, Kent, UK funneled his anger stemming from a dysfunctional childhood into a wildly prolific body of work. He eschews high concept. Instead goes with his gut. Not at all some naive three-chord-rocker-aping-retro, Childish churns out music, art, and writing all intertwined by an aesthetic that embraces what he describes as authentic, elemental, and expressionistic. Those of us looking in from the outside might also call his work primal, compelling, and raw. Making sense out of Thee Billy Childish has been a lifelong quest, even for Childish.

"I'm interested in a journey with meaning rather than just a big wank," says Childish from his home in Chatham. Every so often, his wife's laugh peppers the background as she plays with their cats, Shackleton and Mallory. "I don't do rock or rock star parties. I don't hang around with those people or art people. My job is to antagonize them by being real."

Perhaps best known as the leader of Thee Headcoats, Childish began playing music in that punk summer of 1977 when he pulled together the Pop Rivets. That was the last time he was interested in contemporary music. Since then his musical interests have slid back in time to early rhythm & blues, including Leadbelly, Muddy Waters, and Bo Diddley - although guitars sounding an awful lot like the Kinks' Dave Davies sneak in pretty frequently.

Childish went on to form the Milkshakes, Thee Mighty Caesars, and the Buff Medways as well as helm a myriad of other projects. Currently he bills the circus Wild Billy Childish and the Musicians of the British Empire. Already there's a new live album Punk Rock At The British Legion Hall on Damaged Goods. If that's not enough, anyone craving to catch a show for themselves would do good to travel to London's legendary Dirty Water Club where he plays every month or so. The man is reclusive, prefers to stay in and work on his art. He dislikes travel and has little interest in playing music with anyone except his friends.

And yet Billy Childish will venture for the first time into the Deep South to show his art, read his work and play his music. Unlike the very brief tours with his various bands, his art and writing will be showcased more prominently than his music. The Vinson Gallery is exhibiting his work and sponsoring a reading and solo performance on its stage at the Decatur Book Festival. Criminal Records also gets in on the fun, hosting a solo performance, but don't expect some stateside hired guns to help him rehash all those rockers from Thee Headcoats or Mighty Caesars.

"I play with my friends. I don't play with musicians. Musicians would just ruin everything," he says without any discernible irony.

During those Headcoat years a vibrant rock 'n' roll scene sprang up along the River Medway in Northern Kent. Thee Headcoats were Childish's most prolific band with over 20 albums. Along with other Medway combos like the Daggermen, the Prisoners, and Thee Headcoatees, Childish and his cohorts influenced garage rockers on both sides of the pond with their quick and dirty take on rock 'n' roll.

Childish himself has snared admirers in the highfalutin pop music establishment. Kurt Cobain, the White Stripes, Kylie Minogue, Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey have all expressed an admiration for Childish. The latter two asked to play with him in Seattle. He declined. Minouge named an album after Childish's book Poems to Break the Harts of Impossible Princesses. In an even more obvious homage, Jack White scrawled "Childish" on his forearm during the Stripe's UK television debut on Top Of The Pops, the ultimate gesture from a fanboy, but the vast majority of today's youth remains impressed.

"Most of them have their head in the noose. Not a lot of them are into the real sound."

To get that real sound, his bands never mic the back line, playing to the volume of the drums, and they play vintage equipment even though any electric instruments are a compromise.

"Really, acoustic's best and not playing at all would be preferable. Once you've worked out your neurosis you can gradually stop doing things and annoying people."

...and how does he annoy people?

"Play music. Write poetry. Make paintings.

"I think an artist has to be on the wrong end of the seesaw, and that means you don't suck corporate cock. I upset lots of people because they don't like people who don't ingratiate themselves, because that means you think they are better than them, which I do."

Childish dryly jokes about a trio of corporate cock suckers he calls the Strives, a cheeky reference to the Strokes, Hives, and White Stripes.

"We like teasing them because they're more famous and got more money than we have. Because we're first mouse, ya see... as in first mouse doesn't get the cheese. He gets his head chopped off. A heady situation... and cheeseless!" He laughs.

Jack White wasn't so inclined to have a laugh after GQ reported that Childish did not return White's wide-eyed admiration. In NME's version of the dustup, Childish had said, "I can't listen to that stuff. They don't have a good sound...Jack's half into the sound and music, but then he wants to be a pop star as well, so you've got a big problem." White's response on the White Stripes' website charged Childish with being bitter and committing plagiarism.

"Foolishly I said what I've always thought, which is it's not my cup of tea," explains Childish. "They sort of went for him a bit because they were miffed that he wouldn't speak to them for this article, and then Jack had a bit of a hissy fit."

After White failed to respond to personal overtures, Childish resorted to an open letter to NME. With more than just a slightly amused tone, Childish recites his response.

"'I've no doubt angered Jack White, but it's nasty of him to accuse me of plagiarism purely because his former admiration of me was not reciprocated. It all smacks of jealousy to me. I've got a better collection of hats, a better mustache, a more blistering guitar sound, and fully developed sense of humor. I follow music industry guidelines, and only plagiarize 50% of my material. No matter who my influences may be, I never stooped so low as to rip off Led Zeppelin.'"

Childish has a history of outspokenness. It got him kicked out of St Martin's School of Art after he'd had to wrangle admission after schooling that wrongly categorized him at the lowest rung. Dyslexic but not diagnosed until he was 28, he didn't learn to read until age 12 and still spells creatively in several of his published works. School ended at 16 when he went to work in the dockyards. During that six-month stint, Childish drew ferociously, thinly lined images reminiscent of David Hockney's drawings in the '60s. On the strength of that work, he won a spot in art school but was expelled after six months spent antagonizing the teaching staff, writing obscene poetry, and refusing to paint any pictures.

"I didn't want to get contaminated," Childish states flatly. "I liked pictures, and I was under the mistaken impression that they might as well. But I soon found out that they wanted art to be a job so we were coming from a different angle... Art school is a very silly thing, as are music schools... The tutors have not achieved their ambitions, and anyone who's got any flair or talent is competition they should crush, and that's where I came in."

Self-taught, Childish paints in an energetic Fauvist style that bursts with wild colors inspired by Vincent Van Gogh and for good measure tosses in a fat dollop of abstract expressionism. His subject matter ranges from explicit depictions of sexual taboo, religious imagery and the gallows to more mundane images of kettles, cats and hats. Media include woodcut prints, drawing, collage and pinhole photography. His recent work reflects a growing interest in the world and not so many "big ugly portraits."

"I have a much more balanced life than I used to have. I've worked a few things out, but there's still room for some sex and death."

On why the gallows show up in his work, "maybe it's heaven and hell..." He pauses. "My wife is raising her eyebrows at me like I'm a big phony. Now she's giving the throwing up sign." In an aside to her, he says, "but hey, I've only been asked!" Back to the phone: "That's the trouble, you see. You get asked things, and then you try to work what the art's like, but you get in trouble again."

Childish has not shed his edge. "I just did a six foot painting of my wife naked with her legs open... [She's] looking very sort of dominant and in charge.... She's not puking or raising her eyebrows now!" Giggles bubble up from the background.

Known for his confessional poetry and his take-me-as-I-am dyslexic spelling, he started writing in 1980. He was sexually abused when he was young, creating several issues he often confronts in his writing, including his novel My Fault.

"It was something that had to be written and done because I come from a quite dysfunctional background. Rather than dealing with them by becoming a serial killer, I thought I'd give writing a go instead.... I'm quite serious about the depth of my anger and confusion about the world when I was younger. It's a deep well. You know, lots of things to work through."

The wounded boy was always drawn to the mystical and spiritual. He calls it an interest in what's invisible, as in deities, ghosts, and such. He grew up with an interest in Christianity and in his early teens began studying Taoism and Buddhism.

"I'm not into religion or people telling people how to live their lives or what to do, but I think it's important to be awake."

Throughout Billy Childish's creative life, his following has identified with his alienation and embraced his ballsy honesty. "You don't need to be original. You just need to be authentic," says he. Regardless of whom Childish pisses off, his blue-collar voice can't be shut down. Once destined for the dockyards, this grandly mustachioed solider of authenticity fought his dead end circumstances to make music and art that reaches around the globe. Not always pretty, but neither car wreck compelling or easy to romanticize, he struggles like some rock 'n' roll Hazel Motes. He communes with the corporal, the invisible, and the explicit. His salvation lies only as far away as six strings and an elemental scrawl.