Special Interview Feature – Q & A with Prolapse’s Mick and Linda

Martin Gray conducts an exclusive Q&A interview with Mick Derrick and Linda Steelyard from Prolapse to mark their welcome return with their latest fifth – and long awaited – album I Wonder When They’re Going To Destroy Your Face. 

When Leicester’s genre-trashing non-comformists Prolapse announced their return (with a new album and a few live dates) earlier this year, some of us switched into a state of hyper-excitement overload at the news. Having just played a few shows already in Newcastle upon Tyne, Preston and Glasgow (rapturously received by their faithful contingent), they have announced a few further dates, including one in Manchester in late October.

That day can’t come soon enough as far as I’m concerned, having nursed much self-resentment at missing their impromptu and ‘at-short-notice’ gig at the city’s infamous and legendary sticky-carpet hangout The Roadhouse just over a decade ago in May 2015, before that hallowed venue shut its doors for good.

In feverish anticipation of that day of reckoning, I’m hereby delighted and ecstatic to have the opportunity to host a Q&A session (via email) with the two focal members of the band, Mick Derrick and Linda Steelyard, and to glean from them some insights as to what exactly has transpired during this long radio silence when the band underwent a two decade hiatus with various members scattered across three continents pursuing their own endeavours.

Prolapse photo courtesy of Tapete Records

LTW: Welcome back! It feels like an age since we last heard from Prolapse, but it’s also crazy to see how fast a quarter of a century has flown by.

1) BAND RELATED

LTW: How have the live shows to date been? How was the Glasgow festival event? Have there been any nervous moments, worrying about whether things might go awry or was it a total blast and you simply just eased yourselves back into proceedings, picking up where you left off all those years ago?

Mick: The live shows are always unpredictable both for us and the audience. Me and Pat fly in from Scandinavia and join the others for practice (this time a 2-hour practice at the Cluny 2 in Newcastle). At the end of it all I wasn’t sure if it was practice or a soundcheck but it didn’t really matter, we managed to pull it all together and make people believe that they’d watched a gig so another crowd conned. When we reached Glasgow we’d had another gig behind us and were raring to go but unbeknown to me I had started a war with Bis after I appeared to say they were rubbish in an interview 2 years earlier. This was a big misunderstanding and not the case at all (I did dis Scooter though). Sci-fi Steve who I’ve known since way before Bis appears to have forgiven me but I’m looking round every corner waiting for Manda Rin to knife me in a back alley at some point. By the way that Jack from Yummy Fur is everywhere. Annie Lungleg was steamin’ (Lungleg war incoming).

Linda: We always think things will go awry, so we’ve just jumped back in to what we’ve always done.

LTW: Which members of the band have had to travel the furthest to reconvene for these dates?

Mick: Me – Norway, Pat – Denmark and Dave – Colchester. The rest bomb about Leicester / Leicestershire and London.

LTW (To Mick): I presume you’re still working in the archaeological field, tell us a bit about some of your recent endeavours.

Mick: Well this year I found Oslo’s first ever boat grave and tomorrow I’m going to scan the floor of an old railway engineering building to see if I can locate the medieval castle underneath. Other than that, I sit miserably in an office and write about streets and old stuff. Google me, you’ll see how boring I really am.

LTW (To Linda): Are you still involved in working with the local newspaper and media in Leicester?

Linda: Yes, I’m now the editor. It’s only taken me 25 years to get there, so I think it’s fair to say I’ve been catapulted to the top.

LTW: Which band members (including yourselves) have recorded and released music under other projects during the last 10 or so years since the first tentative reunion shows? I’m assuming that Mick H and Tim have been the most productive on that front, post-initial split, but have there been further collaborations between people within and outside of the band?

Mick: Tim was in MJ Hibbett and the Validators in that time, last album was released in 2016 (Still Valid) plus a career spanning cassette celebrating our 20th anniversary. Mick (Harrison) released a crackin’ drone gaze album as National Screen Service in the US. Buy all these lovely things on Bandcamp probably. I sung in a band with my ex in the early 00’s in Oslo. They were called Je Suis Animal. They were really good until I got involved. She kicked me cos I was rubbish but I was great.

LTW: After so long being separated across different continents, how easy (or tricky) was it to pick up where you left off when you first regrouped and rehearsed again? Was there a sense of rustiness or was it just pretty straightforward?

Mick: Strangely enough very straightforward. We’d never really practised together much so it wasn’t that doofferrent [sic]. The only change was that we all wore glasses and were slightly worn looking (except Linda).

Linda: It might sound odd, but it’s always easy when we get back together. It’s not awkward or weird, even though we don’t see each other from one year to the next. I guess we have so much history together, have had so many adventures and strange experiences together, that we’re like a jigsaw; all the bits are oddly shaped and made out of different materials, but they fit together to create a noisy picture. (In anticipation of being asked in the future what our jigsaw pieces are made of, I’m going to say now that mine is made of flint with a smear of eyeliner and a blob of marshmallow on top).

LTW: What are your thoughts on me having provided Tim Pattison with a new unofficial nickname (‘Octopus Tim’)? Maybe we could have it as a ‘Modern Toss’-style t-shirt for a future merch item !!

Mick: Love it!

2) THE NEW ALBUM

LTW: The inspiration for the current album title ‘I Wonder When They’re Going To Destroy Your Face’ is a line taken from the refrain of a 1969 song by Canned Heat (Poor Moon). Who among the band are the biggest fans?

Mick: It’s me. I just love that high pitched voice. I originally thought it was the big guy Bob Hine who was the one with the squeaky voice – that would’ve been great but I can live with it bein’ the wee guy. Poor Moon is just a crackin’ song- away ahead of its time, talking about people flying to the moon and destroying it. The ‘nah nah nah nah nahs’ which you hear in the background in On The Quarter Days is a salute to the ‘nah nah nahs’ in Poor Moon.

LTW: There is a reassuring familiarity about the new songs on the album. It’s as if Prolapse have not changed one iota and even advancing age hasn’t mellowed you at all – still as contrary, noisy and gleefully anarchic as ever. How much of the new album has been influenced by either personal circumstances or current affairs? Or was all that simply jettisoned in favour of sticking with your usual modus operandi – i.e. improvisation and spontaneity?

Mick: The latter. I can’t personally do it any other way. My references do sometimes get stuck in the past but like in the 90’s my disdain for everything contemporary is still there especially when the world is full of a new kind of cunt.

Linda: I’m really pleased that it has a reassuring familiarity. I don’t want my favourite bands to bring out new stuff that ‘shows maturity’ or indicates a desire to reflect the fact that they have ‘grown up’. I want more of the old chaos or indie pop jangle that used to make my heart sing. Phooey to maturing. Improvisation and spontaneity is who we are, and that’s it. Everyone is still 18 at heart, right?

LTW: Jackdaw is a gloriously frenzied improvised thrash about. It’s utterly bug-eyed and deranged. It sounds like a far more chaotic take of some of the noisy experimental Backsaturday tracks. Was this originally from a much longer jam than the three truncated minutes that we hear on the album?

Mick: No, the idea was to do a song which lasted three minutes. We stuck to the rule that’s all. The song is dedicated to David Thomas [vocalist and main man of Pere Ubu, who sadly passed in April 2023 – LTW].

LTW: The final – very tranquil – song on the album A Forever seems to deal with the notion of nostalgia and returning home to familiar surroundings. Is that what it’s about, or was it intentionally more ambiguous?

Linda: Hmm, that’s the song that maybe makes me want to revise my answer above. It could be interpreted as being about the end of life, and whatever that may bring. While we’ve done tranquil songs previously – including a folk song – and the style is nothing new, the subject is perhaps influenced by what some of us have experienced as our parents have got older, and that’s something we wouldn’t necessarily have been thinking about 26 years ago.

3) THE FANS

LTW: I would wager that Prolapse fans are a pretty crazy and committed / loyal bunch. What’s your view of them? Do some of them follow you around on tour and try to catch every show?

Mick: I have a shit memory and only talk to people if they look exactly like their photo on social media. There is currently a large snowball of fans in the Newcastle / Preston area gathering speed and heading for our Manchester gig in October. They scare me. I want to hide. As with most bands our age our fans are mainly made up of bald men and one girl.

Linda: The fans are everything. They are why we exist. Seeing people in the crowd singing along and/or dancing still blows my mind. The fact that people come to see us at all, let alone that they actually know the words and like what we do, blows my mind. Us daft lot and our noise! They get it. Amazing. I love every one of them.

LTW: What’s the strangest thing(s) that you have been sent or given at gigs by your followers and admirers? Any amusing anecdotal stories?

Mick: A guy in Canterbury once turned up with potatoes for us to sign. I went to grab one to sign and he snatched it back saying it was Linda’s.

Linda: Potatoes. [that’s well surreal, yikes!! – LTW]

4) FESTIVALS

LTW: During your first decade as Prolapse, which festivals did you enjoy playing at the most?  Tell us about any memorable experiences whilst partaking in European music festivals.

Mick: My favourite festival was Benicàssim near Valencia. We didn’t exactly get off to a great start when I shouted ‘Hello Spain!’ – cue booing!  The gig went well though and we all ended up in the swimming pool backstage with some beers. Mogwai (who were wee boys at the time – I was 30) were also there. We huddled in a corner, drunk our beer and talked shite. Eventually we came out of our wee bubble and turned round to rest against the wall of the pool. Far on the other side of the (very small) pool was Nick Cave. We felt like small time indie soup and skulked out to our rightful place at the bar. Other low rent stories from the same festival include us stealing all of Bernard Butler’s rider and me for some reason wandering around with my arm around Goldie’s shoulder for a bit. I think I was his pal for about 20 minutes.

Linda: I absolutely loved Benicàssim in 1998. I remember being in a swimming pool backstage at the same time as Bobby Gillespie, which was very exciting for a young (ish) indie pop fan. Thankfully he didn’t speak to me. I think I would have become overwhelmed with embarrassment and drowned.

LTW: Did you ever get invited to playing at the Indietracks festival in Derbyshire which took place between 2007 and 2019? It was a celebration of mid-80s to mid-90s independent labels e.g. Sarah Records, Shinkansen, 53rd and 3rd, Cherry Red, but also kindred spirits too like Wiiija, Bi-Joopiter, Postcard, Chemikal Underground etc.  Or would a band like Prolapse, conversely, be deemed too chaotic and ramshackle to have on the bill?

Mick: We would have loved to play it and were nearly invited once but I probably had to dig a medieval cesspit or something. As an aside I lived with Linda for a bit in Ripley. It was a bit racisty and one night we were out at an (the only) indie disco in a local pub /club. A guy came up to Linda and tried to chat her up. I asked who it was and she told me it was one of the guys from Skrewdriver. Linda’s musical career could have taken a very different path if she’d chosen the Ripley alternative but for better or for worse she was stuck with me and relative musical obscurity.

Linda: Indietracks and I are from the same town, so of course I had to go. I couldn’t believe something so brilliant was taking place in the ‘boring’ place I grew up in. I think there was a general idea that it would be good if we could have played there, but I always suspected we were too noisy and crunchy for it. Indietracks fans wanted to gently bop to 14 Iced Bears and sing along with the BMX Bandits, not be shouted at by a giant and frequently menacing Glaswegian Norwegian.

Prolapse photo courtesy of Tapete Records

5) OTHER BANDS’ MUSIC

LTW: Prolapse often come across as a complete law unto themselves, but were there any other bands’ music (past or present) that you’ve been influenced by?

Mick: Crass, Camel, Pere Ubu, probably Neu!, Gang Of Four, Yes, probably Stereolab, Yeah Yeah Noh!, Steve Reich, Planxty

LTW: What other bands / artists are you currently enjoying?

Mick: Sharp Pins, Craven Faults, Concretism, Mozart Estate, Judee Sill, The Orchids by Psychic TV, April Magazine.

LTW: Your thoughts and feelings on the current obsession with re-living the Britpop era of 30 years ago, and the media obsession over Oasis playing live again?

Mick: It’s like the rapture but everything is getting sucked down rather than going up. I fuckin’ hated Britpop (Bis are not Britpop by the way I just want to make that completely clear – checks under the bed for Manda Rin).

Linda: I love that people are passionate about music, but I wasn’t into Britpop at all. I was a music snob, refusing to listen to anything that wasn’t twee or noise and on a limited edition flexidisc. I hope I wasn’t as insufferable as that sounds.

LTW: And now to quote the infamous line in Deanshanger about [dissing] the ’80s: ‘The hair was crap! The music was crap! Except one’. Who was the ‘one’ that you were referring to? Or is that just left to the imagination? Over to you Mick!

Mick: I did claim earlier it was Ivor Cutler but it wasn’t  [ooh, you big tease, you! – LTW]

6) ALBUM REISSUES AND THE FUTURE

LTW: We’ve been blessed with welcome reissues of your first and second albums on coloured vinyl formats in the past couple of years. Inevitably, fans now want to know if you have plans to reissue on vinyl The Italian Flag and Ghosts of Dead Aeroplanes too?

Mick: We would love to, but Warners own Italian Flag and won’t give it back. We need those Mogwai millionaires to re-release it on their label. At least that’s my fantasy. Same with Ghosts of Dead Aeroplanes. The re-release of Pointless Walks To Dismal Places on Optic Nerve was very welcome and I appreciated the effort put into the packaging.

LTW: What does the future hold for Prolapse, and which ones among you would still be working on new music? Are there any other collaborations planned? Or do the day jobs now hold greater importance?

Mick: No collaborations but probably another album at some point.

Linda: Being able to make music and play gigs is the greatest joy and privilege. I think we all appreciate and value being able to do something that’s the complete opposite of the daily grind. I never take it for granted.

Prolapse photo courtesy of Tapete Records

7) AND FINALLY (JUST FOR FUN?)

LTW: Six things you love most about life at present, followed by six things you despise most?

Mick:  Like – People like Greta Thunberg and of course her too. Young people who seem to be more brainier than the older generation. Easy access to music everywhere.
Illegal football streaming. DIY videos on Instagram that show you how to join wood together with dowels etc. Mortality: even Trump and Farage will die.
Despise – The death of general knowledge: everyone knows everything because of the internet. People who charge Discogs prices. Pale Ale. Farage and all the other tossers.
People changing as they get older and being a bit more racist. Trying to look under something with glasses on.

Linda: Six? I’m not sure I have six of either. I love my family, friends, animals and the sunshine. I despise seeing people starving, and all the events connected to it. How can the Trump government have destroyed 500 tonnes of high-energy biscuits that were meant to feed children in Gaza? How? On what planet is that reasonable? (Apologies, I’ve just re-read that this is the fun section. I don’t think I’m great at fun).

LTW: If by some strange turn of fate Prolapse were invited to appear as guests on a future episode of Later With Jools Holland, what would you do/say?

Mick: Stick your fucking piano up your honky tonk arse!  [yes!! woo hoo!!! – LTW]

Linda: I’d say ‘absolutely not’, but I’d probably be outvoted. It would be awful and must never happen.

LTW: And, going right back to 1994, has (producer) Steve Mack finally forgiven you both for getting him all traumatised and freaked out when you enacted the fist fight at the end of Tina, This Is Matthew Stone?

Mick: No I don’t think so. No he definitely hasn’t!

Thank you Mick and Linda, it’s been an absolute pleasure to have this Q&A chat with you both. Looking forward to catching you in Manchester! Hoping the new record does well. And to everybody else reading this – what are you waiting for? Get thee hence to the Prolapse Bandcamp page or your local indie vinyl emporium and purchase their stonking great new album without further delay!

Special thanks to Sean Newsham of Tapete Records for arranging this Q&A with Mick and Linda via email.

Photographs of Prolapse used with kind permission from Tapete Records

Interrogation via C.Y.B.E.R.S.P.A.C.E.M.A.I.L. by Martin Gray.

Please check his other articles on Prolapse here, here, here and here.