As he prepares to headline this Sunday’s Dublime event at Fabric in London, 72-year-old dub innovator Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry talks to David Katz about music, life, money and excrement. Prepare to have your sides split…
You will perform at the Dublime event at Fabric later this month, celebrating all things related to dub. So I would like to begin by asking you about dub itself. What is dub?
Well dub is your heart and your brain. The beat of the drum is the beat of the human heart. When God was starting to make man, he make man different from animals. So that’s why him make man after him make animals, that he can know that the music is going to be the heart of the human being, so he would make it a drumbeat: toof, toof, toof, toof, and when you listen to your little heart, it go boof, boof, boof, boof, and sometimes it makes a drum: Boof, toof, boof, and you play on the cymbal to it. Then you might want a bass inside, and the bass is going to be your brain. And the bass can’t play anything else but poom poom. Anything the bass play, it’s always saying “poom poom,” to turn on the girl and make the girl want to dance and turn on the man.
So dub is a sensual thing?
Yes, it makes sex.
Tell us about the first time you actually made dub, back in the early 1970s. How did it happen, and why?
Well, I used to watch some sex films, what you call blue films. I used to buy those films for myself in England and everywhere, and watch those blue films when I was in my studio. Then, because of that, the music have to be sexy to turn on people, to make them want to dance, and to make them act like they are fucking. That’s how the dub come into it, because the dub is really a part of sex; it’s a sexy kind of creation. Sex in your thought and sex on your mind, and when you go to sex a girl tonight, you put all that in the music and call it dub.
They have a new type of sound they’re calling dubstep. Have you heard much about that?
I don’t know how it look, I never see it yet. But I am glad that people are creating on it, because the word dub mean that you can do anything; when you put drum and bass together, and when you take a guitar, or a piano, it’s dub still. So you would have your perfect drum, which is the heart, and your perfect bass, which is the mind. So with the dub, if people can find a different name for it, I say congratulations for the second generation of the now creation that is paying more attention to dub.
At the Dublime event, you will be performing with Adrian Sherwood. What can people expect?
Well, what people can expect from me is happiness. I don’t have any messages but happiness and facts and reality, to show them a movie in the music and tell them a story in the music; cheer them up, let them be happy and give them something to laugh about. Me have a special song that said, “Chase the Devil out of Earth,” but now it says, “I’m going to put on my money boot, put on the reggae boot and chase Elton John out of Sin City.”
Tell me about the new album you’ve been working on with Mr. Sherwood.
Well, most of them are some old-time tracks that we bring some reality into them; Adrian bring it back to the reality of what it was, that’s why it has the original vibration of the music.
What themes are you addressing on the album?
I’m singing about governments and stupid people who cannot see the truth, to show them a vision.
What’s a typical day for Lee Scratch Perry at present?
Well, these days, things reach to a normal point. Me was trying to hide from the money, but, if I hide away from the money, then all the people won’t have no money, so I decide to share myself normally and get greedy and grab the money and rob the money, and take away the energy of the bank of England, that is the £$D. The LSD, them call it drugs; then, if I’m afraid of drugs, I could not hold the £$D, that is the pound, shilling and pence. Me never take the LSD, but now, me see that me going to take the £$D for special reason, because me need the pound, me need the shilling, and me need the pence. So me plan to take the £$D from the Bank of England and from the International Monetary Foundation.
What are you going to do with the money?
Share it amongst me and my fans who believe in me.
What keeps you going and inspires you to keep creating music?
My shit. I respect my shit, because when I’m hungry, my shit feeds me. I know that the food that I eat was my shit and still is my shit, and I know that the water that I drink when I was thirsty still is my piss. So I respect my piss and I respect my breath of life. If it wasn’t for my shit, I wouldn’t be here now, and if it wasn’t for my piss I wouldn’t be talking to you. My shit is my doctor and my piss is my psychiatrist.
Do you still consider yourself to be a disciple of Rastafari?
Of course me believe in Rastafari, but me no believe in dreadlocks. Dreadlocks is a style to catch woman and to catch people’s attention. But Rastafari don’t want to catch no people’s attention, Rastafari is holy. Rastafari don’t come with no dreads on him head. He come as a baby without dreads.What happens when you write a song?
When me write a song, that is perfect. Rain comes and lightning flash and we have storm and flood.
What can we expect from you in the future?
Me going to put up a new studio in Switzerland. Me will be doing recording, but no snakes will be invited. It will be called The Ark of the Covenant. Me and [stepson] Noel will be involved in a part of it, and we have a man here in Switzerland with a very clean mind named Sasha. But we won’t have any snake reggae, and no snake musicians will be there.
David Katz
