The Tim “Napalm” Stegall Substack Interview: Pearl Harbour, Part Three
Pearl E. Gates on recording her rockabilly album with The Clash and Wilko Johnson, hot-rodding “Fujiyama Mama,” and why Wanda Jackson and Ronnie Spector matter.
Pearl and Paul Simonon (From the Collection of Pearl Harbour)
Napalm Nation, so joyous to welcome you to our congregation! We gather in fellowship once more, to celebrate the hoppin’/boppin’/poppin’ wonder that is Pearl Harbour’s 1980 rockabilly album, Don’t Follow Me, I’m Lost Too. It was an excellent collision of the San Fransiscan singer, exiled in London to be with then-boyfriend and general Clash muckety-muck Kosmo Vinyl, with members of The Clash and Wilko Johnson. Harbour explained in Part Two how she was embraced by her East End neighbors, who couldn’t figure out how this exotic creature from SF ended up within earshot of the Bow bells. And while she never adopted their accent, she sorta added one to her name.
TIM: But you did add a “u” to your last name.
PEARL: Well, the record company did that and I sort of fought them on it at first. But then I realized that if I was going to live in London, then every time I got any press they would just automatically put a U in it, because that's how they sold it. So then the record company Warner Brothers said, “Well, you know, if you have the U in your name, it sort of is a distinguishing mark. This is your solo career as opposed to Pearl Harbor and Explosions.” So I bought that and I thought, “Yeah, you're right about that.”
TIM: It's interesting that you worked with The Clash on your album. That was at a point where they were kind of steering away from the sort of brutal rock ‘n’ roll that they were associated with and trying on different flavors. But rockabilly was one of the flavors they embraced. It's just interesting that they stuck to that for your record.
PEARL: Yeah, that's one of the reasons why. Mick [Jones] was a guest. Paul [Simonon] and Topper [Headon] played on every song. Kosmo got all these people to agree to work with me. We all liked the same kind of music and we all were after the same thing — just short, sweet, no-frills rock ‘n’ roll. They were into that and that's why it worked.
TIM: You finally got to do [the Wanda Jackson song] “Fujiyama Mama.”
PEARL: I sure did, and that was really fun because Joe [Strummer] came in. Joe and Mick were in the studio next door at Wessex, because they were mixing Sandinista. So Joe would come in every now and then to wind us up or say something to make us all laugh or whatever. So he came in when he knew that I was doing the vocals for “Fujiyama Mama.” He sort of growled at me and said, “Go, Pearl! Do your thing, Pearl!” So I went in there and I thought, “Well, I'm singing this for Joe.” So I went in and just shouted and yelled my head off, and sang “Fujiyama Mama" as loud and nasty as I could. And I just did it in one take, and it was all because Joe was standing there.
TIM: Yeah, the songs are natural for you anyway. I mean, you definitely are right in Wanda's range.
PEARL: Yes, I know. It's lucky, that. When I first heard her, I realized that. I thought, “Wow, this person sings well!” I said to myself, “Wow, I sort of sound like her anyways.” We sing in the same key. Our voices do sound sort of similar. So it did work. It really did work.
Mick, please shut the Roland Chorus Echo OFF!
TIM: There's one song that's very much evocative of the girl group era as well.
PEARL: Oh yes, yes, that's “Everybody's Boring But My Baby.” I think that's the second song I ever wrote, and I might have written that for The Explosions too, and they weren't interested. But yeah, I love, I love, I love girl groups, definitely! And I don't know if you've seen pictures of me but when I was younger I always tried to look like Ronnie Spector. Because I think she was part Puerto Rican, part African American.
TIM: Oh, I definitely picked up the resemblance with Ronnie.
PEARL: Yeah, and I'm half Filipino, so at least I have black hair and big eyes like her. But when I was a kid, I just loved The Ronettes. I have four older brothers, and they collected all kinds of records. One of my brothers had all the girl group records, and The Ronettes were my favorite.
TIM: So, you play with this incredible cast — basically, The Clash without Joe Strummer and Wilko Johnson.
PEARL: Oh, my God! Wilko is fantastic! Fantastic! He is the craziest, one of the most unusual characters I've ever met in my life. He was a speed freak, so like Lemmy. They were professional speed freaks, so you wouldn't know that they were high or anything because they just kept this even keel of just being constantly on this one level of being high. And Wilko, I never saw him eat. He didn't smoke cigarettes. He didn't smoke pot. I didn't really see him do anything. He just was always this manic, manic character, and he got the same haircut by the same barber for years and years and years and years. He wore the same set of clothes every single day: A black shirt, a black suit, these black square-toed boots. And he wore that every day. And if anything wore out, like when his shoes wore out, he'd go and buy another pair of boots that were exactly like those ones. And when his black shirt started getting frayed, he'd get another black shirt. And when his suit was starting to look shiny, he'd go and buy another one. I've never met anyone like that in my life.
TIM: He designed his life.
PEARL: Yeah, he did. He was just this character that…. He was so wonderful to be around because even though he didn't speak a lot, he just had a really great energy and he had these dancing eyes that were always searching for something. And I just found him really fascinating. I'm completely blown away that he liked me and wanted to work with me, because I think that he's just the greatest.
I was lucky because he produced “Voodoo Voodoo,” which was a single that's on the new album, this is new re-release. And he was really strict in the studio. He had his own little place, and it was just one room and the band set up there. And you got one take, and I did the vocals with the music. The band all played at the same time. No overdubs, no anything. It was just, “Okay, everybody ready? One, two, three, go!” And everybody had to do it as best as they could, and then we did it to each song two times, and that was it. It was a really, really fun way to record, because that was very pure, and it was a reel-to-reel four-track. So that was also really something special.
TIM: That's exactly the way those ‘50s records you were emulating were recorded in the first place.
PEARL: That's right, and that's what Wilko liked. He was a purist.
TIM: Yeah, he wanted the sound of the room, not just the band.
PEARL: Mm-hmm. He didn't want anything to be perfect. He didn't want any fancy guitar solos. He didn't want overdubs. He said, “That's not rock ‘n’ roll.” I have to agree with him, it isn't rock ‘n’ roll. When you take things apart and try to make them too perfect, it sort of spoils the soul. You know, it's great when you hear little mistakes and things like that.
End Part Three
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