Nina Simone’s Gum, by Warren Ellis
Interview by Sarah Walters
Organised by David Coates, at Manchester’s Blackwells.
Following the publication of his memoir Nina Simone’s Chewing Gumthe Australian musician and member of the rock groups Dirty Three and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Warren Ellis, visited Manchester’s Blackwells. There, he discussed his inspiration, and memories with Sarah Walters of Gorilla TV and Manchester International Festival.
The crowd murmurs as it waits for the rock music legend. Warren Ellis appears on time and at home as he descends the Blackwells’ Bookshop staircase. Masked, wearing a red shirt that a member of the audience will later ask where to buy—from Hawes & Curtis—he seems relaxed, intelligent and poised.
He has the energy of that someone we’ve all met at least once in our lives, who takes the time to look you deep in the eyes, and tell you unabashedly, with empathy but without self-consciousness, their experience of spirituality and/or their keen interest in some niche subject.
So it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Warren Ellis is here tonight, not for his acoustics, but for hoarding Nina Simone’s chewing gum inside a towel she once wiped her forehead on, and then writing a book about it.
In this event organised by Blackwells’ David Coates, researcher and television presenter Sarah Walters sits down with Warren Ellis to discuss the launch of ‘Nina Simone’s Gum’, which Ellis spent most of lockdown writing.
“Is this a love story?” she asks.
“I think I was trying to work out what love is. I realised when I read it back recently that even though I was trying to write about the gum, it ended up being a search for spirituality.
While I was writing it, I’d tell everyone I was writing a book about a piece of gum, and they all thought I was joking. Eventually I said to this woman:
‘Surely you have something like this, an object you care about, that means something to you even if it doesn’t mean anything to anyone else.’
This woman, she looked at me, and tears came into her eyes. She got out this is old, bashed-up packet of cigarettes. And she said, this is my husband Darren’s last packet of cigarettes. He died 10 years ago. And she said, I get it now.
You see we all keep these jolts into the past. Objects that mean something within our orbits because of their story. When people die, it’s the stories that keep them alive. Things have that quality, too. The things that belonged to people we cared about.
At home we have this cigarette lighter which was my wife’s dad when he was in the Resistance. He passed it on to her and she passed it on to her kids. And that cigarette lighter comes with a story. It’s so much more than just a thing. Thrift stores are full of things that were lovingly taken care of for years.
I really believe in the power of things. I’m superstitious. When I was a kid I would collect tire weights, thinking they were good luck. I used to wear the same shirt on tours. I think I get obsessed with things. I’m very interested in the superstitious and the supernatural.”
“I know you kept the gum for years, but was it private?”
“Well, it definitely isn’t now.” Warren chuckles with the crowd.
“Yeah, it was private. Nick knew about it. I kept the gum in the towel Nina had wiped her forehead with. We stored it in the studio.
The studio was the first place I had somewhere to work in. And eventually when people got to know about the gum, everyone thought it was a funny story.
Seeing the gum all the time was like a sign that the smallest thing could become epic. Things get out of control in your head and you just kind of build them up into something beautiful. When Hannah was carrying the gum for me, she knew how much it meant to me, even though I was some guy she’d never met. But she would send me pictures and give me updates.
I found that so touching. Other people continued to look after it, kept me informed, Rachel, Molly, Susan, Christina, so many people kindly looked after it.”
“I think that’s why I asked whether it was a love story, because in reading your book, we get a real sense of your anxiety when you lost it and your desire to preserve something forever. What was writing about that like? Did you always know you would write a book?”
“No, absolutely not. Dan from Faber, Dan Papps, called me up and said, ‘you seem like a funny guy, have you ever thought of writing a book?’
‘You mean like a memoir?’
‘Well, yeah.’
I said: ‘I can’t think of anything more tedious than the story of my life.’
Later, though, I was talking to Alexa about the gum, and her eyes welled up with tears. So it was seeing other people’s reactions that made me think the chewing gum belonged in the world.
I had no idea how to write a book. I thought 20,000 words was around 10 pages. So I was just trying to figure out how to fill up 10 pages. Nick said he’d write the intro, and I was like ‘Great that’s three pages gone.’ It took me a while to eventually figure out 20,000 words is more than 10 pages.
It was like handing an actor an acoustic guitar. I had no actual knowledge of what I was supposed to be doing. I’d work on the initial drafts with Dan Papps and Alexa. They gave me good criticism and they’d say the right things that didn’t make me want to stop writing and give up.
But it’s a very vulnerable process. I’ve felt vulnerable in the studio before, but when you’re writing there’s just you and the blank page.
I think if I’d known how hard it was going to be, I would have said ‘no way, forget about it.’
One of the things for the initial draft was that I had made all of these lists. I asked Dan what he thought of the lists, thinking he was going to say yeah they’re incredible, well done Warren, amazing, but he looks at me and goes: ‘I think we can lose them.’
Writing made me look at everywhere I had carried the towel. Like a relic, for two years, in a Samsonite briefcase. Actually, I’d invariably get Sniffer dogs pursuing me.”
Sarah smiles. “You say you didn’t want to write a memoir, but this book gives such an insight into your life.”
“At first I didn’t want to write about my life. It felt like I was being unfaithful to the gum. But Dan said to me, in order to care about the chewing gum, people need to understand why I care.
So this book is about why I care and why do we care.
That’s why I dedicated it to teachers. Teachers are those who so often open a door that won’t close again.
Everyone remembers someone who gave you the confidence, who enabled you to take flight. Everybody needs people who help you realise your better self.”
Sarah Walters briefly refers to his musical history, though doesn’t go into the details. It’s worth mentioning here, however, that Warren Ellis is a man of many talents. He trained as a classical musician before pioneering the violin as a rock music instrument. He is a member of rock groups Dirty Three and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. He plays the violin, the piano, the accordion, bouzouki, the guitar, flute, mandolin, tenor guitar and viola. And now he’s written a book.
“Has it always been in your nature to find new ways of looking at things?” Sarah asks.
“No, I just couldn’t stand the violin when I listened to it. For some reason, I could play the violin, could get my head around it, but I had no connection to classical music.
Then my brother gave me an amplifier, and I tried it at a gig. I was like, let’s see what happens. And it worked.
Suddenly it was to my advantage that I wasn’t a guitar player.
Music has always been to me something spiritual. When I play music nothing else matters. I didn’t realise this until I got depressed in 1988. I had a broken heart and didn’t know it, but really it was song that pulled me out. Music was always a safety net. To me, playing on stage is the greatest thing on Earth.” He pauses. There is an honesty, and a vulnerability about him that has kept everyone on the edge of their seats. “And I give thanks for that,” he concludes.
“I think throughout your career, there’s a sense that you’ve been searching for something that no one really expects.”
Warren shakes his head. “I get bored with myself. I love collaborating with other people. I want to be working with people, finding things in the studio that surprise me, that I’ll fight for.
End of the 1990s, I was sick of the violin and discovered electro music. I also play the flute, and it was then, I guess, that I realised that armed with what I had, I could make something.”
“Is there any instrument you don’t play?”
“Trumpets. I can’t. I just don’t go near them. Brass doesn’t like me.
I think it takes a long time with music, to find something you’re really good at. Even for me now, I’m still looking. I am deferent to the process. I never assume something is going to happen.”
“You also made the most beautiful album during lockdown. And so quickly.”
“When Nick and I went into the studio, we went just to see what would happen. We came up with it in two days. I think it was finished in eight days. Being in the studio, after not having been for so long, it seemed to pressure cook the whole thing.”
“There’s an unexpected sense of spirituality to the album, at times Nick almost sounds as if he’s giving a sermon. Did that spirituality come from you?”
“No, I just sit there and beaver away.”
“So what’s going to happen to the gum now?”
“I used to be terrified of what was going happen to it, when I wasn’t around any more. But the South Bank actually contacted me and offered to archive it and take care of it. Which shows tremendous goodwill. I find it very moving. Actually I want to thank you all, tonight.” Warren turns with sincerity to the small audience, gathered in the bookshop.
“Doing this. It’s such a new experience for me. It’s not like doing a record and going on tour, and being asked the same old questions. It’s opened me up to things I wasn’t open to before.
So thank you, very much.”
During questions and answers, he dwells on the idea that giving out something positive is a way to pass on good in the world. Giving out something negative will also be passed on.
Warren Ellis met Mick Guy, a man who would change his life, after a Prince concert. Warren, drunk, was about to walk in front of a car when Mick pulled him out and saved his life.
Mick was also the one to introduce Warren Ellis to Nick Cave, at a dinner together. Following the dinner, Warren and Nick got together and composed their first ever collaboration, ‘Murder Bells’.
There is a glow in the room, a sense of that shared humanity. It is difficult not to hear him speak and understand, on a deeply human level what it means to care for something, the way Warren Ellis cares for Nina Simone’s gum.
by Alienor Bombarde