Nurse With Wound has been Steven Stapleton’s main musical outlet for well over 30 years. He has also appeared on records by other artists and worked as a producer, remixer and acclaimed soundtrack composer. As well as his musical output, Stapleton is a highly accomplished and renowned painter and sculptor, often working under the guise of ‘Babs Santini’.
1.) WHICH RECORD HAS HAD THE MOST PROFOUND INFLUENCE ON YOU?
That’s quite hard to say as my all time favourite record is ‘Fließbandbabys beat show’ by ‘Floh De Cologne’ and my most played album is Guru Guru’s ‘Kanguru’. I just adore ‘Telephone Man’ by Merrie Wilson but the album that looms larger than all others is probably Frank Zappa’s ‘Lumpy Gravy’.
2.) HOW MANY HOURS DO YOU SPEND A WEEK RECORDING/PLAYING/CREATING?
24-7
3.) WHICH OF YOUR OWN CREATIONS IS YOUR FAVOURITE?
Without a doubt it’s ‘Monsterkammer’ from the ‘SIC’ album with Aranos but at the moment I’m very fond of disc II of Dark Fat.
4.) WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST REGRET?
That I wasn’t born with a longer tongue.
5.) WHAT DO YOU DO TO RELAX?
A beer, a joint, some serious 69 and other delightful erotic activities.
6.) OTHER THAN FRIENDS AND FAMILY WHAT IS YOUR MOST CHERISHED POSSESSION?
Our three Staffordshire Bull Terriers, Bee, Bells and Wippendorf, my two turkeys Merkel and Turkish, Ted the goat.
7.) TELL ME THREE OF YOUR HEROES/HEROINES?
I don’t really have any heroes except maybe Whistleblowers but there are people I greatly admire. Wolfgnag Dauner, the tragically unsung hero of Krautrock, Adam Curtis – the film maker who has opened my eyes to so much-why is there not a box-set of this man’s amazing work?? And after seeing the documentary ‘Arts and Craft’, Mark Landis would be my number 3.
8.) WHERE IS YOUR FAVOURITE PLACE IN THE WORLD?
Geographically it would be Lanzarote but intimately it would be the logistics of Sarah’s beloved Aunt.
9.) IF YOU DIDN’T HAVE YOUR ART WHAT OCCUPATION DO YOU THINK YOU WOULD BE DOING?
If I didn’t have ‘my art’ then I probably wouldn’t exist as I see no difference between creation and my everyday living but if you want a straight answer it would be be to grow and cultivate more cacti than I already do.
10.) IF THERE IS ONE THING THAT YOU WOULD WANT THE WORLD TO KNOW ABOUT YOU THAT YOU HAVE NEVER CONVEYED IN AN INTERVIEW BEFORE WHAT WOULD THAT BE?
Maybe just to answer a few frequently asked questions concerning the ‘Catagories Strain’ list included in the ‘Chance Meeting’ album. The list was put together after months of discussion by John Fothergill and myself as an attempt to catalogue eccentric and highly individual artists in the field of music. It’s also a grand thank you to all those who inspired us and gave so much listening pleasure. All these artists stepped out of the norm into wildly uncharted territory, some only briefly but beautifully.
It took us about 8 years of constant searching, travelling and discovery to get to the stage where we had enough knowledge to put this list together, of course there are holes and omissions, looking back I am amazed at who was left off, back then information on any left field artists just did not exist except for a chosen few usually slagged off in the conservative music press. So at the time of writing, it was to the best of our knowledge that we compiled this list.
I am amazed and delighted at how popular and influential it has become, the BBC has made two three hour documentaries and I am constantly meeting folk whose minds have been blown by some of the more obscure items they have managed to track down.
Many of the artists listed have been happy to see their names included but there was one exception. Franz De Byl sent me a terse message, ‘Take my name of that fucking list’. Oh well.