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After a long silence, Spiritualized's Jason Pierce returns with a new album, the wittily-titled Songs in A&E. In this excerpt from his major 2001 profile, Phil Sutcliffe tells the Pierce story from his days in drug-rock duo Spacemen 3 to the aftermath of the majestic Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space. -- Barney Hoskyns, RBP Editorial Director

THE CONSPICUOUS DETAILS of Jason Pierce are: 35 years old, tall and lanky frame, saggy-arsed and threadbare jeans, general air of Buddhist calm, occasional wary smile, no accent, four Holsten Pils and 30 Marlboros in five hours. But he hates telling stories about himself, comfortable guarding his privacy with silence when he deems it necessary--as when I mention his new girlfriend and their daughter, born during summer, 2000.

He grew up in Rugby, without much noticing the public school and its sporting heritage. His father "wasn't really around." His mother brought up their three sons on very little. He was a Swingle Singers fan at the time. Loved those badabada harmonies. But the guitar settled it. He never wanted to do anything else. When he was 14 he bought The Stooges' Raw Power and played almost nothing else for a year or so until he went to Rugby Art College, struck up a friendship with Pete "Sonic Boom" Kember and formed the first edition of Spacemen 3.

Pierce quickly discovered what he could and couldn't do. The garage thrash aspect was no problem: "Anybody can do it. It's not about ability, it's not about how fast you can play, but listen to the sound and it's glorious."

He came up short on the showmanship, though: "Really, I bought Raw Power because of the silver pants and the wildcat on the back of Iggy's jacket. On the sleeve he's walking across the audience on their hands. I bought into that whole myth, the Jerry Lee Lewis side of rock'n'roll. Then when I actually attempted it with Spacemen I realised it wasn't in me at all. I couldn't raise my voice above a whisper. I haven't got the temperament or the lungpower. So we sat down to play."

Improbably managed by the boss of All Bright, an industrial cleaning concern from Corby, the self-styled "one chord wonders, masters of the blissed-out hypnotic groove" careened through five indie-label albums and a heavy turnover of somewhat frazzled personnel. With Kember openly discussing his heroin use, a number entitled Songs To Take Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To appeared to be their manifesto.

They finally broke up in 1991, Kember and Pierce at loggerheads over songwriting credits--to the point of fisticuffs at one point, Kember claims, though Pierce pooh-poohs the very notion: "Me? Can you imagine it?" The two never spoke again, their feud continuing through the '90s as Kember repackaged Spacemen 3 albums and released old demos, all of which Pierce describes as "rip-offs."

Still, he found himself in good shape. Via Spacemen 3's last deal, he was already signed solo through the major BMG to quasi-indie Dedicated. He pulled in former Spacemen Jon Mattock (drums) and Will Carruthers (bass), added his girlfriend, Kate Radley, and called it Spiritualized after the subtitle on a bottle of Pernod ("Spiritueux Anise").

"The break-up made me find massive confidence in myself. I had no fear of starting again. Kate was so supportive, and the way she plays keyboards was and is integral to the Spiritualized sound."

They droned and tranced a bit, got confused with shoegazers for a time, and lost three or four members along the way, bitter or sweet. But Pierce's quest for an elegant conjunction between radical noise and sweet melody saw Lazer Guided Melodies (1992) and Pure Phase (1995) pile up critical plaudits and a presumed "cult" following--although Sean Cook (of whom more later), Carruthers' replacement after the debut album, recalls that this meant little: "If someone asked you what you did and you said, I'm in Spiritualized, they'd say, Oh, is that a local band?"

By the time they recorded Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space they were approaching inextricable apotheosis and implosion. Primarily, of course, Pierce and Radley's relationship was over. But all concerned must have played it close to their chests because Cook says he was hardly aware of anything amiss until Spiritualized supported the Verve on the Phoenix Festival second stage, July 15, 1995, a date later revealed to have been four days after Radley and Ashcroft got married: "Then I realized Jason was racked with problems. I don't know what came first, his relationship with Kate going down the pan or slipping into a mild drug abuse phase."

Oddly, Cook, now an acerbic critic of Pierce, says that despite all the drug references in his songs, "Silk Cut was as heavy as it got previously. Jason always seemed scared of pot and acid too." But, from 1995 on, Cook says Pierce began smoking heroin.

As to his break-up with Radley, throughout the Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space promotion and tour period, in public he said no more than, "I love her dearly and she loves me dearly. Simple fact."

Significantly, when I asked Radley for an interview in connection with this feature she called Pierce to see what he thought. "She said she really wanted to do it," says Pierce. "But I said that it might be used against her so she shouldn't get involved."

Radley took his advice.

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