THE 12 INTERVIEWS OF XMAS: Sylvia Patterson on Her Memoir and Illustrious Career

As an avid reader of Smash Hits in the 80s (when its pages bristled with irreverence and humour) I pounced on Sylvia Patterson’s memoir as soon as it landed in the HP office. As a young cub writer the Scot had been part of the key Smash Hits posse, poking fun at music’s elite and asking questions that boldly went where no other music mag had gone before. Sylvia went on to work for the NME in the Golden Age of Britpop and write for sundry other respected titles, along the way grilling the likes of Madonna, Prince and Damon Albarn.

Her book is not only a side-splitting account of her misadventures in journalism but also a compelling memoir in which she is remarkably candid about her troubled upbringing.
Our encounter was my favourite of the year as she exceeded my expectations with her effusive wit and warmth. As she cackled recounting several rib-tickling yarns her passion for her work was obvious, she was a joy to interview.

Telling Tales: An Interview with Sylvia Patterson

Asking Beyonce if she had ever spewed over her ample cleavage is a question most hacks would never consider posing. But it is just one of many jaw-dropping queries contained in the bevy of A-list interviews in Patterson’s memoir I’m Not With The Band.

“Beyonce just laughed and said that she had never been drunk and sick all down her cleavage,” sniggers Sylvia Patterson. “Of course not, because Beyonce would never be blind drunk and sick anywhere! She is far too elegant for such antics!”

A cub scribe for Smash Hits in its ‘80s glory years, a staff writer at NME in the eye of the Britpop storm and a seasoned contributor for a slew of revered publications since, she, by her own admission, was front and centre for the glory days of music journalism. These were the bygone years when media types were actually given face-time with the stars. When there weren’t several zillion layers of a pr/management/label hierarchy to cut through and (shock, horror) the artist was a person not a brand. In her latest tome she recounts her journalistic adventures with the likes of Madonna, Prince, Blur, The Gallaghers and more. Such interviews form the backbone of the book, which is fleshed out by insightful commentary on the decline of music journalism and poignantly, her own personal struggles.

“I felt it was time to write the book because I knew my profession was swirling into a black hole,” she says. “I decided to tell a story of my young self back at Smash Hits and weave the decline through all my experiences, and also incorporate the interviews.”

Her intrepid tête-à-tête’s make for a rollicking good read. What journo in recent times would have dared to call Prince The Purple Perv to his face?

“I don’t think it was a question of not being afraid,” she giggles. “If you go in with a big smile on your face they know that you are just having a lark. Prince laughed his head off, he really did laugh. He wasn’t a man who spoke to the press very often and when he did he stuck to his script. He was saying the paths he had gone down before of drugs and sexual promiscuity had led nowhere. But to talk to him and call him The Purple Perv and remind him he is the man who said he would never waste an erection! His face was priceless! Those glittering eyes were so amused by this. I think he rather enjoyed it to be honest!”

Her open, fun-loving approach to the process won over many during the years. and she rarely fell foul of interviewees. Even when her queries were slightly more barbed, some of her interlocutors proved impervious to cheek; especially the Irish contingent.

“Westlife were bulletproof!” she smiles. “I was so frustrated because I was really genuinely trying to make them see the error of their ways. I was basically saying, ‘You dreary men, you have no single personality between you, you come off as clones, you are the Dolly the Sheep of boybands’. All they did was feel sorry for me. (Adopts Irish accent) ‘You’re very sad because it’s all gone from rock to pop. We’ll write a rock song for you’. With all those number ones, they definitely won in the end. They couldn’t have cared less what the woman from the NME thought of them! “

“And Bono to my absolute joy turned out to be the type of person who not only encouraged getting a tongue-lashing but was so much into the spirit of it!” she continues. “We were only meant to be doing an hour’s interview that day, during which I gave out to him about his spectacles and his mullet. So he invited me for dinner!” Two of the most charming elements of the book are Patterson’s rabid enthusiasm for music and her belief in its redemptive power. She expects to learn the meaning of life from each rock god she grills. Of course, none provide the goods, but who dispensed the wisest nugget?

“It probably was Bono!” she states. “It was his burn-away-the-bollocks speech. He said the title of album All That You Can’t Leave Behind was taken from the scriptures. He described it as a fire that you pass through and all the bollocks is burned away and you are left with the eternal things like friendship and love and laughter. And I thought that was very simple but it actually makes more sense the older I get.” With such a wealth of interviews on offer we wonder what if anything was indeed left behind? “There were a few that didn’t help tell the story but were interesting anyway,” she concedes. “I had done a couple of interviews with Thom Yorke and he was a fascinating character. He’s so angry he became very funny. His anger turned into this righteous indignation which was great!”

“There was also a chapter about my several encounters with Pete Doherty, so the tragic tale of Pete Doherty was in there for a while,” she adds. “I was around his house once, there were needles everywhere, teenagers on crack lying pollaxed on his sofa, blood up the walls… It was a dreadful state of affairs.”

Between her observations and interrogations lie her own story, which she recounts with brutal honesty. Patterson grew up with an alcoholic mother whose neglect scarred her irrevocably. She also writes openly about her experiences of miscarriage in later years.

“I knew I would have to make the book personal as otherwise I would just have been a disembodied voice and nobody would have cared less,” she explains.

“It wasn’t easy, I have never written about personal things before. I was always writing about other people! It was hard but like all things that are hard people tell me they have been very moved by it. It has helped my family come to terms with things also.”