Patrik Fitzgerald - End Or Beginning

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When 'Grubby Stories' and the attendant singles weren't a success, Polydor basically rejected Patrik's songs for a proposed second album and dropped him. He made two more albums 'Gifts and Telegrams' (1982) and 'Drifting Toward Violence' (1984) neither catching on with audiences. And finally he had one last go with the more commercial sounding 'Tunisia Twist' in 1986. When that failed he bizarrely became a waiter at the House of Commons, before moving to Normandy in 1988. Three years later he returned to London, launching an acting career as well as resurfacing for a series of club dates before emigrating to New Zealand where he lives today (2007).

At the end of the day I decided to stop performing because I was skint and I felt I might as well just get a job. No one was listening to my songs and there was no reason to keep going on. There was no backing, because people thought I had been on one label and blown it. All those things were enough to make me stop.

I’m bitter and twisted about the music biz. You think questions like 'what is it about?' 'Why was I doing that?' 'What do I get out of it?' It’s a tricky one. Even if it’s the crappiest job in the world you need to feel that there’s a reason why you are doing it. Even now I sometimes go off and do gigs and wonder why I’m doing them. Is it because I want to do them or other people want me to do them or because there’s a value from my or other people’s point of view. I’m not a tortured artist. If you don’t quiz yourself like this then you shouldn’t be doing it.
Quite weirdly Patrik resurfaced to play at the premier festival for reformed old punks Wasted.

Bands nowadays – punk bands reforming and playing same stuff and they are now entertainers. I held off from doing the Wasted Festival for 3 or 4 years. The whole process of being on stage in England was odd looking at it as an outsider. I’m at a point where the stuff that’s most high profile is the earlier stuff because it’s available on cd. Therefore that’s the stuff most people know and who have heard it through their parents. For me though it’s stuff I’ve given up in the seventies so quite odd that I’m expected to get up and play it again. I recognise that some of the stuff is still quite valid so as along as I feel I can get up and sing the song and do it justice and not be a total twat I’ll play it. The battle is blending the early stuff with the later stuff which people don’t know and that there is a living person here still writing, not a relic from the late seventies. I’d feel uncomfortable with that whole reformation act doing the same stuff year after year. Your songs have got to have some sort of bite and merit.
Future plans for 2007? A single coming out with Attila the stockbroker on Crispin Glover records. It will be on red vinyl. 33rpm 7 inch single 5 tracks. Another best of cd with Cherry Red. They own a lot of my stuff and don’t do anything with it so it’s the Polydor scenario all again. They’ve got 3 of my albums from the Eighties. I think it’s better than the stuff on the other comp. It’s just sitting there waiting for the highest bidder and unless you actually sell stuff you don’t get a high enough profile to release them. There’s no talk of me doing anything new because I have no label or backing.

Top Photo Chelsea College 1983 courtesy of Mick Mercer