Pulp: “A lot of foundational things for the band came from listening to The Velvet Underground”

In a recent interview with Hot Press, Jarvis Cocker of Pulp has shared his greatest inspirations, including The Velvet Underground and The Beatles.

His connection to the band began with a compilation of their first three albums. The first song he listened to was ‘Waiting For The Man’ off their 1967 album, The Velvet Underground & Nico.

“I just was amazed by the way they sequenced it,” he said of the compilation. “It went on to stuff from the third album, which is super mellow.”

Cocker derived inspiration from the band’s instrumentation, incorporating their stylistic choices into Pulp.

“I had my mind blown by them,” he said. “That’s why I’ve always used strings. They had Mo Tucker playing drums, so it was alright to have a woman in a band. You know, a lot of foundational things for the band came from listening to The Velvet Underground.”

Other sources of inspiration came from none other than The Beatles.

“It is incalculable how much influence The Beatles had in encouraging ordinary people to be creative,” he reflected. “I had the good luck to be brought up under that benevolent feeling of people thinking: ‘We can do this.’

“The lid got screwed back on that in the ‘80’s, and that was what was so dispiriting for me. We’d done a John Peel Session, and I thought, ‘Now we can start to play, and this is going to be my life, and it’s all going to be exciting, like the ‘60’s.’ Unfortunately, it was the ‘80’s, and Thatcher just screwed the lid tight and said, ‘Fuck off. Go back to being a Serf.’”

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