Sheggi of the Fat Tulips

where's sheggi clarkson now?

interviewed early 1998 by Mike and Callie Appelstein
for Caught In Flux #7

Katy “Sheggi” Clarkson was the lead singer of Nottingham foursome the Fat Tulips. They were incredibly skilled in the art of buzzing electric guitars, ferocious tempos, pristine pop melodies and lyrics that weren’t nearly as sweet as they sounded at first listen. The Fat Tulips released several 7”s, innumerable compilation and flexidisc tracks, and – at the very end of their career – a CD called Starfish. Together with the likes of Heavenly, Confetti, Strawberry Story, Haywains, and White Town, they were part of a close-knit early-90s UK misfit pop scene. Too energetic to shoegaze, not flashy enough for Madchester, and half a decade too late for the C-86 compilation, many of these bands were covered primarily in a small network of fanzines, usually ignored or misunderstood when they did make it into the likes of NME. (Wait until you read about the Fat Tulips burning a Heavenly T-shirt.)

Citing a concern that they were “getting a bit old for this sort of thing,” the Fat Tulips broke up in the mid-1990s. Sheggi went on to form the Melons with her friend Vanessa. They released three singles with a quieter, more sophisticated bent. Things went quiet for a few years…until, in late 1997, she turned up in New York City. She’d gotten married to Josh Gaffin, an American Fat Tulips fan from the early days, and moved into his apartment in the West Village. Josh had posted a request on the Indiepop List for information about the Nickelodeon TV series The Adventures of Pete & Pete, which had used the Fat Tulips’ “So Unbelievable!” as a backing track. Apparently Sheggi never knew the Fat Tulips music was used on American television. I answered the e-mail, we struck up a friendship, and Sheggi was agreeable to an interview. Callie and I met them at a Mexican restaurant on MacDougal Street.

Do you prefer to be called “Sheggi” or “Katy?”
I still get both, so I don’t care. Vanessa (from the Melons), when she was here a couple of weeks ago, she’s always called me Sheggi, and Matt does as well.

Where did you get the nickname?
You know, I can’t remember where it started. I was like 12 or something. It was a school thing, and it just stuck. I’d go “stop calling me that!” so they’d call me it more, and it ended up that everyone called me that. Still has stuck. I don’t really care.

What do you like and dislike about New York?
I like the fact that things don’t stop at 6:00 at night like they do at home. You can go out in the middle of the night around here and get whatever you want. If you want to have a meal at three in the morning, you can do it. If you want to buy shoes at three in the morning, you can do it. I like the change of climate. I don’t like not being able to see the sky so much. I’m aware of being in the city all the time. Usually when I’m in the city, I know I can get out, go home or whatever, but now I’m in the middle of it. Most of the time, I’m fine, just sometimes. Like when I went to Hoboken last time, it was really nice to leave the city for the day. You look ahead and you can see the horizon, here you see another building. But I like being able to walk out my house and see the Empire State Building. Still freaks me out: it’s a landmark, you know, something you see in an atlas and it’s outside my house. I like more than I dislike.

How did you guys meet?
Josh bought a Fat Tulips record, and he wrote me a letter and I wrote back. We were pen pals. Then he came over to Britain, and we met up.
Josh: I never wrote anyone in my life a fan letter. I don’t know what possessed me. I don’t think I even heard the Fat Tulips. I knew of the band through some fanzine or something. I bought the record, wrote a letter, and about a month later got this letter back.
Sheggi: A month, that’s how long things take in Fat Tulips world.
Josh: We wrote for a couple of years, and then there was a year and a half where we didn’t write. Then I was going over to London to visit a friend’s parents. I didn’t know where she was, but I knew that her mom lived in a village outside Glasgow. So I did a search on the web, and I found some guy on a website, and I wrote him a letter: “Could you please do me a favor? You don’t know me, but can you look in the phone book and look for a listing for ‘Clarkson’ on Main Street?” This guy didn’t just write me back with a phone number; he called her mother up. My screen name is “Bubble,” and he called Katy’s mom and said “there’s some Bubble from New York City looking for your daughter.” I guess your mom knew who I was.
Sheggi: She called me up and said, “There’s this strange guy on the Internet looking for you.” I knew it was you before she even said anything.
Josh: So I got to England and called a couple of times. I guess it was the third day before I was going to leave to go back to New York, I went up to Nottingham. I didn’t even know what she looked like, though I had a rough idea from the back of the Fat Tulips’ album, but that’s not really a descriptive photo. I met her and said to myself, “This is Sheggi!” And three or four hours later – you must have thought I was a lunatic – I said to myself “Yeah, I’m in love with her, I want to be with her for the rest of my life.”
Sheggi: We met face to face in December 1996, got married shortly afterward. My entire life, I never thought I wanted to get married. Maybe if we were the same nationality we’d be living together. One of us was going to have to move, so there was going to be immigration hassles. We were going to get married eventually anyway. It was the easiest thing to do as well, because I couldn’t just move here and live with him, and he couldn’t just move there without a work permit. So here we are.

What was your big introduction to music?
When I was really small, like three or four, my mum was training to be a schoolteacher. I used to stay at my grandmother’s during the day. She had this old reel-to-reel tape recorder, and she used to play me Beatles songs and things like that. I used to stand up and sing them, and I used to play the silverware in the kitchen like drums. She always said that I was going to be musical, and my mum’s like “oh my God.” And then when I was ten I got a guitar, had guitar and piano lessons. I played the recorder at school. I started the recorder when I was five, I was able to read music when I was five or six. I can actually play recorder really well. Last year I started clarinet; it was my roommate’s clarinet, so I don’t have one now. Just that, really. My mum always had a piano, so when I was growing up I used to toot around on it.

What were some favorite records?
My very favorite record growing up was “Somethin’ Stupid” by Frank and Nancy Sinatra. My mum had the single, and she played it all the time. That and The Sound of Music soundtrack. She was really into musicals. Stuff like that I always heard around the house. But the Frank Sinatra song was my favorite…until one day when I tried to play it myself when she was out, and I left it on the window ledge and it warped. When I hear it now, I still get the same pangs. Takes me right back. We did a cover of it once, a band called Vicarage Garden. They called me up one day and I went out to Stoke, we drove up to Manchester and recorded a pop, fast version of it. We never did anything with it…

Later, I had a friend at school whose brother had a load of Liverpool stuff like Echo and the Bunnymen. His sister used to make tapes and bring them to school. Everyone else at school was like 12 or 13. That was my first time (hearing indie music) like Echo and the Bunnymen, Teardrop Explodes, all that. That was as punk as you got in the ‘80s, really. I remember a lot of the older kids at my school, like the sixth-form kids, there was this one group of boys who were so into Duran Duran that they looked like Duran Duran; they had all the gear. They thought they were so cool, but they were, like, snooty cool. But that’s what everyone seemed to be into.

Was the Fat Tulips your first band?
I did mess around with bedroom stuff before that. But they were my first band, yeah. I had just moved down to Nottingham – in fact I hadn’t even moved there at point, I was just visiting friends. I met Mark – he had the Fat Tulips, but it was just him and his friend, they’d done a demo together, and she didn’t want to do it anymore.

Is that the Early Recordings single?
With Sarah, yeah. That had nothing to do with any of us. And he just said to me, “Well, I’d like to carry on, you play guitar, do you want to play?” So I did that, and Matt said he’d drum. He’d never drummed in his life, so he was really bad at it. We knew Paul because Paul and Matt went to school together. IT just happened like that, really.

Can I read you a quote about the Fat Tulips? This is from a Canadian fanzine a few years ago: “…the Fat Tulips were dreadful. The drummer…sat there in his parka reading comics as he played.” Any comment?
That would be Matt; he does wear a parka now and again. He doesn’t read comics as far as I remember, but you never know. It was probably a fanzine. We had many dreadful gigs, but he could keep the beat while he was completely sober and reading a magazine. I was always the one who would fall apart. He wasn’t dreadful. We had dreadful days. I remember a few really bad times when everyone was pissed off. But we played as many or more really good ones.

What were your live shows like?
Sometimes they were really chaotic, and sometimes they were structured. Sometimes they were a bit of both. They were pretty eventful usually. People seemed to have a good time. We used to see the same people at gigs all the time when we played round the country. You’d be in Southampton and there would be people who you’d see in Manchester, and then you’d see them again in London. It was just very strange because there was this core. It was always very much an indie crowd. We very rarely got any kind of outside people.

Who were some of the bands you played with?
We did quite a few gigs with Strawberry Story. Us and them were mostly together. We have a song on our album called “I Promise You.” Whenever we did that, Hayley would do backing vocals; we used to do it together. The Haywains we used to play with a lot, and Heavenly. They were the three we mainly played with. And just anyone else who was around.

Were there a lot of shows with Confetti? Would Mark play in both bands?
Confetti only did five gigs, and all but one were with us. He did one gig in Northampton with someone else, but that was the only time he played independent. It was just Mark and a guitar, and Julie singing. That was all. They sounded pretty much like they did on record. Less produced, obviously, not that they were very produced anyway.

It just seems like such a small group of people. I have old issues of Waaaah! magazine…
Yeah, they were all great. Off the record, they were very strange people. They were very nice people, but they were very dedicated to indiepop only. It had to be very small and very obscure for them to like it.

But Richard did a Shampoo fanzine!
He sent some Shampoo demos out to people that he knew. This was before Shampoo were actually signed to anyone. They were dreadful; it was a terrible, terrible thing. But that’s probably why he liked them, because it was a shambolic. But (the Waaaah! scene) was a relatively small group. We used to play this one place called the Fountain in London, which was in New Cross. It was run by this guy Dave, who was friends with Richard from Waaaah! So there was always the Waaaah! crowd there, and the same people went there. You could rely on that. Ninety percent of our gigs were in London, and you just knew that it would be OK because they’d come down and have a good time. They didn’t really care about the quality of your playing; so if we had a bad night you wouldn’t really care anyway.

All those bands were involved with their own productions, putting out their own records or working with people who did. It was pretty incestuous in a way. And everyone – the Haywains, Strawberry Story, us, Heavenly and all that – we all knew one another. We were all from different parts of the country, but it was such a small scene that we were always together. We did this photo session once that people took completely the wrong way, and it got mentioned in the NME. It was us burning Heavenly T-shirts. I have the photograph somewhere, this black-and-white picture. I was standing off to the side thinking “this is not a good idea, people are gonna see this, Heavenly are gonna see this.” Then one week after this picture was printed, I bumped into Amelia at this gig in London. So I went up to her and said, “Did you see that picture in the NME?” She said yeah, and she was laughing. They all thought it was really amusing. So they understood that we were just being silly. I was just mortified. Everyone always lumped us in with Heavenly; whenever they described us, it was always the Fat Tulips and Heavenly. And we were just like, “Stop!” which is why we did it. But most of the Melons’ gigs were with Heavenly as well. We survived the whole thing.

How did songwriting work? Was there a lot of collaboration?
Mark was the main songwriter. He’d write about 75 percent of our songs, and I would write the rest. He would come in at a rehearsal and teach us a song, and that was that; I’d come in, teach them a song, and that was that. Occasionally he’d give me a tape and say “I have all this music, write some words.” Whenever you see a collaboration, it means I wrote the words and he wrote the music.

On the CD, it almost seemed 50/50.
It was, pretty much, by then. It started off I’d just do the occasional thing, and then I got a little more confident. Well, maybe not “confident,” just more prolific. Then he was going through all this stuff in his personal life and didn’t have time to write, so I’d compensate by bringing in more things. It ended up being 50/50. I think round about the time we did the acoustic single for Sunday, by that time we were even, but he was happy with that. I think he felt a bit pressured because we’d be like “All right, we need more songs,” and he was expecting to have to produce.

It seems like the Fat Tulips put out tons of singles, but didn’t do an album until the end.
We did flexis and singles…that’s all we intended to do, really. We did compilation tracks that were like demo tracks that we used or songs that people liked. The album wasn’t really at the end, even though it seemed like it because it took us so long to do. We just didn’t have the time between the four of us; people were going to university, and there were different hours that we worked. We could never get together to actually record the stuff. We recorded in batches of four; we’d do like four songs over a weekend and then three months do another four, nine months later do another four, until we have about 21 done. Then we had to pare it down to however many we could put on an album. We’d work during the day, mix the tracks at night. It was a nightmare; I couldn’t wait for it to end! After about three plays, you just can’t decide anymore what’s good and what’s bad, what should be louder and softer. Ken, our engineer, was really patient, really placid. He’d say “Can I just suggest this…?” And we’d say, “Do what you want!” At that stage, we just didn’t care anymore. The whole thing took like two years because we couldn’t get it together. Mark lived about 50 miles away and he did record fairs on the weekend, and Matt worked on the weekend…we couldn’t get any time when we all could get together. But it was alright; I remember it as a fun time. Nothing ever sounded like we thought it would. You’d get in there and things would come together. We had this great keyboard, and after I’d done my guitar stuff and they were all messing about, I’d be messing about with the keyboard. So the songs with chimey noises.

Did you get a lot of press outside of zines?
We didn’t get a great deal. We had a good review in NME. We did a flexi, “A Girl Called Suicide,” early on, and Sounds gave it record of the week. We got the odd mention. We actually got this one thing, I think it was Melody Maker, talking about one of our shows – it was us and 3 or 4 other bands – and they called it “Surprise Gig Of The Year.” But generally, they just ignored us. If you weren’t the new one to watch, they really weren’t interested. The Melons have had a lot more coverage than the Fat Tulips. We know people who work for Melody Maker, so it helps.

Did the Melons exist at the same time as the Fat Tulips?
That’s sort of debatable. I had some songs that I knew we couldn’t really do as the Fat Tulips. And Vanessa, who had been my friend for years, she used to dance onstage at Fat Tulips shows, I said to her, “Do you want to sing these songs and make a demo for ourselves?” She was really into it. We were just being stupid, taking the piss out of twee. And the next thing we know, Matt said he’d put it on a flexi, it’d be fun. We just decided we’d be as twee as we can and it’d be really funny and no one would know we were making a joke out of it all. Next thing, it’s getting played on Radio 1 in London. So Albert from Sunday Records said to do a record now. We never intended to be a band.

Who’s Finn of “Me and Finn?”
It’s just a name I liked. I don’t remember why I had it in my head at the time, and I had that riff and everything for the song. It’s really repetitive, and I thought “how many people is this going to irritate?” People at shows shout for that song, and we never do it live. We’re always like “no.” The only time we ever did it live…we had this really unreliable drum machine before we had a drummer, and it used to stop in the middle of tracks or it used to play different tracks. It did this in the middle of “Me and Finn,” and we had to keep restarting. So in the end we dragged Paul out of the audience. He was really, really drunk. We gave him some drumsticks and stuck him behind the drums. Those are really bad memories of it, so we don’t do it anymore. But he’s nobody; just a name.

How about “Simon” from Four Songs for Simon?
There was a big group of us in Nottingham who used to hang out together, maybe about 10 of us. Simon worked in the best indie record shop there, and we said to Simon, “Well, we have these three really good tracks,” and he said “That’s selling out the indie ethic! You should have at least four on the single!” So we quickly recorded “Girl That You Once Knew,” which I wrote in about two minutes, and put it on. We knew he’d be happy, you know? There were supposed to be three!

And then who’s Albie?
Albie is Albert from Sunday. We said, “Can we do an acoustic single?” It was just me and Mark who were interested; the others wanted nothing to do with it. We had “Dance To The Sun” and this Squeeze song, but we didn’t have a main track. Even on the day we were supposed to record, I was like “We do not have a main song.” So while Mark was putting down the guitar for the other two tracks, I went off into the other room and wrote “Albie,” which was another song I kind of adapted and changed the words.

The cover of “Is That Love?” is great.
We used to sing it in the van when we went anywhere to gigs. Me and Julie used to sing “Up The Junction,” too.

How far did you tour?
We really only played up and down Britain. We did one date in Scotland, and the rest were in England. We went for three weeks to Germany with Throw That Beat In The Garbagecan! We had some of their singles and just thought they were an indie band, but they were huge over there! So we weren’t at all worried about it – them and us, it’d be fun. Well, we got there, and there were these sort of plastic all-access-areas passes to get into the actual thing. Not stadiums, but big places. They had a huge student crowd, really, really big. So it was great, because we got to play these really big places with good equipment. We borrowed their stuff and got on so well. We had hotel rooms, we had food paid for, we got paid for playing as well…it didn’t cost us anything. We did a gig on our own to begin with the first night we got there, drove two days to get there, and played this show that could only be described as bizarre. Some guy put it on at his friend’s farm. So there was him and all these people from this neighboring town. All these people had come out of the country for this show. There was us and five local bands. All the people were great; they were so nice. There were sheep wandering through the actual show! There’s a video of that particular show, which was embarrassing because I was completely drunk, more drunk than I’ve ever been. I’m saying things like “Deutsch beer ist goot,” speaking German. When we left at the end, we did a couple of gigs with a band called Souled American. They were really stoned, but really nice as well. Then we did a couple of shows that were really wild in Belgium on the way back, this little corner of Belgium two minutes from France and two minutes from Luxembourg, this pinch almost. They accepted three currencies. It was all very bizarre, and it was in a school gymnasium with all these mad Belgians dancing around. I went to some strange party after the gig with some Belgian guy that we met there. We played a swimming pool as well one day.

You mean inside the swimming pool?
Yup! It was in Hanover. It was an outdoor swimming pool, there was no water in there or anything. We were on the edge, and the audience was in the pool where the water would be. They were really down there in the pit looking up. They were wild there (in Germany); they just got really into it. And we took some CDs, and that “Nostalgia” single had just come out. We took 50 12-inches and 50 CDs thinking we would never sell them, and they were all gone the first night on the farm. Especially the CDs, they just went. And Matt sulked for two days that he hadn’t brought more. And we had T-shirts we had done with that picture on the front of Matt’s sister: we sold them all on the first night. He was just so pissed off! So the rest of the tour we had nothing left to sell. We had to take addresses and send people stuff.

Let’s talk more about that word “twee” for a second. (Sheggi cracks up laughing at the very mention of the word.) I always got the impression that you hated being called that, or looked at it with a certain amount of ironic humor.
Since I’ve been here, I’ve noticed that people have a completely different conception of that word than we all did. All of us, Strawberry Story and those other bands, we would have killed anyone who came up and said we were twee: “FUCK OFF!”

It’s not really an insult here. It’s just a genre of music.
It’s kind of contrived itself into that. At first the press did it. Talulah Gosh, when they started off, they were wearing anoraks. I know you don’t have anoraks here, but you know what they are, right? They were wearing those, which are things little kids would wear. The thing is, the press wouldn’t really catch on, they were like “oh, it’s so twee, it’s so contrived, they’re not children but they’re dressed like children…” They didn’t realize that the bands were wearing them in a ridiculous way. They weren’t being serious. So it just caught on, and then there was this war between the press and Talulah Gosh and all the C86 people, which came before us. Then we came along, and we were locked into it: “It’s like going back to C86!” We were like, “We’ve never worn anoraks!” So we did this photo session all wearing anoraks just to be stupid, and they were like, “See? There’s a photo!” It’s like, do you know what sarcasm is?

What about the drawing on your records, the girl with the “Don’t Stop Indie Pop!” T-shirt? Was that supposed to be you?
I drew her, but it wasn’t me. I did it once on the first single. It was a joke, like a twee thing. I was trying to draw something that was very twee, what they imagined “twee” to be. I decided it had to be like Amelia from Heavenly. So I drew this thing and everyone was like “Ooooh!” People used to write to me from fanzines asking if I would draw them a picture of an indie girl. So we just put it on everything after that, different variations of it. Paul gave her a name; he called her “Audrey.” So that’s why the sleeves were always going on about Audrey, which was this character he made up.

I liked the “Twenty Years of Indie Pop!” drawing on Starfish as well, with the Fat Tulips as old rockers.
There’s a story behind that. We had to do the sleeve. Mark and Matt were Heaven Records, and they were taking care of the pressing and dealing with Vinyl Japan. Paul and me had nothing to do with anything. So they said to us, “Right, you’re doing the sleeve.” We shared a house at that time, me and Paul. So we forgot all about it, and then one night Mark called us up and said “We need the artwork tomorrow morning.” And we were like, “…OK”! We hadn’t done anything at all! So that night I went into Paul’s room, we got some beer, and we sat there the entire night doing the sleeve. We just got some felt-tip pens, and I just did the cover and colored it in like a child’s drawing. Paul did all the drawings on the inside sleeve, and I wrote all the rubbish that was on the sleeve. When I read it back, I was like, “Ohmigod, you can tell we were up at 4 in the morning!” So that’s what the drawings were.

Why did you do a Teardrop Explodes tribute 7”?
Actually, I have no idea. Mark had some friends in Brighton who ran Marineville Records. So this guy said he was doing a series of EPs of cover versions. He did the Confetti Wedding Present one as well. I don’t know if it went any further than that. He asked us, and Mark is a huge Teardrop Explodes fan. We worked out “Treason” and “Reward,” which I was totally against. They were such big singles, and there’s so many nicer songs. Well, we did “Passionate Friend” because I like it. It was just for fun; you can tell from listening to it that we didn’t rehearse. We just ran through them a couple of times and recorded it.

Do the Melons still exist?
No. We did a couple of Radio One sessions and things were going well. And we did that last single, which we put out ourselves, our bass player put it out. We went in, I wrote at least two songs which I thought were my favorite two songs I’d ever done, so they kind of meant something to me. I was sort of anxious that they were done properly because they were my showcase songs, kind of. We didn’t have much money, so we did them at a place where we used to always record; the quality’s not great, but the songs are alright. Nigel decided he was going to do a double-A side single, because we couldn’t decide. So I came off here and left it with them to get on with it. So they bring out this sleeve…first of all, I said I wasn’t doing a single at all if we don’t have a CD. We always do seven-inch singles and we always sell enough to be #5 in the indie charts, but we never get there because everyone’s buying CDs. I don’t even have a record player anymore, so I wanted a CD. So they said “fine, we’ll do a CD and a 7”.” Next thing I know, they’re not doing a CD, they’re only doing a seven-inch, so I just washed my hands of it: “fine, fine.” So the thing comes out and they sent me a few copies over, and everything on the sleeve was wrong, everything. And I was just like, “Why didn’t you OK this with me first?” They had the wrong publisher: we always publish through this company called Leaves, but we were going to publish this one through Bug. And it comes out with “Leaves” on the sleeve. And I was getting more and more disillusioned by the sound quality, it’s not that good. We were supposed to have it out in a month, but the test pressing came back and there was something really wrong with it, so we had to sort that out. And then the sleeve wasn’t together. By the time it all came together, I didn’t care anymore. They would be e-mailing or calling me to talk about distributors, and I just didn’t want to know anymore. They were nagging me: “you should have an interest!” But I was just so pissed off by that point. We just didn’t care, really. In the Fat Tulips, Mark or I wrote the songs, but in the Melons we split everything we got four ways. We never paid the songwriters more than anyone else; everyone got a share. And the Melons were really me and Vanessa, and the others were just helping out because we didn’t have a full band. They started getting more involved, which I don’t mind. But toward the end, everyone else was taking over. I only did (the band) so I could have control over things I didn’t before, because it was getting more and more away from me. Then I thought that was really selfish. And then they were giving the whole band songwriting credits when I knew I wrote all the songs myself and they were my best songs. And I was thinking that’s really bad that I should care. I’m not doing it anymore because I’m here and they’re there. It’s too hard. Plus they were financing it; it totally came out of our hands. But don’t say anything bad about the band.
Josh: Vanessa was just here visiting.
Sheggi: It was just a big mix-up, and it all went wrong. Vanessa was caught in the middle of it because Nigel’s her brother. She’s on my side in a sense; she wanted it to be a CD as well. She considers the Melons to be us, and she thinks it’s gotten out of hand. It’s all a confusion more than anything else. That’s the other thing; the record comes out, and it has “Black and Blue” as the main song. Just because it was their favorite. You can’t really do that. They said this at the time when I was at my most angry, so I e-mailed them and said, “This is the correct publishing, this is the correct songwriter, do not accept anything else.” I must sound like this belligerent businesswoman. I don’t usually care, but I was so fed up with what was going on. Every time we’ve done something, there’s been typos on the sleeve, various things that I would never let pass. But like an idiot I always say “yeah, go ahead.” Instead of “studios,” one single had “studis.” I was like, I’m gonna kill someone!
Josh: It just went by all of you guys, though.
Sheggi: But apart from that last experience, we all really did have a good time. It was great!

Are you planning to do anything else musically now that you’re somewhat settled?
Josh laughs at this point. Actually, I would like to, yeah. When I get off my butt and actually make an attempt. We know people who drum and do this and that. We need people who sing – I don’t sing all the time, I get fed up with it! I didn’t sing in the Melons. I want the kind of band where people do what they feel like, just interchange. We know enough people between us to do stuff. It’s down to me writing some songs. I’ve been so pissed off lately that I haven’t really been inclined. But I know I will again, because it’s something I can’t help. I’m going through that kind of block that you have sometimes. I used to write all the time, stories and stuff, and I can’t do that either at the moment. It’s like you (looking at Josh) always say: “You should just sit down and write something!” I just cannot do that. You have to have an inclination or something to spur you on. Sometimes I think “today’s the day!” And then in two minutes if something doesn’t come, I just put it down and do something else. I just need something to wake me up again.

I’m out of questions. Anything else you’d like to add?
You didn’t ask if we had any big groupies!
Josh: You married one!
Sheggi: Oh, right, sorry. No, there were a few strange little boys…

Any stalkers?
This is a Melons thing, and I have this on tape. When we did the last Radio One session with Mark Radcliffe, he got a letter from this guy who’d been at one of our shows. This guy had told him this really embarrassing thing about me. What actually happened at the show was: we finished, we were trying to pack stuff into the van, and I was walking down this corridor to get to the van. This guy cornered me, big long-haired guy, and he was going, “you were reaaallly goood,” and he was really drunk. Then he shoved me against the wall and tried to kiss me! I punched him in the face by accident. I totally didn’t mean to, I was just so shocked! Hit him in the eye and just ran off. Next thing I know, this guy’s writing Mark Radcliffe a letter: “I hear you’re having the Melons on your show. Say a big hi to Katy, and tell her my eye’s healing nicely.” Mark Radcliffe reads this out on the air. I hadn’t told the band this or anything, and I was so embarrassed! Mark was getting into it; he said, “I won’t embarrass this guy by giving our his name, but his initials are Andy Stapleton.” And the whole thing went out to the entire country! Every show we did after that, I dreaded this guy coming up. But that’s the only one. My only stalker.

I haven’t given you any interesting answers at all, have I?