The Sheffield Scenester

Interview and pics by Shirley Bell

I first discovered Richard Bradley as one sixth of Northern psychedelic band, The Arch Nazards. More recently, I got the chance to see him perform live as a solo artist in the incarnation of Pony Harvest; an eccentronic wizard who reminds me of a fusion between Harry Potter and an evil genius (ok, less of the evil and more of the GENIUS) with so many ornithological mascots that appear with him onstage, it would be easy to think of him as something out of Hogwarts.

After walking around outside the Adsetts Centre of Sheffield Hallam University in the wind, we ended up near an empty staircase on level 4 of the Owen building, accompanied only by an extremely dusty chair under said staircase and a strange rumbling noise. Plus, the lights kept turning themselves on and off every few minutes. Not the best time/place for Richard’s creepy ghost stories...

Shirley: After seeing you play live as the one-man-band Pony Harvest, I see that your live shows are very unique and quite different from the “norm.” How did you come up with the idea to do this?

Richard: Well, I used to do live shows with a five piece band. We had a drummer, guitarist, bass player, flute player and then me on keyboards and flute, sort of like front person, but gradually one by one they all moved away from Sheffield. They all, kind of, didn’t want to do it anymore so it just ended up being me cos I thought I could either just stop doing it or carry on doing it as a one man show. I’ve been to shows before where it’s an electronic male sole artist just stood behind a laptop and it doesn’t look very interesting; it’s quite boring to watch, you know. They could be playing solitaire on their laptop or something or checking their emails for all we know, so I wanted to make it quite silly and hopefully funny and just kind of channel that spirit of The Goodies and Spike Milligan and all those kind of silly comedy shows that I like. Not taking themselves too seriously really.

Shirley: From your gigs, I see that you have a few stuffed birds as mascots; are they part of a collection you have?

Richard: Yes, I have one here, actually in this carrier bag. (Takes one of the birds out of a bag – Larry the Lapwing) Well, they’re not actually stuffed, I should probably tell you. They look stuffed, but they’re actually made out of plastic. They’re made by an Italian company, I think, called “Sport Plast” and I’ve got quite a few. I’ve been a vegetarian for 16 years so, I don’t know; I think stuffed animals are kind of quite beautiful, but quite horrible at the same time, so the plastic birds are my compromise and they keep me company on stage because it, kind of, gets a bit lonely up there.

Shirley: Have you given any of these birds’ names?

Richard: Well, this lapwing is Larry the lapwing; I’ve got a vulture called Margery, an owl called Danniella Westbrook ‘cos it looks like she’s got a cocaine tash and its beak keeps falling off like Danniella Westbrook’s nose did. I don’t think many of the others have got names, actually. I’ve got a crow and a duck and a couple of pigeons that have not got names yet. I’ve not christened them.

Shirley: What is the weirdest thing that’s happened to you at a gig?

Richard: Well, gigs are quite weird situations anyway. They feel like quite hyper real, strange events. Before a live show in Copenhagen, in the sound check, I managed to electrocute myself. That was a strange show. It was like an ex - underground station in Copenhagen. At the sound check, I’d got one of those European adapters and you’re meant to fold in the metal parts that you’re not using but I’d left them folded out and when I grabbed hold of it to unplug it, I kind of, made a circuit with all the electricity. Yeah, that’s one of the weirder things that have happened to me before a show.

Shirley: Where are your favourite places in Sheffield to hang out and / or play gigs at?

Richard: I actually got asked this by a website called “Sound and Music” who are like an experimental arts network and they asked me to write a guide to Sheffield, so if you go onto “Sound and Music’s” website, there’s a section called “places” and there are various different cities around the world shown by various different musicians and I’ve done one for Sheffield so I put places like The Washington; that’s always good, where all the musicians hang out, The Grapes used to be good, but they stopped doing live music now, which is quite sad and Bungalows & Bears. Just any of the non-standard bars really. But having said that, I don’t go out as much as I used to; I’m quite boring now. I just stay in; have a cup of tea, read a book...

Shirley: If you could have a super power, what would it be?

Richard: There’s a character in a comic that I used to read when I was little. It’s not the Beano or the Dandy. There was a character that had a magic stopwatch. It’s called the “Stand Still Stopwatch” and he could use it to stop or speed up or slow down time and I’ve always thought that would be a quite good one. Yeah, the ability to stop or speed up time so you can speed through all the boring stuff like the washing up and the work and stuff and slow down all the good stuff like holidays and that sort of thing.

Shirley: Do you believe in ghosts and have you ever seen one?

Richard: Yes. I have to admit, I was quite obsessed with ghosts when I was younger. I was quite a morbid child. I used to like vampires and the supernatural quite a lot. I’m also quite rational and cynical. I did once think I saw a ghost who lived in a Victorian terraced house when I was a student. It was in my final year and I had been doing a job. You know, when the university does clearing? When all the A level results had come out, I had been working on the telephone line and we’d done a really long day and because it was A level results day, I had to be at work at quarter to seven in the morning until quarter to seven at night so I’d done like a twelve hour day and I was really tired. I was just going upstairs to bed and I’d just got to my room, which was at the top of the stairs on the right and my eye sight is quite bad because I wear glasses; I haven’t got a great field of vision. I switched the light off and, do you know what it’s like when you can sense someone there? Out of the corner of my eye, I’m sure I saw someone coming up the stairs behind me. I knew I was in the house on my own because my housemates hadn’t come back to Sheffield so it really shocked me. I knew there was no-one there, so I turned round and there was no-one there, but I really felt like someone was following me up the stairs. Also, at Psalter Lane, when I worked at the library there; that was meant to be haunted by the ghost. It was a school before it was a university and the headmaster committed suicide by gassing himself and I never actually saw the ghost; one of my colleagues did. But I’ve been upstairs by myself at night in the library and it was quite a weird atmosphere, but I never actually saw anything. We held a séance when the building closed and used an EMF machine which apparently could show ghosts, but they all just looked like blobs in front of the camera flash to me. I really wanted to believe that there was something there, but I’m also quite rational and cynical so I kind of explained stuff away. So, nothing really happened, in a sense. I wouldn’t have been happier with anything like chairs flying across the room, or blood pouring out of the walls; there was nothing like that.

Shirley: If you could bottle 3 ingredients that best represent your personality, what would they be?

Richard: I’m not really sure if that’s for me to say. You can’t really, objectively look at your own personality, can you? You try and project a good image of yourself, obviously. And also, personality is something that changes and develops over time so I don’t think I would bottle any elements. I’d leave it kind of, getting better or worse over time. Who knows?

Shirley: If you had a time machine, where and when would you like to visit?

Richard: I’ve got an obsession with the 1970’s. It seemed to be more colourful with more outrageous clothes...it seems kind of a bit more grey these days. Although in the 1970’s they did have a lot of recession and unemployment, a bit like what we’re going through now. I’ve always quite liked history and the Victorian times must be quite good I think, although there was quite a lot of inequality. Mediaeval times would be quite cool as well with all the castles and knights and stuff. Any of those three really.

Shirley: And finally...seeing as we both go to the same uni, what is the strangest or funniest memory you have of being a student here and have I got anything equally exciting to look forward to?

Richard: Well, I don’t want to put a downer on things, but I was a student at Psalter Lane and that’s where all my really good memories at university are, but it’s closed down now. When I was there, I was half at Psalter Lane because I did Film and English and half at the English department at Collegiate before it moved down here and all the film stuff was at Psalter Lane. I just really liked Psalter Lane because I was a serious student, but you just get, because all the arts students were there and walk down the corridor to the library and the Collegiates come running up in their underpants and that was like someone’s art project. You just get used to all this weird stuff happening when you’re just walking round the building. I remember once, someone’s art project was to make loads of rabbits out of jelly from those jelly moulds you can get shaped like a rabbit and put them on the driveway. If you went up the driveway, on the grass, there was hundreds and hundreds of these little jelly rabbits. I don’t think you get that really now. All the arts stuff has moved down the City Campus and you just kind of get lost. We have exhibitions in the Adsetts Centre, but nobody really notices them. I think I’ve changed quite a lot in the university. But just make the most of it. That’s the only and most freedom you’ll have. Carry on with this stuff like reviewing and things when you’ve got the time to do it really. So just have a blast and make the most of the freedom you have.