‘The landlady was shocked to see them – and their hair’
It was 1986 and I’d been on the road with Sigue Sigue Sputnik for a couple of days. They’d played a gig in Leeds the previous night and we’d just arrived at a little bed and breakfast in Newcastle upon Tyne. I dumped my stuff in my room and went down to the bar where I got speaking to the landlady. I was kind of just hanging around when two members of the band, Neal X and Yana YaYa, came down to order drinks. The landlady hadn’t seen them at this point … and she hadn’t seen their hair. She was, shall we say, shocked. I happened to be there so it made a picture.
That’s how I always work. I watch, I wait … and hopefully I see one of these magic moments. If you’re patient then something will usually happen. It’s all about being prepared and seeing clearly. I’m not a setter-upper of photographs. You couldn’t set up an image like this even if you tried. If you had a team of people in there and a crew and an art director and a whole mob of people you’d lose the spontaneity. It’s the finger in the landlady’s mouth that makes the image – she’s looking up at Neal X and his hair and his cowboys T-shirt, which was based on a design by Jim French. Her expression is fantastic. She’s not horrified; she’s smiling and thinking: “What the hell is going on here?”