ROKY ERICKSON

You’re Gonna Miss Me True Love Cast Out All Evil Vice: You wrote tracks such as “We Sell Soul” and “You’re Gonna Miss Me” when you were 15. What inspired songs like that at such an early age?
Roky Erickson: Sometimes it sounds like you were trying to sound like Buddy Holly…
But Buddy Holly chewing acid.
Did you want to become stars like the Stones or the Who?
Can you remember meeting Tommy Hall, who you founded the 13th Floor Elevators with, for the first time?
I’ve always wondered how Tommy decided he was going to play the electric water jug?
Did he think that the jug player would get the all girls?
Are you aware of the power in your voice? It’s deeply moving and affecting.
Is there anyone whose singing does that to you?
A lot of bands have covered your songs, and Sire even put out a whole covers album of your material. Are there any you particularly loved or hated?
Your return to health, performance and recording—considering the places you were in 20 or even ten years ago—is nothing short of remarkable. What made you want to get back onstage?
How did you end up recording True Love Cast Out All Evil with Will Sheff and Okkervil River?
Some of the songs on the record have been around for many years now. Are you happy with these new versions?
Seeing as the record contains songs from so many different periods in your life and career, does that make it closer to a biography?
You have released records on Trance Syndicate, the label run by King Coffey of the Butthole Surfers, and Henry Rollins published a collection of your lyrics. How did you meet those guys?
Have you seen the film about your life, You’re Gonna Miss Me?
In the film, when you would turn on all the electrical appliances in your house, did it sound like music to you or was it to drown out something?
Roky hanging out on a cliff, 1975, by Stephanie Chernikowski You once roomed with Townes Van Zandt and even suggested him as a replacement member when John Ike Walton quit the Elevators in 1967. How did you know Townes?
Did you suspect then that he was also bound for a path of hardship?
On the new album, some of the songs recorded while you were incarcerated in Rusk are credited to “unnamed prisoners”. Who did you play with while you were in there?
Is it true that the manuscript of your book of poetry, Openers, had to be smuggled out of Rusk?
Openers What are your feelings towards the punishment system in America now that you have some distance from it?
War and Peace After getting out of Rusk, you played with Doug Sahm and recorded with him as a producer. What are your memories of working with him?
You said recently that you like to “write about religion and horror at the same time”.
What are your favourite horror films?
Creature With the Atom Brain One of your backing bands was called the Aliens, and on the back of your “Bermuda”/“Interpreter” single from 1977 you wrote: “I am an alien, I am from Mars. And like I even had it notarized, y’know, had me swear it was true.”
The Evil One Did you ever want to act?
And he was in the movies?
Pause Do you still enjoy movies these days?
I like South Park.
South Park I like The Boondocks too.
A lot of your songs deal with God and Satan. What does God mean to you?
And how about Satan?
Roky Erickson with Okkervil River’s is out now on Chemikal Underground.