I first met Shane in 1989 when the music paper NME thought it would be a good idea to bring us two together alongside Mark E Smith from the Fall for a so-called “summit meeting”. I was excited because I was a fan, completely in awe of Shane’s songwriting. Unfortunately, it was my first day out of rehab, and it probably wasn’t the greatest idea to spend the day with two people who were not known for their moderation. It was pure mayhem from the outset. Not the most auspicious start to a friendship, but Shane and I did become close friends soon afterwards.
When we initially started to hang out, we often went out to bars and clubs. It was a little difficult, because I’d temporarily stopped taking drugs and drinking, but we liked each other’s company. I don’t think he was used to being around someone who didn’t drink. He essentially didn’t trust anyone who wasn’t completely shit-faced. At some point, when I eventually started drinking again, we met in a bar and he asked me what I wanted. I ordered a double vodka and his eyes just lit up. It was like he was a little kid and it was Christmas Day. And that was that. We spent the next years going out, fucking around, getting wasted.
Sometimes I’d call round his flat in King’s Cross and he’d be watching Scarface or one of those violent Kitano cop thrillers. I remember being concerned that he wasn’t writing songs. Once, when I asked him about it, he crawled across the floor and started rooting in the pile of rubbish until he found a scrap of paper. It was the lyrics to a song called St John of Gods. A beautiful title. Beautiful words. To me, his songs were such precious things, deep works of art, really, but he didn’t treat them like that. While I laboured away at my desk, day after day, to produce what I could, Shane’s words were delivered to him on a beer tray with a whiskey chaser.
