#hepcat

“I saw Elvis for the first time on Ed Sullivan, when they wouldn't show him from the waist down. When I first saw Elvis, it did change my life. If you look at those early films, he was like an alien – you can’t imagine in the fifties how horrifying he was to people. People have this idea now that the fifties must have been great, like Happy Days. It was horrible – everybody had to be like everybody else. It was the most conformist – that’s why rock’n’roll happened: this explosion of rebellion, which certainly did influence me heavily. My parents were uptight – all parents were uptight about rock’n’roll, that’s why it worked! All music should get on your parents’ nerves, even now if you have very cool parents. Whatever the next music is gonna be, they should hate, or it doesn't work.”

/ From my 2010 interview with John Waters in Nude magazine /