#printed interview

Pulp were formed by Jarvis whilst at school and the current line up has been together for about five years. But why did they all want to be in a band in the first place?

"I think we wanted to frustrate ourselves," says Candida.

"We're complete sado-masochists," backs up Nick.

Is it what you all always wanted to do?

"Yeah," confirms Jarvis. "I, kind of, wanted to do it at school. I used to imagine, when I was in the school's dinner queue, that I wouldn't have to queue up if I was famous. It's not particularly true. That's what I thought it would be like but it's not."

So, after deciding he wanted to be a pop star, Jarvis went to film school. Why?

"That was after we'd been doing the band for a while but I was disillusioned. We'd been messed around by loads of record companies and the final straw was when the bass player became a born again Christian and left the band. It all seemed a big mess. We didn't actually split the band up but I thought I ought to do something else cos it's all I'd been doing since I left school and I thought my brain was drying up. I thought I ought to do something else to keep it alive a bit."

Now it's 1993 and it's going to be a good year for Pulp. Their records are being picked up on - their last single 'Razzmatazz' got Single of the Week in Melody Maker - and it is rumoured that they have signed to Island Records.

"We're with them spiritually..."

"I don't think we've signed or anything," says Jarvis over Nick.

"...we're, kind of, engaged. It's been a long engagement."

"But long engagements are the best," stresses Russell.

Why do you think it's taken so long for Pulp to be appreciated (Pulp has been around in various forms for about fifteen years)?

Steve: "It's our turn."

Jarvis: "We've been waiting in queue for a long time."

Steve: "It's like when you go to the Post Office and you want a stamp but you'll wait for everyone else to go."

Jarvis: "We're very polite y'see so we didn't push in."

Nick: "We wouldn't have that."

Jarvis: "So we waited our turn."

Did it get depressing in the meantime? "No," continues Jarvis. "There's always other things to do. If you choose to sit at home thinking, "Why aren't I famous?", then you would be quite a sad character. You can always ride your bike or something."

Did you think you'd be doing it this long when you first started?

"No. I would've been horrified. I always thought pop music was supposed to be quite instant. You didn't hang around for a decade. To be doing it for so long is very strange."

How did Pulp sound when you started?

"Awful."

"It was all feedback," explains Steve.

"Yeah," recalls Jarvis. "It was a noise. Not on purpose, or anything. It was just ineptitude. I started when I was young and we just couldn't play. We still can't play very well but I don't think that matters."

What does matter then?

"It's not what you can play, it's what you can say."

And what are Pulp saying?

"That's put you on the spot," cries Nick gleefully.

"Well, it's not that we've got something to say as in there's a big message for the world. U2 are trying to shake off that image now but before they were always doing the chest beating and coming up with their big slogans. It's not like that. Hopefully it's an accurate reflection of our lives."

In that case Pulp must lead very strange lives. The opening lines of 'Razzmatazz' were, "The trouble with your brother/he's always sleeping with your mother/and I know that your sister's missed her time again this month".

"I don't think they're seedy," states Jarvis. "They're just true to life. I think they're deadpan and down to earth. I don't think they're strange. Razzmatazz is a bit sad. Babies (the single before Razzmatazz... sample lyric: I wanna take you home/I wanna give you children) is just a thing you get up to when you are fourteen and certain things are still still taboo and you get into situations because of curiosity."

What does your mother think about your lyrics?

"I don't think she's bothered. She's not made any detrimental comments. She thinks the songs should be happier. I'd rather her take no notice actually because once I went round there at Christmas and she insisted on playing the record all the time when my relatives were there. It was embarrassing. Everyone comes up and pats you which isn't very good. Also, if you're on TV or radio at your mothers then it's very embarrassing."

"Shouldn't have your hair like that."

"Smile a bit more."

"Why don't you play some happy ones."

To get to know Pulp a little better we decided to ask each member of the band to describe the others. We allotted them one word per person. Below are the results.

Nick: Candida... petite. For Jarvis I'd say dishevelled. Steve is organised and Russ is er... too tough sometimes.

Candida: Nick's loud. Jarvis is temperamental. Steve is organised and Russell is good at business.

Jarvis: For Nick I would say... high. Candida is fluorescent. Steve is clean. Russell... I'd say feedback.

Steve: Nick is too loud. Candida is calm. Jarvis is unique and that's not a compliment. Ha Ha Ha. Russell is manic.

Russell: Nick is Jean Paul. Candida is toys. For Jarvis I'd say praying mantis and Steve I would say is a cigar.

During this game several compliments and disparaging remarks were handed out and taken with apparent ease and false stroppiness in turn. Pulp complimenting each other makes them happy, but what is the nicest thing an outsider could say about them?

"I don't know. I get embarrassed if people are nice to me," says Jarvis whilst Russell lines up the butts of his cigarettes in size order. "l find it hard to accept people being nice. I always think they' re after something."

"You're paranoid," offers Steve as an explanation. "l don't know why it is. It's like when you eat out at a restaurant, not that I do very often, but when I do I don't like the waiters always coming over and supposedly being nice. (Adopts slimey voice.) "Is everything O.K. for you sir?". I find that makes my flesh crawl. I'd rather they just give it to you and then let you eat and talk to whoever you're with."

"The nicest thing someone could do to you is put a plate of food down and walk away?" asks Russell incredulously.

"I don't mean just slap it down. Put it down, then go away. I don't want them hanging around with the violin in your ear. The niceness is a bit like that."

Do you also hate it when people are horrible to you Jarvis?

"Oh yeah. I like general blandness. Ha Ha Ha. If somebody comes up to you and says "You're great", it's nice but it's also..."

"...a conversation killer," finishes Russell.

"It's a northern thing as well," observes Steve. "In Sheffield no one Would ever go up and say, "I think you're great"."

"That's why," confirms Russell, "it's uncool. It's us that's wrong but..."

"The best compliment we get is if someone says we're alright. It's good to know that other people like you but you'd rather hear it second hand," explains Jarvis.

"The first time someone said it to us we thought we'd misheard them," says Nick.

"Do you know who we are?" adds Russell.

"Yeah," continues Nick. "l thought they'd got the wrong band."

You said earlier that you don't like people being mean to you - does criticism upset you?

"Well" says Jarvis with a pained expression, "if somebody writes something like, "He's a tall, lanky streak of piss with no discernible talent. How has he managed to delude himself for so many years?" you can't just go, "Oh, yeah. Fair enough, everybody's entitled to their own opinion"."

"Truth hurts. Ha Ha Ha." comments Steve.

"It's too bad they were right," agrees Russell rubbing more salt into Jarvis's wounds. "We do like people to like us. We're not just doing this for ourselves. We want people to like it."

"But we don't pander," warns Jarvis.

What do you think about the "Crimplene scene" which is the current press play thing? Does it bother you that you've been lumped into that?

"We started it," boasts Steve jokingly.

"I don't think it exists. It's not healthy," complains Jarvis. "No. Crimplene makes you sweat. We'd rather be the British cotton scene."

"It's true," supports Nick. "Avoid Crimplene at all costs."

"I like seventies bands like Denim. Is that the Crimplene scene?" asks Russell.

From what I've read, it's you, Suede, Saint Etienne etc.

"We used to get compared to Marc Almond and World Of Twist so..."

"If I was going to chose a scene to be associated with," remarks Steve, "it would be that one but it's not like we meet at Oxfam on a Saturday afternoon and fight over classic Crimplene. None of us like it."

"I still don't think it exists," says Jarvis persistently.

If there is a scene then Pulp are the leaders of the pack. They might not be the biggest, but they are the best. In terms of sex, glamour and everything that counts they are the only band you need to know. They leave the rest of their ilk in a trail of dust. The songs are gorgeous uplifting affairs with secret tales of suburban life as lyrics. It is pure genius.

"A lot of sexual perverts like us," offers Russell helpfully. "They write us strange letters. Post grunge and post shoe gazing there is a new sort of person on the streets and they like us. People in stripey tops quite like us."

"French people like us," announces Candida.

Do any of you ever get recognised in the streets?

"Yeah," states Jarvis. "I was saying to Russell the other day, that I've always had people taking notice of me in the streets in Sheffield - usually in a bad way. They called me names and things. It does still happen. In fact I nearly had a fight yesterday 'cos this boy decided to push me. But people have started to recognize me and be a bit more friendly now. It's strange 'cos I'm always getting ready to flinch when they come up and then they say something nice and catch me off guard."

What names did they call you?

"Because I've always worn glasses it just used to be someone famous with glasses. Elvis Costello, Buddy Holly. Just anybody who wore glasses. I used to have a beard for a bit and then I was called Rolf Harris all the time. They weren't very imaginative."

Well, those people were obviously mad. Jarvis is, without a doubt, a sex symbol for the nineties along with all the others in the band. At the gig that took place after this interview Jarvis was practically pulled off the stage by adoring females. O.K. - so we know they are attractive, but how sexy out of ten does each member of the band think he/she is?

"We're all going to say ten aren't we?" asks Candida.

"You might, but I wouldn't," retorts Steve.

"I think it changes during the day," decides Nick. "When you get up in the morning you're probably a minus. The later it gets the better it gets. If it's a good day you might peak at two."

"You just about make a two, Steve," jokes Jarvis.

"Anyone who says above seven has problems," says Steve wisely.

"You'd catch them playing with themselves in front of a mirror when you came in here," suggests Jarvis.

"That means you were about a nine in the van today, then, when we set off," says Steve whilst trying to wind up Jarvis.

"Yeah?"

"I didn't think you were a nine, you thought you were."

"Self-masturbation," adds Nick helpfully.

"That's another thing that other people have to decide upon," Jarvis remarks sensibly.

"Obviously it's nice if people do find you that way."

At this point Nick's brother enters the room and Russell starts loudly announcing that "this one goes up to eleven" if you twist the nipple and put a little shilling in the slot. Everyone has hysterics.

But, don't get me wrong, Pulp take what they do incredibly seriously. They are a deadly serious band. I know this because Nick told me four times. They are funny, the music is not. Pulp are also clever, sexy, glamorous, beautiful, talented, strange, normal, erotic, under-famous, unique, sleazy, stylish and every other compliment ever. If you feel the need to check out the high life or if you just need that extra sparkle - look no further than Pulp. They're the most fun you'll ever have.

What was the last good book you read? Dead Babies - Martin Amis The Cement Garden - Ian McEwan One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey Woman In White - Wilkie Collins Bonfire Of The Vanities - Tom Wolfe Steppenwolf - Herman Hesse

Fave political figures? Arthur Scargill, Harriet Harman, Michael Foot.

What TV shows do you try not to miss? Open University - Particle Physics Module One.

What sports are you good at? Water, pocket billiards, table tennis, cards, arm wrestling, gambling.

Which public figure do you most despise? Sebastian Coe (he gives Sheffield a bad name - he stood for Parliament because he couldn't run for toffee).

Fave TV shows of yesteryear The Spirit Of Dark And Dirty Water Double Deckers Hope And Keen's Crazy Bus Banana Splits Cheggers Plays Pop Any public information films

Most embarrassing records in your collection Ours, because our mothers insist on playing them when relatives and insurance salesmen come round.

Name three great songwriting partnerships Chinnichapp, Bacharach & David, Peters & Lee.

Fave punk rock records Candida: 'Another Girl Another Planet' - The Only Ones Jarvis: '1 2 X U' - Wire Russell: 'Pretty Vacant' - The Sex Pistols Steve: 'Bingo Master's Breakout' - The Fall Nick: 'Roadrunner' - Jonathan Richman

Fave historical figure Vlad The Impaler and the Whore Of Babylon.

Worst lyric you've ever heard "Kick yourself in the head/Pretty soon you will be dead..." ('Get A Life' - Julian Lennon)

Who's overrated? Wim Wenders, Jacques Poos (Foreign Minister of Luxembourg), Bob Dylan, Graeme Hick, John Barnes.

Who's underrated? Fellini, potatoes, Donovan, Momus.

Who's sexy? Jarvis: Jan Francis Steve: Jane Birkin, Charlotte Gainsbourg Candida: Jack Nicholson Russell: Ingrid Pitt Nick: Sue Carpenter

Punchline to fave joke "Elvis Parsley"

Where would you like to retire to? Jarvis: Whitby Russell: Scarborough Candida: Shetland Steve: Galway Nick: Cardigan Bay

Name a record that can make you cry Nick: 'Honey' - Bobby Goldsboro Candida: 'Romeo And Juliet' - Dire Straits Steve: 'Blue Afternoon' - Tim Buckley Jarvis: 'Always Coming Back To You' - Scott Walker Russell: 'She's A Lady' - Pulp

When were you last drunk? When we dressed up as a bottle.

What was the last dream you can remember? Candida: Eating live cockroach sweets Russell: That Rotherham was a major international conference centre Jarvis: Sticking up toads at the top of my gran's cellar steps Steve: Being dressed in women's clothes at a disco

Three records guaranteed to make you dance 'French Kiss' - Lil' Louis 'Groove Is In The Heart' - Deee-Lite 'Disco Inferno' - Trammps

What was the first record you heard? Nick: 'Mr Tambourine Man' - The Byrds Candida: 'Love Is Just Like A Merry-Go-Round' - Sandie Shaw Steve: 'Itchycoo Park' - The Small Faces Russell: 'The Ring' - Wagner Jarvis: 'The Strange World Of Guerney Slade' - Max Harris

Fave fabrics Dacron, Trevira, Courtelle, Lycra, Dralon, Velour, Towelling, Darron, Suedette, Moleskin, Velvet, Sharron.

J: No. As far as most people are concerned, we only started to exist last year. R: Most of the people that come to see us now have never heard anything before My Legendary Girlfriend, thank goodness! They don't know about our hideous past - we've been trying to keep it quiet, you know!

So what've Pulp been up to since the release of Countdown? R: A hectic schedule of staring into space. J: Vegetation. N: We went to France. R: We played a few concerts. J: We've just been getting some new material together. R: I suppose the main thing we've been doing is building up a following in London, really, because we only ever had a following in Sheffield.

What's been happening with the Seperations LP? Everyone expected it to be out last year, but it's still not out. Why's it taken so long? J: We want it to be really good. All this about things taking time is never anything to do with us, honestly. C: It's not our fault! N: It's the organisation around us. J: We'd like to have a record out every couple of months, but it never seems to work out that way. R: We recorded the unmixed album over two years ago and it was written a longtime before that, and it's just not been released yet. J: Which hurts!

So when is it due out then? C: We don't know much at the moment...this year hopefully! J: Yeah, it might, hopefully, be this year, if we're lucky - if we get it between the summer and the Christmas rush!

Tell us about the new single. J: It's great, isn't it! R: It's called O. U.. C: Ring up our manager and you'll hear it on the answer phone! R: It's mixed by the bloke who did Spiritualized... J : Ed Buller, who did a very good job and, er, yeah, it's good! R: It's radio-friendly, 'cos it's two minutes and fifty seconds long. N: ...compared to MLG where the actual singing didn't start 'til about three minutes into the song. This one, the songs over and done worth. R: This is shorter than the intro for MLG! More of a jingle than a song!

What's O.U. actually about then Jarvis? J: It's about a man faced with the decision of hearing his girlfriend leaving the house, leaving him and it's only eight o'clock in the morning and he has to decide whether he wants to stay in bed for an extra hour or get dressed and go and stop her from leaving him for ever. C: Oh, that's good!

And, dear readers, as soon as you hear this little gem of a single, you'll find that you have to agree with Candida. But if you can't wait 'til the May 18th release then make sure you're down at the Mill on May 11th and I'm sure that Pulp will play it for you - perhaps even twice, if you ask nicely. And if you can't wait 'til then, I suppose you could always give Pulp's manager a ring.

Pulp singer Jarvis Cocker, a man with the deadpan attitude of Alan Bennett and the raw sexuality of Barry White, doesn't like the idea of Virtual Reality. He doesn't like it at all. "I don't want to sound like an old guffer," he apologises, "but a dose of reality would be better for most people interested in Virtual Reality. I mean, most people would be freaked out if you went round and, you know gagged 'em, drugged 'em or something, stuck them in the boot of a car and dumped them in the middle of a field in North Yorkshire. That would freak most people out more than having some headset on."

The Pulp members - Russell (guitar/violin), Steve (bass), Candida (keyboards), Nick (drums) - are used to such typical Jarvis pronouncements, all delivered with a sanguine matter-of-factness. Jarvis is forever calm and unflustered, a man who'd refuse to panic if his arse was on fire. But this time he's gone too far.

"Bloody hell, Jarvis," says Russell, wrapped up in a tight pale blue PVC jacket that matches his eye shadow. "Well," says Jarvis Cocker. "You'd take the gag off afterwards."

Who needs Virtual Reality anyway? Close your eyes and imagine an endless, white corridor. Here, years ago, a perm-haired kids TV presenter called Mick Robertson crouched on his knees at the end of a row of coins denoting the success of the latest Magpie charity appeal. At the end of the corridor is Room 101 - Pulp's dressing room for the night. We are in TV world...

Well, we're in Teddington Lock, Middlesex for the filming of The Word in a TV centre that feels like a maximum security Holiday Inn. Since fellow guests Onyx have received several death threats throughout the day, there are uniformed men resembling Viz comic parkies stationed at the end of each hallway. On every wall there are unnervingly huge colour pictures of celebrities - Eric Morecambe, Cilia Black, Judith Chalmers. The Magpie appeals no longer worm their way around the maze of studios, but in the canteen, Rory Bremner is tucking into quiche and chips.

In Room 101 Pulp siphon Smirnoff into a Highland Spring bottle to beat the draconian on-set alcohol ban. They've been here since 11am: drinking, having their shirts ironed (since guests get their clothes pressed for free, they've all bought along a week's washing) and make-up done and arguing about "the gap".

Their new single 'Lip Gloss' has a two-second break in the middle, which The Word's people maintain isn't on the record (it is) and are worried that the audience will think it's the end of the song and start clapping like chimps (they do). "The gap" becomes an incredibly significant Pulp moment. If they agree to cut it out they'll be compromising. So Sheffield's finest popmongers decide to make the gap longer. Much longer.

It's been a long day spent in stardom's waiting room, but little things have made it worthwhile. Drummer Nick, for instance, overheard Dani Behr call someone "a f***in' c***". Russell saw a raincoated man bent over and struggling with a heavy box in the gents' loo. He opened the door for him and the man flashed a cheesy grin. "It was Des O'Connor! Des O' flippin' Connor!"

It's now 9pm and Pulp are on stage for the last dress rehearsal. It feels more than just a rehearsal for a sensationalist TV show; it feels like a rehearsal for stardom itself. Pulp have been together with various line-ups for ten years now through punk, new romance, C86 and grunge - always defiantly different.

They've survived disasters: Jarvis once being confined to a wheelchair after he jumped from a window to impress a girl; Fire Records putting their third album on hold for two years during legal wrangles. And they've coped with personality crises, too: Russell going through a disciplinary dictator phase, when Pulp ran to a strict regimented timetable; ex-drummer Magnus leaving the band and going barmy after deciding he was the moon... But over the past two years each successive single has been better and sold more than the last, and their audience has got bigger and younger. Now, incredibly, they're on a major label, their records are available in Woolworths, they're on daytime radio and on TV.

Huge day-glo shapes hang from the ceiling as they perform 'Lip Gloss' to a barren studio, Jarvis snaking across the stage in too-tight, thick, purple corduroy trousers, shaping hand movements not witnessed since Alvin Stardust rolled his ringladen fingers for the Pops' cameras. The only people here to witness this are skivvies fussing around with clip-boards, and the dancers - looking like clichéd Freemans catalogue versions of teenagers - who are paid to show off. As Jarvis sings of lipstick-stained fags and being chucked, these young bucks, with bare, greased-up torsos vogue over-enthusiastically on podiums. Half-naked 18-year-olds pretending to rave and having a fake wild time is bizarre enough but then so are Pulp. The camera cuts from Jarvis in karate mode to someone's bum cheek escaping from a pair of midget Homme pants and then back again to bassist Steve, desperately trying not to laugh.

The lovers portrayed in 'Lip Gloss' are worlds away from this forced environment of The Word. Like many Pulp songs, 'Lip Gloss' celebrates the strangeness of the ordinary and stretches a subject so mundane no-one's dared sing about it before. In this case, being pissed off after you've been chucked because you wasted time getting to know his/her mates who you never liked in the first place.

"I've got a bit of a hang-up about songs and films presenting an idealised version of things," explains Jarvis. "It makes people dissatisfied with their own lot in life. But it's something that never existed, it's just been made up by someone. Yes, we do glamorise the everyday but, you know, a bus journey can be exciting. You can treat it just like a journey and sit there like a plank or you can wonder what other people on the bus do with their lives."

Read any article about Pulp and at least three, if not all of these things will be mentioned alongside "the 'w' word" (wacky) or "the 'k' word" (kitsch). Perhaps all the detritus and trash that's associated with Pulp has masked something fantastic. Maybe Pulp really are going to be pop stars. At 11.35pm on Friday night, watching the TV set in room 101, Pulp's manager, Geoff Travis - who was previously the boss of Rough Trade - is sure of it. Tonight is a turning point, Pulp are contenders.

Do Pulp really want fame or are they content to carry on as nearly-made-it confectionery for the talking classes? Is siphoning vodka into water bottles, moaning about "gaps", getting your clothes ironed for free the behaviour of pop stars or forever sixth-form underachievers?

"Oh, we want to be famous," claims Jarvis. "It's what we've always wanted." But do you honestly believe you can appeal to 15-year-old girls? "I'm always trying. We want to appeal to everyone. I'd like to think we're not only trying to appeal to students and grocers. You can't choose who buys your record - it's in a shop, it could be murderers or bakers. But, we've been going so long it's not like we expect to get to Number One or anything."

Situated in the 'alternative' area of the city (Division Street), amid the second hand clothes shops and 'in' cafes, is Warp Records, the shop, the label, the empire. Warp is the most important British dance label outside London, responsible for club/chart hits like LFO's 'We Are Back', Tricky Disco's 'Tricky Disco' and Nightmares On Wax's 'Aftermath'. Started back in July '89 by Steve Beckett and Rob Mitchell, Warp has expanded to massive worldwide recognition. Recently they set up an offshoot indie label, Gift, and signed local god-like legends Pulp and hopefuls Newspeak and Various Vegetables.

"This is the safe area of town," says our guide and Pulp lead singer, Jarvis. "You get a lot of grief if you're alternative round certain parts of Sheffield. It's like Pac Man, you have to dodge your way through the centre of town to get to Division Street. Anyhow, this is the shop that started the record labels Warp and Gift, the Warp Empire began right here. Arrgh! There's a large display of our new single in the window."

Renowned in certain circles for their appalling dress sense, Pulp take us to the very heart of lurid-thread city. Freak Boutique, also on Division Street, is just one of a number of shops specialising in gruesome '70s wear.

Jarvis: "We shop here occasionally. The last thing I bought was a pink and purple patterned shirt. Sheffield's pretty good for second-hand clothes. The jumble sales are best because they're the purest form - you don't know what you'll get, the clothes haven't been sifted."

City Hall, aside from housing the council is also a famous heavy metal venue, boasting a sprung Saturday Night Fever-type floored ballroom.

"This is perhaps the only building that has decent architecture in the whole of Sheffield," observes drummer Nick. "The inside is marvellous. They have an indie disco in the ballroom every Saturday night,"

Jarvis: "Sheffield City Council used to be really radical. I remember when the buses were only 10p to go anywhere. That's why buses are mentioned quite a lot in our songs. Anyway, it all stopped in the mid-'80s. There are about six different bus companies now, like Eager Beaver, Yorkshire Terrier... it's, ridiculous - if the driver sees the stop they're supposed to be going to hasn't got any people at it, they change the number and go to one that has. People came from Japan to see our bus service - it was the envy of the Western World."

Jarvis: "Fargate is a pedestrianised area. This was the centre of Sheffield dole culture. In the summer, everyone would go dolestrolling. Sometimes it would take you a whole day to get from one end to the other because you got to know everyone. It was a nice little scene. Then they introduced YTS and it cut off the new generation. It just got older and sadder after that. It was also the place to come it you wanted to put a band together, you didn't bother putting ads in papers, you just walked up and down for 20 minutes."

At the very core of Sheffield's sports culture is the Crucible Theatre. Every year, top potters like Steve Davis and Jimmy White gather to compete for snooker's top prize.

Jarvis: "Yep, this is the famous Crucible Theatre, just off Fargate, snooker central. It used to be the favourite hangout for goths in Sheffield, when goth was the big thing. I'm not sure why, maybe it was because Ray Reardon looked a bit like Dracula."

Castle Square is a weird underground market, off Commercial Street, with an open air 'sun roof', known locally as the Hole In The Road. Once it was the meeting place for tramps and down-and-outs-but-on-the-way-ups. Now the authorities want to get rid of it.

Nick: "We've started the Hole In The Road campaign, the council want to fill it in with concrete, which will mean more people getting run over. We can't let them do it. It's all part of a conspiracy to dispense with the town centre altogether, and move everything out to Meadowhall (a huge shopping complex known locally as Meadow Hell)."

On the other side of the Market there's Ladies Bridge which runs over the River Don, the largest river in Sheffield. It's a beautiful part of the city despite being situated in the centre of the once prosperous, now derelict, steel industry warehouses.

Jarvis: "I went on a very good adventure down the River Don once. I had an inflatable boat and I went from here to Rotherham which is about eight miles away. It was like Apocalypse Now, there was all these factories pouring thick smoke across the water, we got attacked by gypsies and then there was a bloke stood on the river bank trying to shoot fish with an air rifle. It was probably the best thing I ever did. It's good to find an adventure in mundane surroundings. Sheffield is built on seven hills, just like Rome but I think that's where the similarities end."

Nick: "The Wicker is just a street, but it's a very special street. It's difficult to say why, but The Wicker arch was the gateway to all the old steel works. Sheffield's oldest brewery is just there, it always smells of hops round here."

Jarvis: "I used to live round here, in the same warehouse that FON Studios and our rehearsal rooms used to be... and the only porno cinema in Sheffield, Studio 567. I bet you didn't know Bob Marley spent a lot of time in Sheffield, did you? Well he didn't, but there's The Bob Marley Recording Studios anyway. I did once see Sly and Robbie on this road though, that was very bizarre."

FON Studios is Sheffield's most prolific recording house. In 1985 it was the first local commercial 24-track studio and over the fast few years has attracted such luminaries like Ian McCulloch, David Bowie, Yazz, Erasure, James, Altern8 and, erm, Rolf Harris. FON is the centre of Sheffield's music culture.

Nick: "Did you know FON actually stands for F*** Off Nazis?"

Jarvis: 'We recorded the LP 'Separations' here, and 'Countdown', 'O.U.' and 'My Legendary Girlfriend'. They're very nice to us. I can't imagine people coming to Sheffield to record because of its exotic location but FON is the best. It's where all the big names come but it's more a studio for techno acts, you couldn't get a grand piano in here, sorry Elton."

The Leadmill has appeared in the Top Ten venues in the NME Readers Poll every year since it opened in 1980 - not bad for a place that used to flood every time you flushed. Now it has the best venue toilets in Britain (fact) and been described by the House of Commons as a prime example of good business practice. Bands that have graced its boards include New Order, Simply Red, The Pogues and EMF.

Jarvis: "The Leadmill's a pretty important venue, I used to come here a lot before I moved to London. The main bus garage is just opposite and, when it first opened, they had a policy of letting bus drivers in for free. So a friend of mine got hold of a bus driver's uniform and got let in for nothing. It was a good little scam but the trouble was, he'd walk in and all the other drivers would be at the end of the bar saying, 'What route does he do then?'"

Of all the pubs in Sheffield The Washington Public House, just down the road from the Grosvenor Hotel, stands out as a reminder of when public houses were quiet family affairs decorated with the landlady's china.

"This is the only pub left where you don't get grief for looking slightly outlandish," remarks guitarist/violinist Russell. "They don't allow riff raff in here. The bar people are very friendly. If you went into town, you'd notice all the pubs have loud jukeboxes, you can't hear yourself talk. This is a little oasis of sanity."

Skeleton One

RUSSELL: It was a snowy day and I was going to see a film. I arrived at the cinema, and there was a queue outside of about 20 people. I was behind this girl that I vaguely knew and l just started making conversation: "It's cold isn't it?: Yes it's cold: Very, very cold: Yes it is, very cold. Feel my cheeks." And I felt her cheeks and there's me thinking - cold, like a fridge - and I said, "Oh yeah, can I put my meat in your mouth?" People in the queue started turning round, and I'm holding her cheeks, and at that point the connotation of what I'd said dawned on me, so I tried to rectify it. The whole queue's watching me and I'm going - cause it's cold, like a fridge - I still had to stand there in that queue, cause to have gone off would have been admitting that was like, y'know... She never spoke to me again.

Skeleton Two

JARVIS: I once wore pink tights and a blonde wig for a school play, Twelfth Night. It was good though, because I got to feel the English teacher's breasts. We were doing a dress rehearsal and there was this bit where I had to make a gesture and land my hand on this girl's breasts. Which was a good part for me, cause I wore specs at school and had bad teeth, so I never used to get girls. But then she was ill this day and the English teacher, who everybody fancied, stood in for her. Halfway through the scene I realised I was going to have to grab hold of her tits. So I did, and everyone was going "What were it like? What were it like?"

ALL: What was it like?

JARVIS (Enviably nonchalant): It was alright.

Skeleton Three

JARVIS: Russell used to be a rocker. He used to be into Hawkwind (To Russell). Did you ever wear a lab coat?

RUSSELL: Ahem. No, I didn't actually, no.

JARVIS: And he used to have a very thin pencil moustache.

RUSSELL: I was in a heavy rock band called Isengard.

JARVIS: Isengard?

RUSSELL: It's a valley in Lord of the Rings.

Skeleton Four

JARVIS: Nick's got Nina Hagen written on his drum bag.

NICK: That was my friend's.

JARVIS: These are the excuses he comes out with.

NICK: I did go and see some very dodgy punk bands. I went to see Angelic Upstarts in Rotherham. Me and a couple of mates were right up for it. We got the tickets and on the day thought "Fookin 'ell, there'll be loads of skinheads there; we might get beaten up." I put on this punk T shirt to go down there and we decided to go in the back way in case there were loads of skinheads round the front. We got close to the entrance and still thought there may be loads of skinheads there, so we decided to go round to a friend's house and come back later. In the end we never actually got to the concert cos we were so scared of getting beaten up by skinheads.

Skeleton Five

RUSSELL: I got pissed on by a tiger on a school trip.

DEADLINE: What were you doing lying underneath a tiger?

RUSSELL: No, we were at the zoo and it was time to go, and I'm looking at this tiger and it's looking at me. It turned it's back on me and cocked its tail - and have you ever seen Tomcats spray? Tigers do it, like, big stylee. There was no escape from it: It was just like "Ppsssscchwooosshh". And I'm saturated in this tiger piss and it's like "time to go now". What do you do? I'm sat on this coach seat on me own and all the way back they were going "What's that horrible smell?". It's like "Oh, Miss, a tiger pissed on me". What can you say?

Skeleton Six

RUSSELL: I tried to fly. I used to have a cacky conservatory with a red and white striped awning made of plastic. And I decided to make it into a hang-glider - although hang-gliders weren't really invented at this stage; It was just a big kite. I made this massive thing about 15 foot long and I'm running up and down our road. like, jumping. And I took it on our school field and there's all these people watching me, and I'm running down it and I did start to take off, and it nosedived and landed on top of me. So I'm trapped underneath and I couldn't crawl out, and everybody's lying around laughing. Then I had to drag it back home and nobody would help me. I was really pissed off. Dragging this thing back like it was a bloody cross or something.

Skeleton Seven

JARVIS: I used to have loads of rubbish hobbies. I had collecting badges - nice big ones.

DEADLINE: What sort?

JARVIS: Oh, anything - double glazing... Even me Mother was always trying to get me to write to Swap Shop to be on it. She even knitted me a jumper and said, "You can put all your badges on that", Which I thought was sad. She asks me if I've still got it.

Skeleton Eight

JARVIS: We did our first ever concert at school. We decided we wanted to have dry ice, so we had a word with the chemistry teacher about it and he said, "Oh yeah, yeah, I'll sort you something out". We played this concert on the school stage and there was the chemistry teacher with two swotty kids, and he had a bunsen burner. And he kept getting a bit of magnesium ribbon and it'd just go 'pff'. And that was supposed to be pyrotechnics. It was like a little chemistry lesson at the side of the stage. A bit of green smoke that only went a couple of inches. Very tragic.

Actually Pulp are very cool

  Alvin Stardust (During his Shane Fenton period) slept on Jarvis' parents' floor.

  It's rumoured that Joe Cocker fitted Jarvis' parents' gas fire.

  One of Mike Harding's guitar strings hangs around a statue at Jarvis' parents house.

  Nick has met Ken Goodwin (All: Who?)

  Tony Christie used to live around the corner from Jarvis.

  Emlyn Hughes (allegedly) used to shag a woman who lived at the bottom of Jarvis' road. "It got to be known that he was doing it, so the kids used to gather around on a Sunday Morning and shout up at the bedroom window."

  Pulp are "deep personal friends" of Paul King.

  Jarvis has "done a fart next to Mike Edwards" of Jesus Jones. "It was this party in a pub. There were only two urinals; he went to use one, I went to use the other one. And you know when you do an involuntary fart when you're having a pee? There was nobody else to blame it on, and I wasn't finished, so I had to stand there looking embarrassed."

  Nick has drunk from the League Cup.

  Jarvis has Dixon of Dock Green's and Brian Clough's autographs.

  Nick: "Tommy Cooper once brushed past me"

  It's all getting a bit tenuous now, isn't it?

The Plug

Pulp have a sense of humour. Lots of other bands don't. The only reason they might gaze at their shoes onstage is to check that they've put their shoes on. Pulp could easily be the hippest band of this year, if only they could sort out their contractual wrangles and if only people would have heard of them. To say Pulp are refreshing live is like saying that Martin Amis is quite pretentious. They are a Bounty Ice Cream on a very hot day. Buy their new-ish "O.U." EP this instant, otherwise people will point at you and laugh.

The festival is a microcosm for that sort of thing, you’re getting a city condensed. Glastonbury is the archetypal festival, and the first time I went, we went to Stonehenge to watch the sunrise and I was taken in by it all. I had on this all-white outfit, for some reason, and I decided to hitchhike to Glastonbury from there. I felt very incongruous with all these grotty travellers, and I was walking down the road like a ghost and it was brilliant, I really got into it. Glastonbury was a great thing, but by the end of it there all these hippies dragging about in the mud, and it seemed so ugly. This beautiful spring birth thing ended up in mud and decay and disaster.

Do you have any particular summer memories?

Yeah, North Yorkshire, really, which makes you think of the kind of Hi-De-Hi sort of thing, but actually it has a coastline which is incredibly romantic in a kind of Brontës sort of way. You can find little secret coves, and if you're lucky there will be just half a dozen people looking for shellfish. I tend to get quite geological on holidays trying to find fossils and rare stones. On the beach you can occasionally find Amethyst and Amber and Jet. The Jet comes from an undersea petrified forest of monkey puzzle trees. I once found a huge piece of Amber and I like the weird local stones that you don't get anywhere else. Of course, when they dry out, they go dull, which is disappointing.

What would your ideal summer days be?

It would have to involve a picnic and a slight amount of swimming in a natural location. That's why I wouldn't live in London and have to go swimming in Hampstead Heath or whatever. (I did go swimming in London once and it wasn't a very edifying experience.) Family and friends would be there. I know exactly where I would be, but it's a very specific place in Derbyshire and hard to describe.

Summer music.

It depends on the place. One thing I found out about America was that music you couldn't listen to in England, because it would just be a joke, makes sense when you're driving across the desert. And awful Italian music that you wouldn't dream of listening to: when it's hot and you're in Italy you wouldn't listen to anything else.

How about here?

There's a lot of nice classical music Vivaldi, Verde and Beethoven have very good Summery songs.

Do you put your speakers on the windowsill?

What, to inflict it on the neighbours? No, that's very anti-social. But I tell you what I did like the idea of getting. A Peacock. They make a right good noise. It's really melancholy.

It's horrible. Don't you like it? I love it. I think it's great. I haven't had personal experience of them and maybe they're a bit impractical in the city.

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How is all the touring going?

This particular bit of touring is perfectly comfortable (often with touring all becomes a bit of a grimy drag) but there is not much in the way of excitement. America was very exciting, believe it or not. I have the usual Anglophile disdain of America, but I started really liking it. I was travelling on the bus with the crew, which make all the difference. (Russell was travelling with the crew because of a morbid terror of flying.)

What memories do you have of touring?

The most exciting single thing that happened was when we played this God-awful little festival in the Midwest with all these Hick farmer types and bodysurfers, and it was incredibly still in the audience. Garbage were playing and the place was so dead that me and Candida went down the front to watch them and they were very good. By the end of Garbage we were quite fired up and decided, “Yes, we will get changed and jump about.”

Then our driver, who was an amateur Storm Chaser (he looked a bit like Anthony Perkins) had been watching the weather for the last two days, and he insisted that we leave quite early because he knew there were some storms ahead. We ended up turning all the lights off on the bus to watch this immense black cloud with lightning inside, which illuminated the cloud so you could see its internal organs, and we were listening to the local weather and it was saying ‘people in Springfield get inside the basement now, get out of your car and into a ditch! Being inside the car is no protection against the tornado!’ You could hear the panic in his voice. Then about 40 miles in front of us, you could see it pass by the road, and we followed it on the map.

We were getting near this cloud, which was about 30 miles away, and even though we couldn't see it, we knew we were in the flight path of this tornado. There was this one point where we've got in front of the cloud, but the driver was getting really agitated by the storm and needed to stop the bus to clean loads of bugs off the windscreen and Candida wanted to hire a taxi and drive into the centre of the tornado. I was tempted, but we’d driven past some of the damage that the tornado had caused. You know, I want to see a crocodile, but I don't want to put my head in its mouth!

I was very impressed with Candida. The driver had previously been saying, ‘Oh, I'd stop here, but I don't think the little lady would like it.’ She didn't give a damn. It was quite frightening and great.

Everything that day all seemed to be tied up with this Garbage business because we got to the next town and all over the toilet was all this Pulp and Garbage graffiti signed Ian. It transpired that it had been written by Ian Astbury (of the Cult) the night before. All this stuff like ‘Pulp and Garbage united together in pain and death meet up in the year 2000 and come to my city together’ or something and I was just thinking, ‘how did he know that there was this vibe happening?’ I've never met him, but I really want to meet him now.

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Do you feel different when it starts getting hot and sunny?

Well, yeah, it's that gland in the top of your head that starts getting over heated.

What happens?

You know what happens? There's a gland at the top of your head that activates sexual interest.

That's not true.

It is. That's true. Sunlight is the best for it. I think just getting a hot head isn't enough. I think it might be the ultraviolet that activates this gland.

Do you start screaming at girls and hanging out of cars?

Not really, but we can't help it, we’re chained to our own biology.

Russell: "The thing about Jarvis is that he tends to go to jumble sales and buy a load of useless old clutter. The mantlepiece would be covered with little pottery mice and those birds that dip into glasses. At first I had this hardline policy - I'd bung stuff into a carrier bag and stick it under his bed. But he just wouldn't stop getting stuff. How many people do you know who own five full-length mirrors? And moving house with him's a nightmare. He'll remember the elephant's foot umbrella stand but forget the cooker."

"Also, I don't rate him as a chef. Jarvis brought his girlfriend round for dinner once. He bought this chicken, which was black. And he's saying, Are chickens generally this colour raw? And I'm like, Well no, Jarvis, they're more generally pink. Anyway we sat down to eat and Jarvis brought in these potatoes and lettuce. So we're waiting for the rest of the food to arrive. But it never came. That was it."

"I say all this with the greatest affection. I ought to have known better, really. I'm a fastidious person. I like to keep things tidy. And Jarvis is just the opposite. That's why I left, because things were just sinking into squalor. Are you letting Jarvis give the case for the defence? Well, let me tell you... there isn't one."

"Would I live with him again? No."

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Nick: 1989

Nick Banks (drummer) was living in a shared house in Sheffield. There was a spare room. Jarvis needed somewhere to live...

Nick: "Jarvis turned up with this Transit van crammed with rubbish ... a cardboard house ... a little doll made out of plastic fruit. So I started helping out with all these bags and boxes. Then this car pulls up and Jarvis goes, Oh it's me driving lesson. He gets in and the car hops off like a kangaroo. We had to cart all the stuff by ourselves. At first we managed to keep the living room fairly bare, but every so often you'd find a fluffy gonk on the table and you'd think, Now whose might this be?"

"We lived together for about a year and then he went to London. I moved to London in '91 and lived with Steve. It was a 14th floor squat in Camberwell, at a place called Crossmount House. I think it's been featured in a few episodes of The Bill. It was quite orderly, though. We didn't have any dogs on strings. I can imagine living with other band members could be a problem with certain groups. But we were never the kind of outfit where people would suddenly bring out acoustic guitars and singing 'Cwm-by-a' at 5am."

"Would I live with him again? In an ideal world I'd have to say... No."

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Steve: 1990

After Jarvis moved to London, Steve Mackey (bass) flogged him the keys to a squat for £75. But the singer was evicted soon afterwards. Steve had heard the stories, of course, but thought the others were exaggerating. He told Jarvis he could move into his Camberwell abode.

Steve: "Have you spoken to Russell? I'm sure he didn't have many good Jarvis stories. Russell was very into efficiency. Some sort of Nietzschean phase. I've heard that before I joined he'd turn up at rehearsals with a check-list of jobs which had to be done before music could commence."

The main thing about Jarvis is his clutter. He is the skip king. It was a bad time, because I was at college and I was tired all the time. I'd come home just wanting to watch the TV and the front room would look like Andy Warhol's Factory. You couldn't move for Joe 90 annuals... My best memory of Jarvis was when we moved to Peckham, by which time the band was beginning to get a bit more popular. Jarvis started to get paranoid about signing on, so every second Tuesday he'd get dressed up in his grunge outfit - one of those hats which pull down right over your ears and a really scruffy jumper. I used to stay in and miss college just to see him. He never pulls his weight on the domestic front. He's not lazy, he'd just rather be doing other things. But you kind of trade those things for having someone who's fun to live with."

"Would I live with him again? Well, I've nowhere to stay at moment so I wouldn't rule it out. I always enjoy living with Jarvis. On the other hand, maybe I do see enough of him as it is."

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Jarvis Cocker: The case for the defence

Jarvis: "I suppose I do have a lot of stuff. But most of the time I was living with Nick and Russell I was on the dole and there was nothing to do during the day. To satisfy my hunter-gatherer instincts I would go round to jumble sales and collect stuff. I've never really been a person to live with, just you and one other person. It puts too much strain on the relationship. So the time I lived with Russell probably wasn't so great. It was also really cold. It was above a butcher's shop. And my bed was above the butcher's fridge, which made it even worse."

"I can't remember turning up with a black chicken. On the other hand, it's only been the last three or four years that I've started to learn about cooking. I did my first soufflé the other day. It was a success. It rose. It's true that Russell would turn up to rehearsals with a list of domestic chores. But I could never concentrate on that kind of domestic thing. It used to depress me. I'd think, God, I want to be a famous person in a band. I shouldn't have to deal with things like pots and hoovers."

"I did find things out about people by living with them. Russell's got a fondness for walking about without many clothes on. That can be a bit unsettling early in the morning. The thing I found most distaseful about Nick was the his tea. He's one of those people who just shows the cup the teabag. It always used to make me feel ill seeing him drink a pint-sized mug of this milky water. Steve... Well, Steve just made me feel dirty because he was always having baths. He'd have a bath at least once a day. Sometimes twice. I used to wonder what he got up to in there. The main thing that probably got on Steve's nerves about me was that when I have a shave I do tend to leave all the bits of hair in the sink. But my excuse for that is that I haven't got me glasses on so I can't see that it's there. I know that that really got on his nerves. He even told me off about it once.