Before 1999, Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas offered to get me exhibitions, but joining the Stuckists put a kaibosh on all that – because I wasn’t prepared to be controlled.
BILLY CHILDISHBefore 1999, Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas offered to get me exhibitions, but joining the Stuckists put a kaibosh on all that – because I wasn’t prepared to be controlled.
BILLY CHILDISHFailure is fantastic, because you meet yourself and get to know your limitations. This is how I express myself, and I can’t do it any other way.
BILLY CHILDISHWhen I was better known than her, she put my name in that tent. I was asked to do Celebrity Big Brother, but why should I? We live in an age where fame is not related to what you do.
BILLY CHILDISHWe believe in a society in delusion, and if you’re awake and not deluded people tell you you’re mad. That’s why I’m a freak and they’re not. But I’m actually not.
BILLY CHILDISHThe most challenging work I’ve seen of late is by The British Art Resistance. Their document, ‘A Call for Heroes in an Age of Cowards’, is apt in these days of witless chancers.
BILLY CHILDISHI’ve not been an admirer of contemporary music since punk rock went off the boil in 1977, but once a year I’ll listen to ‘Spiral Scratch’ by the Buzzcocks, or ‘Hippy Hippy Shake’ by the Swinging Blue Jeans. Otherwise, I can put up with Chopin or shakuhachi flute in the background.
BILLY CHILDISHIt is an artist’s duty to be on the wrong end of the see-saw.
BILLY CHILDISHI’m going to get a pair of wire-snips, and I’ve also started a new campaign to have blank CDs on jukeboxes so you can play the silence.
BILLY CHILDISHI’ve always liked New York, as I like towns with an edge and New York has a European feel, so when I came to play music here in the ’80s it was a surprise to me.
BILLY CHILDISHI gave up drinking lots of whiskey and began to practice yoga and meditation. As a result I am not dead.
BILLY CHILDISHI liked drawing and painting, because the only failure would be to listen to the doubters who wanted me to stop drawing and painting because ‘you aren’t going to make a living doing that.’ I liked looking in art books at the work of painters.
BILLY CHILDISHI like being on the margins. You work better there.
BILLY CHILDISHMy favourite things are jokes, friendliness and feeling comfortable.
BILLY CHILDISHBowie and McCartney arrived, and the biscuits and caviare started and I left immediately. I don’t like shouting across rooms, with people in shiny suits who look like used-car salesmen.
BILLY CHILDISHBeing a fan of authentic Dada, I find today’s art – what I call ‘Bankers’ Dada’ – mind-numbingly dull.
BILLY CHILDISHI loved moustaches. I used to draw myself with one. When I was 14, I was really into war and Van Gogh.
BILLY CHILDISH