Ralph Steadman was born in Merseyside in 1936 and grew up in North Wales. He found his calling in a tiny advert for a Percy V Bradshaw illustration course: “You too can learn to draw and earn £££s”. In the 1960s his work appeared in Punch and Private Eye, but it was meeting writer Hunter S. Thompson while covering the 1970 Kentucky Derby that would change his life. The duo’s journalistic adventures, a freewheeling blend of fact and fiction known as Gonzo journalism, influenced a generation of writers and satirists.
Warren Hinckle III, the editor who first put them together, thought Steadman’s drawings were “evil-minded, twisted”. And in a new documentary film on his work, featuring Steadman fan Johnny Depp, Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner says “Ralph was willing to go to extremes that Hunter was not… in terms of the mental, moral, philosophical.”
Today, the man whose ferocious depictions of the American psyche made him a hero of the counter-culture, looks and sounds as gentle as a Welsh choir-boy. The Big Issue spoke to Steadman, now 78, at his house in the tiny Kent village of Loose, shortly after he finished off his brilliant, brand new work for our latest cover.Adam Forrest: How are you Ralph? Ralph Steadman: Well, everything feels very biblical this morning, with all this rain. We have a Noah in the family — my grandson. And now I’m talking to an Adam. It’s all very Old Testament.A.F.: What did Hunter S. Thompson think of the house, of the area in Kent? I think he called it “Steadman’s Castle.” R.S.: Yes, I think he liked it. He came through the back door first, hit his head because he was so tall, and muttered “Ah, servants quarters.” We went to the local pub and he stared at the optics as the first measure of Chivas Regal whisky was poured. He said, “What’s that? A sample? Pour a few more of those…”A.F.: I wondered if he ever complimented you on your work? Was he ever… nice? R.S.: Ha! He’d call my drawing “filthy scribbling.” He did say how much he liked the illustrations for “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” (the 1972 book Thompson wrote about a drug-fueled road trip). I didn’t realize it at the time, but I think he adored the whole thing of having me around, actually, seeing my discomfort as we were doing these crazy things. He could be a son of a bitch. He kept a myna bird called Edward, and he’d bang the cage and shout, “Edward! There is no bird God that will save you, Edward!” And I felt like Edward in the cage sometimes (laughs).A.F.: Ever fear for your safety in his presence? R.S.: Oh no. It never crossed my mind that he was vicious or sadistic. Not at all. He was just letting the wild side of himself loose. It was mischief-making and taking risks. Gonzo journalism was submersing yourself in the story, becoming the story, and maybe learning something about yourself in the process.A.F.: You’ve said Hunter brought out your wild side… R.S.: Yes, he brought out the part of me that was… not a boy scout. Not a mean side, just the naughty, risk-taking side. There was plenty of booze. But the only pill I ever took was when we did a story on the America’s Cup, the yacht race. He’d been gobbling pills and I was suffering from sea sickness. So he gave me a pill and it turned out to be a hallucinogenic. Anyway, he’d brought along spray paint cans and in my drug-induced stupor I suggested we spray “Fuck the Pope” on the side of the boat. But we didn’t get the chance because the click-click-click of the spray can alerted the guard on the jetty. So Hunter cried, “We’ve been caught. We must flee!” And he fell backwards into the boat (laughs)… But my drawings didn’t need drugs. Ink was the drug for me.A.F.: It was obviously the perfect collaboration. Do you feel lucky to have found him? R.S.: Until America, my work lacked that bite. There was a wildness missing. They were wonderful times, in America with Hunter. He was the one person in America I had to meet, was destined to meet.A.F.: Johnny Depp is a big fan and appears in the new documentary about you. What was it about Hunter that so fascinated him? R.S.: Well, I met Johnny in the 1990s when he got to know Hunter. I think he brought John Cusack to Hunter’s place at Owl Farm. We got friendly, and when he came to England he was growing his hair a special way for a film. He’s got such an amazing face, but his hair was hanging right down over his face. Right down over his face! I think Johnny was interested in Hunter’s craziness. He probably liked the fact Hunter was authentically crazy but never a show-off. And they’re both from Louisville, Kentucky. And they’re crazy people there - they all think they’re sons of pioneers. It’s the Kentucky brotherhood.A.F.: Nixon seemed like an important figure for you. What was it about the Watergate era that brought out all that … fear and loathing? R.S.: I felt very strongly there was a terrible dishonesty in politics that needed to be addressed — needed to be very clearly pointed out. So my sense of anger… in a way it probably came from my mother, who was such a gentle person and could not fathom any rhyme of reason to ever be unpleasant. Neither of my parents were political. But when Nixon came along I sensed something was happening that was completely at odds with that gentleness. He was such a monster. He was the personification of evil, to me. I was scared of it. And the only way I could get rid of all that was to pour it out in the drawings. So it’s a sort of exorcism.A.F.: You became disillusioned with the world of Spitting Image and satire in the 1980s. Politicians enjoyed being satirised. They began to ask for your drawings… R.S.: Yes, it became a problem when they started asking for the original drawings. Unfortunately I did give a lot away at the time. You can become easily flattered, unfortunately. The thing is, I had begun to think of the politicians as them, and the people as us. Which was a division I made, something in me, that had become quite limiting. For instance, one of my favourite politicians was Dennis Healy — lovely man. A really sweet guy who defied all ideas I had about politicians.A.F.: You once wrote a libretto for an oratorio called “The Plague and the Moonflower.” That seemed to be about the struggle of good and evil in all of us. R.S.: Yes, I’d been reading a book about the moonflower, a beautiful thing — a cactus plant that blooms in the moonlight just once a year. I thought, that’s a fantastic analogy for something. So there you had the beauty, and the plague was the other side, the dark side. It channelled all thoughts I’d had about good and bad, and the two sides being caught up in everything. If you’re creative, you have to use all your darkness and all your light — don’t leave it as a murmuring thought simmering away inside.A.F.: So the righteous anger is still there? R.S.: Oh yes, that’s important. You’ve got to have that. That’s what I love about (U.K.’s street paper) The Big Issue, and about (director) John Bird, too. It’s about standing up and trying to change something. The guys selling the magazine are trying to do something positive when things around them might seem negative. When I started off I wanted to change the world. You have to try.A.F.: And the gentle side? R.S.: I suffer from Welshness, you see (laughs). I’m so glad I’m Welsh. My mother was Gwennie Rogers and she was from Rhosllanerchrugog (laughs). Is there anything more Welsh than that? I was also born in Wallasey, so I’m also a little bit Scouse. I’m a bit split-personality. But we all are.
Street News Service, International Network of Street Papers
