Glamour is way behind for Pulp: Jarvis, the band's leader, has become an ecologist, he admires the Green Party, rides a bike, grows flowers and dedicates songs from his new album, We love life, to trees and birds. What's happened here?

This is hardcore(98), the previous album by Jarvis Cocker and the other four Pulp, was apocalyptic and depressive. Now that its successor, the lusty and ecology-lover We love life is about to be released, we will finally know the truth about all this darkness: an overload of experiences and a sudden fame (...)

Now that the quintet has turned 20, Jarvis Cocker's project is to make his life as simple as possible. He rides a bike so he doesn't make air pollution any worse, he is learning the birds' names and he admits competing against his mother and sister to harvest the highest sunflowers.

"Right after being totally penniless, we started living a time of financial comfort. It was a mess. We used to consume alcohol and drugs on a private jet and then we had to be family people," Cocker explains.

-Now you've record an album about trees and outdoor life. Is this "back to nature" a way to overcome your depression?

-I want to relate to simple, innocent, even childish things like birds, trees, plants and dawn. I found that I needed to go back to the most basic things to preserve myself. And I don't know whether I'm in the right track (Cocker).

-Why the changes in the album's name?

-First we named it just Pulp to show that we were trying to simplify things. But after the World Trade Center attack, I was frightened like everybody else and it seemed appropriate to name it We love life. I think if we all loved life more we wouldn't be starting a new world war, would we?.

-The album sounds like it takes an effort, a struggle, to love life.

-I think you have to make an effort even to enjoy life, and no matter how pathetic or hippie it may sound, I wanted to take the risk of casting a line like "I love life". It's a challenge to say something that sounds ridiculous to everybody else. I don't mind playing the fool for it.

The CD We love life was designed with a system that balances the carbon dioxide given off during its manufacturing process by planting a certain number of trees depending of the number of CDs made. They are planning to grow a forest and call it "Pulp".


Appeared in Clarín, October 26th, 2001.

Translation by Carolina Friszman