Courtesy of Terri Nunn







Time Bomb

A FIRESIDE CHAT WITH TERRI NUNN OF BERLIN


One of the cool things, let's say perks, one of the only cool things about doing what it is the fuck I do is that I get to talk to people I grew up listening to or fawning over. It was cool to hangout with Junior Wells and he sang to me when I asked him questions. It was cool to talk to Belinda Carlisle (she looked taller on TV) at a country concert (I had no business ever being there). And it was really cool to have dinner with Bryn Terfel, have Charles Brown offer me a turkey sandwich backstage during a break between sets, and have Al Jarreau buy me coffee at Starbucks. That kind of shit is cool. Talking to Terri Nunn was cool. I've dug on Terri since I was in the midst of puberty. It was Debbie Harry and Terri Nunn. Both were wet dreams when I was a wee kid. Terri and I talked about the Eighties and why on earth there is a shot of a breast on Berlin's new album cover. As always, it is brought to you in THX, unedited and in her own words.

FRED JUNG: Let's start from the beginning.

TERRI NUNN: I got started, I was lucky enough musically to have a family, we had a few record stores that we ran. We started out with one and my family ran it, and I got lucky enough to get to run the cash register. I was eight, nine years old. I ran the cash register and I got to play music all day because we had all the records (laughing). This was back in late Sixties, early Seventies. I sang to the records and learned how to sing and what I liked. It was wonderful, just a stroke of luck as far as I'm concerned. That brought about, who did I listen to? I listened to the Beatles, Jefferson Airplane. Grace Slick was a huge influence on me. When I heard her, I thought, "Wow, that's what I want to do." She was a woman in a man's world. She was a singer who rocked. We had a lot of records at that time from a lot of folk singers like Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, and Joan Baez. They were nice, but I wanted to rock. I wanted sex. I wanted pounding I wanted slamming. I wanted aggression and there were very few women giving that. Grace was one of them. I ran into to another one on the radio later in a band called Heart, Ann Wilson. She rocked. It was few and far between, so I really appreciated it when women were ballsy enough to get out there and get aggressive with the guys.


FJ: Do you have that kind of moxie?

TERRI NUNN: Yeah (laughing). And the nice thing is, a lot more girls have that kind of moxie now. Those women, because rock was new anyways, it started in the Fifties so there weren't that many women. Men started it and they were sort of the faces in it and then women started getting into it. Now, there is a lot of women with balls out there and rock hard. Yeah, it's nice.


FJ: How did you meet John (John Crawford, bassist) and David (David Diamond, keyboard)?

TERRI NUNN: I lied, Fred (laughing). There was an organization called the Musicians Contact Service that was running back then. They were a place where musicians came and bands came to look at musicians and fill out a wanted ad and put it into this book and the bands would come in and say that they were looking for a singer let's say. So they would go see the singer's book and read all about the singer and his experience, etcetera. So I put in there, they said they took my resume because, Berlin was already going at the time. They'd been around for about a year, year and a half and they were getting shows. To me, they were just on their way. It wasn't that big now, looking back, but to me, it was, "Wow, these guys are serious. They've got shows and they're working on a record. They're going to put out a single." To me, it was so cool. They took my resume because I said I wanted something different. I was looking for something completely original and Berlin was completely original at the time. They started in '77 and synthesizer music wasn't even an idea in the States yet. It was happening in Europe and it was happening in England, but not yet here. So they were starting that idea here and they wanted a girl singer because that wasn't even happening in Europe or England yet. They had two guys bands, Ultravox and Kraftwerk were the major influences on Berlin then. And they wanted to do that with pop songs here in the States. They were impressed that I wanted something different, so they gave me a shot. They asked if I had any experience and I said, "Of course, I did," which was a lie and I heard their music and it was amazing. I had never heard anything like it. The songs weren't quite there yet. The songwriting developed over time with us, but there was something here that I thought, "Wow, if we can get this together, we're going to have something that nobody else has." And it was great.


FJ: Sounds like a perfect fit.

TERRI NUNN: Yeah, I guess so. It did happen pretty fast. It did, considering. In fact, Fred, sometimes, I think it happened too fast for the band. I can see the pitfalls of that now. Bands like No Doubt, is a band that my booking agent also books and so he tells me about the background of that band. They were around for something like thirteen years, where they were playing the clubs and slogging along. They didn't have any national attention for that time. It must be hard to keep going through that. But with Berlin, relatively, it was, well, I joined in '79. I left for a year. We got back together in '81 and by '82, we were putting out a record on a major label. It was so fast. It seemed so to us, but it was so fast, really that I wish that I had appreciated it more. I just expected it because everything was falling into place so quickly that, "Oh, this is what it's about and this is the way it is and it's always going to be like this."


FJ: The early Eighties were dominated by the new wave movement with bands like Depeche Mode, New Order, The Smiths, and Duran Duran. Berlin was not your run of the mill synth band. It must have been difficult to get any kind of appreciation from the industry.

TERRI NUNN: Yeah, we got shit, first from the other bands that we were playing with at clubs because we weren't anything like the power pop that was popular. The punk and power pop were really the visible, The Go-Go's and The Motels. There were a lot of bands that were getting picked out and signed and records out and we weren't anything like that. A lot of them didn't get it. So we got a lot of shit from them. And then we got shit from reviewers because they didn't get it and then we got shit from record companies, every one of them turned us down initially. So we just started out with this little label just starting out called Enigma and they signed us and another new band called Motley Crue in the space of six months. So we were their first two bands.


FJ: Nice two band roster.

TERRI NUNN: No, shit. They got big fast. Enigma finally got sold to Capitol a few years later for a few million dollars and that guy went off and vacationed for a few years (laughing). Yeah, good taste. They put out the record and KROQ (Los Angeles radio station) got it, so they started to play it and MTV was just starting in '83, they started and they jumped on it. I guess we got lucky because a few people were willing to try something different and it took off.


FJ: Did anyone even imagine that the Pleasure Victim EP would be as successful as it was?

TERRI NUNN: We didn't expect it to be an album. It was demos. We were thinking we would take those songs that you are hearing now on the first album and play them for record companies and they would put us in a real studio (laughing), with a real producer and we would make them sound big, really polished or whatever we could do to make it radio worthy. We didn't know what that was. Everybody said that we sucked. We thought, "OK, we'll just put these together and maybe put it out ourselves as an EP." Because we had no more money. We spent about three thousand dollars on that CD and it went platinum in America alone. The return on the three thousand dollar investment was incredible. No, we didn't expect to put it out when we made it.


FJ: For all the ladies in the house, we have to touch on "Take My Breath Away" from the mega-hit Top Gun. Did you like the way they used the song in the movie?

TERRI NUNN: Yeah, I did like the way they used the song in the movie. I didn't much care for the end of the movie and I said something about it, I think, on MTV. Boy, I got all kinds of shit, eight-seven kinds of hell for that. I just didn't like the end. I know it's a classic movie and all that. It's a real guy picture, but at the very end, these Russians and the Russians are fighting us. I don't know. I was so tired at that point of hearing about Russians versus Americans. Oh, God, are we going to perpetuate this lie anymore? So we hate each other. They are horrible people and they're animals. Jesus Christ, it got me into a lot of shit. But it actually got me in with a guy from a band called Jane's Addiction, Perry Farrell. He met me somewhere and had heard about that and said, "Man, that's really cool. You told them to fuck off and I'm going to put you in my video." He was doing a movie called Gift at the time with his wife and so I was in it playing a dominatrix.


FJ: Nice way to get a SAG (Screen Actors Guild) card.

TERRI NUNN: (Laughing) They didn't appreciate it.


FJ: Let's touch on the new album on Time Bomb, Berlin Live: Sacred and Profane. The cover is bound to garner some press.

TERRI NUNN: Yeah, I am so stoked about it. We got in more shit for that. We came up with that idea because we were trying to come up with something that is considered sacred and profane at the same time.


FJ: So a mother nursing a newborn child.

TERRI NUNN: Yeah, so we thought of this idea and the record company said, "No, we can't do that. They're not going to carry this in Walmart. They've already told us."


FJ: The Bible belt might have a fit.

TERRI NUNN: I know, I'm so fucked (laughing). We were trying to come up with something that was as cool, but we just couldn't come up with anything and weeks went by and we're trying to think of something to do and it would be the same and finally, they came back and said, "Well, Walmart will carry it, so go ahead and put it on."


FJ: Very vogue of Walmart.

TERRI NUNN: Yeah, can you believe it, Fred? It is great!


FJ: Was it recorded at one concert or was it collected from a tour?

TERRI NUNN: We recorded it at two concerts and the studio stuff was another week, two weeks. So it wasn't bad at all.


FJ: Tour dates?

TERRI NUNN: Well, near you, we are playing May 6 in San Juan Capistrano at the Coach House. That is May 6. We are doing a KROQ show here at Santa Anita Racetrack next weekend on the twenty-second. Hollywood Park on June 23. Those are the ones around you.


FJ: I used to have this huge thing for you when I was a kid, and you're still sexy.

TERRI NUNN: Hey, thanks, Fred.


FJ: Is it work to stay sexy?

TERRI NUNN: Wow, how do I answer that question? It's a lot of work now to have a body that I consider hot and that a man, that my boyfriend considers hot. It is work because it doesn't, after thirty, it's not like you can sit around for years at a time when you were twenty and eat shit and your body looks great anyway. There were years like that and you are probably in it right now. You could eat a lot. You could take a lot of drugs. You could drink a lot. You can eat shit and you look amazing. It is just the way it is in your twenties and in your teens. After that, it takes, I don't know why the universe set it up this way, but it takes work to, I've got to workout now. I have to.


FJ: Do you workout daily?

TERRI NUNN: Not everyday, but a lot, a lot. My boyfriend thinks I workout too much. He actually said I was a little skinny the other day. Yeah, I have to workout now. It is work. Yeah, it is.


FJ: But there are advantages to age.

TERRI NUNN: Yeah, the sex is great.


FJ: I was thinking more along the lines of experience and the wealth of knowledge.

TERRI NUNN: (Laughing) Yeah, but it's worth it because sex is great. The flipside of that is that the sex keeps getting better for me and for the girls that I know, who are now over thirty. It is actually getting more hot and improving and getting easier.


FJ: Uh, Terri, what are you getting at there?

TERRI NUNN: OK, Fred, I will say it. I am having more orgasms now and my girlfriends are. So it is worth staying hot.


FJ: Whoa, back up the truck, you are getting off more now than in your twenties?

TERRI NUNN: Yes. OK, you want to know something even more hilarious, Fred?


FJ: Well, at this point I am too busy picking my jaw off the floor.

TERRI NUNN: (Laughing) In my twenties, I had no sex for four years. That was pathetic.


FJ: When did this self-imposed sexual moratorium take place?

TERRI NUNN: It was during the, when we were just slamming and touring and the whole thing. I burned out. I had no social life. I had no life. I just had work and trying to keep a relationship going was impossible, so I just got to the point of, "Alright, it's going to have to be amazing or I'm not even going to bother." I analed myself right out of any possible anything! I was so picky that nobody could live up to the ideal, so there was nothing for four years.


FJ: Are you making up for lost time now?

TERRI NUNN: Yeah (laughing).


FJ: What is the key to survival in this industry?

TERRI NUNN: Love. Love. That is the only thing that has kept me going. Love of the music. Love of doing it. If that stopped, nothing could make me survive. Money, you can make anywhere. You can do all kinds of different things and make money. That is not the end all. And the adulation, if you don't respect yourself and you don't like what you're doing, it doesn't mean anything. So the thing that has kept me through the shitty times is loving it anyway and still making the music because of that.


FJ: So it hasn't gotten old?

TERRI NUNN: Not yet. It hasn't because there is always new things to be learning. Now I am getting into the writing with different people. That's a whole new world for me and it's scary. To sit down with Andrew Eldritch from the Sisters of Mercy or Charlotte Caffey, the other day from The Go-Go's or Tom Dumont from No Doubt and write a song. That is terrifying to me. I was writing with one guy in the band for a decade. You get real comfortable. These are all new people and I think they're great and fuck, oh, God, I've got to come up with something good.


Fred Jung is the Editor-In-Chief and is donating his jazz reference books to science (they aren't worth shit). Comments? Email Him