Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Kirsty Young
Actor, comic and writer known for outrageous behaviour and self-destruction, later a bestselling author and cultural figure.
Eight records
Verbatim reason: I really loved Amy and we were friends. I suppose what's wonderful about Great Art Broadly is it's difficult to see where it's coming from. It's difficult to understand how she was able to convey such depth of emotion. Because when you talk to her before or after, she's just some normal bird. And now suddenly you've become this vessel of profound, devastating emotion. Kept that quiet.
Verbatim reason: This is Daniel Johnston. I have bought into the appealing myth of the artist as tortured, as mentally ill. But Van Gogh is not great because he cut his ear off, is great because he painted crows over the wheat field. Daniel Johnston is a mentally ill person and a brilliant, brilliant genius. And that's what I find attractive about him, is that he creates wonderful pieces of music and the mental illness is a bloody inconvenience actually, not the thing that you're marketing.
Verbatim reason: Alright, this is Nick Cave, Red Right Hand. It's just got such grandeur and potency and I suppose like a lot of Nick Cave's writing, mythic resonance. He understands archetype and hero.
Verbatim reason: This is really pertinent as a matter of fact because it's almost like you know what you're doing. This is the Libertines, Tell the King, and I like it because I think Pete Doherty and Carl I think that they were very, very brilliant artists and musicians and here I think they're sort of talking about how you can achieve something from nothing and I think they render it very, very well.
Ravi Shankar, Family and Friends
Verbatim reason: This is Ravi Shankar and George Harrison and I like this song in particular because it's sort of about Krishna who I think is a really, really good deity. When you first hear it seems a bit cheesy but when you listen it's actually very beautiful like a carol.
Verbatim reason: This is Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip, Thou Shalt Always Kill. I like it because it's an interesting take on commandments and doctrine.
Triple MantraFavourite
Verbatim reason: This here is a mantra called Triple Mantra. Look, there's two reasons this is in here. One is because it makes me look good. He's got a mantra in, he's changed. The other thing is, if you like, listen to it for about twenty minutes, you can just loop this, your consciousness will change, you will think different things. And that's really positive.
Verbatim reason: Morrissey, now my heart is full. Morrissey is the, as you know, the poet laureate of the dispossessed. This song I like it because of the crescendo.
The keepsakes
The book
I think I'll take the [Bhagavad Gita] because I've only read little bits of it.
In conversation
Presenter asks
Where are you right now in life?
It's an interesting time, I think, Kirsty, because the infatuation with fame and celebrity, which was defining ... has progressed. ... the things I want are a wife, somewhere to live, ... some version of oh I'd like to have a sit down and watch telly with someone and hold hands.
Presenter asks
Did you doubt that the offence of those people was genuine?
No, I'm sure their offence was genuine. It was wrong, and I apologise for that, but how the information is presented is important. ... What's wrong is that there's a moment where a man listened to his answer phone and there's weird messages on there and he's like would have felt hurt or embarrassed about that. That's really, really wrong.
Presenter asks
I wonder if you think controversy and scandal is a mark of a life fully lived, well lived?
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Presenter
Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.
Presenter
For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.
Presenter
My castaway this week is Russell Brand, actor, comic, writer, compelling cultural phenomenon, who in two thousand and six was, in his own fine words, plucked from a life of hard drugs and petty crime and rocketed into the snugly carcinogenic glare of celebrity.
Presenter
Along with an athletic wit and a beguilingly florid turn of phrase, he specialises in going too far. Reckless acts of self destruction and a degree of chaos seem to be his chirpy chums along life's winding path. It has been
Presenter
Five years since he rocked the foundations of the BBC with what became known as the Ross Brand scandal.
Presenter
He's since gone on to international success with a movie career, best selling books, and all the apparent trappings of life on the A list. His most recent notable appearances have included testifying eloquently to a Parliamentary Select Committee on the funding for drugs rehabilitation programmes, and an appearance as a panellist on Question Time.
Presenter
He's even begun to look like he regularly washes his hair. Russell Brand, you look splendid today. There are belts, there are bangles, beads. You made an effort.
Russell Brand
Yeah, I did, as a matter of fact. Even though this is radio and my bags were packed to depart, before I left I said I need to feel like I'm confident while I'm being on desert island discs. I can't just wear the clothes that I would wear on an aeroplane, comfy, pajamery. Do you feel
Presenter
Constantly.
Russell Brand
I do. I'm also a bit tired though, Kirsty. I think this is a good frame of mind to be on for a somewhat sedentary medium and something that has the heritage that this program has on it, because I don't feel chaotic, mayhem inducing, shamanic, libido lizard. I'm not in that aspect of myself today.
Presenter
Part of me slightly disappointed, but also very delighted that you're in a sort of thinking space, you see me.
Russell Brand
He can be summonsed very easily, Kirsty.
Presenter
Um, you didn't come in with a huge entourage today. I think two or three people are with you today, and and I've read you call them your human blankets, people who are sort of around you to comfort you through the difficulty of life, is that fair?
Russell Brand
It is true, Kosi, but one of the things about being in recovery is it's necessarily a life of progress. So things that I sort of said even a couple of years ago, I somewhat blanch at.'Cause now I increasingly think, oh, they're like just my mates. Also, the idea that I need human blankets, God, I don't like to hear that of myself anymore.
Presenter
I understand what you're saying about having written things down and that was five or six years ago. But of course it is a reference point for people like me who are talking to you. And one of the things that you did write was it's not drugs that are the problem for you, it's life. Yes. So where are you right now in life?
Russell Brand
Like me
Russell Brand
Yes.
Russell Brand
It's an interesting time, I think, Kirsty, because the infatuation with fame and celebrity, which was defining and if other people think of me at all, it's perhaps through the perspective of someone lacquered in celebrity. Because I really, really embraced it at the beginning. I was really excited by the accoutrements of fame. But now I've progressed, I feel. Like when I was talking to some friends yesterday and I thought, oh my god, the things I want are a wife, somewhere to live, however extraordinary and exciting I might like to present myself as being. In the end, sort of just some version of oh I'd like to have a sit down and watch telly with someone and hold hands.
Presenter
Your list of eight. Tell me about the first nine.
Russell Brand
It's Amy Winehouse, you know I'm no good. I really loved Amy and we were friends. I suppose what's wonderful about Great Art Broadly is it's difficult to see where it's coming from. It's difficult to understand how she was able to convey such depth of emotion. Because when you talk to her before or after, she's just some normal bird. And now suddenly you've become this vessel of profound, devastating emotion. Kept that quiet.
Presenter
Uh
Presenter
Hand me your stellar and fly
Presenter
Final time, I'm out the door.
Speaker 1
What you tear me down like a mo.
Speaker 1
I cheated myself.
Speaker 1
Like that new
Speaker 1
I would never
Speaker 1
I told you
Speaker 1
I was troubled.
Speaker 1
You know that I'm no girl
Presenter
That was Amy Winehouse and You Know I'm No Good. I wonder, Russell Brand, here you sit in a B B C radio studio, what emotions does it stir in you?
Russell Brand
What's difficult for me, Kirsty, is that I've really love the BBC and I don't think in a casual unthinking way. My personal mythology is Black Adder, Forty Towers, Fools and Horses, Pete and Dud. That's what I built my personality on. So when I nearly broke it,
Presenter
Yeah.
Russell Brand
I thought like, oh no
Presenter
Let me just remind people then, it was back in 2008. You had a regular Radio Two show and, along with your guest on one of the shows, Jonathan Ross, you left this series of offensive messages on the actor Andrew Sachs' answer phone. The consequences of that were considerable. In the end, the controller of Radio Two resigned. The corporation was fined. I think it was £150,000 by Ofcom. Jonathan Ross left the BBC. Five years on, I'm sure you've had plenty of time to think about it. What do you think about it with the advantage of a degree of distance?
Russell Brand
I feel that I intuitively and immediately understood what was happening. Please don't mistake my dexterity in describing the situation for a lack of contrition, because I am contrite. Anything that damages something I love I'm gonna feel sorry for. And I'm sorry also because the story I tell myself of myself is not that I'm a man who is rude to people who are in a position of vulnerability.
Russell Brand
But what's difficult, Kirstie, is there was obviously a preexisting agenda in privately owned media to destabilize, attack and diminish the BBC.
Presenter
The forty two thousand people, I think it was, who eventually complained to the BBC eventually, yeah. I mean, they weren't being motivated by some agenda against uh publicly funded media were they're not.
Russell Brand
Event.
Russell Brand
Against uh publicly funded media. Kirstie, after the show there were two complaints. After it was in the Daily Mail, there were subsequently forty two thousand complaints.
Presenter
Do you doubt that the offence of those people w was genuine then?
Russell Brand
No, I'm sure their offence was genuine.
Russell Brand
It was wrong, and I apologise for that, but how the information is presented is important. The situation with the granddaughter had been talked about on a previous show. I would always talk about things from my personal life on that radio show, and in a sort of a relatively respectful, cheeky way, the subsequent week Andrew Sachs was booked to come on the show as a guest on the phone. I think what people imagine happened is that I went, right, let's leave a message for Andrew Sachs. That's not what happened. What happened was he didn't answer the phone, so I said, right, we'll just leave a message. What's wrong is that there's a moment where a man listened to his answer phone and there's weird messages on there and he's like would have felt hurt or embarrassed about that. That's really, really wrong.
Presenter
I wonder if you think controversy and scandal is a mark of a life fully lived, well lived.
Russell Brand
Well, no, what for me is a mark of a life well lived, Kirsty, is truthfulness and that there was a dishonest scandal that I feel like I want to address here. The thing that the 42,000 people were offended by is offensive. It is offensive if someone calls up and answers the phone, does some swearing, hangs up. But if incrementally that act is led to by a series of innuendos and in jokes, then it's a different thing. It's still a thing that is wrong, but it's not the thing that they're offended by.
Presenter
Let's have some more music, then. Tell me about this.
Russell Brand
This is Good This. This is Daniel Johnston. I have bought into the appealing myth of the artist as tortured, as mentally ill. But Van Gogh is not great because he cut his ear off, is great because he painted crows over the wheat field. Daniel Johnston is a mentally ill person and a brilliant, brilliant genius. And that's what I find attractive about him, is that he creates wonderful pieces of music and the the mental illness is a bloody inconvenience actually, not the thing that you're marketing.
Speaker 2
I'm chained to the wall.
Speaker 1
I have not
Presenter
Burn it off.
Presenter
In my eye, looking to the sunset thinking of better things to do Like a monkey, and it's new, the days go so slow.
Presenter
I don't have no freaking.
Presenter
Accept all these people who want me to do tricks for them, like a monkey and a sir.
Presenter
That was Daniel Johnson and like a monkey in a zoo. You said that you were a lonely little knit, Russell Brand. Why were you lonely as a child?
Russell Brand
Well, I think it was predisposed to loneliness in that a single mum my mum had to work all the time to look after me and my dad weren't around.
Presenter
The cough
Presenter
And what about friends? Did you have friends, or you chose not to have friends, or nobody wanted to be your friend?
Russell Brand
There was lads down the street and like and people at school and stuff, but I was peculiar and am peculiar. And if you're looking for boundaries, you're gonna make a lot of mistakes. And that's my tendency, is to sort of think, What if we don't go to school? What if we do climb that fence? What if we smash that window? What if we stamp on those flowers? What if we nick that? You know,'cause like if I d I don't have much trust, you know, so like my n knowledge of what's right and wrong comes from people's reactions when I've done the thing.
Presenter
I get the feeling you you you have and you had a very loving mother though, so so why didn't you
Russell Brand
Trust. She's incredibly loving, devoted woman, my mother. She's really, really beautiful. Uh she was ill a lot when I was young. She had cancer like three times when I like sort of across my childhood and during those periods I had to go and stay with other people. So I suppose what you learn as a child then is, oh no, that person I'm absolutely 100% solely dependent upon, like all children with their mothers, nothing extraordinary about that, is not a permanent fixture.
Presenter
Were you allowed to go and visit her in hospital?
Russell Brand
I think they didn't want me to'cause they didn't want me to see a, you know, eel and like without her hair or whatever, you know, so.
Russell Brand
I think at that point I accepted the idea of ah, okay, so that's not a thing to rely on.
Presenter
Right. And I know you said that your mum was uh separated from your dad. Where was he? Did he come and go? Was he around? He went. Bus
Russell Brand
Uh
Presenter
Uh
Russell Brand
Yeah.
Russell Brand
sporadically present peripatetic figure and he's a good bloke, my dad. You know, he's smart and funny. So he was around. Remember, I'm exposed to people that have had serious, seriously difficult lives. So I'm very, very grateful. And I've had like I've been surrounded by a lot of love. I wouldn't be sat here now without my mum and my nan and people have put themselves between me and the grave. So I'm very, very grateful.
Russell Brand
But in terms of trying to understand why I'm like I am, I suppose it's like an unusual sense of dislocation from quite a young age.
Presenter
You said to me a moment ago, You go through the white heat of fame and then you actually realise what I want is a nice.
Presenter
I used to sit down and watch the telly and hold hands with with my wife. Do you do you want children?
Russell Brand
Yeah.
Russell Brand
I think r to a point that's almost unseemly in a man.
Russell Brand
When children come into a space, I'm like, all right, I like people that don't have social constructs that I have to sort of carve my way through to get to the truth of what they actually are and what they actually mean and what they're actually afraid of and what they actually care about. And children ain't been taught to encode yet, so they the only language they know is truth and love.
Presenter
Let's have some more music then. Tell me about your search. What are we gonna hear?
Russell Brand
Alright, this is Nick Cave, Red Right And. It's just got such grandeur and potency and I suppose like a lot of Nick Cave's writing, mythic resonance. He understands archetype and hero.
Speaker 2
Where secrets lie In the border fires In the homin' wise Ye men, you know we're never coming back Across the square, past the bridge, past the mills, past the stack.
Speaker 2
On a gathering storm comes a tall, handsome man in a dusty black coat with a red right hand.
Presenter
That was Nick Cave and Red Right Hand. Uh Russell Brand, um the die was cast early, I think. I saw a photograph of you. I think you look about ten years old. You're wearing a tartan tammy, a black wig, and you're sort of posing camply on some crazy paving. Did you so the the show off thing, it started early.
Russell Brand
Did you
Russell Brand
Yeah. Well, the first time I'd done a school play when I felt that feeling of
Russell Brand
Oh my god, they're looking at me, they're listening and this is a legitimate and valid thing to be doing. And it was at a comprehensive school in a production of Bugsy Malone. And it was my personal road to Damascus, you know, that it was like, oh, there is a solution, there's a way of connecting. It was holy for me to feel that as a kid.
Presenter
And from then on in you were determined, were you, to sort of
Russell Brand
I thought, oh, this is it, I'm on, right, see you later.
Presenter
And what was it?
Russell Brand
I don't think it was fame. I think it's like, hold on a minute, I can stand up. People will look at me and shut up and laugh when I want them to laugh. At that point, I'm like 14, 15 years old. I don't have the lexicon of, I would like to be a contemporary celebrity. But I quickly built a story around it. Hold on a minute, there's loads of money in this, there's loads of women in this, there's acclaim in this. But actually, the thing that was born was a very pure artistic thing. I really care about what I do and I'm good at it. And I see people light up and I want that. I want to connect with people in that way.
Presenter
The more successful you got, the smaller your hair got. Tell me about that. What happened?
Russell Brand
I retrospectively recognize that I constructed an identity. And I wish when I was doing the Big Brother programme or early six music stuff, I sort of said, oh no, I'm zipperty stardust or something, because then I could have gone, I'm not him anymore, I'm this new serious guy who goes on question time and cares about people. But you know, it turns out that that's me. I'm both of those people. Fame is a coruscating heat. You know, it rips you up if you're not ready for it. So, like, luckily, I had like a built a uniform and an identity and a language and a mode of being that could take the heat for me. You know, so when they're sort of talking about, oh, he came out of this nightclub with these women, or he said this thing, or he's brought down this institution, I go, yeah, I'm disappointed in him as well. I see him trot out the door in those ridiculous trousers this morning. There's no hope for you, son.
Presenter
You went to the Otaglia Conti. They is it true they threw you out? Yeah. What did you do?
Russell Brand
There
Russell Brand
Bye.
Russell Brand
was taking drugs. I didn't go to the classes. I mean, see it was only meant to be a year course, but I wanted to stay so much.
Presenter
How old are you when they're three magazine?
Russell Brand
Sixteen, you know, so I was pretty young and I'd left home and stuff, so I was really sort of adrift. Why had you left home? My mum got ill again and I thought, Oh, she's gonna die, I can't be around all this You know, so I was left home. And I didn't go with my stepdad. He was a lovely bloke i i in his way, I had no connection with him and you know, I was like entering into d drug addiction at that age. I don't think he liked me and it's very hard to incubate if you feel like the way you're growing up you're not liked, you can get out.
Presenter
Let's have some music.
Presenter
We're on your fourth choice of the day. Tell me why you've chosen this.
Russell Brand
This is really pertinent as a matter of fact because it's almost like you know what you're doing. This is the Libertines uh Till the King and I like it because I I think Pete Doherty and and Carl I think that they were very very brilliant artists and musicians and here I think they're sort of talking about how you can achieve something from nothing and I think they render it very very well
Speaker 1
Even now there's some to be proud of you
Russell Brand
Uh
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Russell Brand
I'm up the hard way and I'll remind you every day You're nothing
Speaker 1
All my words in your mouth mumbled all about You're like a journalist Now you can cut and paste and twist You're awful
Presenter
That was the Libertines and Tell the King. Um you're no longer a drug user, Russell Brand. You gave evidence to MPs during a Home Affairs Select Committee investigation into drug addiction. W were you nervous before you did that?
Russell Brand
Yes. Plus I'm interested that the houses of parliament are indistinguishable from Oxford University and Eton School, that they have the same walls and the same leather couches, that to some people are incredibly comfortable and familiar, and to others are absolutely alien and terrifying. But as long as when they're talking to you you remember that before you started they were asking for an autograph for their kids or a photograph for their neighbour. You sort of think they're just people.
Presenter
Did they do that?
Russell Brand
Did they do that? Yes. But what I tried to stay in touch with, see, that's why it's good for me to do stuff to do drugs and alcohol. But like, I was really early on, when I was quite young before I was famous, I met this Swami. I goes, Do I need to become like a monk, shaved dead and that? He went, No, you don't. You're the last thing we need. He goes, But what you just do things that you have dedicate them to higher consciousness, dedicate them to Krishna. And I know that there are drug addicts that want treatment, that want access to rehabilitation, who can't afford it, that are fraudulent for the net or the welfare state and aren't going to get protection. So in this point, I can talk for them. So then I have value.
Presenter
What was your own uh low point at which uh you sought proper help and decided that you didn't want to live that life any more?
Russell Brand
The story that I'd told myself about how I was going to be happy was become famous. But it I could no longer pursue that'cause I I required such a lot of medicinal support to cope with life. Like I was taking a lot of drugs.
Presenter
And this is when you had a show on MTV and
Russell Brand
I had a little show on MTV. I had a little radio show on XFM. But I was bringing sort of like crack addicts and smack heads into the radio studio with me. And of course, you know, whilst I dismissed them with that language, they were, of course, lovely, lovely people that were right at the arse end of the disease. That was my low points. I got kicked off of that XFM radio show because I was being an idiot again. I was cracking, you know, so that's what I do. I do things like that. And then I got kicked off of MTV because not solely because I was dressing up as Osama bin Laden on.
Presenter
The day after nine eleven, yeah.
Russell Brand
Yeah. Not solely because of that, but because I was like jumping like, you know, I was a nut. I was like smashing up people's cars and self harming at work b breaking glasses and stabbing myself in front of people. And, you know, I was consorting with people that exist but aren't meant to exist in relatively sanitized media environments.
Presenter
Uh
Presenter
How did you afford rehab then? Wh who how did that work? John now.
Russell Brand
Who's your agent?
Presenter
Yeah.
Russell Brand
Bless him bless John Knowles' tenacity and unwillingness to accept things as they are. It was John that said, You're going to treatment, even though the accepted ideology is that an addict must choose for themselves to get clean. John forced me to go into treatment.
Presenter
We gotta fit in the music, Russell Brands. Go on, tell me about this. It's your fifth of the morning.
Presenter
Yeah.
Russell Brand
This is Ravishanka and George Arrison and I like this song in particular because it's sort of about Krishna who I think is a really really good deity. When you first hear it seems a bit cheesy but when you listen it's actually very beautiful like a carol.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Oh Krishna, where are you?
Presenter
I am missing you.
Presenter
Oh Krishna Vera.
Presenter
No, I can see.
Speaker 2
I hear your flute on the bar.
Presenter
That was Ravi Shenka, Family and Friends, and I am missing you. I saw um when I was reading in preparation for talking to you, my bookie work.
Presenter
Now it says at the front, You are married, of course, to Katy Perry, the very famous American pop star. It says, For Katy, this is my past, meaning this the book, You Are My Future. Pretty bloody
Russell Brand
Uh
Presenter
Sweet, isn't it that?
Russell Brand
Yeah.
Presenter
This is my
Russell Brand
This is my past, you are my future. Imagine someone writing that to you at the front of a book.
Presenter
I know, and I genuinely thought it was incredibly sweet and very sad when I read it.
Presenter
Both in your books and when you do your stand-up, you use your life. That's what you do. You talk about your life and that's what we consume of you. We find your articulacy and take on your life very, very interesting. And recently I saw somebody, I was watching a clip on the BBC website, and somebody asked you about your marriage and your marriage breakdown. You immediately said, you know, I'm not talking about that. And you looked like you got very, very angry. It's complex for people to understand that you won't talk about something when you always have talked about your life.
Russell Brand
Festival Ratio Right I'm glad that I've got this opportunity to talk about this because uh
Russell Brand
That's someone else's life as well. And the presumed intimacy of what I perform, other people might think it is intimate. They don't know how much artifice there is. They don't know how much construction there is. People don't know what I'm like. People have got no idea what I'm like. They know what I tell them I'm like. And so, like, stuff like my marriage, that's private, like anybody's marriage. And why it's difficult is when you do media what appeals to my aesthetic, like this, because it's you and because it's top-notch radio and it's the BBC and everything, you feel like, oh, I can talk, you know, I can be open to a degree and trusting. Now, what happens is this will get listened to by less aspirational media, and they will truncate things that I say in this interview into convenient packages of idiocy to be imbibed on things like TMZ or Perez Hilton or The Daily People or whatever it is now. So you have to be so cautious. Increasingly, what I do as a comedian, I'm not going to tell people this is how I am when I'm on my own with my mates or my mum or whatever. That's because it's irrelevant. It's irrelevant because it's so normal. You know, that's the thing. There is no real mystery to celebrity. It is just a distraction. It can never function as a pantheon.
Presenter
Does it stop you having?
Presenter
Or does it get in the way of having the real things? Does it get in the way of not being a stand up and just buttering the toast in in the kitchen with your bare feet and having a laugh with the woman you're in love with?
Russell Brand
I think any job where you work a lot and travel a lot is an interruption. And if you define yourself by external information, which to a degree we all do, and in the case of famous people, there's a lot more of that external information. You have to make a very real effort to detach yourself from that and recognise that you don't define the parameters of what other people say about you. People can't distinguish between what's true and what's a lie. So if you would judge yourself on the basis of that, you're in the realm of the unknowable and the uncontrollable. You need to be able to say, this is what I am, and this is what I'm about, and it doesn't matter what people say. Now, if I knew what the conditions were for a successful marriage, I would have created them. But I tell you this, Casey, the important thing is that it's probably the same as any marriage that don't work. People see the same situation differently and aren't prepared to compromise sufficiently to achieve consensus. And I think people would like to make it about fame and celebrity. But celebrity really has become about a kind of meaninglessness. And there are some people who do have agendas. And they are dictating what our pantheon is. And they're using that to distract us from what is important. And I don't want to be a contributor to that anymore. That's the opposite of what I want.
Presenter
We're going to have some music, Russell Brand. We're on your sixth choice of the day. Tell me about this. It's Timmy Mallet.
Russell Brand
No, obviously it's something really meaningful and deep like me. Uh this is Dan Lesack and Scroobius Pip Thou Shall Always Kill. I like it because it's an interesting take on commandments and doctrine.
Speaker 2
The Beatles, we're just a band, Led Zeppelin, just a band, the Beach Boys, just a band, the Sex Pistols, just a band, the Clash, just a band, Crass, just a band, Minor Threat, just a band, the Q, were just a band, the Smiths, just a band, Nirvana, just a band, the Pixies, just a band, Oasis, just a band, Radio Headland, just a band.
Presenter
That was Danlasack vs. Scroobius Pip, and thou shalt always kill. You were wondering there, Russell. I thought you weren't going to come back to your seat. But you've you've sat down. I'm happy here. Um you've been in thirteen films so far. Centrinians, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him to the Greek, Despicable Me. You said that one of the problems for you with making films is that it's left you feeling a little bit unfulfilled.
Russell Brand
I'm happy.
Presenter
Yeah.
Russell Brand
Why do you think that is? I'll tell you why,'cause when you're a kid you s see a film like Beverly Hill's Cop or Rambo or whatever and think, Oh, that's a film, I'd like to be in that. I think I'm good at the old acting, I can transform and all that stuff, but when you get uh onto a film set, as an actor, what's required of you is r actually rather limited.
Presenter
Something like the remake of Arthur, a big movie. It wasn't well received. Personally, I'm proud.
Russell Brand
Well I'm a proud person. So like if things don't go my way, I'm offended by it. I don't like to be disrespectful about the process of it because everyone worked really hard and was really really lovely. And I got to hang around with Ellen Mirren for three months. Who's gonna moan about that? I got to have my testicles clutched by Nick Nolty. Who would give up such a treasure?
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
How much do you enjoy writing? You you've written occasionally for The Guardian and you've written these two uh books that have been on uh well, the New York Times bestseller list and and bestseller lists here in the UK. Do you find that satisfying?
Russell Brand
Well, yeah. The writing office to sit down and be still. But it's beautiful'cause I get to compose. This is exactly what I mean about what happened in Woolwich. This is exactly what I mean about Margaret Thatcher. But I feel that I am in my essence when I'm performing stand-up comedy. So it's very, very rewarding to me in a way that very little else is.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
Is distraction generally for you a problem? I mean, you've a couple of times during this interview been up and you've been sort of roaming around like a bit of a caged animal.
Russell Brand
Yeah, I do get distracted. I don't like the idea that we're boundaried. I like the possibility that at any point we can be disrupted and enter into mayhem. Because also, here comes the Reaper. Don't when that moment finally comes, go, hold on a minute, no, wait a second, I've not watched The Last Godfather. Ah!
Speaker 1
Uh
Russell Brand
Be aware that this is it. So I want to be in alignment with what's true.
Presenter
On that note, Disc seven, tell me about this.
Russell Brand
This here is a mantra called Triple Mantra. Look, there's two reasons this is in here. One is because it makes me look good. He's got a mantra in, he's changed. The other thing is, if you like, listen to it for about twenty minutes, you can just loop this, your consciousness will change, you will think different things. And that's really positive.
Presenter
Narinjan Kaur and Triple Mantra. So Russell Brand, what are your ambitions now, if they're not necessarily movies?
Russell Brand
I want to devote my life to elevating my own consciousness and the consciousness of other people through telling them jokes.
Presenter
I'm so glad that you said that on the end. I thought you were going to say you were going to give it all up and sort not be a monk, but you know, j just work in drug rehabilitation and trying to raise funds for that. And you're still going to.
Russell Brand
The monks have made it very clear that they don't want me on the firm. Dala Lama himself made it pretty clear. You interviewed the Dalai Lama. I interviewed him and I they're not up for having me in the in the monk community.
Presenter
You interviewed the telephone, did you?
Presenter
And in terms of of recovery, do you daily have to sort of renew your path of deciding that on that day you will not take drugs? Yes. You do.
Russell Brand
Yes. You do, daily. 100%. Because that's the most important principle. Yeah. Because it is daily. My recovery is my priority. Is it? Yeah. Without that, there's nothing else. So the things that I do for my recovery, and I don't remember this all the time because I'm not a perfect person. I make mistakes every single day all the time. But the reason that I took drugs in the first place is because I wanted to feel a union, a spiritual union, a connection. I think that's why everybody takes drugs, except people that are just doing it for a laugh at a party. I don't know what they're up to. I'm not involved in that. But I think people that take drugs dependently and addictively are doing it because they want to feel a connection. They feel disconnected and they can't cope with the pain. That's why I took drugs. I now recognise that the solution to this feeling is a spiritual, is a spiritual one. Now I know that sounds sometimes a bit sort of weird British and that sounds a bit sort of grow up or stop it or pack it in. But all it really means is what is real today? Are you dealing with what's real? Are you being loving to other people? And if I don't do those things, nothing else means anything anyway. Nothing has any value.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
Is it
Presenter
So I've been si I've been pondering the idea, as I do with every castaway, and I think how will they get on entirely on their own?
Presenter
Apart from sort of nature's creatures around them. How will you get on on on the island on your own?
Russell Brand
Are there many creatures?
Presenter
Yes, I think they probably are.
Russell Brand
Well, that's alright then. Now, like I'm about being present and being engaged and being involved. Once I'm on that island, those obligations are all gone. I'm never seeing another person, am I? That's it. It's just me till the end of time. So I've got no more material obligations. There's nothing left to acquire. There's nothing left to prove. There's just me and my thoughts. So I'll be kinda relieved. I'll set up some simple arable living. I'll be meditating a lot. Once I'm on that island, I'm off into the realms of the mystical to slowly, slowly embrace the unknown. It'll be a relief.
Speaker 1
It's just me.
Presenter
It's time for your uh your final piece of music, Russell. What are we gonna hear now?
Russell Brand
MORRACY, now my heart is full. Morrissey is the, as you know, the poet laureate of the dispossessed.
Russell Brand
This song I like it because of the crescendo. I asked him, you know how odd it is, you've interviewed him how odd it is to get any sense out of the man. I go to him, what is this? Why are you saying them people out of Brighton rock for? And he just wistfully went.
Russell Brand
The gang. Like so for your friends, you know, your friends.
Presenter
Dallas spicer, pinky Cuban
Presenter
Uh
Speaker 2
Every gem is stressed with poles
Speaker 2
Loafing oops and all-night chemists Loafing oops and all-night chemists Underact, express depression
Speaker 1
But bunny, I'd loved you I was tired again, I tried again, I know my heart
Presenter
Morrissey, and now my heart is full. So, Russell, we give our Castaways books here. Traditionally, the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and you also get to take another book. What will it what will it be?
Russell Brand
I think I'll take the bag of Agita because I've only read little bits of it. Okay, it's yours and it's all translations and then it says it in Sanskrit, so you could maybe teach yourself Sanskrit.
Presenter
Okay, it's yours.
Presenter
You can have that.
Russell Brand
A luxury too, to make life a little more bearable. You can't take a person, can you? I can't take Noel Gallagher as a luxury item as a construct. That's the perfect thing. Yeah, I'd like a taxidermy to Noel Gallagher.
Presenter
Yeah.
Russell Brand
Perhaps somehow misrepresented, like wearing one of Liam's jackets.
Presenter
Okay.
Presenter
Right, that's yours. And a disk to save, a disc of the eight.
Russell Brand
I realize that that Morrissey song has such a profound and powerful effect on me. He's always there in your loneliest moments. So if I'm on a desert island though, the last thing I want is to be reminded of him. I'll take that triple mantra, right, and I'll met zone out on meditation. But I've got my stuff to Noel Gallagher to worship and dress up if I wanna. I can do what I like to him. Yeah, we'll leave that sort of that man on that island.
Presenter
Worship
Presenter
Yeah, we'll leave that so
Presenter
Russell Brand, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.
Russell Brand
Thanks, Kirsty.
Presenter
You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash Radio 4.
Well, no, what for me is a mark of a life well lived, Kirsty, is truthfulness and that there was a dishonest scandal that I feel like I want to address here. The thing that the 42,000 people were offended by is offensive. It is offensive if someone calls up and answers the phone, does some swearing, hangs up. But if incrementally that act is led to by a series of innuendos and in jokes, then it's a different thing. It's still a thing that is wrong, but it's not the thing that they're offended by.
Presenter asks
Why were you lonely as a child?
Well, I think it was predisposed to loneliness in that a single mum my mum had to work all the time to look after me and my dad weren't around.
Presenter asks
What was your own low point at which you sought proper help and decided that you didn't want to live that life any more?
The story that I'd told myself about how I was going to be happy was become famous. But I could no longer pursue that 'cause I required such a lot of medicinal support to cope with life. ... I was bringing sort of like crack addicts and smack heads into the radio studio with me. ... That was my low points. I got kicked off of that XFM radio show because I was being an idiot again. ... And then I got kicked off of MTV ... because I was like jumping like ... I was a nut. I was like smashing up people's cars and self harming at work ... b breaking glasses and stabbing myself in front of people.
Presenter asks
Does [celebrity] get in the way of having the real things — of just buttering the toast in the kitchen with your bare feet and having a laugh with the woman you're in love with?
I think any job where you work a lot and travel a lot is an interruption. And if you define yourself by external information, which to a degree we all do, and in the case of famous people, there's a lot more of that external information. You have to make a very real effort to detach yourself from that ... You need to be able to say, this is what I am, and this is what I'm about, and it doesn't matter what people say. Now, if I knew what the conditions were for a successful marriage, I would have created them. But I tell you this, Kirsty, the important thing is that it's probably the same as any marriage that don't work. People see the same situation differently and aren't prepared to compromise sufficiently to achieve consensus. ... I don't want to be a contributor to [meaninglessness] anymore. That's the opposite of what I want.
“One of the things about being in recovery is it's necessarily a life of progress. So things that I sort of said even a couple of years ago, I somewhat blanch at. 'Cause now I increasingly think, oh, they're like just my mates.”
“In the end, sort of just some version of oh I'd like to have a sit down and watch telly with someone and hold hands.”
“It was holy for me to feel that [being looked at and listened to on stage] as a kid.”
“Fame is a coruscating heat. You know, it rips you up if you're not ready for it. So, like, luckily, I had like a built a uniform and an identity and a language and a mode of being that could take the heat for me.”
“The important thing is that it's probably the same as any marriage that don't work. People see the same situation differently and aren't prepared to compromise sufficiently to achieve consensus. And I think people would like to make it about fame and celebrity. But celebrity really has become about a kind of meaninglessness.”
“Once I'm on that island, those obligations are all gone. ... There's just me and my thoughts. So I'll be kinda relieved. I'll set up some simple arable living. I'll be meditating a lot. Once I'm on that island, I'm off into the realms of the mystical to slowly, slowly embrace the unknown. It'll be a relief.”