Cult figure Billy Childish’s paintings, poetry, writing and music have been part of his uncompromising life work, and as part of a major solo exhibition to encompass his extraordinary career, he played the ICA last week. Amazingly he has made over 100 albums with punk rock bands such as The Pop Riverts, Thee Headcoats, and more recently Wild Billy Childish & the Musicians of the British Empire (MBE) and The Vermin Poets, who both played the ICA. His bands have been of the garage punk/blues genres, and watching the MBE’s the rawness of the guitar and vocal take you back to the punk era which Billy has made a conscious effort to preserve in his music. The lyrics talk of hypocrisy, the media, occasionally women, and also give a nod to punk legends as in the song Joe Strummer’s Grave.   

Billy’s main ethos in life is to never do what other people want or expect him to do, meaning that in his life he has only ever been employed once as an apprentice stone mason before leaving to enter St Martin’s School of Art. After he was expelled he vowed to never compromise himself or his beliefs. He describes himself as an ‘amateur’ meaning that he has never trained or been employed to do any of his artistic activities. Instead he seeks comfort in all he does, and enjoys the feeling of freedom that accompanies it. He talks to me about his life ethics, his band, the election and comments on the life of the Sex Pistols’ manager, Malcolm McLaren, who died the day Dazed met Billy.

Dazed Digital: Do you still consider yourself to be an amateur?
Billy Childish: Amateurism is a way of keeping tabs on yourself, not relying on others to pay the mortgage. It’s amateur in the sense of self deprecation. See it would be very difficult being David Bowie, only David Bowie could handle being David Bowie, it’s the same with any pop star, I don’t aim to be a pop star, I don’t aim to be a writer or musician so I presume I’m an amateur. Because I do everything for the enjoyment of it, supposedly, although I find it hard to find enjoyment in a lot of it. I don’t rate being in a group isn’t such a great thing.

DD: But your life’s works is doing the things you love so do you feel like you haven’t worked in life?
Billy Childish: Yeah the idea is not to have a job because having a job’s a bit boring.

DD: But if everyone did that do you think that would be a good thing?
Billy Childish: Probably not. Not in a way that our society is geared. We can’t all be lazy lay-abouts. The way I’ve done things is probably slightly different because I can’t get on with the way we do things in society and that’s the way I am. And if we had a more natural way of doing things and living and interacting with each other, I would maybe not feel forced to cut my own paths so much.

DD: Does that make you rebellious?
Billy Childish: Not really, it’s comfort. Looking for comfort isn’t really rebellion. I’m just not comfortable with the rock industry, I’m not very comfortable with the art industry, I’m not very comfortable with industry. Or with things that find yourself being turned into a commodity.

DD: Would you be comfortable being rich?
Billy Childish: Hmm I might be depends how I had to get rich. I don’t have a problem with money I’ve got a problem with doing what people want me to do to have it. So I wouldn’t be able to paint if it was to get rich. Or I couldn’t produce music or write if I didn’t want to, to be rich. I can move a certain amount but probably a lot less than most people. People aim to become celebrity and to become rich; I think that’s a very limited ambition. I turned down people like Celebrity Big Brother, because I respect my family and I respect the people who expect me to behave a little bit better than that.

DD: Do you have a management company?
Billy Childish: No. They tell you what to do. We did six shows in America without an agent!

DD: Is there a political motive behind your lyrics in the MBE’s or is it just for fun?
Billy Childish: There’s no real political motive, but I suppose things are political if you do them. I’ve got opinions about the way we are geared towards our instincts. As humans we do stupid things, that’s what irritates me most, like what mugs we are. Like how they voted for Margret Thatcher, the fact they’re going to vote Cameron in.

DD: Does that mean you are voting for Gordon Brown then?
Billy Childish: No, not particularly. The last politician I voted for was for Michael Foot against Thatcher. I’ll probably vote this year, when we had the Green Party, I’d vote for them but we don’t have enough representatives where I live.

DD: What bands do you listen to?
Billy Childish: I don’t really listen to music much. When I paint I mainly listen to Chopin or Beethoven. I don’t really know much about it but I listen to that stuff.

DD: What are your thoughts on the death of Malcolm McLaren today?
Billy Childish: Being out in the sticks we were always very sceptical of the punk fashion side and didn’t trust the idea of management. I didn’t know Malcolm McLaren, he seems to have had some great ideas and inspired many people, but for me he was interested in effect rather than content and was very full of how he invented a lot of things he only marketed, all be it with a certain dare.

Visit the exhibition Billy Childish: Unknowable but Certain, which runs until May 2. Watch him perform with the MBE’s on YouTube