Will Carruthers has had a chequered career. Frequently veering from the sublime to the ridiculous and rarely lacking a sense of humour about the whole thing, he has travelled the world performing his peculiar balancing act between artistic endeavour and hard labour. Often without a safety net.
In his early years, he was the bassist for Spacemen 3, Spiritualized, and Spectrum, three bands who were among the most influential rock outfits of the late 80's and early 90's. If in doubt, look them up and you will find that these pioneers of drone rock influenced everyone from Nirvana to Daft Punk and My bloody valentine. Their recordings and uncompromising attitudes continue to be a cherished source of inspiration for many of the “new wave of psychedelia” bands that are flourishing today.
Not one to rest on his laurels, Carruthers moved from the success of these bands into a series of back breaking and soul destroying jobs, which he documented in a collection of short stories called “A Book of Jobs”.
This book features; A plutonium factory, badgers, fireballs, the northern lights, a giant turd (possibly belonging to Jimmy Page), Midland meat packers, sleeping under a hedge eating nuts and berries, poaching a thousand eggs, a very loud cow, a river of piss, Oasis at Knebworth, a winking fox, and the ghost of Billie Holiday.
Carruthers made the first one hundred copies by hand at his kitchen table, binding fourteen of his own original linoleum prints into the books in the process.
“It was a lot of work,” he said.
Having more recently played with the notorious Brian Jonestown Massacre and with Icelandic band Dead Skeletons, Carruthers finally started to go deaf and he has subsequently decided to give loud music a break for a while, although he does perform occasional solo concerts and readings for largely confused audiences.
He published a handmade book of poetry called “A Spoon for the Air” and has had poems featured in the books “One another” by Alisa Resnik, (which won the European publishers prize for photography), and in “La part des ombres” by Swiss author Chiara Mechtry-Gonet.
He has had a few short stories and essays published in a couple of magazines.
Carruthers sometimes lives in Berlin, but he would really like to live by the sea, grow peculiar vegetables and keep donkeys.
Interview for the Icelandic Monitor
"....mostly I like to stay beside Lake Þingvallavatn and cook pony burgers with my friends while we do a bit of gentle dragon spotting."
"It is basically a hymn to cunnilingus, which is funny really because I am not even sure that mermaids have vaginas."
" I got my first guitar when I was about sixteen . I played the theme from batman, with no key changes for about six months until my neighbours went crazy . They were so pleased when I learned another song"