Barney was never a bigger pain in the arse than when we were touring. It was a vicious circle. He was miserable, so nobody wanted to hang out with him, which made him feel isolated, and as a result he got even more miserable, meaning people wanted to hang out with him even less.
He once said to me, ‘Do you know what it’s like to sit in your room and have nobody phone you?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t, and you shouldn’t be such a twat, should you. Then someone might phone you.’
Steve and Gillian had each other. I had the crew. But Barney had nobody. He was and probably still is a creature of the studio; that’s where he’s happiest, being waited on hand and foot in a five-star prison. So while the idea of a very lucrative 35-date American tour, with the second leg featuring Public Image Ltd and the Sugarcubes, sounded like a bloody good way to spend a significant part of 1989 to me, to Barney it was a lot of a drag. A complete and total interference.
As a result he was even more of a pain in the arse on this tour than he’d ever been before. Factor in the huge amount of drugs we were all doing, and you can see why this was the tour that broke us.
It began in Puerto Rico. Phil Rodrigues was in charge, a promoter we had met in Brazil. To get there we’d been forced to take a cheap airline, Joke Air or whatever from Miami, and, I’m not kidding, there were people on the plane sitting holding chickens on their laps. In addition to that, they were a pretty fiery crowd. Echo and the Bunnymen would have fitted in just fine with this lot, and because the stewardess was taking so long to come down the aisle with drinks, a bunch of guys got up, stole the trolley and started handing them around. When the stewardesses kicked off about it, the guys got a newspaper, balled it up and set fire to it in the aisle. All us lot were sitting at the back of the plane, absolutely terrified, desperate to land, as fights broke out all around us.
Puerto Rico was really good, a proper holiday destination. We were staying in a Marriott hotel by the lakes and for some reason – maybe I was feeling guilty about him being left on his own – me and Barney went on a day trip with Tom Atencio and spent the day whizzing around on jet skis. I was the only one not to fall off. That night, we were taken to one of the most hair-raising gigs I’ve ever attended. It was a Puerto Rican hip-hop concert. There were a few gangs present, and as a result loads of fighting broke out.
It was a theme that seemed to continue at our own gig, which was a fairly miserable affair. Next thing you know, we were flying back to Miami, where we commenced the tour proper. That night, after our concert at the Knight Center, I ended up back in my room with Frank Callari. John Robie was there too. He and I had patched it up by then. Although I still thought he was a bit annoying, we were friends and, sure enough, that night he was on typical form.
Meanwhile Frank was being his usual hilarious self, spilling the beans, getting all confessional. Coke is a terrible honesty drug, and even though I’ve dished out some embarrassing truths myself a few times (one such occasion coming up in the next few pages, unfortunately), I’ve been on the receiving end more times than I care to remember. I’d be begging people to shut up. ‘Stop . . . telling me this story . . . about being abused by your teacher/dog. Please, just stop!’
Gradually I became aware of Frank rustling his wrap. He was rustling it so loudly I’m surprised Ian McCulloch didn’t turn up. The reason was we’d run out, and because Frank was off his head he started insisting that with it all gone we should go to bed. ‘Come on, Hooky, you go to bed. Me and John are leaving. Come on, Robie, let’s fuck off . . . now.’
And then, all of a sudden, just as the night looked as though it was grinding to a halt, I discovered I had three ounces in my jacket.
Oh my God. Baggies out on the table, credit cards out, shit everywhere. We were still going at five or six o’clock in the morning when I decided I needed a piss. Now, the thing about charlie is that when you’re on it you don’t really piss, and then when you do at last go, you’re there for ages. So I was standing in my hotel room toilet, marathon-pissing, until after a while I became aware that something wasn’t quite right. There was something a bit weird going on, like the floor was moving – as though I’d finally achieved godlike status and was walking on water.
Next thing I knew I looked to my left and saw my case float past the bathroom door. Two seconds later it dawned on me that the place was more than flooded. The room was submerged in about two inches of water.
I ran out into the lounge, trying to tell the other two what was wrong. We came to the conclusion that we must have left a tap on, but no, there was no tap running anywhere.
Just then came a knock at the door. We all looked at each other. There was a lot of coke in a bag on the table, shit everywhere, the room under inches of water and, as far as we were concerned, the police at the door.
‘Right,’ said Frank, ‘don’t panic.’
So we immediately started panicking. For some reason, I started opening and closing my case. Frank was jumping on the bed, all twenty stone of him, Robie stood paddling as the blood drained from his face.
Again came the knock. ‘Señor, we can hear you in there, please open up.’
Robie tossed me a towel for wiping the table. I hid the remaining coke. All of us sweating like a dyslexic on Countdown.
The knocking was more insistent now so I had no choice but to open the door. In the corridor stood about six Mexicans, all clutching big spanners.
‘Señor, you have a leak, we must come in, shut water off, stop leak. Four floors flooded.’
Me, Robie and Frank retreated to a corner of the room, standing there wide-eyed and trembling, ‘hanging’, as we say in Manchester, off our faces and twisted up with paranoia as the Mexicans tore into the room and ripped part of the wall away to get to a stopcock.
Two minutes later they were gone, but by this time I’d had enough. It gets you like that sometimes. You suddenly have a meltdown. Frank had earlier, and now it was my turn.
‘No, lads, my head’s gone. I’ve had enough. I’ve got to get to bed.’
It was Frank who pointed out that there was water on the floor, but I had an idea. I got my bag packed, got the three ounces of Charlie and went down to the bus and knocked on the door. The drivers have to stay on all night, poor sods, and this one opened up, recoiling in horror at the way I looked, all twisted and coked off my face, and then let me in.
And that was the first night of the tour.