In the mid-‘60s, a suburban British mother named Joan Nancy Haskins, with a port-and-brandy cocktail in one hand and a Consulate menthol cigarette in the other, would watch her 7-year-old son perform shoebox stick-puppet shows to Roy Orbison songs — living room performances that that boy would decades later describe as “proto-video theater.”

That boy and his younger brother Kevin grew up to form one of the most influential bands of the post-punk era and arguably the inventors of Goth, Bauhaus, and they later enjoyed even greater success with their neo-psychedelic college-rock trio, Love and Rockets. But it all started in the Haskins family home in Northampton, England. And on June 6, under his full family name, David J is releasing a deeply moving spoken-word album, The Mother Tree, and companion-piece poetry book, Rhapsody, Threnody & Prayer — a project that in part pays tribute to the woman he describes as his “first audience.”

The Mother Tree’s opening/title track — a “sacred,” visceral, almost uncomfortably personal, nearly 22-minute recitation of the first poem from David’s book’s “Threnody” section — was, incredibly, done in one take, as was the rest of the record. “It was highly emotional — and you can hear that in my voice, I think,” he says. “I’m glad that we got it in that one take, because it would’ve been very hard to have gone in and had another crack at it.” While David recorded the album in early 2020 at Los Angeles’s Ear Gallery Music with violinist Gregory Allison, guitarist Tad Piecka, and pianist Jon Bernstein of the now-defunct improvisational folk/ambient band RAQIA, he began writing that poem in 1997, the day after Joan died, and some Rhapsody, Threnody & Prayer poems even date back to his ‘70s pre-fame days.

In the video interview above and wide-ranging Q&A below, David J Haskins opens up about this unique dual project’s creative process and the inspiration and support he took from his mother, a rebellious and defiant World War II survivor, that informed his entire career. And along the way, he discusses some key career memories, including ones associated with Bauhaus’s signature song, “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” — like his amusing encounter with David Bowie on the set of The Hunger, Bauhaus’s iconically vampiric grand entrance at Coachella 2005, and how he feels about that song being the theme to Saturday Night Live’s recurring “Goth Talk” sketch. He also discusses the surprising late-‘80s Billboard chart breakthrough of Love and Rockets and what the future holds for that reunited trio after their 2024 tour with Jane’s Addiction came to an abrupt and “very jarring” end, how he feels about Bauhaus being snubbed by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and much more.

LYNDSANITY: So, there’s obviously a lot to unpack here. There’s the album, The Mother Tree, and the accompanying poetry collection, Rhapsody, Threnody, and Prayer. The record is more from the middle section of the book, much of which is about your mother and her death. How do these two projects complement each other, and why you chose to focus on that section?

DAVID J: Well, the album, in a way, came first. I completed the album before I compiled the book, and it was Chandra [Shukla], who runs the record label and the printing house, that suggested that we do a book. He was aware that I had poems, and those poems, they’re taken from, oh God, decades. The earliest one goes back to ’77, and the latest one was written actually as the book was going to press. … It spans that whole time, all those poems. But the album, as I say, came first, and that was recorded some time ago, during the pandemic. We did that in 2020.

I’d had it in mind to make a spoken-word album. I’ve always had the odd spoken-word with music tracks on albums, but the idea of a complete album of spoken-word with music, that was in my head. I wasn’t sure if I would multi-track the music myself, which is something I’ve done in the past, or if I’d bring in other musicians. And I happened to go and see a friend of mine, Nora Keys, play a show in Downtown L.A. I was about to leave, and then this group [RAQIA ] was setting up, and I thought I’d stick around, probably just stay for one song. Anyway, as soon as they started playing, I was riveted. They were so good, and it was all instrumental music. Halfway through it occurred to me, “Oh, this kind of music and these players could really work accompanying the spoken word.” … So, I put this notion to them after their set, and about three days later, we were in the studio. It was two sessions, and that first track was done in one take.

I was about to ask you if you did “The Mother Tree” in one take, because it feels very immediate. And it’s like 22 minutes long!

Yes, in fact, all of the tracks were done in one take, with me reciting as the musicians played. We were responding to each other and it was semi-improvised; I just sent them the poems and really gave them carte blanche to come up with music. I didn’t even hear the music until just before recording. I didn’t want to. I wanted it to be that spontaneous. … So, it’s very exciting to be in the moment of the creation of the piece, and that being the first time you’ve really heard the music and the first time the music has been put together with the recitation.

You’ve called this project your most personal work to date, and that track about your late mother goes extremely deep. I mean this in the best possible, as a compliment, but I almost felt bad listening to It, or uncomfortable. It felt so personal, like I was eavesdropping on something private. It must have been very emotional for you to record something like that.

Yeah, it was highly emotional — and you can hear that in my voice, I think. And I’m glad that we got it in that one take, because it would’ve been very hard to have gone in and had another crack at it. But it was also cathartic. The writing of it was cathartic. I mean, I wrote that the day after my mum passed, but it took three days to write the main section of that poem. And then I put it aside, and then I completed it after I’d received her ashes and decided what to do with those ashes. I talk about that in the poem. And that completed it.

Why did this feel like the right time to release it, as opposed to 28 years ago when you first wrote it?

I didn’t have any plans for it. I mean, I just wrote it, really, as catharsis. I didn’t think about it, and I didn’t know what I was going to do with it. Just the process of writing was necessary for me personally. I never had a plan to put it to music until much later on.

There’s a section the poem your mother being young during World War II in England, and her kind of defiance about what was going on at the time. Could you tell me a little bit more about that story?

She grew up in a working-class family in Birmingham, which is in the Midlands, sort of North Midlands. And that city was bombed. They bombed the hell out of that city. It is like a big industrial city. It’s known as the second city. So, that’s where she was brought up, and that’s where she was when that was all going down. And she told me that story about being in the midst of an air raid. She was ice-skating. She loved to ice-skate. She was a very good skater, apparently. And she was in the rink with her friends, and then the sirens struck up. And so, her friends were like, “Oh, let’s get the hell out of here! Let’s go down to the shelter!” And usually she would do that, but she was 18 at the time, and this time she’d had enough and she refused. It was like, “Sod off, Hitler! I’m carrying on!” And she was the only one in that rink, because everybody fled. And I could just see it, such a beautiful image and the notion of my mom skating a figure eight while in the ice rink when the bombs are falling on the city. Just the defiance in that and the spirit of that. It’s very inspirational.

Is there anything that has run through your mind, releasing that track in 2025, given the Nazi sentiment and stuff we are unfortunately seeing coming up now?

Well, I take great inspiration from my mom’s rebellious resistance in the face of the Nazis. I mean, obviously that was a lot worse than what we are experiencing, not to say that what we’re experiencing is not bloody awful. But yeah, I draw from that in these times. These are very challenging times. And I draw from my mom’s heroic spirit of rebellion and resistance, and noble resistance and noble rebellion, at this time. And I’d like to think that people could listen to it, hear it, and read it, and be inspired as well.

Absolutely. She sounds like she was a wonderful lady. How did she foster creativity in you and your brother? I mean, she was the mom to two people that started one of the most influential bands of their time.

Well, way back when I was a kid, about 7, she was my first audience. And the shows that I would put on were puppet shows. I made a stage out of a shoebox and I cut holes in the side, and I had these long gardening sticks that you use to grow tomatoes. And I would make these little characters and cut them out and stick them on the end of the sticks, and then they would enter, stage right, stage left, and they would have an exchange. When I think about it, it was kind of like a proto-video theater, because I played records and I had these characters acting out the songs. One that she loved was Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman,” and that was one of the first ones that I did. I just sort of acted out the song, and she would be sitting there in a parkano recliner, peeling an orange. She would peel these oranges and bite it and keep the skin in one [spiral piece]. And she had newspapers on the floor and she’d just throw the skins on the floor. Other times she’d have a port and brandy, which was a formidable cocktail, or she’d be smoking her cigarette, her Consulate menthol cigarette. But she’d be my audience and she’d be watching me, and then I’d do my thing and then she’d applaud and would encourage me and she’d laugh. I loved making my mom laugh.

That’s adorable.

That was where it all started, really. And then when I got into music, she was quietly supportive. My dad was the opposite, so there was a friction there. I mean, he did his best to put me off [music], and I hated him for that. I really resented that. But later on, in retrospect, I could see that he was being realistic, just saying, “There’s thousands and thousands like you, David. What makes you think that you are going to be the one who can do music as a profession? Think of something else. Get a steady job.” That whole thing. But that kind of spurred me on, in a funny way, to kick against it.

I assume when you went on to have success with Bauhaus, Love and Rockets, and everything else you’ve done, that he changed his tune. Was he like, “OK, you were right, kid”?

No, no. He would never do that. My mom, she was very supportive and happy about it. No, no, [my father was] very hard to please. And if he did begrudgingly give some sort of praise, it would always be followed by some sort of dig. He’d find something to criticize.

I assume your brother Kevin has heard this record or the read the book?

No, he hasn’t heard it. He’s read it. I sent him poems some time ago, and he was very moved by it. But I want to give him the record when it’s all done.

In the book you mention a “phantom older brother,” which I took to mean a miscarriage. That you would have been the middle child in a different, alternate universe. I’m curious why you wanted to mention that.

Because it haunted me. My mom told me about this experience she had. She had pains in her stomach and went to see the doctor, and he prescribed this medication. She wasn’t aware she was pregnant, but it turned out she was, and it caused a miscarriage. So, it’s such a haunting idea of that older brother who could have been.

How old were you when she told you about that? Obviously you guys must have been close, because some mothers would not share something like that with their children.

She only told me about that when I was in my thirties, after I’d had a kid — my son, Joe.

I know that your press release said you’re releasing this project as not just “David J,” but with your last name, as David J Haskins, to honor your family. But to go on a more lighthearted tangent for a moment, I did wonder if this is because there is some new country artist named “David J.” Every time I get a press release about him, I’m like, “Oh, cool, David J!” And then I’m like, “Oh. Never mind.”

There’s a hip-hop artist as well! The hip-hop guy, he contacted me when he started and asked if he could buy my name for a thousand dollars. [laughs]

Um, did you counter-offer?

No, he just walked away.

That’s hilarious. I mean, it’s almost more insulting that he offered you a pittance; if he was going to offer any money at all, he needed to pony up a little bit more than that. But you were the first David J. So, why you would have the “Haskins” be the name for this project?

I also used my full name for my book, a memoir about Bauhaus called Who Killed Mr. Moonlight. And that really is out of respect for my family and my dad, who had literary leanings. I think he really would’ve appreciated that, even though he wasn’t around when it was published. So, it’s to do with that. For literary things, I tend to use the “David J. Haskins.” I think it looks better as well, on the book.

It does looks good. So, along with the tribute to your mother, in this project you pay tribute to other people who’ve died. Ian Curtis is one of them. This made me think about how Joy Division just got passed over by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for a second time, which is baffling to me. I have a feeling this does not matter to you, but Bauhaus have never even been nominated. And I think that’s also crazy, because the influence of Bauhaus can’t be overstated, and in my opinion, they kind of invented a genre. I feel like you guys should be on the ballot.

Yeah, no, it doesn’t bother me. It’s something I don’t think about. I don’t follow it, really.

I mentioned Bauhaus were the architects of a genre. Do you mind the term “Goth”? Many artists don’t like it when they’re given a label or a tag like that.

I understand it. I don’t mind it as much as I used to. The thing with that is, it’s so limiting with a band like Bauhaus. We were so eclectic and drew from so many different genres and inspirations and music. I mean, there’s funk in there, there’s dub. reggae, there’s avant garde weirdness. Yeah, it’s sort of Goth, but when I think of “Goth music,” it’s a bit one-dimensional. So, it just bothers me in that way, that it’s a limited term. It’s not descriptive of the actual band.

I do have to say, though, it’s kind of awesome that my favorite Saturday Night Live recurring sketch of all time, “Goth Talk,” had “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” as its theme song.

Yeah, I liked that as well. I enjoyed that.

I assume you had to sign off on that, so you were OK with it, when “Goth Talk” was this parody of suburban, Hot Topic-wearing Goth kids?

Oh, yeah! There was always humor to Bauhaus. Yeah, that was very well-done. It was funny.

I have two other things to ask about “Bela Lugosi’s Dead.” One is about what I think is literally one of the greatest cinematic intros in the history of film, in The Hunger. That sequence is perfect. What are your memories of shooting that? I actually don’t know how you came to be in the film, oddly.

Well, how we came to be in the film was we did a TV show called Riverside. On that show, we performed “Bela Lugosi’s Dead,” and the director of The Hunger, Mr. [Tony] Scott, happened to catch that TV show, and he was very struck by it. So, apparently he called up [David] Bowie, because he did run everything by Bowie, as far as the music. And he said, “I’ve just seen this band and I think they’re great. They did this song, ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead.’ I think it’s a great fit for the opening scene of the movie. What do you think? Do you know this band?” And apparently [Bowie] said, “Yeah, Bauhaus are cool.”

The Hunger came out in April 1983, and Bauhaus’s cover of “Ziggy Stardust” came out in October 1982. I’m doing the timeline in my brain right now — did Bowie say this before or after he’d heard your version of “Ziggy”?

It was before.

Oh, that’s interesting. So, he was aware of Bauhaus otherwise, not because of that.

Yeah, yeah. It was just such a wonderful experience being on that set with him. And I had an amazing experience with him, a personal experience, when they were taking a break, setting up the scene. [That scene] was filmed in this club called Heaven in London, and they’d set up a dressing room for him, which was immediately opposite Catherine Deneuve’s dressing room, which was pretty mind-blowing for me. I was a big fan of hers too. So, there was almost like a vortex of energy being generated between those two rooms. Anyway, we had a little holding area, which was immediately adjacent to Bowie’s dressing room, and in that area there was an old Wurlitzer jukebox and it was stacked with great singles from the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s. That was there for our entertainment. And while they were setting up the scene, I just found myself there on my own. I was looking at the music and deciding to play something, and I felt this presence behind me, which was very strong — almost like a tingly feeling of this presence. And then I hear this very familiar voice pipe up: “Do you mind if I pick one?” And I turned around, and it’s David Bowie. I said, “Please, be my guest!” And he’s looking, and I’m really intrigued to see what he’s going to pick…

I was about to ask!

He played “Groovin’ With Mr. Bloe” by Mr. Bloe, which is an instrumental from 1970. And this strikes him, and he just starts dancing in front of me. He’s looking at me and he’s just full-on doing the Bowie moves, and I’m just nodding and just thinking, “This is so surreal!” And he’s like, grinning. He’s in a very good mood, and he is looking at me. And then I found that I had, suddenly, this hubris. This nervous hubris came upon me, and I got a bit cheeky. Now, when Low came out, the first time I heard that and I heard the track “A New Career in a New Town,” I really thought he’d cribbed a harmonica part from “Groovin’ With Mr. Bloe.” So, I said, “This reminds me of something…” He goes, “Oh yeah? What?” I said, “It’s one of yours!” He goes, “Oh, yeah? Which one?” I said, “It’s off Low.” “Come on, which one?” I said “A New Career in a New Town,” and with that, he carried on dancing, put his finger to his lips like shhhhh, and winked. It was a magical moment.

Wow! Another magical moment I want to ask you related to “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” is what I consider to be the greatest moment in Coachella history, even more than Daft Punk or Beyoncé. It was Bauhaus’s performance in 2005 — specifically that grand entrance, with Peter Murphy singing the entire song while hanging upside-down.

Well, the whole thing of Peter being upside-down, of course it alludes to bats and vampires and all that, but it was a lot more complex than that in his head. It was referencing the Hanged Man in the Tarot. He had all these very esoteric ideas about the significance of that and the state of one’s spiritual journey and what that card signifies — which is a state of transition, and it precedes an ascension into a very elevated state, but it’s a bit of a spiritual quagmire of putrescence and degradation. This is his interpretation. But it just precedes the transition into an elevated state. It’s very complex. They had these diagrams in the dressing room, in the rehearsal room, with notes on it. It was a big thing in his head. Aside from that, he would hang upside-down, literally, in a broom closet. He had this contraption set up in there, and he would just be in there for a very long time, just hanging upside-down.

So, this was like a pre-show ritual?

Yes, to train for this performance.

Was that the only time Peter did that sort of entrance?

Yes, that was the only time. It’s just such a physical feat to sing whilst doing that… moving as well, as the traction is going across the stage. And also, it’s pretty damn scary to be suspended, let alone being in front of 50,000 people. Something could go wrong. You could fall, and that would be the end of it.

Obviously I am glad it wasn’t, but yes, I think my heart was in my throat the entire time just watching that. But it ended up being a moment for the Coachella history books. I did want to ask you about a time when Love and Rockets made history. Around the time when “So Alive” went to No. 3 in America, in 1989, “Lovesong” by the Cure also went to No. 2. That made such an impression on me. I was like, “We’ve won! Alternative rock has won!” I never thought I’d see bands like that on the charts, embraced by the mainstream. Did it feel like you were a part of something bigger happening at the time?

Sure. This might sound funny, but when it hit home was when we came over from England to do some dates in the States, and we got picked up by cab driver in New York, and he was looking back at us saying, “Are you guys in a band? What’s the band called?” We say Love and Rockets, and he starts singing “So Alive”! We knew that that was a signifier, that things had changed. That wouldn’t have happened the previous year. A regular cab driver in New York would not really be able to sing one of our songs.

I’m assuming at least for the foreseeable future, that there are no plans for more Bauhaus reunions…

[Shakes head]

But the most recent Love and Rockets reunion sadly got cut short last year during the Jane’s Addiction tour. So, what’s going to happen with Love and Rockets? You guys could have continued touring, if things hadn’t unfortunately come to blows that infamous night onstage between Perry Farrell and Dave Navarro.

I know. And we were very much into playing on that tour, so it was very jarring. And the tour we did before that, our own tour, we were really into that tour as well. We decided not to do anything this year, but next year, it is quite possible. There’s a lot of interest from promoters, bookers, and the fans. And we did have a really good time when we were out on the stage. So yeah, it’s entirely feasible.

Did you witness what happened that night with Perry and Dave? Were you side-stage for it?

I was on the side of the stage until the song before that incident, and I decided to leave. Because you know, I ‘d seen [the show] night after night. And also, to be honest, it was a bit hard to watch, with the way Perry was on the stage, not at his best — not just that night, but many nights, to be honest. So, I decided to leave and I got back to the hotel, and [Love and Rockets frontman] Daniel [Ash] saw it. He was still there, and he called me and Kevin said, “Oh, something’s gone down. It’s heavy.” That’s when I found out about it.

To take it back to your current project. I started this interview talking about how it must’ve been very visceral and emotional for you, particularly to do “The Mother Tree.” Are there any plans to do this album or other poems from the book in a live setting with an audience?

Yes. I’ve got a little tour coming up starting in June, and then there’s a break, and then it resumes in July and into August. And now it’s extended into September because I’ve been adding dates here and there. So, that’s a kind of snowballing. And for that set, the first third will be spoken-word with prerecorded music, and then the rest of the set will be songs on acoustic guitar. I am not taking that group — the group no longer are together — although I still play with [RAQUIA’s] Jon Bernstein, who played piano, and also occasionally Greg Allison, who played violin. In fact, Greg has been doing some wonderful arranging for strings on my new album. It’s nearly finished. Some of those tracks have a 16-piece orchestra. There’s a 23-piece orchestra on one of them — the “orchestra” being Greg! He plays violin, he plays viola, he plays cello, and he’s a brilliant arranger.

When is that coming out? What can you tell me about that project?

Sometime next year. I’ve got a deal for it. It’s going to be a double-album. It’s quite an ambitious album.

I can’t wait for that. In the meantime, on the subject of this year’s solo tour, given the fact that you said you were glad you didn’t have to do a second take of “The Mother Tree” because it was so intense, are you going to perform the whole 22 minutes?

Oh, no. I couldn’t do that. If I ever do that, and I might do it one time, and one time only. It’ll be a special occasion. But I can’t do that. I couldn’t. No, no it’s too sacred. I can’t.