Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart has revealed he and Lou Reed once had to convince Damien Hirst not to chop off his hands for an art project.
Stewart told the story as part of an interview for NME’s Does Rock N’Roll Kill Braincells? series, shortly after he was asked which comedian had played him in a ’90s Rock Profile sketch.
“He wanted to have his hands chopped off and then stitched back on by a surgeon in Mexico, while filming it as an art piece,” Stewart said. “He seemed dead-serious but myself and Lou Reed were trying to convince him: ‘No, this isn’t a good idea. This could go badly!’ [Laughs]. That was when we were all reasonably inebriated in The Village in New York. Thank god he didn’t do it!”
Elsewhere in the interview, Stewart is quizzed over which country Shakespear’s Sister’s hit ‘Stay’, which he co-wrote, was banned in and who played his escorts in the video for Eurythmics’ ‘Who’s That Girl?’
Stewart recently paid tribute to his late mentee Faye Fantarrow, who died last month at the age of 21 from a rare and aggressive glioma brain tumour.
He attended her funeral, which took place last week, and told BBC News afterwards that she was “the strongest person I know”.
“She was brilliantly talented, wrote songs one after the other, they were so great, she was full of joy and laughter,” he added.
Earlier this month, he announced a UK and European tour in which he is set to hit the road with an female band for a series of shows which will mark 40 years since Eurythmics’ breakthrough album ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)’.
It comes after Stewart previously played a one-off show at the London’s Royal Festival Hall in 2019 featuring the band’s greatest songs, with the blessing of Annie Lennox, who no longer tours.
The full list of dates are below and tickets can be purchased here.
NOVEMBER
7 – Baloise, Switzerland
10 – Sunderland Empire
13 – Salle Pleyel, Paris
14 – La Madeleine, Brussels
15 – Mitsubishi Electric Halle, Dusseldorf
17 – London Palladium
25 – Konzerthaus, Vienna
26 – Jahrhunderthalle, Frankfurt
27 – Potsdamer Platz, Berlin
28 – Vredenburg, Utrecht