Forty years ago, XTC were riding high when Partridge had a breakdown and quit touring. As he releases a new archival EP, he discusses the troubled childhood and addiction that triggered it, finding refuge in the studio – and why he’s stopped writing songs
Andy Partridge knew that he would never perform live again as he lay on a stretcher in a Los Angeles emergency room between two gunshot victims. His band XTC did not know it, but they had just played their final show. “My dream had died,” says Partridge, his voice cracking at the memory 40 years on.
It was 1982 and the British group were riding a commercial high off the back of what is still their best-known song, Making Plans for Nigel. But Partridge was suffering. He had been attempting to get off the Valium he had been prescribed aged 12 after his mother was temporarily placed in a mental hospital. “It was the 60s,” he says, summing up the attitude of the time: “‘Poor kid’s upset, his mum’s loopy, why not stick him on Valium?’ I became addicted.”
