Magic
DAVID DEVANT & HIS SPIRIT WIFE Gustav Temple meets Graham Carlow, the drummer in the band that took their name from a 19th century magician, to discuss the art and magic of deception
H
“Mickey was an illustrator and once when I went round there he was working on an illustration showing a woman levitating, titled David Devant & His Spirit Wife. In the band we ended up doing a version of it on stage, using my wife’s nightie on a stick”
ow did David Devant & His Spirit Wife get their name? Mickey the singer is known in the band as ‘The Vessel’, and when we started he felt he was the vessel for the spirit of the original David Devant, a 19th century magician, to pass through. He’s really into the complexity of the stage persona – wearing a mask and a wig, being another person on stage. If you know him, it’s clear that the person on stage is very different to the person you know, and they’re both quite strange. I used to go and meet him every Wednesday night and eat beans on toast, and then we’d write a few songs.
148
