The Death of A Poet

The Interview

Paris, 4th September 2019

I should say this first: I was not a fan of The Dead Poets for a variety of reasons that go beyond musical preference. The biggest reason, however—since I may as well be completely honest here—was their lead singer.

Raphael Scott was, at least to me, intensely unlikable. Much too outspoken on his own genius - criticising bands that had found their way onto my music libraries - bands that I actually liked. He was, more often than not, captured under the influence of something; either on stage or behind the wheel of his car. He'd had loud drunken fights with his French Oscar-winning actress fiancée (and later wife) in the first class lounge of airports or in five-star hotel suites. He was also rumoured to have a permanent suite at a rehab facility in Switzerland that he'd been in and out of more times than a pop-socket on a teenagers iphone. The men who stood behind him brandishing their instruments like genitalia were no better. Known primarily for dating Victoria's Secret models or in one case, tax evasion. They were everything I loathed about rock stars.

But Raphael Scott had something else behind his loud, brattish behaviour. Something he refused to speak about in interviews, something that in his five year climb to the top he had never so much as uttered aloud. Something that journalists knew not to even hint at in his presence.

His famous - dead - father.

He didn't use his name. Scott was his mother's name. (The mother who raised him alone after being abandoned by the father he never mentioned.)

He didn't speak about his father, but according to the people I spoke to during my research, his spectre haunted him. Nick James was a ghost in Raphael's life.

Raphael says his father's name frequently now and it's a strange thing to hear. To hear the tenderness with which he speaks it. It makes me wonder if this was why he'd always refused to speak it in public. In case anyone should witness that side of him. That tender lost side.

There's another name he speaks in much the same way these days. One he'll talk about a lot in this interview. A name that will forever be linked with his own now, for better or worse.

I'd watched the beginning of the end of The Dead Poets on Twitter. It's where I get most of my news these days. It's where most of the world gets their news these days. Raphael is no different. He watched his life unravel on Twitter too.

Now, two years later, the dust settled, and he's ready to speak about it.

For reasons I disclosed earlier, I'm perhaps not the most obvious choice to conduct this interview. But it was my deep dive on his father a few years ago for a piece entitled 'Finn Sullivan: The Lost Tapes' which convinced my editor otherwise.

I'd expected Raphael to refuse to meet me based purely on this alone, but he didn't. Apparently, he agreed because he'd listened to The Lost Tapes. He'd enjoyed it. (And yes, he is aware of the sentiments I carried with me as I watched his star rise, and then fall, and rise again. He laughed when I told him. Then said: "don't worry about it, I hated my own guts back then too.')

As we sit down in the large airy piano room of his apartment in Les Halles in the 1st arrondissement, he looks entirely unlike the man I'd seen in concert photos or paparazzi pictures. He's smiling to begin with. It's a nice smile. Bright and warm and surprisingly friendly. He offers me a variety of things I'm not expecting: Turkish coffee (he's addicted) or Bubble Tea (he drinks it like water) and nods happily when I ask him if it's okay to switch the recorder on after we're settled with our drinks. (We both opt for water in the end.)