Eric "Wreckless Eric" Goulden and Amy Rigby have become husband and wife since they last performed at the Hi-Tone Café in 2006, with Rigby opening for Goulden. They return Thursday with a combined act.
When British punk-rock icon Wreckless Eric, aka Eric Goulden, made his Memphis debut at the Hi-Tone Café in July 2006, his American-born girlfriend, singer-songwriter Amy Rigby, opened the show.
They'll return to the Hi-Tone on Sept. 11 as musical partners and husband and wife.
Eric "Wreckless Eric" Goulden and Amy Rigby have become husband and wife since they last performed at the Hi-Tone Café in 2006, with Rigby opening for Goulden. They return Thursday with a combined act.
The duo first crossed paths in Hull, England, in 2001, and began seriously dating a few years later. In 2006, they moved to southwestern France. They got married last April, and their first collaborative effort, Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby, will be released on Stiff Records Sept. 15.
"In England, it's been like, 'I dunno he's got some bird playing with him. She's American, apparently. I think they're dating,' things like that," said the 54-year-old Goulden, during a recent phone interview from France. "But she's won 'em all over -- they absolutely love her.
"All my fans are middle-aged men -- of course they love Amy," he quipped. "In America, I dunno. I suppose we'll play to a bunch more people who know her, who will say, 'She used to be really good; she used to make these polished records, but now she's with him and he's done nothing but bring her down.'"
Mixing business and pleasure has come naturally, said Goulden.
"What I do and who I am are inseparable," he said. "If we're gonna have a relationship, we do. And if we're gonna play music together, we do that, too. It's not like I'm a carpenter and Amy's a dressmaker, and if we decide to start working together, I have to make wooden dresses."
The softer-spoken Rigby, 49, revered in indie rock circles for her 1994 solo masterpiece, Diary of a Mod Housewife, aptly described Goulden's wit as laser-like. "He's got such a quick brain," she said. "He keeps me honest -- there's no hiding from him. It's interesting to be with someone who's so uncompromising, and who can afford to be.
"Some of our fans are skeptical, and some are protective," she continued. "We're both fretting, but we hope that the skeptics will come away saying, 'Wow, you're both better for being with the other person.'"
The duo's talents are perfectly intertwined on songs like the mid-'70s, Lou Reed-inspired "Here Comes My Ship," which opens the new album, and the charmingly tongue-in-cheek "Downside of Being A (Screw)-up," perhaps Eric's best tune since his 1977 hit single "Whole Wide World."
"At first, we were doing cover songs, because we didn't want to sit down together," Rigby said of the recording process. "Then we each came up with ideas on our own. On 'Here Comes My Ship,' he was downstairs recording the basic idea of the song. I was upstairs listening, and I said, 'Well, I have this talking part that can go there.' ... We could've conceivably gone on forever but we do need to go out and make some kind of living, and without a record together, it would be hard."
From guitars to Mellotrons, synthesizers, and, on one song, a cardboard box, Goulden and Rigby play all instruments on the album, recorded at their home in a village "way deep in the countryside," as she described it.
Live, they'll use a laptop to recreate the extra sounds heard on Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby.
The 26-date North American tour, which extends through mid-October, has been painstakingly planned, said Rigby. "Neither one of us have any illusions at this point," Rigby said. "Nowadays, anybody knows that to get record sales, you've got to be willing to get in a van and go out and play."
If their attempt at re-claiming a chunk of indie rock fame fails, Goulden cracked, they can always get a job entertaining on a cruise line.
"We could see out our twilight years playing in resorts for old hipsters," Rigby said.
Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby, with the Perfect Fits
at the Hi-Tone Café Sept. 11 at 9 p.m. Cover is $8.
For more information, go to WrecklessEric.com.
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