Zak Smith / Zak Sabbath

He did porn...

*We Did Porn: Memoirs and Drawings by Zak Smith
(out now by www.beautiful-books.co.uk)

*Pictures courtesy of the Artist and Fredericks & Freiser, NY*

Your book is quite a deep and intellectual read, full of witty and amusing observations about life. Were you having a dig at those who dismiss the porn industry as unwanted sleaze?

You know, it’s the only way I know to write. I didn’t go out to insult people through wit. I wanted to write a book that you wanted to read, so that’s how it came out.

It also features a lot of your drawings from your time in the porn industry. Were you often on-set scrawling away?

Yeah, I’m pretty much always drawing. When you’re on a movie and you’re talent [porn actor], most of the time you’re not doing anything. You’re just waiting on a couch for everyone else to be ready. Sure, it was strange [working there]. Any number of things could happen, it’s like spinning a wheel every time you go to work. Will someone cum on your eyebrow or cum on your sock…

Do you have any good 'stray cum' anecdotes, then?

Well one time [during filming] I attempted to grab the cum off this girl, I scooped it up and flung it at the camera lens, and I missed the lens and hit the camera-guy right in the eye. Luckily he had a really big sense of humour, so it was okay.

In We Did Porn, it sounds like it was an impulse decision to get into acting: 'porn director phones to ask if he can use your pictures on set, you say 'yes, but can I star in your films?...’'

It wasn’t so much impulse as the obvious answer to a question I never thought I’d be asked. Like if I came to your house and said 'I have a briefcase full of money, do you want it', you’d probably say yes. So somebody said to me 'I have a briefcase full of pussy here, do you want it…?'

I get the impression that you had massive respect for some of the film-makers and their craft…

It's more I have sympathy for what they’re doing. Even if you’re trying to make a slightly good porno film, you’re trying to do something massively difficult. We all admire a great film-maker who’s making a Hollywood film, but they have several hundred million dollars and several months. On the scale of porn, these guys have one day to make a movie. Even though their final product isn’t anywhere near as good as Apocalypse Now, the difficulty level is almost exactly the same. So it’s not so much as I think ‘oh they’re wonderful directors’, it’s just pretty obvious they’re trying to do something that’s pretty hard.

Which world do you feel more part of: the art world or the porn world?

The porn world’s definitely more fun but I don’t feel like I properly belong in any kind of world. I feel very at home making art and I feel very at home f**king. But once the actual work is done and you have to hang out with other human beings, then I’d rather be at home…

On the back of the book, it says ‘…will do for porn what Hunter S. Thompson did for motorcycle gangs’…

I didn’t want that Hunter reference because it feels like you’re comparing yourself to a great writer. I want people to say ‘this is a great book’. Hunter’s him and I’m me. I would hope we write differently…

I wondered if that was against your wishes. Your books are actually quite different. For a start, what’s very prominent about your observations is how sober they are. Is the impression of the porn world being filled with drink and drugs a false one…?

I wouldn’t say that’s a false impression. Like I said before, I don’t fit in this industry any more as I do in the art world, and just because I’m a certain way, doesn’t mean everyone else is. Lots of people do lots of drugs in the porn industry. It just so happens when I’m not making porn, I’m making drawings and paintings that require a very steady hand and lots of concentration. And also I’m not British, so I just don’t drink that much…