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“Oh, is this interview about drugs?” snaps Lou Reed. “I thought we were here to talk about the music. Nobody wants to talk about the music anymore!”

I thought we were here to talk about the music too, but sometimes you need to know what prompts a man to record 64 minutes of unfathomable, arbitrary, cacophonic, some would say excruciating, metallic guitar noise while doing an extremely successful impression of an international rock star. As brilliant as Metal Machine Music is, it would still be interesting to know what drove him to it. Was it the fact he was staying up two to three nights on the trot on a regular basis back in 1975 injecting liquid speed into his veins?

“You’re not allowed to talk about drugs,” interjects a female voice over the line. “You were strictly briefed on that!

I wasn’t.

“I thought we were here to talk about Metal Machine Music,” grunts Reed.

Yes, we are. So probably not best to mention the electro shock therapy at this juncture then.

This transatlantic phone conversation is not going at all well. The time delay only enhances the singer’s frostiness. I’m already eight minutes in and I feel dirty. I feel cheapened and I feel violated. Reed’s reputation precedes him, sure, but nothing can prepare you for the agonizing experience of trying to engage him personally. Another journalist I know - a robust, dynamic, fearless bear of a man - also has the misfortune of talking to Reed tonight. He calls me to warn me, but it’s too late. He’s sat in Covent Garden nursing a coffee, hoping his hands will eventually stop shaking. Dealing with Lou Reed can leave a person traumatised.

So anyway Lou, actually, if you want to be pedantic, we’re not here to talk about Metal Machine Music: the deranged feedback opus that originally got taken off the shelves after three weeks by your record company because it bombed so deliciously; the album that nearly destroyed your career and saw you living out of a hotel for a year like glam’s own Alan Partridge. Technically, we’re here to talk about German nutbar orchestral collective Zeitkratzer.

In 2002, Zeitkratzer did the unthinkable: they performed Metal Machine Music live, a feat so improbable - so audacious - that you’d think God told them to do it. And you know how improbable that is. How could anyone even conceive such a thing, let alone go through with it?

“That’s what I thought,” says Reed. “They got in touch to ask my permission. I couldn’t see how it could be done.”

But it was done. And devastatingly too. Lou was begged by the collective to drop a cameo drone guitar over the third act of the performance, and uncharacteristically he obliged.

“Ulrich Krieger did the transcription,” continues Reed. “He said he could in fact transcribe it. They said they’d record five to 10 minutes of it and send it to me. So that’s what they did. He’s a very talented young man to say the least.”

When first approached, did Lou think Ulrich was, you know, a bit mental?

“No,” he states. A Pinter-esque pause ensues. “I just thought it couldn’t be done.”

Oh.

It must have been rather thrilling to perform a work that was deemed impossible to perform and dismissed so absolutely back when it was first released.

“I was surprised at even hearing they wanted to do it.”

Is Lou surprised it has become such an influential work, informing the music of Sonic Youth and just about every heavy noise band you can thing of?

“A lot of things surprise me. What a wonderful surprise that was.”

This is warmth.

The former Velvet Underground frontman also toured his ‘difficult’ Berlin album recently. Berlin was universally dismissed at the time of release but, again with the benefit of hindsight, it was reprieved and is now regarded as one of his finest works. Does he now feel gleefully vindicated?

“I felt the same about that,” he offers. Right you are. Anything else to add? No? Okay.

It occurs to me that maybe Metal Machine Music was a reaction to John Cale’s rejection of Reed’s increasingly radio-friendly material that preceded it. Cale was rather dismissive of his more mainstream direction at the time and, it could be argued, Cale was really the avant-garde one in the Velvet Underground. Reed goes nuts at this suggestion and accuses me of only being interested in celebrity and muck-raking. Bullshit. Mentioning John Cale is entirely valid. Clearly he’s convinced I’m operating with some insidious agenda. I’m rattled now and I attempt to ask a question that comes out stillborn on delivery. Usually interviewees are polite enough to cut you some slack as long as it doesn’t happen too often.

“I can’t answer that,” growls Reed, “because I don’t know what the question is.”

He’s never one to miss an opportunity to make you feel like a turd, I’ll say that for him. Does it hurt him that his more edgy and experimental records have been shunned, while the albums he himself has admitted he’s not that fond of have invariably been successful?

“I love all of my records,” he lies. “I love every one of them. I don’t expect people to like everything.”

So here’s a question he’s no doubt been asked a thousand and one times, but it still has to be addressed. Lou, did you record Metal Machine Music to get out of your record contract?

“No. But it’s such a great story, it’s almost a shame to say it’s not true. When people talk about me wanting to get out of a contract… I just wanted to make a guitar record with feedback solos, and not be locked into the tempo from a drum. And that was the fun of it for me. To not be trapped in a key. It’s just a guitar player’s album. It’s so simple. Nothing complicated.”

There. He got to talk about the music. It must be great inhabiting the exalted position where Lou resides. On a lofty cloud somewhere meowing. But, as a mere mortal, I can’t help feeling he abuses his status as a living legend. And the irony is, the more nasty things people write about him, the more it adds to his mystique. But really, he’s just an old man with a chip on his shoulder who relishes sucking joy out of the room.

As celebrated journo John Robb (who’s interviewed Reed before) told me: “The thing is he’s actually quite boring. I think people expect him to be Mr Street Hassle, and all he wants to talk about is guitar effects.”

You don’t enter into a conversation with an artist, no matter how big or important, without believing you’ll get something out of it. You arrogantly assume that maybe others have approached it with the wrong attitude, but for some reason the person will warm to you. But all I encountered was a spiteful, childish, disingenuous fucker. The exercise was ultimately a futile one. Shame. What I think I did uncover was this: maybe Lou Reed’s problem is that he has no sense of humour.

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