Welcome to Terryworld

by Dian Hanson

Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

Drugs, alcohol and those magazine pages from Hughe's Market provided comfort. "I started smoking weed around ten, eleven. By thirteen I was drinking every day. In Hollywood it was easy. Punk rock set in; you could always get somebody to buy you beer. Plus my parents always had weed in the house and coke and stuff. I was so insecure and painfully shy that unless a girl really went after me, said, 'Fuck me!' I couldn't make a move. That's probably why I turned to drugs and alcohol and pornography at an early age."

And what went better with drugs and porn than punk? Terry began playing in bands at fifteen, including Angered Citizens, SSA (Signal Street Alcoholics), Invisible Government, Baby Fist and Middle Finger. A sampling of his lyrics:

"It's ten o'clock, do you know where your children are?
Cause if you don't, they won't get far;
He likes little girls; he likes little boys;
He gets his jollies by playing with their toys;
He likes little girls; he likes little boys;
He gets a hard-on, that's his biggest joy;
Child molester's gonna get you! Child molester's gonna get you!
It's twelve o'clock, are your children in bed?
Cause if they're not, they'll soon be dead."

The big recording contract, amazingly, eluded him. At eighteen Terry began shooting heroin. This followed the family's move from Hollywood to the small, arty town of Ojai, ninety miles north of Los Angeles, in his senior year of high school. "That's where I really got into drugs," Terry says. "I was the punk kid from Hollywood and I got everyone into punk rock. We had gangbangs. There was one girl we called Heather Hosely. At fourteen she'd had a baby with a guy who was the leader of a commune. She was a great one..."

Terry's suddenly distracted by an assistant who wants his approval on a photograph. "That's beautiful, beautiful, we have to use that," he says. It shows Terry, completely naked, photographing a clothed Kate Moss.

"When I started doing nudes," he says, "I'd ask girls if they'd take their clothes off and they'd be like, 'Well, you take your clothes off!' and I'd be shy, 'I'm not gonna take my clothes off!' I was also trying to find couples to have sex and take pictures and it was always difficult. So finally, three years ago, I started to take my clothes off. People in fashion were saying, 'If I see one more picture of a girl with her legs spread... He's a misogynist, he's a porn guy.' So hey, I'll spread my legs too. I'll be the object. The thought of people masturbating to me, or to pictures I take, is great. That's a wonderful inspiration to give someone.

Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]