SPEAKERS

Eric Clapton, Oracle Films

Eric Clapton  00:03

I’m Eric Clapton, [a] musician. And I’m here to answer some questions. We could begin but with Brexit and which is what I felt about that is irrelevant, but what I noticed was that there was a lot of trickery going on politically and, I became seriously disenchanted and suspicious about the way the government the government was handling everything [and] to see, and I think I’ve got a good [eye] to see, you know, like a bullshit raider, and I just saw there’s something wrong and it’s getting wrong all the time. And by the time the virus came along it was clearly chaos. And there were some really dodgy people that I thought were running the country. So when that started, I didn’t really know, like any of us probably, what was going to happen next, but I did manage to see some, when the earliest part of a lockdown was going on, I saw some alternative data, which was sent to me on YouTube, a guy called Ivor Cummings, who was showing really what could be happening and I liked his delivery because it was slightly mocking but it wasn’t aggressive. it was just this is more like it, you know, [I thought] believe what you will kind of thing and from that I discovered some other people who were offering alternative solutions to what was going to happen, what was happening, what’s gonna happen, and they were the Barrington group. Because Sanita Gupta was much more visible then and the other guys were in America, I suppose. I watched her a lot and I listened and I thought that everything they said made absolute sense. So I went online, I signed the petition on everything and tried to follow that rhetoric as much as I could and the more I got into that, I more realised I was distancing myself and that actually not only from the government, but from the rest of the public too, so whenever I spoke about the possibility of focus protection, which was different to her, because I think when they first talked about herd immunity, and they added on I think it was Boris’s early press conference, then we may lose some loved ones, and I think that woof, that’s where it all fell through. And I think people, I think it wasn’t more than 24 hours before they did the U turn because I think the public response must have been massive.

Eric Clapton  02:57

But nevertheless, that’s what I believe we were capable as a new society, and that’s what we’ve always done. So I followed that path. And until they disappeared, and then I thought, well it’s all intuitive for me. I don’t really know what else to go on, I’m not really a scholar, I don’t know anything about sociology, and science. I’m a musician. But I did realise that I was setting out to a world tour, I had to cancel a year’s work immediately, because there was no leaving it to the last minute, tickets were about to be sold, which from a selfish point of view is devastating because I’m of an age now where I don’t know how long my faculties will go on. So I was really looking at from selfishly to begin with, then I realised that actually there’s this a spiritual point to this is that we don’t, we heal, you know, proper old school people, we don’t lipsync we play, and we play for that crowd. And there’s something that happens when you put a great musician or someone who knows what they’re doing in front of people who need the support, or just to have pleasure or joy, and we figure out what it is and we give it to him and people leave renewed and I need that too. So I was really devastate, and then I heard that Van I got word from a friend that he was trying to do live gigs and he was trying to, and he was outwardly I mean, speaking against the government policies and everything, and I mean I think a lot of things happened in between, we had the summer and I went away and I thought that quite strongly about taking my family away from England amd go and live somewhere else and start somewhere else. My wife is American and we could go there, but the rhetoric there was even worse, in some respects, because it was all tied in with Trump. And the minute I began to say anything about the lockdown here, and my concerns, I was labelled as a Trump supporter in America, and I got some pretty heavy feedback. When it came to the beginning of this year, and the Gov the (inaudible) were talking about the vaccine as being the deal breaker being on, I thought, okay I’m not, I have a terrible fear of needles. I hate needles. I don’t want to be, I don’t even like blood samples, you know, anything like that. But I believed them, I followed that path. And when they started to talk about rolling out the [vaccine], I smelled a rat again, you know, just the way the focus was on this, and there was a race, and then it became political and national. And I thought, here we go again, it’s the same old shit. But I was diagnosed with emphysema a couple of years ago, and I thought, well, I fit that bracket, that’s pretty vulnerable, I mean I’m 76. And if there is such a thing as this, and we didn’t know anybody, you know, where I lived, there was nobody that we could, even friends and friends of friends where it was thin on the ground. I thought well I ought to have this vaccination for my kids, you know, I don’t want to drop dead on them or I don’t want them to lose me. I don’t want to lose them, all these are the normal natural responses, I think?

Eric Clapton  06:40

And then, so I went and I got the notification, you can come and get, and I was holding out for AstraZeneca because it came from Oxford. So you know, and I’m pretty naive about this stuff, and I thought, well that’s good. And also I’d heard that it was [an] old school method of inoculation. And I went and had the job, and I got a little green like a library card. And I thought that’s what I’m going to show the people when I get on the plane. There’s a lot of funny stuff about it. And within several hours, I was shaking like a leaf. And I went to bed early, and I couldn’t get warm. And I thought am I running a fever, I was boiling hot and sweating, and then I was cold. And I was out for the count for about a week. And I had been preparing for a project where I was going to be playing acoustic guitar with a couple of musicians and we were going to film it [but] that week knocked me out, and I had to start again from scratch and I was okay, but it didn’t come off as well as I would like to. Professionally, it was a huge setback and it frightened the shit out of me because I didn’t know how long it would last. I then started to find out more. And it was about that time that I ran into somebody, though I said, well, here’s my number and we swapped numbers, he was on telegram. So I contacted him. And he told me about a channel where I could find lots of information and a lot of support. And so I logged on to that [and] there’s a chap called Robin Menotti, who runs a channel and it’s for anybody that’s concerned or is looking for, in my case, looking for support. For me, I felt so alone up until that point. I really couldn’t talk to my family and my kids, my teenagers were it seemed like they’d been brainwashed. And there was a lot of that kind of going on from other protests that were happening earlier. It was the first time I’d seen my kids passionate about anything, and I thought it was great. But I was being ostracised. And I could feel that everywhere I could feel alienation because I held a different view, so I was trying to keep my mouth shut but I was following the channel avidly and bit by bit I realised that I probably shouldn’t have had the first jab but then I was offered the second and I thought well, what have I got? What’s the point, you know, in stopping now? So I went and had the second and then it got really bad, and within about a week I had lost, my hands didn’t really work they were. I suffer from a condition already called peripheral neuropathy, which is nerve damage pain really, which means that, you know, I can get numb or pins and needles. When I had the second job, that was, and they do say that condition by the way is progressive and it’s incurable. So I had expected it to be manageable, I expected it to be something that would gradually grow worse, as I got older into my 80s or whatever. But always, you know, you can get some ice pack or whatever, it would be fine. This went ramped up from on a scale of 10, say, from three to eight or nine, agony, and chronic pain is not, you know, when you know that nothing will work, there is no medication you can take that will help is very, very frightening. And the worst thing is you don’t know when it’s gonna wear off or when it’s going to go away. So that was what frightened me the most medically health wise, and it’s still does because I mean I have gigs to do, I have recording work to do. But I can’t, [I mean] to touch the guitar to play the guitar is not fun, and it’s something I do, you know, then I when I put it down, it’s there until I go to bed and I take sleeping pills because I can’t sleep because of the pain. And that’s not a good way to live. But and it’s not all due to the vaccine, but the vaccine took my immune system and just shook it around again. And that’s still going on. So and then I read, you know, a lot of the evidence that I’ve been reading about with people that were having adverse reactions that was on the list was, you know, damage to the immune system.

Oracle Films  11:36

Do you feel like you were made aware of those risks before?

Eric Clapton  11:39

Oh God no, God no, I didn’t even know there was a yellow card report. I didn’t know there was any such thing. My doctor said, oh, you should. My GP here in London, said because I had to get it done on [the] NHS with an NHS doctor that I’ve known too from in the country for a long time. He didn’t say anything, they gave me a leaflet after the first jab, which I didn’t really look at, but they didn’t say anything about adverse reactions. They do say you might feel a bit sore, or you know, but they did say also they’re safe. You know, it’s effective and safe. And I called my NHS doctor after the second jab, and I said I’ve been told there’s a yellow card system where I can complain about after effects. He said, Yes. They still go because I told them about that, and he said, well, I’ll fill in the report and send it. I never saw a yellow (inaudible), I mean that apparently stays with the doctor. But I didn’t you know, that stuff was not made known. I lost the use of my hands for about three weeks. So I thought I was in real trouble. And about that point I was invited by Robin Menotti to talk about it because, and it was easy to say yes because I realised definitely by then, I realised I wasn’t the only one that was suffering adverse reactions. And you know, where I can’t touch anything cold or hot, I have to use these, otherwise my hands will begin to burn and they’ll stay burnt all day, whether or not I have gigs to do in the autumn, I know, maybe vitamin D will help. There’s not much else that does do anything other than being really careful. And that, you know, that’s my experience from having had the second jab. And I went to my doctor pretty quickly and said, you know, I can’t have any more vaccinations. This is not possible for me because I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know what will happen next. And from what I read, and from what I’ve been told, there would be a booster in the autumn. And I said I have to have a document that says I can’t, I’m allergic I can’t have COVID vaccine, which I have in my backpack next door and, you know, I don’t know where that will leave me because the next thing I be you know, through it all actually, the point that I should have made earlier is that I believe most of all in free speech and freedom of movement, choice of movement, and life and love and kindness and with all of this exposure to the polarisation of the politics and the medicine and the science, I found it very difficult to be neutral because I’ve seen scorn and contempt from both sides and I get caught in the crossfire a lot, but I don’t really feel educated enough to know enough about either of these areas. So I’m talking today, on behalf of people like me, who may have been maybe lost, maybe need to hear someone talk about it from a human point of view without condemnation. And I have, you know, when I come to work, there is a need to know, for instance, whether or not I’m playing to a welcome audience or a discriminated audience. I can’t play to people that only have vaccine passports, I can’t play to people that only follow, you know, that are anti vaccination. There has to be a way to bring people together. I believe music can do that. But it’s a long way away. And maybe that’s good, because there’s still time, I believe, for us to come together. I still follow the teachings of the Oxford group of the Barrington group, because I think they’re good people. But I don’t know how that will resolve with the movements the way they are. It’s very polarised. And alienation doesn’t work. It’s not going to help.

Eric Clapton  16:20

What happened with me and Van was he sent me some songs. And I recorded one called Stand and Deliver. When that came out in America, when it came off his website really, the flack I got I didn’t understand, and I was trying to say, well this was against the UK Government, I don’t know what’s going on. but Van he’s gonna plough right on. When I heard the next couple of things that he put out, I thought my God, this man is fearless. And I would love to be fearless. But I’m not I’m really, you know, I’ve caught this anxiety syndrome, I have it bad, and I have it as bad as I had, maybe two or three weeks ago, when I was devoutly following the six o’clock and 10 o’clock news or talk radio or trying to find someone who’s speaking a language that I can identify with. But now I’ve stopped watching TV. One of the cartoons was a little drawing of a guy interviewing two Quakers and saying, how come none of your community has got COVID? And they said, well we don’t watch TV. It’s so true. So much of the sickness is in our heads now. We become weak, you know. If we’re talking about freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom of choice with the vaccine, for instance, then the opposite of that is what we’re experiencing. If you take that away, what we’re experiencing that disturbs me most is coersion. And I had said to my friend, the doctor, my doctor, I said, do you think this vaccine thing is ever going to become mandatory? He said ridiculous ridiciuous, they could never pull, I mean, they never pull that off. [I said] well, I got a funny feeling, you know. And bit by bit, it’s that and to see celebrities, especially what really got me was ethnic minority celebrities, guilt tripping their own community, that broke my fucking heart and made me so angry. I have a lot of friends in that part of the world and to see them preyed on like that, it is just, so that’s when it stepped into sadism from either the photographs of the people on buses with masks on saying, don’t let that sacrifice be in vain. Phew that’s bad. It’s very dark. It’s very dark. It’s victimisation is what it is.

Eric Clapton  19:07

I was reading 1984 all through this. And then something he says he says how do you have full control of people? And he said fear. He said no, not fear. Suffering, is how you get full control over people. And that’s what it’s come to. It’s psychological suffering, but it’s a mouse in the same thing. And I experience it. When you get caught in the trap, well, can you believe what your heart tells you is right, or is it going against the narrative? Can I talk about how I feel to my family. It doesn’t get riskier than that. When I made that little statement, I was pleased to see that it went around without too much flack. I did get some flack from the people I least wanted to get flack from. But (inaudible), you know, I get it. That brings me back to what do I do if I go to play for an audience do I say oh I’m not playing to you, like you’ve had the job. And to be honest, and most of my audience will be comprised of, you know, 60 year olds and older. And if those people haven’t had the I mean, I don’t know how they will have held out, you know. So that has to be something that is acknowledged, forgiven, whatever, I don’t think it’s like an act of betrayal. I was asked to do a private gig in the Caribbean, after not paying for a long time, and I was in bad shape recovering from the second jab, and I had to fill in this government questionnaire, because I was gonna work again, and at some point during this I had my phone and my assistant was showing me how to do it on my laptop. And on my phone, this app appeared and it said Digi ID.

Eric Clapton  21:12

And I thought what the fuck, they can’t do that. You can’t make me buy an app, the government app, and I deleted it. But then I thought, now this is where it’s gotta stop. That’s what Van says, this has got to stop. And I agree. I agree, it’s got to stop but where’s it coming from?

Oracle Films  21:40

While aren’t more people –

Eric Clapton  21:42

– fear –

Oracle Films  21:43

– afraid of speaking out –

Eric Clapton  21:44

Reprisal. You know, I’ve been around a long time and the people that would probably come to see me play will come to see me play. They’ve seen me play drunk, they’ve seen me play sober. They’ve seen me do irrational things, behaved badly. And they come for another reason. So I’m quite secure. My fear is about what will they do to my children? My fear about vaccination is what will it do to my children? Part of the reason maybe the biggest part of the reason why I’m talking here today with you, and that is, you know, they may go ahead. There’s no way I can stop them once they’ve turned 18. That’s their choice. I think they see it as a short term problem. They want to go to the med, or they want to go to another country, that’s something to do, you just got to do that to get it get clearance, then I don’t think they, you know, to talk to my daughters about [the fact] they may not be able to have kids. They don’t probably care, you know, at that point in time of your life, it’s not an issue. Yeah that’s one of the risks I take by doing this is that you know, they’re gonna look at me like, why didn’t you just keep your mouth shut, dad.

Oracle Films  21:44

Of what?

Eric Clapton  23:14

I tell you the best thing about it for me is that I’m might be becoming a nuisance for those guys. I’d love to be an annoyance to some of them that sit around that table. That will give me tremendous satisfaction, but my greatest fear is what will happen to my kids. So I don’t want to lose their trust and love, you know. The trick they got together with their propaganda was making it so that you’re responsible for other people’s lives. I can be labelled a murderer, and people would really believe that. That’s powerful. It’s very clever. I don’t know what it will take. I agree that there would be, I’ve tried to reach out to fellow musicians sometimes. They don’t, I just don’t hear from him anymore, and my phone doesn’t ring very often. I don’t get that many texts and emails anymore. It’s  quite noticeable, you know.

Oracle Films  24:13

Did you totice that since you started speaking out?

Eric Clapton  24:15

Yeah, association. But then again, on the other hand, you know, there are a lot of people on Robin’s channel who have been incredibly kind and supportive and, you know, they make me out to be a little bit of a hero behind Mike and Van, mind you, well, behind.