Petter and the Pix

Eloise Quince talks about gits with Petter from Petter and the Pix.

Define yourself in three words.
Stubborn.

As a record, “Good As Gold” is euphoric and compelling. Was this the intention from the outset?
I dont think we had any clear intentions. I wrote all the songs on guitar and then i presented them for the band and i guess we just tried to find a way to play them that everyone in the band felt comfortable with.

How does the musical process, from pen to polyvinyl, work for you?
As i just said i write most things on guitar and then let the band come up with things that they like. The actual recording process for this album was very fast. We didnt have more then four rehearsals and three recording days. Then ive done a lot of reamping. Its a kind of way to build up sonic environments by re recording things in different rooms. Mattias and Klas has a rehearsal room in the basement of a school where we had four different concrete rooms where you can replay all instruments and record the different ambients from the different rooms. So i did this at a couple of different locations. You of course have to do this for each instrument so its quite time consuming. But i find it very inspiring to built soundscapes with only organic sounds that ive collected.

Which country do you feel has most warmly welcomed your music?
I dont know as we havent got the chance to tour with this band properly yet.

Would you perform at Eurovision if you were asked?
If i could write and produce the song myself i might do it. But its very hard to say because i know that they would never ask. I would probably say no if they asked but i wish i would say yes.

Are there any odd facts or myths that surround the internal visionaries of Petter and the Pix that the Great British public such know about?
i dont think so

Are there any morals or stories behind your songs?
I think i see all my songs as some sort of stories and hopefully you can get as much morals as you want out of them

Some of your members are described as being “gits” on your Myspace. Would you kindly explain the meaning of this?
it just means that they are playing guitar....

Do you have any UK dates planned?
no not at the moment

If you had to name a song that encapsulates your teenage years perfectly, what would it be?
En Slemmig Torsk I En Brödrost by KSMB

Where has your favourite place to place to play live been?
its a lot of great venues but i really like places like KoKo when they have this old theatre look. Thats great....

What does the future hold for Petter and the Pix?
We hope that we can come out and do some gigs but if not ive just got my studio together so i guess well make another album.

Chameleon Circuit

You are probably about to start reading this and thinking, ‘What is the point of this rubbish. This surely is an article about a band that writes songs about Doctor Who with a young man who paints himself purple and eats baby food on Youtube. Where is my meticulously crafted article about the pioneering turn of the tortured art rock apocalypse shaping itself as the Foals next record?’

Well, fine readers, be ready to have your collective minds blown with the fact that this is all in aid of a band called Chameleon Circuit whose wonderfully nerdy creativity lies under the title of Time Lord Rock. And be even more stunned with the fact that it is actually very, very good. So, seeing as Matt Smith is now piloting the iconic blue box, beaming a little eccentric genius back into the living rooms of Britain, we thought that now is peak time for an interview. And because we put lovely thoughts into action at Tasty, we took this idea and ran with it. And an awful lot of running we have done with it too, taking it all the way to band member Charlie McDonnell to merrily babble about for a bit...

Why Chameleon Circuit? Why not another part of the TARDIS?
The name actually came after someone suggested it in a live chat, one where Alex was launching the idea of Trock out into the world. It wasn't like we were going through bits of the TARDIS and trying to find out which one would make the best band name!

Does any of the music you listen to influence the Chameleon Circuit songs that you write?
Probably! I didn't have any direct influences for Chameleon Circuit when I was writing my songs (other than, you know, Doctor Who) but I just try and write music that I'd like to hear.

Are there any plans for a Chameleon Circuit tour? If so, can we bagsy front row seats?
No plans just yet, if it ever does happen then we'd hopefully tour with a few other Trock bands as well. I'd love to have one though, and of course, the front row seats are yours.

Where in the world would you most like to play a gig?
Probably Wembley Stadium, just because, y'know, it's really big. A more realistic dream would be to play at a Sci-Fi convention, that'd be very cool.

How many hours a day do you spend thinking about Doctor Who?
I could give a comedy answer of "24! lololol" but the scary truth is that, currently, it probably invades about an hour of my life every day.

Is there a possible Billie Piper/ Chameleon Circuit duet in the pipe-r-line? (Excuse the terrible pun, I couldn’t stop myself.)
I'm up for it if she is! Which she undoubtedly isn't.

Apparently you are twinning your solo album with Alex Day’s (another member of Chameleon Circuit). Do you think that his album will make yours look a tiny bit rubbish? Or do you feel that you might bring a touch of class to his?
Haha, well twinning means nothing other than I'm putting "This album is twinned with The World Is Mine" in the booklet. I hope people don't compare them just because they're twinned. But obviously mine will be better.

Who is your favourite Doctor?
It's still David Tennant for the moment, but only because I'm going to reserve judgement of Matt Smith until after I've seen the whole of the new series.

Are there any heated band debates about who is the best?
Nope! We'll all happily admit our strengths and weaknesses to each other. No drama in this band, we're all too nice.

Do you think that there has been an increase in the hype around Doctor Who now a younger Doctor is frequenting the TARDIS?
There's definitely been an increase in hype now that a brand new actor is on the scene, but I don't know if it's specifically because he's younger. It's probably helped in terms of bringing in a younger audience, though.

Which song are you must proud of on the album?
Exterminate, Regenerate. That was definitely my musical golden age - it's all downhill from here.

If you were asked to play the next Doctor, what qualities would you most like to emphasise in your portrayal?
All of the norms: Curiosity, madness, intelligence etc, but I'd also like to see a more apathetic side of the doctor. I mean, he's 900, there must be some things that he just doesn't care about anymore, surely? It can't all be mad excitement.

Amy Pond or Pond weed?
Amy Pond. Hands down. We're talking about who would win in a fight, right?

Ood face or Dalek Sek face?
Ood face, two red eyes are better than one, silly dalek eye.

Face of Boe or Face of Matt Smith?
The Face of Boe. Best. Face. Ever.

Laser or Sonic?
Sonic, definitely sonic.

Trench coat or bow tie?
I think I'd look silly in both, but probably slightly less silly in a trench coat.

Raxacoricofallapatorius or Clom?
Raxacoricofallapatorius, but just if I'm picking my favourite thing to say.

Do you know what a polyorchid is? And no googling!
“Polyorchidism is the incidence of more than two testes. It is a very rare congenital disorder, with fewer than 100 cases reported in medical literature. The most common form is triorchidism, or tritestes, where three testes are present. The condition is usually asymptomatic. A man who has polyorchidism is known as a polyorchid.” I definitely did not just copy and paste that from Wikipedia.

Can we be expecting any more Trock soon?
Me and Alex are working on lots of other projects at the moment, but there is still a place in both of our hearts for Trock. I can't put a date on it, but the second coming is inevitable.

Will you be Tasty’s new best friend?
Sure :)

And there you have it. Feel enlightened as we’ve reached the Journey’s End. A big thank you goes to Charlie for doing the interview.
Oh, and don’t blink.

Catriona Boyle

Liam Frost

Interview by Catriona Boyle

It was quite a few years between the first and second album, how do you feel you've progressed as an artist and person during this time?
I deifnitely feel that way. I know exactly what I want now as a musician, and how I want my records to sound...I think that has come from really sussing myself out as a person. It's taken me right up until now though, and I feel like it's only going to start to show in the next album.

Do you feel a bit like you're starting out again, with a new band, new look etc?
Not so much really. I guess the new look thing wasn't ever really a part of anything specific, I just look different and that's all. Still working with friends as well, in terms of the people I use in the band. That's something I've always really wanted to stick with, as it feels like you can only really work alongside people that you feel comfortable with. All of my best musical experiences have come out of that kind of situation.

Your lyrics draw heavily from personal experience and your own grief and loss. Do you feel you've put this subject to bed now, or do you think it will continue to feature in your writing?
I think the grief and loss you're referring to will always hang over me as a person. The two specific deaths were really shocking and definitely tragic, and they have shaped me. That said, I think I've said as much as I can about it in my songs, and I don't think they'll feature as prominently. But personal experience is something that will always weave itself into any artist's music.

Has it been hard to get back into touring?
Not at all, especially when it has come to just going out with an acoustic guitar and playing solo shows. I've never really stopped doing that. It does make me really, really nervous, but that's mostly from the standpoint of communicating with people onstage. The between song chatter terrifies me. Playing music just feels natural.

You recently worked with Martha Wainwright, is collaborating with other musicians something you'd like to do more of? And if so who with?
I think it's one of the fun parts of being a musician, some of the chaps from The Earlies play in the band currently. I'd love to continue to work with them on the next album. But with regards to duets, I'm not so sure at the moment.

Who are you listening to at the moment?
The Bon Iver album 'For Emma, Forever Ago' has barely left my record player since I first bought it a bit back. Same can be said for 'Boxer' by The National. Love them a lot...nothing really brand new though.

Did you ever consider packing it all in and opting for the 9-5?
I think as things get a little trickier for people money-wise, it's something you have to think about. I certainly have. But this is the only thing I can do well. So even if it was a case where I was working the 9-5, I'd still be doing this alongside it.

Who and what inspires you?
Really brilliant lyrics, amazing voices and melodies. A culmination of things really. It's really tough to explain!

What's next for Liam Frost?
I'm writing another album as we speak, and I plan to really break the back of that this summer. No idea how I'll get it out there, but I will of course. It feels like a really exciting time, being totally in control of things again. It's almost like being 21 again, just before I signed my first deal.

What's the worst and best piece of criticism you've ever had?
Never been one to read reviews as such, as I think I'd disregard anything positive and just focus on the negative! The best advice I ever had was from some elder Manchester musicians back when I was starting out. But to be honest, I've not personally had any sort of advice or criticism since then. It's a lonely life, being a singer/songwriter... ;)

Chris from You Me At Six
12/03.2010 Manchester Apollo

Tonight, You Me At Six will play their biggest headlining show to date. A show that is part of their sold out UK tour and part of a tour cycle that will take them from the UK to the Warped Tour. They will be on the front cover of various music publications. You'll hear a lot about them.
This is where you see if a band can take potential, momentum and hope, and do something with it.

It's always good to get to interview bands when they're at this stage. At the least you get to see them wild-eyed with excitement and a (hopefully healthy) amount of fear. At the most you get to see that the person in front of you is already at the next step and is just waiting to stand on a stage and show it.

I get to spend some time with Chris, YM@6's guitar player (and judging by the guitar he uses, hair style and t shirt choice Malcolm Young Super fan). Between sound-check and promo visit we take some time to talk about what is about to happen. Immediately and beyond

Tasty (T) – It's always good to see bands at this point, having heard them for a while, and see that they're at the start of their next step. You're playing the Apollo tonight and that's quite a big thing. Josh was saying earlier that this is the biggest gig you've done?

Chris (C) - Yeah, it's the biggest headlining ever today.

T – How's that feeling? What are you thinking about?

C - Aw mate, it's just amazing. Just to wake up this morning, walked in there for the first time And I was just like, WOAH! It's crazy how a couple of friends who just started playing music just for a laugh and to go and and have fun, now we can come and do places like this. It's amazing.

T – I think that's the best way to do it too, start like that and then get asked to play for someone else and build

C - Yeah, it's awesome.

T – Now, you look at band interviews and there are normally a lot of stock questions or questions you've at least heard before, is there anything that you come away from interviews thinking “I wish they'd asked me about that!” I'm basically giving you free reign to talk about whatever you want.

C - I'm quite a geek when it comes to all the recording sides and the techy stuff, so I'd like to talk...and I don't know, sometimes I feel we don't get asked about how we compose and write the songs, so I think that's a good thing to talk about.

T – Well, I have a question about that! I'd be interested to know how you approach song writing as a band. Is it a case of one person coming with a fully formed song or melody and saying to the rest “play along”? Is there one person who leads the song writing?

C - it's a number things, we have a couple of different ways. It either starts with a guitar riff, where either me, Max or Josh will come in with “look, I've got this idea” and then you play it to them and that's the base of it, and then we'll go into kind of the jam mode where we'll jam over it for 20 – 25 minutes and it'll literally just be like a Pink Floyd jam and we'll just go through, branch off from the idea and see what happens and then from that we'll see if there's any “oh I really like this bit” or “that bit”. Or the other main way is that someone will come in with a complete songs, play it from start to finish and then you go [to the rest of the band] “is there anything you guys think could be made better?” and then we'll just fire it back until we're all happy with it, but if... we always make sure that everybody's happy with it, 'cos there's no point playing a song if the person who wrote it is going “YES! I wrote this!!!” and everyone else is going “oh, for fucks sake!I hate you”

T – and it doesn't really work in a band if you come in and go to everyone, “this is the song! Don't deviate!” because really there's already been 1 James Brown and what are you going to do? Fine your friends?

C -Yeah, exactly!

T – Have you played the Apollo at all before?

C- No, no, I was counting it out earlier and we've played the Academy 1,2,3, the Roadhouse, Jabez Clegg and the M.E.N! So tonight's the first time

T – and isn't it a lovely venue? I really love seeing gigs here.

C – Yeah, it's amazing..it's so loud as well.

T- I'm reviewing you guys tonight too...

C - Oh awesome...Go easy!

T – No, I can't do that! But I like you guys so you'll be alright....and tonight you're playing as part of the tour for your second album, which is a definite progression from your first and has moved on and you're style has changed. What do you want to be doing with your next albums?

C – Well, collectively we all have many different influences, Dan our drummer is into his groove-based stuff and so he likes a lot of dance music but he also likes a lot of fast-paced metal stuff. Whereas me and Max both love our metal, but I come from more of... a big blues background so I'm always jamming out little blues licks and stuff erm as far as bands go, one of my biggest influences would be Incubus and also Jimmy Eat World because I think there the best bands ever but really on the other side it's like AC/DC and cock rock... I think all our influences come together and particularly on the second album. I think we've found our sound. I think with the first album, we recorded it in about 2 and a half weeks and already some of those songs were back then 2 years old so they were sort of on the album because we had songs whereas this album things are a but more intricate and more of what we're doing now.

T – and that's quite a different approach to some bands who clearly put years of being in their bedroom, desperate to be in a band, into writing material that became their first album and then, when they have to write a second album there's nothing there. I think it's much better to hear bands that have started writing songs and kept learning, so that as they get to their second album you're hearing far more of them rather than them, learning.

C – and then they grow into their own sound. I just like to think that we're always going to be growing. For me, with my music taste, I don't want to hear a band's CD that's a carbon copy of the previous one. I want to hear new...not new directions but I think we're just going to slightly grow one step at a time. We're not going to be BOOM we're a pop-punk band...BOOM we're an ambient shoe-gaze band. It's going to grow progressively and I'm looking forward to it.

T – Me too, because one of the things that struck me was how much more I enjoyed the songs from your second album than the first and I always like that because I don't know about you, but I get apprehensive if I've liked the first album a band did and then I buy the second. Before I put it on I will be thinking “don't suck! Don't suck!” It's a nice relief when it turns out they've got better.

C – Yeah I do that all the time!

T - Has that ever happened to you?

C – well, this is a bold statement, but my favourite band ever is Incubus yeah? And how many albums have they done? How many before Light Grenades? 4? 5? studio albums and it got to Light Grenades and I liked the single, Anna Molly or whatever, but I put the album on and it I just thought it was boring as fuck. I actually like the record, but I can't listen to it in its entirety.

T – and I saw them about a year ago and they just looked so bored.

C – and they used to be so energetic! Now they just stand there.

T – so what is it, do you think, that you guys could do to stop yourselves getting like that? Is it enough that you've seen it happen to bands you really like?

C- I don't know, I think it's always...it depends if your band grows into like a ballad band - you can't run around the stage head-banging to ballads. It's a strange one because as you get older and you've been doing it for so long. It's a hard one to describe but we know that we won't be able to run around like mad men for every single show... Warped Tour for example we're doing 2 months on Warped Tour, there'll probably be 4 days off in that 2 months. We won't be able to run around like mad men every day, so we're trying as every tour comes along to put another element of production into it, so that each tour is different to the last and to keep people coming back really. So I think, that way, that's how we're going to try and do it. I know for sure that we won't be running around like mad men forever because I'm haggard already and I'm only 20!

T – What ambitions have you hit so far? What's next? What's left?

C – well when I went to my first show ever which was at the Astoria, I think we all, I know me and Josh did this we, when we were younger we made a little list, that if anything happens with music THAT is my lifetime ambition, to play at the London Astoria. We do that, I'm done! And then, 2 months before I was 18 we played the Astoria and then headlined it a year later, and I was like “I'm done! I've done it!” and then the benchmark after that, we raised it to Brixton. And Brixton we'll be able to do and we've sold it out on this tour so I think the only place we can go is Wembley Arena. But I'm not sure if we're the kind of band to play arenas though. I don't think we... I don't see ourselves being a good band in an arena. I think we need we still need some sweat some griminess of a smaller venue to keep us going. But! But I would like to headline there one day, I mean we've played it 3 times but I'd love to headline it I think that'd be a big thing

T – I'm glad you've mentioned this, and it isn't a case of ability or having what it takes, but I think you are a band that works in a smaller venue, how you sound is important but it's also as much as for what you want from both sides, what you want from the crowd and to give out. And it's also better to see any band in a smaller venue.

C – yeah, in an arena, when we played Wembley, the crowd were into it, but it's the first 1/8th of the crowd are the people jumping around, everyone else in the crowd are just stood there with their silly light-up antlers on their heads...or sat a million miles that way. I definitely enjoy the smaller shows. But it's just something you've got to do isn't it? Another ambition would be main stage Reading. Any position on the main stage for Reading/Leeds. That'd be another big one

T – The thing that that'd lead me onto is the kind of gig you'd do at an arena, I've had a conversation about stuff like this before,. I'm not going to pay £150 quid to see the Rolling Stones at the M.E.N. I'd pay a grand to see them at the Apollo though.

C – and that's I don't agree with, the high ticket prices. I mean if you're the Rolling Stones then that's fine but if you're a band like us and some of your fan base is 11 years old and right up to, I've spoken to guys who're around 25 – 30 and they're still coming to our shows and enjoying it. But if you've got a fan base that's really young in that young region...if it was me and I was their age and was thinking “SWEET! I'm going to go and see this band”, and I logged on and saw that it was £40 I'd be thinking “where the hell am I going to get £40 from? I really wanna go but how am I going to do it?” And it's why we try and make our shows as cheap as possible, which means we make less money but it's the difference between people coming to our shows and not, and also coming back to the next gigs.

T – and it's also the difference between people coming, and filling a place, which really makes a difference for everyone.

C – oh yeah, definitely. Anyone in the industry would walk in to a room that isn't full and think it's not so lively in here, whereas a room that full of people going crazy is a different story!

T – Do you see any distinction, not a physical one, between you as a member of a band and the people coming to see you?

C – For us, it's very simple. Our fans are 11 to 25. we're 20...our oldest is 21 in a couple of weeks. We're in the same age range as our fans. What we're singing about is what they're going through. F they're singing along it could mean all sorts of specific things to them.
We've all got something in common. Which is what we're aware of.

T- So I think this will be my last question. What will you see as a sign that you are successful? Things are already getting bigger

C – It's a hard thing to measure because some people will say I'm successful when my band has sold 500,000 records and we've played here, here and here. As far as I'm concerned our band has been successful in the way that we've helped people listen to music and come to shows and we've given something to someone. I don't give a shit about selling records and we're not going to be a band that will ever sell a million records. It's not going to happen unless we're crafted into some boy band...which is NEVER going to happen by the way. Like, so I measure success very differently. I'd be perfectly content playing to a hundred people a night for the rest of my life because all I want to do I s play music, so that's it, done. That's success to me! It was my favourite hobby ever and now it's my job. Sounds like a good deal! It's amazing! And we all appreciate every moment!

And with that I have to go. We say goodbye and Chris goes back to preparing for a show. (You can see a review of that in the gig section of Tasty!) It's very nice indeed to be able to report that as of yesterday and the announcement of the Leeds/Reading line up, You Me At Six will tick another ambition off their list as they have been added to the Main Stage line up. It's something I don't think you could begrudge them!

Christopher Carney

IS TROPICAL

I have been told that IS TROPICAL have a slight shower phobia, but I can disprove this myth by merely saying that we started the interview a man down due to his soapy needs. However, soldiering on regardless questions were asked and answered...

How is everything? Good?
Simon: Yes!
Gary: A bit rough.
Simon: Yeah, we had quite a big one last night, but it’s our last day of the tour. It’s been really good fun. I think that when we get back to London we thought, ‘Yeah we can have a break’, but as soon as we get back we have three more gigs and the recording of our next single, so it’s going be relentless.
Gary: I like how touring gives you headaches and stuff...
Simon: But its good fun...getting drunk on cheap onion cider. Sounds disgusting, but it’s a lot cheaper because instead of making it out of apples, it’s made out of onions.

So, I think it’s time for the question on everyone’s lips: just how tropical are you?
Simon: Actually, we aren’t that tropical, it’s kinda like a bit of satire, a bit of escapism.
Gary: It’s the opposite of what we are about, and what living in London is about and how we do our everyday lives. London is really un-tropical, grey and grim so it’s a way of getting away from it so we can pretend that we are tropical.
Simon: Exactly, it’s the opposite of what our lives are.
And why is your name in capitals?
Simon: I think it just looked nicer in capitals to be honest.
Gary: Aesthetically it’s just much nicer.
Simon: A lot of times when people write a list of bands they’ve always left us in capitals and I’ve though that’s pretty cool.

I have to say, when I saw your name, I was drawn in by the capitals, it all seemed more important.
Simon: Oh yeah, like we are shouting it. I think names are pretty important for bands, I mean we had some pretty shocking names we were going to call ourselves. Like when we did one of first gigs and we had a completely different set and two other people in the band, we called ourselves ‘The Wizard Lords’. Which is really bad.
Gary: Oh God, The Wizard Lords.
Simon: And then we had loads of other really bad ideas...
Gary: ‘Salad Prose’.
Simon: Yeah, we were going to be called ‘The Salad Prose’. But actually, I think band names help a lot because you think, “Oh yeah, I wouldn’t mind checking them out.”

How does the musical process work for you? How do you manage to go from getting a group of people in a room to actually making music?
Gary: I think we’ve always been into the same sort of music, especially when we were younger and used to hang around together listening to the same sort of stuff. Music seems to be a natural progression; one of us will write a song on the guitar and then another one of us will build something up on the computer and formulate a song.
Simon: It changes a lot from the first idea to the last idea. We always end up with something so much different. I think it’s good though because you can only push off so much. One person will have an idea and try to push it through to the point where it’s finished. I think a finished song is much better if lots of people get in on the idea and change it.
Gary: It’s better if we have three brains working on it instead of one. It’s a lot stronger.

What instrument would you say your music is most driven by?
Simon: It changes through song. It depends, I mean, it can be written on guitar, but we end up playing it on synth. It changes along the way.
Gary: If we write a song that sounds kind of like guitar based indie music when played on guitar, it will probably have a different feel.
Simon: I’ve started to get a cold so my singing is quite throaty, which I find quite funny. But I think because we programme a lot of stuff in, it takes away the...
Gary: Playing it on guitar, if you put in on the computer you can take away some of the humanity of it.
Simon: Yeah, if you play something on the guitar, it has a lot more natural flow to it than if you just programme it in so it’s exactly at perfect timing, it takes away a lot of the humanity of the music. But then I guess the songs still have a melody and stuff in them that would be from a band, but we kind of make it digital.

So you favour the digitalisation of the music as a technique?
Gary: I don’t know. We like to keep on organic sound, because it if’s too processed and too digital you lose that. I’d like to think we have a nice mix between the two.
Simon: I think we are a band that would get played more in club than get played on a radio.
Gary: I can imagine us being played at 2 o’clock in the morning because we are loud rather than in the daytime when you’re eating lunch.

So you don’t see yourself as a radio band then?
Simon: Oh, no, we’ve got some cracking radio bangers. We’ve got some massive tunes (followed by hysterical laughter). No, it would be nice. The first thing we released we chose because it was the least radio friendly. I mean, it’s nearly six minutes long and it has a lot of different rhythms in it. We did that so we didn’t get on the radio, but it ended up getting edited to the radio and getting played on the radio quite a lot. I think our next single will have to be radio friendly so that we survive!
Gary: The typical verse, chorus, verse, chorus, verse. Otherwise we’re out of a job.

How do you feel people have accepted your music so far?
Gary: Oh, ridiculously well. When we first started doing it we were like, “Oh a few people might be into that,” but overall, I think people quite like us.
Simon: I think...
(Dom returns from his shower with a towel covering his head. Greetings ensue.)
Simon: Are you naked under that?
Dom: What my clothes? Yeah.
Simon: Erm yeah, what were we talking about?
Gary: People loving our music!
Simon: Oh!
(Gary burns himself on the radiator. Several obscenities follow. Do not worry reader, the burns are not severe.)
Simon: I think some people like some songs, some people like others. Gary’s mum will like one song...
Gary: That my brother won’t.
Dom: Yeah. Sometimes my rabbits dance around, sometimes they don’t.

Do your mums listen to your music?
Gary: My mum walks to work listening to my music.
Dom: She walks to work listening to it?
Gary: Yeah. No, I don’t think my mum listens to it. Although, I am in charge of her music.
Simon: You’re in complete control of what she listens to!
Dom: And that’s all there is.
Gary: I pretty much play her my own music. She spent a fiver on the single though.

What did you listen to growing up? What did your parents listen too?
Simon: My mum listens to the worst music ever. My mum is a big Phil Collins fan, but she had this boyfriend who listened to Iron Maiden and Whitney Houston on repeat.
Dom: What? Together?
Simon: Yeah, one then the other, then the other. I think everyone likes pop and also has that band they don’t like to admit that they like. Also, another thing is that we all like some obscure dark stuff and we didn’t want to make music that was just one thing. We want a bit of pop and a bit of darkness in there. Not darkness as in the band, The Darkness. We used to listen to a lot of Wu Tang when we were younger.
Gary: I think the first time I met Simon he got some of his Wu Tang out.
Dom: My dad only ever listens to Italian folk music. It’s really terrible because it’s all at like 180 bpm with like 50 guys going, “AYE-HOOPLA”.

So you said you all have stuff that you don’t want to admit to liking. Would you admit that to me right now?
Simon: Oh, there is loads of stuff.
Dom: My guilty pleasure is The Cars.
Gary: I think at the moment... David Guetta and Akon. That’s a big song. I really like Jay Sean.
Dom: Really?
Gary: It’s a massive song, man. It’s number one.

What’s your song of the moment?
Gary: Oh, Pursuit of Happiness - ‘Kid Cudi’.
Simon: These New Puritans – ‘Attack Music’. Fucking wicked song.
Dom: How about Credence?
In Unison: Anything by Credence.
Dom: That’s quite an eclectic mix.

What’s your favourite 80’s song?
Gary: Probably... ‘Africa’ by Toto.
Simon: I’m not quite sure. I get confused with what happened in the 80’s. Rio? Was that the 80’s? I’ll go for that!

So you like Duran Duran then?
Simon: Oh yeah, Big Simon le Bon fan. Good man! Good looking band actually.
Dom: No. Simon le Bon, Nick Rhodes maybe.
Simon: Ahhhh, beautiful man.
(Dom withers and drapes himself across the floor after a massive coughing fit.)

Are you alright? You’re not dying are you?
Dom: No, I’m fine. I’ve been coughing for a few days and when I cough I get this pain in my... thorax.

Are you sure you want to carry on?
Dom: Oh no, it’s fine. This is fun.
Gary: I like it.
Dom: If not we’d have to talk to the people we’ve been talking to for the last two weeks.
Simon: My crazy friend has come up for tonight’s show and he just keeps getting naked. Has he been naked tonight?
Dom: He just got naked and posed for a couple of photos.
Simon: We are on tour with a band called T33TH - they’re on first – and one guy has his own fanzine...
Gary: It’s like some gay art porn thing.
Simon: He has been trying to talk us into getting naked a lot. For two weeks.
Dom: Did he get a boner in the changing rooms?
Simon: He was trying.

Have you ever been to Cambridge before?
Simon: I think we’ve been here before. Played the Barfly? Is there a Barfly in Cambridge? We stayed at Ash’s house with the Mystery Jets?
Gary: Oh yeah! Yeah it was.
Dom: One time when I was really drunk, me and my friend Amy, we stayed up all night and we got a train to Cambridge and then we fell asleep in a bush (hysterical laughter). It was a really nice day and we were just walking around, and there was this fair thing so we bought some crystals and took them all... and just sort of passed out.
Simon: You just bought some crystals?
Dom: I had a purple aura. On the train back I rang my mum and I was like, “Muuuuuuuuum. I got too drunk... in Cambridge”.
Simon: I love that.
Dom: You do it all the time, just crawl along the floor, trying to reach the keyboard.
(Dom launches himself across the floor again, arms spread out.)

How do your mums feel about you being in a band? Do they want you to get a proper job?
Gary: My mum loves it; anything creative. She’s never made me do any horrible work.
Simon: Yeah, my mum just pretty much lets me get on with whatever I want to do. She’s pretty...
Dom: Yeah, she’s pretty!
Simon: All of our mums are cool. We stayed at Dom’s mum’s halfway through the tour...
Dom: We rocked up with like ten people, and were like, “Can you feed us please. For a day. Make us up ten beds and cook us a big meal?”
Simon: They are very supportive.
Dom: But I think it’s because they are waiting for a bit of (whistles and gestures cash).
Simon: Yeah, my mum said that the other day! She was like, “When are you going to make me some money? I’ve been waiting for five fucking years!”
Dom: Just get a fucking job!

Did any of you do any higher education? Or did you just always want to be in a band?
Dom: I went to Uni.
Gary: I went to Art College.
Simon: Yeah, I went to Art College too.
Dom: I did English Lit at Uni, but I stopped because I realised that I was shit at poetry.
Simon: I didn’t even pick up an instrument until I was like 22, 23. If you look carefully, I don’t actually play anything.
Dom: Simon has a delay pedal which means he can play any song on the guitar.
Simon: When we arrive at gigs and we tune up, it doesn’t matter because I can’t play anything anyway. So it doesn’t matter what tuning I’m in.
Gary: Everything sounds wicked with the pedal though. (Mimes whammy effects for a while like a child with a new toy)

How much would you say you spend on equipment?
Dom: Ohhhh! Like minus £500!
Simon: When we first started out, we had two keyboards. One got off the plane from America and we plugged it in and it blew up because we have different power sources over here.
Dom: Oh, and that guy who stole £80 from us.
Simon: Yeah, we had this guy to come and fix it and he ran away with our money and the keyboard.
Gary: Wasn’t he from Cambridge?
Dom: Nah, I think it was he was from Dartford or something.
Simon: And our other keyboard just never showed up in the post. But we did get our money back so I suppose it’s alright.
Gary: The majority of the time we steal other bands stuff.
Simon: Like pedals and stuff.
Dom: A lot of our stuff just has other bands names on it.
Simon: A lot of our equipment is Shit Disco’s or Babeshadow’s.
(Simon leaves for a shower. See. Told you they were clean.)

As a request from a dear friend, I must ask... Do you like tropical juice drink?
Dom: Ohhh, yeah!
Gary: Three for a quid. From Akdeli’s - put that in! (Voila!)
Dom: It’s a really good little Turkish off licence. If you’re ever in North London and you fancy stocking up on some little bits and bobs.
Gary: Cheap olives. The coriander!
Dom: Very cheap coriander. The cheapest I’ve seen. And a big wall of crisps. But yeah, tropical juice is good, but I can never work out what other flavours there are apart from like, pineapple. It always dominates.
Gary: There’s a bit of mango in there.
Dom: I don’t really like mango, it’s too sickly.

Do you drive to most gigs?
Gary: Yeah, if they are far out we do, but we do a lot of gigs in London so we just get buses and stuff. It would cost too much money to drive everywhere. Because we were doing this tour with T33TH, we decided to hire a van together to kind of spread the cost.
Dom: We’ve had to sleep a couple of times in the van so it’s kind of double handy.
Gary: We went to Loch Lennon.
Dom: I saw a ghost.
Gary: He was playing table tennis with ghosts.
Dom: No, no, no. I genuinely saw a ghost though. When you (points accusingly at Gary) were conked out in the back, hugging a drum kit, I climbed out and went for a walk because I was sick of being covered in other people’s sweat. There was this shape that kept following me and every time I turned around it was gone, like, every time I walked I could feel it really close. That was spooky.

Do you believe in ghosts then?
Gary: Yes.
Dom: Definitely. But I don’t want to be one. It would be horrible, just think about the vibes you get off people. Everyone would be really scared of you, it would be horrible.
Gary: No.
Dom: Yes. You’re just used to it.
Gary: I’ll tell you what though, ‘Ghost’ is a good film. That ending!
Dom: It’s heartbreaking. And the shadows that come out and grab people. I can’t handle it.
Gary: Dom only saw it like three months ago.
Dom: I know! Every time they put on a scary film, I’m gone.
Gary: It’s not scary!
Dom: ‘Ghost’ is really scary! People die and that’s horrible.

So if you don’t want to be a ghost, so you believe in the afterlife and God?
Dom: Nah, I reckon that the world is a lot more than we know, but I don’t think that there is some Jacuzzi up there with my name on it or equally a torture chamber with my name on it. I reckon that whatever we do doesn’t matter, but maybe if we are super cool we get to play a game with Tony Hawks before we die. Do you believe in heaven and hell, Gaz?
Gary: Yeah.
Dom: You do?
Gary: Yeah.
Dom: No, you don’t.
Gary: I do. Religious ain’t I?
Dom: You’re not religious stop lying.
Gary: I was brought up in a commune.
Dom: You can’t just make up lots of lies for publicity...
Gary: I am too tired to think. (Curls into a ball like a hedgehog)
Dom: Well, I like the Norse way of thinking about it because they think that there is a massive tree which is holding the Earth up and there is a squirrel called Ratatosk who runs up and down, delivering messages and he annoys the tree by nibbling on it. And I like that idea because squirrels are fucking annoying. They are never cute, they are just vermin.

What about flying squirrels?
Dom: That is another kettle of squirrels! When we arrived in Birmingham and our kettle was full of piss. I think it was Mumford and Sons.
Gary: Was it?
Dom: They played there the night before. Can you definitely put that in there? (Voila again!)
Gary: We were in the room and the guy from Mumford and Sons walked in and he pissed in the kettle.
Dom: He was pretending he couldn’t see us because he had sunglasses on, but he got it, pissed in it and played a bit of banjo on the way out.

Are you starting a hateful war with the dapper Mumford and Sons?
Gary: I love Mumford and Sons!
Dom: If there was one band that I had to have a hate war with, it would be them.

Is there a band that you’ve met and thought that they were absolute twats?
Dom: Actually, no, but I do hate the idea of Maximo Park and that guy, Paul Smith, but apparently he is super, super nice.
Gary: Apparently he is a super sound Geordie or Sunderland man or something.
Dom: I guess, in principle, the Jonas Brothers, but I think they are very confused young men.

And that is it - half an hour of mockery, laughter and squirrels for your enjoyment reader. And if you didn’t pick up that bit about Mumford and Sons – they pissed in the kettle! Thank you to IS TROPICAL for their time. I would also like to say a big thank you to Miss Hannah Venetia Jones for making this possible and taking us to McDonalds at one in the morning. Isn’t it wonderful what you can achieve with a clapped out Peugeot and an old Cambridge street atlas?

Eloise Quince

Shabby Rogue

Hello Shabby Rogue, how is 2010 so far?
Can’t complain really, we’re getting loads of radio play , the record is getting good reviews for the most part and we’ve really been hitting it in the live shows.

Many artists recall their second album as being the hardest to write. Do you agree?
They’re all a bloody nightmare! But interesting nightmares . Like the way people enjoy horror films and rollercoasters.

What was the original inspiration for ‘By Hook and By Crook’?
A lot of it was drawn from difficult times in our lives but hopefully tied together by the idea of actually arriving somewhere better.

How are you feeling about the reception from your album?
So far so good. A lot of people seem to be getting what we do which makes us feel pretty good.

One of the first ideas for the album was to record everything live. How did this notion come about?
Capturing the live energy of the band has always been a priority of ours, some tracks have more production than others but most of it is close to what we do live.

If I Google ‘by hook and by crook’, the first hit is a phrase dictionary that derives the meaning of this saying as ‘by whatever means necessary - be they fair or foul’. Is this a suggestion towards the piecing together and creation of the album?
The saying is actually “By hook OR by crook” implying that you might employ one method or the other, we definitely needed both and then some.Yes the album was definitely completed with a by any and every means neccessary philosophy.

You have a diverse sound that spans many genres. Is this because you don’t want to be labelled and boxed?
I don’t know if any artist ever wants to be labelled or boxed, ourselves included, we have three songwriters in the band all with widely varied influences so we tend to go where it leads us and look for the common thread after the fact.

What were your favourite albums when you were growing up?
I started out with classic rock, The Who, The Kinks,The Beatles,Bowie,Hendrix, then got into folk and prog. Leonard Cohen met King Crimson at some point and they got on. Eno’s Another Green World would be up there.

Any guilty pleasure records on your shelves at home?
I have anthologies of both The Carpenters and the Bee Gees but I don’t feel guilty.

Vinyl, tape, CD or download?
Vinyl is still unmatched , unfortunately expensive and impractical to release.

Thank you very much! Tasty wish you the very best with the album and we hope you have a great year.

Eloise Quince

RM Hubbert

Your latest album seems to owe a lot more to Latin America than Scotland. Have you always been interested in this sort of guitar playing, or is it something that you've developed a taste for recently?
I’ve always liked percussive guitar playing, using the body and strings in a slightly different way than you might expect. It was about four years ago that I actively started studying Flamenco guitar. I realised pretty quickly that although I loved the emotive, energetic side to the music, it left me cold melodically. That was when I started writing my own music again, using some of the techniques and rhythms that you would associate with Flamenco but with a more personal approach to the melody.

Who are your current musical influences?
Minutemen are easily the biggest influence, both musically and in many other ways. Other than them, Baden Powell (the Brazilian guitarist, not the scout leader), Sabicas, early Black Flag, Fugazi, Kaki King, Alasdair Roberts, Tattie Toes, The Ex, Joanna Newsom, Gordon Ferries, James Orr Complex. The list goes on … I‘ve been listening to a young folk singer called Emily Portman from the north of England a lot recently. She has a really beautiful voice and an amazing talent for harmony.

What do you want people to get out of listening to your music?
It depends on how much energy they want to invest. First & Last is supposed to be a snapshot of my life at that time. It is accompanied with a little bit of writing from myself that explains what each song was written about. It would be nice if people could spend some time with both. On the other hand, I love instrumental music’s ability to mean many different things to different people. Basically, I hope that the record elicits an emotional response from the listener, be it recognition or recollection.

Do you prefer playing as a solo artist, or working with other musicians?
It depends on the time of day! I’ve always been part of a band before so composing and performing solo still has some novelty to it. I do miss the joint creative process though. My next album will actually be made up of collaborations with some of my favourite musicians (Alasdair Roberts, Aidan Moffat, Emma Pollock and Luke Sutherland to name but a few) so I’ll be getting the best of both worlds for a while.

Why did you decide to release your music under the Creative Commons license?
One of my favourite quotes is from a man by the name of Tim O’Reilly that sums it up better than I can manage –

“Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.”

I choose to release my music and writings under a license that fosters and encourages sharing, remixing and the building of new works from my own because above all else, I want my music to be heard and writing read by as many people as possible.

With traditional record companies continuing to fail to latch on to modern methods of music distribution, do you think young musicians can hope to make a living out of music? If so, how?
Compared to the last album I released under a more traditional system, First & Last has made at least as much money but has been much more widely consumed. All on the basis that people can set their own prices. That is not to say that I make enough money from the music to live off of. And to be honest, that’s fine. Nobody owes myself or any other musician a living. The truth is that it has never been easy to make a living from music, major label deal or not. The vast majority of musicians that get that elusive deal end up never seeing anything past the rapidly dwindling advance. There is no shame in working a day job whilst creating music. The day I stopped trying to make a living out of music was the day that I rediscovered my love for it.

You advertise a "Will Play For Food" service on your website. What has been your favourite meal so far?
I’m not sure how to answer this one without getting into trouble! I think that the last one I did, for Aiko and Graeme in Leven, may win out. But only because I’m a sucker for sushi, plus they got me drunk and made me brunch the next day after letting me have their bedroom.

If you could play for anyone, who would it be and why?
My parents. I miss them.

Chris Moffatt

Who Killed Sgt. Pepper?

Interview with Anton Newcombe from The Brian Jonestown Massacre by Chris Moffatt.

Anton Newcombe from the Brian Jonestown Massacre is many things. Complex, frustrating, controversial and perhaps a genius. A prolific songwriter and musical polymath, ten studio albums haven’t dimmed his burning creative desire and willingness to push the musical envelope. Commerciality is the last of his concerns, and with musical influences from country to opera, he’s undeniably one of the most fascinating musicians working today.

Many people will know him from 2003 documentary Dig! which followed the Dandy Warhols and the BJM as one rose to fame and the other fell apart. The film, together with mountains of column inches from the popular press, would lead me to expect a dark, volatile and disturbed character. Or in the words of the NME, “a self-sabotaging megalomaniac with a worrying gun fixation and violent tendencies”. Instead, the Anton I meet is polite, softly-spoken, humourous and fiercely intelligent.

I caught up with him in London two weeks before the start of a worldwide tour for the new album Who Killed Sgt. Pepper? to discuss the big issues of the day: invisible geometry, Neo-Greco architecture and Kerry Katona.

On the new album (Who Killed Sgt Pepper) I feel there’s a wider range of sounds compared to previous BJM material – there’s overt influences from soul, bhangra, electronica – what were your main inspirations on this album?
I was trying to do something cinematic. I had a sense, with the economy crashing in Iceland and knowing that it’s going to happen everywhere, that there’s heavy times ahead of people. You’ve seen the pound doing parity with the euro? Nuts. Maybe it’s my last gasp before I settle into middle age.

I think there was a discussion between my manager and myself. “If you have a record finished, I’ll book you guys a tour out in Australia”. There’s no point in touring without a new record. So I just finished the record to force his hand.

The first track is subtitled “Reaching For Dangerous Levels of Sobriety”…
But I wasn’t sober when I was doing it. I was completely mashed on all that stuff, in Iceland.

Is sobriety something you want to work towards?
I used to tell my friends that “I need a drink, because I’m reaching dangerous levels of sobriety”. Like, basically I’d been drinking a litre a day for quite some time – years – and that kind of buzz … it takes a month to get that drunk, you know? So that’s what I’m talking about with “dangerous levels of sobriety”; when you start to get nervous. But now I don’t drink any more.

I just joke around with titles. I put that song on the EP called “Smoking Acid”. You can’t smoke acid, right?

There’s some pretty interesting song titles on there. For example, Detka! Detka! Detka!
It means “baby, baby, baby…”

It’s in Russian, right?
Yeah. I flew my friend over to help me do stuff in Russian. I’ve put out, like, three hundred songs, and when I make up stuff I try and get people to help me with other languages. Doing underground music internationally...file trading and putting it out everywhere. No-one’s ever done that.

Not just singing “I Want To Hold Your Hand” in German to make some money, but doing it for real. I wanted to do something that I’ve never done…that no-one’s ever done before. There’s no music like that in Russia. See, I’m really into world music. Like the Pakistani music that I listen to, the songs that I identify with, I have no idea what they’re talking about.

But it doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter. Sometimes I listen to words, and I find the ones that I like and sing them... It’s just music to me. I think that’s really interesting.

It’s always interested me how you can listen to music from, say, Cuba or Mali, and you haven’t got a clue what they’re singing about, but you can still make a connection with it.
Your voice is an instrument. It’s just music. You’re connecting with that energy and spirit. That’s what opera’s about too. Mozart… it’s one thing to hear Germans sing, it’s really guttural, but once they start toasting, Jamaican style, they’re the best in the world. It’s the language – click click click – it works really well with the Jamaican style.

The best underground international musicians are German toasters. It works perfectly. Their oom-pah is very rigid and staccato, and German’s a horrible language to listen to music in, unless you listen to Bach’s aria Die Jesu. You hear the woman singing about “That’s my son, I buried him, he is risen”. It’s so intense that they never play it on classical radio. No-one really knows about it. It’s insane; it’s the high point of all music. It’s really amazing stuff. It doesn’t matter what they’re saying.

You know French is the same way - a lot of French stuff is like “bleugh bleugh”, like when they try hip-hop or something, and you go “urgh”. But if you bend it the way Mozart did, you can take the words and the syllables and try to stretch it out… it’s beautiful.

A couple of years back Dungen put out the Panda song. It’s in Swedish, it’s just rocking. It was so great that they did that. Basically they’re playing like Sixties, like our style, but their own thing, kicking ass. Singing in English, that song would have been forgotten very quickly along with the cycle of the record. But since they did it in their own language, in a couple of hundred years that will still be there because it’s contributed to their culture. I think that’s brilliant.

You’re very prolific compared to a lot of artists. Why is that – do other bands not work as hard, or are they just not as talented?
To cut a long…well…[pause]…there’s a lot of distractions that come along with success in the business. It’s juvenile to some people; they don’t have a love for the craft. I think a lot of people would pay for the notoriety if they could bypass the actual performance.

Musicians talk about how they play in front of crowds every day, and they get so bored. Early on, if you get an opportunity to play Glastonbury for the first time, and you’ve got a sore throat, you just think “I’ve got to do it anyway”, and you power through. But if you’re Oasis or somebody, you get to say “We’re not going on”, it’s not a big deal any more. It’s really weird.

I was watching quite a funny video on your blog earlier, where they’ve captured what Britney Spears is actually singing into her mic during a gig, and it’s totally out of tune. That’s the artifice of pop, I guess.
You know Michael Jackson had the fifty shows booked at the O2? There’s no way he could have done that, physically. Do you know he only had to actually sing or talk for thirteen minutes out of a three hour show. Think about his music, it’s all that chka-chka [Anton proceeds to do a pretty convincing Jacko impression]. How can you possibly sing that in the first place? There’s no guitar pedal that does that. That’s thirty tracks in a studio, so of course he’s playing a tape. I feel naked sometimes standing on stage knowing that we’re just doing it…

Doing it for real?
Yeah, like sink or swim. I’ve played on the same day as the Black Eyed Peas. I’ve watched them play, and they weren’t playing. They’re having fun. They pressed play and jumped around. “Will I Am, bring the beat now”. Dumb! You know, I feel bad.

Bad for them, or bad for the people watching?
Both. People get trapped in this TV culture. You’re whole life seems bad after watching this edited, fast paced thing, because you’re life doesn’t really work that way. You sit around and you wait for stuff to happen, then reflect on it afterwards – that’s real life. So of course you need to get fucked up on drugs or take Prozac because there’s no way your life can compete with the media. But they’re, like, entertainers.

Not musicians?
Even if they are, that’s not the point. I was never interested in virtuosity. All I know is that you can go to HMV and I have fifteen of my albums for sale, and that means a lot. There’s only so much space in a CD shop. Bob Dylan will have maybe, thirteen. The Beatles will have the same number. Nuts! So that’s making the grade, in a way.

So many bands start out interesting, then once they discover a formula for success, they get on a rollercoaster of churning out the same type of album again and again. You haven’t done that. What drives you to keep creating new music?
I’m teaching myself, I’m creating stuff myself. There’s nobody to call to ask how to do this. People forget that developmental aspect of what I’ve done. I’m fascinated by the suspension of disbelief. I like the alchemy involved in audio. I’m interested in geometry. Invisible geometry, implied geometry, patterns. When I get in the mood to write, I like the studio environment in foreign countries. To be able to go someplace, set up a studio, live in hotels, do tonnes of MDMA, speed and booze and be recording at Bjork’s place and go nuts – it’s an interesting kind of witchcraft. It’s like…why do you think they’re called wines and spirits?

Some kind of religious connotation?
Exactly. That’s what I’m interested in. Creating really weird soundscapes, but only to the point where I go “wow, that’s weird”. When I get to that point, I generally leave it.

How do you normally write? It is jammed together in the studio, or do you write alone?
I don’t really record as a band. I did one version of the Take It From The Man album with the band, but 90% of it is just me playing everything.

I make up things in different ways. Sometimes I write songs walking down the street. Sometimes it’s like the subconscious showing off, almost, how clever I am. I had a girlfriend once who said “Why doesn’t anyone write songs like Syd Barrett any more, he was so great?” And I go, “oh, but they do, watch”, and I wrote a couple of songs that were exactly in his style.

This record I was setting out to do something cinematic, but I was also interested in these forty-million selling records. Like Michael Jackson, Rock With You. What is it? All the marketing, his performance, his persona? Is it the beat, this killer groove that he had that nobody else had? Is it all these things? So I just decided to take the actual grooves, not samples, of some records to base things on, then imprint my own music on top of it.

It’s interesting you mention the groove of the tracks. For me you can enjoy the music on two levels – you’ve got the superficial groove that makes the tracks great to dance to, but then there’s a deeper level when you start to get into the lyrics. Is that a deliberate thing?
Yeah – I’m also interested in content. Some of the stuff we’re singing about just gets heavier and heavier. Especially in foreign languages. One of the songs from one of my EPs is the Icelandic version of the Serious Matter song, we’re singing “I am malice and I follow you like a cloud, like a cloud I follow you down”. One of the darkest things you can possibly say in this…caveman language. “I am malice, I am ill will itself following you. I am malice”. In Icelandic. It’s like, woah, this is the heaviest song ever made in that culture.

This record was recorded in both Iceland and Berlin. How did those countries influence your music?
It’s interesting being somewhere with everybody speaking a foreign language, and you only understand what you choose to look in to. So you’re walking round like a ghost.

Do you like that invisibility?
Yeah! There’s so much history in both those places. Right where I live is where Kristallnacht went down. On top of that they had Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon there, right where I lived, we’re talking hundreds of thousands of years ago. Non-stop inhabitance. Weird. All the way through Roman times, everything. Mental. Any place that’s going to be haunted, it’s got to be that place, right?

That’s why they’re so forward thinking. You have to be. You look at the UK culture, and our common bonds. We’ve pulled together through adversity over many years. A lot of people don’t understand – London is the new Rome. Rome got sacked, that’s why that is there [points at laurel wreath sculpture on the wall of the hotel lobby]. That’s not Celts, that’s Romans. All these columns, they’re neo-Greco. If you go to some place like Pompeii, they have buildings exactly like this. Multiple stories with bay windows; they’ve had them since Roman times. And it wasn’t that long ago, this stuff.

Going back to your music, what do you want people to get from it?
I don’t make music to have people dress like me, or act like me, or make them like my little monsters. I don’t want that. Especially when I was talking about delving into drugs …even though it’s dark music, I don’t want people to do that.

At the same time, now that I don’t drink, I don’t want to be a commercial for that either. I’m not advocating this. I think it’s a magic machine. I have my own motives but people won’t relate to those. I like juxtaposing things, like sad music with happy lyrics. Somebody else can get something completely different from it.

I think it’s really positive to take alienation, frustration, and turn it into something that you can use, that isn’t destructive. I think that’s the greatest thing about art. The second greatest thing about art is that you can interact with it, and make what you want of it.

I always think the best songs are where you have sad music with happy lyrics, or happy music with sad lyrics.
Yeah - I like that!

I know you put a lot of your music out on the web for free, and you encourage people to download it rather than paying for it. Can we talk about that?
The industry doesn’t give a shit about artists. Never has. It’s about making a statement. You know…Lily Allen, bitching about file trading? She doesn’t make any music out of records. She won’t make any money whether people trade them or not. There’s no way she could have a record deal where she gets paid for every copy of the record, because they advertise her shit, she has a tour bus, a band, the cost of recording to recoup. Unless she did it all in her Dad’s studios with Dad’s friends, still she’s never going to make money. The Stones are never going to make one penny off it – it doesn’t matter how many records you buy. Ever. Bat Out of Hell sold 35 million copies. That was recorded in the Seventies…

[At this point we’re interrupted by an elderly American lady with a camera, who is apparently “from Wisconsin” and wants to take a photo of “the rock star”. Anton makes polite conversation, and as she leaves she turns to say “What was the band called? Brian and the Massacre?”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter” Anton replies, looking sheepishly at the floor.

In an instant, he’s transformed from arrogant rock star to gentleman entertainer. It’s a revealing moment. “I get embarrassed…” he mumbles, then takes a cigarette break.]

You know what I was just pondering? You know like, billion dollar bank bonuses and all this crap? If people are entitled to all that reward for doing their job, don’t you think Mercedes Benz should charge three billion dollars for a car? For every single skill and trade. If they’re going say people are entitled to that much money for what they do, everyone should start charging that much. Like sculptors… one hundred million dollars? Sure, I’ll make you a fireplace.

That would make inflation pretty interesting…if everyone starting charging millions of pounds for what they do.
Well, we should. We’re living in an insane period of time. A new kind of feudalism where everything seems to be doomed. Like in Zimbabwe where everyone was a millionaire for a couple of months…

So you’ve got the tour starting in February?
I think in twelve days. I’ve got to go to Los Angeles and start rehearsing. Then we go to Australia, New Zealand, a little time off, then I’m back here for a few days. North America, South America, I think we’re playing India, Indonesia.

Have you played out in Asia before?
We got offered to play a festival in Hong Kong, but I was in such I mess. I couldn’t find my passport. Sometimes people steal things from you, you know? So I told them I caught the flu and they were very superstitious about that because of SARS.

Do you enjoy the tour lifestyle?
Well now I don’t drink and that social lubricant is gone, I’m nervous about it. I’m just going to go out there and try as hard as I can.

Do you write when you’re out on tour?
I’ve been known to, but a lot of what I do now is studio based. I think I’ll probably work on some bits. I’m working on more than one record right now, but there’s no rush to put them out. It confuses things, takes up space. Let’s just see how people perceive this one. I have my doubts whether anybody will like it.

What are your hopes for this record?
I always hope that…it stands the test…like New Kids on the Block. There was a time, when you were a little kid, that boy groups like that were the biggest thing in the world. And you can even look at Kerry Katona, Atomic Kitten. Where’s their music now?

They’re gone.
And why would you even care in the first place? It’s all marketing. Horrible.

Mainstream radio and media is like a joke to me. Ten to watch, the BBC Sound of 2010. [Ellie Goulding] is a folk musician, and she’s decided to work with house music beats. It’s crap! Somebody telling us that this is the “sound of 2010”. What does that mean?

Every one of those New Year lists has the same people on it.
Exactly. At least what you’re doing [Tasty Fanzine] is fan-based journalism – that’s great. People should only write about things that interest them. Why do you see so many critiques of everything?

I was thinking the other day; What would it be like if everybody’s wishes came true at once, no matter what they wished for? Every single wish, every dream came true. Simultaneously. The whole lot.

It’s not going to work!
Weird concept, huh? Everybody wants different things.

It’s probably a good idea for a song.
I don’t think I could describe it that abstractly, but I was thinking about that. What if every wish came true… time would be irrelevant, immediately. It would be like, morphing, like Scanner Darkly but with everything you’ve ever known, at once. Shoom-shoom-shoom!

That’s going to melt your head.
I like that.

You shouldn’t think too much about that kind of stuff.
I shouldn’t think at all, that’s what society wants! Don’t think too much.

A lot of people don’t.
Scary, huh? The whole thing about everybody dumbing down their opinions. That’s the whole thing in America, with the militarism. But at the same time expecting everyone to defend themselves? [Laughs]. What are you going to defend? You’re too stupid to even see things as they are. How are you going to defend yourself against the next marketing campaign?

At one point, to justify you’re actions you want everyone to be as stupid as possible so you can scam them and continue your agenda, but the next moment you need them to be alert? Against terrorism? What a joke.

The best one I heard was that the EU has dedicated 420 million Euros to Haiti relief. Except they were already committed to giving 400 million Euros before the earthquake. So they’re only committing to 20 million more. Ridiculous.

It’s a question that’s always troubled me. You see these kinds of situations going on around the world, and it’s hard to appreciate how bad it is, but what can I do as an individual? That kind of stuff is horrific, but there’s always going to be earthquakes.
It’s finding the balance of telling people that we need to get together to contribute, but not to be shocked that people are eating each other. The press is getting pissed at America for not feeding people, turning away aeroplanes from around the world. But these people are crushed. They haven’t eaten in a week, they’re dying, so just toss the stuff out there.

Shooting people for looting in a situation like that is absurd. It isn’t really looting, at a certain point. The soccer players that crashed in the Andes and ate the dead bodies weren’t guilty of crimes, at some point.

What choice did they have?
Evidently they had zero choice. Crazy shit, huh? [pause] Sorry, I don’t want to bring you down.

It’s fine. It’s all part of life. You have to talk about it.
It’s part of our life. You don’t have to… I understand it when people get overloaded. It’s stuff that I think about - the perspectives. Quite often.

I think that’s why celebrity culture is so big. It takes people away from thinking too much about the real things that are going on in the world. They’d much rather see Britney Spears dance around on a stage.
It isn’t just about sales. It’s intentional. It’s obviously intentional. The way that things are is the way they want it to be. Without even attaching some imaginary “they” to it.

So you mentioned you’re working on a few different things at the moment?
I’m tempted, if I get a little bit of time, to go to Paris. Just to camp out for a month and try to make a record in French. But I’m having a hard time with people’s scepticism about what I’m trying to do. First of all they’ll say things to me like “There’s no good [music] in France…” Well, they like Serge Gainsborough. They like the great stuff!

I want to do a record in French, so I’ll do it phonetically and I’ll work with somebody. I need to be introduced to them personally, and talk them into it. Have them come to the studio and do a French record. And I want it to kick ass. I want to have some of the best contemporary, relevant music in that language, ever. I don’t think it’ll be easy, but I’ll approach it exactly like Mozart did with his words, like an opera.

See the problem is they try to say so many things and sing in a style…like the rappers. It doesn’t work phonetically. But if you did it like opera, slowed it down, so you’re stretching a sentence over a verse or two. It can be done.

Will that be a Brian Jonestown Massacre project?
I’ve always worked with other people. I don’t believe in all the conventional rules. I never stand in the middle with my group, as the singer. I always had Joel stand in the middle. Those rules…I just don’t think they matter. I don’t have to sing every song. It allows me to enjoy it, to have somebody else do it. I’m just experimenting with stuff.

[At this point, Anton and Nina start discussing Kim Larsen, the Danish rock musician, and Anton recalls a story about Larsen regaling passengers with songs on a flight from Copenhagen]

Another person I’ve heard that’s done the same thing before is Iggy Pop. He was at a party at the Chateau Marmont in LA, and it was right when Brian Wilson came out of his shell. When they got rid of the psychiatrist who was prescribing him brain-damaging drugs. [Brian] walks into a party and they’re like “Brian, I love your work”, and this was before he came out with Pet Sounds. There was a piano in the suite – they have house-sized suites….people live in that hotel, super-rich people. Like, you can’t go to the ninth floor, that’s Britney Spears’ floor. Seriously.

So Brian sits down at the piano and he goes “I always loved that song…” and he starts singing “Momma’s little baby likes shortbread”. And he wouldn’t stop playing it. And he’s singing it for like, forty minutes straight, and he wouldn’t stop. Every different variation. Like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, but bebop. And everyone’s like “okay Brian…”

One time I bumped into Iggy… I was doing illegal raves. It was before I started the band. We were doing house parties, big ones in California. We did it for a long time, made a lot of money doing it. Iggy came to one of my parties. They were big – we had like 25,000 people on the mailing list. It wasn’t just rave music, we played all kinds of stuff.

Anyway Iggy comes to it, and I’m like “Iggy, will you do me a favour and sign my Volkswagen?”
He’s like “No”. Fuck you! I was bummed. Like, here you are at my happening party, and you won’t sign my Volkswagen. But he’s cool. In magazines before he’s said stuff about me that’s really positive. Him and Patti Smith, that’s why I’m in the UK. Patti was curating Meltdown, and they agreed that they liked my project. As far as the spirit of the music goes, trying to get ahead, not trying to dress up as “something”.

Being authentic?
Evidently to get ahead you should get into banking. Work at Goldman Sachs. What, I get a million dollar bonus? How many records do you sell? How much money do you make from that? Every single person that works for Goldman Sachs got over a million dollars as a bonus this year.

I’m in the wrong job!
Exactly. How does that make you feel as a person?

Finally, are there any artists that you want to spread the message about?
I’m interested in a lot of music. I put out a death metal record before Matador did. I’ve spent my own money – a lot…I’ve helped a lot of people. You know the Black Angels used my equipment and my studio to record their stuff? So I’ve helped people out. I taught Black Rebel Motorcycle Club how to play guitar, in my house. I’ve made my contribution.

I’d like to get a shout out for the TomJoeTwins on YouTube, that did the Lego Fucking Mental video (http://www.youtube.com/user/tomjoetwins) They’re 14 year old twins in the UK, and they do all that stuff. Somebody showed me that right when it came out. I was like “we’ve got to use this as the video”. I made it and one of their friends was like “You stole from the TomJoeTwins”. This is not commercial music, and it cannot be commercial music because of the subject matter and the language, the adult content. It can’t be used to sell soap! This is pastiche! Like Andy Warhol and the soup can. It’s exactly the same thing that I’m doing. You guys used the zombie genre – you didn’t invent that, that’s a pastiche as well.

We’re just trying to make people happy and I’m sorry that it’s so dirty. I felt uncomfortable talking [to them]…they were like “it’s so cool that an artist like you could like our stuff”. I like it. They do great stuff.

With that the posse head out into town in a blizzard of cigarettes and anecdotes. I recall the famous Dylan quote: “A man is a success if he gets up in the morning, gets to bed at night and in between he does what he wants to do”. Anton isn’t as well known as he deserves to be, and the Brian Jonestown Massacre will never be a mainstream band, but that doesn’t really matter. In many ways it’s a good thing. Newcombe’s doing what he wants to do, and the music is there for the people who are willing to seek it out.

Who Killed Sgt. Pepper is available on download now, and will be released on CD and vinyl on 23/02/10. The Brian Jonestown Massacre will be playing UK dates in May 2010.
www.myspace.com/brianjonestownmassacre