An interview with Anton Newcombe

The Line of Best Fit caught up with Anton Newcombe from long-running psychedelic revivialists Brian Jonestown Massacre on his recent trip to the UK. In a long conversation we got to hear his views on everything from The Beatles, the troubles in Northern Ireland, the rather excellent new album My Bloody Underground, and why Mark Gardiner from Ride is such a great friend. Always engaging, frequently fascinating, and just occasionally a little intimidating, here are the highlights of our discussion.

Hi Anton. Have you just got to the UK?
Yeah I came in, I think… jeez louise…. late last night, I think. I’ve been moving around a lot. I spent a long time in Iceland, then back to New York City. I’ve just been really busy.

I think you recorded some of the album in Iceland, is that right?
Yep, almost all of it. Two of the songs I did in Liverpool at my former colleagues Echo and the Bunnymen’s studio up there.

Are you something of an Anglophile, would you say?
The real United Kingdom isn’t about Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England, it’s actually Scandinavia, England and America. That St George’s Cross is remarkably exactly the same as Iceland’s flag, and Denmark’s flag and Norway’s flag. The difference between me and you is: my passport doesn’t say “subject” .

I love the UK, I would die for it in a second. I mean, I don’t like all the people, the beans on toast set. But, I don’t like everybody in New York, and I don’t like everybody in Iceland. That’s life.

How do you feel about doing interviews and promotional stuff?
I prefer to do them by email, but I’ve been too busy to catch up. I’ve neglected about 400 interviews so… and the reason I like that is I like to have a written document of exactly what has been said.

Do you get mis-quoted a lot?
Well, it’s really simple to look at a biog or think you know something about a situation, and just slag me off. Not you specifically, but “one”. And that is tiresome for me, because this is art, and you can’t argue with results which are just really low key. I’m not really out there pushing it. I don’t know what my business partners are up to in this town. I have no problem talking about what my perspective is on situations and, of course, I like to meet new people, and if that works out… I have longstanding friends, it’s exactly the opposite of what anybody would think. I mean, I’m 40 and I still have a whole set of friends from when I was 5 years old, and we keep up on a weekly basis.

I wouldn’t want to be 16 right now. A head full of worries and just total… it would mean just ignoring reality.

So you think life has improved with age?
Well, you know, there’s a different perspective that wisdom and life experience adds, and if you can just put your boots on and get up and go with it there’s always going to be amazing things to see and learn about people and you run in to just such characters.

I have a few specific questions about the new album – is that okay?
Yeah, I’m open, I’m very honest with people.

The title [My Bloody Underground] is obviously a play on my bloody valentine and velvet underground?
Yes, but it could mean anything cos it’s also an English slang cuss word.

I could hear more of the MBV on it than The Velvets.
Well, the thing is, I have recordings from when I was 12 years old, and we were doing this crazy kind of naïve “get your ya-yas out” stuff before there was MBV. When they were pretending to be The Cramps, we had already been recording, we have videos of – not this specific band, I mean, peer group. Of course, in the UK they mastered that sort of thing with Mary Chain and everybody, for many years. But that culture does not come from here, it’s not indigenous at all. The Beatles were a thick-upper-lip Irish Orangeman band, with 40 employees making up the music.

You think?
I know for a FACT. How many sitar songs were done when the Beatles were playing there with a whole orchestra? John Lennon had his chops, but the reason why Manchester hates Liverpool is because Manchester is, like, straight up Irish immigrants and Liverpool is Orangemen town. That’s why they have the July 12th parade, they’re all marching down the street, like the Duracell bunny. That’s just a fact. It was blown the shit out of in World War 2 because it was the port where all the supplies were coming in, and they just pumped in all the people that were running for their lives from Belfast. If you listen to their music you can just tell it right off.

I’m not getting into the politics, but thank god that stuff has just toned down to a degree, because nobody needs that in their life.

The situation in Northern Ireland, you mean?
Yeah. Thank God, you know? Who needs that stuff. It never really accomplished jack diddly-squat.

Looking at the album tracklisting it gives the impression that it is going to be quite an angry album, but it doesn’t actually sound as “angry” as the song titles suggested.
I very much look at this more as art, over commerce, 100%, and always have. That’s why it’s for free. So, one the one hand, this is a video record, it’s called “The Book of Days” – we have videos for all the tunes on YouTube, but we have modified ones that are going to be released in a book. They could all be in the Tate museum, they’re just very interesting visual “pieces”, of just really strange things. One of the things that we were attempting to do was a lot of psychedelics and amphetamine at the same time and sort of go berserk in Viking style in Iceland and just let it all rip. Kind of in a post-modern apocalyptic way. I think that everybody just plays so safe with their career, and it’s… music is insufferably… They’re cutting scores of bands off EMI, we’re watching the flagship of England’s record labels crash, just tank. It’s all these people that have no concern for music or art, and it’s just the legalese and the commerce of it, and it’s a little bit ridiculous. It’s one thing to have Simon Cowell just invent a new crap act a week… Most people can’t really hear music or look at art on a deep level, and I want them to enjoy themselves too, so by all means – sell videos, playstations, whatever people are into; but you know, then there’s the deeper level: things that you’ve really got to also support too. It’s kind of a joke to have the “Imagine Tour” and all that stuff, and not really support people that have really got the cause going, I think. I’m not really terribly troubled what people think of it.

How does the creative process work, for you?
This is how it works: I would go in, with no idea. I do have techniques, I’ve invented these techniques. I would drag a person in with me, and they would go “What are we gonna do?” and I would say “Gee, I don’t know. Watch! Check out this drum beat, and then play for one second and then just make it up.” Play it, and we were just trying to have as much fun. Then I would go “Okay, we’ve just worked for about 30 minutes, lets go and have drinks”, and then come back and it’d be done.

So it would be quite collaborative, then?
No, not really, because I would set the parameters, I would tell them what they couldn’t do – and one of those things is no talking in the studio whatsoever. And no arguing, and just do as I say, jam on the guitar and just bang on it.

Do you have a clear idea in your head of the sound that you are trying to replicate?
I’m deeply troubled about the direction that society is taking, including with the conflict, and the way the media backs away from reporting how things are actually going.

Do you mean in Iraq?
And also with the finance – I mean, look at the US market. The thing is, you’re going to see so many people that worked so hard – not the young people, your average yuppie scum that’s dancing through life with their own acid at a Grateful Dead show – this is more like, pensioners and stuff, and their whole thing is gone, and the revision even of things that they were promised for going through D Day or whatever. We have a large proportion of society, here in the UK, that wants to exterminate the Tesco trainers crowd, I mean, they want them dead – the kids on the buses that are from council flats. The liberal MPs that are controlling the youth programmes, are super resentful and hateful. Resentful that the State is looking out for these kids when their own kids don’t have these opportunities. You can’t put them in prison, most of these kids – you basically just can’t, they’d get killed in a minute. They just grew up listening to Eminem, and they fancy themselves toughies. They’ve got the real guys locked up for life. So there’s this big argument going on. It’s getting scarey, it really is almost like Clockwork Orange-land or something. But maybe that’s just age talking.

It seems that you have a very good awareness of what’s happening in the UK for someone based in the US.
I’m not based in the U.S., I’m based in Iceland. I actually live all over – I’m technically jet set, but I’m not posh, and throwing it in people’s faces. I live very humbly but I live all around the world. I keep a residence in Manhattan, and I keep one in Iceland, and I’m looking for another place. I don’t plan to take up residency in the UK – unless I do something really miraculous and they invite me! I enjoy my time being here and we run our mutual businesses from here with all English employees, and I’m pleased as punch I’m not doing that from California or New York.

Are you going to be doing any shows here?
If I’m welcome. I really want to.

Tell me about last summer, what happened with truck festival?

They told me it was off. And Mark Gardiner and I got it on. I just said “Open up the college” because you can’t have 5,000 people with no train service and no police and no hotels because everybody’s flooded out. And we were able to do it. It was really fortuitous, and we donated the place to Oxfam – that was a positive thing. To me, it was the best solution – you can’t have all those people travelling from god knows where and being stranded with no hotels to go to. People found places to sleep and stay, or stayed up, and everything worked out well. As far as I know there were no major hassles at all.

We got to reunite Ride! I made the guys in my group learn the remaining parts so Andy Bell and Mark could just do their thing, and I just went outside and smoked a cigarette, and walked down the lane for a little bit, and just let them have their way. Mark has turned out to be a dear dear friend to me. He came up to Iceland and recorded with me. That was kind of a reward for us being able to pull that off. He’s just great. When Ride came out, and he was on his high as a 20 year old millionaire or whatever, major success, he was such a posh little shit, the smug little… When Creation started trying to sign our band in the very early 90s he was just awful, he was horrid. And to see an adult be so thoughtful, and so far beyond that and generous… it doesn’t happen – he’s the only person where I’ve actually seen it happen, where somebody just grows into “getting it”. It just doesn’t happen many times in your life up close. I have an infinite amount of respect for his talent and all that stuff. It’s a hard road for everybody, and that’s his lot, y’know?

‘We are the niggers of the world’ on the album sounds very much like a classical composition?
I think it’s neo-romantic. I made it up. I’ve never taken piano lessons, and I made it up when I was a kid. I was just drunk playing it and thought we should throw this one in for levity.

I did this album and this is our music. I built an orchestra – and it’s all real instruments – out of people in bars. It occurred to me that music fans probably took music classes, so I started asking, and brought them all in, and showed them exactly what I wanted. I had taught myself how to play all these instruments, but I was having a go at being able to sit back and listen to my own ideas, through other people. I’ve been really into that, more and more. It’s not that I can’t play. I really like the fact that people go “Oh, you’re a fucking asshole” or “You’re a jerk” or “You’re a crazy drug addict” or something, and then I just say that I’ve completely removed this, besides my ideas, now. Because it’s all bullshit, people’s petty little persnicketty crap…

Do you still get a lot of “attitude” from people you meet?
We’re trying to figure out how to provide Security. People throw bottles at me. They don’t realise I’m a master at aikido, a black belt – I will just fuck ‘em up. Head butt, to the face, ten at a time is easier than one at a time, do not care. They never see it coming. Everybody’s got that attitude, they’re dancing around like they’re King of the Planet. That is the ruin of our society. England’s so much about divide and conquer: this town hates that town, and these people hate that accent, and that stuff has just got to go away. I don’t want a uniform opinion but you don’t have to hate people for their accent or the town that they’re from, or the footie club – who cares? While you guys are arguing about footie clubs, I’ll take fuckin’ all of your girlfriends. That’s just reality: have fun at the pub! I just don’t care. Apologies about my language, Ma’am.

Is there anything else that we haven’t covered yet you’d like readers of the web site to know about?
I want them to know that all of our music is also for free online, but feel free to buy the record: I don’t care either way. I created it with the intention for people to hear it, and I hope people enjoy it for what it is. I would hope that anybody who has an artistic bent would try and do something better. I mean, I can sit in the back of the car with my wife and just listen to their record.

Should people send you their music, then?
No, because then it’s this thing where people are like “I like your music, so you have to listen to mine”, and that’s not okay. I’m going to find out about anything that’s great.

How do you find out about music? Do you listen to a lot of stuff online?
Well, first of all, I travel around the world a lot, and have correspondence with, like, 10,000 people. I’m not a sycophant, I don’t give a crap about any rock bands or what Amy Winehouse is whining about – I don’t care. I don’t care about people’s things. I’m gonna find it, if it’s great – I’m just gonna find it. Somebody will bring it to my attention. That kinda stuff.

What band(s) at the moment do you particularly enjoy?
I like Jakobinarina, from Iceland. They’re great kids. They’re probably going to get dropped, but all their videos are online too, and I just like when you see 17 year olds really kicking butt. They’re way better than The Strokes ever were, and it’s just funny, what they’re singing about. Singapore Sling, too, another Icelandic band. That’s great. I’m sure I could think of a million more but I’m just…

Well, thanks for taking the time to talk with us. Hopefully we’ll get to see you play a few dates here soon.
I think it’ll happen, cheers.