Counterfeit ruminate on rejecting the systems of a capitalist society

Back in February, before Coronavirus had encroached upon our fair shores, Counterfeit were sat in a cafe in Shepherd’s Bush. With seven of us crammed around two pushed together tables getting ready to order some brunch, frontman Jamie Campbell-Bower mentions; “I think society…we’re in this crux point right now where the capitalist model is failing.”

We’d been ruminating about the human existence—hefty, indeed, especially over egg whites and americano’s—but Counterfeit have been digging into trying to support that ever-increasingly toughening journey with their recent string of singles; unbeknownst to the relevancy of both the new songs they were penning, and interview conversation.

Their latest, “Getting Over It”, concerns being done with just cracking on and allowing things to be. It comes following up the succession of “11:44” (“a massive middle finger to those systems put in place to keep us suppressed”), “It Gets Better” (“connecting with self and working through the detritus that is modern society”) and “The New Insane” (“psychologically, I would describe as the most fucked up [as] it's acting upon the ego response”), keeping this string of thought growing; Counterfeit’s dive into the modern human existence is very much becoming a ‘how-to’ guide of sorts.

The fact that each move they’re making is finding a facet of living in this modern age in its barefaced truth, one that was amidst struggles even before a pandemic hand was turned, is purposeful. Since forming back in 2015, Jamie has undergone his own journey of understanding.

A face you might recognise when he’s not snarling at the helm of Counterfeit, leading sweaty gatherings of fans through this new knowledge, he’s also an actor. With parts in the Harry Potter and Twilight franchises; playing a drugged-out rocker in a Guy Ritchie film; and even a slot Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd adaptation; he’s had his fair share of attention, and the addition of becoming the frontman to a punk band ultimately lead to his going through personal revolutions, spiritual and physical, and most importantly, and something that is truly being tested this year—empathy.

“Becoming truly empathetic and embracing the idea of love? It's fucking hard,” he reckons, voice still hoarse from the previous night's performance. “You've got to deflate your ego; like I said, reject the systems that you've been taught, and that I've been taught, and to stop believing your own bullshit.”

Which is what he had to do, and what Counterfeit are currently doing. His brother and guitarist Sam Bower adds his take: “I think it's difficult with empathy though because the idea of empathy is like, how would I feel in that situation, which in itself is quite egotistical?

“To truly be empathetic, I think as Jamie says, it can be really difficult in certain situations and sometimes it's okay just to go, 'Look, I really have no idea how that must feel.' And that's completely fine,” he says. “To be able to listen and sit down, that's how you can learn and, you know, be empathetic in those situations. Everyone's experience is so different and you have to be open to that.”

The world is currently in a frothing storm of these ideas; empathy, understanding—the hateful right doing its best to out-shout the balancing left—and in the middle lies that concept. To Jamie, “There’s an idea of empathy and then there is true empathy,” he says, referring to the plastic version as “a fucking Hallmark greeting card saying 'Sorry For Your Loss' which is just bullshit.”

To expunge the true idea of empathy, for him, it was about understanding his belief system, “that universal love that deeply connects us all - that is true empathy.”

Taking things down to the next layer he continues: "But it's also like, what's your belief system within that? What's my belief system within the universal idea of love? Is there an afterlife? Does a soul exist? Okay, if the soul exists, then a 'human being' is redundant so therefore if we're talking about the idea of loss, which seems to be where I'm at, then the loss of the human body form doesn't mean anything, because the soul continues.”

Beneath the rugged conductor hat adorning his head sits two piercing blue eyes that know more than they let on. For Jamie, his life has been building to this point, through a childhood of spiritual awakening, to the recovering of addiction after going through the transition from being another regular person to an actor, then a rockstar—two cliche ego traps if there ever was one.

Given the bridge between excess and spiritual understanding doesn’t appear by itself, Jamie’s began around five years ago. “My life was fucking carnage…my life was fucking carnage!” he says, a big throaty chuckle stampeding through the words.

“It was chaos! So much so that at the end of my drinking and using career...” a smirk breaking out across his face as he pauses. “I've got to remind myself not to look back on it fondly because it was fucking miserable, but I had a friend round and I was talking to them about things that I thought we'd got done in the morning together, and she was like 'I've literally been here for like the last half an hour' and I was like: 'Oh shit, something's gone wrong. Something's like, fucked, you know?”

Along with the displacement of time came depression, leading to “that moment I ended up on my knees just going ‘Help…I need fucking help’, and that was the moment that I realised that I had to just stop, and take that moment to breathe and pull it together.”

These days, his world is more full of praying, reading, meditating and generally checking in on himself. The journey away from the chaos proved a challenge simply because “to deflate the ego so dramatically, it requires complete switching from 'I am out of control, I am powerless' and all that shit.”

The openness and awareness he’s had since being a child are partially what led to the path of addiction. Citing himself as “very spiritual—I was kind of fascinated with the world”, Jamie found the overwhelming nature of feeling everything on a deep level something that needed muting. “Because I'm an addict, I discovered alcohol and was like 'Oh, I can manage my emotions. I can manage how I feel, I can run away from the fear of being powerless, I'm now in control,” he says

“Well actually I wasn't in control—I was fucked from the word go,” a smile breaking out on his face as he abruptly corrects himself. “And so five years ago I made that decision and it's been hard. It's certainly been a journey, and throughout that five years, I certainly haven't done everything right and I've strayed off that path and those demons, the thought demons have come back… but what I remember in those moments—and I've been saying this a lot recently—my mantra is: ‘Do the next right thing, one thing at a time and that will take you to where you need to go.’” Another hearty laugh erupting out as the rest of the band, Tristan Marmont (who has since left), Roland Johnson and Jimmy Craig, sit tucking into their food.

From their point of view, they’ve all gone through a similar understanding of needing to break things down to build them up again. Jamie mentions: “As we progressed as a band, we’ve certainly embraced that practice a lot more. When we first started it was like: 'How hard, how fast, how loud can you play' and the pre-show thing was fucking carnage in the dressing room. It was mental, whereas now it's a lot more centred.”

The evidence of Counterfeit’s growth comes from the fact none of these anthems for the disillusioned come from “a conscious decision”, instead it simply comes from Jamie sitting down and asking himself: “'How am I feeling?'”

So, how do you cope with your subconscious showing you a reality like that? “Well…fuck”, another laugh as he considers, a finger with a tattooed cross unfurling to scratch his face. “I think we all go through these stages of trying to sort of connect to our true selves and working through our shit.”

Jamie knows that the truth can only come from himself: “I can only write about my experience as a person and what it means to be here as I'm sort of working through life,” he says.

"What I'm finding particularly interesting at the moment is this conscious awareness that we're all here, and deeply connected by something other than human thoughts,” Jamie ponders. “Other than ‘I think therefore I am’, you know, and what has happened to other people, and how do other people feel about that.

“As I become more awake and more aware as to why we are all here, all these belief systems that I had about myself are fading away. It takes work because we have to recognise our responses to things, our failures — we’re fallible, we're human. We're [affected] by the outside all the time; fucking billboards, magazines, internet, whatever it may be, you have to get rid of those to experience what it means to be a living, breathing, human being.”

What does it look like, then, when Jamie is facing himself on such an existentially vulnerable level? “It looks like a lot of fear. It looks like a lot of fear!” He repeats louder through cracking laughter.

“Yeah, I mean, for me to sit there as a human being and recognise each fault and flaw that I have requires an immense amount of courage. The thing is we're all fucking faced with the same problems. We're all faced with the self-serving fear because we are brought up in a society that has taught us [to] fuck the next person over in order to be the best. That's fucking bullshit! That's all a load of horse crap really. So how does it look? It looks mental. It looks like I should be locked up, but I'm certainly not alone in having those thoughts you know, it's a journey, and it's a process.”

On top of this introspection, Jamie is looking to his earlier years for guidance. Understanding that he’d “certainly changed from the age of 16 to 26” which, in his egotistical bubble, he was unaware of.

“I haven't always done the next right thing all the time, and that's where I faltered. That's where I'm fallible in those moments. I need to be like, 'fuck, I am not the creator of this world. I am not the director, the producer of this existence, you know what I mean?' It's not down to me. I certainly feel like in the last ten years there's been a shift but the further I go into it, the more I am looking back at my childhood, that's where I was truly happy because nothing was in the way. There was nothing there. It was just pure unadulterated happiness.”

A process is how all things can be summed up. There shouldn’t be any one fix for anything—we adapt and learn, it’s how humans have existed for millennia. Which brings us back to Jamie’s original rumination of the capitalist society being in its crux point.

“It's failed us as a species, it's failed us as human beings, and there's this evolution that seems to be happening among everyone that's like rejecting those taught philosophies and those taught ideals and going back. Let's get back to why we're here,” he says. In terms of how he’s combating these systems, he mentions an ever-increasing act of defiance. “It's a small thing that I've done for the benefit of my spiritual awakening for the benefit of hopefully you know, being here and being able to serve other people…I'm gonna make it sound like I've done something amazing!” His now trademark chuckle breaking out again.

“I deleted Instagram, and a friend of mine texted me the other day and she said, ‘Where are you at the moment? I deleted Instagram so I can't follow you where you are on tour’, and doesn’t that fucking say everything?

“People are beginning to reject these ideas. Don’t let the words spiritual connection freak you out, but that connection seems to be the most paramount thing that's on people's minds. How can we come together? How do we come together? Yes being kind, yes, to all of those things but what does that look like? How does it manifest itself?”

A question pondered, and almost coming to fruition in these whirlwind days where we’re all systematically still frozen back in March, just before lockdown. But since that’s beginning to thaw with billboards spouting up urging us back into the offices and pens, we seem to be battling back.

Knowing that the urge to fight goes against the natural state of being Jamie dives further: “But that's the thing; our ego, my ego, your ego, Sam's ego, Tristan's ego is like, ‘No, no, no, vulnerability is shit. Don't do it. Don't do it. Maintain your philosophies, maintain your idea’.” He says, shaking these doubts off.

But learning is the key to understanding. Without the experience or education of looking at someone else’s perspective, and seeing the hurt or reasoning, you can’t possibly begin to empathise. Sam adds his perspective to this process: “It's a big thing that I try and always do with this band; just constantly learn. You're surrounded with, in our case, five other guys [and] that can be fucking tough.

“It can be really fucking difficult. As guys, it's very easy to be shut in and be like 'I can't be the emotional one, you know, I've got to be strong’, and that's not necessary. It's complete bullshit. Allowing yourself to be vulnerable in a group of five guys isn't necessarily the easiest thing to do, but we've got to a stage now where I think we can do that and we've built up the trust.

“The more we communicate, and the more we chat and be honest with each other, the more that happens, and the more we all continue to grow together, and the stronger we become as a unit.”

Nodding in agreement, Jamie adds the flip side to the grander scheme away from Counterfeit: “Of course, always remain sceptical. If something doesn't sit right with you, I'm not saying go and look into fucking Scientology, let's always remain sceptical of the shit that is fucking weird, and is not okay.

“But yeah, it is scary and that battle between the idea of capitalism and this fundamental idea of what it means to be a human being is certainly happening. But it's happening on a level that is like those in power, those that run big businesses, they're just as trapped as we were. They’re just as consumed by it.

“How can we help them to go further because I'm sure that there's some guy sat in an office somewhere, who loathes his life, like he may [own] some huge boat, or have a big house, whatever but he probably loathes his life and he may end up realising what we're all slowly coming to and could end up being the fucking leader of that spiritual movement, and I'm all for that; like, fucking bring it on. I want to learn from those people."

Breaking it down further, he leans in close and rounds off his grandiose sentiment. “I want to learn from people. So there is a battle there, but as long as we are certain in the idea that we're doing something good, and we're trying to help, then it's okay.”

“That’s the human experience though, isn't it?” The last dregs of coffee being downed as the table is cleared, Jamie assumes an upright position, with an understanding adorning his face. “I guess why we're all here is to share in that growth; is to learn from one another, and is to listen and identify. That will be the thing that I think will help us all stay on the right track, I hope. I fucking hope.”