Photo Credit: Bradley Garner
An evening of Brian Jonestown Massacre nears in Phoenix. Since the band’s inception in the early nineties, BJM has delivered endless streams of dissociative groove.
Before the show, Crescent Ballroom is in full swing of gear load-ins and soundchecks. In the back of the Ballroom, a narrow hallway leads to a door. As it opens, the dark corridor is suddenly covered in light. Smoke billows across the blinding sunshine. Amidst this overwhelming brightness stands BJM frontman, Anton Newcombe. With a smile he says, “What, you don’t like this whole sunshine thing?”
Within a few hours the sky fades to moonlight in the valley. It is time for a sold out show at the Crescent Ballroom. First up are local noisemakers, Strange Lot. Fast-paced rhythmic ebbs of fuzz permeate the building as frontman Dominic Mena paints the room with distorted waves of surf guitar. The three-piece beckons the evening into stranger tones.
Brian Jonestown Massacre takes the stage next. With seven musicians up on stage, the band maintains incredible unification. Such a number of strings grants the sound a great, immersive quality. Anton holds it down stage right, while Joel rhythmically sways at the center with his tambourine. It is a perfect balance really. Soon, Anton alludes to the fact that they will play for three hours. Sure enough, song after song is like the ignition of a live-wire, tapping into some deep, energetic trip. The consistent groove is something which can be counted on at a Brian Jonestown show. Fan favorite, “Anemone,” thrills all. Everyone sings along. The vibe is incredibly psychedelic yet mellow. It is a most synergistic combination. “Days, Weeks, and Moths” unifies the crowd in a gentle sway. That dissociative quality takes ahold. Newcombe’s voice and the surrounding harmonies sooth the mind, while the riffs offer something to focus on. The feeling continues with ‘(David Bowie I Love You) Since I was Six’. If the music is the anesthesia, the lyrics explain the pain in a most fastidious dream.
Earlier in the evening, a conversation unraveled in the green room. Anton talks about the symphonic mentality towards songwriting, his perception of reality this tour, along with a myriad of other insights, and glimpses into the realms of Brian Jonestown Massacre over the years.
‘Psych-Rock’ is a common descriptor for your music. Do you feel comfortable with that?
Well, I guess as a point of reference that’s ok. It is still completely vague. It is rock in a genre, but even hip-hop is folk music in a way, or old hip-hop. It’s music of the people for the people, bringing people together. The same things goes with a lot of different art forms. It’s only things like heavy metal, and all this other shit that are not folk rock. It is trying as fast as you can to get on a platform in front of people and be a rock star and rock out, which is a totally different thing that what I’m into. I’m more interested in creating cultures that replicate themselves. Meaning, you create an environment that you need to function in. There will never be a record store that only sells your record. Even online it is kind of a stupid idea. It’s like, “Oh, here’s my web store.” There will never be a club that only is open one day a year for you to come through in Arizona. You want a whole environment everywhere…people doing things…and real folk movements where people pick up this stuff.
When you look at the punk movement, they did their own thing. They bonded together. Then it became stupid when they stopped doing something in their shell. Then it was the fashion thing. The outward thing. What I learned when I was a little kid, when the police were attacking us for our hair, or whatever, was that the opposite thing happened really quickly. I thought, “Oh, this is all about who I am on the inside, and the outside is trouble. So I am just going to look normal and be even weirder.” You know what I mean? The costume doesn’t matter. A lot of people in the subcultures get called into it, like when you see 40-year old death rock couples walking down the street and they are in some crazy get-up and it is their whole lifestyle or whatever. It is all about you anyways. What makes you feel good.
What kind of musicians do you like to listen to, either when you were a kid, or now?
Psychedelic music. I’m from 1967. I listened to Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles Rubber Soul and Revolver, Simon and Garfunkel…just everything. Real good oldies. I liked every kind of music. I liked every single thing that was good. I kind of turned my mind off in the seventies towards everything because I hated burnt out coke-heads, whoever it was, like The Eagles or Fleetwood Mac, or whatever that bullshit was.
You are headlining Desert Daze festival this year. There are a lot of other psych-rock bands on the lineup. Do you feel that Brian Jonestown played a role in charioting this genre or keeping it going?
Well that is what I kind wanted to do. I started out by teaching my friends how to play music so I’d have someone to play with. There were no bands that were playing that kind of music; It didn’t exist. So had to invent that part of it, even if there were other things going on in England that were similar. We had the same record collections, and liked the same kind of music, but there was a whole thing. Bands were moving. There was a band I am not gonna mention that moved from Albuquerque, New Mexico. They watched us play and immediately bought striped shirts and movie projectors because we used to have movie projectors on us. It was like “Uh, really?” They immediately copied us, calling up record companies. They were saying, “Here’s where it’s at.” The weirdest thing was happening. People were coming from other cities. Real together bands were copying us to be apart of this record company feigning frenzy. People were trying to sign my group and it was not happening. We had Red House Painters (band) move from Georgia so we could get a record deal, because that is where it was happening…because we had created this thing, but whatever.
Do you listen to any of these new bands?
Before I went on tour I wrote and recorded 45 songs in less than three weeks. So if you think about the amount of time it takes to record all that I don’t sit around and listen to other people. Plus I have my 3-year old. It doesn’t matter. I’m happy for other people. I hung out with Ty Segall. He’s a nice guy. He’s talented. He makes people happy. It brings people together. Thats what it is all about man! There’s way too much bullshit in the world. It’s crazy man. It’s disheartening.
How has your experience been working out of your studio in Berlin?
I have had a bunch of studios. This is my second one in Berlin. I had to move because the landlord decided to build condominiums on the property. He had all these warehouses, and different spaces, and I converted a two-story repair shop into a studio and then he decided to build something so I ended up getting a new one.
What different things going on in your life does that affect the music you create?
If you live long enough it becomes irrelevant because you have all the building blocks that you need. I do not have to be depressed to make sad songs because you have had a whole life of everything. There are so many disheartening things. You could just listen to the radio for five minutes and be in such a bad mood. You know, like reality…
Do you feel there is no ceiling to learning your instrument, or that you will never stop changing or improving?
It fluctuates. Certain things you get better at, and certain things you get worse at. It is crazy. You lose some stamina…this crazy frantic energy. You gain some other knowledges. It goes all around until your body gives up I think. In a lot of ways, I get weirder. So that is good. I just do crazier shit that is more impressive to the outside, technically or something.
Do you have a period of time that you felt was your best or most favorite musically?
I am doing great now. I’m telling you. I made up forty-five songs in that short time. You would have to hear them. It is nuts. It is not what would expect from someone who has been writing and recording in a studio since they were 12-years old. To be forty-eight and knock out that many good songs…
If you could offer any sort of advice or insight to a young musician on a quest to create, what would it be?
Metaphorically there are a couple different things. It does not matter how hard you row your boat. If there is a hole in it and you cannot bail water faster than the water is coming, then you are going to sink. So it is really appropriate to understand what is going on. It does not matter how hard you practice or how hard you’re working. If your band is not going to work, then it is not going to work. If you have a shitty band name, you are just working against yourself. It is almost better, than renting a rehearsal space, to spend a year thinking of a really good fucking band name. It is the same thing about your record cover. You have got to go to a real record store and look at everybody’s record and go, “Man I better have a good fucking idea because why would anybody want to buy a shitty idea?” It is not good enough to be like, “Oh my sister drew this and I like this.” You have to think about everybody else…the whole fucking world.
Would you say that goes against what you were saying about not worrying about others?
Well, you can be practical. You gotta be weird, see. You gotta have a theory about what you are doing, but you should still be aware of what everybody else is doing.’ I cannot tell you how many great drummers I have known that are all in really shitty bands. What is the fucking point? Everybody gets along and they are all good musicians, but the music is fucking horrible. Then they get to be about thirty and they sell their drum set. Why? Why did you not just figure out what is going on with it. So it is really important. It does matter how hard you row your boat. You can work as hard as you want, but if it’s a bad idea it is not going to work. People do that with restaurants all the time! People work their fucking ass off and they got no one in there, and you look at the sign and everything they’re doing. It is just stupid.
There is a restaurant across the street from my house in Berlin that I would see close down every couple months. One time it was called, Steaks & Friends or some shit. What the fuck? I would just call it, Eat, Motherfucker. In Germany you can actually say that. You can because if it is not in German you can say motherfucker on your business sign because it is not in German. So, you are not cussing. You can just call your restaurant Eat Motherfucker with a giant neon sign and everyone would think it was funny and not obscene because it’s not in German.
Have you observed any changes in your musical style over the years? 1997 versus now?
A few times I really wanted to make up something so much, but that is kind of in the wrong headspace—that is, when you are desperate to make something. It is such a stupid thing in comparison to just enjoying making something for its own reason. The same situation will lead me to a different outcome. If I am just making up music as much as I can and there is an overabundance of it, I do not have to use everything. That is how I originally taught myself how to play everything. If I make up a country song or something it was not that I wanted to be a country singer. It was just that I wanted to teach myself music. I had seen Hee Haw as a kid or whatever. My grandma was into that stuff. So I kinda knew how everything sounded, like the slide guitar.
You have a high capacity to produce a lot of music at once. How does it start for you?
A lot of times I hear whole things. Even when we were recording, we would be working on something, and I’d say, “Hold on, I’m working on something, and it is a totally different thing.” That quick. If I am already recording a bunch of stuff I would think, ‘What is that song I’m hearing?’ Then I would realize it was me. I would hear the whole thing, but there is no thought process of, “Where does this go?” For example, I was working on a song for this Italian actress, and I was thinking in my head, “This has to go longer and crazier because it does this weird thing.” So, I was doing the math in my head, of how does this real, French sixties sounding thing, like a movie, go even more, and still make the math work? But I wasn’t playing, just in my head. It could be any instrument, and all of them have their own song. Even each guitar. The tones. The bass. When I play bass, or when I play drums, the organ, It all has its own gift or whatever to offer. You just kinda run with it.
I like to think of a song as a saga. There are so many different parts.
Yeah, exactly. That is a symphonic mentality. Not everybody even has that. You can also do that with your whole body of work, whether it’s a set or a record. Each song can be like the bridge or the chorus, and then, the refrain. A whole album can be like the two hands of the chords on a piano. The notes go up to harmonize in this secret way that only you can see. Such as, this one is in this key, and this next song is in this key, but it harmonizes. So secretly it makes the brain, for the listener, listen to it as a whole. It is a more satisfying thing. That is what these guys and ladies that are symphonic composers all realize when they make these whole movements in a symphony. They already see it that way. It could be organic. We could say the guy that invented the piano never took piano lessons. If we go back farther, the guy or gal that invented the flute did not take flute lessons. It is this organic knowledge. You got to know you can do it, and encourage yourself in a real private way. Inspire yourself.
Why make music?
I do all kinds of stuff, but this is one thing that I enjoy.
Over the years have there been any recurring interpretations of the band that have bothered you, something that you think people did not get?
Ultimately I am going to have the last laugh because if nobody gets it, then nobody gets it. I am a firm believer that artists and certain type of people should just leave a beautiful mess, for people to figure out what it means to them. That is just what is going to happen anyways. Everybody else, the detractors, it does not matter. My work is going to outlive their critiques. The bottom line is it is not going to go away so it doesn’t matter what anyone says. They like it. They don’t like it. They don’t know about it. They don’t know what to think about it. None of it matters because in a hundred years it will be the next set of people with their own set of feelings.
Is it the same feeling permeating through the eons, that everyone is just trying to grab onto?
Well, a certain thing can be a full spectrum of human emotions, or the universe and everything in it. That thing can be infinite.
