Anton Newcombe Interview 2014 (part 2)

PART TWO of Brian Jonestown Massacre

Interview with Anton Newcombe (2014)

By Alexander Laurence

This past week, Brian Jonestown Massacre played Austin Psych Fest and two shows in California, to packed houses at The Observatory, and the Fox Theater in Oakland. The shows have been wild and energetic, and many new fans are seeing the BJM for the first time. It’s the tenth year anniversary of DIG The Movie documentary. Anton Newcombe has seemed to have touched many generations of people with his songs and his own personal story. This summer BJM will be playing all over Europe, and many festivals. They have just been announced to play Glastonbury. The excitement continues. The new album REVELATION is coming out, and the new songs have gone down well. I am looking forward to the show tomorrow night at the Wiltern. It’s on May 10^th, 2014, and The Three O’Clock and Joel Gion and the Primary Colours are opening up. The Three O’Clock are an LA band that was part of the psychedelic movement of the early 1980s, which may have been an influence on Anton Newcombe. In the second part of this interview we talk about the new album and other things.

AL: When are you going to be in Ex-Berliner Magazine?

Anton: We should be hitting up David Strauss and publish this interview in Ex-Berliner. I press all my fucking records in Germany. Strauss might not think it’s a big deal but we sold out Postbahnhof. That is a big deal. It would be funny to be in that magazine.

AL: You have been posting a lot of pictures of food on Twitter. I think when you got to Austin there was a picture of a Reuben Sandwich. You can’t get that over in Berlin?

Anton: Everything is pork right? It would be something else. The reason why a Reuben is beef in America is because it’s a Jewish thing. They don’t eat pork. The rye bread and sauerkraut, and all that shit. I will have to figure it out. I haven’t located a German deli. Instead of a deli, in Germany, you would go to a little beer garden. It’s like having worker’s food. I haven’t seen a deli there.

AL: What type of food do you like when you come back here?

Anton: Mexican. Real fucking Mexican. Like El Farolito in the Mission District (San Francisco). Any place that is like lard, beans, carne asada, and chopping beef on the grill. A line of real Mexicans sitting there and eating. I also love Japanese and Korean food. Now in Germany, they have these sushi places everywhere. You go there and the fish is frozen. In LA, the guys are making it right in front of you. I will post some pictures of that. Maybe Friday, I will do the late night Korean. Maybe after the show. There are a lot of great places around the Wiltern.

AL: So you have the new album REVELATION coming out next week. The first song is called “Vad Hande Med Dem?” What is that about?

Anton: It means “What Ever Happened To Them?” Remember when The Strokes were all over the place and everybody was talking about them? They were all in your face for years. And then, boom, it’s gone. Out of sight, out of mind. Every single thing can be like that. So important and central one minute, and then gone. That is what that is about.

AL: Then there is “What You Isn’t.” It has a classic BJM riff and sound. It has an aggressive vocal. Are you talking to yourself or some specific person?

Anton: Yeah. Just mumbling to myself. When I make up all the songs and ideas it’s like conceptual art, and then I tweak it a little bit. When we play live it’s like performance art. I leave it unfinished. I screw it together the best that I can. That keeps it interesting for me. I am finishing up the words every time I play it live. It’s not exactly what is on the record. The words will float a little bit. And that is something that I have done since the beginning. I am refining things on stage. It’s almost like method acting. I am really liking this song live when we are in the pocket. It’s like Let It Be, with elements of Roxy Music and Velvet Underground. It chugs along.

AL: How did you write these songs?

Anton: It’s really a surprise to keep coming up with songs after some many records. I didn’t know what I was going to do for this album. I was goofing around on my Moogs for nine months. I was making imaginary film music. I was collecting old gear for years and making music. I was talking to the other guys at the label and in the studio, and they said “If you want to tour in 2014, you have to make a new album.” So there was a deadline for me. I had to get back into BJM mode because I am the only one who writes the music.

AL: There is “Days, Weeks, and Moths.”

Anton: That one sounds really good live. It comes off way better than the record even.

AL: What is “Xibalba?”

Anton: That is about a battle at the gates of hell, that allowed the last Mayan earth cycle to go through. The army of God is fighting the army of the underworld.

AL: You are playing three or four new songs in the set?

Anton: Yeah. Set times fluctuate. It’s hard to make everyone happy. I have people in my band who don’t want to play certain songs. And then there are problems with the voice. I am not going to be able to pull off that song. I frown when people say “It’s been 20 years since Methodrone came out. Let’s go to Australia and do an album tour.” I don’t want to do that. I know people get off when J Mascis plays the whole record.

AL: Bands like Wire and The Fall don’t do that specific album stuff. But I guess there are others like Echo and The Bunnymen and Primal Scream who do.

Anton: I like to keep it forward thinking. I like to keep whatever it says on the tin. There are fourteen albums. We get stuck playing some of the same songs because my band are so lazy. They are slackers. We have added a few old songs that we have never played before. It’s just a set of stuff and I hope people can enjoy it for what it is. In Europe the trains shut down at an early hour. It’s such a pleasure in America when they let us play for over two hours. We are one of those bands that can actually do it really well when we are in good form. It doesn’t get old at all. What the fuck actually happens when you hear that many songs? The shows this week should be good. But the shows in Europe this summer, we should be hitting our stride, and people will trip out.

AL: Have you seen Joel Gion’s new band?

Anton: Not yet. But he is opening up the next few shows. I will see him then.

AL: And you are playing with The Three O’Clock at the Wiltern.

Anton: How funny is that? They just popped out of the woodwork. I was excited about that because I used to watch MV3 back in the day. Before that when I was a kid, we loved The Salvation Army. Those guys were the coolest band. There is a big psychedelic vein that runs through me. It’s not just the Paisley Underground thing. It’s not just the punk thing with the attitude. It’s the psychedelic thing where anything can happen. I can try to play the sitar. I can try to orchestrate something. I can try to play the blues. It’s like the Rolling Stones: anything can happen next. That is what psychedelic music is about for me. Even when The Three O’Clock were a punk band, they were clued in to the psychedelic thing. My friends were into them because they knew about music. They weren’t doing the usual thing and saying “Fuck Hendrix and The Byrds.” No way. They played like punk rockers and played Rickenbackers and played real melodies.

AL: Hardcore punk had this really narrow unmusical view of the world. Bands like Three O’Clock were an opening of the mind for a lot of people.

Anton: Yeah. We reached out to them, and now they are on the bill. We have three bands now.

AL: The Three O’Clock and many of the bands of the Paisley Underground never broke out of the 1980s mindset.

Anton: The only band to really make it out of that world was Mazzy Star. They were in Opal and Rain Parade from before that. They blew it because they stopped making records. They should have said “fuck off” to Capitol Records and kept on making weird records. They should just make beautiful music. People would still be into them if they continued. The world moves on. 

AL: There has been an article about you in the NME. You are on the cover of some European magazines now. You are playing Glastonbury and all these Festivals. There are 50+ shows in Europe this summer. It seems like there is more interest in BJM now than there usually is.

Anton: The press is even crazier than you can imagine. I don’t even share all it. There is stuff in Sweden. I am not paying any attention to it. It’s strange when things click like that. It could not be the best record, but if all the ducks are in a row, then things can happen for you.

AL: It’s your time.

Anton: Well, yeah. It’s like how it was for The Strokes. People were ready for a guitar band of that caliber at that time. It clicked for them. People were willing to write about the band even if it was pushed by the label. Everyone was ready for that at the time. It’s a shame. I think that they should have done more records. Out of all those guys, I really like Albert Hammond jr.

AL: Since you are more popular, do you have stalkers and people sending you weird emails?

Anton: People stalk me. I try to block them. People show up when we play. All kinds of weird shit. There is this fucking weirdo who moved to Berlin who thinks he is me. He has dyed his hair. He looks like me and wears the same clothes. He has a facebook profile with my name and pretends to be me, and he tries to communicate with people that I know. I am not on facebook. People ask me if I am on there. I told him if he comes close to me or my family I will break him in half. Germany is usually non-confrontational.

AL: Time to get a restraining order.

Anton: I got mobbed in Bordeaux by fifteen teenagers. My tour manager gave me a cell phone and told me to pretend that I was on a call. I was backstage and I had to walk towards the tour bus. I felt bad because it was a Hollywood trick.

AL: You have these three shows in California. You go back to Berlin. What happens after that?

Anton: I fly back home and chill with my baby for a little bit. Then the gear arrives. We change the recording studio into a cramped rehearsal studio. We only have a few days to get tuned up and get ready for the next leg of the tour. There will be some dinners and some parties. Then we are on the bus to France.

SEE PART ONE HERE