Blast from the past 2000: Black Box Recorder

I did this interview back during the first album in 1999. I ended up seeing them play a few times in New York City. They went on to do three albums. Now they are more focused on their solo albums. It's good to look back on one of my early interviews....

Black Box Recorder Black Box Recorder is Luke Haines, John Moore, and Sarah Nixey. They were formed in the year of Cool Britannia, the death of Diana, and the continuing old boredom. Luke Haines comes from the band The Auteurs which has done a few great albums in the past five years.

Black Box Recorder is like a cross of The Velvet Underground with Nico and Joy Division. But they have a sense of dark humor as is evident on their single "Child Psychology" where a young girl decides to give up on life because it's not worth the trouble. England Made Me is a full album about biting the hands that feeds. Only England, with its bland suburban lawns, dull repetitive newspapers, repressed teenage sexuality, obsession with interior decoration, mastery of the bile-ridden understatement, unique perspective and translation abilities with American pop culture, could have fueled this record. Only they could write a song like "It's A Wonderful Life" and make it sound like something is desperately wrong. They have been playing shows and recording a new album that should be released in 2000. Their album also features a version of Terry Jacks� "Seasons In The Sun." Discography England Made Me, 1999

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AL: How do you feel about the idea of bohemianism?

John: I don't know if you know this but I import absinthe into the United Kingdom. That's played a large part in my life. That's the extent of my experiences with bohemianism.

Luke: I have nothing to do with that. Get a proper job.

AL: Many people in bands in England on are welfare for a few years, till the band takes off or they sign a record contact. What do you think about that?

John: Signing on the dole in England is like the real art council grant. You can sign on without difficulty if you know how to deal with bureaucracy. If you tell a few white lies, you can stay unemployed for quite a long time and
develop your useful interests.

Sarah: They're making it harder. It's not glamorous in any way.

AL: How did you meet?

Sarah: This is my first proper band. I did backing vocals for another band.

John: You were the lead singer. The other lead singer was the backing vocals really. That was quite apparent. We were helping this band that Sarah was in. Then Luke and I had this idea for a band called Black Box Recorder.
Luke and I were going to make an avant-garde noise record. But then we thought that wouldn't be avant-garde, that would be predictable. People would think we were having a mid-life crisis. We knew immediately we had to get Sarah in the band. We sent her a fax offering her fame and fortune....

AL: What did you think of that?

Sarah: I just laughed.

Luke: See you in court!

AL: Luke, you are in this band as well as The Auteurs. How do you balance the two?

Luke: I don't really. The Auteurs hardly play at all. We're lazy. I don't like anyone in The Auteurs anyway. It's just me, and a bunch of blokes, and we're fairly indifferent to one another. It's good. They're never much impetus to play together because we never want to hang out. Both bands played at Reading this summer.

AL: Black Box Recorder did a stint at The Garage in London?

Sarah: It was once a month for three months.

Luke: It was kind of like The Velvets at Max's Kansas City, except it was upstairs at The Garage.

AL: Who writes the songs?

Luke: We write them together. We just bash it out.

John: We're like builders. Writing a song is like building a wall.

AL: I noticed that this record England Made Me is an aphrodisiac. You used to have Barry White and Marvin Gaye....

Luke: Now you have Black Box Recorder. It's a record where children will be conceived. It's known as a make out record. That's great!

John: It should be promoted as a make out record because that is a popular pastime.

AL: Are you promoting safe sex?

Luke: We don't care. The more dangerous the better.

AL: So, Sarah, what is your advice to young girls about using condoms?

Sarah: Um. I never really thought about condoms. They're not very much good.

Luke: They're pretty funny when you blow them up and put them on your head.

John: You shouldn't have any need for condoms until you're married.

AL: What do you think of the idea as music using literary devices? Most of your songs have narratives and characters....

Luke: You shouldn't get too bogged down in that. The thing about Black Box Recorder is that we're fairly succinct. You only have three and half minutes to say something in a song so there's no point in wasting it, having filler lyrics. So we hone it all down. We're not idiots....

John: (sarcastic voice) We're not trying to make a short story into a song.

AL: The character that is the subject in the song "Child Psychology" and a few other songs, I don't see as being just Sarah. People like Jewel or Beth Orton just write about themselves....

Luke: It's psychobabble. That's right, it's just a characterization. We would never spill our guts, when someone else is singing. We're too old for that.

Sarah: People think I have a problem. They ask me about my bad childhood.

AL: The British version which came out late last year has a different cover: it's a black and white photo of a glam guy and a factory worker. What's that all about?

Luke: It was actually a wrestler. They were miners. One of them was the father. He's starting there displaying his wrestling championship belt in a mineshaft with his father, who looks on disapproving, thinking "What the hell has my son become?" He's dressed as a girl. We both remembered
wrestling on TV as kids because that was the big thing on Saturday afternoon. It got axed because it became too pantomime.

John: Too low quality. This guy's gimmick was being a cross-dresser. In the early 1970's in England, any hint at being gay was completely unexceptable. He was hated by the audience. He was a bad influence because he was pretending he was gay. He supposedly had this feminine side in him
while he was wrestling all these guys who were like "Brickies." He was a nasty piece of work though. Wrestling was never that serious because he would really try to hurt people. It still hurts people's careers that they can't be openly gay.

AL: One of the ideas of the movie Velvet Goldmine was it was okay to be gay as a performer as long as you are entertaining.

Luke: That was a really bizarre movie. It was made by Todd Haynes, an American, who seemed to have this idea that provincial England in the 1970s was full of marauding glam rock gangs, which is odd. Except for David Bowie, glam rock wasn't that threatening or that androgynous. It was like
bricklayers, or ugly blokes wearing cheesecloth dresses. It was something that was on Top of The Pops. Never saw a glam rock gang in my life. So sue me.

AL: What bands do you like and would like to play with?

Luke: Really none. We're really autonomous. We won't play with other bands. Other bands are not a consideration. I'm indifferent. We do our stuff. That's why I do it, because I want something to listen to. If you can do it, you can construct the perfect soundtrack to your house, instead of letting someone
else do it for you.

John: If someone good came along, we would be foolish to turn them down. I like Air.

Sarah: I like The Cardigans.

AL: So you live in Central London. In Clerkenwell?

John: No. But we are part of the Clerkenwell Cabal. We are the center of the Clerkenwell literary scene. We get drunk and they think we're funny.

Luke: Apparently. It's only us. We show up to the openings of anything.

AL: Is it a rule in the band that you have to wear a suit?

Luke: You can be cynical about suits, but they are a good thing, if you're well dressed.

John: A well-cut suit can hide a multitude of sins.