Anton Newcombe was the star of the 2004 documentary DiG! Since then he’s criticized the documentary for making him look like an egotistical monster.
They didn’t exactly have to stretch themselves. During Ondi Timoner’s documentary Anton claimed to be the record company and the son of God too. He was arrested for booting an audience member in the head and his PR lady warns me minutes before I call him that he tends to be a bit moody and might cancel the interview midway. So I figure the best way to break the ice is to fess up and admit that a friend of mine short-changed him in a bar.
Anton shrugs it off.
He did? That’s cool, I don’t hold any grudges. It’s only money anyway.
In an era when bands generally write as little as possible, BJM manage to put together about an album a year. Are you writing much these days?
I never do records because I need to pay the rent, I just collect songs and try and make things happen. Because there’s so much stuff, I thought that I could take a break from that for a while because I don’t think people are familiar with our whole body of work. It took a long time for us to get over and tour Europe. We had to change our agents. We were on the front cover of every tabloid and you think, “well isn’t this a good time to do a European tour now” and they still couldn’t get it together. But eventually we did it.
You guys have more or less been the American tabloid equivalent to what Pete Doherty and Babyshambles was over here in Europe.
They like to make an example of people in the UK. They don’t want to make them too popular. We have been in Sweden before and we were playing some of the same places Babyshambles had been and the police were just following us around all the time. It’s like they invite these bands to play these festival and then try and arrest them. But Pete’s brought that on himself in equal parts. He never really cares, “so what, I’m on dope”.
It was good publicity for them though.
Now how can that be good? Back in the day when the Dandy Warhols first did NME and they were talking about how they like to do coke in jacuzzis with people’s daughters, I told Courtney (Taylor) don’t be saying that cos you’re going to get a torch up your butt from some council member. Some people just talk like that.
Well, it just means that the music comes second then doesn’t it?
All that stuff is really temporary, like the façade of a building or a statue left out in the weather. And no one remembers if you can write a song anymore. Like that’s okay if you’re someone like GG Allen with that back alley ideology, but a lot of people look up to Pete and adopt his style. It becomes their identity. But whatever, I’m not picking on Pete.
What’s your feeling towards record labels? You’re not exactly a label’s dream signing.
Record labels have no ideas of their own. Labels push you and tell you you’re the greatest but that doesn’t earn you respect. It’s like if you’re an oarsman in the boat and even if you’re the hardest rower ever it doesn’t matter how much you row if there is a hole in the boat, you’re going to sink to the bottom. Some people have just really bad ideas and they make the mistake of thinking the idea is them and they attach so much value to it that they can’t bear to see it fail, and they’re going to show everyone that they’re right. You have to be objective and say hold on this isn’t great let’s change it. Ideas have a greater power then no opinion. People always tell you what they don’t like but they won’t tell you what they do like. It’s always important to know why you feel the way you do and that’ll put you on the right path. I wanted to create the sort of music that I would listen to and that’s the only reason I make music. So much music exists in the world for people who don’t want to hear themselves think. That’s fine right, but I like things with a bit more depth.
How would you describe the BJM sound?
Well our music was like a natural reaction to the fact that no one was beating a path to our door to sign us. Once we got the outlines, we just worked on the songs and it didn’t matter if they weren’t pristine. If you listen to Radiohead’s Amnesiac that’s a pristine record, even the digital bits are recorded very well but that’s never been the most important thing for us. We just wanted to put out records and build a little world, you know.
Do you worry that people are only interested in your music because of the movie and that they only come along to gigs to see you lose it on stage?
That’s ok, we’re tough. I don’t feel obligated to people. That’s their fault if they want to be that way. I don’t really know what to say to them. All I know is that last time we came to Europe, there were huge crowds and everyone was really nice.
Does everyone want a piece of you?
I don’t know. I naturally shut down when someone talks at me. To be fair I dominate a lot of conversations but I’m listening to exactly what they’re saying. And when I feel that people are being aggressive I just remove myself from that situation.
Do you like coming to Europe?
When we started in 1990, we were kids and our only goal was to go to the UK, not even to make a record just to go the UK and freak people out.
Why the UK?
The history. A country that can produce Joy Division and get it. It’s something that’s built in and people get it. They treat their bands like football clubs. We always thought the UK was our goal.
You could probably write a good book on what not to do as a rockstar.
That’s what I plan to do. I plan to move to some northern country and just write.
Brian Jonestown Massacre play Strand together with Kurt Vile and a couple of other bands on June 26th.
