SMPR Archives: Brian Jonestown Massacre Interview

02 Jun 2010 Comments Off

by jianda monique in Articles by Ji, General Ji, Jianda Artist Interviews Tags: album, Anton Newcombe, Article, Brian Jones, brian jonestown massacre, Genesis P. Orridge, interview, jianda, Matt Hollywood, Methodrone, music, My Bloody Valentine, Psychic TV, Sonic boom, spacemen 3, Velvet Underground

Brian Jonestown Massacre Interview

by Jianda

No phone or fixed address to speak of, all-night jam sessions, allusions to hallucinogens, spontaneous performance art spasms…this is Brian Jonestown Massacre.

Its figurehead, Anton Newcombe, has been well aware of the hippie/beatnik deal since bolting off to San Francisco at 14 to lodge with the squatters. Coupled with alleged rumblings that Anton is Brian Jones’ illegitimate son, this pins his aesthetics somewhere between Jack Kerouac and, well, Brian Jones.

Anton trails off, critiques and mocks himself, and runs head-on into non-sequiturs, spiralling with the same haphazard grace as the band’s current album,

Methodrone. It’s Newcombe, along with his childhood friend and bandmate Matt Hollywood, who round out their My Bloody Valentine meets Velvet Underground reverberations into sheer blizzardry.

“I used to be into effects,” he continues, “Like, we used to play shows where we’d all have at least two amps, sometimes five, split with a digital delay. That’s cool, but there’s something about nuts and bolts. I’ve always been into minimalism and repetition. Matt and I have played songs for just, six hours straight on just E and A chords. Total Spacemen 3.

Lulling and elegant, Brian Jonestown Massacre also trips into pure, pared-down mod rock, at once embracing and shunning how must modern music’s so overproduced.

“See,” says Anton, “They used to record a lot simpler a long time ago, and then after the ’70s when The Police came out, they started getting really complex like putting a mic on every instrument and the drums, instead of letting it all blend together in a way. Like, the older way. That’s the magic stuff.”

Having both been a backup band for Sonic Boom (Spacemen 3) and finished a west coast tour, they’ve gained the admiration of Psychic TV god Genesis P. Orridge, who’s going to collaborate on their next studio album.

Methodrone is actually made up of the band’s earlier works, mostly demos, and Newcombe says they’ve already evolved to a new, more pop-driven sound, with only smatterings of noise.

“Not to be some tweaker paisley shirt guy, but 1967 was it. There was a sense that anything could happen–the youth culture and everything, and technologically, a lot of people did all the greatest, most amazing stuff. I love psychedelic music, and the blues. Like, Zulu warriors, they chanted blues. They could go into battle and die, so they were like ‘this is all we can do.’ Which is interesting when you add ambient, industrial, repetitious guitarwork. Strange. A lot of psychedelic bands are limited by R&B instead of using everything.

“Some people,” he goes on kinda emphatically, “don’t ever sit alone in a room with nothing else that’s gonna bring ‘em through the night but an album they like. They just go home and don’t think about things, and that’s a shame. We should make an epic record. Call it, Pharmacopaea, like, a cornucopia of drugs!” He laughs, maybe kidding.

“With us,” Anton says, convinced, “there’s an energy when you can barely hold on to something. Watching it slip through your fingers. Some people are into that, you know?”

Visit BJM at: www.myspace.com/brianjonestownmassacre or www.brianjonestownmassacre.com. And just get totally far out with it.

Originally published at Underscope Magazine