September 29, 2003
Interview with Anton Newcombe
By: David Cobb
Houston Calling
[David Cobb]: Tell me a bit about The Brian Jonestown Massacre. What do you shoot to convey (if anything) in your music?
[Anton Newcombe]: I started The Brian Jonestown Massacre in 1990 because I wanted to be in a great band. I have always loved psychedelic music. By that I mean to say "mind expanding" music. My friends and I have tried to explore our own creativity, talents and imaginations and at the same time entertain others. I think we have been a great success.
[David Cobb]: What do consider to be your main musical influences?
[Anton Newcombe]: God, my god more specifically. As i understand him to be. I also enjoy so many types of music, so many great records and artists where could I ever hope to begain? Fuck it, here goes nothing: Enrique Carrouso, the la's, The Zombies, Joy Division, Primal Scream, The Doors, Howlin' Wolf, Rahsaan, Roland Kirk, Stan Getz and friends, Jesus and Mary Chain, Dead Meadow, Beatles, Kinks, Jimi rogers, Nusurat Fateh Ali Kahn, Kraftwerk, Faust, Neu', The High Dials, Lightning hopkins, Anup Jolota, Rolling Stones, Scott Walker, Hank Williams, Sr.
I'm all over the map really. I like everything except metal, rap-rock, most urban contemporary culture, etc. I don't need it. It says nothing to me, does nothing for me, in fact it wasn't even created with me in mind.
[David Cobb]: It's reported that some 40 different members have worked their ways through your band since its inception. Are you a slavedriver or what? (that's a joke) How do you feel about other relatively new bands like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and The Warlocks that seem to be influenced by your band (and many others) gaining popularity in the mainstream today?
[Anton Newcombe]: I'm not a slave driver. I have a vision of what I want to accomplish at any given moment. What it is I do and do not want. People come and go as their need and those of my own sort of hook up and travel the same direction and speed.
As far as The Warlocks or the B.R.M.C. are concerned, I wish them all the luck in the world. I will say this, I have Soundscan and those bands are not mainstream. They are a drop of piss in a very big pond indeed. Don't be fooled by the clever ways of the publicist, the influence of money and marketing. Outkast is mainstream. Those bands will be the guillotine that severs the head of the major label machine.
[David Cobb]: What is the one description that you hate to hear about your music?
[Anton Newcombe]: I don't hate nothing but hatred. It does however irk me a bit when people describe us as all things "Rolling Stones." When people (journalists) write that crap I know they have never even heard our music. The Stones were very much a blues-based band. They owe everything to black music. The only thing I owe the black man is respect. Just like everyone else, line, single file � no cuts.
[David Cobb]: What's your take on the state of the music industry today?
[Anton Newcombe]: If you would have asked me last year, I would have said "somebody call a doctor." Now I suggest we unplug the patient and say our farewells. I know there will always be a "music business," but the time has really arrived to rethink and reinvent the thing. It lacks leadership. Plain and simple. Vision, guts, taste, balls if you will. I think the lawyer just bent it over and sodomized it. Sickest thing is how many bands just can't wait to jump right in. Fact is most bands have no business ever being on a major label.
[David Cobb]: Obviously, since you have all of The Brian Jonestown Massacre albums available as MP3s on your website you aren't against the MP3 "revolution." What prompted you to give the fans access to all of your releases as MP3s? What other ways are you using the internet as a tool to market your band?
[Anton Newcombe]: Even as we speak, young people all over the world are deciding how they should best interact with not only new technology, but with all of the digitized information that exists. there are more young people right now out there swapping MP3's, that don't buy CD's, than there were rock fans in the sixties. I own my music, we still sell more records than ever before. I refuse to believe it hurts anything. It helps. I will continue to use every tool to execute my plan. Every medium, every fan.
[David Cobb]: If you could have any band/musician cover one of your songs, what song would it be and what band or musician?
[Anton Newcombe]: I'll be clever, I think i would do a medley. Have 50 Cent and Britany Spears duet, have The Neptunes and Death in Vegas remix it. I would take all of the millions of dollars I would make, and do something productive and meaningful with my life. It is my sincere hope that many of my songs will enter the popular lexicon as folk music, and that people will make them better.
[David Cobb]: Complete this phrase any way you want: "If love is a drug, _______? Richard Ashcroft once sang "the drugs don't work"--do you agree? Why or why not?
[Anton Newcombe]: I already did on one of my EPs: "If love is a drug, then I want to OD." Yep, I love that song. you should go to www.brianjonestownmassacre.com and check it out.
Who gives a fuck what he thinks about drugs? I read that something like 65 percent of the British population between the ages of 20 and 35 are fucked up off of their asses on ecstacy every single weekend. I was just over there and it is truly amazing. I think he is just talking more or less about his experiences, hanging out with shitheads like Robbie Williams backstage at Glastonbury, watching people have heart attacks on blow or pissing your pants on e. But that's what you get. He is the idiot that thought he wanted to be a rock star.
[David Cobb]: What's next for The Brian Jonestown Massacre?
[Anton Newcombe]: More questions. More answers. More tours. More records. More airplanes. More bars. More hotels. More memories. Death.
[David Cobb]: What is in your CD player right now?
[Anton Newcombe]: Funny you should ask. Our new album, of course...but then, I listen to vinyl at home so let me see....David Sylvian - Secrets of the Beehive.