Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
In a dimly lit hotel room night begins to fall all around...
In a dimly lit hotel room night begins to fall all around. Amid the smoke laden atmosphere sit the ever austere members of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. But don't be quick to judge the head to toe black attire as hardness because underneath they're like shy, quiet children. "Would you like a marshmallow? We could roast them over a candle." Suggests the timid and insightful bassist, Robert Levon Been, who is to spend the rest of the interview turning said candle over and over in his hands.
It is difficult to keep their attention on any one topic and it proves even more difficult to keep them in one room when we ask what the sound of the new record is and Peter Hayes (guitar / vox) rushes off to find a copy.
"We recorded church bells from all around the country," grins Nick Jago (drums) cheekily until Robert interjects. "It's like the Arcade Fire record without the vocals or the songs." Already we can see the mischief emerging and so quickly try to steer them back on a serious track. "It's hard to explain music like that. The simplest way is - compared to the last record we made - this is the opposite of that, just a full on rock and roll record.
We feel like we have to introduce everyone to the music for the first time again, it's like a paranoia that no one has got it yet, that no one has tapped into what we're doing."
Oh but we have, and we've been tapping since debut 'B.R.M.C', 'Take Them On, On Your Own' and 'Howl'. Now we want to be drip-fed the new record so that we can understand every part of it. "Porno seems to be one of the influences on the album," chuckles Nick. "There are a couple of lines on the album that Robert says that actually make me think that. There's one on the new single 'Weapon of Choice' and it's: 'I've gotta speak and you wanna listen up / there is no time to feast your eyes'. To me that means you've got to listen up here and pay attention because you can't feast your eyes on porn and jerk off all day."
We are interrupted here, perhaps rather appropriately, by a little old man coming to fix the stereo, and so blasts of Neighbours echo in and out while Robert tries to explain the porno theory. "The lyrics in 'American X' are: 'you save yourself from a world without sin / you're born again with a means to an end'. It's like these people that are born again Christians, you're born again with this mission.
It's kind of just perverse anyway because first I started writing that with the intention of America's obsession with pornography. Any normal newsstand is just an obsession. It's kind of the analogy for the country."
Robert has a habit of trailing sentences off and starting completely new ones. It's a habit that makes him seem unsure of himself and confuses the listener. But coming from a band that has played to thousands of people it is difficult to understand how this could be. Then Peter returns and it is clear by his instant banter that he is the one that usually leads the conversations. And so he starts talking about the unusually instant birth of their latest: 'Baby 81'.
"This song [opening track] was actually recorded as soon as we finished recording Howl. Nick came in and played drums on a song and it just felt really good. We thought 'oh we've got all this equipment set up, lets just jam out' and this is what it sounds like."
"This is kind of how we play when we're just 'hang-out' playing," Nick enthuses.
Although Nick may seem the most childlike, always throwing in light comments and joking around, it's Peter who lets words gush at a pace that doesn't seem to allow time to think. When asked what they think about being referred to as the 'poor man's Jet' on The Killers message board he's unsurprisingly quick to answer. "There are a lot of poor people so I'd rather be a poor man's Jet than a rich man's Jet and we're not playing for the rich people either." But surely everybody deserves to enjoy the acute sound of BRMC? "Not everybody." But he says this unsteadily as though denying taking the last biscuit or not replacing the loo roll. "Well everyone's invited, but not everyone can stay."
Sensing the awkward turn in the air we start talking about their long break from the UK and Robert takes over. "I feel a little guilty because we weren't able to tour here very much on that last record so it didn't feel like we gave it its just deserts. Coming back now we're going to try to make up for it by playing a lot of Howl songs. Like a double feature."
BRMC are set to hit the streets of the UK throughout April anticipating the release of the Fatboy Slim-title-sharing 'Weapon Of Choice'. "It's definitely not about that song," assures Nick, "but maybe we can get [Christopher] Walken to dance in our video." And on that note we leave the guys among the marshmallows to devise ways of luring the dancing wonder himself.
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