"There's No Way I Will Stop Until I'm Dead or Dying" An Interview With Anton Newcombe

Anton Newcombe needs no introduction. He's the creative force behind one of the most consistently untouchable bands of our time, The Brian Jonestown Massacre. I'm not quite sure how but I managed to blag an interview with him over Twitter recently and so, as surreal as it sounds, here's my interview with Anton Newcombe:

I've lost track of the amount of bands I've seen as support acts or whatever that I can't believe don't pay you royalties. To me, The Brian Jonestown Massacre are one of the most plagiarized bands of recent times, do you feel that way too? If so, do you take it more as a compliment or an insult? 

Not really, I look at it like folk music. I really wanted to become a part of the popular lexicon and to an extent I think I have in some ways,one of them being you can google bjm in the news and it's going to be someone describing someone else and using me to help as a reference point. Let's face it, when i started I was interested in groups like Echo and the Bunnymen etc that also incorporated their respect for 60s music,then of course The Marychain came along, Galaxy 500, Opal and others... I liked all of that stuff. Then the UK thing really blew up,I always felt that we were holding the torch so others might see, because there wasn't a lot of music like us around. I would like to point out that when i started out playing, at like 12 or whatever, we wanted to be punk and post punk and be weird and freak people out. We didn't even think about it being a means to get famous or be rich, it wasn't on the radar really...it was about being fucking nuts.Being rad. I hate that most people could give a fuck about their own music to be honest and that's why you see them stop playing music. There's no way I will stop until I am dead or dying because I love being creative and the magic music machine.

The reason I started listening to your music in the first place was because I found the BJM name fascinating and 'My Bloody Underground' just sounded like a great record, how important do you think the name of bands and records are? 

Names are really important. It's like "The Cure", no mater what the problem is, here's The Cure. They were going to win with a name like that. There are a million groups with stupid names that mean nothing...they will go nowhere. Then there are people like me,that would have had way more people checking my ideas out had I chosen another name, but then again I WANTED TO BE THIS EXOTIC FRUIT - WITH SPIKES ON THE SIDE... THAT LOOKED EVIL AND DANGEROUS,T HAT COULDN'T SELL OUT, COULDN'T BE COMMERCIALIZED... I just wanted to be free. 

I used 'it' because The Brian Jonestown Massacre could just as easily be the moniker you use to put a new track on youtube under or it could be the full band playing live, does that kind of power of writing BJM tracks solo keep you creative?

I am creative because I am creative. I stay creative because I enjoy my life and sharing my ideas.

Bands seem to be playing certain records in full a lot more now, is this something you'd ever do with some of the older material?

I'm not interested. It has been brought up but I'll tell you this, to me, it's like saying "we don't have anything new to offer,let us be nostalgic together so i can make my mortgage payments because I am too fucking lazy to reconnect with that person I used to be that could be bothered to write a decent song and record a fucking album you would be excited by."

But hey,that's just my opinion...

What's your favourite of your guitar pedals?

I'm not a pedal guy - useful is a better question. I find 20db of gain useful. All my vox guitars have built in effects, but I don't use them much live in that context for bjm.

Besides Berlin, what is your favourite city to spend the night in?

I love Scandinavia...all the Nordic countries. Netherlands, too.

Sonic Youth or Nirvana?

J.S.BACH

psychedelic rock is...

Invisible 


Interview by Marty Hill