Primal Scream is a band that do it their own way on their own terms just like Rock and Roll should be… They’re on their way back to Australia in February and we caught up with frontman Bobby Gillespie to talk all about writing for the new album, the state of the world, the one song he can’t live without and as regular readers will know – the meaning of life!
Mark: Hi Bobby it’s Mark from the Rockpit calling, how are you?
Bobby: I’m good thanks, how are you man?
Mark: Very good thanks mate, and very much looking forward to you coming over to see us again when you kick off the Tour in Fremantle.
Bobby: Cool man, I’m looking forward to it as well.
Mark: It’s great to get you back so soon, what’s the best memory of the last trip?
Bobby: (Bobby pauses) I can’t really remember! (laughs)
Mark: (laughs)
Bobby: We’ve done a lot of shows between then and now so it’s not so much that they all flow into one, it’s that the last gig we played was back in September in Ibiza and I can just about remember that, but not the shows before that, so to go back to the last time we were in Australia… I just remember it being a good tour you know. It’s always good to come to Australia though we always have a nice time.
Mark: So the first gig in a while, and back out on the road again, what have you been up to in-between?
Bobby: All sorts of stuff but mostly writing songs.
Mark: Late last year I read an interview with you when you mentioned that you already had a bunch of songs for the next album?
Bobby: Yeah we’ve already got the songs for another album
Mark: I know you’re one of those people that writes all the time, I remember reading about you writing on scraps of paper, receipts, anything…
Bobby: (laughs) yeah I haven’t written anything this month actually as we’ve been doing all kinds of other work but generally yeah, I’m always trying to come up with stuff, you always want to work, you know, and not just because you’re trying to make records, sometimes you just pick up the guitar and start singing and before you know it you’re writing a song. Images just come into your head and you have to write the down wherever you are, you might be in a cafe, your might be walking down the street, you might be on the bus, you get ideas and they keep flowing through you know.
Mark: Is it all about the journey for you? I know over the years you’ve changed direction a number of times, tried a few things that some have worked others not so much, but there always seems to be this desire to try new things, to change?
Bobby: Sometimes it’s just purely an experiment! Also it depends which musicians you’re working with, for instance when we had Robert Young, who played lead guitar mostly, he wrote these beautiful pieces on guitar, very lyrical pieces, ballads, and he would also write these incredible, filthy, sexy, fucking rock ‘n’ roll riffs. A lot of the times the starting point would be his guitar riffs, but we lost him in mid 90’s, he stopped kind of functioning in many ways, and so we had to find a different way of writing, it’s hard to explain, was that a really bad answer? What I’m trying to say is we made so many records, when we did the ‘Give Out But Don’t Give Up’ album, the songs were written in a traditional, rock, soul structure, and then when we made the ‘Vanishing Point’ record, we sort of jettisoned that idea, we did choruses and you know we began writing on one chord and everything was like one chord, one note, I think they call it modal,nothing changes,its like a James Brown, Miles Davis feel to it, everything’s on the one. So we started writing in that kind of style which is also very Post Punk, bands like Public Image and Cabaret Voltaire used that method, and it kind of freed us up in a way, you know. But if you do it too long you become a prisoner to it, like anything, so I guess it’s trying to find new ways to write and keep yourself interested and excited, and that’s possibly why we changed a lot over the years. Sometimes a change is good, and sometimes not so good, but that’s just the way it goes.
Mark: Yes, that’s what life’s about, learning as you go.
Bobby: Yeah, that’s right you kind of learn from your mistakes
Mark: What’s inspiring you at the moment?
Bobby: I listened to some Randy Newman actually, and a lot of Reggae, I was looking at the CD’s I’ve got, the other day and the albums, and all the recent purchases and listening are mostly Reggae, 70’s Reggae, or 70’s Soul, you know. I’ve got some Randy Newman, so I think generally that’s what I’ve been listening to. I’ve always listened to that stuff, not so much the Randy Newman, but the Soul and the Reggae, black music, not really a lot of rock. I’ve been listening to the Starcrawlers album, a young band from L.A., the album’s pretty good
Mark: Is that going to come across in the next album, do you think?
Bobby: Maybe the Soul thing, it’s hard to pull off the Reggae, I’ll let the Jamaicans do that! (laughs). We wouldn’t attempt that, but I’d love to try it some day!
Mark: Sounds like a great project.
Bobby: I’d love to do it, I can write in that style, a lot of it comes from American Soul anyway. All the Jamaican musicians were listening to The Impressions, and Curtis Mayfield, they were listening to black American Soul and putting a different rhythm behind it. I’ve got the Soul part, I’ve got that influence hugely.
Mark: That’s great, it sounds like something I’d definitely like to hear.
Bobby: (laughs) Well we’ve done a dub record with Adrian Sherwood, it was a companion to “Vanishing Point”, so that’s the closest we’ve ever got, you know, “Jah, Rastafari.”
Mark: Well if you open up with a reggae number, I’ll know I’ve inspired you to do that! What are you going to be playing for us when you come over?
Bobby: I’ve no idea!! (laughs), we’re going to rehearse next week, so we’ll find out then.
Mark: Is there a lot of fighting over the set list normally?
Bobby: No, not really, I guess it’s going to be a high energy rock and roll set, with a lot of singles.
Mark: You know what us Aussies like.
Bobby: Yeah, I think people come to Primal Scream, to get like a, they want a high energy rock and roll show, so it’ll be hard hitting, high energy rock and roll.
Mark: Taking it all the way back for us, if you can, when did you first know you were going to be in a rock and roll band?
Bobby: Erm, I don’t really know, when I was a teenager, I was really in to Punk Rock, in to the Sex Pistols and the Clash, Subway Sect, Richard Hell and The Voidoids, Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers, The Stranglers, and Generation X, Siouxsie and The Banshees, Public Image, but I was a fan, at that point I didn’t think I was going to be an artist or a musician, you know. Probably some time in the mid 80’s, early 80’s we thought about making a band, and then I thought, I guess, this is what I want to do.
Mark: So did you gradually fall in to it, there was no defining moment, where things just clicked?
Bobby: Well, I think really, the message of Punk that was put forth by Malcolm McLaren, Johnny Rotten, they said you know what, you don’t have to have technical expertise to be in Rock and Roll, you can be a Rock and Roll star without being a musician, you just need to have strong ideas and a forceful personality, and you can be an artist. It’s about ideas and emotions, and i think as a teenager and a young man, I really took that message strongly, i took it to heart. You can be a creative person, all you needed was ideas, and the rest would follow. I took that message to heart, that was before I was even thinking about being a rock star, and without Malcolm McLaren or Johnny Rotten, I could never have been a musician or been in a band. That ignited something in me, you know, the fire in my heart and in my soul, because up until that point, as a kid growing up in Glasgow,my future was working in a factory, it was industrial work. None of my parents or my teachers recognized I was creative, that I had an artistic sensibility, it was Malcolm McLaren and Johnny Rotten, they told me, and I never knew them personally, but they got that message across. Even the fact that Sid Vicious as a kid, was watching them in the audience, and he got in to the band, that was really inspiring to teenagers like us.
Mark: Yeah,there’s some great music and some great creative forces in those days.
Bobby: You can mix up non musicians with musicians, and you can have a band.it’s the passion, if you’ve got something to say, basically the message of Punk was if you’ve got something to say get up and say it, and have no fear, and so that inspired me.
Mark: I guess it’s that whole, follow your dreams, and don’t worry about your limitations, work through them.
Bobby: Well it’s about having something to say if you feel strongly about something, and I was already writing poems and stuff, it was such a powerful message, because the other messages I was receiving, were that I was just factory fodder, my teachers said I was just fucking factory fodder,if I was lucky! You’re just working class,you’re just nothing, that was the message. You were just here to serve, whereas Malcolm and Johnny, were saying, no, no, no, if you’ve got something to say you can say it,you will say it, and no one’s going to stop you if you feel strongly enough. It’s a revolutionary message, man, I’ll tell ya. They lit a fire, we were angry, disaffected working class youth in Glasgow, but we were artistic and sensitive, we weren’t like violent thugs, this was a way out, we dreamed our way out of Glasgow through rock and roll, but it could never have happened without the Sex Pistols and Punk. Johnny Rotten was an articulate working class youth, so I could relate to him one hundred percent, he was saying anybody can do this, if I can do it, you can do it.
Mark: I think that’s what the youth of today could do with, someone like that.
Bobby: Johnny and Malcolm were at my art school, Punk rock was like my cultural revolution. I learnt everything from Punk, being into Punk and rock and roll, buying NME, reading what these bands were in to, especially the post punk bands gave me a frame of reference, the education in school never gave me.
Mark: And look where the world is today on both sides of the Atlantic.
Bobby: Well the world’s always kind of been like that. I used to see that when I was a teenager. In 1979 Thatcher came into power and Regan, they unleashed the forces of financial capitalism, low recognition, low tax, anti-working class, anti trade union, Thatcher and Regan unleashed those forces nearly 40-odd years ago now and look where we are today. We’re in a fucking mess.
Mark: If I had to really put you on the spot, and I’ve been interviewing a lot of old Blues guys recently and got a lot of wonderful answers to this question, it’s a hard one. What’s the one song that really exemplifies all your feelings about music,all of it’s power and emotion? What one song really moves you?
Bobby: God there’s a lot of songs, there’s too many songs to choose to be honest with you. I’d say “Born to Be With You” by Dion (DiMucci). Well because as soon as the drum beat starts, it’s that (Phil) Spector beat that’s really smacked-out, you know, and then there’s like three minutes before Dion starts singing. It’s such a ‘fuck you’ record you know. The record was a flop in that it didn’t sell many copies but as Malcolm McLaren would say “It’s better to be a flamboyant failure than a benign success.” It’s a glorious failure of a record. It’s so good that record and yet Dion still doesn’t like it, he doesn’t realise how fucking incredible it is. He said that he told Spector he’d do it again and Spector said, no it’s great! And Phil was right because it’s such a great record, you know.
Mark: I’ve never heard that story before.
Bobby: Dion hadn’t had a hit in years. Spector hadn’t had a hit in years and they got together in ’74, ’75 and they made that record and it was supposed to be Dion’s comeback record and Spector’s comeback record (laughs). It’s an absolute classic. So to me it’s like two masters out of time making a beautiful rock and roll record. It’s out of time, but it’s timeless. And to me that is the essence of rock and roll, you don’t give a fuck you’re just trying to make beautiful art, and if the rest of the world doesn’t get it, fuck ’em!
Mark: (laughs)
Bobby: It’s eternally beautiful, a beautiful piece of art. And history’s full of that. I was watching a documentary on James Joyce last night, I’ve never read James Joyce and it was incredible. He brought his books Ulysses and The Dubliners out and they couldn’t get published, people didn’t like him, same as Stravinsky, there was a riot in Paris when he was first played, you know. People just don’t get stuff you know. Joyce was banned in Ireland, they saw Dubliners as an attack on the Church and the State, an attack on the culture. It was so truthful they wouldn’t publish it. The Modernist writers people couldn’t understand, people like TS Elliot and Ezra Pound saw Joyce as a contemporary. I’m just using that as an example of stuff that becomes timeless because it’s too raw, and too truthful and people can’t take the truth. Like that Dion record I’m talking about with Spector it’s just pure Soul, it’s too raw for people to take, people don’t want that, they can’t handle that level of emotion. You’ve got to be open to music that raw and that deep and that soulful. You’ve got to open yourself up to it and accept it. Most people are closed off man. Maybe they can’t tune into it, I don’t know, I just think it’s a great record.
Mark: I think it’s a great record, I remember my Dad used to play that all the time…
Bobby: My God, your Dad’s hip man! Hes’ super-hip if he had that record. Oh my God. Lucky you!
Mark: (laughs)
Bobby: I don’t know if that’s a good answer, but it’s one that sprung to mind.
Mark: It was a great answer. I think we’ve only time for one more and I’m interested to hear your answer, it’s an easy one that we ask everyone to close with: what is the meaning of life?
Bobby: I think it’s meaningless. We create families, start Rock and Roll bands, have love affairs, collect records, go surfing, play football, we do all these things to give our lives some kind of meaning. But ultimately I think it’s all kind of meaningless.
Mark: Treading water?
Bobby: Yeah, we exist, we don’t know why and we just try to make the best of it.
Mark: That’s a good one to leave us with, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today Bobby, have a safe trip over and enjoy the shows.
Bobby: OK thanks Mark. Bye, bye.
PRIMAL SCREAM TOUR DATES:
Thursday 15 February – Metropolis, Fremantle – 18+
Friday 16 February – HQ, Adelaide – 18+
Sunday 18 February – Forum Theatre, Melbourne – 18+
Tuesday 20 February – Enmore Theatre, Sydney – 18+
Wednesday 21 February – The Tivoli, Brisbane – 18+
