The hotel I was meant to be meeting Robert and Peter at was changed at short notice. I had no idea where I was going and went into panic mode (where you jump off at a Tube stop, surface, run in four directions at once, get back on the Tube, and repeat until your mobile signal allows you to call the PR for help). One of the comments I got from a BRMC fan was that it was a 'cute' interview - perhaps not the adjective I'd been looking for, but ah well. The PR commented that bands always seemed to be awake and cheerful when I left them, whereas as many journos left them bored stiff. Cute.
Words - Suzy Sims
Previously published on Native.tv http://www.native.tv in April 2007
(c) Niche News & Publishing Ltd
PETER AND ROBERT - BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB
BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB - Peter Hayes - guitar/vocals, Robert Levon Been - bass/vocals/keys, Nick Jago - drums
Uh oh, I’m ten minutes late. There was a gas leak at the original hotel so BRMC have been shifted halfway across London to a different one, information which came as I was about to board the train with no access to a new map. It looks very classy here. There are chandeliers, foreign businessmen chatting away in various corners of the lobby and smiling staff holding doors open. I’m in skinny jeans, scuffed trainers and an unattractive yellow vest. I think I’m in danger of being given a mop and told to clean the floor.
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club are Peter Hayes (guitar, vocals), Robert Levon Been (bass, vocals, keyboards) and Nick Jago (drums). If you’ve somehow never heard of them before, the band name is taken from Marlon Brando’s gang in ‘The Wild One’. Hayes and Been hail from California while Jago is from Devon. They've been playing their heavy, bluesy rock since 1998 and you're likely to have caught them at one of the major summer festivals. Jago left the band briefly to fight various addictions and rejoined towards the end of recording for 'Howl' (2005). They're now doing the rounds to promote new album 'Baby 81'.
“So which one of you started a gas leak so you could be moved to a better hotel?” I ask. Peter grins and says it’s the first time they’ve been forcibly removed from a hotel when it’s not their fault. We’re Jago-less on this interview day. Peter and Robert are dressed entirely in black – well they could have neon underwear for all I know, but that probably wouldn’t quite fit their image.
Wild-haired Peter is leaning back casually on one of the sofas, while Robert is wearing a hoodie under his leather jacket and is curled up on a chair, occasionally resting his head on his knees. They look sleepy and I get the feeling they aren’t entirely keen on interviews, but they also giggle frequently, showing they aren’t completely bored. Peter is entertaining himself by doodling on a question card.
“Here we go… Things That Annoy The Shit Out Of You,” reads Peter. Thanks to the BRMC forum for inspiring this one. “Little coloured cards,” he teases. No, no! “It’s a word, and the word is ‘virtually.’ It annoys the shit out of me.”
“Oh yeah, ‘virtually’, I remember you talking about that…” says Robert. I’ll try to avoid using it, I promise. Peter starts giggling, and I decide to throw it in every now and then to wind him up. Robert asks what he has against it.
“I can’t remember. ‘Virtual reality is virtually OK.’ No it’s not. It’s not anywhere near reality. It’s not anywhere near anything virtually. The context of when people usually use virtually, it doesn’t make sense to me.”
“It really annoys him apparently,” says Robert through a smile. He goes quiet while he thinks what gets his goat. “Well, there’s so many, how do I choose?” I heard you had to get up at eight this morning. That must be quite high up on the list. “Gas leaks, yeah.” He goes very quiet.
“I don’t like the little popcorns that don’t pop,” says Peter, looking at me intently. “Those are kind of annoying, aren’t they? You know, the ones that are halfway popped but they still leave a bit of the kernel.”
“Sometimes clothes actually drive me crazy,” says Robert. “Everyone’s going to think I’m some kind of nudist or something. Sometimes it’s like my skin starts crawling from the clothes I’m wearing and I have an anxiety attack.” The perils of tight jeans. “I don’t need to strip down or nothing it’s just like… has that ever happened to you or is that just me?”
“Only when I’ve been high,” offers Peter and lets out a chuckle.
“Maybe I just need to virtually cut down on all the drugs I’ve been taking,” says Robert. Oh, he used a bad word. “That might help.”
BRMC have been on the road for ages already this year, firstly supporting The Killers and now with their own headlining shows looming up ahead.
“Ages ago? What, like year 2000 you mean?” says Robert. Not quite that long ago. “It wasn’t too long ago, about a month and a half ago. It started with The Killers thing ‘cause we’d just finished the record and but then our release date got pushed back a little bit, so we had some time and they asked us last minute. That was a strange beginning, but it was also one of the best ways to start because we didn’t get to play for any of our fans. All their shows were sold out before we even showed up and that was partially the idea, just to play to new people. You don’t get that chance too often.
“It was also hard. It reminded me of when the band first started in San Francisco and we were playing for like 12 barflies sitting around and you’re trying to win them over with everything you can, but it’s just not happening and then you go nuts. But then all those things came back and it’s about just ignoring them actually and focusing on people on stage and the music, and if they come around then all the better.
“I really needed that. You start getting a little lazy ‘cause you think ‘oh this show sucked because the people were just like…’ You know, you only judge it on them and that’s not the way it should be, and it taught me that and I was just really grateful.
“Then we did two or three headlining shows near the end of that and it was overwhelming, we got to play to our fans again and it was like ‘this is the best thing in the world’. It made us appreciate it a lot more. So a weird experience turned into a good story.”
There are plenty of UK and US shows coming up. “We got two more weeks here doing a couple of things,” says Peter. “Then six to nine weeks in the US, then a couple of days off, and then back over here, a couple of days off then back over there… Couple of days off then off somewhere else…” You want more days off, I say.
“If you add all those days off though, it makes like a whole week nearly,” says Robert.
“We’re getting more days off than regular folk,” says Peter. Damn you pop stars, I say. Peter laughs and agrees. “When you look at the reality of it you know, the majority of people get what a week of vacation? And they have to fight for it all year round for that one week. So."
Have you got any exciting onstage antics planned for your live shows?
“No,” says Peter. Okay. He starts chuckling away again. I tell them to get some fireworks or something. “That’s for after the show.”
“Oh yeah,” remembers Robert. “There are fireworks. Our crew guy has been on this for a while. He brings the fireworks and we always light one off, at least one after each show before we leave. The cops are gonna be chasing us out of town. It’s a tradition.”
He picks up the next question card. “How do you relax, Peter?”
“How do you relax?” Peter shoots back, from his comfy position on the sofa.
“By avoiding questions!” Robert goes quiet for a while as he thinks. So, apart from taking all your clothes off when they irritate you, Robert...
“Yeah, it’s pretty good, it’s hard to top that,” he says. “I like to see movies or just watch a DVD. I don’t know if I zone out as much as most people do. But I can get lost in another story and kind of forget about my own. I like that.”
Seen any good films recently? “I actually saw one I really liked until the end. I just saw Sunshine the Danny Boyle film the other night and it was like a cross between Alien and 2001 until the end and then it just became dreadful. It’s so beautifully shot, then it just becomes like a slasher movie towards the end. Those are the ones that steals relaxing. It’s just like a cheap way to end any movie. That’s my movie review for the day as well. That can be another card next time.”
I ask Peter how he relaxes. “I like to drive I guess. I just get in the car and drive to the middle of nowhere.” You can’t do that here, you’ll get stuck in traffic for three hours. “Yeah, once you get out of town. I don’t mind the traffic as long as I know I’m leaving it.” He laughs. His shoes are resting on top of the spotless table and occasionally he rubs his feet up and down the surface.
BRMC have a few festivals lined up for the summer - firstly the Camden Crawl, then Oxegen, T In The Park, and a few abroad – Germany, Sweden, France. Do you go for the whole weekend or do you just play then go on somewhere else?
“We usually play and go,” admits Peter. You should stick around, get a tent. “Er, yeah, I don’t know, maybe. That’s not usually the way it goes.”
Do you go to many festivals as music goers rather than ones to play? “When I was in high school, it wasn’t really about the music. It was just about taking as much LSD as possible,” says Peter.
He looks at me and starts guffawing. I’m not sure festivals are so much about the drugs any more. “Yeah? That’s what’s wrong with people these days. Not enough LSD!” That’ll be it.
“I went to Reading the first time I ever came to England,” says Robert. “That was right after we recorded our first record before it came out. I was just kind of screwing around, went to Brighton, and then travelled around a bit and found myself at Reading. It was the year that I think Pulp headlined, Oasis and Primal Scream headlined, and the Primal Scream show was the most incredible thing.
“The coolest thing was that we went in the big tent. That was a bit fun because the energy’s kind of contained, unlike the main stage, and I was just imagining playing ‘Spread Your Love’ right there at the end of the night and it was like the biggest daydream I could possibly have. I usually don’t let myself like have those little dream kind of things, ‘cause usually I feel like it’s gonna jinx it, but that one actually came true. And then the next year we were playing ‘Spread Your Love’ on that same stage. That was one of the most surreal things ever to happen to me. Little rock star dream came true.”
Ahhh, I feel strangely moved. “Yeah. Then the beer hit me in the face,” he remembers with a smile. Someone threw it at you? “Oh every festival you get drenched in beer. That’s kind of the fun of it too. Free drinks.”
Following on from 2005’s ‘Howl’ is new album ‘Baby 81’, out in a matter of days. Apparently it's named after a child admitted to hospital after the 2004 tsunami which was wrongly claimed by nine mothers before thankfully being reunited with its true family. BRMC are looking foward to seeing how the album goes down with listeners. “It’s the calm before the storm. It’s like a really exciting record to make and exciting to see what’s going to happen when people hear it,” says Robert.
Songs on 'Baby 81' include 'American X', '666 Conducer', 'Took Out A Loan' and 'Am I Only'. Got any favourite tracks? “Uh… almost all of them. The ones I’m kind of critical of are the ones where I’m critical of the recordings of them – they’re the ones that just explode live. I lived with the record for a while and I forgot how they sounded when we were just playing them together," explains Robert. "And you know when you go and record something you lose elements sometimes. Sometimes you gain it. Sometimes a song that doesn’t work live, on tape it can just be like – ah, the greatest thing ever. But then on other ones it’s the opposite, it steals something from them and I kind of forgot that they did work in any way. So yeah, even the ones that aren’t that strong just work amazingly well live. It’s a pretty bulletproof record."
We’re just done with Easter, left with vague memories of a lot of chocolate and some new-found toothache. BRMC didn’t give anything up for Lent. “That’s all it’s about, right? Easter eggs,” says Peter.
“Give something up for the bunnies,” adds Robert. “The magical bunny.”
What would be hardest for you to give up for forty days?“Oh, you only have you do it for 40 days?” says Robert. “It’s not like a New Years resolution.” Well it is, in that you give up then start again soon after. No-one keeps New Year resolutions.
“I’d like to give up talking for 40 days. That’d be nice,” says Peter from his recumbent position on the sofa. “Live in silence for 40 days.” You should have started that before I got in here, that would have made it fun. “I tried it for a couple of days once. Just wrote on paper.” How did you get on with that? “All right. Would like to do it longer.”
Powerful single ‘Weapon Of Choice’ came out on April 16th. “It started just as a guitar riff Peter had and the chorus line ‘I won’t waste my love on a nation’ and it was just really fun to play, just one of the fastest songs we had. And so whenever things felt kind of draggy we’d play that and it would wake you up,” explains Robert.
“We thought that was going to be an easy one to put down ‘cause live it was just like great, and then it just flatlined. It was so full on, it didn’t have enough of an emotional rollercoaster to give you a ride as much. We ended up doing a last minute thing where it just started with acoustic guitar - which wasn’t planned at all - and then drums entering in and everything being introduced more dramatically, and all of a sudden it had this emotional connection. At least it can have that for some people.
“We didn’t try to force our way into what a single was going to be, it was kind of between that and ‘Berlin’ we were thinking, and [the label] went with that.”
What’s Peter listening to at the moment? “I’ve got the new Nick Cave album. I have a bunch of old time radio shows. They put me to sleep at night - turn off the TV and listen to old time radio shows. Old stories, what would you call it, mystery theatre-type stuff, Orson Welles, this kind of voice narrating a story, half-hour stuff they did in the ‘20s, ‘30s, ‘40s maybe. I’m looking for books, but I haven’t gotten into that yet. I haven’t got the guts to buy any books and put them on my iPod as far as listening to them.”
I tell Peter to get a Harry Potter one. They last hours and hours, that’ll put him to sleep. “No, I’m not interested in that kind of thing really,” he says, and bursts out guffawing. “I think I’d just turn it off, it would be a waste of money. No offence to Mr Harry Potter. Or Mrs Harry Potter.” He laughs again.
“Nine Inch Nails ‘Survivalism’ album,” says Robert, “and ‘Battlestar Galactica’ which are really good, surprisingly enough.”
The friendly PR, or Speaking Clock, is hovering with updates on how long we've been talking, and it's time to finish. I tell BRMC they can go back to sleep. Peter protests he's not tired and sits with his eyes as wide open as possible to prove it, but it just makes him look like he's sat on something very sharp and pointy. Let's hope 'Baby 81', like its namesake, finds its way into the arms of people who'll appreciate it.
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Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's 'Weapon Of Choice' single is out April 16th, with album 'Baby 81' released April 30th on Island Records.
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
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