BIRTHING REBELLION WITH BRMC
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By Dennis Cook
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Hayes quickly snaps back into superpolitic mode. Down deep, where it counts, BRMC are true believers in music’s ability to effect people and the world at large.
“I hope so. That’s where the rebellion kind of starts,” continues Hayes. “Music is being sold in a completely different manner than that. It’s about money and fame, and I’ve been against that since day one.”
Delinquent Days
A couple of the sounds that I really like
Are the sounds of a switchblade and a motorbike
I’m a juvenile product of the working class
Whose best friend floats in the bottom of a glass
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2007’s Baby 81 returns them to rippling arena-sized rock full of tribal drums and reverberant electric guitars. The title stirs images of Logan’s Run and other dystopian ’70s sci-fi, where infants are given numbers instead of names, a depersonalized future we may already be living.
“Nick [Jago – drummer] came across a story about a baby that was stranded after a tsunami that was numbered 81. He brought it to us and suggested calling the album that,” offers Hayes. “We hemmed and hawed for a while but didn’t have anything better than that [laughs].”
Baby 81 is a very different album than Howl, abandoning the bedsit intimacy for a massive, aggressive sound reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine with more bile and less fuzz. The new album continues his songwriting partnership with bassist/singer Robert Levon Been, the son of Michael Been of The Call, the ’80s radio staple that once gave U2 a run for their money. Michael Been (who film buffs will recognize as the Apostle John from Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ) produced Baby 81 and imparts some of his band’s hyper passionate spiritual fervor to things.
“I think Howl would have turned out like this one if we’d had all the electric guitars. But, we had to do Howl before we did this one. Howl sort of freed us up,” Hayes says. “Songs like ‘Ain’t No Easy Way’ had no bass on it. It’s just us doing this vocal, Motown type thing. We put on xylophones or whatever and all the experimenting we did with vocals. Doing that album made this better. We learned we could get away with that experience.”
Howl freed them to go anywhere afterwards. “That’s the hope of it but it can be debated,” offers Hayes. “A lot of people didn’t like that album, a lot of people did [laughs]. For us, it was great. The cool thing was the fans got it. That was the worry, that we were going to lose all our fans and everybody was going to go, ‘What the fuck? This is bullshit!’ [laughs].”
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Roots And Causes
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Hayes is prone to slip into soapbox mode if given half a chance. One senses there’s a manifesto tucked away in his closet, and he’s plenty passionate, if not always easy to follow.
“I don’t necessarily believe there’s any such thing as governments. I think it’s money, capitalism. I’m of the belief that if you control the art you control the people,” says Hayes. “Record companies are businesses promoting bands and music, and they try to make a little money off it, too. But, to me, it’s a culture thing. If the culture becomes so obsessed with money and fame AND art is only there for money and fame, then that’s culture’s problem not a record company’s problem. It’s an artist problem if they get into it for money and fame, and do everything they can to get in everybody’s face to preach about money and fame. That sells more records these days but that’s not the record company’s problem. That’s what the majority of people give a shit about [these days]. That’s where the problem lies. The big business of government is what drives that thought.”
Bad Reputation
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“Sometimes our reputation of being dark, moody and angry precedes us but if you listen a little further past that there’s a little more to it [laughs]. We go back to pirates, who were the first biker gangs. That’s the fun of it. You go into town and you destroy what you can, in a mental way. You go into the record company business and you try to pillage from it what you can.”
However, their name is a bit of a mouthful. “That’s been – and still is – a debate sometimes,” Hayes comments. “Is it easily forgettable? Yes, but maybe that’s a good thing. Makes you go search for it if you really care. If it really hits you then you’ll wonder how the fuck to find us. It makes it a hunting game.”
Unexpected Sunlight
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That work has taken them into the stuff of amphitheatres and multistoried coliseums. Baby 81 is agit-pop that might find a place on MTV. There’s a sturm and drang to their new tracks that may find favor with the black eyeliner MySpace boys and doomy blog chicks. But that sense of dread is only the surface according to Hayes.
“[Baby 81] is heavy in the head but we’ve always had moody characters, for lack of a better word. From the first album, we also always wanted to be about hope. This is a way of getting the thoughts out and connecting with people. At the same time, you hope the music creates some sort of light in the tunnel. Hopefully that gets across.”
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