The anti-hip crusade starts here, Matt Johnson aka THE THE warns Helen Fitzgerald
The The | The Devil in Mr Johnson | I SUPPOSE that after Stevo’s clever publicity campaign you might be forgiven for thinking, as many of you probably do, that Matt Johnson is some new found ‘blow-in’ to the contemporary music scene, discovered slaving away at his music in the dank recesses of some cellar only to be magically transformed by Stevo’s entrepreneurial genius into tantalising bait for the auction of the decade between several rather wealthy record companies.
Nah . . . as usual the truth is much more mundane, Matt has well and truly served his apprenticeship in this fickle business — at the tender age of twenty-one he’s been in bands for almost ten years, ranging, according to himself, from rock through heavy metal to punk . . . mind you, that was all a long time ago!
The The — the entity that’s just signed to CBS for £40,000 (no misprint) has been in existence for several years, with Matt as a basic nucleus and a constantly fluctuating number of friends helping out along the way.
Matt: “This is going back years . . .but it started by me advertising in a local paper in Loughton to try to form the kind of band I wanted — I was just sick of the whole scene in London at the time and I wanted to get something of my own going with people I liked.
The The | The Devil in Mr Johnson
“We were originally four, me, Keith Laws, Pete Ashworth (photographer, notable of late for Soft Cell/Associates sleeves) and Tom Johnston (author and cartoonist notable for his droll cartoons in the Evening Standard).
“We played our first gigs with Scritti Politti and Prag Vec . . . those were the days when it was fashionable to get drunk and smash things up at gigs, we’d all get pissed and people would throw beer glasses at us . . . I hated it, I hate performing anyway, I’m more and more growing to believe that gigging is a pointless ritual . . .
“Anyway, we broke up lots of times, but in between we had a single out on 4AD produced by Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis of Wire, which was great discipline for us, but in the end just Keith and I were left.
“We did gigs and experimented around with electronics, tapes and synths, long before it became the thing to do, and we had an untitled track on the ‘Some Bizzare’ album last year.
“We played with Colin Newman at the Venue earlier this year, at that stage The The was a fluid thing — we’d get friends along to join in . . . mind you, no-one seemed to give a tinkers about us then — its really funny — people that I know have slagged me off in the past keep coming up now and telling me how much they’ve always supported me, pure bull, but I’m like an elephant — I don’t forget things, and I remember the people who stuck by me through thick and thin!”
AND THERE THERE WAS ONE . . .
THE THE in it’s present and permanent form consists of Matt alone, and I can claim a singular bond with the man —having interviewed him last year when we were both relative nobodies, I working for Vox, an obscure but excellent Irish magazine, and he having just released his first solo album ‘Burning Blue Soul’, a breathtaking exposition of frustration, isolation, despair and melancholia (great stuff!) overlaying music carefully constructed with layers of soft guitar rhythm and complex effects gently woven to provide a tangled maze for the mind to get thoroughly lost in . . . and if it sounds like a mild acid trip in the telling, well that’s because the Sixties overtones are never far from the surface — nothing to do with any sham revivals this, just a genuine reflection of childhood influences and a hearkening back the days when it wasn’t a social no no to express deep emotion in songs.
But don’t let my rambling delude you into imagining Matt to be a dreamy idealist, oh he knew exactly what he wanted all right, and equally that the independent labels could offer only so much, and, hand in hand with Stevo (figuratively speaking!) he pursued it with a vengeance.
“You make it sound like a really mercenary thing, I mean I didn’t just use the independents as a calculated stepping stone to ‘greater things’, and I’m really grateful to the support I got from 4AD all down the line, its just that an independent company can lake you so far and no more . . .
The The | The Devil in Mr Johnson
“I mean a lot of records at the top of the independent charts could do really well in the national charts, they just aren’t sold in the right places . . . it’s all down to the power of distribution.
“That’s why Stevo’s operation is so clever . . . Some Bizzare retains the individuality and personal appeal of an independent label, while simultaneously having access to the power and effect of a major label’s distribution circuits.
“I’m signed to Some Bizarre but licensed to CBS — in the same way Soft Cell are licensed to Phonogram, it puts us in the enviable position of having the best of both worlds.
“Stevo wants to see people like me and Psychic TV in the national charts — and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be . . . I’m just sick of seeing all these crummy little groups get to the top of the charts with pap pop songs with as much depth as a bloody puddle — it makes me sick to think how little effort they make . . . my music is a thousand times better, and I’m not ashamed to say it, I’m proud of my work, why should I be festering on the dole while they’re drinking champagne? . . .
“I’ll tell you Stevo’s got a few things up his sleeve . . . real music is starting to fight back — ’82 will be known as the year of the anti-hip revival!”
AND INDEED by no reach of the imagination could Matt be called hip . . . he has nothing but contempt for the ritualistic herd syndrome of London nightlife, and his idea of a good time is to take himself off to the wilds of Suffolk where he finds the peace to focus on his current projects . . . in fact he’s just back from a lengthy sojourn in cowclap country, with a resultant demo album which he very kindly let me hear (I strongly suspect Stevo wouldn’t have approved, but he’s safely ensconsed in the Transatlantic Tinsel Town, hanging out with Marc and Cindy and all the beautiful people).
The The | The Devil in Mr Johnson
Provisionally entitled ‘The Pornography Of Despair’ (always the optimist, our Matt!) it’s must more up tempo than ‘Burning Blue Soul’ and therefore, cannily, can’t readily be compared. But there is a similar reliance on heavily disguised acoustic instruments and distorted sound . . . transmuted so cleverly that you’re never exactly sure just what you’re listening to.
“Yeah — I play all the instruments myself except for the flute! — I like hiding and camouflaging instruments — that’s why there were no instrument credits on the back of ‘Burning Blue Soul’ — to keep you guessing!”
There’s some lyrical pick up from the first album too . . . an advancement on themes articulated before . . . ‘Absolute Liberation’ is a great song of disdain for ‘cool’ and ‘hip’ . . .
‘Sometimes it seems that I’m becoming like- the people I hate / With phoney books and phoney looks and phoney ways of talking. They’re not backward in coming forward / They play with fire and evil cushioned by the knowledge / Of their security . . . ? — But ignorance is bliss!’
Oh dear . . . I can just see the rheumy eyed barracudas in the NME, the very instigators and propagators of the ‘fashionable stance’ tearing poor old Matt to shreds — or maybe they’ll decide, in some wild extravaganza of inverted logic that in fact this is what they themselves have really been saying all along!!
Anyway, who cares for their arrogant opinions?
Matt: “Yeah . . . it’s going to be amusing to see the press reaction to my music, especially to the new album which is even more self-analytical than ‘Burning Blue Soul’, though in a more optimistic way . . . “
Really? . . . well how do you explain away lyrics like . . .
‘There is a silence in my head / My tongue is tired and my mind’s eye blinded — is there nothing left to say? — Am I steeped in tradition or numbed by indoctrination? / I’ve got a worm’s eye view of the world / I surround myself with familiar things / And see my knuckles turn white as milk as . . . I hang on grim faced to reality . . . ‘ (‘Dumb As Death’s Head’ . . . Johnson 82) new LP.
The The | The Devil in Mr Johnson
Matt: “Oh well . . . I don’t want to sound like a misery, but that’s optimistic — for me! I’m going to New York next week to work on the masters with Mike Thorne, who also produced the forthcoming single, we’ve changed the title of that incidentally from ‘Uncertain Emotions’ to ‘Uncertain Smile’ . . . I’d really like to get the album released before the end of the year.
“The songs on this album are quite intricate — I think the more that is put into a song, the more gets taken out again, and I like to have a continuity on an album, lyrical links, musical links and titles that link, that’s why I much prefer to work on a long player . . . it becomes almost like a religious experience, I shut myself up with all the bits and pieces I’ve collected since my last recording and collate them into something cohesive.
“I’m really obsessive the way I write, I put lines into my diary every day, here and there, and record snippets of things as I go along, most of the people I know who write songs do it over a period of months, I just lock myself away for a couple of weeks, give myself a deadline and somehow end up with a result every time —touch wood!”
BUT PLEASE don’t go away with the idea that Matt’s a heavily introverted, self-flagellating intense young man . . . he’s really quite a live wire, its just that he’s subject to a continuing pattern of emotional peaks and ebbs, which to me anyway is much more natural than the sterile emotional monotony of most bands and people these days.
He’s quite aware that he faces a pillorying by some sections of the press corps (‘e’ optional), he’s going to be lampooned by them in their frustrated efforts to find some handy label to slip round his neck and for the want of a better tag they’re probably going to pounce on ‘psychedelic’ as an easy way out.
The The | The Devil in Mr Johnson
Matt: “The music press is just so stagnant and unhealthy anyway, anything they can’t comfortably bracket they slag off — but it doesn’t bother me greatly, and if it comes to that I do have a dominant Sixties influence, that’s the music I grew up with . . . my Dad’s always had a pub and my bedroom’s always been literally on top of a jukebox! . . .
“I guess the early subliminal indoctrination never wore off, I think my music represents or continues on from the general feeling of that music, and my voice is definitely stuck in a Sixties groove, but I think it’s still a thoroughly original combination of sound.
“Obviously I’ve got equipment at my disposal that wasn’t even invented in those days. Anyway, you only get bracketed until you become so successful that you transcend categorisation . . . then they start comparing other bands to you . . . I feel very much out on a limb, detached from what’s currently in vogue so I’m sure I’ll confuse a lot of people at first.”
I hear you’ve written a couple of tracks on the imminent and the Mambas’ double album . . . what are they like?
“Ahh . . . you’ll just have to wait and see, I don’t mind giving you a sneak preview of my own album — but I can’t be so cavalier when it’s someone else’s . . . Yeah, I wrote two tracks and play on them too, it’s out this week so you can soon see for yourself.”
You seem to socialise a lot with Marc and his entourage, yet you claim to despise the ‘club’ scene . . . isn’t it a bit of a dichotomy?
“Not really, I mean Marc has as much contempt for it all as I have, just listen to the lyrics of ‘Bedsit Land’ . . . we get on really well, he’s got a lot of cynical emotion in his songs too, on the surface we might seem unevenly matched, him in his make up and leather trousers and me in the same pair of tatty denims I’ve had for six years.
“But in fact there are aspects of our work that are curiously similar. That’s why I love the Some Bizzare label . . . none of the artistes tread on each others toes, we’re not competing with each other, which breeds a really healthy co-operation between us all, I don’t think I’ve ever heard any bitching or backbiting, mind you — if we were all going in the same direction it might be a different matter!”
The The | The Devil in Mr Johnson
What have you done with all this lovely money that’s suddenly come your way . . . somehow I don’t see you as a Rolls Royce type myself?
“Well I’ve bought a portable eight track studio to do my demos on, I’ll probably set it up in the cellar of me dad’s pub . . . somewhere I can’t bother people! And I’ve ploughed a lot of money back into the equipment, most of the gear I had was quite old, but I’m not really the ongoing wild parties kind of person.
“I’m going to work and play hard in New York next week and then come home and head down the country for a bit of quiet, I still can’t really believe this is all happening to me, it’s like, what I’ve always wanted to happen and now I wake up in the mornings and realise with a sick feeling that it’s up to me to either sink or swim, and it scares me to death, and if I think about it too much I’ll end up a total neurotic!”
SO YOU see Matt Johnson is not as much an anti-hero as an anti-hipster, he’s going to unbalance the safe, unchallenged equilibrium that calls itself the ‘music scene’ and he’s going to get up a lot of people’s noses in the process. He’s resigned to the fact that he’s going to be both misrepresented and misunderstood . . . but if, in the process he can bring back just a little honesty, emotion and yes, that dreaded word, soul, into a very stagnant pool, then may he be blessed with a long and healthy life . . . and may all his children be sons.
‘All the books lay on the table, waiting to unfold / I sit and stare at my reflection, while the darkness chills my bones / My head feels like a junk shop, in desperate need of repair / The path of least resistance leads to the garbage heap of despair . . . (I think I’d better get back in bed!) (‘The Sinking Feeling’ —Johnson 82)
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