Pure massacre
The Brian Jonestown Massacre return, with their high priest as shambolic as ever.
By Jane Rocca
Andrian Newcombe gets hit k(n)it off
Anton Newcombe, the notoriously unpredictable frontman of San Francisco's neo-psychedelic outfit Brian Jonestown Massacre, chose Iceland and Liverpool to record his band's 13th album, My Bloody Underground. The hallucinogenic sounds of his latest offering are testament to his activities in and out of the studio.
"I went to Iceland and ate a bunch of mushrooms before I recorded this album," says Newcombe matter-of-factly. "I then spent the rest of the time making videos for the songs. I made 19 altogether."
Newcombe's candid and unashamed nature makes way for an interesting conversation. He's known for his unsteady personality and abrupt outbursts on stage (he's literally punched out band members on stage). He admits he is controversial, but prefers to let the myth exist around him.
"I know I can be crazy at times," says Newcombe. "But it was never my intention to have all this time spent discussing my behaviour. I am what I am. I often tell people I am an artist, not a musician. What I do is art. I'm like Jackson Pollock or Pablo Picasso. This is art. I'm obsessed, like fans of a football team are about their team. It's a form of worship."
The amusingly-titled ‘Bring Me the Head of Paul McCartney On Heather Mill's Wooden Peg (Dropping Bombs On the White House)' is intentionally aimed at the Beatlesmania Newcombe experienced while recording in Liverpool while also taking a stab at American politics.
"I am not abandoning my civic duty to my country," he counters. "I would be the first one on a plane to defend America. I am just a little fed up with America.The economy is crap. People are more concerned about Pop Idol rather than what's happening to oil and the state of war. I just had to move on."
My Bloody Underground is jam packed with Newcombe's world-weary outlook - so familar from the 2004 rockumentary DIG - while sonically laid with fuzzed out guitars and wall-to-wall psychedelic diversions. The album has spawned all kinds of reactions, with Filter Magazine declaring it "impossible to turn off" while rival ‘zine PopMatters dismissed it as "the most vapid, drawn-out, and uninspired addition to their discography".
"It's not like I go into the studio with the intention of making a record that sounds a certain way," he explains. "I just go in there and see what happens naturally. I am not pretending to be the Morning After Girls. I am not about sounding right and wearing fashion. I don't believe in styles. Style is overkill. I just do what comes naturally. If I spent my time worrying about what people say of me and the music I create, I would have exited this world long ago."
Tickets to The Brian Jonestown Massacre's show at the Factory Theatre on Thu 28 Aug have just gone on sale, while the Metro's Fri 29 Aug show have sold out.