Dark Howl

Shane Handler

In 1998, Peter Hayes and Robert Been, two mop-topped junkie looking rockers from San Francisco decided they’d had enough with the direction of rock music, so they started their own club - the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. And their plight couldn’t better be served than by their illustrative lyrics: “I have my heart to a simple chord/I gave my soul to a new religion/Whatever happened to my rock’n’roll?” They were a duo on a mission to save rock from itself, and when they added the fervent drumming of Nick Jago, BRMC flexed a new muscle in rock that hadn’t been heard in years.

Although their tarred leather name rekindles gnarly Hells Angels imagery, BRMC made a heavy dent molding 60’s garage and blues into an 80’s post punk salad on their self-titled debut. Their fuzzed out roar gave hope to the doubters and turned even the early critics into believers. The 2003 follow-up, Take Them On Your Own, ultimately failed to live up to its predecessor hype, but the band still managed to take another step in giving rock its consciousness back.

With their latest release Howl, BRMC has made their boldest statement yet. Gone are the walls of reverb, buzzing guitars and Jesus and Mary Chain comparisons, as they're replaced with a collection of true Americana that uncovers 60's counter-culture references and Johnny Cash outlaw hymns. Hayes and Turner certainly braved some artistic risks with Howl, but in the end BRMC have proven that volume isn’t what defines toughness in rock and roll, it’s the message beneath that sparks the howl.

Glide caught up with Peter Hayes shortly after Howl’s release to discuss what keeps the beat tough for Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

The new album really hits you with its elements of Americana - folk, gospel and soul, that isn’t as prevalent on previous BRMC releases. Where did that change come from?

Well, there is an element to this band that we haven’t shared with people too much - at least in a large scale. We play on radio stations, we come in with acoustic guitars and play, actually we usually end up playing “Complicated Situation” and “Shuffle Your Feet” even from the first album and the second album, or we do “Love Burns” and screaming gun things like that. There are a bunch of those songs that we just couldn’t do on a radio station with an acoustic guitar. I use a lot of different tunings for those songs and you end up having five guitars on stage anyways.

We’ve been doing it from just playing and writing this style of music for awhile, and haven’t really introduced it properly to people. It’s something we wanted to do since after the second one, we were like “hey, we got to go this other route for the next one.”

The last time you came out with an album, it seemed everyone was saying Black Rebel Motorcycle Club will be rock’s greatest hope for salvation. That got kind of old after awhile, don’t you think?

Well that’s nice and all, but to me its not necessarily reinvention either, it’s definitely a different sound and a sideways glance at rock and roll, or even a backwards glance at rock and roll from the blues and gospel elements that maybe Johnny Cash is coming from. But there is a spirit of it that is rock and roll, and the way you go about doing things and living. So thats always what it is to us. Any of the talk of saviors of it, that was just spooky [and we] try not to play into it.

It must be nice to hear the name Johnny Cash next to your band’s name for once instead of the Jesus and Mary Chain.

Well, I like the Jesus and Mary Chain, they are a good band so it’s alright. But we’re just trying to create our own songs amongst people that write good music.

You started the band because you didn’t like the direction music was going. But as a whole, music has been getting better since then, so do you think that‘s changed the band’s original mission?

No, we still have the same mission, which is doing music in what we consider a respectful way. Not sell it out or sell it downstream, and not let it get taken away by capitalistic behavior which is greed and collecting cars and houses and things like that. That’s kind of how rock and roll has been sold for a long time and that ain’t rock and roll, that has nothing to do with it. So it still has the same mission to keep that idea going and the counterculture. I have a hard time putting my emotion and my feelings behind something that’s not questioning the direction it’s going, it’s just kind of going down that road of making the quick buck.

Even from the first album, we wanted it to feel like if you’re coming to a show or buying this record then you’re feeling the same way we do and then everything else aside, you have to have your voices heard as a group of people. It’s not about the bands staying up and trying to preach something. If everybody in the group together is feeling the same way, to inspire change or inspire hope - if you have hope that’s a good fucking start. Who knows if you can change the world, but you can change yours.

The album Howl takes its name from the famous Allen Ginsberg poem. Is that particular piece reflective of how you found your voice as musician?

It wasn’t necessarily that particular poem in general, well in general it was the beat counterculture, that was what it’s about. Once again, just kind of asking the question – “Where is it? How is it going to be heard? And who is going to be involved in it?” I don’t know what the deal is, there is mainstream and there is a certain way that’s sold that is really strange to me – it’s a hard line to walk to get something heard the right way.

You’ve also been tagged with lines like “Rebel, Rebel” and “Born to be Wild.” Do you really associate with those taglines? It seems people are clinging onto the easy images of black and motorcycle.

Yeah that is the frustration with any of that, the images are great if it conjures up something like that and conjures up wanting to do something different, then great. We’re still just looking. Any of the tag lines, it doesn’t mean a whole to us, we’re still looking for the way to do it.

Looking back, is there anything on Howl you would change?

The last time I listened to it was on a plane about 2 or 3 weeks ago and it went by quick. It was the first time I listened to one of our albums and it actually went by quick for me, which I think is good. If you’ve heard it so much and it still goes by quick, then it’s kind of a good thing. Anything I would change? You know there are mistakes I’d like to grab. Actually Robert told me it sounds like you are singing “dimebag” [in the song “Faultine”]. He was like “are you singing ‘I’ll be waiting with my dime bag‘?” I told Robert, “no way man, nobody is going to think I am singing about a dimebag.” It goes, “I’ll be waiting with my dying bed.” He goes “it sounds like you’re mumbling it,” and I was like “it’s just about mumbling anyway.”

Is everything cool with the drummer now?

Yeah, everything is cool actually. We were in the first versions of recording these songs in Philadelphia then we were at the end of a tour from Edinborough, Scotland I believe, then we were going to France, then it came to a screeching halt. It was time for a break, we weren’t looking at things the right way. I can speak for myself, I wasn’t appreciating things the right way in terms of playing music around the world. I’m not really appreciating it as much as I should maybe. Maybe letting the business get in the way too, and it was time to take a stop and step back and business isn’t supposed to affect any of this, it’s supposed to be separated. That’s the first thing you ever hear record company guys say, that “it’s a music business.” It’s like “fuck that man, you do the fucking business thing and I’ll try to take care of my fucking music.” We needed a break, you know five years of touring, I think it’s a good idea to take three months off and start recording again.

That’s really not a lot of time off.

No it really isn’t. As it boils down to it, we weren’t in people’s eyesight’s for six to eight months or whatever, but we were doing our music.

How many years do you see this thing going on for?

I got no agenda really. I kind of come from a hippie way of looking at it or some bullshit artistic way or whatever you want to call it, but the way I see it is, if you take care of the music it will come hopefully, and it will come for as long as you kind of want it and as long as you take care of it, and as long as you don’t sell it out. I don’t believe in just trapping everything on tape either. If you sit and play and something good comes along, I leave it to sit and if I remember the next day, then I take it as a sign that maybe I was supposed to remember that, if not then I let it be. I try to create it as its own kind of living thing that comes and goes. If I’m 40 or 41 and supposed to be working at a gas station than so be it. (laughs)

[GlideMagazine.com, 30 de novembro, 2005]