This year, San Francisco psychedelic-cult favourites, Brian Jonestown Massacre celebrate 25 years of making weird and wonderful music.
Ahead of their 'Silver Jubilee' tour, enigmatic frontman and driving, creative force, Anton Newcombe reflects on a quarter of a century of BJM. “Time’s sort of irrelevant to me so I never pondered it,” he says.
“Music is something I like to do and I like to interact with people and I like to learn which is most important. I like the magic machine where you could be sad and you just create something, thought, whatever; you’ve seen it, you feel and other people can interpret it.
“I’m fascinated by the magic machine that art can be, so that’s what I was always in to, which is the opposite of this Cliff Richard never-ending, looking youthful, going out there and staying in the mix since you were a teenager.
"That’s never what I was interested in, so this is good. I feel fortunate that I stuck to my guns and I will stick to my guns and that it provides me and some of my friends a livelihood and we get to travel the world, and here we are.”
"I’ve moved on from playing with Matt Hollywood."
In addition to the 'Silver Jubilee' tour, Brian Jonestown Massacre have also released a commemorative, seven-track mini-album of new material to mark the milestone. “It’s so strange when those things start.
"You know, I was working with my Tess Parks project and I started messing around with these tremolo songs with the vibrato really heavy, and these band members were at my studio and they were like ‘oh my god, this is insane’.
“I’m not really happy with the mixes on the record because what I was actually doing was crazier, but they were like ‘you have to put this out, this is so nuts’ and so that was a shot in the arm.
“Then when I was trying to visualise it, I’d be short a track so I’d have to write something quick and then I’m like ‘oh now this is too good, I have to write one more’ and it sort of expanded from a four-song type of thing to a seven-song thing.”
The release also features a rare cover from one of Anton’s favourite groups, The 13th Floor Elevators. “I always wanted to record ‘Dust’ forever as a sort of a compliment to The 13th Floor Elevators and I try to stay true to that because I love those guys. I don’t do a lot of covers but they definitely were legends.”
Anyone even slightly familiar with BJM’s tumultuous history will be familiar with the tense, sometimes devastating, personal and working relationships shared by the band members, especially that between Anton and original bassist/ guitarist, Matt Hollywood. “I’ve moved on from playing with Matt Hollywood,” Anton explains.
“So we were doing this four-guitar thing and I’m such a bad leader. Matt was the original bass player but he left to pursue other things, so then we got Collin [Hegna]. Collin’s been around since 2001 or whatever it was and became integral, he came THE bass player, instead of ‘Matt, where are you?’ and the band moved on.
“I eventually asked Matt to come back and he didn’t want to play bass, so it was like dragging him around the world for three songs and [in] his mindset he’s like: ‘oh, I’m in this movie and here’s my three songs, let’s pretend it’s 1995 or ’93 or ‘91’, and that’s not what we are, the whole let’s-get-laid-with-teenagers or whatever it is you know, it just like ugh! So I just made a decision: screw that, were moving forward.”
With the 'Silver Jubilee' tour, Anton says he and the band always look forward to playing in Australia, even if some of their previous trips have been less than ideal. “Every time I’ve played it’s been great,” he says.
“Except one time I think I went nuts, I think I had a manic episode and I was really tripping. I can’t remember if it was Melbourne or in Brisbane where I was smacking shot glasses with the mic stand, like I was golfing, into the wall while we were playing, but it was not good. Besides that, we’ve always had a great turnout and good shows so this’ll be the best one.”
The Brian Jonestown Massacre Tour Dates
Thu 12 Nov - The Northern Hotel (Byron Bay)Fri 13 Nov - The Triffid (Brisbane)
Sat 14 Nov - Odeon Theatre (Hobart)
Sun 15 Nov - Town Hall (Melbourne)
Wed 18 Nov - Factory Theatre (Sydney)
Thu 19 Nov - Metro Theatre (Sydney)
