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October 19, 2005
Like a beetle on its back.
This interview with Dave Allen of Gang of Four was set up at the last minute. I'd known about its possibility for about a week, but as nothing was confirmed and I was on deadline for several other assignments, I didn't take the time to think much about it. On 4:30 Friday afternoon I got home from picking up my daughter and found an email telling me to be in Northampton for the interview at 5:30. Seeing as it takes a half hour to drive to Northampton, this gave me thirty minutes to get ready. Forget changing clothes or putting on makeup, what the f**k was I going to ask? You don't go into an interview with someone as savvy as Dave Allen unprepared. Sure, I'd been listening to his music for 25 years, but that wasn't enough. Frantically scribbling questions while driving, all I could think was, "oh no." But luckily Dave is one of those wonderfully easy people who practically interview themselves. All I had to do was steer him back on course every now and then and he was more than happy to talk.
It's always a risky proposition meeting someone you've admired for many years, but Dave didn't disappoint. Well informed, highly opinionated, smart as a whip – he's my kind of guy. After talking and then dancing like a maniac at the show, I drove home, crawled into bed and it hit me. Holy shit! I'd spent an hour and a half discussing politics with a member of Gang of Four. That's not unlike talking religion with the pope!
I love my life.
The interview also is posted on junkmedia.
Dave Allen may look a like a middle-aged SUV driving father of three teenagers from Portland, Oregon, but inside he's still the same acerbic bass player from Leeds, England who formed one of the most influential and respected post punk bands of all time. We met before Gang of Four's recent show in Northampton, Massachusetts to discuss what's wrong with American politics, the current deplorable state of rock music, how to make a relationship last, and why Conor Oberst is brilliant and Bloc Party is not.
I think Gang of Four's songs hold up extremely well 25 years later. Everything still sounds great, especially compared to all the bands today that sound like you. But I'm wondering how it is from your point of view, playing the songs again after all this time. How do you think they've held up?
I think regardless of the new breed of bands borrowing from our sound, it couldn't be a more opportune time to get back together, because the songs have always held up. As each decade has passed, someone's always revisiting the band's legacy. Especially now with so much going on in the world and rock music being kind of redundant – I think it's lost it's place as the vehicle for protest artistically – it's good to be back and remind people that you can have a great deal of credibility as a musician and an artist, have a lot to say that's poignant and represents the global situation, and then 25 years later come back and still be completely on topic.
Do you think there's any art form that has taken its place as a form of protest?
I think I'm beginning to see now that novelists are finding their feet, particularly post 9-11. The music that's taken the place of rock music in that pantheon is hip-hop. A lot of the rappers in hip-hop, especially the underground ones, but even Kanye West as a popular artist, are making pointed references to the administration's policies and tactics. Basically I think that Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld think that they're Romans again. What really happened in popular culture was there was a fear of the administration biting back and painting you into a corner if you criticized them in any way. It seems that any criticism of the administration, especially in the first term was met with a strong pushback. But now that façade has proven to be weak and broken.
There was very little protest against the administration in the first term. Post 9-11 it felt like everybody just shut up for about three years. No one said a word.
Right, which is understandable given the history of the United States. The mainland of the USA had never been attacked by an enemy so it must have been quite an incredible exposure to the world, if you will. Perhaps Australia also hasn't been attacked. Being European we have grown up with constant warfare. In England we had to endure the IRA bombings for years. It's part of the British way of life. The way it was after the London bombings recently – ok, let's get on with it – you don't get hysterical about it. I'm not suggesting that Americans do (get hysterical,) but they definitely reacted in I thought, a very strange way. I live here in the States so I'm a very keen observer. It was strange seeing (9-11) happen and then watching the response.
9-11 started to redefine how people look at the world and usually the first ones (to reflect) are novelists, painters or people who work in the arts. Surprisingly, none were rock musicians. None. Unless I'm completely out of touch, I'm not hearing anything, which is kind of maddening really. There are some bands doing it. I would expect Radiohead, I would expect U2, I wouldn't expect the Rolling Stones who seem to have had something to say about it on their new album. I'm talking about the new bands. I mean, what on earth are Bloc Party up to? Franz Ferdinand? All of these bands. They've borrowed our sound but they have not gone anywhere near our sociological lyrics. It's hard to describe what we do. I'm trying to avoid the word "political" because we're just not. We've been painted as a political band, we've been painted as a Marxist band. We're usually asked those questions by people who don't understand Marx whatsoever. We've taken to throwing that back in their faces a bit, "Well, what does Marx mean to you?" and they stare at you. (laughs)
Meanwhile our lyrics are really about the personal in the political and how every day you have a serious set of choices to make. The way John (King) painted "Natural's Not in it…"
One of my all time favorite songs.
Yeah, it's my favorite Gang of Four song actually, and I've been using that song as a reference point a lot, especially with the new young writers in the country who've been interviewing me. Just go back and get out that record and read the lyrics. It's all there. Everything you need to know about Gang of Four is right in that song. And don't go listening to "Armalite Rifle" because that was too pointed a reference to Northern Ireland. When we do that we're at our worst. Like "It's a Factory," we don't perform that anymore because I don't see why women anywhere in the world should listen to a bunch of middle aged white guys talking about their situation at home. It's been sort of dealt with. It hasn't been 100 percent improved, but women have a much greater standing in society now than when we wrote that song.
But the ones like "Natural's Not in it" or "At Home He's a Tourist" are natural conundrums. It's a very male point of view as well. It doesn't necessarily skew female, but we're trying to be inclusive of women in relationships. How do men and women have a relationship? What are the fires that burn that create the chemistry? When it all goes wrong you can say that well, the handbook you were given is not the user manual. It's really a reference point. Ask anyone here on the street in Northampton what that means and you're going to get this vast array of answers, none of which are anywhere near accurate. So John was always tearing that thought apart and rebuilding it.
So saying all that, are there any thoughts about writing new songs?
We're talking about getting some (recording) equipment for the bus, which is news to me. John was talking about it. I jokingly said, "What, are you working on a solo album?" (laughs) There seems to be some idea of our doing a song for the new movie "V is for Vendetta," another of those Sim City comic book style movies, so that would create the issue of having to sit down in a room and having to write some new material. We've never said no, but we've never had it on the agenda. Our commitment has been to touring and there's no fixed limit to that either. Things keep coming up that we keep doing.
How did the songwriting work back in the day?
Well that was the problem. We only could do it sitting around in a room all day, jamming basically, and every time we got something we'd strip it apart. There's the prototype and the scaffolding. We'd take away the scaffolding and not like that too much so then we'd redo it and we'd end up with a song like "Anthrax" which was a very circuitous route. There's massive feedback, a very simple rhythm section and John and Andy saying, "Yeah, you do that and I'll do this on the vocals." It's not something you can lie in bed at night like Bob Dylan who might write "A Song for Sarah" and it's pure poetry with very simple chord structures. We don't even do that. We don't have verse, bridge, chorus. Often our songs change every night onstage. They're not fixed. So to be able to do new material means getting two of us who live in the U.S. over to two guys who live in London who don't actually socialize and all getting back in the room.
Who else lives in the States?
Hugo (Burnham,) the drummer. He lives in Gloucester (Massachusetts.)
So you're not even on the same side of the continent.
No. good thing too. (laughs)
Well, it will be interesting to see what you come up with.
I think we could do some brilliant work. I think the challenge is you've got Entertainment and Solid Gold which are held up as the all time classic albums, so how do you do a new one that captures all that spirit and captures the zeitgeist we have available to tap from in the world today and meld that into songs that don't repeat the formula?
What did you do in your time off from the band?
I've been extremely busy. I formed another band.
Shriekback.
Yeah. That kept me busy all the way until 1988 and then I met my wife in L.A. where she lived. We got married and I moved to L.A. and started a record label called World Domination which I ran for about ten years. During that time I formed an Internet company called iMusic which was a music portal. We were working closely with Real Networks with tiny bits of data to send over the phone lines. It sounded like shit but it was a breakthrough at the time. Then I got the bug for dealing with all things Internet and ended up working for Koch, a big distributor of independent music, and became their Internet strategist. Then I went to emusic.com as general manager. We were the world's first paid download site. We were what iTunes is today, but even more unencumbered. There was no security whatsoever for our mp3 files so the record companies hated it. I ended up in Portland (Oregon) because Intel picked me up to help them with Internet connected products like mp3 players.
Are you still with Intel now?
No. I left Intel and formed my own company called Pampelmoose which is a high end web development company. We built the Gang of Four US website. We build flash music players, that kind of thing.
I saw Shriekback twice and I don't think I've ever danced so much at a show; it was so much fun.
Yeah, great band. I miss that too.
What's Barry Andrews up to these days?
I don't know. I was just in London and (guitarist/vocalist) Carl Marsh, the one who I'm in touch with the most, seemed to think that Barry had moved back out to Swindon. There was some talk that he patched up his relationship with what's his name from XTC…
Andy Partridge?
Yeah. After all those years, and they've been doing some recording.
You mentioned that you thought that the novel was having more of a comeback as a protest form. Are there any novelists you particularly like?
There are a lot of novelists I like. I'm reading the new Cormac McCarthy. It's brilliant. And I really like his Western trilogy. He's just got a way with words that opens up a whole area of the West to me that I didn't understand before.
Jonathan Franzen I really like. Not so much for The Corrections, which I thought was a great novel, but for a nonfiction book of his, Essays on Privacy, which came out after 9-11. He pointed out something I'd never thought of before. Americans consider privacy to be wrapped up in the constitution – "we have this right to privacy" – but they don't understand it doesn't mean it's protecting your right, it's more you have a lack of privacy. He was pointing out situations like during the Clinton impeachment period when he couldn't get away from anything to do with the impeachment. It was on the TV, in the newspapers, there were all these salacious details about Monica Lewinsky. He said he was horrified by it. He said his privacy was invaded. I thought that was a really interesting take because we worry so much about… my credit card company is sending me letters all the time, "We are protecting your privacy." When you think about it, it could be a great Gang of Four song. No you're not. You're actually invading my privacy. I don't want these letters from you telling me how you're protecting my privacy. It becomes this massive bureaucracy almost like Brazil – the movie.
I think it's brilliant in a sense how the American people pull the wool over their own eyes, how they do not question authority. And especially post 9-11 they think that the government should have more authority. Otherwise they'd be freaking out about…
How unsafe they are.
But they're not unsafe, so therein is the rub. It will be the democrats whenever they get back in power who will continue doing it. They will keep reminding Americans how terribly unsafe a world it is and how we're always threatened by attack. The Brits did it too with the IRA. They passed laws through Parliament that meant you could be held for seven days without access to a lawyer. It was because before, when we captured terrorists we had to either charge them or release them within 24 hours. And these kinds of things are (treated like) "Let's just sweep that under the carpet." In Britain at least there was a lot of criticism about it and they undid it, but here it's being taken for granted. It's only going to get worse before it gets better. I don't know what it's going to take to alert the American public to the fact that…
New Gang of Four songs?
(Laughs.) I doubt it somehow. We'll never be given visas to work again. I don't know what it's going to take for people to wake up to the fact that everything's fine. I believe quite strongly that there'll probably be another terrorist incident on a large scale because it works really well for them to do that. All terror groups operate in the same manner. You scare the living daylights out of the public, not the government. Governments don't topple that easily. Once public opinion turns against the government, then they go.
Does music have any role in this? There aren't all that many bands who mix politics with music.
No there aren't. and yet you can look back. Bob Dylan I recently saw him doing "Masters of War" which is a brilliant song that he wrote so many years ago about Viet Nam. Perhaps you don't need new bands and new music. You can just look to the Viet Nam era. Well actually I'm going to correct myself there because what that does is leave out generations of new listeners who have never heard that stuff and have no inclination to do so. So yeah perhaps we do need some bands having a good old yelling and shout about that, but that's not going to happen in the U.S.
What about the whole "Rock the Vote" thing? That obviously didn't work, but what did you think of it?
I thought it was awful and I thought that tour that Bruce Springsteen did in support of Kerry with R.E.M. and Pearl Jam was the biggest single disaster. I could see the Republicans gleefully egging them on. "You get out there because you're going to alienate 50 percent of America." It played right into their hands. I was deeply embarrassed actually. You can't go out and stridently stand onstage being multimillionaires who in the past have not really done that much to affect change.
If you're wanting support for the democrats and trying to stop Bush, I don't think that's the best way to do it. Politics is all about sound bytes. You have to pinpoint the strategy so it's a sniper's bullet, but this sort of blunderbuss shotgun approach…
So you think it could have worked if they had had a clearer message?
Absolutely. I think the last thing the public wants is to be told what to do. By anybody. The poor are suffering the most in these elections and they are the people who managed to go and vote for republicans. The messaging is sent to them in a very clear way: "Without us you're going to be living in an unsafe world. Don't trust the democrats." The democrats didn't have a message to go back in and say, "No, vote republican and you'll be a lot worse off in four years. I guarantee it." Explain why and people might begin to understand how to vote. But it just doesn't seem to occur. The democrats lost the battle because they have no spine. Their fear of losing votes from the center means that they don't operate from the left. They operate from the center and they're all spinning around in circles. I vote democratic just out of my conscience.
Are you a U.S. citizen?
Yes. But I'm really appalled and I've given up for now. I'm just waiting to see when they'll get their act together and challenge the republicans. Get your shirt off and have a fight! You're not doing anything. It's ineptitude. No one dare says anything..
What's touring like now that you have a family?
Massively different. I've been trying to analyze that actually. I've been writing a lot of stuff down. I'm 50 this year so that's an interesting point in your life to start thinking about these things. I realized that I haven't ever had the male menopause, the male midlife crisis, which I've noticed a lot of my friends have had. I think that this [indicates dressing room, club] is an interesting way around it. If you're an artist it helps relieve a lot of those interesting problems you could have. And it goes back to the lyrics like "Natural's Not in it," back to the mundane-ness of everyday life. My wife and I are both creative people. I could do a lot less. Believe me I'm not driven by work, but I keep going because I have all these bills to pay and it's for my kids. I could live a very simple existence but my kids don't seem to be able to. It's probably our fault, but they cost me a lot of money. But I've never had that waking up in the morning (and thinking) "I want to have an affair or buy a fast car." It's passed me by somehow.
Because you don't feel like you're trapped in a bad job.
Exactly. So the point is that being away is challenging, but I'm doing what I think everyone should do and that is have your own time, even when you're in a relationship. I think the problems with the divorce rate and other relationship fractures is that if you're constantly with someone and always knowing (what the other person is doing) maybe a lot of people can thrive on that, but I can't. I don't want to know everything. I don't even need to know what my kids are doing every single moment.
But it's getting to the point where my wife was freaking out, feeling like she was a single mom and obviously the pressures are higher on her, so she flew out last night. She's in New York and I'm going to go there tonight and see her. I'm really looking forward to it, but there has to be a little cut there. You say "I have to do this" because the alternative is not to do it which might not go down too well in our lives. I think we need to do it and we have to get the Biritsh stiff upper lip out without putting too much hardship on us. The difference is that we've already been doing fine financially and this is all a big bonus. So for her to fly in and out, I can afford that now. She's been to Japan, London, Paris, New York. We're making time for each other within this new circumstance whereas 25 years ago we didn't have relationships or if we did they were put on hold for three months while we went on the road.
How do the kids feel about it?
They're ok. First of all they're magnificently excited because the band is so well known in certain circles.
They think it's cool?
Oh yeah. They've met everybody. We lived at Joni Mitchell's house in Los Angeles. That's where they grew up. We rented from her so she'd come over occasionally and collect the check. Flea from the Chili Peppers is a good friend of mine. When (Gang of Four) started up again the kids came down to Coachella, which was the first US show, and they were on stage with Trent Reznor, Flea, and Conor Oberst, over whom my oldest daughter nearly fainted. She wasn't looking at me playing. (Laughs)
He's got a great protest song. Have you heard it?
Brilliant. Actually I'm glad you mentioned it. The one he did on Leno?
Yeah. "When the President Talks to God."
I missed him off my list of good people to mention. That last album of his, the double CD is brilliant. The other guy who has the option when he cares is Ryan Adams. If he wasn't too screwed up all the time he might notice there's a world out there. But his new album's really good. I'm a big fan of American folk music. That song of Conor's is a wonderful folk song in the vein of early Bob Dylan and I think Ryan has the ability to do that too and that's what we need. We need people who don't give a flying damn.
Who aren't afraid to speak out.
Exaclty. That's what Gang of Four did. That's the only way we achieved what we did. We would not change our lyrics for Top of the Pops. It was the kiss of death to be thrown off that program but we got thrown off. It was because of the line "The rubbers they hide in their top left pockets." That was 1979. The irony is that a decade later everyone's singing about condoms and talking about them because of the AIDS crisis.
Didn't you have a song that got banned in England too?
That was "I Love a Man in a Uniform" because of the Falklands War. We're fully expecting it to be banned again. There might be a delicious irony in that the Top of the Pops apparently wants us to play during this tour. I think we're going to end up going on and playing "At Home He's a Tourist" the song they banned. (laughs)
John has pointed out in many of these interviews that everyone thinks that the Sex Pistols were the all time anarchy band that got thrown off this program and that program, but we got banned more times than any other band in the world. But you often didn't know because we weren't good at self publicity.
So going back to Ryan and Conor, hopefully they will inspire yet another generation. It may seem unfair but I'm really dismissive of bands like Bloc Party and Franz Ferdinand. They're just out to be on MTV and sell millions of records. I'm not saying that just because they've been aligned with us in the press musically, I'm just not interested in bands that do that. I don't care two hoots about Smashing Pumpkins selling millions of records. Billy didn't speak to me. Kurt Cobain did, so I loved the fact that Kurt was selling millions of albums.
Well let me ask you this, because I just saw both Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party at the Austin City Limits Festival. I kept going back and forth in my mind with both of those bands because they're great fun, they write catchy songs, they look good. They just have no depth. But then I'd think, so what? So they have no depth. Isn't it ok for some bands just to be fun? Does every band have to be intense and deep?
Well unfortunately, no band has depth. We just pointed out two musicians out of many thousands that we can think of off the top of our heads. Ryan Adams, when he gets his act together and Conor, who I received demos from at my label when he was twelve. When he was Commander Venus. It was a brilliant little tape. I called him and spoke to him and asked if I could talk to his parents because he said in the letter, "I am only twelve. This is my demo."
That's so cute.
I hope I've still got that somewhere.
It's probably worth a lot of money.
And then we've got Radiohead and U2, but in this middle ground it's all insubstantial fluff. And I don't think that's right. I don't care, because I don't spend a lot of time worrying about this stuff, but I don't believe you should be allowed to have a band that uses everything in its power to sell more records rather than using some of that power to have something to say. Because it's a death by a thousand cuts, isn't it? The reason I can say that rock music has no functionality in culture any longer is purely because there's no depth to any of the artists operating in the world of rock music. If more and more bands keep doing that then the whole art form becomes redundant, so who would want to work in it?
Meanwhile go over here and you have Kanye West and his "Sierra Leone" song, accusing his culture of being too attached to bling when you have to understand that the miners work in dangerous conditions to get the gold to make the bling. Why is it left to these guys? It's interesting that the protest movement was rock and roll, but it's not any longer. It's hiphop. That's all I listen to.
Right now on my iPod is the Bright Eyes double album, the new Ryan Adams, Arcade Fire, who I think are really brilliant, tons of Bob Dylan, and then tons of hiphop. Atmosphere, Madlib, Dell the Funky Homosapien, even the new Damien Marley I just bought. "Jamrock." That single is amazing. I can't say that about hardly any rock bands. Bloc Party by rights should be knocking my socks off, but I can't stand them. I really can't. It's totally unemotional fluff. I don't like it. The other guys if they ever read this will hate me for saying it, but I don't think we can tiptoe around it. If we're going to be the elder statesmen of rock we might as well be as abrasive as we were when we were the younger statesmen of rock, right? Back in the day we would point out the errors of rock and roll and we'd name names. It's an artist's right to say things, but I think there's a lack of forthrightness in the culture. I don't think it serves me or the band not to be honest about it. I like a little integrity in life generally. That's just me. Ornery as ever. (laughs.)
Posted by Laura at October 19, 2005 02:50 AM