This Is The The Day - Interviews

Johanna St Michaels 2002

Matt Johnson
Heather Bell
IN CONVERSATION . . .

PART 4

HB: Well, I’d like to continue with the questions from the forum. Some of them have been waiting for their answers for quite a while so I’d like to start trying clear the backlog if you don’t mind.

MJ: Yes, I’d like to apologise to everyone for the wait but ... well, it wouldn’t be TheThe if you didn’t have to wait around would it?

Fig: What gear, in particularly guitars and amps were you using on the NakedSelf tour and album. Certainly Johnny Marr and others are universally hailed as guitar heroes but your guitar is no less unique and certainly the basis for the songs.

MJ: As far as guitars go, I’ve built up quite a nice collection over the years. I come from a non musician background really so still don’t consider myself a musician in the strict sense. I can’t read or write music, I can’t play other people’s songs, and I tend to use instruments as a means to an end, song writing, rather than an end in itself but that said, I do love playing instruments, and especially the guitar. My guitar line up consists of the classics I suppose. To start with a few Gibsons including an old black 345 which once belonged to The Doors Robbie Kreiger. That’s a real beauty and my favourite. It just sounds so rich, smoky, mellow and warm. I used it on the Dusk album and world tour but have since retired it to studio use only. I also have a red 355 Lucille which sounds good but is a bit clunky and heavy to play. Then there’s the black SG Imperial, which is a rare custom Gibson with hand wound Texan pick-ups. Looks and sounds beautiful. Very sleek. I have a couple of Fender Stratocasters including my old faithful, the black one I’ve been using for over 20 years now. I suppose that’s really my main guitar nowadays for both live and recording. I used that one in the early TheThe shows including the Marquee residency, so someone may have got bashed on the head with that one (laughs) I also used it on the NakedSelf world tour. It’s been completely rebuilt over the years by my guitar expert Bill Puplett and although it started out in life as a bit of a mid 70’s CBS era dog it’s now a lovely, unique instrument thanks to Bill. Then there’s the 12 string sunburst Strat that Johnny played on the recording of The Beat(en) Generation and then handed to me as a present. That’s a really sweet looking sunburst with mother of pearl fittings. I had some EMG pick ups added just to give it a deeper, more chime-like sound. Then there's the Rickenbackers. I’ve got a few of those including a very rare black 381 John Kay special, which I used on the Mind Bomb world tour, and a deep red 330, which I used in The Beat(en) Generation video. My favourite Rickenbacker though is the custom 381-12 string. It’s black and chrome and looks like a Harley Davison. It has a very low slung action and a built in compressor and that classic Rick 12 string chime to it. The only thing with Ricks, particularly the 12 strings, is that the necks are pretty slim and you need small hands. My hands are fairly small so I’m just about ok with it but I know a lot of people have a problem with them because of that. Acoustically I use Martins and my favourite is my HD28, which I used on Love Is Stronger Than Death, on the recording, the video and on the Dusk tour. I also have a very rare custom slim body Martin but it’s a bit of a dog sadly. I’ve spent thousands trying to get it right, and Flip Scipio, the guy I use in New York even reset the neck but there seems to be some inherent problem that no one can fix. There’s this weird, annoying low buzz that happens inside the body and even Martin themselves couldn't sort it out. It’s a shame because it’s stunning looking and decent to play otherwise. There were only 4 ever made but who knows? On top of that lot I’ve got a few bass odds and sods like John Birches and a few bass guitars. I actually played bass before I played guitar. I was a bass player in a punk band for a while. I was about 15 at the time. Always loved playing bass and in fact I always write all the bass parts for my songs. One of the first things I write really. A lovely instrument to play live too.

Amplifier wise I’ve got a decent selection ... for my purposes anyway. A pair of Fender Twins, not vintage actually, they’re from the late 80’s and mid 90’s respectively, but they sound fantastic. In fact it was quite funny, when we were recording Dusk Johnny brought down a bunch of his very expensive vintage amps including a couple of rare Fender Twins but much to his horror they just didn’t sound anywhere near as good as my new Twins, so we ended up using mine for most of the recording plus my Mesa Mk4. In fact I have a few Mesa amps including a Mk1, a TriAxis with the Simul 2:90 power amp and of course the Mk4. I used the TriAxis/Simul2:90 on the NakedSelf world tour. I think it sounds great. A really big, bouncy responsive sound. Very versatile too. I have a couple of Vox amps including my favourite, the AC15. That’s a fantastic little recording amp. Haven’t used it live yet but I might. Let’s see, what else ... oh yeah, I also have a Roland JC120, which is now a bit of a classic although to tell you the truth I haven’t used it on a recording since .... probably Soul Mining. It has a great sounding chorus but I really went off chorus in a big way years ago. Same with flanging and phasing. I rarely use them nowadays. Personally I much prefer tremolo, vibrato and wah and of course tape delay. Which is where my Magnatone 280 comes in. One of the very few amps to have real vibrato rather than tremolo. Fender always said they had vibrato but it was actually tremolo. The difference is crucial. Tremolo is amplitude modulation. Vibrato is pitch modulation. Two very distinct effects but very often confused, not least by the manufacturers themselves. Also two of the oldest guitar effects, which is probably why I like them so much. A sort of aural reference to a bygone age. Stirs up a lot of memories just hearing those sounds. I’ll be using the Magnatone on the new recordings. Another nice recording amp is a little boutique American amp, the Matchless Lightning. It’s a beautifully built thing, modelled on the Vox actually, although in my opinion it doesn’t sound as good. A little bit on the harsh side, although I probably need to switch the tubes to something softer. Acoustically I sometimes use my little Trace Eliot although just as often I’ll use a decent D.I. box and go straight into the PA with that. I have a few other amps hanging around too like my oldest one, the Elpico. My first proper amp that. My dad wouldn’t lend me the money to buy it but my mum found me crying in my room so she gave me the £15 it cost. It has great sentimental value. For recording I generally like to use small valve amps as paradoxically they end up sounding a lot bigger than large amps. There’s a lot of myth about recording and equipment, but in my experience it’s possible to get useable sounds out of most things if you’re prepared to fiddle around and devote a bit of time to the process.

As far as effects and stomp boxes goes, I have lots of them from very, very old to very, very new and highly rare and unusual. I also use a lot of rack effects. Some very expensive and some very cheap. Can’t go into too much detail here though as we’re now wandering into the area of trade secrets, if you know what I mean (laughs) ...

Fulltone: What are the most useful pieces of equipment that you've ever bought? and where do you stand on the analogue v digital debate?

MJ: I like equipment that’s built to last and that you can develop some kind of ‘relationship’ with, if that makes sense. So may things nowadays have this built in obsoleteness that you know that by the time you’ve navigated the steep learning curve the thing will be outdated. Apart from things like guitars, amps and microphones, I really like Eventide equipment. It’s built to virtually military specifications and they tend to keep the same hardware for years and years but update the software. That’s a much better way of working and more ecological as well, there’s just so much waste around, particularly in the computer and high-tech worlds. I can’t understand why they just don’t build sturdier, longer lasting hardware and put the resources behind software. As far as the analogue versus digital debate goes I suppose I stand right in the middle of it. The stuff you can do with a powerful digital audio workstation nowadays is quite phenomenal. It’s as if you can go inside sound and music to an almost sub-atomic level, and of course as the resolution continues to get finer and finer then digital will sound better than analogue, it’s actually getting very close to that now, but what we love all love about analogue has never been it’s perfection but it’s character, it’s artefacts and it’s imperfections. There is also a very important aspect which is sometimes overlooked and that’s the tactile element. Humans are very tactile creatures and making music is about more than just listening. It’s also about using our hands, mouths and eyes, as well as out ears and it’s more pleasant to be twiddling knobs, banging things and manipulating stuff than just sitting hunched over a computer screen and typing into a keyboard. It’s interesting to note though how much the visual aspect has begun to dominate the studio environment and I often wonder if this isn’t to the detriment of the music somehow. Every control room you go into now you’ll find the engineer and producer huddled around the computer screen ‘watching’ the music rather than sitting in a darkened room ‘listening’ to it. Personally I find it useful to switch the computer monitor off in the studio whenever possible. As things stand at present more and more companies are releasing analogue style control surfaces to control digital software, which is probably the way things are going to go from now on. The best of both worlds. Although many of us, who have invested heavily in analogue gear over the years, will still reach for that first.

Rebecca:
1) How many of your fans have you actually gotten to know on a personal level and communicate with regularly?
2) How often do you come to this posting forum and read our comments? 3) Do you post here?
4) Whom do you like the best out of all of us?
5) And what is the funniest/most insightful thing you have read from one of us?
6) How do you choose the producers and engineers you work with?
7) What’s favorite Restaurant?
8) Have you ever been to New Mexico and if so, what do you like best about it? Or, what is your favorite city in the US- besides New York?

MJ:
Well, that’s a handful! I’ll do my best.
1) It’s usually a big disappointment meeting people you may admire from a distance. People are never really like you imagine them to be and sadly the facts rarely meet up with the fantasy. I don’t like to disappoint people and ruin a great relationship by actually meeting them! And it’s hard to say where ‘fan’ and ‘friend’ begins and ends in some situations. There are people, who are friends of mine that may really like my music but then there have been fans who became friends. I just don’t really feel comfortable with the ‘fan’ relationship. It’s a cliche of course but people really are just people and should just respect each other and each other’s space. It’s odd but some people react sycophantically when they meet someone they may have admired from a distance while some others go the opposite extreme and become insultingly frank in their opinions, as if they’ve known the person for years and have a right to offend. If any of that makes sense?

2, 3, 4, 5) Sometimes, but not too often, although Jack keeps me up to date with any questions that need answering. Sometimes he’ll e-mail me a little digest of the juiciest quotes! Jack has quite a sense of humour and I really think he actually enjoys seeing all the spats break out. I’ve been surprised to see just how nasty some people are to each other in there. I did post a happy new year message but nobody believed it was me! Who do I like the best? Well, Rebecca of course and all the rest of the ladies in the forum. I think the girls and the ladies have a real calming effect on proceedings and their postings certainly seem to make the most sense from what I’ve read. We really do need more and more females I think. The men tend to conform to male stereotypes and quickly start ganging up against each other and arguing about who knows most about this or that ... things can get pretty nasty pretty quickly for some reason, but that’s always the way if you put a bunch of people into a confined space, whether it’s real or virtual. I’m not at all sure if having that Current Affairs section was such a good idea after all, but it was Jack’s idea so it’s his problem!

6) Variety of means, most often referrals though. I also know by the first meeting if it’ll work out or not. It’s funny but I’ve actually chosen some of the best musicians I’ve ever worked with without having heard them play a note but just by instinct.

7) I have a few in each of the cities I spend time in but my favourites tend to be Asian and Middle Eastern, particularly Lebanese, Palestinian and Malaysian.

8) Never been to New Mexico (I don’t think so anyway) favourite US city outside of NYC is probably San Francisco. Actually that was the first US city I ever visited when I was about 13 years old. I also like Chicago.

Viviane Veraguth: You've written many songs about women and from a woman's point of view, Kingdom of Rain, Slow Train to Dawn, December Sunlight, which I personally have found disturbingly accurate. What is your relationship with women? And what attracts you to women?

MJ: Well, I think there are probably about only three I’ve written from a woman’s viewpoint and that’s the three you mentioned. I’ve had many woman over the years say to me that my songs, and not just those three, really reflected their inner feelings. I couldn’t get a bigger compliment really. What is my relationship with women? Well, I have quite a few female friends and so I’ve always gotten along well with women although when I was younger I was very shy and would develop these devastating crushes and infatuations on girls and young women and wouldn’t know how to tell them or how to develop it into any kind of meaningful relationship. There are many things that attract me to women and I think as you get older you start to see more and more things inside people that are attractive. Mental traits that I find particularly attractive are humour, playfulness, irreverence, awareness, kindness. Physically, well ... we could talk about that all night but I won’t as I always like to keep all options open (laughs) ... and I don’t want to get in trouble!

Phil Moir: Something that has been concerning me for a while now is that you seem far less anti-American than you seemed to be in the 1980's. Is that because you've been living in New York for so long? And has living there softened you up? I admit NakedSelf did have some pretty powerful political statements, like Swine Fever, GlobalEyes and BoilingPoint, but by and large I thought you would have been raging in horror at the behaviour of the US & UK governments the past few weeks.

MJ: I’ve never, ever said I was anti-American although I’ve often expressed grave doubts about US foreign policy’s motives and effects. They’re two very different things and I find all this anti-American bullshit that’s currently happening in America very disturbing. It’s almost like the McCarthy witch hunts for anti-American activities. If it’s not reds under the beds, it’s ragheads. It’s insane. No one is allowed to say anything critical without being branded either anti-American or a hypocrite for not being more aggressively vocal against things. I’ve spent many years in America and there is much that I love and admire about the place. An openness, optimism and a tremendous sense of energy and vitality that is lacking in a country like Britain. But sadly there is also sometimes an unsettling unworldliness and an almost ... trance-like quality about the place which l think is potentially very dangerous indeed. Particularly when you have a vast military industrial complex that will go to any lengths to justify it’s existence and an administration that is so patently lusting after a war. There is a staggering amount of apathy amongst the general population there at the moment and when you see public opinion being herded into a particular direction it gives great cause for concern. None of this would matter quite so much if it were Luxembourg we were talking about here but it’s the world’s sole superpower, the self appointed globocop, so it’s worrying. But having said that, I am certainly no more or less anti-US foreign policy than I ever was and that which I love about America and Americans I still love as much as I ever did.

Graziana: I've much questions to ask but, why wasn’t Rome in the list of the "concerts? WHY? However, I LOVE MATT! Kiss for all the fans!

MJ: Phew. A nice friendly fella there. Well I think I’ve spoken about this before. I can only go to cities where promoters are prepared to pay for me to go. Ultimately it’s out of my hands. I can’t just turn up at any city and expect them to put on a show. Incidentally, I was also very upset that we didn’t play Rome last tour. We did play Milan and Florence but not Rome. And I have said this before, Rome is probably my favourite city in the world. I love the place and haven’t been there for a few years so I was pretty bummed out myself about that Graziana.

Lee Harrison: My wife desperately wants to know when are you going to tour, which I believe means I am going on a road trip around the US. Of course, I will do all the bloody driving. I wouldn't mind knowing how long it takes to write a song, longest, shortest etc. Where do you write most of them, at home, on holiday, on the loo? What was it like playing in tiny venues like Colchester and Northampton then going to play at Glastonbury the following night, albeit with a clean shirt on. Do you really own 10 of those hooped shirts? What is your favourite beer?

MJ: I’d suggest you don’t wait around for me to tour and go on your US road trip instead (unless you’ve already been by now, of course) Things didn’t go to plan with Sony for the latest releases and so while I’m making alternative arrangements I think you’ll have plenty of time for your road trip. And drive safely! The quickest song I ever wrote was The Beat(en) Generation. It only took a couple of hours to whip up. The music and melodies to Phantom Walls all came out in an hour or two as well. Longest song to write? Ahh, now the competition gets a bit stiffer. Heartland was one of the longest. Over a year. There are a lot of words on that song and it required constant tweaking. DecemberSunlight was also a very tricky one to get right as well for some reason. Seemed to take ages ad ages. What was it like playing tiny clubs and then a big festival? Well, it’s actually something most bands are used to really because you always kick off tours in more intimate venues in out of the way places. It’s cliched but to me the most important thing is that the audience is actually into it as you rely ion them for your energy. Yes, I actually own more than 10 of those hooped shirts, probably about 20. I remember an friend of mine said to me “Wow, that shirt has lasted well. You’ve been wearing it for 10 years!” Favourite beers? I’ve always enjoyed a pint of Directors although I love a pint of Adnams at their pubs in Southwold next to the brewery, also Hoegaarden the Belgian white wheat beer is quite tasty. But as I try not to drink too much nowadays it’s all academical!

Dietmar:
1) There are rarely any cover versions you did, with the exception of "Hanky Panky" and the two songs on the "Shades of Blue" EP. If you would have to choose an artist out of the, say last 20 years to cover, who would you pick?
2) Are there any modern bands that influenced you, and did they have any influence on the musical changes you did over the years?
3) Which other bands should have been included in the "Interpretations" series? Or which bands would you like to see covering your stuff?
4) How did all the musical changes come across? Is some certain style starting to bore you, so you move ahead?

MJ:
1) Probably Mark Hollis and Talk Talk. Undoubtedly one of the best songwriters and bands of the 1980’s. Be hard to cover though as their songs were so enmeshed in their sound.
2) Well, depends what you mean by modern. Wire had a huge impact on me, particularly as I worked with them in the studio and played live with them. Also, Jim Thirlwell. As well as being a close friend I also really admire his work. Talk Talk I enjoyed too. I became good friends with Paul the bass player and ended up using quite a few of the same musicians as them. People like Danny Thompson, Mark Feltham and Danny Cummings. But I’ve always been more interested in finding my own voice and getting out what’s inside me than in being overly influenced by outside forces. I should also mention artists like Thomas Leer, Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle although of course I was a teenager when I was listening to them so probably more susceptible to influence.
3) Oh, that’s a difficult one. So many, but whether they’d be available or not is another matter. Cat Power and Siga Ross for starters.
4) It’s really an organic process rather than something contrived. You just feel that a certain style is no longer really expressing what you feel so you end up groping around in the dark until you find something that feels ... slightly more comfortable, more exciting and more ... ‘you’.