THE THE MIND & SOUL

John Fortunato - THE AQUARIAN WEEKLY  -  2000
 
Currently living above a Chinese laundry in Lower Manhattan’s Chinatown, The The mastermind Matt Johnson is a self-described ‘restless, nomadic person wandering the world in anonymity’.  A veritable musical chameleon, he has constantly re-invented himself through a series of scattered albums drenched with dark political themes, melancholic despair, and bleak desolation.

On The The’s ’83 breakthrough, Soul Mining, Johnson’s bass throbbing Goth melodrama ‘The Sinking Feeling’ captured the abandonment, detachment and moodiness which has blanketed his entire life, cynically lambasting ‘I’m just a system of the moral decay that’s gnawing at the heart of the country.’
After ‘86’s Industrial beat-driven Infected secured further U.S. club exposure, former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr came onboard to enhance ‘89s down cast diatribe, Mind Bomb (featuring the apropos ‘Armageddon Days (Are here again)’. And ‘92’s compelling, yet confounding, Dusk.  Following an impressive leftfield tribute to Country and Western legend Hank Williams (Hanky Panky),  Johnson had to deal with record label fiascos before bringing the blustery implosion, NakedSelf, to Trent Reznor’s Nothing Records.
Joined by Iggy Pop guitarist Eric Schermerhorn, MC900Ft.Jesus drummer Earl Harvin, and bassist Spencer Campbell, Johnson’s latest entourage pits burbly electronics against acoustic retreats and eruptive guitar noise against hypnotic dreamscapes.  Lyrically, NakedSelf condemns manipulative corporate greed and advocates individualism.  Johnson’s at his passive-aggressive best when he takes up the cause of the oppressed proletarian, dispatching a vigilant streak of palpable emotions and hushed anxiety.
A melodic acoustic bed gets disrupted by brooding, cacophonous dissonance on NakedSelf’s first single, ‘Shrunken Man’, ‘Swine Fever’ brusque aggro-tech no resilience contrasts soft-spoken verses with loud, resonating choruses in a manner similar to Nine Inch Nails.  And the urgent ‘VoidyNumbness’ crawls out of ‘Weather Belle’s’ ethereal slumber into a deluge of manic mayhem.
 
NakedSelf seems mired in bleak desolation, perhaps detailing a post-Armageddon world.
Matt Johnson;  There’s an optimistic undercurrent running through it though, which is important.  I believe in embracing your demons in order to release the goodness.  One can only look at one’s life to understand the different insecurities and fears, as well as  hopes and desires.  We’re all different, but underneath it all we’re more similar than we think we realise.
 
In GlobalEyes, you sing of ‘Kentucky fried genocide’, does this relate to the stock market and multinational corporations manipulating and corrupting individualty?
Absolutely.  I think we’re facing a world of the corporation versus the individual.  Corporations are becoming more powerful than entire nations.  There are no rules and regulations to police them because they’re shifting money around the world to get the best tax break.  Whenever they shift production around the world depending on whims and doing favours for other countries, they’re completely undemocratic and unaccountable.  I think  we’ve got the start limiting how powerful these entities become and start breaking them up, particularly when you add into the equation the latest advances in genetic engineering and biotechnology.  I think it’s alarming that there’s this company that’s trying to patent the human gene map.  It will probably reach a situation when you’ll have to apply for a royalty every time you want  to have a child.  That’s taking it to an extreme level, but it’s heading in a strange direction  and big business is too influential, particularly in American with its corrosive lobby system.
 
Does ‘Voidynumbness’ intentionally reflect the insensitivity of corporate phonies?
It’s about the layers of insulation people surround themselves with and not being able to face the cause of their pain by numbing themselves through alcohol and sex and isolation.  My favourite line is ‘you got to know you pain by its real name.’  Pain manifests itself through many disguises – depression, jealousy, and anger.  It’s important to cut through the layers, like the layers on an onion, to find out what’s at the heart of what you are.
 
Do you feel more secure than you were in 81 when your debut, Burning Blue Soul, came out?
I feel pretty positive now. ‘Phantom Walls’ and ‘Soul Catcher’ have a lot of hopefulness.  To me, NakedSelf is an ‘up’ record.  But perhaps I have peculiar taste compared to some people.  I’m 38 now and I’m happier now.  I had difficult teenage years and had a very lonely period in my life.  I’m more stable.
NakedSelf is probably closer to Burning Blue Soul than any other album through. I’m really going back to my roots.   I come from the British post-punk industrial movement of the late 70s/early 80s, like the bands Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle.
 
Are any of NakedSelf’s songs from the unreleased Gun Sluts album from a few years back?
Just ‘Diesel Breeze’.  Gun Sluts is an album I completed between a 10-month period when I was out of contract with Sony Records.  That will come out on my own label, Lazarus, next year.  It’s slightly more dissonant and unstructured than Naked Self.
 
What lyricist and poets inspired you as a teen?
More than anyone else, John Lennon is my biggest influence.  Sylvia Plath and Yeats were poets I enjoyed.  Songwriters I liked were Hank Williams, Robert Johnson, Bob Dylan and Bob Marley.
 
You mention Hank Williams.  Is that why you assembled the Hanky Panky album?
Instead of trying to copy the originals, it’s a real challenge to see how elastic songs could be and push them in different directions.  If people cover my songs, I want them to be radical with them. It was a real pleasure working on Hank Williams’ songs.  His daughter wrote me a letter saying ‘My Daddy would be proud with what you did’.  I plan to do LPs of John Lennon’s and Robert Johnson’s songs in a series that began with the Hank Williams albums.
 
What have you been listening to lately?
Japanese flute music or Classical music.  Japanese flute music is very calming to hear in the background.