THE ONLY WAY IS UP
PAUL BARNEY - ZIG ZAG – 1982

Matt Johnson is a twenty one year old from the East End of London. He’s the son of a publican and writes great songs. Oh and by the way CBS have just signed him for the princely sum of seventy thousand pounds. Matt Johnson is..THE THE.

The hottest sound being played down the Camden Palace lately has been Uncertain Smile, a sad throbbing dance beat by The The. It’s designed to pull at your heartstrings rather than get you moving but it is soul, only more of the spiritual.

A howling wind that blows the litter
As the rain flows
As streetlamps pour orange coloured shapes
Through your window
A broken soul stares from a pair of watering eyes
Uncertain emotions force an uncertain smile…*

It’s going to be the new single and should be in the shops around the end of the month, but what about the signing?

MJ: ‘I’ve been signed with Some Bizzare for about a year and a half, the same time as Soft Cell and B-Movie. But when they took off that took up a lot of Stevo’s time and he gave me permission to do a solo album for 4AD….I’d been doing some demos, including the single and everybody seemed to really like it. Decca offered to pay for me to go over to New York and so I went over and recorded Uncertain Smile with Mike Thorne. When I came back Decca signed a piece of paper saying that if they were paid the money from Some Bizzare, they could have the mastertapes. Stevo played it around and the record companies went mad over it. At one time there were three of four major companies bidding against each other. The final deal is about thirty or forty times bigger than when it started off. ‘I just hope it will put me firmly on the map. It will be the third TheThe single so I think it will be third time lucky. Bloody hope so!’

Nothing in his manner suggests he’s on the brink of stardom. He’s polite, chatty and readily admits it is a strange feeling to have so much money put up. Aware he has to be good and confident, he is without any signs of cockiness. The talent is all there. His only concern is for making good music.

Of course the name The The is something of an anti name. A friend of Matt’s thought it up a couple of years back and it stuck. Previously though Matt played with the Gadgets and last summer released Burning Blue Soul on 4AD under his own name.

MJ: ‘The The is an anti name. You’ve got THE Damned, THE Clash, THE this THE that and it’s all the. There’s so many ways it can be taken but it isn’t a joke name, it’s not self mocking, it’s sarcastic! Not a joke root like the Rockin’ Berries. I also like destroying the idea of a band, Soft Cell helped do that by being a two piece, they make a big noise… I think people tend to be put off by a solo artist and it is a screen to hide behind.

BURNING BLUE SOUL

As the cover, a big swirly eye, suggests Burning Blue Soul does lend itself to labels such as psychedelic. It certainly has all the trippy qualities of other albums by artists who adhere to that druggy culture. Matt attributes that sixties feel to his music, if indeed there is, to the fact that his parents ran a pub and he spent those days listening to the music from the juke box in the bar below, drifting up through the floorboards to his bedroom. That isn’t to say Burning Blue Soul is at all dated or harking back to an old sound, it was recorded last year and is still ahead of its time. Tracks like Song Without An Ending gallop along with Matt sounding close to menacing. There is a subtle uneasiness to the whole album that becomes clear only after listening closely and often, it can be both beautiful and yet disturbing.

MJ: ‘I’m glad I did that album before I signed with a big company. It’s a very personal and honest album and it got such a good response from people. It’s contrasting, some tracks are just guitar and me singing and other tracks are huge panoramic scenes with layers of drums.’

It is tinged with that haunting sad element Uncertain has.

Whispering sadness like a mild form of madness
Or a line from a meaningful song
Turn your eyes to the lord
But the churches are empty
There is now no escape from your longing…**

That album still remains to be checked out by a lot of people. Matt contributes a lot of the melancholy imagery to teenage angst. So what difference will there be in the sound between the last and the new album?

MJ: There are no breaks between tracks, everything melts. The production quality will be a hundred times better than Burning Blue Soul but that doesn’t mean its’ a better album to me. I’m going to use some session musicians on it, I play guitar, electric and twelve string, piano and I’m getting into drums. I also love melodica. I’m a jack of all trades, master of none. I’ve never been into being a technically perfect musician, you can be too perfect. I like to keep some rawness. I can pick up any instrument and get a noise out of it but the lyrics are the most important thing.’

The faults you see in other people
Are the ones you see in yourself
Your breath is soured by the bitterness you feel
You write poison pen letters
While crying crocodile tears
Your sun is set and your spring has sprung
You may feel – BLUE AS HELL!!***

I asked Matt how he felt about doing live shows or gigs (a funny little word that sounds somewhere between a dance and something a horse might pull).

MJ: I did a couple of gigs at the Venue and the Lyceum recently but I think TheThe has played only about a dozen gigs in the last three years. I do want to do some live appearances but I want to make them good and very memorable. I think the old idea of gigs is redundant anyway….I never enjoy going to gigs, I get bored stiff and end up spending most of the time at the bar, it’s a more social thing. If you’re a natural performer then it’s different but I’m more at home in the studio.’

The The has consisted of various people, Tom Johnston (no relation) who does the cartoon on the ad-lib page of the Standard, Actor Simon Turner, photographer Peter Ashworth who also drums for Marc And The Mambas and Keith Laws who thought up the name. For now though, The The is quite simply Matt Johnson.

Recently Matt has been in the studio with Marc And The Mambas, a project of Marc Almond’s that started out as a single and developed into a full album. Matt composed the music to two tracks Untitled and Angels and plays guitar and piano on it.

MJ: ‘I’ve known Marc for quite a while and we have always meant to work together because we like what each other does. I’m used to working with my own voice but working with Marc was great, it’s good discipline because you’re working in a different context…. I’m just pleased I’m with a record label and I like the other acts on it. Some Bizzare is developing into the label of the eighties. It’s like a party atmosphere, things do get done but it’s got that easy-going atmosphere of being at school with your mates. A lot of record labels are like McDonalds hamburger stores, very clinical and white.’

When he was eleven, he played a tissue box for a guitar, in coffee bars. Now his chance has come. Matt Johnson is on his way, the only way, up.