UNRELENTING INTROSPECTION

Ian Pye - Melody Maker - 1982

Why should you be interested in a man who talk metaphysics with a white rabbit, doesn’t have a silly haircut, and though never known to stutter calls his fictional group The The?

Well there’s no shortage of good reasons and given some of your precious time I’ll try and explain. For a start Matt Johnson made one of last year’s great neglected albums, the aptly named ‘Burning Blue Soul’, and to put the case a little stronger his current single, ‘Uncertain Smile’, is the best thing to happen to pop since John Lennon met Paul McCartney.

When I first interviews this cherubic Londoner the ‘Soul’ LP had achieved a sort of cult status but his future looked dismally hazy. Trapped in the independent malaise, efforts indulged them under-promoted, his path could have easily wandered into the wilderness that surrounds the sheltered haven of commercial success.

But a fairy godmother appeared in the guise of Stevo, the irascible brains behind Soft Cell and the Some Bizzare organisation. He took Johnson under his wing, secured a remarkable deal with CBS and set the course for the end of a rainbow.

So it seemed likely I’d find the hero of the piece sitting smug and well satisfied. I should have known better. Matt Johnson you see, though apparently bright and breezy, has a tendency to dive, kamekazi style, headlong into the most rigorous periods of unrelenting introspection imaginable.

Yet these confrontations with being and nothingness inevitable precede his most fruitful periods as a writer. Working on the principle that every disappointment has a reason and a silver lining, too, he has that enviable ability to turn desperation into something lasting and worthwhile.

We meet at his parents’ Sixteenth century farmhouse in Suffolk where he records demos and collects his thoughts after a typical week rushing around the capital. It’s one of those beautiful , translucent autumn days. The sun is clear and warm. Pastoral bliss, if ever there was such a thing.

How is he keeping I wonder? ‘Oh, terrible, terrible mate! I haven’t slept for days here. My mind’s just going beserk, I can’t control it!’

The reluctant photographer, Janette ‘I hate The Country’ Beckman, suggests we do the pictures while there’s still light. Strangely however, Matt insists of an impromptu chat with his brother’s pet rabbit Whiskey. Obviously close to animals, this boy, though he soon swaps the hopping fiend (who then escapes and tries to claw me to death when reluctantly captured) for a guitar and poses around the garden like any other good pop star.

We retire inside the magnificent timbered house, now strewn with the latest electronic equipment, and settle in the lounge. ‘Would you say I came across as a really depressed person?’, he enquires with his usual chirpy tone, ‘I mean, the stuff I write isn’t exactly cheerful, but maybe it’s more reflective than depressing.

‘It’s a bit like being a clown or a comedian ,’ he expands. ‘They come across as very up and happy whereas in reality they can be very depressed people. It’s the extremes at the ends of human nature coming out. Most people balance these things a lot better instead of swinging madly between the two.

‘If anything, I’m getting even more thoughtful these days but I’m getting better at hiding it. People don’t want to listen to people moaning on so you keep it to yourself and maybe it comes out in your work.’

It seems ages since ‘Burning Blue Soul’ came out (it was subsequently reissued by 4AD after belated interest), was he getting lazy?

‘Well I know it’s been about a year but actually I’ve been fairly active. I helped Marc (Almond) with his solo album, I’ve done a lot of demos and I’ve just been thinking about things. At first I felt a bit guilty but it’s nice to have some kind of break because you’ve got to have some kind of input to get the output. You sometimes have to lay off a bit and let the records come naturally’.

Matt Johnson has been described as another synth bore which is strange because as a rule he doesn’t use synthesizers. Instead he treats ‘natural’ instruments electronically and blends the results with more authentic sounds. It’s the kind of approach favoured in the past by The Beatles, circa ‘Sgt Pepper’, or more recently experimentalists like Holger Czukay.

It’s a bold blueprint that attempts to mix a pop sensibility with the avant garde, and consequently you can spot his peers in the left field, Thomas Leer, and the mainstream as well, Yazoo.

While he feels his early work, spread across various independent labels including Final Solution and Cherry Red, lacks focus but not ideas, he considers ‘Burning Blue Soul’ to be his first substantial effort.

‘I still love that record actually,’ he says with affection. ‘To me it’s standing the test of time even though I can see the flaws in the production. There was only £1,800 spent recording ‘Burning Blue Soul’ while my new single cost £8,000! The next album will be an advance although I will incorporate some of ‘Burning Blue Soul’s’ concepts like the way each piece melts into the next.’

As for the single, that was recorded in New York with Mike Thorne, ex-Wire producer, at the controls. In fact, it’s some two years old as a song and ironically first appeared on Some Bizzare as ‘Cold Spell Ahead’. An unrequited love song , hence the ‘Uncertain Smile’ it features Matt crooning an insidiously melancholic tune over lifting backdrop of flute, African drums and multi-layered guitars.

Quite his most accessible song to date, and when released brought accusations from former colleagues that he’d sold out to the demands of the marketplace. Tentatively I relay these comments.

‘That is absolute bullshit! They can fuck off! It really winds me up when people say that!

‘Look, ‘ he continues getting increasingly piqued, ‘if Cherry Red think what I was doing two years ago was so good why did they turn down the chance of me doing an album for them before 4AD came along and picked me up?

‘The majors see me as a real militant little git but the independent scene thinks I’m now supposedly a mercenary. I just can’t win,’ he says throwing his hands in the air.

‘Listen, I’ve been doing that poxy independent scene for years, so I know all about that. I could knock out the kind of albums these so called indies are putting out in days just with the equipment I’ve got here. I was doing that when I was fifteen years old! But I’ve grown out of it. That angst-ridden young man stuff is such a load of old crap – its so regressive!’

At which point he writes off the indie scene that first spawned him with the words: ‘Those people don’t matter – they’re just a bunch of parasites and hypocrites ... though I do like the way 4AD work,’ he says, tempering his outburst, ‘It’s all one-off deals not this sign for five years con.’

He cools off with a slug of beer and I ask how he got involved with Stevo.

‘I’ve known him for years. He used to put of gigs when he was 16. I had a track on the Some Bizzare sampler and at the time he said he wanted to manage three bands on the album: Soft Cell, B Movie and me. Well B Movie sunk without a trace, Soft Cell were the most successful group in the world last year and I signed with him but they took up all his time. I recorded ‘Burning Blue Soul’ but now I’m back with him again.’

Wasn’t it irritating to be known as Stevo’s latest protégé all the time?

‘Well that was bound to happen. I don’t like it but its understandable. Until you establish yourself labels like that have their uses. I mean, they’ve got to slip some label round your neck – it may as well be that one,’ he says with a resigned shrug.

The release of ‘Uncertain Smile’ was shrouded in intrigue and rumours of double dealing, Stevo claiming he’d taken the record companies for a ride in the grand old tradition of Malcolm McLaren’s Sex Pistols swindles. It seemed athat Decca actually paid for the recording costs, CBS then brought the rights and Stevo pocketed a small
fortune for himself and Matt Johnson.

Again Matt is anxious to straighten things out.

‘Yes, it’s true Decca paid for it and then we took it to someone else. A lot of people have put us down for that but they don’t know the other side. A record company is pretty quick to drop you when it suits them and CBS was offering a deal that was about 30 times better! I’d been turned down by so many record companies I haven’t got a lot of sympathy for them.’

‘Now people think I’m walking around with £70,000 (the figure mentioned) sticking out of my back pocket! At the end of the day though, there’s nothing like that left. The lawyers need paying, I’ve had to spend a lot on equipment, then there’s tax. I’m not exactly a millionaire. Everytime I meet somebody these days it’s ‘Oh hello Matt lend us a fiver!’

I mention that his voice is warmer and deeper than before. He hadn’t had singing lessons had he?

‘No, but I’ve given up smoking and that’s helped a lot. I’ve been compared to so many other singers it’s ridiculous – Lou Reed, David Bowie, Jim Morrison, Syd Barret, Ian Curtis – so I’m really working on my voice to bring it out properly. That’s why it’s not so far down in the mix as it used to be.’

Using a flute solo on ‘Uncertain Smile’ is the kind of imaginative move that has always made his music so refreshing, It’s also one of the few instruments not played by himself and while this is a ploy that normally pays off it can lead to a certain neglect. His bass playing on the single, for example, suffers, probably because he was concentrating on too many other parts.

‘You could have a point there,’ he concedes, ‘ but I still like the control of working on my own. As for the flute, I nearly used a synth – flute but I think the real thing gives it that special airy feeling. I must admit I like using acoustic instruments more and more.

‘A lot of bands getting into electronics come from very straight backgrounds. They’ve been used to playing punk or pop and now they think synths are the new thing. I started in groups when I was 11 doing heavy metal, then punk, but I really started getting into music when I was 15.

‘I was working in a studio making tape loops and tape collages, very extreme stuff, so I approached electronic music from this angle, not the conventional one. My background is in experimentation and I think that’s what given my music an edge.’

Did he have a working vision of what he hoped to achieve then?

‘Oh yes. I want to marry acoustic instruments with technology. I hate all these people who come on all poe faced about technology – you know the android bit, pasty faces and robot suits. Technology’s there to be used. When they invented the electric guitar, they didn’t dress up as robots did they? I don’t want any limitations, no formal line up or instrumentation. That’s why The The should be the definitive article or the definitive group in a way.’

Aside from this rather dubious play on words Matt Johnson chooses to shelter behind a facade of a group because he simply doesn’t like his own name. Claiming is sounds too much like a used car salesman or a cowboy, he persists with the ludicrous pretence that hiding behind The The is of some benefit. To date only the ‘Burning Blue Soul’ has appeared under his name and the future use of MJ is only a vague possibility.

What happens if The The split up? ‘I’ll have to turn schizophrenic,’ is the almost inevitable smart-ass reply. ‘Yes, I admit the name confuses people but I need a shield to hide behind. Why? ‘cos I’m insecure, just like everybody else.’

Looking forward to the new album, ‘The Pornography Of Despair’, he hopes to maintain a level of humanity that will balance out his, and others, obsession with the new technology. It should be tougher than ‘Burning Blue Soul’ and maybe more melodic too.

‘My ambitions are very high,’ he says without modesty, ‘ but I think I can achieve them. Maybe people like me are outdated romantics – I dunno.’

Finally, I suggest that the most audacious aspect of his music is the undercurrent of sympathy and hot-blooded defiance that eventually shines through the tricks of invention. A kind of emotional and personal politics that stretches well beyond the bounds of the traditional singer-songwriter.

‘The funny thing is,’ he muses, ‘I used to think that obvious political bands like The Clash and The Jam really mattered, but now I can see their influence is so superficial. I think it’s better to live humbly for a cause than to die nobly for one. All this ranting and raving is meaningless. I think the power and beauty of music has been forgotten. Maybe that’s where I can do something. I’m certainly going to try.’