WORLD SHUT YOUR MOUTH

Paul Sexton - SELECT – 1991

 
The The’s Matt Johnson has kept silent so long he’s like a mind bomb ready to detonate. Inviting Select round to his East London pad for his first interview in two years, Matt talks enthusiastically about 12 years of The The, working with Sinead O’Connor and Johnny Marr, and the power of sex…

All it lacks to complete the picture of a New York loft apartment is a couple of neon signs beaming in from the drug store outside. Inside a vast, spacey room in a converted department store in East London, the shelves tell tales.

Videos of This Sporting Life, Sunset Boulevard, Abigail’s Party, Watch with Mother and one of those Parkfield Pathe tapes for the all-important year of 1961, when the owner was born. CD’s of  John Lennon, Public Enemy, Can, Miles Davis and Jethro Tull. The collected works of Edgar Allan Poe. A fridge laudably full of Newquay steam beer.  And as the Gulf war splutters its last, a radio locked on Radio 4 FM.

A trip into the inner sanctum of Matt Johnson is a revealing thing. This truly is The The HQ, with mementoes of an enquiring mind filling the room and an atmosphere in which old world splendour meets 21st Century technology and survives.

Select being the only music magazine to be taken into his confidence this year, and Johnson silent to the press for two years, he’s got a mind bomb to detonate.

His welcome is warm, one of those people you’re immediately comfortable with, and he talks with quite amazing candour about every aspect of the 12 years of  singular rock group.

In March, Johnson delivered to his patient followers the four-track ‘Shades Of Blue’ EP and an elegant long form live video filmed at the Albert Hall.  The The Versus The World’

‘Things take time’ he says absentmindedly. ‘I seem to work in a different time dimension to everyone else.  Everything takes ages.’

The video was the result of Johnson and director Tim Pope wading through 13 hours of footage and shows a group at the peak of its strength.

‘It’s very much a band, particularly on that tour, and I wanted to get that across.  When I was on stage I didn’t feel like this was my backing band. They’ve all got great personalities.’

Johnson talks of the band members, including Johnny Marr, a friend for ten years, with a mixture of authority and chumminess, like a player manager who still thinks of the rest of the team as his mates but can exert the necessary leadership.

‘In a regular band situation it’d go a bit stale because everybody would be hanging around.’ Says Johnson. ‘I can’t afford to put them all on retainer, much as I’d love to – I’d love to be able to wrap them all up in cotton wool, put ‘em in a drawer and take ‘em all out again when I want them, cos I hate seeing them going off working with other people.’

He speaks bitterly of his most recent rebuttal at radio, which resulted in the EP’s chronic underrating, one miserly week at number 54.

‘Radio 1 must have only ever played two songs of mine, ‘Heartland’ and ‘The Beat(en) Generation’ and only ‘Heartland’ after they edited one of the words out. ‘Jealous Of Youth’ they wouldn’t play – they gave it a nominal night time play, but they said we know all about The The, they’re not suitable  and oh, the tempo changes.  They think their audience is too stupid to appreciate a tempo change, which is absurd, but anyway the tempo doesn’t change, the dynamics change.

‘They’re stupid, they don’t even know about music. I really want them to play my stuff.  Where do you go? There’s no outlet.’

Airplay notwithstanding, ‘Shades Of Blue’ showed a greater maturity in Johnson’s work than before, with its combination of unreleased studio track (Jealous Of Youth), live cut (Another Boy Drowning)

And the first two covers of his career, Duke Ellington’s ‘Solitude’ and Fred Neil’s ‘Dolphins’.

‘Jealous Of Youth’ was recorded around the time of ‘Mind Bomb’, and it was between that and ‘Gravitate To Me’ as to which went on the album.’  Johnson reveals. ‘I kind of mothballed it and thought I’d release it at a later stage.

‘I really enjoyed the sound of the live version of ‘Another Boy Drowning’.  We recorded several concerts on the tour for a future live album, but I thought that would work well with ‘Jealous Of Youth’.

‘The first time I heard ‘Dolphins’ was the Tim Buckley version.  I thought it was absolutely beautiful.  I love Tim Buckley, he’s probably my all-time favourite singer.  Apparently Fred Neil used to live on the coast in California and go and swim with dolphins, that’s why he wrote a song about them.

‘Solitude’, it was the Paul Robeson version.  I’ve got about four or five other versions – Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin, Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong – but I think all those are crap. The Paul Robeson one is really beautiful, it’s got a real depth. I love his voice.

As Johnson edges nearer his 30th birthday, it seems that some of the lyrics of ‘Jealous Of Youth’, might have an added sting.  ‘It’s funny how, as we grow old/We cling to the past as we cling to the air/And feel nostalgia for things that were ….maybe never there’.

‘I am coming up to 30, but we don’t talk about that,’ he smiles.  ‘I’ve always been fascinated by age.  Life, birth, death, age growing older, the whole thing.  You appear here without your volition, no one ever explains anything to you, you just get hit on the head, you get so much abuse from the world, and then you grow old.

‘The song’s not written in a negative, morbid way.  I was happy with the verse, ‘The house where desire’s first fluid bled’.  That line ‘autumn leaves are turning the colour of rust’ was inspired by the film The Thomas Crown Affair and the song ‘The Windmills Of Your Mind’. Fantastic song.  I used to listen to that soundtrack all the time when I was young.

‘There’s a sexual thing as well. Sex probably occupies about 95 percent of my mind. I think about sex a lot. I am fascinated by it, the energy and the power that sex exerts over people. If you start going against it, it gets twice as powerful, but if you go with the flow it’s fine.

‘I just feel that curiosity, when you’re first discovering sex, in your teens – for me it was kind of an unhappy period, there were a lot of unrequited affairs, but at the same time very mystical.  It is a kind of nostalgia for that discovery and when any thing’s possible.

Despite the controversies that accompanied ‘Sweet Bird Of Truth’ with its story of an American pilot captured behind Arab lines, and then the supposedly blasphemous ‘Armageddon Days (Are here again)’, Johnson defends himself strongly against the knee-jerk image of the troublemaking subversive.

I certainly don’t do things to get told off or get myself banned. I’m probably going to stop writing about that for a while and start writing about my favourite subject: me.  And the more you know, the more you realise how little you know, and it’s like fuck, who am I to stand here on a soapbox ranting and raving about religion and politics? I’ve got an opinion, and that’s all it is, and it’s no better or worse than anyone else’s. But the one thing I do know about is my own psyche’.

Has he ever written a love song?

‘Beyond Love’ was a love song, ‘Uncertain Smile’, was an unrequited love song. ‘August And September’ is one of the best things I’ve ever done. They’re all a bit darker.  ‘Beyond Love’ is, I suppose, the most  positive song I’ve ever written.

‘I spend a lot of time on my own, through choice. I like my own company, but I get very frightened about some of the things I think of. I’m mellowing out in some ways, like politically,  I’m  mellowing out in that I’m starting to see more sides to the story.  I was a bit naïve when I was younger.

‘I remember a quote that I read when I was a kid and now I realise how relevant to me it is ‘The supreme fruit that can be plucked from the tree of knowledge is the consciousness of your ignorance’ – and as each year goes past you realise how ignorant you really are.

‘All my opinions are really based on what I glean from the World Service, radio, newspapers, TV, books etc. It’s received information.’

But unlike others,  Matt Johnson doesn’t look back at his early records and shudder. Indeed he hopes 1981’s ‘Burning Blue Soul’ will be re-issued again this year with new artwork by his older brother. Andy.

‘It is pretty close to the bone. It was one of the most innocent albums made,  probably.  And very pure, almost virginal in a way.  But when I listen to it,  it’s very honest.  I’ll tell you what I do get embarrassed about:  if I listen to my first single ‘Controversial Subject’ and ‘Black And White’, cos that’s really pretentious gobbledegook.

‘But ‘Burning Blue Soul’ was like a diary laid open and I’m really proud that I made that album.  The vocals are all obscured by effects, because I was so shy when I was singing it, and listening back in the control I almost couldn’t bear to hear what I was singing about so I’d be pulling them down.  Whereas now I shove in my vocal and I think the band are pulling them down.  At the time I was quite unhappy, quite a sad character and very shy, and it was hard to do.

‘I’m more extrovert now and more introvert.  I think your personality grows in all directions.  It’s hard to gauge. It’s like looking at yourself in the mirror, you don’t notice the way you change.  I think everyone changes for the better, and all experience is good even if you don’t think so at the time.’

 Johnson’s outspoken yet understated style is in sharp contrast to the impression left by someone who shared vocals on ‘Kingdom Of Rain’ on the ‘Mind Bomb’ album, Sinead O’Connor.

Choosing his words carefully as we discuss The Sun’s Sinead The She Devil’ hatchet job.  Matt says ‘If my last album had done six million or whatever it was, I’d be attacked too. If she was an indie girl signed to Rough Trade, no one would take any notice.  What was that thing John Lennon said? Be careful what you wish for it might come true.  I suspect with her maybe when she was younger, the idea of being notorious kind of appealed to her.  Maybe now it’s happened it’s not a pleasant as it seemed.

‘She’s lucky that she’s got access to so much media space.  She should use it wisely and start saying some positive, constructive things.  It remains to be seen whether she will or not.

‘We got on fine. I met her a few times, but she put a block on ‘Kingdom Of Rain’ coming out as a single which I found a bit hurtful. She thought that I or my record company were trying to exploit her – this was before ‘Nothing Compares To U’, and it was a bit like, I sell more records than you, you can’t put the thing out – and I found that hurtful because I’ve never even exploited myself, let alone someone else. It missed the spirit of what The The’s about.

‘But I bear her no ill will and I think she’s very talented, and when she learns a bit of humility, which life teaches us all, when she gets into her late 20s she could be an outstanding talent.  She needs to learn a bit more about life.’

Is this man an anti-star?

‘I’ve tried not to exploit myself as a pop personality,’ he says. ‘I can’t stand all that stuff.  I just think it really cheapens everything. I’ve always just wanted the work to speak for itself.

‘I feel more empathy with film-makers than musicians. Woody Allen’s been a massive inspiration. The idea of getting this place set up and run everything from here, because of the way that he works – he’s got his company of actors, producers that produce his films, he’s got complete freedom. I’m inspired by that because there’s a kind of musical parallel.  It’s a real family, The The.

‘Ideally what I’m trying to work towards is turning The The into a label, a production company.

‘In this building I’ve just taken over a recording studio in the basement. We’re going to clear out the photographic studio downstairs and run it from here.  I’ve done so many collaborations in the past within The The, it is a bit like a little label.

‘I just draw in directors and musicians and engineers that I really like and collaborate with them, and I have a lot of control over what I do. I love music and I love writing, but you get a bit bored. I’ve been doing it since I was eleven years old and I’m getting a bit restless. I want to expand, I can see lots of interesting possibilities…’

Meanwhile, a new The The album is beginning to kick.

‘I’m just scheduling for the album now, letting everyone know the time scale. I’m starting to write and turn the sketches into demos. We’re going to start recording in July, probably looking at a January/February release for the album.

‘Johnny and I have got a few ideas knocking about. I think we will get stuck into a bit of writing.  The keyboard player’s got a couple of good songs. Johnny’s desperate to get going again.  He keeps himself busy, bit of a workaholic. He’s got his own studio up in Manchester.’

You leave Matt Johnson’s with the impression of a searingly  honest person who’s accepted who he is. He tells you painfully real things, not so much because you’ve got a trustworthy face but because they’re true and need to be told.

‘In my past I’ve done bad things. I’ve been a very, very naughty boy and I know the value of sinning, as it were, as well as being good. I do believe in the law of cause and effect. I think there is a reaction to everything we do whether we see it immediately or later on’.

He makes one further revelation.

‘Soul Mining’ was one of the first Ecstasy albums. Not a lot of people know that.  Some Bizzare in the early ‘80s with Soft Cell, Stevo, myself, and do you remember Cindy Esctasy? That was how she got he surname, but that was like ten years ago.

‘I don’t take drugs any more. You should say that, cos my mum reads all my stuff!  Drugs have played a very important part in the evolution of The The, but not so much anymore. You get to the stage where your body can’t take it.

‘At 29, you reach the twilight of your drug career.’

Last year, when a certain political dynasty finally crumbled, the poignancy was not lost on Matt Johnson.  After eleven years of Thatcherism that coincided exactly with The The’s period of office and fuelled much of his musical invective,  Matt saw the funny side.

‘I was actually thinking of disbanding The The when she went. It did occur to me, because it was the very week she came to power that I formed it, did a show at the Africa Centre, and I just thought maybe I should go gracefully, unlike her, kicking and screaming.

‘But I thought, Oh no, as long as the audience wants me, I’ll hang around.  I’ll know when it’s time to go.’