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Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Robert Turner’s voice is muttered and weary. His tone borders on suspected mental auto-pilot, because this is probably the 941st interview of his nine-year career as bass player and singer in Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Drudging as it is, it has (hopefully) been worth it, even if major labels tried cashing BRMC in during the “indie rock band” craze five years ago and savagely dropped them when they didn’t push as many units as Nickelback.
There they were, a San Fran-born trio of brash, noise-loving, neo-psychedelic, garage rock revivalists emerging at a time (2000-ish) when major labels thought we’d had enough of bubblegum pop, thought we’d want some real fucking rock 'n' roll! It only made sense. Dropped by Virgin after relative fizzling of their two stylish, hard-rocking albums of leather-clad strut and backalley verse, they made an Americana/folk record, Howl — a breakthrough, eureka-feeling record that gave BRMC a bit of redemption.
Now, Turner, melancholically rapt guitarist Peter Hayes and British beat-dynamo Nick Jago return with Baby 81.
Before Howl, you were asked about the “difficult third album syndrome” and said you thought the fourth would be the hard one.
Now I’m worried about the fifth one. Howl was difficult for other reasons, personal more than musical. We kind of had a new outlook on things and it helped musically. We checked our head at the door while we were making it. We were trying to make [it] more focused, kind of … intimate? I hate that word, but, it had soul and it had feeling. [Baby 81] was kind of a happy accident. It was just this fateful day, we came back together and were writing for the first time in seven months and the songs that came through kind of made it obvious what the next record should be, and it wasn’t really spoken.
I’ve heard Baby 81 called a “return to form.” I wonder if you feel it’s that simple.
We were much more open to each other this time, we weren’t returning to the same bullshit we were doing before [on the first two albums], because our heads were all fucked up. I’d like to think that it was … we were all finally learning and figuring some things out together.
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[Somewhere the conversation drifts toward the fickleness of BRMC’s American fanbase, and the Internet.]
It’s volatile.
There’s a lack of respect for music and it’s coming from the actual listeners, as opposed to old white men who rule the world, that’s the shame of it. We’ve got to find out how to balance the whole thing, it is worth fighting for, it is worth carrying the torch of rock 'n' roll.
So your main inspiration would be …
Just keeping it all alive — it’s valuable because it could go away just as easily. There are certain people for their time, and they get lost too. We need them now. There are bands that really matter, that you lose, and they don’t get replaced. Ian Curtis doesn’t get replaced. It’s not glorified tragedies; I just mean that it’s worth it, that’s all. | RDW
BRMC • October 4 • The Fillmore Detroit
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