Rebel Without a Pause

Good luck, mate.” “It’s them, not you.” “We can always make the headline and pictures bigger than normal.”

Those were some of the words of encouragement I received from my colleagues as I departed HP Central for my interview with Peter Hayes of the notoriously recalcitrant Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Never mind teeth pulling, marrow has to be sucked from bones to get good quote out of these guys.
I learned this the hard way on January 26 2002 – the date will forever be etched on my mind – when I met Hayes and his equally monosyllabic colleague Robert Turner ahead of their NME Brats Bus show in The Ambassador. Things started off promisingly enough with the boys agreeing to let the hotpress.com cameras roll while we chatted and Pete saying how excited they were to be playing Ireland for the first time. After that, though, it was Journalistic Breakdown Time as questions were answered with a mixture of ‘ums’, ‘errs’ and ‘dunnos’. Oh yeah, and the odd shrug. Reconstructive surgery being what it is, we were able to piece together a decent interview, but fuck me, it was hard work.
Tact not being one of my strong suits, our second encounter commences with me asking Hayes what their bleedin’ problem is?
“The problem, as you put it, is that we didn’t really know how to do interviews,” he reflects. “People thought, ‘They’re being rude’ or ‘They’re stoned’, when actually we didn’t have much to say beyond what was on the record. I guess since then we’ve learned a few tricks of the trade and realised that it’s okay to talk about yourself. Up to a point! You’ll never hear us discussing our private lives or drug problems…if we had them, which we don’t!”
If Black Rebel Motorycle Club started 2002 as relative unknowns, they ended it as one of the most talked about white noise outfits on the planet. Central to this was an eponymous debut album that nicked all the best bits from the Velvets, Spiritualized and The Jesus & Mary Chain.
“We’re just glad that the first record went well enough for us to make a second one,” says Hayes. “It’s cool knowing that there are people out there excited because we’ve another album on the way.”
Recorded nocturnally in “a cramped, dank shoebox of a space in the backstreets of East London”, Take Them On, On Your Own is, if anything, even more caustic than its predecessor. Peter reckons he knows why.
“It’s a more live representation of the band. I think. Having never seen ourselves on stage, we can’t be sure. It’d be cool to get a roadie to play for you one night and see what it looks like from the crowd.”
I remember Graham Massey doing precisely that when 808 State played the Limerick Jetland. In fact, he went so far as to go to the bar and bought me a pint.
“That’s funny,” he chuckles. “Although there was a proper studio in the place we were in, we decided to rent out one of the little rooms which helped with the live feel. It was great Monday to Friday, but come the weekend you had these parties there so you were competing with techno kick-drums or whatever they had. Most the times we couldn’t work we headed over to Brixton, which reminded me a bit of Berkeley, California.”
Talking points on the album include the none too complimentary ‘U.S. Government’ and ‘And I Am Aching’, a slo-mo love/lust song which is “an indication of where we’re heading next.”
“When we finished the new record, we couldn’t listen to it all that much because, fuck, there was no room to breathe!” Hayes explains. “Then we ran across ‘And I Am Aching’ on an old tape and thought, ‘That’s what we need to pace things a bit.’ We put it in after ‘U.S. Government’, which was written before the Iraqi invasion, but deals with a lot of the attitudes that prompted it.
“Are we anti-George Bush? I imagine that’s pretty evident from the lyrics.”
Was he surprised by the death threats that came The Dixie Chicks’ way when they dared to criticise Dubya’s foreign policy decisions?
“Yeah, that was pretty bizarre. I heard of another musician getting beat up in Texas for saying something derogatory about Bush on stage. The other side of the coin is that you had these redneck country guys singing about bombing the shit out of ‘em. The anti-Arab thing was insane.”
And in total contrast to elder statesmen like Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson who’ve done their best to curb country’s rightwing tendencies.
“We were really lucky to see one of June Carter Cash’s last shows before she died. Johnny came down for a couple of songs including the one that contains the line about, ‘If you’re the first one to pass…’ I can’t remember the name of it but it was pretty prophetic.”
Does he look at Johnny Cash, aged 72, and think, “Gosh, we could have a few years in this business.”
“If we can deal with things as well as he has, yeah. He didn’t let bullshit get him down and pissed off and grumpy. When you can’t handle it that’s when you should step out.”
Bono maintains that one of the biggest compliments he’s been paid is Johnny Cash covering ‘One’. I imagine that Peter Hayes would be similarly chuffed if he picked up American Recordings 4 and found a Black Rebel Motorcycle Club song on it?
“I’ve actually written one for him,” he divulges. “Whether or not I send it to him is another matter ’cause I imagine he’s being inundated with songs at the moment. I’d hate to be seen as jumping on the bandwagon.”

While the perception is still of them being bigger over here than they are over there, the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club album has sold as many copies in North America as it has in Europe. Indeed, the band are still basking in the afterglow of a U.S. and Canadian club tour that sold-out in minutes.
“We wanted to do things a little differently – y’know, go into these small places and play on the floor if necessary. There were a couple where we ended up plugging into the jukebox P.A., which was fine ‘cause that was what the tour was about.
“There was one place in New York that had a mermaid floating round in a tank of water. I met her boyfriend waiting for her in the bar.”
It sounds an unlikely pairing, but one of BRMC’s previous Stateside jaunts was in support of The Waterboys.
“All we knew beforehand was that they were a respected band with a big following. We were a little taken aback when we realised what they’re thing was, but we still get people turning up to our gigs who saw us on that tour.
“Did I meet Mike Scott? No, he kind of kept his distance.”
With White Stripes going top 30 and making it onto …Letterman, the climate for indie rock in the States is definitely better now than it was 12 months ago.
“I was thinking along those lines myself, but now I’m not so sure,” he ponders. “A couple of White Stripes-style bands to go with your Good Charlottes and Coldplays is one thing, but is there going to be a wholesale changing of radio formats? I suspect not.”
I suspect he’s right. We know his thoughts on George Bush, but what does he make of Arnie’s attempts to become California State Governor?
“I’m moving,” he deadpans. “No, it’s ridiculous. The only comfort is that the people who’ve been sliming their way up the political pole and reckon they’ve a right to office, are going to be fucked off. Just because you’ve been groomed for it doesn’t mean you deserve it.”
And what about Black Rebel Motorcycle Club? Do they deserve it?
“To succeed in what we do? Well, we’ve made a record that we 100% believe in. The rest is up to other people.”

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Take Them On, On Your Own album is out now on Virgin