Rebels without a pause

One thing you quickly learn as a music journalist is that every interviewee is different. Some (The Bloodhound Gang) will happily reveal all about their penchant for shagging porn models, while others (Jeff bloody Healy) won’t even tell you what their favourite record is in case it “offends the other wonderful, wonderful artists out there.”

The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club are somewhere between the two in that they will dish the dirt, but only after they’ve been prodded, probed and persuaded to give more than monosyllabic answers. As meaningful as those “yeah”s, “dunno”s and “s’pose”s may be, they’re not going to win me my first Pulitzer, are they?

Their tongues haven’t been loosened any by a nightmare Holyhead to Dublin ferry crossing, which was punctuated by frequent dashes to the toilet.

“It was pretty hairy,” admits Peter Hayes as he sips a recuperative Jack & Coke. “The worst bit was when somebody said we mightn’t be able to dock, but thankfully the winds died down a bit and we got off. Being stuck out there in a storm...man, can you think of anything worse?”

Having your testicles stuck in a vice springs to mind but, hey, it’s all subjective. BMRC’s first Irish gig finds them a member short – drummer Nick Jago unable to travel because of “visa difficulties”. A euphemism which normally translates as “murky criminal past.” So what was it? Drugs, kinky bestial sex?

“Our past is just that – ours,” says Robert Turner rather crossly. “OK, the situation’s this: Nick, who’s English, is in the States legally but because of a hold-up with some papers they might not let him back in if he leaves. It’s a bit like the situation John Lennon was in during the ‘70s and ‘80s. The hope is that by coming here and raising our profile, we’ll be able to make the money we need to slip around the man.”

The band were initially going to pull out of the NME-assisted Brats Tour, but changed their minds when ex-Verve paradiddler Pete Salisbury offered to deputise.

“Our record company, Virgin, put out a few feelers and discovered that Pete is a fan of the record,” he continues, suddenly succumbing to verbal diarrhoea. “We hadn’t wanted to come without Nick – this is a band in the truest sense of the word – but we know The Verve from their early stuff like A Storm In Heaven and thought, ‘Yeah, that could work.’ He came over and rehearsed with us for five days in LA and then we did another five when we got to England. Nick plays some weird fills in some weird places, so there was quite a bit to learn.”

Despite BMRC’s billing as overnight sensations, Turner and Hayes have actually been making music together since 1996.

“I met Peter in high school and we were always talking about forming a band. We had played in a few groups before including one called Wave. We had no songs. We’d just show up and start playing. Some songs lasted 30 minutes. Peter and I always wanted to do more song-based stuff.”

Wave was followed by a stint with the exquisitely monikered Brian Jonestown Massacre.

“Every musician seems to have been in that band at some point. It was always temporary. When we met Nick we were able to quit these previous bands and concentrate on our own material. We recorded a demo. That was floating round for a while and people were quickly interested in what we were doing. People like The Dandy Warhols heard it. Soon we were playing with them. They took a chance on us.”

Jago installed behind the drum-kit, it wasn’t long before BMRC were making friends and influencing A&R people.

“We started with the demo. At the same time we were playing a ton of shows in Los Angeles and San Francisco. We were trying to make something happen and get the message out. We soon got a lot of attention from the record companies.”

And that new kid in Tinsel Town, Tim Burgess.

“He took us across the country with The Charlatans when we were struggling, which means a lot to me. Him vouching for us like that was cool, and we run in to him from time to time in Los Angeles.”

Burgess isn’t their only Britrock fan – Noel Gallagher so taken with their feedback-laden rifferema that he’s invited them to open for Oasis at the Royal Albert Hall. Quite a step-up from some of the toilets they’ve been playing back home.

“How many people does it hold?”

5,000 in the main auditorium and several hundred more in the Muppet boxes that the Queen and her mates sit in.

“Oh God, you shouldn’t have told us that! We’re used to playing in places where never mind see, you can smell the audience. Noel had gotten hold of our demo, liked it and started dropping our name in interviews. Only trouble is he got it wrong! Which is probably our fault for picking one that’s got so many words in it. One half of me’s nervous ‘cause the Royal Albert Hall’s so big, and the other’s excited ‘cause it’s a chance to take things to the next level.

“The two ways to break the States are get fast-rotated on MTV – which we haven’t managed yet – or tour your ass off. We’ve done four trips cross-country in a year, so it’s been pretty manic.”

“But worth it,” Hayes reflects. “Driving eight hours to play to two people would’ve been depressing, ‘cept that the next time we were in town there’d be four people and the time after that eight! Actually, it was more like 20, then 80 and then a couple of hundred, which is cool.”

Where’s the weirdest places their travels have taken them?

“Mazoola, which is this no mark town in Montana. They’re all sitting there in their bunkers waiting for Canada to attack or something. It didn’t help that while we there I got teeth problems. Mazoola’s only dentist told me it could be life-threatening – y’know, internal bleeding and stuff – so we got out of there as fast as we could.”

One extremely painful root canal later – “Man, I cried like a baby” – and the Haysian gob was restored to former glories. Of course, the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club could’ve saved themselves a lot of time, effort and pass-me-the-codeine-now! agony if they’d been willing to become the next Blink 183 or Sum 42.

“They’re soundchecking at the venue right now,” says Turner, referring to English shouty blokes lostprophets. “That does seem to be the new thing but I don’t pay it too much attention. The skate punks have replaced the mullet metallers in L.A., although if you want to see those haircuts they’re still alive and well in Montana! There are people, though, who are walking the same walk as us. The Warlocks, Ty Cobb, The View...they’re all kindred spirits.

“I don’t know if American music’s got better, but at least people are paying attention again. It doesn’t start and stop with The Strokes, White Stripes and us. Every city you go to has cool bands.”

I’d be failing in my journalistic duties if I didn’t point out that the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club bare an uncanny resemblance – physically, musically and haircut-wise – to The Jesus & Mary Chain. Indeed, by the time the strobes kick in at the end of their Ambassador set, you’d swear that somebody’s been up to a spot of cloning.

“There are worse bands to be compared to,” Turner half-smiles. “The Mary Chain, Spaceman 3, Ride… they all crop up in reviews. I kind of understand where you guys are coming from but, y’know, I think we bring something new to the party.”

And what a knees-up The Ambassador proves to be. Dressed from head to toe in black – I told you they’re Mary Chain fans – the trio gradually turn the thermostat up as the set progresses, with ‘Whatever Happened To My Rock ‘N’ Roll (Punk Rock Song)’ as white hot as climaxes get. The assembled masses – which include Joe Elliott, The Saw Doctors, the British inkies and a Steve Lamacq henchman – show their approval by dancing like it’s 1989. In fact, the only people who aren’t turning cartwheels afterwards are the BMRC boys.

“It was cool enough,” proffers Peter Hayes, “but now we have to get back on that fucking ferry!”