Robert Levon Been - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (05/11/2013)
Following the cancellation of Harvest Festival, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, one of many exciting bands booked to play the November festival, took to social media to confirm on their Facebook page that they would still be making the trip down under, with Harvest Presents announcing headlining shows in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth. Tickets have been selling fast, with Melbourne’s scheduled show for Billboard the Venue upgraded to the larger Palace Theatre.
“We were hoping that no matter what happened with the festival, we’d still be able to find a way to get down there and play. They’ve been really cool with helping us get these shows together,” bassist/vocalist, Robert Levon Been says positively of Harvest Festival organisers.
Earlier in 2013, the Los Angeles based rock’n’roll trio of Been, guitarist/vocalist Peter Hayes and percussionist Leah Shapiro, released their seventh studio album, Specter At The Feast. The album continued the heavy blues of 2010’s Beat the Devil’s Tattoo, but offered a more complex exploration of the emotional spectrum, ranging from the searing anger of tracks like Teenage Disease and Sell It, to more understated ballads in Lose Yourself and the heartbreaking Returning.
It has been nearly three and a half years since BRMC have toured Australia, last appearing at 2010’s Splendour in the Grass. The wait may have been long and agonising, but Been asserts that there are some positives to extra-long delay. “By the time you make it [to Australia], the songs are really sharp and feel like they’ve fully taken shape. Right after the record comes out, you’re still developing how they’re going to be played live, so all the shows [in Australia] usually feel pretty strong. And since there is that tension because it’s so hard to get down there, it feels like a big relief when finally you can make it. A lot of people have been waiting for quite a while. It always makes it more worthwhile when we can [perform in Australia].”
With seven solid albums and multiple EPs to their name, composing setlists each night is undoubtedly a taxing task, but Been affirms that Australian fans will be treated to “some songs that people have been missing hearing, as well as new things. We’ll find a balance. We kind of have to make some sacrifices. There are so many records now, it’s impossible to play everything, unless people want to spend the majority of their day with us,” he chuckles modestly.
If one thing is for certain about BRMC’s music, it’s that it’s made to be played live, and played loud. Which tracks from the new album have been eliciting the most raucous responses from audiences? “They’ve all been well-received. I guess Rival and can get the crowd really stirred up if we’re bringing the same energy that the song has. It can trigger a chain reaction and can reach unique levels of madness, which is nice. Some songs are harder to play, like Sometimes the Light and Some Kind of Ghost are difficult to pull off live because they’re very simple and fragile songs, so we haven’t found a way to give them their due time. Some day, I hope we do. Some songs take longer.”
With records Howl (2005) and Baby 81 (2007), BRMC released subsequent EPs consisting of previously unheard material recorded during the album sessions (Howl Sessions and American X, respectively). Been reveals that the band has something interesting planned for the extra tracks from the Specter At the Feast sessions. “There are lot of songs we didn’t finish. We had all the music completed, all the melodies and the arrangements, and some of the words. It’s mostly the lyrics on maybe half of the songs that we haven’t finished yet. There were just too many words to try and finish in the amount of time we had to make the record, so rather than try to finish those quickly and release a double album, we kind of had the idea to put as much as we could into those twelve songs of Specter and then spend due diligence on the next round. So, they’ll all come on the next one, I’m hoping.”
“We might re-record a lot of them,” he continues. “We’re talking about different ways of approaching the next record, but still in essence it’ll be the same songs, I hope; just with a different haircut.” He clarifies that the different approach relates to specifically to production. “It’s not going to be a dance remix album,” he laughs, “but there’s a unique way we could go about it that we think would be pretty good for different direction to go and still feels like us at the end of the day. I can’t tell you all of the secrets, but there are things coming”
In 2010, the band was struck by tragedy as Been’s father, Michael Been (former vocalist for ‘80s new wavers, The Call), suddenly passed away backstage at Pukkelpop Festival in Belgium. Michael Been, (affectionately nicknamed Papa Been) was an integral part of the BRMC unit. In addition to acting as a sound engineer on tour and mixer for many albums, Michael Been was their mentor and an omnipresent supportive figure throughout the years. The recovery process for Been, Hayes and Shapiro, who were shaken terribly the loss, was long and difficult. But from the pain, they reemerged with their most accomplished album yet. As a tribute to Michael, BRMC covered Let the Day Begin, a popular track by The Call, releasing it as the first single from the new album.
“Life tends to be kind of hard for a reason and it took me a while to figure that out,” Been reflects of the obstacles of reconciling the lapsing motivation of depression with the desire to continue with creative pursuits. “I thought [life] owed me something. I thought it was supposed to be different. Once I realised it’s not all about being happy and normal and keeping up with everyone else; it’s not really the point of why we live and why we get up in the morning. It’s noise and it’s what people are trying to sell you, but I think there’s another reason and another purpose that you need to find for yourself. I’ve found a few of them for myself, but I think each person has their own way to go. I think it’s very fucking rare for people to find out that their path in life is to be happy and normal and like everyone else. I don’t think that one gets tossed around very often. If you look closely at anybody, we’ve all got our fair share. Once you let go of the expectations that it owes you anything or that any of it’s going to come easy, then you start to kind of feel like yourself and free and capable of making something that you believe is worthwhile, not for somebody else.”
For Been, the relief seems to be found in music. But trying to elucidate exactly what it is that makes music so powerful is “something you couldn’t explain as hard as you tried; what it really is and what it really does and where it comes from. I always thought it was one of the last real forms of magic. As hard as you try to mathematically look at it and pick it apart, it doesn’t ever really fully explain it; the answer doesn’t fit the way it feels. There’s always something more that you could take from it and the further you dive deeper down into it, the more you’ll find. And there’s not many things in life like that. Most things can be explained and summed up and stripped down and you can feel all the machinery behind it, but music doesn’t quite work like that. It says all the things that can’t be said with words, y’know? It’s all the spaces in between that don’t get counted or looked at or thought about very much by people.”
“It’s a fun riddle to try to ask yourself again and again, but it’s also not very complicated. It’s simple. I mean, you follow the feeling and that leads you to the sound or vice versa, sometimes. It took me a little while to work this out, but we’ll write songs instrumentally and there’ll be a melody that comes through with it - this kind of grumbling in your stomach that comes out and it feels like it fits with the music that everyone’s playing in the room together. And that melody, you try to put words to it, and every time you try to put words to it, you either know it in your gut if it fits and if it takes it further, or if it feels wrong and drags the song down and stops it from becoming what it could become. It’s a really interesting thing that happens. There are songs that have just been some of the most powerful things instrumentally and the melodies have been so beautiful, and then as soon as myself or Peter have tried to write words to those songs, it’s like you know if you’re being honest with yourself or not. If you’re putting the wrong words to it or if you’re tired and you don’t really feel like writing anything that day and you just kind of put some cliché thing into it, it spits it out and it spits it back into your face and you know that you’re bullshitting yourself, and you’re not really being honest to the song, and you’re not really doing what it’s asking you to do. So, the music’s asking you to do something and it’s very specific, and if you change one element of the notes, you change the feeling, and as soon as the feeling changes, it asks something else. So, it’s following that, and I think it’s already there, it’s kind of all just spelled out; you just have to dig deeper and try and find the words that are already supposed to belong with that feeling.”
Lara Moates
NOVEMBER 2013
WEDNESDAY 13th PERTH, METRO FREMANTLE – 18+
www.oztix.com.au
FRIDAY 15th (NEW VENUE) MELBOURNE, THE PALACE – 18+
All tickets purchased for the Billboard show will be valid for use at The Palace
www.oztix.com.au
SATURDAY 16th SYDNEY, THE HI-FI – Lic A/A
www.thehifi.com.au
SUNDAY 17th BRISBANE, THE HI-FI – 18+
www.oztix.com.au
“We were hoping that no matter what happened with the festival, we’d still be able to find a way to get down there and play. They’ve been really cool with helping us get these shows together,” bassist/vocalist, Robert Levon Been says positively of Harvest Festival organisers.
Earlier in 2013, the Los Angeles based rock’n’roll trio of Been, guitarist/vocalist Peter Hayes and percussionist Leah Shapiro, released their seventh studio album, Specter At The Feast. The album continued the heavy blues of 2010’s Beat the Devil’s Tattoo, but offered a more complex exploration of the emotional spectrum, ranging from the searing anger of tracks like Teenage Disease and Sell It, to more understated ballads in Lose Yourself and the heartbreaking Returning.
It has been nearly three and a half years since BRMC have toured Australia, last appearing at 2010’s Splendour in the Grass. The wait may have been long and agonising, but Been asserts that there are some positives to extra-long delay. “By the time you make it [to Australia], the songs are really sharp and feel like they’ve fully taken shape. Right after the record comes out, you’re still developing how they’re going to be played live, so all the shows [in Australia] usually feel pretty strong. And since there is that tension because it’s so hard to get down there, it feels like a big relief when finally you can make it. A lot of people have been waiting for quite a while. It always makes it more worthwhile when we can [perform in Australia].”
With seven solid albums and multiple EPs to their name, composing setlists each night is undoubtedly a taxing task, but Been affirms that Australian fans will be treated to “some songs that people have been missing hearing, as well as new things. We’ll find a balance. We kind of have to make some sacrifices. There are so many records now, it’s impossible to play everything, unless people want to spend the majority of their day with us,” he chuckles modestly.
If one thing is for certain about BRMC’s music, it’s that it’s made to be played live, and played loud. Which tracks from the new album have been eliciting the most raucous responses from audiences? “They’ve all been well-received. I guess Rival and can get the crowd really stirred up if we’re bringing the same energy that the song has. It can trigger a chain reaction and can reach unique levels of madness, which is nice. Some songs are harder to play, like Sometimes the Light and Some Kind of Ghost are difficult to pull off live because they’re very simple and fragile songs, so we haven’t found a way to give them their due time. Some day, I hope we do. Some songs take longer.”
With records Howl (2005) and Baby 81 (2007), BRMC released subsequent EPs consisting of previously unheard material recorded during the album sessions (Howl Sessions and American X, respectively). Been reveals that the band has something interesting planned for the extra tracks from the Specter At the Feast sessions. “There are lot of songs we didn’t finish. We had all the music completed, all the melodies and the arrangements, and some of the words. It’s mostly the lyrics on maybe half of the songs that we haven’t finished yet. There were just too many words to try and finish in the amount of time we had to make the record, so rather than try to finish those quickly and release a double album, we kind of had the idea to put as much as we could into those twelve songs of Specter and then spend due diligence on the next round. So, they’ll all come on the next one, I’m hoping.”
“We might re-record a lot of them,” he continues. “We’re talking about different ways of approaching the next record, but still in essence it’ll be the same songs, I hope; just with a different haircut.” He clarifies that the different approach relates to specifically to production. “It’s not going to be a dance remix album,” he laughs, “but there’s a unique way we could go about it that we think would be pretty good for different direction to go and still feels like us at the end of the day. I can’t tell you all of the secrets, but there are things coming”
In 2010, the band was struck by tragedy as Been’s father, Michael Been (former vocalist for ‘80s new wavers, The Call), suddenly passed away backstage at Pukkelpop Festival in Belgium. Michael Been, (affectionately nicknamed Papa Been) was an integral part of the BRMC unit. In addition to acting as a sound engineer on tour and mixer for many albums, Michael Been was their mentor and an omnipresent supportive figure throughout the years. The recovery process for Been, Hayes and Shapiro, who were shaken terribly the loss, was long and difficult. But from the pain, they reemerged with their most accomplished album yet. As a tribute to Michael, BRMC covered Let the Day Begin, a popular track by The Call, releasing it as the first single from the new album.
“Life tends to be kind of hard for a reason and it took me a while to figure that out,” Been reflects of the obstacles of reconciling the lapsing motivation of depression with the desire to continue with creative pursuits. “I thought [life] owed me something. I thought it was supposed to be different. Once I realised it’s not all about being happy and normal and keeping up with everyone else; it’s not really the point of why we live and why we get up in the morning. It’s noise and it’s what people are trying to sell you, but I think there’s another reason and another purpose that you need to find for yourself. I’ve found a few of them for myself, but I think each person has their own way to go. I think it’s very fucking rare for people to find out that their path in life is to be happy and normal and like everyone else. I don’t think that one gets tossed around very often. If you look closely at anybody, we’ve all got our fair share. Once you let go of the expectations that it owes you anything or that any of it’s going to come easy, then you start to kind of feel like yourself and free and capable of making something that you believe is worthwhile, not for somebody else.”
For Been, the relief seems to be found in music. But trying to elucidate exactly what it is that makes music so powerful is “something you couldn’t explain as hard as you tried; what it really is and what it really does and where it comes from. I always thought it was one of the last real forms of magic. As hard as you try to mathematically look at it and pick it apart, it doesn’t ever really fully explain it; the answer doesn’t fit the way it feels. There’s always something more that you could take from it and the further you dive deeper down into it, the more you’ll find. And there’s not many things in life like that. Most things can be explained and summed up and stripped down and you can feel all the machinery behind it, but music doesn’t quite work like that. It says all the things that can’t be said with words, y’know? It’s all the spaces in between that don’t get counted or looked at or thought about very much by people.”
“It’s a fun riddle to try to ask yourself again and again, but it’s also not very complicated. It’s simple. I mean, you follow the feeling and that leads you to the sound or vice versa, sometimes. It took me a little while to work this out, but we’ll write songs instrumentally and there’ll be a melody that comes through with it - this kind of grumbling in your stomach that comes out and it feels like it fits with the music that everyone’s playing in the room together. And that melody, you try to put words to it, and every time you try to put words to it, you either know it in your gut if it fits and if it takes it further, or if it feels wrong and drags the song down and stops it from becoming what it could become. It’s a really interesting thing that happens. There are songs that have just been some of the most powerful things instrumentally and the melodies have been so beautiful, and then as soon as myself or Peter have tried to write words to those songs, it’s like you know if you’re being honest with yourself or not. If you’re putting the wrong words to it or if you’re tired and you don’t really feel like writing anything that day and you just kind of put some cliché thing into it, it spits it out and it spits it back into your face and you know that you’re bullshitting yourself, and you’re not really being honest to the song, and you’re not really doing what it’s asking you to do. So, the music’s asking you to do something and it’s very specific, and if you change one element of the notes, you change the feeling, and as soon as the feeling changes, it asks something else. So, it’s following that, and I think it’s already there, it’s kind of all just spelled out; you just have to dig deeper and try and find the words that are already supposed to belong with that feeling.”
Lara Moates
NOVEMBER 2013
WEDNESDAY 13th PERTH, METRO FREMANTLE – 18+
www.oztix.com.au
FRIDAY 15th (NEW VENUE) MELBOURNE, THE PALACE – 18+
All tickets purchased for the Billboard show will be valid for use at The Palace
www.oztix.com.au
SATURDAY 16th SYDNEY, THE HI-FI – Lic A/A
www.thehifi.com.au
SUNDAY 17th BRISBANE, THE HI-FI – 18+
www.oztix.com.au