Bobby got in touch with the frontman/mastermind of his favorite band The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Here is the interview:
Bobby: The Brian Jonestown Massacre has always been an album band rather than a singles band. Would it be doing a disservice to the music if I sat my little cousin down and just played “Let’s Go Fucking Mental” or would you rather he just hear all of “Who Killed Sgt. Pepper?” in one sitting like watching a movie?
Anton: For the most part, I view the project as conceptual art on record, meaning the ideas as demos and the live experience are more or less performance art where we try to bring the ideas into fruition in a public setting. To that end, I tend to leave the recordings at more or less a demo level as I am focused on the suspension of disbelief more than making a top ten album of all time.
Bobby: When people ask you questions or force you to reminisce about older records like “Methodrone” or “Give it Back!” do you feel disconnected from those records at all or can you evoke the same passion about them that you have about your more recent works like “Aufheben?”
Anton: People will do what they will do. I wouldn’t call it reminiscing, I try to keep it factual. I don’t feel disconnected from any of the recordings, however I doubt it would be possible to revisit the headspace. I am working on an album project right now and it’s hard, harder than it’s ever been and that was not always the case….I had similar feelings just before I started this project, wanting so much to be in a group and to write songs and sing…but now there is the wanting and waiting. But I also have a studio and all the gear haunting me…and doubt. Even though I tend to make up a new song I like about once a month…at one time they were coming 17 at a time.
Bobby: If you took over a major record company, would you burn it all to the ground and start fresh or do better things within the same business model?
Anton: It’s not something I am interested in doing for any amount of money. Let’s just say that I am less than pleased with the modern media, film, and entertainment businesses.
Bobby: What lyric of yours would you like to see inscribed on your tombstone? Would you want your own lyric inscribed on your tombstone? Would you even be buried?
Anton: “Please Don’t Judge Me Too Harshly” that is printed on Brian Jones’ grave. I don’t care what they do with my body to be honest.
Bobby: Do you think the idea of playing babies classical music thus making them smarter is bullshit?
Anton: Indian Classical?
Bobby: Does the state of modern music bum you out or do you let yourself stay unaffected by it?
Anton: I don’t listen to any of it…but it’s been proven that melody is dead, that people use the same 3 and 4 note scale over and over now…it’s not exactly music anymore, its like a hybrid.
Bobby: Are you satisfied with the album as a medium, after making so many records, or do you romanticize exploring other mediums to explore the same ideas?
Anton: I’m interested in film and soundtracks and then writing songs as they come for my own enjoyment to share.
Bobby: BJM are so hard to put in a box, with every record being different than the last. When journalists try to put you in a box and stamp a genre on your band like “shoegaze” or “garage-rock,” are you ever surprised or baffled at the things they come up with?
Anton: It’s all so much water under the bridge to be honest…
Bobby: I’m a 17 year-old high school student that owns every record of yours. Is The Brian Jonestown Massacre whatever I want it to be? Or is it a message and moment that you control and has specific, intended meaning?
Anton: I’m going to decline to answer this question beyond you can make whatever you may of it. I wanted to make ideas and to have a group…and so I have.
Bobby: Who was the first person that heard “Spacegirl & Other Favorites” (BJM’s first record) or whatever first demo tape the BJM made outside of the band? Did they try to put it in a box by defining it and comparing it?
Anton: I think you would have ask Greg Shaw (founder of Bomp! Records) and he’s dead. Mike Toy put out “Spacegirl” and I think he just thought “wow” these guys are getting weird. Remember, we were playing first…so live, it was freaky. Then we failed to translate it (on recording) as we were learning the studio and that still goes on today.