Jah Wobble interview
Fodderstompf, April 1999 (first
published F&F9)
© 1999 F&F Publishing
/ Fodderstompf.com
Fodderstompf.Com: This
interview was originally conducted for The Filth and The Fury fanzine in April
1999. We had just watched Mr Wobble and Deep Space give a bone-shaking performance
at The Temple in Glasgow, and had arranged a meet to discuss PiL, along with
his current activities; which included a surprise collaboration…
F&F:
I know it's been a long time since you were in PiL, and it must
seem weird to you that 20 years later people are still interested
in something which must have been such a small part of your life...
Jah Wobble: No, it was a big part of my life really, it was
a big deal because that was when I first started playing, if it
hadn't been for PiL I wouldn't be here tonight, I doubt I would
have started playing seriously if it wasn't for PiL... I still think
it's really good, like that whole thing with celtic music, it had
that drive and inner energy to it, so I'm not surprised people still
like it... It's funny because in the last few years I haven't had
many conversations about PiL and I never really listened to the
stuff, and then Martin Atkins has come back, and now I'm doing a
record with him, him and Geordie from Killing Joke.
F&F: Really? I'll
look forward to that!
Wobble: I hadn't seen Martin since the early eighties, we were
talking about PiL, we had a lot of catching up to do!, and Martin
had said, send me a couple of bass lines, and I said fuck it, if
you're living back in Britain lets get together and do a bit, and
I thought Geordie was always one of the better guitar players from
that era...
F&F: When you look back on PiL what are your feelings on
the band?
Wobble: It was
really intense, I don't think you'll find many bands like us now,
because it was very naive in its own way, there was no manager,
we could never get fucking happening, and 'cos John had been in
the Pistols and earned that reputation we could get away with a
lot of stuff other bands possibly couldn't. It was totally anarchic,
it was mad, very intense, a real mixture of feelings, some of them
really funny, some of it was very frustrating. I know we were young
and fucking crazy, but we should have played more for people, we
should have got out all over the country.
F&F: I think you only did something like five UK shows when
you were in the band.
Wobble: Yeah, something like that, we did two at the Rainbow...
I don't think we ever did Scotland did we?
F&F: No
Wobble: I thought
that was mental, because the people in Glasgow would have gone fucking
mental!!
F&F: There's probably still a small PiL following up here.
Wobble: One of my favourite places in the country to play is
Scotland, especially Glasgow. Newcastle, Bristol, the North West,
a couple of little towns in Essex... I get a lot of letters from
people in those places who are heavily into PiL, my stuff, electronic
music, reggae, real heavy freaky music...
F&F: Yeah, I think it's good when people like a lot of different
stuff, that was the thing with me, when I started with PiL I went
sort of sideways, I checked out some of the things you done, I checked
out all these Dub records and Can etc, and kept going sideways.
There's definitely a line in there somewhere...
Wobble: I think one person who's really part of that tradition
is Bill Laswell, that geezer makes 25 albums a fucking year! That
stuff is insane, the Moroccan trance music, all that mad drum stuff,
that's all part of that same tradition...
F&F: He's even done a sort of 'rock' album with PiL.
Wobble: I thought that was the best thing John had done since
the period I was with PiL.
F&F: It is a good album, I think it's one of the strongest
albums along with 'Metal Box', possibly 'First Issue' as well...
Wobble: Yeah, 'First Issue' is a bit patchy but there's things
like 'Annalisa', 'Low Life', 'Public Image'...
F&F: Records like 'Metal Box' and 'Public Image' have clearly
influenced people, but PiL never seem to get any respect, not many
people come out and say it, maybe Massive Attack or somebody like
that...
Wobble: Massive Attack are smart fellas, I've met them a couple
of times, there definitely smart boys. I think there was more respect
probably ten, twelve years ago than there is now. Maybe if PiL had
ended after those first two albums it would have been different...
F&F: The thing that surprised me with the Virgin box set
were the reviews, I couldn't believe them, I mean at the time the
records got bad reviews, but now they've split up they're given
good reviews...
Wobble: The flak we took at the beginning was unbelievable.
A few people understood it, got it, but a lot of people were seriously
offended by it, because they wanted their regular traditional rock,
I still don't know how to play that stuff!
F&F: Thanks to you I got involved in the PiL box set, so
thanks for that!
Wobble: No problem, I couldn't think of anyone who had it. Martin
phoned me up about the box set as well, if it hadn't been for him,
and my mate Brycie, I wouldn't have known it was going out.
F&F: Yeah, COs when I spoke to Virgin they said Martin had
turned up with a cassette full of unreleased tracks, there was a
track called 'Vampire', do you know anything about that?
Wobble: No, it might have been after my time.
F&F: They mentioned a version of 'Twist and Shout' as well...
Wobble: Yeah, Martin told me about that... Martin felt it could
have been a better compilation. I must admit I thought there should
have been more from 'Metal Box', I know most of the punters have
got it, but I'd have bunged on more of that, or got some remixes
of some of the stuff...
F&F: Yeah, that's the thing, I've got a C-90 full of 'Metal
Box Demos', some of it is stuff you done that later turned up on
'Betrayal', but a lot of it is outtakes from 'Metal Box' they could
have got stuff like that and cleaned it up... The impression I got
about the box set right from the very beginning was that they wanted
to do it more as a compilation. than anything else, but at least
you get the Peel Sessions.
Wobble: Yeah, that's good... To be honest, I only remember one
tape, it was an instrumental from when we very first started, when
Jim Walker was on drums, that was really good. Apart from that I
can't remember. There might be a few outtakes, but it wasn't a band
that really recorded lots and lots of stuff. I might be wrong, it
was that long ago, but from my era with PiL, I don't remember there
being that much stuff.
F&F: Both you and John have admitted it was egos and drugs
that destroyed the early line up, where things really that bad!
Wobble: Oh yeah. It was pretty intense, I just felt totally
frustrated and depressed with it because there wasn't a lot of communication
with the different people. There were different people on different
drugs at the same time. I felt very bad about it, I got very annoyed
with it. We done an American tour, and that was the final straw.
There was a lot of respect flying about and it got very paranoid,
and fucked up. There was a lot of people round the group that shouldn't
have been, all the regular stuff, and you've got the young people,
disturbed people, so what fucked it up, was what in a way made it
great as well, all that mad energy!
F&F: I've seen posters from that tour that say 'Johnny Rotten
of the Sex Pistols', so you were up against it right from the start.
Wobble: The actual Americans were fantastic on that tour, but
I just felt I wanted to go out and get a band and do stuff. So I
had it away on my toes... It's enough for me looking back, there's
two great albums, some great shows, some great memories...
F&F:
There have been so many stories on why you left the band, can you
clear up what happened, what's the truth to the 'stealing backing
tapes' story?
Wobble: What I was doing was going and working. I wanted to
fucking work! They were sitting about the Manor [Studio] all day,
and I was going and doing stuff and saying look I've done some stuff
do you want it? So I started working on my own stuff, I'd have been
happy working on PiL stuff, I just wanted to work. Because I'm starting
to play, I love it! I've been on the dole. All I wanted to do was
play with this fucking group, and I still feel like that, you've
got to get out and do stuff, what's the point of sitting at home
if you can go out and play to people, that's what you do. So I got
very frustrated... But the backing tape thing is all sort of bollocks
really. They are the same backing tracks, but I'm like here's this,
I'm working on this stuff over here. The same tradition with reggae,
you use the same backing track fifty times, it's not stealing a
track, and it's not taking stuff COs I went and did the stuff, put
the bass and drums down myself in Chinatown, so when you've gone
and made a backing track yourself, it's not nicking it! I just wanted
go get into the studio and do stuff, I just wanted to start working.
So when I left PiL I thought maybe the game was up, so I formed
a band, The Human Condition, because I just wanted to do stuff,
it was as simple as that. Because the whole PiL thing was sitting
about being stoned for days on end, and I couldn't bare that, I
just wanted to do things, even now I'm like that.
F&F: Do you think it's ironic that when you first started
releasing solo records like 'Betrayal', they were written off as
a joke, or "curry house music", whereas now you're widely
respected?
Wobble: I always the sort of geezer who just steamed in and
done stuff, have a bit of joy in what you're doing, and have a bit
of humour in there at times, and 'Betrayal' was the funny cover
and all that stuff, yeah it was a laugh...
F&F: How do you feel about the fact you were written off
as a piss-take, but not that long ago you were up for a Mercury
Prize and now you're well respected?
Wobble: All I've ever done is follow the music, and as the years
went on I always had a thing, I never really thought I was really
a musician, and I always felt the game was going to be up, and enjoy
while I could, I'm still a bit like that, enjoy it now COs the game
might be up tomorrow. I'd always had those feelings but then over
the years I just kept coming back to music, I'm obsessive about
it, and then suddenly you've got a track record that you haven't
planned, you've just done what you felt was right at the time. I'd
always come back to certain forms of music, heavy bass lines, the
drones, and what we done tonight wasn't that dissimilar to PiL in
a way the way it's put together...
F&F: Yeah, I noticed that but I didn't want to say it! The
way the bass and drums were working together...
Wobble: Yeah,and all those octaves on the bass.
F&F: That's the sort of stuff I like, the simple repetitive
things, building the sound up, as opposed to using a lot of notes...
Wobble: Exactly. What we were doing that was different to other
bands at the time, was that they'd write chords and we never did
that, it was block units of sound, and textures and atmospheres.
F&F: What turned you onto the sort of music you do now?
Wobble: I was listening to lots of short-wave radio, static
and oscillations and all that. I picked up Radio Terran and Radio
Cairo, and started hearing Egyptian music, I'd already heard reggae
because that was the music you heard about you in London at the
time, and that's how I got into all that, and yet again, scales,
drones, wailing, it's not chordal, there's no harmony, I haven't
got a fucking clue about harmony really. And there was no harmony
which I didn't know at the time, I just thought it was beautiful
music, then I started to find out there was no harmony to it, it's
all overtones.
F&F: How would you describe what you're doing now to a young
PiL fan who doesn't know it, but would like to check it out?
Wobble: It's the same essence, it's very deep, very trancey,
very dark, but dark in a good way, dark coming into light, in essence
it's the same except more sophisticated, it's more extreme, there's
no lyrical content, in essence it's trance music, it's music you
go somewhere else when you listen to it, you go away from the conscious
mind into somewhere else.
F&F: I found that tonight, it's back to the old PiL thing,
there's no image with your band, it's just the music, you forget
their even there, it's not some flash rock show...
Wobble: Exactly. We get up and all it's improvised, nothing's
worked out before we just go on and do it.
F&F: I was wondering that, I bought the album last week but
I didn't recognise any of it, did you do any of it?
Wobble: No, it's all improvised.
F&F: You set up your own 30 Hertz label a couple of years
ago, can you tell me more about it?
Wobble: The basic reason was I was fed up dealing with record
companies, didn't want to be shopping stuff around, so I thought
if I get a label at least I'll get the stuff out, then I've got
a bit of freedom, because it's got very constrained the corporate
record company scene, so the idea was just get the stuff out, do
the stuff you really want to do. And to be honest the stuff I was
doing with Island Records, they really didn't see it, and at that
time they started to move from being fairly esoteric at times to
looking for hits, but for the first time ever it was an amicable
split, which is very unusual...
F&F: Do you plan to put out any other bands on it?
Wobble:
Just me own stuff for the time being, it's a vehicle for my compositions,
but I've got an open mind eventually something might come up, but
I wouldn't want to do that at the moment, because I wouldn't be
able to give people the time that they need, simple as that.
F&F: What about some of your old stuff from the eighties,
The Human Condition or the first Invaders album?
Wobble: Martin Atkins wants to put out The Human Condition on
his own Invisible Records.
F&F: What about
the Invaders album?
Wobble: I was a piss-artist a few years ago and a lot of that
stuff got lost!
F&F: Outside PiL you're probably best known for your Invaders
of the Heart stuff, what's the situation with the band now? Are
Justin Adams and Mark Ferda still involved?
Wobble: Justin's doing some production stuff, Mark's in the
studio, we've got another Invaders album coming out in about a month
and a half. It's got the Invaders sort of sound, the last time we
put an Invaders record out was the 'Celtic Poets', it's always a
changing line up. It keeps on moving, you keep evolving, it's got
to the point where running a big band nowadays is very difficult,
and I felt it had been took to a certain limit, we had used a lot
of song structures, and I wanted to get back to something very pure,
the real essence of music...
F&F: You've been doing some shows for GLR can you tell me
about that, we don't get it up here!
Wobble: They wanted a series, I had different musicians in for
the first series and I played music I was into, and had musicians
come in and play some of the things they liked. The last series
was bit of a piss-take on the music business, I had a few bods come
in from the industry come in and tell a few yarns, slag the business
of completely!
F&F: Do you think the GLR shows will ever be syndicated?
Wobble: I doubt it because it's BBC. They want me to do another
one, but I don't think it'll ever be syndicated or go national because
the radio gets more and more bland all the time, even though there's
more stations.
F&F: Yeah, there's no real alternative, you either get Radio
1 playing the top 20, or Virgin playing the top 20 from ten years
ago, you don't hear PiL on the radio, and you certainly don't hear
your stuff.
Wobble: There's a few good public broadcast stations in America
or on the continent, but not in this country...
F&F: Apparently you've been doing some lecturing at college?
Is it music your doing?
Wobble: I got offered a visiting fellowship at Goldsmiths, it's
Media and Communications I'm supposed to be in. I basically go and
use the facilities, talk to a few PHD students and that's about
it! I haven't done it for a couple of months, but it's supposed
to be pretty informal...
F&F: It'd be strange having you as a lecturer! It must be
a strange one for you too!
Wobble: It's totally bizarre! I never really got on well with
education!
F&F: I know you occasionally write articles for the Independent,
but rumour has it you're planning a book?
Wobble: Yeah, that's on the cards at some point, but it's a
question of finding time to sit down and do it, probably later this
year, it'll be music based...
F&F: So it's not an autobiography?
Wobble: No, I don't think I'd go for that, it might be a bit
autobiographical at times, a bit funny, but no, I wouldn't do that...
F&F: I know you see Martin now, but do you still see Keith
or John?
Wobble: I haven't seen John, god bless him, since he brought
his book out, Keith I haven't seen for about four or five years.
F&F: He seems to have disappeared.
Wobble: Which suits me to be honest, he started to get on me
nerves whenever I saw him.
F&F: The last thing I know he did was when he was in Glen
Matlock's band.
Wobble: Yeah, that's right, with Jim Walker. But round about
that time, it was see you later time with Keith to be honest...
F&F: Do you think you'll ever work with them again?
Wobble:
With Martin yeah, John I dunno know. Sometimes it's best not to
go back and do stuff, if it was viable, and it was working, then
fine, no problem, but I don't know if that would be the case...
F&F: In general what do you think about the music business
now?
Wobble: Very corporate. It's all about a quick profit, on the
corporate side it's pretty depressing, pretty dull. But on the indie
side, with all the new technology it's easier than it ever was to
get records out. I think that side of it is exciting, it's opened
up...
F&F: Yeah, the mainstream is as bland as ever, probably worse,
but there are alternatives now, one thing punk did do is bring an
alternative, the more and more you look into all the different indie
scenes the more good stuff you find...
Wobble: Yeah, there's people like Martin, Bill Laswell, Adrian
Sherwood, a lot of them people are still going strong. I mean I
still manage to get records out, do shows, you still do stuff, but
the corporate side, there's nothing happening...
PiL on roof of Gunter Grove, 1978 © Dennis Morris
PiL USA 1980: Atkins, Wob, John, Keith © unknown
Wob live at Manchester, Witchwood © Robert Pajkert
The Damage Manaul 2000: Wob, Chris Connelly, Geordie, Atkins © unknown