Continuing as a band – let alone as individual musicians – seemed like an impossible task for the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club back in 2004. Being dropped by Virgin Records in 2004 certainly was a catalyst, but it had more to do with the departure of drummer Nick Jago, who left the band due to his problems with drug addiction. Bassist Robert Levon Been admitted that he and vocalist/guitarist Peter Hayes were seriously considering ending all ties with the music business. And as hokey as it sounds, music may have saved the band.
Jago was always given the opportunity to return to BRMC if he wanted, and he took the band up on that offer when they needed backing drum tracks in the studio. According to Been, it only took 1 session as a 3-piece again to resurrect the band. Since that time, the band has experimented with a more Delta Blues, folksy sound on Howl, and now with the newly released Baby 81 the trio is returning to its roots with a more straightforward rock sound. Recently UG writer Amy Kelly talked to Been about the new record, although the conversation soon took a nostalgic turn.
UG: Baby 81 is a big departure from your last album Howl, which featured more of an Americana sound. What made you decide to make a complete return to your initial rock sound?
Robert: It wasn’t methodical. The beginning of it was really when we were in the studio making Howl. We were on our last song and we were pretty much out of money after that! But we had one left to go and we needed the drums on it. We actually had been talking to Nick that week about coming back to the band. We just gave him a call and said, “Hey man, come down. We’d love to have your fingerprint on this record.” He came down and laid the drums on that song. It felt really good. I think someone said, “You can use it for a B-side.” Three-and-a-half years later, “Took Out A Loan” was finished. It kind of knocked us on our ass because we weren’t really expecting anything like that.
At the beginning of the record, that guitar riff is actually one Pete had for years. It was like he’d always sound check with it. It was just this kind of guitar that he would check the tone of his amps with. We were like, “Oh, let’s jam out.” That was kind of the first thing he started playing just to test his amps. My first reaction was just, “Oh, great. There he goes with that fucking guitar riff again!” Me and Nick just kind of looked at each other and kicked in. We kind of wrote the rest of it on the fly. It had the first verse and chorus, but it didn’t have a 2nd verse. We didn’t have any idea for the arrangement because it was always just “that fucking guitar riff.” He kept going and then we got to the end of the song. I started playing the bass riff and thankfully Nick and Pete just fit in together. It kind of just really started flying. It was kind of shock for all of us. We kind of looked at each other afterwards and it was like a real strange moment.
Does that spontaneous kind of songwriting happen often for the band?
It never happens like that. We’ve never been in the studio when we’ve been working on a song. We’ve always been like, “We don’t want to waste any time or money.” Usually it doesn’t come that easy. But maybe this was part of the magical element of just us not playing for like 7 months, then being in the same room. It was kind of a special thing. We finished “666 Conducer” that same evening.
So those 2 songs were originally like the start of this record. We didn’t plan anything like that. We felt like we had the blueprint of the next album, just the sound and everything. I swear, every record we just kill ourselves to try and find a studio, trying to find a drum sound. Months and months of trying to find what just fell into our laps for that day and moment.
Initially we didn’t have any idea that the drums and everything would sound that good in that room. We had recorded all of Howl there, but we never actually used the drum room for anything besides just holding down a groove. It was me and Pete playing, and we can’t play worth a shit!
So the studio played a big part in transitioning to the sound on Baby 81?
It was a friend of ours’ studio, a guy named Rick Parker. We’ve heard things he had recorded there in the past, but they’ve never sounded anything like that for some reason. I think it’s more actually Nick and how hard he hits the shit out of the drums. Everything responded and we felt like we had a really unique sound without doing anything too complicated. It was one of the best fucking days of my life. We were already underway and we hadn’t even released Howl.
We then decided that the bigger reason that it was important is I was still wrestling with just the 3 of us playing again. There were trust issues and whatever you want to call it. I was really grappling with, “Do I want to give my heart back to this thing?” All of us were just kind of shattered after. Having those 2 things for the next year while touring Howl has just kept me alive and kept me going. It made me know that there is still more music to be made with us. That gave me proof.
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| "Every record we just kill ourselves to try and find a studio, trying to find a drum sound." |
It sounds like you were really torn up with Nick’s departure. How close did you come to giving up music altogether?
It was completely over for a couple months after Nick left. We didn’t publicly say anything because we were just right at the end pretty much of our tour for the Take Them On, On Your Own record. None of us maybe knew what to make of it. We kind of just all went in our own worlds when we got home. Nick was gone and that was it. Pete said he didn’t want to play music anymore maybe. So that was kind of the last we spoke. I started listening to all these songs we had, songs that we had begun kind of writing for Howl. It was definitely kind of the plan to make Howl a kind of stripped-down, experimental record. I didn’t know what else to fucking do. I was truly lost. I felt like when in doubt, follow the music.
I went over to Pete’s house and we played a couple of them. We were like, “Let’s make the record. Finish the thought. Who knows if it will come out. Who knows what we’ll call it, but at least we’ll be doing something with our hands.” That was kind of the start of us coming back together. We were just playing around, keeping the body functioning. When you get swept in so early to that profession, you need to get out, take a walk, that type of thing.
As a bass player, do you often come up with many of the initial songwriting ideas or do you usually play off of Peter’s riffs?
Songs come every which way and it’s kind of good not to get stuck in any one kind of way. I know every time we change to adapt, it’s always going on an adventure. If you’re going to do it, try something different and go a different route. The most recent thing for writing for me was just the piano. I kind of learned it. I hadn’t really played anything on it until making Howl, this song called “Promise.” I hadn’t written anything for a long time, and then it just kind of sparked it. Now I’m kind of more inspired by this new instrument than maybe learning acoustic guitar or whatever. But that’s just right now. Maybe something else will come and change it.
I understand that the band initially formed in a rather amusing way.
The way we started was when we were in high school. Peter and I, we kind of taught each other on the playground! He brought his acoustic guitar to school every day. So I kind of knew he was totally a guitar player! I was like, “Hey, man, do you want to play music sometime?” He invited me to this bar that was called Abernathy. The guy there gave him his own slot. He was this young kid and he wasn’t allowed to go into the bar during night hours!
He always says that he invited a lot of his friends, but no one showed up but me. There were a couple of barflies. He was playing this electric guitar with one of those pedalboards that was kind of like an all-in-one thing. It was electric, and it’s really, really ballsy to go up and play a really psychedelic electric guitar alone! It’s much easier playing acoustic guitar in a song when you’re on your own. But to pull off a psychedelic electric experience?
Was Peter somewhat of an influence on your playing?
No, it was rather uninspiring! It was pretty scary! It was mixed folk numbers, but electric delayed, distortion, crazy, freaked-out reverb. He wasn’t really a songwriter yet, but I could still tell that within in that there was something kind of unique. Somehow you can tell that even someone that can’t actually really play yet, you can still tell there’s something. He came to my house and we listened to a bunch of records and talked about music. We talked about music a lot before we played it. I played bass and then he played guitar. We had a drum machine. We would just go into his bedroom and make these little recordings. We’d play them together in time, but they were pretty god-awful.
For a couple of years we would meet after school and make these strange recordings. It kind of had a bit of an early Joy Division sound mixed with Willie Nelson. It got better. I learned how to play an instrument and he learned how to play. It came together, and that’s been the most important thing through all the years. We’ve learned separately how to write songs. I don’t know if we could write them together in the same way. There’s a lot of unspoken communication that happens.
We didn’t really ever do anything with it. We loved playing together, but we actually had to experience a little life before we did it. Then Peter went off and I played in a band for a little bit. He went off and joined the Jonestown (Brian Jonestown Massacre) for a bit. We were both like, “We ought to be doing our own thing” – which really meant doing our own thing together. So we both just met in the middle. I had been writing a lot of songs and he had been writing a lot of songs on our own, apart from those bands, kind of secretly. We were both kind of miserable.
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| "When you get swept in so early to that profession, you need to get out, take a walk, that type of thing." |
Did those songs you individually wrote eventually get recorded by BRMC as a band?
I had “As Sure As The Sun” and a lot of “Rifles” done. He had “Love Burns” and “666 Conducer.” We had a lot of good shit.
It sounds like there was a good deal of time where you guys were without a drummer. How did Nick enter the picture?
We were like, “We need a drummer.” We did an audition thing. We auditioned 2 people. The drummers were god-awful and scared the shit out of us! So we stuck with a drum machine. He said, “Do you know anybody else?” I said did know a kid named Nick, who I actually played with 6 months earlier while looking for someone else for another thing. He couldn’t play to save himself. He didn’t know rhythm at a fundamental level, I was afraid. I was like, “I know this kid who says he’s a drummer, but he’s really not. Don’t make me call him.” He said, “Oh, fuck it. Let’s give it a shot and give him a ring.”
He came over and within the 6 months or whatever, somehow he learned how to play. Later he told me he was playing almost every day since the last time I had saw him. He learned this beat, and he kind of always showed me this one he kept learning and he was always rehearsing. We were like, “Well, we have this song that goes like this and you play this beat.” By luck and coincidentally, that was the one beat he had been learning! We had practiced for like 9 hours.
Could you immediately sense that Nick was the right fit, despite his ability to play only about one song?
After that, me and Peter were sold. We knew we needed Nick. We had to convince him that the band would make records and do it for real. We actually that night asked him to do it. He looked it at kind of like a hobby. He was kind of like, “Well, maybe. Maybe, but I don’t really know music.” It took us about 2 more years to actually convince him that we could actually make a living on it and not have a day job.
He was nuts. He still is nuts. That was the only thing that spooked us. It was like, “He can play the hell on the drums, but he’s one of those Keith Moon characters that’s going to be a problem every day.” I was more nervous about it now. But Pete said, “This is what makes this thing kind of fiery, too. It’s due to that energy.” I even feel the body chemistry. You know when your body heats up when you’re pissed off at someone or your blood is boiling? That’s actually really good for making music! He’s really integral for writing and the band, the whole kind of thing even though he didn’t really write. I always try to make people understand that it’s got to have their professional pull to keep us awake.
Because the band really developed as musicians by playing together and trial and error, I am sure you can detect huge changes in the songwriting when you listen back to your 4 albums.
The first record was mostly basic guitar songs that we had that we taught him to play. Then the 2nd album was all the benefits from touring. We toured for like 2 years and we wrote on the road because we had no other time to write. You don’t want to pick up an acoustic guitar because you get burnt out. We’d write songs onstage, jam out. We got good at that. Personally I really like those songs more because I never expect where they’re going to go. They always excite me more because they’re beyond my imagination.
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