The music industry has always been a creative minefield, but recently it’s instability has blown all previous days of trouble out the water (or the soil). But there is still hope, and a new breed of industry insiders lining up to breathe life into the plastic Anna resuscitation doll that is THE WORLD OF MUSIC. In the second of our New Breed series we asked Gbenga Adelekan, bassist of Metronomy and guitarist in Akira, to interview Tom Rogerson, member of possibly-the-best-new-band-since-sliced-bread Three Trapped Tigers. What follows is that discussion.
“It’s another great British disaster that we celebrate for our bravery.”
These are the very first words from Tom Rogerson on the recording I have from the hour or so when we chatted over coffee in London Bridge, just before Three Trapped Tigers headed off on their first headline tour of the UK. He’s talking about Operation Market Garden, the battle for the bridges of Arnhem, Holland, that could have ended World War Two six months early. As I start writing up the discussion, I’m in the Metronomy van driving through Holland after two shows in Germany. And we’ve been watching Band of Brothers the whole weekend. Spooky.
Full Disclosure: I have known Tom for a few years now. We met in a mutual friend’s flat, and battled it out on Mario Kart 64. I’m quite sure my memory of totally owning him is accurate. Halcyon days.
Tom: So I’ve got this friend from school who’s doing a PhD in the States…we were talking about interviews because he’s just launched his own philosophy magazine in Chicago. He was talking about dealing with the press and trying to communicate his ideas for the magazine to people. And it’s this weird thing where the media are mediating his words through other words. I enjoy doing interviews and I can always think of something to say, but I don’t think that musicians are any better qualified to talk about themselves than anybody else.
Gbenga: I also think that what musicians say isn’t any more of a guide to listening to their music than what anyone else has to say.
T: Absolutely. I totally agree.
G: So for you it’s not about the necessity of adding some kind of appendix to the music. It’s purely about getting the Three Trapped Tigers name out there.
T: Exactly. I actually said at one point that it seems like a one-way deal in that it’s only benefiting me, because it’s pushing our music further into the public domain. But my friend said he thinks there’s a lot to be said for people identifying with the band and buying into the name and identity: finding out who you are. Especially if you’re making music of any kind of complexity or claiming to be slightly ahead of the curve or whatever…It’s an interesting thing ’cause I’ve been reading about Samuel Beckett, but he never gave any interviews at all. He refused them, and if I heard his voice, I’d be really disappointed. I don’t want to know his opinions on anything. His writing is essentially about absence and aspiring to silence. Like, I have to keep talking but I don’t want to talk.
G: See, I’ve been thinking about this and we’ve been talking about it in Akira. I’ve been listening to the first Kanye West album which, for that type of music, is a fucking masterclass. The last track on the album goes into a seven minute outro where he explains how he got signed. He’s talking about all the stuff that went on, how many deals he almost had that fell through, naming quite a few names, explaining how he met Jay-Z and got his first beat on a Jay-Z album. Doing that on a track played quite a significant part in building Kanye’s persona. I’ve also been reading Trent Reznor interviews where he’s talking about the importance of having direct communication with your fans. The idea is that you don’t need to budget as much as you think you do for PR and marketing, because at the beginning it’s much more important to have a good website, and loads of content that people who are interested in your music then email to other people. When you’re starting out, that can be way more important than getting a feature in a magazine.
T: In a sense that’s already been done, people like Banksy and Burial who can hide behind their relative anonymity.
G: True, but I guess I’m thinking about bands who aren’t being anonymous.
T: What about Tool? Tool don’t give interviews.
G: Really?
T: But here’s the thing, in the early days, they must have done.
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