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Interview
by SashaS
8-11-2002
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| Brutal Deluxe: Lost in... noise & books |
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Educataining rock
Brutal Deluxe on literature-aware rock-existentialism
From our vast experience of interviewing musicians (and a number of film actors), the general theme is usually – me, myself and I. It can deviated into some incidents, anecdotes, opinions but the centrepiece of the encounter is any artist’s self. Very few, Nate Mandell of Foo Fighters a known bookworm, read books avidly due to, probably, not many being literate, after all. Ask about reading habits and the answer you’ll mostly get is – comics. (Not even the daily-tabs, mind you.)
Then, you come across a band like Brutal Deluxe and it is not only the title of the album, ‘Mistah Kurtz... He Dead’, that owns its existence to Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart Of Darkness’ (that provided basis for the ’Apocalypse Now’ film) but there are other songs directly inspired by great writing: Fyodor Dostoyewski (‘Crime And Punishment’), Vladimir Nabokov (‘Lolita’), Bram Stoker (‘Dracula’), philosopher Rene Descartes (‘Discourse On The Method’) who is renown for its human-defining dictum, ‘Cogito ergo sum’…
Let me introduce Christian Nunnikhoven who’s a near-obsessed reading frontman of the Brutal Deluxe trio. And, at the time when most musos have problems stringing a couple of sentences (in English), this man is versed to conversing in German, French and Dutch. It is his
The general theme of the album is books and it is a brave move in illiteracy-fuelled music that passes for rock today. ‘Mistah Kurtz…’ offers different scope, draws on some surprising influences, contains brill (and brutal) noises, experimental blasts, myriad complex arrangements and rocking to make any fan of early Guns N’Roses jump up again!
“We have an advantage of being a three-piece and that affords us not to have a problem dealing with too many egos. It is little bit easier to define band’s sound, approach, ideology… And we all know that we don’t have to cram every space with notes, we let songs breathe, come alive on their own terms…”
The secret is not to try hard but let me flow, cultivate spontaneity without losing on the smarts. Brutal Deluxe’s world is an anti-homogenized, pasteurised and totally sanitized reality that feels like a monochrome TV-episode.
Life issues
Nunnikhoven and Jon Clayton forged Brutal Deluxe in 1997 and their first manifesto item was not to plagiarise but create unique sound and vision. After an encounter with a (white?) witch in Spain, the two decided to accept her advice of playing barefoot and use tribal markings on their faces and bodies; probably because their organs were soaked in alcohol and she was a foxy lady. She certainly didn’t tell them to attempt to get highbrow rocktastic!
“My affair with books,” Chris confesses, “started at school, I was recommended Turgenev’s ‘Fathers & Sons’, and then progressed onto others… I’m not saying I’m more intelligent… But, it goes back to the very, very primitive level and I know what entertains people on that level, very, very instantly. The best example is the top-shelf magazines with all the naked women, cleavages, sex… I love it as well but I always wanted to know more and I’m sure everybody is curious but they might be afraid to express it because of the social climate.”
Post-psyche yadda
The band’s debut album, ‘Divine Head’, appeared in May 2000 and the Brutalists were deluxing their live sound alongside outfits such as Raging Speedhorn, Kill II This and LostProphets. They’ll be following the new album with extensive touring as well.
‘Mistah Kurtz…’ is an album that’s only half inspired by literature and the rest are “personal experiences” although some are only by observing, such as ‘Mother Morphine’ [“about a recurring dream after medical morphine injections”), ‘Life Sentence’ (“about a friend who wanted to commit suicide until she was diagnosed with terminal illness”], ‘S&M Narcissus’ [“about my and everybody's fascination with voyeurism”]. There is a song entitled ‘Book That Changed My Life’ but Nunnikhoven is not the one to bring up reading habits; doesn’t he believe in educational power of music?
“Yeah, in an ideal world,” Christian agrees, “but this is less than a perfect one. I’ve read so many books but then, I’ve heard so much great music that really changed my life, which means nothing to others. But I realised that I can’t worry if people are excited, blown-away, inspired by the things that I find unbelievable. So, if people mention (books), I’ll talk about it but not many people do ask.”
The trouble with non-reading is under-development of imagination and without it any future of culture is rather doubtful. Is he concerned with the state of con that is flogged as the contemporaneous music?
“It doesn’t look good, does it? Television plays a big part in creating pop stars, which is very clever on the music industry’s part, but people who don’t watch this programmes are out of the picture. And all these ‘Pop Idols’ are too localised which might not be good for global music. There is also no-long ideology to it, just profit in a quick and instant manner and then grab the next one.”
Brutal Deluxe have only live shows and their idiosyncratic albums to wean you away from the dummy-sucking pop-mart. Do your life a favour, open up your ears and your arse… pardon – brain, will follow!
SashaS
8-11-2002
Brutal Deluxe’s album ‘Mistah Kurtz... He Dead’ is released 11 November on DreamCatcher Records
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