Tribe After Tribe sport a career of issues, events and ‘enchanted accesses’

Having escaped persecution in his native South Africa, a highly spiritual (but anti-religion) Robbi Robb, leader and soul of Tribe After Tribe, probably thought that nothing else as bad could happen. Until he injured his strumming hand in a surfing accident and his career appeared to be in doubt. Only few years previously he toured with Three Fish, a project he ran with Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam, and after two albums and tours was planning to return to the TAT world.

Well, five years from the band’s last album, ‘Pearls Before Swines’, Robbi Robb’s TAT have released ‘The Enchanted Entrance’, a collection of rock songs that mix psychedelia, pagan rhythms, heavy guitars and chanting, into one whole that is more atmospheric than anything since T. A. Edison’s recording of ‘Mary Had A Little Lamb’.

Robb has recovered and his arm is getting better by day and there is a talk of a tour but, unfortunately, not to reach Europe until November.

It might be an obvious question but how frustrating did your injury-time get?

“Music was therapeutic but also a source of enormous frustration,” Robbi Robb explains. “I could hear what was needed in a song but wasn’t able to play it which made me think – whether it really need it or not. You have to ask yourself if you are going to be attached to an idea or jump in and let it take you. But, also I had players around me who could do what I had in my mind.”

The album’s theme is still very much based on South African experiences; do you go often there or these are haunting memories?

“Well, more like haunting memories but also there a lot of things that are happening in America,” Robb muses, “reminds me of my past in South Africa. When you are faced with panic you start to built a wall around you. On another level you are building a wall around your heart. A lot of crimes happen because of it and you can’t generalise about people, not all are bad, in any nation, of any race, or creed… My songs recall South African situations but also reflect on what is going on in America.”

“I only visited South Africa once,” he states flatly, “since I had to leave and it was quite nice to see that a lot of good music was happening but problems have remained. I don’t really wish to go there…”

Mind fights

Tribe After Tribe moved out of South Africa in 1986 with the little help of Amnesty International; Robbi Robb was considered a revolutionary during the Apartheid era and for his safety he’s had to relocate, presently in Los Angeles. TAT’s reputation grew with albums ‘Love Under Will’ (1993), ‘Black Poem Jugglers’ (’94), aforementioned ‘Pearls…’ and tours with Pearl Jam.

Entitling the new album ‘The Enchanted Entrance’ suggests that there is hope, if not for optimism, for anticipation…

“Interesting you find a note of optimism in it,” Robb says, “because I’m not optimistic at all, about humanity… The reason for the title is that there is a lot of chanting on the album: there is Hindu, Arabian, there is African… And when the ‘words-of-power’ are chanted over and over you get into a trance and from there you open different doors to spirituality. You can have a relationship with a universe in a different way. Music on one level is an enchanted entrance.”

“Anytime you set a rhythm you open up a doorway; the ambience also opens doors and there is a love making that is another entrance. Act of love is an entrance, sex is another entrance…”

Can't certain things be accomplished by taking a shortcut with certain substances?

“Yes, that is one possibility,” Robb laughs, “but it is like someone climbing Mount Everest without taking any exercise. It is much convenient but, yes, it is an entrance. I’m glad that I’ve taken drugs in my life and it showed me that there are some chemical ways. In South Africa a lot of drugs are found in the nature and when you ask yourself, ‘What the hell is going on up here?’, you begin a relationship with a universe. On a spiritual level.”

Beyond rich and evil

In 1996 Robb and Jeff Ament got together for a project that produced delightfully idiosyncratic album ‘Three Fish’ and, three years later, ‘The Quiet Table’. This appears to have brought TAT to the attention of mass-audience and probably – mainstream. And, although ‘The Enchanted Entrance’ is a great album, it challenges the market demands…

“The thing I believe is that if you take money out,” Robb spreads wisdom, “of politics and music, you’ll get better politicians than musicians. Once you put money back into music, you start getting panic. It creates psychos and everybody is worried about being paid. My experiences with music industry are very limited because there was no industry in South Africa, then I had to learn about it when I moved to America…”

“And then I had another great experience when I had a project with Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam; the thing there was that we went camping and then into a studio and we wrote something like 35 tunes in two weeks. That led to a tour and another album….”

But the project has been inactive for a while; has Three Fish got any future?

“It is possible, I don’t know,” Robb retorts casually. “Jeff is busy with finishing another album with Pearl Jam and then they’ll be touring… I’ve been doing my album and recovering but I think we might have some proper discussion later in the year and have something next year… We all love each other and there is no reason not to do it.”

No doubt Tribe After Tribe’s ‘The Enchanted Entrance’ will keep the spiritually-enlighted busy ‘til then…