Mogwai - The Illusionists of Noise

When I walk into the room to chat with Barry Burns and John Cummings, the two of them are tidying up, tossing orange and banana peels into the bag that held the fruit. They both look at me with huge grins, and I know this interview is going to have me laughing a lot. I won't bother listing every joke, for the simple reason that the transcript would end up far too long…

Who is Mr. Beast?

Barry: He's a man with…

John: With a wife.

Barry: With a wife called Mrs. Beast…

It's a sign we saw at the airport, you know, when you get off the plane and there's someone there waiting for you. The sign said "Mr. & Mrs. Beast" and we thought it was funny.

John: Have you ever thought that someone might actually have "Beast" as a surname? …But we would never allow ourselves to joke about someone's surname, would we? That would be so immature!

“Mr. Beast” is a fairly different record from your previous ones, especially the more recent ones. Some people even consider it your “hardcore” record.

Barry: We wanted to play “noisier” songs live… There are only three or four songs we can really call “noisy”. Compared to “Mr. Beast”, the previous record is definitely more “quiet”. It was probably a conscious change.

I also think this record will hit really hard live.

Barry: Yes, we've already played a few shows and I think people liked them.

John: I was a bit worried when we started playing them, but as we went on, they seemed to be coming out pretty well.

Let's keep talking about shows: you opened the 2005 edition of “All Tomorrow's Parties”. How did it go?

Barry: It went well, yeah. It was nice to be there playing.

Being on tour, writing a record, and then being back on tour and writing another record again, you know, it becomes a vicious circle.

Yeah, we played. It wasn't a big deal, but it went well.

So you didn't experience opening the show as a responsibility.

Barry: No, absolutely not. We weren't nervous. Playing first, especially, meant we didn't feel any pressure at all.

We tried playing two new songs, but they came out like absolute shit. We put those two songs on the record, but they sound way better there, and we'll play them even better live.

John: Sometimes you end up playing at the end of the day or the end of the weekend, when it's almost all over, but this time we played first and stuck around to watch the other bands.

Barry: If we'd played at the end, we would have looked like a bunch of old men, because we drank so much beer and… took a few substances… some legal, some a bit less so… My mum wouldn't have been too pleased…

For a band like Mogwai, what are the main differences between playing live and recording in the studio?

Barry: Playing in the studio is really boring and playing live is thrilling. You know, in the studio everything is genuinely boring, the whole process: first you play the drums, then you play the bass, and so on. Sometimes you spend the whole day in the studio and barely get anything done. Live, on the other hand, everything is much more instinctive. I think that's true for everyone in the band: in the studio we get bored.

John: Recording guitars is stressful: it's much harder in the studio. When you make a mistake during a gig, it's done and you don't think about it anymore, but in the studio you have to start all over again. Then again, and again, and again…

Barry: And again, and again…

John: And then again, and again, and again…

Barry: You know, we're not outstanding musicians. We're decent, but not as good as we should be.

John: And then we're lazy.

Barry: True, we're lazy people… That's why we're in a band.

So it takes you quite a while to arrange and record a song. You've never recorded live in one take.

Barry: Does anyone still record live these days?!! Maybe smaller bands can: there are five of us, and it's easy for one of us to make a mistake. We're not outstanding musicians!

Barry: Absolutely not. I think "post-rock" is just as ridiculous as "jaaaazz" or "rock-and-roll".

John: Come on, it makes no sense! The term "post-rock" should be based on a concept that everyone should understand perfectly: rock music.

Then there's "jazz", which should be associated with sex… Then we've got "funk" (Barry gets tears in his eyes!). Come on, "funk" is beautiful, the best one!

How do you describe the different kinds of music?

Barry: "Good", "not bad", and "bad".

John: "A cross between 'Lui' and 'Loro'". But I would never in a million years describe a band as "post-rock"

John: Maybe for a band that really deserves very little consideration, that doesn't make good music.

At this point we could talk about your label, Rock Action. It seems to be doing quite well.

John: Yes, it's doing quite well. We're putting out some great records, by really solid bands.

Barry: We definitely want to put out new artists. It doesn't bring in much money, but we didn't set it up to make it a business - we did it because we enjoyed putting out other bands' records.

John: We like being "cutting edge", even though we know we'll lose money on it.

Barry: There's still someone in charge, a person who runs the label - we don't actually do that much.

As owners of a record label, even if you don't run it day-to-day, what's your take on the current music scene?

John: There are loads of bands who'd like to put out records, but I don't see many of them managing to make headway, to reach a wider audience.

Barry: There's good stuff and there's terrible stuff. Last year didn't see many great bands - I can't think of any brilliant albums that came out last year. Maybe this year will be better. I'm a very optimistic person.

What's your take, on the other hand, on the work of the majors?

Barry: Well, they make money.

John: They sell a product that has nothing to do with music, exactly like any other product you might buy at the supermarket. They have to have a mass-market "offering", they have to stick to what people might like, which is then what people would go and buy. Unfortunately majors don't always really care about the artist themselves, and signing to certain labels can be a bit naive.

Don't you think that investing more in certain artists rather than others would lead the more interesting artists to sell a bit more, to become better known?

Barry: ...

John: …

… Don't you think that investing more in Mogwai and less in Britney Spears would lead Mogwai to sell a bit more?

Barry: No.

No?!

Barry: No, I don't think so.

John: I don't think so either… You could get a thousand people to listen to an artist, but if they don't like it, I doubt they'll buy the record.

Barry: I think the most dangerous thing, for a band signing to a major label, is being told that a lot of energy and money will be invested in them, only to be dropped six months later, maybe because nobody there actually cares about them. It happens pretty often. For every ten bands that sign a deal, one will do fairly well and nine will have no success at all.

There's this band from Sheffield that's often compared to Mogwai. I'm talking about 65Daysofstatic.

John & Barry: Yes, yes.

Do you know them?

John: We know their manager

Barry (to John): Reaaally? And who's that?

John: What do you mean, “who's that?”! It's Pete!

Barry: Oh right, Pete. That's true!

John: …Yes, I like them… I don't think they sound that much like us, if I'm being honest.

Why do you think that people so often associate you with them, then? Maybe journalists are just lazy, and the moment they hear anything vaguely instrumental, yours is the first name that comes to mind?

John: No, they're not lazy: they're simply ignorant!

I like them, but I think there are bands with a sound closer to ours, like Explosions In The Sky.

Fair enough, but let's get back to talking about you: is Batman still your favourite superhero?

Barry: Absolutely! He's the best. You know, he doesn't have any kind of superpower, he's simply a man who can only rely on his intelligence, the only one who could actually, really exist. I was never really able to get into Superman or Spiderman.

John: I don't mind Spiderman.

Barry: Spiderman's not bad, but Batman is better. Plus, I can just picture him driving around in the Batmobile with a bunch of "chicks". What's your favourite superhero?

My favourite superhero has always been Mary Poppins: she can fly, she can tell what kind of person you are by your height, her medicine always tastes different, and she's basically perfect in every way.

Barry: Come on! Mary Poppins is annoying, it makes absolutely no sense! ...Ok, she's got a couple of umbrellas that are actually pretty cool, but apart from that I don't like Mary Poppins: she's too English. And besides, she has no "dark side". Every superhero needs a "dark side". What's Mary Poppins' dark side?

John: Dick Van Dyke.

Barry: No, I don't like that: it's too sweet for my taste... Oh dear, sorry if I've offended you by criticising Mary Poppins.

Not at all, don't worry: it's just your point of view. Besides, we'd like to be like our favourite superheroes precisely because we aren't and never will be like them.

John: No! (he has the same expression as a four-year-old child) No! One day I'll be like Batman!

(reassuringly) Oh yes, one day you'll be just like Batman. Just like him, don't you worry, and I'll be very proud of you.

John: Yes, one day I'll be Batman.

Alright, let's talk about something else, then. Do you think "Revenge of the Sith" was a good ending for the Star Wars saga?

Barry: No. (he says it like a professor being asked for an explanation by a student). I think George Lucas has gone mad, he's ruined himself. I think everything that's been done since halfway through "Return of the Jedi" has been pretty bad.

Episodes I and II were pretty mediocre, "Revenge of the Sith" was slightly better, but it's still garbage.

And then last year, much better films came out. Look, "Team America" is even thrilling compared to "Revenge of the Sith". It's a shame: it could have been a great film, instead it's just trash.

Back to Mogwai. Is "Treat animals like humans" still your motto?

Barry: Animals would never treat humans the way humans treat animals. You'd never see an animal walking around in a human-leather jacket (it's like two degrees out and he's walking around in Converse!).

John: Personally, I treat animals like human beings.

Barry: I like cats.

John: Cats and dogs. It's a real shame to know that an animal like the panda gets hunted for no reason at all, a real shame.

Time's up. A shame: we were just getting back to talking about films, "Madagascar" specifically.

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