RC: First time, Rock Circus has broken their cherry at
the 31st Street Pub with these guys, Black Rebel
Motorcycle Club. This is their first Virgin record,
major label right?
Peter: That goes along with the other thing you just
said.
Robert: The cherry thing.
RC: Is this your first time in Pittsburgh, are you also
breaking your cherry here, in Pittsburgh, tonight?
Robert: No, we broke it wide open last time... long time
ago.
RC: How long ago were you here?
Robert: When was that, like six months ago. That was a
rough one. We booked it kind of quick, that was our
first tour out, it was just kind of a live wire
back then.
RC: Were you still trying to get the kinks out of the
system?
Robert: To go... before we thought about it... you
know... just playing anywhere and everywhere. We
had our album out, no reason to sit at home so we
just took off in our van.
RC: Were you trying to be as free spirited as the music?
Robert: I don't know if we thought about it that much,
just wanted to play some rock-n-roll now, you know?
RC: Now you signed with Virgin and the thing that really
blows me away is that they let you produce, and do
a lot of the production work, that they usually
hire a big gun to come in and do. How did you
convince the label or were there any conflicts with
suits or anything?
Peter: Ahhh... well... there was options offered.
RC: Did you cut a lesser deal?
Peter: Well... you take less money... that's all.
Nick: There was a conflict between ourselves too. When
you got three guys trying to produce an album, then
you got too many cooks in the kitchen, and it's
gonna be a little bit messy for a while.
RC: Was it messy for you guys?
Nick: I think everybody had an understanding... being
understood and respected eachother. There might be
some muddy areas but we figured it out, and we got
away with it, so...
RC: Yeah, you had hands on control for everything.
That's great, I think more bands should take that
initiative. Now I was reading Peter, that you don't
like a lot of the bands that people are listening
to. Is it the top 40 stuff or just what's out there
in general? Would you care to embellish, I didn't
really understand the quote.
Peter: Oh... well... I don't know where that one came
from. Basically, it's just that I don't listen to
the radio, and that's about as much embellishing
as there is...
RC: You don't listen to a lot of music at all, do you?
Peter: No... not really... it's just what it is.
RC: Did you guys, when you got together, deal with any
psychedelic type drugs to come up with a sound? In
the 60s a lot of bands like Pink Floyd and Donaven
did, was that a thing for you guys or did this just
come naturally? I mean you came from a family of
musicians Robert, so I'm sure that you were exposed
to a lot of things.
Robert: We all had it in our background, our families
all had musical sides in some way. But the idea is
you don't need it when you listen to it and try to
get the person there without it, so we didn't need
to create it while we were on anything, you know?
The trick is to make good music that stands up
without that. If you take it there's nothing wrong
with that, and if it sounds better God bless you.
But the idea is not to use any tricks, and that's
the trick.
RC: Is it a trick, I didn't know. Morrison, I guess it
out-tricked him in the long run but...
(Robert puts his head down laughing to himself)
(laughing)Did I just get him mad? Morrison was
always on LSD and that was his trick on stage, with
his shenanigans and mannerism, and the way he
carried on. A lot of that was drug induced, that's
all I meant.
Robert: In recording, anything's a tric. If you try to
add something to take yourself to another place
that's not already naturally there, that's a trick.
Any recording gear that you use that's artificial,
that's another trick. We try to use as little as
possible.
RC: I understand.
Peter: You try to remember where you've been... at the
time... if you've done drugs, you know?
RC: Try to recapture it?
Peter: Well, try to learn from it... I don't think we're
the type of people who like to listen to our album
and music on drugs... it's way to critical.
RC: Do you mind if your fans do that, is that all right?
(laughter)
Peter: Oh, that's lovely. No, it's really rough to...
it's all about the music... it's all the same
thing... it all ties together, but, what are we
talking about?
RC: Your music.
Peter: (laughing) Oh, OK, I forgot about that.
Nick: What else were we talking about there?
RC: I wanted to talk about how you just sort of darted
in, out of the San Fransisco scene and hooked up
with these guys, to form this cool trio. I mean I
love you guys, look at my CD, it's beat, I'm
trying to help you out here.
Nick: I just randomly met these two guys...
RC: Just randomly...
Nick: Yeah, it was kind of random and fateful at the
same time.
RC: Kind of like destiny?
Nick: It was random...
Robert: It was a little coincidence. I just kind of
invited him to the show. We were kind of seeing
eachother around, on and off. I said I'm playing
this show, me and Peter were in this band called
Wave a long time ago, and we were just f***ing
around. We played this show and he showed up and
ended up jumping on stage while we were playing
and started doing his thing, and it was cool.
RC: Are they Ludwig drums you like to carry around with
you?
Nick: Uhmmm... yeah... Ludwigs.
RC: English drummers seem to like them.
Nick: Someone gave me those drums. I didn't know what
they were. I was lucky enough to have someone give
me those drums. It was like a drummer that didn't
really make it so big in the music industry and
really wanted to promote drumming. He just gave me
a set and I was like, yeah, I've never really had
a set of drums before, thank you very much.
RC: You learned in England or when you came here?
Nick: I learned with these two guys.
RC: You taught him (turning to Peter), aren't you multi-
instrumental?
Peter: We played off eachother.
RC: But that was it, I mean, to have that natural
talent, that's pretty amazing I think.
Robert: Well... we all learned off eachother. We all
knew how to pick up the basic instrument, but not
to do anything more than that... just pick it up,
hit a chord... but we really learned how to play
by all of us getting together and making it
happen, hammering it out, but it was fun.
RC: Sounded like it was fun. Now you're heading off to
Europe soon? You're getting airplay on the BBC,
that's cool. How long are you gonna be over there?
Peter: About a month, I believe... I love to... I love
to go.
RC: Now is that it, just Europe?
Robert: There's a couple other places. A couple little
places scattered about. We haven't worked it all
out, it's kind of a tease, the whole things a
tease.
RC: Really.
Robert: Yeah, we're coming back home and then planning
it for real, you know, kind of a pre-tour.
RC: Are you guys working on a new video for the CD, next
single? What's the next single you're gonna be
promoting?
Peter: I believe it's "Love Burns."
RC: That's a good tune. What did I want to ask you about
real quick, ohhh, on "White Palms" you make a lot
of references to Jesus. Are you guys religous or
spiritual, or you don't even care to talk about
that, because some people it's to personal.
Peter: Ahhh... in that one song we make a lot of
references because it says his name about fourty
times, maybe... so... if we're talking about that
song... I don't know. We're just questioning
things, religion, government...
RC: You're almost asking when's the second coming
coming. Which is a pretty big deal in a lot of
established religion, you know what I mean?
Peter: Yeah, well it's just... come, if you're gonna
come already.
RC: Well anyways, we'll roll into "Whatever Happened to
my Rock-N-Roll punk song."
Robert: Dude, what time is it?
RC: It's like 2:30 in the morning.
Robert: That's the time we...
RC: You go back in to your box.
Nick: I'm going to go to church tomorrow and pray a
little bit.
RC: You are, that's cool, that's what I do every Sunday
morning. If it works for you use it, that's what I
say. But we'll keep a peep out for "Love Burns,"
here's the video on Rock Circus.
For More Info go to www.BlackRebelMotorcycleClub.com
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