Club classics

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club are inspired by Bob Dylan, Jesus and Mary Chain, Ride and the Brian Jonestown Massacre
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Michael Vaughan and chum Pete Millson

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club are not known for their effusiveness. The LA-based trio are the latest, most successful purveyors of black jumper rock, which began with the Velvet Underground and has been taken up over the years by Joy Division, Echo and the Bunnymen and the Jesus and Mary Chain.

The requirements of the genre include being able to play heartfelt rock'n'roll, having a good line in vacant stares, being extremely thin, wearing black jumpers (naturally) and not cooperating with the machinations of the music industry or, more importantly, journalists. BRMC have been known to stare blankly at walls for the entire duration of an interview, and they are rumoured to have caused the resignation of a former A&R man at Virgin Records through sheer petulance. A request to rifle through the band's record collection, therefore, is made with some trepidation.

The first signs don't bode well. Not being able to pop over to LA and hang out at one of the band members' homes, I arrange to talk to them a couple of hours before they play the Brixton Academy in London, when an entourage of people are in and out of backstage dressing rooms and the trio themselves are preparing for a concert in front of 4,300 people. Guitarist-singer Peter Hayes darts into view, looking like a scared Syd Barrett, and leaves without saying a word. Drummer Nick Jago manages to hang around long enough to have his photograph taken before retreating behind a laptop. Then singer-bassist Robert Turner politely introduces himself and, amazingly, sits down for an hour to talk about his favourite records. He seems to be the most normal of the three.

"Actually, Nick is the most normal," counters Turner, who grew up on a hippy commune in San Francisco. "He gives us a good perspective on what it's like to be an average Joe on the street."

Turner met Peter Hayes after the latter had left an idyllic childhood on a farm in Minnesota for a miserable adolescence in San Francisco. Hayes has never bought many records. He was inspired to pick up the guitar after hearing Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd on AM radio in Minnesota, and now he spends his time writing songs rather than listening to them. "He never goes down the record store," says Turner. "We both find out about modern music through Nick, who is much more into the moment than either of us. He'll be wide-eyed about a new discovery, saying that it's the best thing ever, and two weeks later he'll have forgotten all about it and be on to something else."

All three share a love of the classic rock bands of the 60s and 70s: Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, and the ones that BRMC are often compared to. "The one thing I agree with when people compare us to the Velvet Underground and the Jesus and Mary Chain is that those bands have a timelessness, a rebellious spirit that started in the 50s, of being the neighbourhood threat in black leather jackets and keeping it simple with no bullshit. You could take those bands and put them in any decade in recent history and they would have worked."

Turner's musician father had records by the Clash, Joy Division and the Smiths. "I would listen to them as a child, but mainly because I liked using the record player like it was a toy," he says. "I didn't really know what I was doing but I guess it soaked in, because I went through stages of listening to horrible heavy metal before going back to that music when I was 14. I also got into Nine Inch Nails and all that other stuff that kids were listening to back then."

The song that changed it all for Turner was Leave It All Behind by the early-90s English indie band Ride. "The world went from black and white to colour the moment I heard it," says Turner. "It was the first song to get inside me - before that, music was a thing to listen to with friends and have something in common with. The kids at my high school were listening to what was on the radio, which was the Pixies and Nirvana, and I was going somewhere deeper."

One of Turner's favourite groups is the Brian Jonestown Massacre, a San Francisco outfit who have been dogged by bad luck and endless line-up changes throughout their 10-year career. They are the supporting band for the Brixton Academy show. "They're one of the greatest bands, but chaos and tension has given them a really bad reputation and they've never had their shot. Often the greatest songwriters are nuts."

BRMC's own success, especially after the release of their second album Take Them On, On Your Own, has meant greater involvement with the world at large, making it harder to retain the status of being eternal outsiders. "A year after we started we had nothing going for us; nobody was interested," says Turner. "We didn't have the money to replace guitar strings or buy the gas to get to rehearsals, and I would say that dealing with that kind of reality is much harder than dealing with record companies or whatever. There is a balance, though. There is a freedom when nobody cares about you, and you develop an us-against-the-world attitude which I guess we still have."

That attitude has resulted in the band being blacklisted by radio stations and magazines across the western world. "I suppose it's our fault," concludes Turner. "But at the same time you don't want to play that game." At the heart of it all, of course, is the romance of rebellion. "Rock'n'roll is supposed to be the neighbourhood threat, it's not supposed to appeal to everyone, and it is supposed to put people on edge. So we're doing the right thing. I know we're playing as good as any band, I know we've made a great record, and those are the facts. Everything else is opinion."