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The group's centrifugal creative force is songwriter/lead singer Joel Gibb, who spoke to Nerve over a light lunch about enema-related lyrics and how you can combat the coming Dark Ages. — Bruce LaBruce Initially, I thought you were getting bad reviews for your latest album, Mississauga Goddamn. I checked out Pitchfork.com and they gave you a so-so review, but they're such cunts anyway. I don't really know Pitchfork. I guess they're the indie music bible, but I'd never heard of it until someone told me about it recently. Although they did call you a "sugar-coated pervert", which I like. That's all right. But looking at other music sites, it seemed like Mississauga Goddamn got even better reviews than your first CD, which people loved. One thing I like about your lyrics is how deep they go into issues of theology. But when reviewers quote you, they tend to pick more mundane examples. I don't think some of them want to tackle some of the lyrics. Some of them don't even read them, they just write about what they think they hear. They always think the song "I Want Another Enema" is a sexual song, but it's not sexual at all. There's not one sexual lyric. It's a metaphor for obsession with your body. It has nothing to do with sex. And it's just playing with the word "enema" phonetically. In "Breathe on It," you have this great line, "in the bowels of hell we will be known for our tongues." The idea of it being sung in church is kind of exhilarating. In "High Up on the Church Grounds," you're looking down on a church and you say, "I love the sunny days and our mortal decay." What's the story behind that song? It's about public space being political. Where would you go if you wanted to get high in a city? You can't go to an office building, because there's cameras and security. But church grounds are safe. It's romanticizing the church, but not in a spiritual or Christian way. The church is becoming less populated and less funded, so to survive, it has to function more as a community center. It needs to be a place for people to escape. That's why it's important for us to play in churches. Have any of the ministers whose church you've played actually read your lyrics? In Sackville, New Brunswick, there was a church that hosted our show, and its pastor was at the show. He didn't talk to me specifically about the lyrics, but he was really excited about what we were doing. He was a Bob Dylan scholar, from a Christian perspective, and he had a radio show about it. He was open and excited about secular music, which was kind of nice. That's very '70s. When I started university, I had an instructor who was a Christian minister, and he used to give us Bruce Springsteen lyrics to study. My Sunday School teacher gave us INXS lyrics. What was that about? I forget. Maybe it was "Devil Inside." There's a weird paradox of darkness in your lyrics. Your imagery can be very dark, but you never get the impression that you're wallowing in it or being subsumed by it. I think that's life. Darkness is always with you. Anyway, what else is there to write about? You write about the big things: sex and death. Do you think we’re in a really dark time? We’re entering a new Dark Age. I think our culture is learning to forget. Just take a look at television, how the content is degraded. The business side has sucked anything remotely interesting out of it. Reality shows are cheaper to make, so that’s why they make them. There’s no writing anymore; it’s just regular people dissing each other with bad, base language. Where do you think that cynicism comes from? Well, for example, when you’re growing up and you're learning about the world, they tell you genocide is bad and that it will never happen again. Then, when you find out that it happens all the time and no one cares, you just give up. That’s what cynicism is. You give up hope. You’re not going to try to redefine the world because it’s already defined. What do you do to affect change? For me, it’s being an artist. That throws a wrench into the whole system: spending your money and time on your art instead of what you’re supposed to spend it on. Yeah, but there’s no shortage of cynical artists. The corporate art world is just as cynical, if not more so, than the corporate world in general. Well, that’s where content comes in. But the act of being an artist is good. What do you think of the new wave of conservatism? It just seems like being a leftie became passé. And now you can be punk rock and conservative. It's just weird. I don't get it. I'm a real socialist at heart. One of my favorite songs of yours is Ode to Self Publishing: “Fear of zine failure/ Has taken the sunlight away/ Fear of my rivals/ Fear of my idols who reign/ Has taken the sun from my day.” It’s supposed to be like a mantra. The only thing that stops people from making music is that they haven’t really tried, and it seems like such a mysterious thing. But I always say if you can dance to a beat you can drum, pretty much. It’s just getting over that weird fear that you’re not a musician. You have a lot of members who normally wouldn’t be in a band. Does the rotating membership and big cast ever lead to any ego problems? I think there are always ego problems. But with the Hidden Cameras, there isn’t collaboration, necessarily. Not everyone has a say. A concept I have relates to a record relates to the artwork relates to the marketing relates to everything. In my head it all relates, so I have to be in control. And everyone else is along for the ride. Yeah. But a fun ride. That’s the point of it. You're carrying on the tradition of punk — the anti-corporate, DIY ethos. Yes, but that can't really be done anymore with anything that looks or sounds remotely like punk, because what looks and sounds like punk now is Avril Lavigne. She's like the tenth generation — a copy of a copy of a copy. She's just a certain style of guitar and . . . A tie. Right. But I always thought that the true spirit of punk wasn't about style but about an idea. You didn't have to adhere to any style; you could do what you wanted. But it so quickly became about fashion, and now there are kids wearing t-shirts that say PUNK on them, and they don't even know what it means. There is no word that can really replace the idea of punk now. n°
© 2005 Bruce LaBruce and Nerve.com. |
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, featuring curious yet marvelous infusions of cucumber and rose petal.
