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Matt Johnson The frontman of spent his formative “This is the land where nothing changes; the land of red buses and blue-blooded babies. This is the place, where pensioners years living above his dad’s happening are raped; and the hearts are being cut from the welfare state. Let the poor drink the milk while the rich eat the honey; let the east pub, now the subject of a bums count their blessings while they count the money.” documentary film, Tales from the Two It was more than 30 years ago that Matt Johnson of The The penned these lyrics for ‘Heartland’, a biting critique of Thatcher’s Puddings. He discusses the trajectory Britain and the opening single from the 1986 Infected. Born in 1961, Johnson spent his early years living in the Two of his career, from lo-fi experiments in the Puddings pub in Stratford, east London. Known locally in the basement to the excesses of stardom and 1950s as ‘the Butcher’s shop’ due to its cream-coloured tiles and the amount of blood spilt there, the pub was transformed the pleasures of creating film soundtracks. by Johnson’s landlord father Eddie into one of the happening pubs of 1960s London. In 2012, Eddie published the book Tales from the Two Puddings, released through Matt Johnson’s publishing house Fifty First State Press. The book tells the story of the pub’s heyday, when bands such as the Small Faces played early gigs and where famous East End boxers mingled with artists and local gangsters. The pub inspired Barrie Keeffe’s screenplay for the 1980 filmThe Long Good Friday. And now a new documentary based on the book chronicles the place Matt Johnson called home in the mid-1960s. “My earliest memories of the pub are very vivid, particularly the smell of the place and the noise drifting up through the floorboards,” Johnson tells me at his home in east London. “Me and my brother Andrew would play downstairs when it was closed. I became aware at an early age that buildings have an almost magnetic recording quality to them. You would sense the ghosts from the night before while smelling the cigarette smoke and perfume. I found it very comforting and reassuring.” Above the pub was the Devil’s Kitchen, the first disco in east London, run by Matt’s uncle Kenny and a place of wonder for the two brothers. In the Tales from the Two Puddings film, Andrew Johnson recalls it looking like a “psychedelic ghost train” due to its blue UV lighting and drawings of monsters on the wall. “It was very trippy in there before of course we knew what trippy was, so without knowing it they had created a psychedelic event,” says Matt Johnson. Equally evocative to the two brothers were the bright lights of Stratford Broadway. “I do have very strong memories of it,” says Words Andy Thomas Johnson. “We weren’t allowed to play out on the street, so me Portrait Helen Edwards and my brother would be upstairs, looking down on this very

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busy road with all the shops lit up with neon. I really did think of it know what day it was. So I abandoned the sessions and Stevo and me did this as the Broadway of the song. It was so big and there was music mad Fear and Loathing-style trip to the roughest part of Detroit. By then, I was everywhere and cars and people running around.” I became aware that buildings a CBS artist and they must have wondered, what have we signed here?” Growing up at the Two Puddings, music seeped into the soul Following Johnson’s excesses, the rest of the subsequent Soul Mining LP of the young Matt Johnson. “As we weren’t allowed down in have an almost magnetic was recorded back in London mainly at John Foxx’s Garden Studios with the pub when it was open, we never really knew if it was bands producer Paul Hardiman. “Me and Paul were on the same wavelength and playing or the jukebox, but there was always music,” he says. recording quality. You would I really liked his sound,” says Johnson. Far removed from the claustrophobic “Some of my strongest earliest memories were of Tamla atmospherics of Burning Blue Soul, Soul Mining found Johnson mixing his Motown, the Beatles and the Kinks. And then as a kid, things sense the ghosts from the studio experimentations with the ‘new pop’ aesthetic of the early 1980s. He like the Crazy World of Arthur Brown’s ‘Fire’ really stirred the has subsequently called Soul Mining the second ecstasy album after Soft imagination and stuck in my mind.” night before while smelling the Cell’s Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret. Listen to the euphoric ‘Giant’ for a sense of While Johnson recalls playing around with instruments left where Johnson’s head was at during the recording. “What is interesting about behind by bands at the Two Puddings, it was when the family cigarette smoke and perfume. ‘Giant’ and ‘I’ve Been Waiting for Tomorrow’ is they were very much ahead of took over a second pub in Essex on the outskirts of London Still from Tales from the Two Puddings, 2016 their time,” says Johnson. “They were almost written in a sequencer-style that his interest in music took hold. “There was a piano there Courtesy of David Simmonds composition without a sequencer. This was before midi. So what I did was and I used to go down and practise on that a lot,” he says. I played the same parts for like six minutes, just repeating these same little “My dad also put on folk nights at the pub so there was always together our backing tracks. And around the same time we also riffs. Just doing that again and again and building it up. So I think that’s why equipment around for me to practise on. Then, when I was got friendly with Wire through Tom Johnston.” they sound so contemporary today.” around 11, a friend of mine called Nick Freeston suggested we Wire’s and offered to produce The Soul Mining sessions included players such as on piano, form a band. We were called Roadstar and started with Nick’s a couple of tracks for Johnson’s group. “So we had now been Zeke Manyika on drums, on synth, Paul Wickens (Wix) on little Bontempi organ, a Premier drum kit and an old bashed up taken under the wing by two of my favourite groups,” says accordion, and Jim Thirlwell of Foetus (credited as Frank Want). “They were acoustic guitar. I didn’t have any musical instruments but I did Johnson. “We went into Blackwing Studios [home to early all people I knew already really, apart from Jools,” says Johnson. “At this stage, have the old family reel to reel tape recorder. I would put the Depeche Mode and Yazoo recordings] and they produced I really started to know my limitations as a musician. Up until then, I was microphone into the acoustic guitar and you could turn it on ‘Controversial Subject’ and ‘Black and White’. It was an playing most of the instruments myself. But as a songwriter, I could hear things so it was like a little speaker system.” education for me being in the studio with them.” The resulting in my head that I couldn’t really play. So I started to delegate and that was a joy When did that experimentation become more serious? tapes found there way to Ivo Watts-Russell of 4AD records, hearing things like the incredible piano solo of Jools on ‘Uncertain Smile’. “My brother had bought me this book by Tony Hatch and it home at the time to Bauhaus and the Birthday Party. The I couldn’t dream of playing something like that.” It was on Soul Mining that mentioned all these well known recording artists that had subsequent single ‘Controversial Subject’ (backed by ‘Black Johnson earned the tag ‘existential blues man’. “I’m just a symptom of the started as tea boys. It recommended that is what you do. I hated Two Puddings pub, London, 1960s Photograph Alf Shead and White’) was released by 4AD in August 1980. The LP for moral decay. That’s gnawing at the heart of the country,” he sang on ‘The school and had failed all my exams. So I thought this could be an 4AD that followed, Burning Blue Soul, was recorded at a cost of Sinking Feeling’. outlet for me,” says Johnson. “I used to read this book religiously. he says. “My first experiments were very primitive using an old Cossor tape £1,800 while Johnson was on the dole. The use of tape loops and As with all of The The’s and singles, the cover artwork was by Matt’s It explained all about songwriting and working in the studio, but recorder from the 1960s. Then I saved up to buy an Akai 4000DS MKII various electronic effects on this experimental, lo-fi LP by the brother Andrew, ‘Andy Dog’, who died recently. “That was actually a painting also in the index it listed almost every recording studio, music (four-track reel to reel tape recorder) that had a sound on sound facility. By teenage Johnson would form part of his later musical template. Andrew had done of one of Fela Kuti’s wives with a joint in her mouth,” says publisher and record company in the country. So I wrote off to this point we had moved to a pub called the Crown in Loughton [Essex] and I Around this time Johnson met another label owner, the Johnson. “I had seen the picture at his studio and just fell in love with it. I guess dozens of them. I got a lot of replies but only one job interview started to get a little studio together in the cellar. I had some very primitive bits famously eccentric Stevo of Some Bizzare. “I was still working it’s got a tenuous link to the African elements on ‘Giant’ but it was really just and that was with De Wolfe. And I got the job, which was of equipment; an echo box, an Electro Harmonix drum machine, a Colorsound with Ivo at the time but Stevo was very persistent,” says the colours I loved. He used a beautiful aqua marine and orange. Andrew had fantastic. It really was an escape because all my mates were Tremolo effects peddle and stuff like that.” At the same time, Johnson would Johnson. “He wanted us to play a gig supporting Cabaret already done the portrait of me on the back of the original Burning Blue Soul getting jobs in factories or offices. And that made me feel experiment in the studio at De Wolfe. “They really taught you very well there,” Voltaire in the north. Then he became more persistent and we sleeve and also the cover of ‘Cold Spell Ahead’. And so it seemed like the physically ill.” he says. “They gave you these big old green EMI tape machines to practise on let him use a track on his Some Bizzare compilation.” Riding high natural thing to now work together on the LP sleeves.” The graphics were by One of London’s most historic recording studios, publishers with the razor blades and editing block. It really was a great apprenticeship. on the success of ’s ‘Tainted Love’, Stevo released The Fiona Skinner, Johnson’s girlfriend at the time. “She created a whole alphabet and music libraries, De Wolfe was located on Wardour Street in Les Sanders was the guy who taught us and he would check the edits until you The’s single ‘Cold Spell Ahead’ in September 1981. “It had for us out of lino print, so it was quite a family affair,” says Johnson. the heart of Soho in central London. Like Stratford in the 1960s, got it right. I loved it there; it was very evocative with the smell of old tape and become a bit of a dilemma for me. I really liked Ivo and 4AD but It would be three years before his next LP, Infected. When he returned it was the West End of the 1970s captured the imagination of Johnson. electronic equipment mixed with cigarette smoke and coffee.” there was no money,” recalls Johnson. “I was still on the dole for a much darker and scathing album. “I was drinking a lot of vodka in those “Soho was very different back then and the sex industry was at Johnson would often stay behind in the studio after work, working on sleeping on floors. Then Stevo got interest from CBS and there days and also doing a lot of cocaine and speed and that had a real impact on the heart of things,” he says. “There was a little place called the material he had recorded on his rudimentary equipment in his basement at was a pretty good deal on the table from them, which I signed.” Golden Girls Club down on Meard Street. And the working girls home. “I learned a lot from my colleague at De Wolfe, Colin Lloyd Tucker,” he Hoping his new signing would follow Soft Cell to the top of the Two Puddings pub, 1960s Photograph Alf Shead would sit on the window looking out and would call me over to says. “He taught me all about tape looping. He would do things like flanging, charts, Stevo sent Johnson to a recording studio in New York. make me blush. ‘Oh ain’t he cute,’ they’d say. And I would run off. putting together two analogue tapes with identical recordings at different The plan was for a reworked version of ‘Cold Spell Ahead’ (what They were very sweet. So it was a very nice atmosphere down speeds. And so I was back and forwards between De Wolfe and my home was to become the single ‘Uncertain Smile’) to be recorded there in Soho – seedy but never threatening.” studio just experimenting with everything I had.” with producer Mike Thorne. “The first session to do ‘Uncertain Starting at De Wolfe in July 1977, Johnson arrived in Soho It got to the stage where Johnson and Lloyd Tucker were doing more of Smile’ was really good with Mike at Media Sound in an old during the creative aftermath of punk. “I was a bit too young their own work at the studio than the company’s. “We kind of left before we church. It went very well,” says Johnson. “Then I went back and for the start of it but really got into what became known as were going to get fired,” says Johnson. At the age of 17, he placed an advert those later sessions to do ‘Perfect’ didn’t go so well because post-punk,” he recalls. “At the time, I was really getting into in the NME for a new band that read: “Influences; , , there were a lot of drugs involved.” So was this when he was first experimental music. My eldest brother Andrew was the biggest , Velvet Underground.” introduced to ecstasy? “No, I’d had it before then,” he says. “The influence on me. He was one of the original punks and would With Keith Laws, the synth player he found from those adverts, Johnson whole Some Bizzare crowd and Soft Cell were early pioneers of always be bringing back music for me to listen to. And being in played his first gig as The The at the Africa Centre in Covent Garden, central that. We were doing it around 1981. Soft Cell had already been to the West End, I started to go to gigs and really getting into this London, in May 1979, supporting . “Our manager Tom Johnston New York and had got to know a woman called Cindy Ecstasy nascent scene that became known as post-punk. It didn’t have got us the gig. He really took us under his wing and was a big influence on me,” [who ended up as their backing singer on the Non Stop Ecstatic a name but there was a lot of interesting music going on. says Johnson. The group played a number of gigs around London and started Dancing LP] and she would bring it over to these little parties we Throbbing Gristle were a big influence, as were Thomas Leer, to make contacts with some influential figures on the post-punk scene. “We would have in Knightsbridge. There would be a phone call that Cabaret Voltaire, Scritti Politti, and of course .” got friendly with This Heat and they were really supportive, really lovely Cindy has arrived, so you would head over there. But what It was while at De Wolfe, after Roadstar had split, that people,” says Johnson. “They invited us to use some of their equipment at happened during the second sessions was me and Steve got Johnson’s love of music experimentation really began. “By then, their Cold Storage studio in Brixton. They had a Teac four-track that was quite seriously out of it on a mixture of ecstasy and this really strong I had discovered the world of overdubbing or sound on sound,” a few steps above my little Akai. So they were very kind and helped us put Hawaiian grass. I could barely stand up in the studio and didn’t

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me,” he says. “Ultimately I was quite destructive and it was playing havoc a working brothel, in Harlem. We went in real prisons in Bolivia. Johnson on the set with my personal relationships. I could also feel the corrupting and corrosive I was strapped on the top of a boat going down the . of the ‘Heartland’ influence of fame followingSoul Mining. Although it was only modest fame, Taking the strongest cocaine you’re ever going to get in Bolivia music video, Beckton I could feel its effect and it was infecting my relationship and friendships.” and the whole crew were on it, so it was pretty mad. But Gasworks, London The greed culture of Thatcherism and US militarism were the two main we wanted everything to be as authentic as possible. I was Photograph targets of Johnson’s vitriol. “I had started writing Infected in 1984 and had obsessed at the time with being like a method songwriter, like A.J. Barratt started to get a lot more political as we were right in the middle of the a method actor.” Thatcher era,” he says. Just 23 when he began to write it, Johnson created Three years after Infected, Johnson released the LP Mind one of the great political albums of the 20th century. When writing lyrics such Bomb, featuring on guitar. “Each album was done as “the Saturday morning cinema that lies crumbling to the ground and the under the influence of different drugs and forMind Bomb it was piss stinking shopping centre in the new side of town”, Johnson wanted to magic mushrooms,” says Johnson. “I was also meditating a lot transport future listeners back to that moment in time. “That [‘Heartland’] and fasting. And I was spending a lot of time by myself writing took a long time to write,” says Johnson. “It was really a walk through my down my thoughts and dreams. I would try different dosages of childhood memories and the sense of the old London and the change into this mushrooms and through meditation start thinking and writing. cold, thrusting Thatcherite era.” How can the effects of Thatcherism be felt At the time, I was also reading a lot of political and religious texts today? “You just have to look at the likes of Sir Philip Green for instance,” he and meditating on this and seeing what came up. So a lot of the says. “These are the torchbearers of Thatcherism. And then Mike Ashley [of Cover for the single ‘Heartland’, 1986 lyrics came from that. It wasn’t like I was trying to be some kind Sports Direct] with their Victorian workhouse conditions. So you have that Artwork Andy Dog of prophet or anything though.” The result though was a series side of things with these so-called entrepreneurs who are really just spivvy of prophetic cogitations on world events. On ‘Armageddon Days crooks. Then the other thing she managed to do was to create a very selfish in power saw ever-closer ties to the . “I could see are Here (again)’ Johnson sang, “Islam is rising, the Christians society and to destroy the sense of community. One thing my dad mentions America remaking the world in its own image,” he says. Reagan’s mobilising. The world is on its elbows and knees. It’s forgotten in the book about working down the docks was how well read a lot of the so called ‘peace through strength’ strategy had resulted in the message and worships the creeds.” working class people were. And they not only elevated themselves by conflicts across South America and the arming by the CIA of The 1990s saw three more LPs including Dusk, which, like exposure to good literature, culture and politics but also shared that with Islamic mujahedeen guerrillas in Afghanistan. Johnson foresaw Infected, was accompanied by a full-length film, directed by Tim those around them and created a sense of community. And we have lost the dangers of the Anglo-American ‘special relationship’ of the Pope. “That was a difficult album to make because my life had much of that as society has become more selfish.” mid-1980s. “On ‘Angels of Deception’ I sing, ‘He stuck his missiles been turned upside down after the death of my brother Eugene,” Johnson’s venom wasn’t directed solely at homegrown issues. “This is in your garden and his theories down your throat’. And that was says Johnson. “I wrote the song ‘Love is Stronger Than Death’ the 51st state of the USA,” he sang, at a time when Thatcher’s seven years a reference to the cruise missiles coming here. But I was also for him, which I think is probably the best song I’ve ever written. talking about Reaganomics and theories from the Chicago The whole LP has a much softer, less egotistical feel. I think Just 23 when he began to write Still from the music video for ‘Infected’, 1986 school of economics and people like Milton Friedman – this because of the bereavement and then me coming down from experiment in free market economics and neo-conservatism, all the excesses of Infected. Infected, in the middle of the which is being rolled out in places like Chile and now America After a cover album and a move to New York, and here.” How did Johnson get his information in the days where he worked on the LP Naked Self, Johnson became more Thatcher era, Johnson created before the internet? “It was harder back then, but you knew what and more disillusioned with the music industry. “Everything was the BBC were telling you was horse shit,” he says. “So it was changing and I really didn’t know where to go,” he says. “I had one of the great political albums about both intuition and looking at historical trajectories and lost loads of money on tour and had massive debts. So I wanted making your own decisions. Also buying books from the a big change. I went into a very deep period of procrastination. of the 20th century. underground press.” I decided to take a lot of time off. I really didn’t want to be On ‘Sweet Bird of Truth’ Johnson attacked the USA’s prancing about on stage any more. The industry was changing and Wendy Carlos. The LPs have been released on Johnson’s own Cinéola involvement in the Middle East. The LP was released four years with Napster and everything as well, so the wisest thing to do label, also home to his occasional Radio Cinéola broadcasts. “I love the before the first Gulf War. “If a kid of 21 can see what is in store for seemed to be to withdraw from it.” independence this gives me,” he says. “That’s a big part of it for me. It’s not us, I mean it’s fucking obvious,” says Johnson. “It’s like the Chilcot Johnson was drawn back to music in the early 2000s through the money, it’s the ownership. I love that independent ethos.” report [into the invasion of Iraq]. If all the thousands of us who one of his other great interests, film. Working with his ex-partner, Johnson’s immersion in soundtracks has also given him the break he went on the march knew of the dangers ahead, how come the the Swedish filmmaker Johanna St Michaels, he composed six needed to return to the studio to work on new material for The The. “I have so-called intelligence services and politicians didn’t know?” soundtracks including the award-winning Best Wishes Bernhard written a new song, which was very hard to do as it was motivated by the The sound of the album owed much to a new keyboard that and Snapshots From Reality. “I really lost all interest in music, so the death of my brother Andrew. That song is called ‘We Can’t Stop What’s Johnson had just bought. “The Emulator was all over Infected,” soundtrack thing was a way of coming back,” says Johnson. “I had Coming’ and it’s very inspired by what happened to him. That was very he says. “I had one of the first ones in the country and that cost done some soundtrack stuff before but it was with Hollywood and cathartic and I’m hoping that it’s going to be the start of a new album. And about £9,000. That was a lot of money in those days. It was an my experience of that was very unpleasant. The money was good what is brilliant nowadays is the freedom I have to create a record any way Johnson on the set of the ‘Infected’ music video, Peru incredible machine.” Already an ambitious project with a cast but I didn’t like the people or the process. I would rather be doing I like. So I’m doing exactly what I want to do. There really are no limitations. of many musicians, Infected became a much bigger beast when something creatively satisfying and that was what happened with It’s much more enjoyable for me now than it was back then.” Johnson and his now manager Stevo persuaded CBS records the soundtracks with Johanna. I really started to enjoy it.” to fund a hugely ambitious film adaptation of the album. In 2010, Johnson’s soundtrack for his brother Gerard’s film The documentary Tales from the Two Puddings, inspired by the The project began modestly, with director Peter Tony became the first of a trilogy of albums on his own Cinéola memoirs of Matt Johnson’s father Eddie, is out now on DVD and Christopherson filming a video for ‘Heartland’ at Greenwich label. So how does writing soundtracks differ to the writing of his on demand Power Station. But it took a much darker turn when Johnson own albums? “It depends on who you are working with,” says twopuddingsdocumentary.com and Christopherson flew to South America to film videos for Johnson. “With Gerard, when he is working on a film, I will be ‘Infected’ and ‘The Mercy Beat’. Stories emerged of tribal rituals involved from the script stage. He will then create moodboards Radio Cineola: the Inertia Variations, a documentary by Johanna with native Indians, confrontations with communist fighters, and or give me clips from other films he is going for a similar look for. St Michaels and co-produced by Matt Johnson, is out in spring 2017 general unscripted madness, much of it captured on film. After Also, I ask him for a mixtape of music or sounds that he likes. So his month in South America, Johnson flew to New York to film we do that and I will create a sound palate, with different timbre, The book Democracy? by Matt Johnson is out in late 2017 ‘Out of the Blue’ with director in a brothel next door to tones and colours. And then he will pretty much give me a free a crack house in Harlem. “We wanted to make it all as authentic hand to get on with it.” His ominous electronic score for last The book Blitz Kid and Other Stories, a prequel to Tales from as possible and I was a bit of a daredevil, probably through the year’s Hyena positioned Johnson as a worthy successor to the the Two Puddings, is out in late 2017 drink and drugs and ego,” says Johnson. “So we had to go to composers that have influenced him, such as Eduard Artemyev thethe.com

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