This one's structured interestingly - since the info that Cord received during the Ten Questions segment basically expanded into an interview, we've included the whole thing in one piece. It just didn't seem right to break the two up... So it's sort of Eight Questions and a bunch of talking.

I'm continuing the trend of mis-identifying vocalist Justin Sullivan's touring act as New Model Army for the purposes of this interview transcription as well. I'd intended to get the whole ten questions thing done with Sullivan, but things evolved a bit with the "What scares you" question, and I didn't feel like keeping him from his dinner to get his answer to the Shark and Bear question. Sullivan provided a lot of great information when I just let him talk, so I'd give him a starting point and sit back. I've tried to get the quotes correct, but some editing was required; the full interview is available in MP3 format should anyone desire; just email talkback [at] cordmag.com for information.

(Cord Magazine's questions are in blue. Artist responses are in grey.)


What do you do if you get down time? I've looked at your tour schedule, and I know you don't get much.

NMA: Um... I can't remember.

Has it been that long?

NMA: There's not much down time as such. When we're not touring, there's always other projects I'm working on. Songs to write, albums to finish, albums for other people to produce. I tend to work a lot. I'm not working, I spend time at home... a lot of people do. I like traveling even when I'm not touring.

What would you classify as your vice of choice?

NMA: Indolence.

So far what would you classify as one of your favorite venues or one place that you would want to go back to more often?

NMA: Brazil, and South America generally we haven't been in SA except for Brazil, and I really loved Brazil. I love the people and the culture. Strange; sort of like American literature famous for magic realism. When you read it in Europe, you go, "oh that's very interesting and rather strange," and you get there and you realize that that's what it's like. Of all those things that Brazil struck me ... everything that's the best and everything that's the worst about humanity and life. Stuck together so that you couldn't extrapolate the two things. We're very used to, in the west, to separating the good and bad and the rest of it. Brazil is not quite as simple as that. It seems that the most wonderful is mixed with the most terrible in a kind of bizarre way that you can't quite separate.

A lot more shades of gray than...

NMA: No, not really. I wouldn't say there's anything gray about Brazil at all. The most vivid colors and country I've ever been to.

What issues concern you most, perhaps scare you the most? NMA: Right Now? Bush. What can I say, without a shadow of a doubt. The current American Administration is absolutely terrifying.

Would you compare this with the '80s-era Thatcher and Reagan...

NMA: Different times... different times don't make things comparable, really. Different world situation. George Bush and Rumsfeld are absolutely Al Qaeda's best friend. They couldn't have wished for a better result since 9/11. The point of terrorism is to create a reaction. And if the reaction is dumb and blunt enough, then what happens is a large part of the population at large start to decide whether they're terrorists. Which is exactly what's happening on a worldwide scale not because anyone really agrees with the Al Qaeda completely nihilistic view... but because America's reaction has been blunt and dumb.

Kind of ham fisted...

NMA: Ham fisted! Unbelievably ham fisted. It was half-hearted in Afghanistan and since then, Iraq is just a complete fucking disaster on a scale...

(We were interrupted at this point by a fan looking for ticket information. Sullivan chatted with him a bit and we talked more about Bush and terrorism...)

NMA: My sister lives in Cairo. She's married to an Egyptian. He's a musician. He hasn't got a fundamentalist bone in his body. He cares about music, he smokes too much dope, stays up all night, never has any money. Typical musician. He doesn't have anything against America, or Britain or anything else. But in the last year, he's starting to. And that is what's happening on a global scale, around the world. All sorts of people who weren't at all anti-American, even slightly, start to become so. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Bush goes, "if you're not with us, then you're against us in the war against terrorism," and everybody goes ",we're not against you," and he says ",are you with us?" "Well, with reservations..." "Well, if you have reservations, then you're against us!" "Well, if you insist, we're against you." That is a very terrifying prospect.

Changing the subject slightly, the Micheal Moore film Bowling For Columbine. The basic premise for Bowling For Columbine... his basic thesis was that the reason there's so much violent gun crime in America is not to do with guns or anything else. It's to do with paranoia. Levels of paranoia. That was his thesis, and he's entirely right. There's this paranoia machine in America.

I watched Fox News for a little while, because I find it absolutely fascinating. The 20 minutes I happened to watch actually was the problem "What we should do about Canada," and it was practically that you guys are part of the what, Evil Empire, or the Circle of Evil or something, and you guys are almost in there... And it was kind of bizarre, but it was to do with utter paranoia.

I was thinking of famous things about famous presidents. Franklin Roosevelt once said that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Very wise words. Very good thing to live by. The very last thing you're likely to hear out of Bush's mouth. As far as he's concerned, everything we have to fear is everything... the world is out to get us, the world is hostile to us.

Are GWB and Osama bin Laden the same person? You don't see them in the same place at the same time. They've both been talking to God. They both think they're right they both have it in for America in their own ways.

Favorite kids cartoon?

NMA: I rather liked Top Cat.

Before you discovered music, what'd you want to be?

NMA: Footballer.

Did you have a team you wanted o play for?

NMA: Watford when I was growing up, but I've lived in Bradford for 20 years, so Bradford City is my team.

I loved music when I was very very young. I grew up in the 60s, and the one side of the Atlantic you had Beatles, Stones, Who, Kinks, and the Small Faces, and that. On the other side you had Motown and Atlantic Soul, which is actually my first love in music.

In the 70s, I got out of it... I didn't really ... Led Zeppelin, Genesis, all those kind of supergroups... the power of rock! It never really spoke to me. I listened to a lot of reggae in the 70s, but I sort of lost interest in a way in that whole thing, and it came back with punk rock...

One gig that I saw was The Rutts. They would have become a massive group, but the singer died of heroin in 1980. I saw them in 1979. I went into that gig not knowing what I wanted to do with my life, and walked out knowing exactly what I wanted to do with my life.

How close have you come to that?

NMA: I don't know. It's not for me to judge, really. I think that if the idea was to affect other people as much as I was affected on that night, then yeah, I think we have.

We played a gig up in northern Finland about a year and a half ago, we were sitting in the dressing room and [artist, collaborator] Joolz happened to be on the door. I said "Are people coming in?" She said "Yeah, they are. Typical NMA crowd." "What's that mean?"

"First 2 were goths, second two were metalheads, third two were like skatekids, then a middle aged university professor and his wife, and it's like that..."

If you could trade places with anyone for a day...

NMA: (chuckles)

Would you want to be Bush for a day?

NMA: No. I actually wouldn't want to be. I can imagine what's it's like.

Anyone. Anyone at all, you. You'll do! It'd be interesting to be a woman for a day. Black for a day. Russian for a day.

Do you guys perform a specific set list?

NMA: The thing I'm most proud of, out of everything, is when we did the 20th anniversary show in Nottingham, we said on the website, name the 3 songs you really want us to play on this show, and 123 different songs got mentioned.

You guys have an interesting ... relationship ... with bootleggers... where there recordings became incorporated in your own releases...

NMA: (Smiles) Yeah, that was just a short term ... gimmick.

Can you see any of your songs being used to sell tshirts or shoes...

NMA: They are, every night. To be honest, the economics of music has changed with free downloading and everything like that. I remember the old days you used to tour to advertise a record. These days you release a record so that you can tour to sell t-shirts. It's difficult to make money from records now, with downloading and all the rest of it, and it's difficult to make money on the road.

I was having trouble finding any of your releases locally, I actually found a recording of the Indianapolis show ... How does it make you feel that you can find that sort of thing online?

NMA: It's not a lost sale, and ... I was on Kazaa a while ago, and I wasn't sure that I wanted to find that NMA was so obscure that there was nothing on Kazaa, because really nobody's ever heard of us in North America. Or, whether out of vanity, I'd like to see everything... And actually everything was up there... EVERYTHING. I know that people can get it all - everything we've ever done for nothing. My personal... I try to pay for music ... I have been known to download things, but on the whole, I still buy it, because I think that musicians ought to be paid for what they do. What can I say? I'm bound to say that. Having said that, I don't lose sleep over it.

It's not a mortal sin... To me, it's still about trying to make something fantastic. Everything else is kind of by the by... but when you make a record, you try to make the greatest record ever made. We haven't succeeded yet. You know, that doesn't mean to say we should stop trying. Every night on stage, we go out and try to play the perfect gig - the best gig that's ever been played - the one that affects everyone for the rest of their lives. And we haven't... it's an imperfect thing, but every night you try...

Elsewhere

By Richard Murray
Photos : newmodelarmy.com
Published : June 4, 2004.