The Canadian Press - ONLINE EDITION

By: Nick Patch, The Canadian Press

TORONTO - The black-cloaked rockers in Black Rebel Motorcycle Club had some typically moody material ready for their latest album "Specter at the Feast" that they wound up banishing to the dustbin.

Why? Well, after the 2010 death of founding member Robert Levon Been's father Michael — who had fronted the '80s new wave outfit the Call and acted as his son's band's sound engineer — Black Rebel Motorcycle Club felt disinclined to wallow in darkness.

"I didn't really want to be singing sad songs because it was a sad time in life," said founding guitarist/singer Peter Hayes in a recent telephone interview. "I didn't feel like doing that. I moved on to other things that were coming from other places."

Speaking of other places, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club is currently on the road with upcoming dates Wednesday at Montreal's Corona Theatre, Thursday at Toronto's Kool Haus and May 24 at Vancouver's Commodore Ballroom.

From the tour bus, Hayes talked to The Canadian Press about moving on from a tough loss, the band's longevity and trying to whittle down bloated setlists.
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CP: The loss of Michael Been was obviously major for the band, on so many levels. He had influence on the musical side but clearly that was only a small part of it, right?

Hayes: When someone's a father for one and then a father figure for me since high school — you know, I didn't live with my dad, so he became that — yeah, it's beyond music. The main thing he really did was he fought for us in the studios. It's kind of the typical story, you don't appreciate it till it's gone. But he was in the studio fighting with the engineers, fighting with the record companies, telling them to get off our back — you know, "they know how to write a song, even though it looks like they don't know what they're doing." So that's a huge thing to have, you know?
He was very respectful about the writing process. He gave his opinion, sure, but he had respect for what we were trying to do.


CP: The band was formed back in 1998, meaning this is your 15th anniversary. Were you aware of the milestone?

Hayes: Oh God. Yeah. Fifteen. Is it really that? Well... I always try to look at it as we're lucky to get away with it again, as far as getting the album out and actually getting to tour. It seems to be getting a little harder each time as far as survival on the road. But yeah, aside from that, I'm kind of amazed each time an album gets done and we get ... to scratch out a living.


CP: The band's lineup has undergone some changes with the departure of original drummer Nick Jago, but that 15-year stretch is a testament to your relationship with Robert.

Hayes: Yeah, we started in high school, you know? I was playing at some bar in a nearby town and I was telling my friends what I was going to be doing, and Robert happened to be walking by. I didn't know him that well. And none of my friends showed up, but Rob did. And Michael, actually, because they wouldn't let Rob into the bar. So Michael came around and laughed at me as I was playing. I went back with them to their house that day and we just started playing music.


CP: "Sometimes the Light" was a song you wrote that was a late addition to the album. Can you tell me about it?

Hayes: I was sitting at home and I just felt like I needed to release some of my truths of the passing. I (had) kind of held off on a lot of my feelings about the death in the family. And that one came along, and I was happy that it did. I felt that it was a nice, honest way to do it. There's no guitars, nothing grand, no rock and roll (BS). Just some keyboards.


CP: Six albums in, is it getting harder and harder to craft setlists?

Hayes: Oh man. Yeah. Actually, the last gig we just had in Nashville, we'd been feeling it (was) real long. We have a tendency to do that. It can be a two-hour show real quick, you know. So we're trying to chop that back a bit. It's a bit much for folks, or it can be. If people are there for that, that's great, it's good to give it to people, but at the same time, it's the same with an album a little bit — you put on 19 songs, I sure as (hell) don't come from a place where I can listen to all that. I don't have the patience. And it's similar live. You gotta work with the reality that people are taking time out of their day, and you can't assume they're just going to soak all that up. I don't think it's necessarily possible to soak it all up like that.
We're learning how to chop it back. I think it'll probably make for a better show to take it back a little bit and make it a little quicker.
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Answers have been edited and condensed.

We are coming to the end of our US tour and have had a great time with you all.
We hope you will join us for the final dates...

 

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We are excited to announce that we are coming back to Europe and the UK this July and August.
(More dates to be announced soon!)

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BRMC merchandise is available online!
Visit the store today to pick up your copy of "Specter At The Feast".

 

BRMC’s Robert Levon Been Talks Music, Loss and Bass

Michael Leonard

05.01.2013

Photo by Arminé Iknadossian

2013 is already a landmark year for Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Robert Levon Been. The co-singer/bassist/guitarist has reunited his late father’s band, The Call, and BRMC have just released a fine new album, Specter at the Feast.

The Call were the acclaimed ‘80s band led by Robert’s father, Michael Been. And Michael was also key to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club: Michael was their live sound engineer right up to his sudden death in 2010. Robert took the place of his father in The Call’s L.A. reunion shows of April 2013, and a live DVD of the shows is being edited. And BRMC’s Specter at the Feast is also something of a tribute to Been senior: the storming single “Let the Day Begin” is a cover of The Call’s best-known song of the 1980s.

Gibson.com asked Robert Levon Been about Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Call and BRMC’s Epiphone and Gibson gear…

Was reuniting The Call your idea or did you get asked by the other members?

Not sure it was anyone’s “idea,” we just connected. Those guys were like a second family to me when I was growing up. I was always on the road as a kid with my dad, so I knew them. It took a year to find a window to hook up. It was a shot in the dark, but rewarding. When I strapped on an old fretless bass of my father’s, I felt pressure, sure. And his vocal range is much wider than mine. So, I’m not sure how we did it, but we did.

How was it playing your late father’s music?

I was a nervous wreck before the shows. It was intense. I had 20 songs to learn, songs I thought I knew… but when it comes to the bridge or the third verse, it became harder. But it was a beautiful experience. It was very emotional for me. But it wasn’t just to honor my father. It was also about the other guys in The Call. Their hearts are still in it, they’re still playing music, even if it’s in bar bands just scraping by. But I learned a lot from them, and it was great to do it for them.

You’ve said before that your father, Michael, didn’t reckon you had any musical ability as a child?

When I first started playing guitar I was 13 or so, and I had no understanding of musical foundations at all. Musical puberty was yet to come! Michael turned to my mom and said, “You have nothing to worry about, he’s not going to follow in my footsteps.” But thankfully, a couple of years later, I picked up the bass and found it better for the way my brain works. And I got decent pretty quickly. Guitar still didn’t come for another few years, it took me some time.

But I’ve read an interesting book about humans’ hearing changing around 14-16, and something changes in the brain. I grew up listening to a lot of heavy metal with my friends, but it was more of a communal thing, right? I don’t think I was really listening, it was just something you could share with people.

But then I heard “Leave Them All Behind” by Ride. It was almost as if my world went from black and white to color that day. Once I heard that I changed. I listened to a lot of Stones Roses, The Verve… and lots of classic stuff like Led Zeppelin of course. But everything switched that day.

Specter of the Feast is an album of extremes, from quite delicate guitar work to full-on rockers…

There’s an atmospheric, healing sound to the record. It’s what we needed, and it felt natural. Making music is just capturing a space and time. But for all the light side, there’s also other tracks where we smash our heads through a window. We visit both poles on Specter and everyone wins that way.

It was personal. The fact that I got through this and created something was reward enough. Y’know, at one time I was shooting to get out of bed in the morning. So there’s much credit to everyone around me to make it happen.

You have a very melodic bass style: who are your main influences?

Peter Hook, first. His parts seemed “fightable.” And certain things from Ride and Verve records. I tend to be more aggressive than those though, that’s my American side. Hendrix records, Nirvana… they all have bass that really inspires me.

You mainly play a vintage Epiphone Rivoli II [a sibling of the Gibson EB-2D], which is a rare choice. Why?

I got my first one because it was all I could afford. I couldn’t afford to go to Guitar Center! I found this pawn shop in San Francisco, and it was the only bass on the wall apart from modern plastic things. It was $800, and had loads of scars all over it. I complained to the guy that it was scratched and a bit messed up. He didn’t know basses at all, and I was “complaining” about the things I really loved about it! I knocked him down to 400 bucks.

I adjusted my playing to it. It’s short-scale, really light, too.

I can’t comfortably play other basses now. Anything else, it feels like going from driving a sports car to a dump truck. Other basses feel like work to me. It doesn’t feedback so bad and even when it does, I like it. With other basses it’s impossible to get that. It’s a souped-up hot-rod, to me.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club have a guitar “image”: you and Peter Hayes both with double-cut Gibson/Epiphones…

Yeah. Pete travels with nine Gibson guitars, just for different tunings. It’s kinda annoying, as there’s no room for anything else, ha! So when I play guitar, I tend to borrow one of his ES-335s. We play similar semi Epiphone and Gibson models, but maybe they talk to each other? It’s a struggle to stay out of each other’s ranges sometimes but that’s helped our playing: learning to play lines that complement each other’s space. We’re both big fans of three-piece guitar bands, obviously. With my bass I can go super-low, but I play higher melody too. That’s when me and Pete cross swords… that’s how we work.

Although Black Rebel Motorcycle Club may not be fans of the Texas heat, they are sure to bring a sweltering set to Austin Psych Fest tonight. The core duo of BRMC is bassist Robert Levon Been and guitarist Peter Hayes, who started playing music together as high school friends in their hometown of San Francisco in the late ’90s.

They have produced seven albums in the last 15 years, and have no desire to throw in their sweaty towels after acquiring a new drummer (Leah Shapiro of The Raveonettes / Dead Combo) and releasing a new album in 2013. In advance of their first visit to Austin Psych Fest, we talked with Peter Hayes about the new album, family, inspiration and more.

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Do512: What is it about Psych Fest that you admired and made you want to be a part of it?
PH: Festivals are a different animal. There are usually a lot of questions about which one you like better. But, with Psych Fest, we had heard about it since it started and from my understanding it was a couple of the guys from The Black Angels that helped start it. So, a part of it is just supporting them and what they are trying to do. That kind of thing has been floating around our head and I don’t really know any of the festivals in the U.S. that will basically have us play [laughs] or have us slip into the other type of music going on. There have been a few like Lollapalooza, but there is really not too many that have – I guess you call it a genre- or something in the U.S.. Supporting them with that is kind of the point, really. You know? If they keep it going, we have a place for the type of music we play.

Do512: Have you guys had any memorable experiences in Austin?
PH: Yeah, well we have been through there a bunch. I can’t remember if we played SXSW one year—yeah, I think we did. But, we usually try to dodge that one. That’s in Austin right? I think we dodge that about every year because we didn’t want to support the idea of some kind of already-signed band that is doing fine and then coming into a situation where—well, my understanding was it started as a place for new bands to showcase and do what they do and hopefully get signed—but I may be wrong about that. But, I really don’t want to support that, you know? [laughs] It is what it is. But, memorable? Summertime. Summertime in Texas isn’t fun. Played some pretty fucking sweaty gigs. We’ve played Dallas a lot, like Deep Ellum. There’s a place called River Glove, I believe, that was a really cool club. There are a lot of cool places through Texas.

Do512: You and Robert have known each other since high school. Tell me what it’s like growing up together and forming a career with one another.
PH: It turns into family… and all that entails [laughs]. The fights and all of the good and bad. This was just lucky. We’re lucky to have met that early on and to stick with it. You kind of have to make a choice where you kind of trust that it happened for a reason, if you know what I mean? And deal with that and make sure you try not to get self-important. You have to know that other person is needed and that’s always a good thing to hold on to.

Do512: What was it like to bring Leah Shapiro into your family? How did that change the dynamic of your band?
PH: I don’t mean to talk bad about Nick [Jago, former drummer], but we had left already before “Howl” actually and we recorded that album and then he came back into the band at the very end when we were finishing up with that album. Even though he came back, he didn’t like being there. So, when Leah came it was refreshing having someone that wanted to be there and was coming out from another angle. So, that was a good thing. But, like I said, I don’t mean to talk shit about Nick, he just wanted to be doing other things, you know? That came out in the music and the playing.

Do512: Did you see her playing with The Raveonettes or Dead Combo?
PH: It was Dead Combo. None of us even knew she had played with The Raveonettes. We had just been on a tour with Dead Combo through Europe and they were using a drum machine. Then we did a tour with them through the U.S. and brought Leah and we felt like she added a lot to that and a lot of power. I think Rob got her number at the end of that tour because we knew Nick was looking for other things to do. It’s a great thing though, seeing a girl behind the drums and beating the shit out of them. It’s not something you see very often.

Do512: Tell us about the experience of creating your newest album “Specter At The Feast.”
PH: “Specter at the Feast” came from Macbeth. But, writing with Leah… let’s see, where do I start? [laughs] A similar thing to Nick not wanting to be there was he would do the same thing in the studio. And as far as writing went, we tried to bring him into the writing process and we tried to leave the door open for him to write songs and bring in songs. If he wanted to play guitar the idea was I’d play drums and he’d get up there and do a guitar song if he wanted to. But, he didn’t want to do that. So, that also came out, like I said, in the studio. He wasn’t too interested in the writing process, so with Leah coming in and being 100 percent involved is a great thing. It’s a really nice thing to have in the band and have to bounce ideas off of. The way I look at it is it’s just important if she starts off with a groove out of the blue because that sparks a song. That to me is just as important as Rob doing a bass riff or me doing a guitar line because a lot of songs are started that way. She will go off with an idea and it’s just great.



Do512: You paid homage to Robert’s dad with The Call’s “Let the Day Begin.” Why did you choose that song specifically?
PH: It’s kind of a 180 from our usual. It’s kind of a feel-good song and we don’t have too many of those [laughs]. So, it was a challenge in that way and it really kind of came out of the blue too. Rob and Leah had been working on The Call songs because the gigs Robert just did- he did one in San Francisco and one in L.A.- with The Call guys you know, so they had been rehearsing that stuff for a long time. But, it just came out of the blue—we started doing something and then Rob just started singing that song and it just kind of worked. It became our version of it, which I think is something Michael (Been, Rob’s late father) would have been interested in hearing. He respected me and Rob and Leah and respected our playing. It seemed to always be in the back of his head, you know what would it sound like if we were to ever do one of his songs.

Do512: After seven albums, what do you guys do to remain inspired?
PH: It’s just life happening, you know? It’s kind of a constant battle, feeling like you’re not getting your message across or not making the effect you kind of want to have in the world. So that’s why we are always kind of reaching for more. That kind of keeps it going, you know? It always feels like there is still more work to do and there is always still more work to do on writing good songs. I don’t know if we are ever 100 percent satisfied with a song, which I think is every musician, painter, poet, or whatever. You are just never really done or satisfied with it. But, the want of getting closer each time is there. So that keeps it going.

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Black Rebel Motorcycle Club headlines the Reverberation Stage at Austin Psych Fest tonight at 11:30pm. Single day tickets are available at the festival for $60. Austin Psych Fest will be held rain or shine.

- via Courtney Goforth

and 2 bootlegs got released from ongoing tour, one of them makes me really happy as i was able to see the band for the second time at that great venue called 'The Academy' in Dublin

grab it as it's fresh ;-)

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2013-03-29_Rock_City_Nottingham_UK

2013-04-01_Ancienne_Belgique_Brussels_BE 

04.19.13 Jim Allen

Robert Levon Been plays with the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club in Nottingham, 

Eng., March 2013. Photo: Ollie Millington/WireImage

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club singer/bassist Robert Levon Been is part of a rock & roll legacy. His father, Michael Been, was the fiery frontman and bass player for ‘80s cult heroes the Call, whose emotion-packed anthems (“The Walls Came Down,” “Let the Day Begin”) should have made them the American U2 (in fact, Bono guested on their 1990 album, Red Moon). When Robert made his own musical path with BRMC in the early 2000s, Papa Been began traveling with the band as their soundman/guru. In August 19, 2010, Michael Been died of a heart attack while on tour with BRMC in Belgium, pulling the emotional rug out from under the band.
Now Robert is paying back a bit of his debt to his father by fronting a reunited Call for two West Coast shows, the first of which happened last night at Slim’s in San Francisco and the second is tonight at the Troubadour in Los Angeles (there are also plans for a live CD/DVD). The elder Been’s passing casts a long shadow over the new BRMC album, Specter at the Feast, which contains a cover of “Let the Day Begin.” As the band prepares for a U.S. tour, Been shares his thoughts about moving forward.

How did your father start working with the band?
It started off around the second album, we went through four or five different front-of-house sound engineers and we couldn’t find anybody that we felt really got our sound. We asked him at first in a panic … he offered his time to come out and help us on a tour, and it just ended up sounding so good and felt so right that we asked him to do the next leg and the next album and it just carried on from there. He was like a father figure to Peter [Hayes, BRMC singer/guitarist] as well, so it was really good to have someone looking out for us out here… he had some good experience and knowledge of some basic things that were good for keeping our heads on straight, from someone who’s been down that road before.

Did going out on the road with your dad ever make you feel awkward or self-conscious?
He definitely wasn’t like a normal father. He’d hold down the fort, but at the same time, [he was] never the judgmental kind of father. He’d let me take my own falls, and that’s maybe why it worked.

Was he the one who first taught you to play?
When I was like 12 or 13 I picked up the guitar for the first time and I really couldn’t play it at all. He tried to teach me things, but I didn’t have a fundamental understanding of music. He didn’t say it to me, but apparently he told my mother in confidence, “You never have to worry about your son following in my footsteps, because he doesn’t have it, he has no understanding of it.” Thankfully he didn’t tell me that to my face. It wasn’t until I was 15 or 16 that I picked up the bass guitar on my own, and I learned how to play. I taught myself how to do that and he overheard me messing around one day and was really surprised.

Where did the idea of you fronting the Call come from?
It felt like a good way to honor not only his passing and what he left behind but also just for the joy of it. When he passed away I connected with those guys again. I really grew up on the road with them. When I was little I would come out on the road, and all of those guys were kind of my first family. I was always daydreaming about playing onstage with them, now I get to [laughs]. We got together over a year ago with no real intention, just for fun to see if the idea would work, because I had no idea if I could pull off those songs. Vocally they’re in a much harder range, and his bass playing was at a level that I’m still trying to get to. We went through 15 or 16 songs and it was pretty powerful, we were all really moved by it, and there was the feeling that we should do something with this. But then I had to go back to recording the BRMC album, so we had to put it on hold.

How did your father’s death affect the making of the new album?
In more ways than would fit on a page. He was a very big sounding board. If there was something we were struggling with, he would often come in and give his opinion, and it was really helpful. We co-produced different albums [with him] to different degrees. So we were kind of walking the plank alone [this time]. Me and Peter were very much like brothers, he would break up fights between us and kind of keep us in line. I think one of the most difficult things about this album was learning how to communicate between the two of us … finding a way to get through without that third person, diplomat, or referee.

How much of Specter at the Feast was written before you went into the studio?
This is the first time we had an unspoken understanding that we wanted to start with a clean slate and see what would come through this period of time. We’d been through so much that it wasn’t realistic to pull from things from the past, because it wasn’t gonna resemble the future. We had to start over in a lot of ways, partly to make sure we were still in one piece. We lost a lot when he passed away, and we needed to prove to ourselves that we still had something to give, and something to offer of worth. It feels true to the time, having to go that way. It’s terrifyingly honest, this record.

How did you come to cover the Call’s “Let the Day Begin?”
We wanted to do a [Call] cover but we didn’t know which one. That one kind of came by surprise. I’m really grateful that song came the way it did, because it feels like it represents both the light and the dark, what he tried to convey with his life as well as the acknowledgement of his passing.

Specter at the Feast is out now on Vagrant.