Across 30+ years and over 20 albums, The Brian Jonestown Massacre has been making some of the most groundbreaking and fearless music on the planet. It’s hard to put a label on their sound because their signature blend of psych rock, ambient shoe gaze and dream pop (with a dash of folk, blues and country) is so quintessentially their own. Led by Anton Newcombe, BJM is legendary for Newcombe’s intensity and, yes, genius.
BJM’s new album “The Future is Your Past” is a legit masterpiece, forged by decades of Newcombe’s razor-sharp songwriting and incendiary guitar. It’s the band’s best album in a long time, if not ever, and deserves to bring BJM back into the mainstream.
The Source Weekly had a chance to talk with Newcombe ahead of the band’s show at Volcanic Theatre Pub.
Source Weekly: “The Future is Your Past” feels like a pushback against the many labels you’ve collected over the years and sounds like pure Newcombe without filters. Was that always the intent while recording the album?
Anton Newcombe: To be honest I don’t usually contemplate things like that when making albums. We were in the midst of a pandemic that is not over and that we don’t fully understand. I felt like seriously doing what I love to do no matter what was going to happen, I don’t think too much about the market or critical reactions. I just felt like singing affirmations to me, to remind me to keep going. I set out to try and empower myself, but it’s gestalt in the sense that I am the you.
SW: BJM sounds like a throwback to a past that never existed and a future we might never see. How have you managed to always cultivate music that, to quote Kurt Vonnegut Jr., feels “unstuck in time?” Is that something you seek out?
AN: The simple answer is we just don’t know, and the complex look would be to say that, in my opinion, psychedelic means mind-expanding, and I personally do not feel that the genre ever came close to playing itself out. However, most people focus on style and commerce instead of creativity — the thing that makes art happen freely is when there is no fear of failure.
SW: Do you feel like lyrically you’re more open than you’ve ever been? More in tune with the entire spectrum of emotional exploration?
AN: [Bob] Dylan sang ,”If my thoughts could be seen, they’d put my head inside a guillotine” and I understood exactly what he meant and why he said that and for many years I shared just my sketch vocals, mumbles and sounds to avoid really winding people up. I saved it for live, but now I couldn’t care less what happens, so I plan to let my thoughts rip. A lot of it is very powerful and spiritual in nature, to the extreme extent, and I have only historical examples of what happens to anyone that expresses themselves in this way.
SW: What does it take, in your opinion, to be a musical genius? Do you consider yourself one?
AN: I’ll tell you what I know: it doesn’t matter if it’s drums or basketball — there are people that are born with it, whatever it is, they have it and they can’t tell you how or why, but everybody else has to work their ass off.
SW: What did you find your own biggest struggle was as BJM rose to fame? Was it something easy to conquer?
AN: I think art vs commerce is a big one…. I just want to play music, I don’t think you should hold it against the music business that 99.9% of everything they ever tried to do failed, every next big thing, all the groups, labels, magazines… out of business, but here I am for saying “no thanks, I just wish to play music, I don’t give a shit about being famous or your concepts of success or accomplishments.” I know it sounds pig headed.
This article appears in Source Weekly September 28, 2023.
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