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MM - Introduce the
band members to us and explain what each members role is.
Well, there's myself (Steve Maloney) on guitar, Phil Laycock on guitar,
Jason Armstrong on bass guitar, and Pete Devine on drums. I sing lead,
and everyone else contributes backing vocals, to some extent.
MM - When was the band first formed and how did you all meet?
We all got together during the spring of this year, over a period of
about three months. I hooked up with Pete via an online bulletin board.
Then we auditioned a bunch of bass players and guitarists until we found
Jason and Phil. I think the line-up was completed in May, so it's still
early days.
MM - The band's name 'Vicious Cabaret' sounds quite aggressive.
Where did it come from and what does it represent?
The name comes from a comic book called V For Vendetta, by Alan Moore.
It's the title of a song the main character sings, which extends the
metaphor 'all the world's a stage' - i.e. life is a vicious cabaret.
The name brings to mind a lot of things for me. On its most basic level,
I've always thought that rock music is the modern equivalent of cabaret,
vaudeville, etc. It's popular entertainment for the masses. But it also
brings to mind the confrontational aesthetic of Artaud's Theatre Of
Cruelty and Dada's Cabaret Voltaire, among others, which is an influence
- the idea that performers should do more than just entertain, that they
should provoke people and force them to question their values.
And 'vicious' is one of those words that has several different meanings,
depending on the context - it can mean spiteful, but it can also mean
immoral, or defective, and I like that ambiguity.
MM - Who writes the songs that you perform? Is it a solo or a
joint effort?
I had a bunch of songs written that we used to get the ball rolling, so
to speak, but now we're starting to write as a band. I still provide
most of the lyrics, though.
MM - How would you describe your style of music and who do you
think it would most appeal to?
We like dynamics - some of the music is quite abrasive, some of it is
more subtle. It's guitar driven music, of course, but beyond that I
wouldn't want to label us at this early stage. As to the lyrics, they're
cynical with a black sense of humour - just like me, really!
As regards who it might appeal to, well... it's been my experience that
different people can get very different things from the same band.
People will home in on different aspects of what you do, and it can
often surprise you how they interpret your work.
MM - What bands/artists have influenced you the most over the
years?
A personal favourite of mine is Iggy Pop - I've always been impressed at
the way he can go from making some profound observation about the human
condition, to singing about his dick, often in the same song! Likewise,
I always loved the way Richard Hell was able to weld interesting
intellectual ideas to concise, driving, rock & roll.
Some music you love because it engages you on an emotional or
intellectual level, other music you love because it makes you want to
get loaded and shake your thang - the best is music that can do both at
once.
MM - Are you signed/unsigned at the moment?
We're not working with a label at present. We've all had dealings with
'the industry' in previous bands, so we're going to be quite selective
about whom we work with.
MM - What musical experience do the new guys have? Are you all
pretty much the same age?
Yeah, give or take a few years. As I say, we've all played in bands
before - I was in Johnny Zhivago, as you know; Phil's last band was The
Poison Hearts; Jason has recorded and toured with several bands, most
recently The Sneetches; and Pete was playing the circuit in London with
a band called Silver Top up until last year.
MM - Given that not everyone wants to be discovered through Pop
Idols, do you think there is enough support for fresh new talent out
there?
I don't think there's any encouragement for anyone to do anything that
breaks the mould, and that's not just in music. The whole system is set
up, from the time you are sent to school at five, to create obedient
drones who accept their place in the corporate hierarchy. This isn't
just some paranoid conspiracy theory, either - if you read the stuff the
people who devised public schooling wrote, you soon discover their
motives weren't at all altruistic.
MM - Which ONE band do you dream of touring / performing with?
I don't really think in those terms. It's kind of like being asked whom
you'd most like to meet - there are people you admire you think it might
be cool to have a drink with, but they probably wouldn't meet your
expectations.
At the end of the day, you infer qualities you admire in others,
qualities you like to think you have or would wish to have, and it's
hard for someone to live up to that. Likewise, the reality of touring
with some band you grew up on probably wouldn't be as glamorous as it
reads, and you'd just end up disappointed. Better to hang on to the
fantasy.
MM - Does rock have an age tag to it? Ie. Are you ever too old or
too young to rock?
There's a quote on the back of a Clash record, I forget from whom, that
says something like 'a clash between the generations is not as
significant as a clash between rulers and the ruled'. I think this whole
focus on age is divisive, it's another way the hegemony has of keeping
people in line. What it's really saying is 'sure, you can let your hair
down when you go to college, dye your hair if you like, get a few
piercings, mess around with soft drugs for a few years, then it's time
to get back in line and get on with the serious business of making other
people rich'.
As regards musicians, there are many older people doing credible work
and lots of younger people making dross, and vice versa, so I don't
think age is the criteria by which artists should be judged.
MM - If you could ask one of your heroes/someone who's inspired
you a question, who would it be and what would you ask them?
It'd be Henry Miller, and in light of his present circumstances I
guess I'd ask him what it's like on the other side.
MM - With all the changes that music has gone through over the
years, what do you think of the current music scene?
I think it's the same as it ever was - there's a lot of dross, but if
you take the time to seek out interesting stuff it can still be found.
It's very easy to slip into false nostalgia - oh, music was so much
better years ago - but that's only because there is so much old music to
mine that of course it seems like there was all this great stuff around
compared to say, the dozen or so bands that the media are fawning over
at any one time.
What I would say, however, is that the music business seems to be a lot
more conservative than at any time in the past. I think years ago a lot
more mavericks were able to slip through the door, because the labels
didn't really understand it. You had a situation in the sixties where
Elektra Records hired Danny Fields as a kind of 'office hipster', just
to sit around getting high all day telling the business heads what was
'groovy' and what wasn't, because they really didn't have a clue! And
that's how great bands like the MC5 and The Stooges got picked up.
Now, as with everything else, there are armies of marketing 'experts' on
hand, and everything is put through the consultancy wringer before it
gets exposed to the general public, reducing everything to the lowest
common denominator.
MM - What's the 'grand plan' for your band? Are you aiming for
anything like fame, fortune, artistic acceptance etc?
Well, we wouldn't turn down a large sum of money if it was offered to us
- it just depends on what we had to do to get it! It's not a very
fashionable position anymore, but I value integrity more than wealth or
fame. It's amusing the reaction you get from a lot of people when you
say that, though - that sort of idealism is seen as terribly corny and
immature, whereas the pursuit of little pieces of paper of arbitrary
value is seen as completely normal and unquestionably noble.
But then, we live in a culture where people will intentionally humiliate
themselves on daytime talk shows just for the dubious honour of
appearing on TV, and you get worthless individuals like that smug prick
on Pop Idol justifying his existence by virtue of the fact he's made a
fortune cluttering up the planet with equally worthless records. I guess
it'd be funny if it wasn't so pathetic.
MM - How do you feel about the internet and the effect it is
having on bands and independent music?
Well, I'm an information junkie so I love the internet. And certainly,
as a musician who's never had the benefit of some huge publicity machine
working on my behalf, it has enabled me and the bands I've been in to
reach people who otherwise might not have heard of us. Likewise, I've
found a lot of interesting stuff online that the mainstream media
largely ignores.
MM - Lastly, is there anything you would like to say to all our
readers out there?
Heh - I guess I'm supposed to try and sum up my whole raison d'etre in
one catchy little sound bite here, right? That's what the marketing
'experts' would try and have you do, isn't it? In that case, all I'll
say is I don't trust anyone who's shallow enough they can sum themselves
up in one sentence. And neither should you.
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