There is a long interview of Julian Casablancas in the Guardian, and why not reading it? He and the Voidz have a new album out, of course the epic and disarming ‘Tyranny’, and Julian has interesting things to say, far more political than I expected. If you wonder why he gave this title to the album, be informed that he is really talking about tyrannies:
‘I was actually tapping into the notion of profits at the expense of humanity that I see everywhere. The general human struggle. The point of the record is to try and illustrate the total illusion that we’re somehow beyond that sort of thing, in this so-called era of freedom and justice.’
He continues with the same theme later during the interview, even calling the the record a protest record:
‘ I guess it’s kind of a protest record. It feels like one to me. It’s more to do with morality than politics. We have the sense that we’ve moved on from the system where the centers of wealth arbitrarily decide what is law and what wars we fight, etc. But I really don’t think that we are removed from that. The [US democratic] system is very similar to a monarchy.’
Wow, I have never seen him so politically engaged but I am probably wrong and I didn’t exactly try to make sense of the lyrics of the last album,… the music was already intense enough by itself. But Julian believes in art and its power: ‘We try to get awareness through art. It doesn’t necessarily effect change immediately, but it trickles into the subconscious and the next generation benefits.’
‘There’s so many conflicts. It’s the more visceral, angry side of “Wake the ‘f’ up!”. We live in a society where there is freedom of speech, but the truth is they can shut you down like in any dictatorship. If everybody understood what was going on, our problems wouldn’t be complicated. But we live in an era where everyone is trying to keep everyone in the dark and dumb and not really aware of what’s going on. That’s the main issue.’
And regarding the music, Julian is aware that he and the band ‘may have travelled too far in the future for some minds, but to me it’s totally to help train mainstream ears.’
‘A lot of what I do is to try and make cool things popular in their own time. But I’m not trying to be new or different. It’s just the same as ever – creative ideas come in my mind and I just execute them.’
Also ‘Human Sadness’, the very long song on the album was created on a trail or tears: ‘It was very intense to work on. I’ve never worked on a song where the people were close to tears.’…’I wasn’t quite crying, but it was really intense. It’s like being on the operating table – you’re working on making it emotional. But this was a rare time when I felt swallowed up by it.’
There is more in the interview, including some nasty comments by people who don’t like Julian,… Why all this hate? I love how most people hate this album, I love it…
