Q&A - White Town

After laying low for six years, Jyoti Mishra's White Town is back in action.

With the one-man-band's latest, Don't Mention the War (read Aversion's review), Mishra breaks a six-year silence that was either caused or extended by picking up and moving house to Derby, and, after that was sorted, the bankruptcy of Ninethwave Records, the label originally set to bring Don't Mention the War to listeners. Unfazed, Mishra did what any gung-ho rocker would do: He turned to his do-it-yourself roots and started his own label.

It was the last bit of DIY for Mishra on Don't Mention the War anyway: He already recorded the entire record and put together the artwork entirely on his own. And after the fallout with Chrysalis Records following the smash success of his single "Your Woman" back in '97, he's certainly not afraid to go it alone.

You had all kinds of bad luck with labels, from your well documented tiffs with Chrysalis, to Ninethwave shutting down before "Don't Mention the War" was to come out. Now, with your own label up and operating, are you banking that things on the corporate level run a bit more smoothly for White Town? How's running a record company working out for you, anyway -- a distraction from making music or just the next logical step?

I do seem a tad unlucky, don't I?

I don't have to do everything myself: I have no objections to working with other musicians, graphic designers, labels. I've just released my first 7-inch in years on Swedish indie Heavenly Pop Hits and that was a fantastic experience since they're lovely people. Very clean.

But, inevitably, it ends up being down to me at some point. The first White Town single was self-released too, back in 1990. I'd tried shopping it round to indie labels but no-one liked it. So I thought, bugger it, I'll do the bastard myself!

Having said that, I also love D.I.Y. There's nothing that compares with holding a record you've released yourself in your hands, nothing. Not number ones, gold discs, nothing.

I find it strange that the greatest legacy of punk, the D.I.Y. ethic, seems to have totally been forgotten. Now, most alt/indie/whatever bands I meet are back to the pre-punk paradigms. They're waiting for some lucrative deal that will magically solve all their problems. They're waiting for someone's permission to make music.

Why?

If you're a musician, you don't need anyone else's approval to release records. Why wait around? Just stick the fucker out.

There's a lot to be said for never compromising. I'm damn proud of it. My new album is exactly as I wanted it, nothing has been watered-down, nothing has been corrupted by gaggles of major-label A&R gibbons. I haven't had to have artwork I hate because the (distributor) is threatening not to release it at all otherwise. Been there, done that.

Back in the late '90s, the 'net seemed to be poised to make it possible for a wide variety of independent artists and publications to reach a worldwide audience. By 2006, it seems as if most of the Internet, from the big publications to little-guy blogs, has fallen into step with the predictable scenes, styles and record-label allegiances. Why do you think this happened so quickly, and do you think the 'net's still the best hope for artists to break away from record companies?

While I broadly agree with what you're saying, I think it's important we're glass half-full about this. Yep, we all know of websites and blogs that started with great ambitions, sites we used to check religiously. And we've seen them fall into the pockets of the big corps. Look at how the Evil Empire of Darth Murdoch gobbled up poor MySpace. Now it smells of pooh!

As for quickly, there's nothing that capitalism can't eat and sell back to you. (Remember the hoohaa with Nike stealing the Minor Threat artwork?) The more hip and underground something is, the more attractive it is for advertisers trying to target that market. Look at all the tired "viral marketing" bullshit they propagate, the desperate cunts.

But on the other hand, for every site that falls, there are dozens of little ones still doing it for the love of it, for the passion of communicating. Hell, the major way anti-war activity in Britain has been organized and documented in Britain is through a myriad of small, independent sites. We don't care any more that our mass media is too busy fellating Blair to cover two million Britons marching in London, they've rendered themselves untrustworthy and irrelevant.

There are similar networks moving and mutating on the music side, some of which I'm part of. These networks wouldn't have existed as little as six years ago, the 'net and web and broadband have enabled a much richer level of co-operation. And I don't mean just sitting online, typing "rofl" at total strangers: Last year I played the best gig I've ever done in my life at Cosy Den in Gothenburg (Sweden). Without the 'net, I doubt that would ever have happened.

Or take, for example, one of my fave bands, Kante. I bought their new album, Die Tiere Sind Unruhig and loved it so much that I did a rambling review. Then I went to their website and emailed them. They replied the next day and liked the review so much they're going to use it on their website. Now, how would that have happened years ago?

So, the big players may get swallowed up or disappear up their own arses but, to be honest, I'm not that bothered. It's the mass undergound that interests me, the legions of geeks out there who'll rant about why you should buy such-and-such an album. And the ability to connect has never been higher.

For artists like me, the net is the only place where we have equality of access. My band website looks better than 90 percent of corporate sites that cost about a gzillion times more. I couldn't say the same about a promo video or a TV advert.

White Town's always been a quirky outfit, with your blend of synth-pop, bedroom pop and DIY influences. Do you think the music world's more or less ready to be open to your blend of songwriting now than when "Your Woman" was all over the radio in 1997?

Oooh, that's a tricky one! I think that there's a greater diversity of music out there now if you look for it. That last part is crucial. If you don't go looking, well then you'll hear the same bland shite you always have done.

Certainly, it's more acceptable now to do electronic indie music than it was in '97. Back then, I got roundly slagged-off for recording at home and using synthesizers. Now, it's all the rage! But I certainly don't fit in to mainstream corporate alternative. A morbidly obese 40-year-old Indian man who sings about Trotskyism and epigastric hernias isn't exactly the kind of thing that gets MTV2 tumescent, is it?

For the most part, you follow the advice implied on Don't Mention the War's title in your songwriting. Anyone who's seen your blog, Bzangy Groink [opens in new window], knows you're pretty outspoken against the war and conservative politics in general. Is it difficult to keep your politics mostly out of your songs, are personal issues more of where your songwriting naturally takes you?

I'm afraid I'll have to roll out the old cliché: The personal is political. Although I love them, I'm not a political songwriter like Billy Bragg or Malcolm Eden. I've tried doing that and it doesn't ring true for me. I had to find my own way, which is a more personal, emotional form.

That's why the album isn't about the war, it's about life during it and it's absence from the wider discourse. It's about how everyday life for the vast majority of Britons and Americans carries on fairly normally, even as we're slaughtering 655,000 innocent people. It's about that insanity, how we get up, eat breakfast, sing along to the radio, cut our hair in parentally-challenging styles when, all the time, that horror is going on. We're like sleepwalkers.

And, like I say in the insert, it's about the choices we make. Big or small, they inevitably add up. That's what 'The Straight-Edge Atheists' Hymn' is all about. If you're straight edge, if you're an absolute materialist (or ex-dialectical materialist), how does that shape and change your perspective, your political action?

So, from my perspective, all the songs on the album are political but maybe in a different manner to most "political" songs. In fact, I don't think I've ever written a song that isn't political.

Are we going to have to wait another six years for your next album, or are you poised to become more productive now that you've moved, settled in and have a label up and running?

Heh ... naah, I'll pull my finger out now that I've got a proper studio in my garage. I'm already writing new stuff. Plus, I'll probably be playing in Finland and Sweden again next year and I've just been invited to gig in Denmark. So it's a delightfully busy time!

-- Matt Schild

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