Chumbawamba

Zurück zur Übersicht | Archiv November 2006 | Archiv 2006

Question: Does the name Chumbawamba have any special meaning or background?

Jude: Not Really. It's based on a dream that someone in the band had, a long time ago at the beginning of the band's life, and in this dream, he was in a foreign country where he didn't understand the language...

Boff: Germany for instance.

Jude: ...and he wanted to go to the toilet and there was a public toilet. Two doors, men and women and above one of the doors it said "Chumba" and above the other door it said "Wamba".?

Question: Did or do you have any idols concerning your music?

Boff: Yeah, loads and loads. Loads of political stuff from the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's. It goes Beatles and Bob Dylan touched stuff and then Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye and through the 70's David Bowie, that sort of thing, and then punk, big deal, The Clash, Pistols, Wire, The Fall. Then a little bit later on some early 80's things, the 2-Tone stuff, the Specials and all that. A lot of really interesting stuff and then the Poweller, the Jam, Madness, Elvis Costello and that sort of thing. And a bit later Public Enemy and American hip-hop which's got something to say and then some of the gang things like The Careless, this big English bands thing and then in the 90's, not really *laughts*, not really anything in the 90's. Also like some American hardcore things like Minor Threat and DX in Holland if you know them and yeah, that sort of thing. Loads of folk things as well, I don't know if you know Billy Bragg, do you know Billy Bragg?

Question: No.

Boff: Some English folks, working class, some sort of politics stuff, but that covers everything.

Question: Are there any artists you would like to play or work with?

Boff: I often watch things on videos of bands that I never got to see. For instance in Britain there was a television program about Stiff Records which is Ian Dury and Wreckless Eric, Nick Lowe, Madness, all these people and I just thought "god, what a great era" that sort of, I didn't really pay attention to it, well, a bit, but I'd love to go there and be involved in all that.

Jude: But when we were growing up, late teens, early big music events that were complete "all against" carnivals and they were big anti-fascists and I just think "god, it would have been great to play on one of those, wouldn't it have been fun". That was an era. But that era is gone now, but because the main thing was they were fantastic music events and you saw all sorts of people.

Question: Your lyrics often deal with political topics. How important are social and political messages in music?

Boff: Absolutely important. Really important. I think if we didn't sing about politics and what's going on in the world then I think we'd be crap. We would be...

Jude: ...like anybody else.

Boff: Yeah. Well, I just think that the music that we play, all the music that we've played since 1982 - loads of punky stuff and dance stuff and a capella folk. Loads of different kinds of music, it all sounds ok, it's entertaining, but, I think, without politics it couldn't be enough for me. We wouldn't be playing here tonight. Our audience is made up of people that understand that we talk about politics.

Jude: A lot of bands, they're full of people that are really, really good musicians and they don't necessarily work very well as a band because they all have their own individual "I'm a great musician" and "I'm a great musician". We're the opposite of that 'cause like none of us comes in there thinking "Ah, I'm a great musician" so we're not mad that we're not making the fantastic, you know, "best guitar solo in the world ever" sort of music. So we know that we have something that is different for that and it's what we're singing about.

Boff: I think all the older, well not the best groups, but a lot of the best groups, are a lot like that. They're people who get together because they're a gang and because they're mates and are friends and they have something to say. The Clash, for instance, or the bass player Paul Simenon, he couldn't play bass at all but he was their friend and they said, "Look, here's a bass guitar, learn to play this" and he had to learn to play it. They didn't go, "Hey, we want you in the band because you're a musician". They wanted him in the band because he was their good friend.

Jude: He never was a good musician. (laughs)

Boff: (laughs) I think that's great, that's really good.

Question: Do you think that music can move something in our world?

Jude: I think lots and lots and lots of different things have an effect. I think there are all sorts of things that change people's attitudes or bring about changes and I think music is one small part of that. I mean it's sometimes heavy to say that this show or this band changed everything about my life. Perhaps they were maybe simplifying but I think lots and lots of things have an effect on you and we hope and we try to be one of those little things that have that. It happens in lots and lots and lots of small ways.

Boff: 'Cause I think that some people are really pessimistic about the world. It's getting worse, the environment stuff is getting worse and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and everything is getting really bad. When I was really young and growing up, I think in the early 1980's, I think I was a total racist. I was a homophobic, racist total wanker and my friends liked me, but I was a total racist. Because of punk that led me into, you know, reggae and ska and disco music. The 3 basically black music. I'd never had anything to do with it before that and because of that music, those 3 kinds of things, I suddenly was aware that. Stevie Wonder, Jacksons and, the Specials and all that sort of thing. Ska music and the whole thing through reggae and to me, reggae was something that black people do, and it became part of my life because it became part of the culture. So I had to learn that racism was stupid and it was ridiculous. So, for me, it was definitely music because I wasn't learning that from school or from my parents, 'cause they were just all the same racist as well.

Question: So, you think, that music can change something?

Jude and Boff: Yeah, absolutely!

Question: What do you think about the current development in the punk-scene, from which you've been influenced pretty much?

Boff: There's a huge underground punk scene which we obviously have nothing to do with whatsoever because most people, they don't want to have anything to do with us. Lots of people that we know are part of the underground punk scene and we know them as people but we would never play concerts with them because they think we are so lax and play disco music and pop music and so we're not allowed to be a part of that thing and there's the whole punk thing to do with. I think it's great that one of the things that's come out of punk and punk rock as a style, I think it's great that Green Day made an album that was all about slagging off the United States's involvement in the war and slagging off George W. Bush. People see that as being a sort of punk record and it won the MTV awards and all that sort of thing and I think that's a good thing. But I think most punks, they call themselves punks or punk rockers, they hate Green Day and still they're slagging off and say they're shit whereas I think it's really good. You know, there's a time when, this might not mean anything to you, but there was a time when Jello Biafra, who was the lead singer of the Dead Kennedy's, because they had toured the world and made lots of records and sold lots of records, he was walking down the street in San Francisco and some punk rockers saw him on the street and they beat him up and actually broke his leg. The really kicked him in and broke his leg shouting, "You sell out fucker, you're a fucking sell out bastard" and he had to go to the hospital and he was really in a bad way and I think that's ridiculous 'cause I think Jello Biafra, he's a fantastic man with great things to say and I think he got handed out of the punk movement. So that's one thing I think about punk *laughs*. But I think, my big thing was listening to the Sex Pistols and the Clash so I think that's in my heart all the time so I'm a total punk. I think punk comes in lots of different shapes and sizes.

Jude: When it first started, in a way it was very broad. It was a bit like, anyone can do it. But now it's no like, it's real narrow. It's kind of become a much more narrower thing that's defined by the band's musical style or circumstance. It's not as all embracing as it was. One thing that I find really it's the hair and the jacket. When you see footage of early punk bands they don't look like that. They just look like weird boys from school, they've got normal hair and are a bit geeky and they don't look like that. It's almost like we forget that when you look back and you think they all had the hair and the jackets and the piercings and they didn't. Like their trousers were a bit too short.

Question: What has been the grossest experience you've had with the band so far?

Jude: When we were famous, you know, when we had the hit single.

Boff: For 2 minutes

Jude: for 2 minutes, yeah, our little window of fame, our interesting little window. We spent quite a lot of time in America. They have these radio shows, they're like festivals but everyone plays like 10 minutes, lasts for an hour. 'Cause radios are colourful in America so you have to have radio stations on your side and they organize these radio shows

Boff: They're absolutely shit

Jude: They are, you know, but it's an industry, it's a total industry thing and we played once in New York at Madison Square Gardens

Boff: And it was huge with, I dunno...

Jude: There were thousands of people there.

Boff: Six or seven thousand people in this huge area.

Jude: At least and you get this band and that band, all the kinds of bands that are doing well at the moment. We went on. The band that played before us was Aerosmith and you know what they're like. It was big, fireworks and explosions and lights and the whole stage was this big, big (clap sound) thing and then we had to go on after them and it was just horrible and we were in the middle of this boxing ring, oh god it was so...

Boff: And we just felt, we can't compete with that amount of shit. It was so huge and ridiculous. All we could do now was just, instead of starting with a rock song, we'll just sing an a capella song so we did one of the songs that we did tonight, one of the anti-nazi songs that we did, an a capella song just vocals. We just did that. So we actually finished with (makes sounds) and then we started with (sings) and it was so weird and we were like, "We'll never do one of these again".

Jude: Yeah, that was the worst!

Question: What are your impressions of the concerts in Germany up to now?

Jude: So far we had really, really good experiences playing in Germany. Once the band was a full electric band, you know, concerts in Germany were always great. It's different concerts in England, but we find that often where we play becomes it different.

Question: What are the differences of the audience in Germany and England?

Jude: I think, what we're playing now, in a kind of acoustic way, in England we play a lot in small theatres and everyone sits down and it's quite quiet and when we play in Germany - you know like it was tonight - it's a little bit more lively. It's not quiet.

Boff: It's a little bit more aware of political culture in music. In England the idol of politics in music is still not very popular at the moment, but in Germany it's ok to come here and sing about George W. Bush and people go "Yeah, that's fine!" and in England it's still a little bit strange.

Question: Is there another kind of audience when you play acoustic?

Boff: In England.

Jude: In England it's a totally different type of audience. I think the shift of the electric band to the acoustic band has led the pattern on the audience in Europe and in Germany. In England we feel now we have a new audience as well as we are all going to, but in Germany they go "Oh ok, they're playing acoustically now." And so they shifted with us.

Question: Have you done this before?

Jude: Yeah.

Boff: But not here.

Jude: About two or three years ago we played an acoustically way.

Boff: In different parts of the country. Tonight the local promoter, he said: "oooh, strange" - you know we were playing the acoustic thing - "I'm interested what the people shout for." And they go "Hey we want the rock thing". People never shout for that song. But we're doing this for so long, I think people know that we do a lot of different things.

Question: How important was the charts success at the end of 90s for your career?

Boff: Important in the sense of that it gave us some money to carry on going for a long time.

Jude: In the way of a gift.

Boff: It was important for joys of life, what it's been seen in the world and it was really good and have a look at it and have a laugh at it and we've struckin it off, because we've never been there. At least now we think: "Okay, now we know what it's like to be there and play these ridiculous things".
Question: Probably you're not free to say what you want.

Jude: No. That was never a problem. You know, it's not necessarily odd and we can say, making how to make a record. People are extreme in limiting our freedoms, but you know we kind of lamped with it as long as it lasted.

Boff: We went on big national TV shows in America with big famous people and most of them we didn't know who they were, and we talked about politics and about George W. Bush and we said what we wanted all the time.

Jude: I think we knew that that is timelimited, it will last a year and a half, six months whatever. Now I know that we were thinking right on the commercials and he success of the record. I think if you continued along that road, then you would behave differently. It was a very important thing. The money that we generated it does gives you a certain amount of freedom, because it allows you to carry on and do the things you wanna do.

Boff: You know, the Sex Pistols signed for two major record companies, to A&M and EMI and they got a lot of money from them and then they scrambled it. They had a really good time and then just went to another label, I always thought it's great when you can go to a major label and you get tired of them and piss off and do what you want with the money... you know it's great to have all this million thing. In the election time we had all these people saying: "Can you help me, I've got this political group and I do this anti-fascist thing" and we said "Yeah" and sent people some money. It's fantastic. We can't do this now and obviously we couldn't do this before, but at this time we were like "Yeah and do this". It's brilliant. It's like we have a good time and when it's over, who cares, we just carry on.

Jude: You know it's like the record company kinda want something from you and you get kinda of what you wan. And when you see, that's not gonna fit, that relationship is over.

Question: Last question: do you like German beer?

Jude: Yeah.

Boff: Yeah.

Jude: Mostly the lager.

Boff: In England. If you want a good beer then it's usual german.

Question: Thanx for the interview.

Eingetragen von sk am 19.11.2006.