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| Jon Langford by Juan Perez Fajardo |
Do What You Want to Do
Jon Langford is a Welshman, a former art student turned punk rocker, and a visual artist whose vast body of music has been described as pure Americana. His musical projects and collaborations read off like a laundry list of cult favorites that hover just outside of the mainstream. Perhaps most known for his participation in the over forty years of genre defying Mekons, Mr. Langford has been linked to The Waco Brothers, Pine Valley Cosmonauts, The Three Johns, and Men of Gwent to name a few. His most recent project, Jon Langford's Four Lost Souls, might be described as pirate songs with a touch of doo-wop. The group recorded their self-titled album down at Muscle Shoals, the mecca of southern rock.
The Four Lost Souls are making their way to the good ole Garden State to play a gig at the Old Franklin Schoolhouse in Metuchen, so I reached out to Mr. Langford via phone to get a taste of his self-deprecating humor and to hear about his vast experiences and his thoughts on his extensive career.
It was a bit tough to hear Mr. Langford at the start of the call because he was washing his face to wake himself up or at least so I assumed. He informed me that my phone call had just abruptly woken him up from an "anxiety dream" about missing his upcoming flight to the NYC area. Mr. Langford had been lulled to sleep earlier that afternoon while watching England's "terrible" defeat to Belgium in the World Cup. He informed me that he had become so miserable watching the game that all he could find solace in was being able to "mock the players and the institution that is British football."
So, as you can tell, I caught him at a pretty great time for a phone interview. To add to that, I informed Mr. Langford that I would be conducting the interview from my "home office," meaning that I was sitting at my dining room table and that at any moment my five year-old daughter, one of my four large dogs, or any combination of the two may decide they need my attention and start yelling the background.
"Just let them if they need to. Let them go absolutely mad," he said.
Luckily for me, the peanut gallery was silent for the most part; and I was able to have a lengthy conversation with Mr. Langford about his "sorry career in unpopular music." Please note: That was his quote, not mine!
Cool Matty C: This past June, you opened for Robert plant, what was that experience like?
Jon Langford: I've actually known him for quite a while. I met him at a gig at the RocknRoll Hall of Fame where I was the lowest rung on the celebrity ladder and he was one of the stars of the day. He was very nice and we hung out a bit there. I gave him a copy of The Executioner's Last Song by my band at the time, The Pine Valley Cosmonauts. This record was part of a series of albums we did as a statement against the death penalty. We did three albums about murder, death, and execution to celebrate the genre while trying to get rid of the reality of it.
So anyways, he was like, "I've already got this record. I bought this at a shop in Austin called YardDog."
I thought that was quite funny, so I immediately called YardDog and said, "Nobody told me that Robert Plant was there!"
Robert eventually moved to Austin, and he showed up at one of my art shows at YardDog where I happened to be playing too. The people parted like the Red Sea, and Robert plant walks through and gives me a hug in front of everyone. He stayed and played some songs. He said he would call me… He actually did too; but, of course, I missed the call. So, I now have a saved message on my answer-phone from Robert Plant, which I find pretty hilarious.
You spent about a decade illustrating the comic strip, Great Pop Things, where you lampooned Robert Plant and Led Zeppelin. Did that ever come up?
JL: No, that did not come up. He is pretty easy-going, so I don't think we would mind. He's not like Morrissey or one of those guys who would get upset about something like that.
You have recently been performing acoustic gigs that showcase material from various projects from your "sorry career in unpopular music." How did you narrow down the material? You have 40 years of Mekons history alone and have been involved in at least a million other projects that jump from genre to genre. Did you pick your favorites? Did you consider crowd favorites? Or did you try to get a nice sampling from each project?
JL: People actually did call out a lot of songs; and I had to just go with some stuff, which was very surprising to me. I just had a go with it. But I mostly went with stuff that was just taking up space in the front room of my brain. There are a lot of songs that I can actually just do because I have performed them so much they are just burned into my flesh, so they were not that hard to play.
There's no embellishment up there, it's very bare-bones -- just me playing the guitar like an old-snare drum. There's no instrumental bits, no introductions. All the songs are about a minute and a half of me singing and perhaps a little random percussion against my guitar.
So, keeping the songs down to about a minute is the secret to fitting in over forty years of material?
JL: Yeah, sometimes I can get a roll going and knock through a lot of songs… but then it also gets a bit confusing cause I have no idea how long I've been up on stage. I have to ask the people whether they want a break or want me to continue the cruel and unusual punishment.
Were there any particular songs that you rediscovered or fell in love with all over again while selecting material for the career spanning shows?
JL: Yeah, actually, there is a song called "English White Boy Engineer" by the Three Johns which is the only Three Johns song that I had sung lead vocals on. It came out of the tail end of a John Peel session with The Mekons. That was an odd one. It's a very simple song, and it's one that I never thought that I would play it that way, acoustically.
"English White Boy Engineer" is a song that feels important to me historically because, along with "Over the Cliff," it's one of the first couple of songs that Bloodshot Records commissioned me to write for a country album… which kinda got the whole Waco Brothers thing going too.
And yeah, "Over the Cliff," is a song that the Old 97’s covered, so when it comes to that one, it reminds me that I made a whole $17.35 last year from that. It really shows my breadth as a songwriter.
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| Jon Langford's Four Lost Souls by Mike Kosinki |
Were these acoustic solo gigs inspiration for the recent slew of acoustic Four Lost Souls shows or did that just come out of a need to keep things interesting?
JL: It was around the 40th Anniversary of The Mekons, and some guy in London offered me a gig to just play on my own. I was straight off the plane and did about an hour and a half. It was just me singing. My cousin's band from Wales came down, and so I actually let them headline the gig. It worked out perfect cause they took over just as my jet-lag kicked in.
With the Four Lost Souls, the plan was always to be a band; but it is kinda expensive to take a band out in the road. So we looked at quite a lot of things that the four of us could do if we just had two acoustic guitars with us. On some level, it became our favorite way of doing things. We really enjoyed being that stripped down so we started doing more and more gigs like that. It's probably about half and half now. There is a weird way that it just works for us. It's odd to have four singers and two acoustic guitars, but it came out great.
Speaking of acoustic gigs, your upcoming area gig in Metuchen NJ is a party at the Old Franklin School House. In addition to its being a historic building, this organization gives scholarships to local high school grads going into social work and other helping professions. I know you are on the board of Rock for Kids, which supports academic success for underprivileged youth in Chicago… so I thought that was a cool and interesting tie-in. How did this gig come about?
JL: I already knew about the building. Tyreen Reuter (President of the Old Franklin School House) had contacted me and told me about it. They wanted to get the band there for quite a while, and now it worked out that we will be there with some of my artwork out there on display too.
This has all the makings for a nice Sunday afternoon!
Your other area gig is at Union Hall in Brooklyn. Do you any favorite hangouts in NYC?
JL: Well, I do like to go to Red Hook but the Bait & Tackle has shut down. That was my favorite bar, and it not being there is just a shame. We tend to hang at a restaurant called The Good Fork which is run by some friends of mine. I always make it a point to go there and have something to eat and a few pints.
The Good Fork is the place to be, mate!
You are a visual artist, prolific painter, former illustrator of the aforementioned comic strip, and you recently did the cover art for the graphic novel, Murder Ballads. And The Mekons named the band after a character in the British comic, Dan Dare. Do you consider yourself a comic book fan or comic nerd?
JL: A little bit. There were times in my life where I have been. I was never a big Marvel or DC comic book nut, though. When punk started in England there was a dark, cynical comic called 2000 A.D. which had a character called Judge Dredd along with some mad sci-fi kinda stuff. It was intelligently done and really well drawn and I really liked that comic. I was in art school doing i-dunno-what when punk happened, and I threw away my paint brushes and didn't do any fine art for a very long time but I was always drawing.
I was into the idea of satirical cartoons and 2000 A.D. was stylized and weird and that aspect of the drawing really got me into it. I was always drawing and I did a lot of fanzines and record sleeves and cartoon strips. When I finally got to Chicago, I got back into the idea of making some sort of visual stuff that might be shown somewhere or sold. And when it did sell… well then, I was hooked.
It's hard to make a living as just an obscure musician, you know?
Why did you use the pseudonym Chuck Death when you worked on Great Pop Things?
JL: I think that came from a Mekons subgroup. Sally (Timms) and Tom (Greenhalgh) had some names made up, and somebody else was actually called Chuck Death. I don't really know. I just needed a pseudonym fast because I didn't want Robert Plant to know it was me!
Speaking of art work, your designs can be found on Dogfish Head beer bottles, Dark Matter coffee, and all over Bloodshot Records-related projects. Do you usually get commissioned for specific pieces, or do they just look at your work an say, "Oh, I like that! Let's use that?"
JL: For the coffee, [Dark Matter] looked through a number of different possible illustrations of mine and then just chose one to use on the coffee bag. They like the bucking bronco and the name "Over the Cliff." That was pretty cool that they would up naming a coffee after a song of mine.
Dogfish Head happened because a guy saw some my work on the wall at a bar in Chicago and called me. I've been doing bits and bops for them ever since. I like working with people like that... grassroots campaigns that are doing something a little bit different.
I've done a lot of working with beer companies for some reason. Maybe I should have gotten into making beer instead of making music. I have a mate that makes Parce Rum and he told me once, "They can't download the rum!"
You also have supplied the artwork for countless Bloodshot Records projects, produced albums for several artists on their label, played on numerous BSR releases, acted as a mentor and label spokesperson, and provided them with an eternity's worth of musical releases from your multiple bands and solo works. Is it about time they made you a full partner?
JL: I always just tell the people that I am the owner of Bloodshot Records. The Alumni magazine from Leeds University was trying to track me down in hopes that I would send a load of money to have the art dept. named after me or something. The best they could do to track me down was send a letter to me the label's headquarters, and it was addressed to "Jon Langford: Owner of Bloodshot Records."
It is in writing so it must be true! I do see myself more of a figurehead there, much like the Queen of England.
Is there another Four Lost Souls album in the works?
JL: We have been writing a lot. The writing stage is where Four Lost Souls are at for the moment. We have a pile of good material. I didn't want to be caught out with thinking we should do another album and then not having any material so I just started stockpiling songs. We set up my painting studio as a recording studio. Bethany (Thomas) and John (Szymanski) are local to me, so sometimes we meet for lunch and just record songs and I reveal some ideas to them and Bethany tells me to throw them away because they are rubbish. It's really been a good collaboration and quite fruitful.
I have a hunch that you also have several irons in the fire...
JL: We do have two Mekons albums in the can, and I'll be touring again with the original Mekons in November. That is kinda strange to be having to play the drums again at my age.
When do you sleep?
JL: Well, I was actually sleeping just now until you rang and woke me up. The football game was so boring I fell asleep, and I was having an anxiety dream about missing my flight to New York.
You have been open about your early inspirations ranging from Johnny Cash to Black Sabbath. What inspires your music and art these days?
JL: I think that the experience of going to Muscle Shoals and meeting Robert Putnam and David Hood really set The Four Lost Souls on a certain path. There's an interest in putting the vocals in the spotlight. We have a powerful thing going on vocally, so Robert Putnam talked a lot to us about having music that really just supports our voice. It's different than the way making punk rock works.
You once said that punk is a mix of energy and attitude. Can you share any more words of wisdom or any life lessons when it comes to having longevity in the music industry?
JL: I have tons of useless wisdom that would be of absolutely no use to anyone else. I have talked to people quite a lot about the motivations for doing this. The punk rock thing was odd, and I don't see a lot of people from my generation making huge amounts of money or becoming household names, but I do see a lot of people just taking their own path and doing what they want to do. Maybe they aren't getting superstar rich but they are managing to survive.
Being my age takes a lot of pressure off. It's easier than being in my 30s and 40s. Those are ages where maybe you think about packing it in and getting a proper job. But now, there's no pressure on me but to follow my nose and do things I want to do.
I hang out with a bunch of mates like Steve Wynne with Dream Syndicate and Gary Lewis with the Jayhawks and Chuck Prophet and Rosie Flores and we are in our late 50s and the gloves are off now! We are doing our best work and I find it kind of nice. You can't tell me to stop now. I can't do anything else.
Do what you want to do. The only time we had a bad go of it was when we were corporate employees on a major label and we were worried about what other people thought about what we were doing.
Now, if nobody buys my record… well then, fair enough.
Speaking of energy and attitude, you have been known to wear you politics on your sleeve -- from The Mekons song "Never Been in a Riot" that calls out fascists who were using the Clash song "White Riot" as their anthem to your being vocal against the death penalty with the Pine Valley Cosmonauts and beyond. Being that you are a Welsh transplant to the U.S., I was wondering what your thoughts are on today's America…
JL: I am very sad for America. I think what is going on is a tragedy. There is this clown going around the world just spouting off. Trump has been who he is for a very long time, but I think he is really just a symptom of something darker and deeper that is going on. The fact that so many people seem to like his tomfoolery and lies paints a very poor picture. It's a tragedy and it is setting America back.
Are you feeling optimistic or pessimistic about the future?
JL: I am very pessimistic at the moment. I would actually say I'm realistic. It is shocking to me, not so much that people support this idiot up front, but that they support what is going on behind him. That's what worries me. Things weren't perfect. I was openly a critic of Obama. I didn't think he went far enough, but now this drain the swamp thing is just trying to set the clock back to some fantasy age where white people were in charge forever. I don't think that is something that will happen, but with all this advancement in corporations like Amazon and Google, I just can't see what the future will be like for working class people. What is going to be going on for our kids in twenty years time?
Everything seems to be moving toward a cull. Eisenhower pointed out that the Military Industrial Complex would be the biggest problem, and people did not want to listen to him. I wonder what there will be for my kids. What will they do? Are we entering into a new era of corporate slavery? It's all very depressing actually.
You did an interview with A.V. Club where you had a funny slang word for Trump...
JL: Doylem! That's what the gypsy slang for him in Northern England would be. A complete idiot!
This doylem has to be the center of attention, the guy doing the party tricks. This doylem keeps saying outrageous things and lies and lies while he dismantles democracy.
On a lighter note, you also mentioned in that same A.V. Club interview that "Piña Colada" by Rupert Holmes was one of your go-to karaoke songs and that you might have The Four Lost Souls cover it one day. Did that come about yet?
JL: We have not done that yet. I think they would be shocked and horrified at that.
Maybe save that debut for the Metuchen, NJ show...
JL: Oh, we will probably do a few Bee Gees songs there.
Jon Langford’s Four Lost Souls will be performing July 18 at Union Hall in Brooklyn, NY and July 22 at the Old Franklin Schoolhouse with Lowlight and Reineke in Metuchen, NJ.
Jon Langford’s Four Lost Souls is available now on Bloodshot Records.
For more info visit www.jonlangford.de.
Jon's artwork can be viewed at www.yarddog.com/collections/jon-langford
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