Rain On: Echo & The Bunnymen Explain Why Modern Musician

[In The Margins]

http://mog.com/MOG_Features/blog/1859055

Gauging the legacy of post-punk legends Echo & The Bunnymen is about as hard as trying to get a straight answer out of lead singer Ian McCulloch. As the band gears up for a tour in support of their latest album, The Fountain, I find myself working hard just to keep up in conversation. McCulloch is a sprawling speaker, moving quickly between rants on the band's legacy to tangents like Shakespeare and the decline of Liverpool football.

Right before The Fountain came out, McCulloch made a pretty bold statement: he said it was the best Echo & The Bunnymen record since 1984's Ocean Rain, an album that, despite mixed reviews when it came out, has gone down in history as a bona fide new wave/post-punk classic. When I ask him if he still feels this way, he's quick to debunk himself. "I was lying. I was trying to say [The Fountain] is the most accessible," he pauses a moment to think before adding, "Accessible... I hate that word... it sounds like you're trying to be accessible."

McCulloch is clearly aware that Ocean Rain has become the main reference point for the band, especially since they went on tour in 2008 to play the album in full: "I know Ocean Rain is now acclaimed once again as one of these masterpieces, but I have bits [on the album] that I don't like in a way."

He views his live shows as a way to correct the past. "If I were to listen to that record all the way through, it's not the same as playing it live," he says, "because playing it live, it's like 'I didn't realize that all the bits I didn't like can be repaired just by playing it properly!'" The Fountain itself is different than the band's most famous album, and McCulloch is tickled when I describe it as "sunshinier." "As opposed to rainfallier! I love making up words, too."

We continue to discuss the two albums throughout our conversation, but we eventually agree that the comparison isn't all that apt. It's not as if McCulloch set out to recreate Ocean Rain, the kind of approach that would only lead to disaster. "It's hard to do that again," he says. "What I like about The Fountain is... we just went with the energy and the flow of everything instead."

It wasn't meant to be a calculated, rather an organic album that might rub some fans the wrong way, as if they're hoping the band will stay within a single space. Speaking of calculation, McCulloch thinks many musicians would be better off as mathematicians. He me that he's "not an avid follower of music anymore," opting to listen more to classical music, "because there's no one with crap words and a lying voice singing over what potentially is some good music."

while I silently think that he's being a little dismissive, he follows up with a valid point: "I always find that singers -- especially these days -- are lacking in character. They've got the best microphone and they can hit all the notes, but you might as well do algebra. There's more soul in an algebraic equation."

If there's anyone that can make that statement, it's got to be McCulloch, a man that has one of the most distinct singing voices in music, one that people have tried to imitate over and over without success.

By the end of our conversation, I'm not quite sure what to make of everything we just talked about... we constantly lose track of how we got to different subjects, and a lot of answers seem to end in non-sequiturs. At one point, he states, "I don't know how to split the atom... or maybe I'm working on knowing how to put it back together again." I consider this a chance to jump in and get an answer, asking if this is the philosophy he applies to making albums now. Instead, he brushes my projection off: "It just absolves me of kind of really being bothered about anything."

After that, he cuts it to me straight and says that people wonder why he doesn't go deep into specifics about making his albums and songs, and he claims "It's boring for me." Changing the subject again, he gives me a series of hilariously dirty, unprintable anagrams.

When I start laughing over the phone, he says "Finally Scott, you're laughing!" I am. After all, who needs striaght answer when you have anagrams?

[Dr Cheese]

He views his live shows as a way to correct the past. "If I were to listen to that record all the way through, it's not the same as playing it live," he says, "because playing it live, it's like 'I didn't realize that all the bits I didn't like can be repaired just by playing it properly!'

Is that code for "shit, I 've fucked my voice and can't sing anymore so I'll have to do it like this and hope I get away with it"?

[Dave Smith]

Strange one that.Confused,contradictory,seeemingly not knowing the Bunnymen's current place in anything....odd.

[moses (2)]

It just absolves me of kind of really being bothered about anything


That says it ALL

[fat cherry]

opting to listen more to classical music, "because there's no one with crap words and a lying voice singing over what potentially is some good music."

hey, I might try that!!

[In The Margins]

It just absolves me of kind of really being bothered about anything


That says it ALL

True. But if you read "bothered" as meaning "bothered (upset) by something" rather than "can't be bothered about anything" the sentence isn't so "bothersome" to read.

Overall, this interview along with the other one in which he rants against fakery ( http://forum.villiersterrace.com/viewtopic.php?t=2582 ) shows a complete break with reality. Is it the booze, drugs, the added expense of fatherhood with his child lover, or just a complete mental breakdown?

[Dr Cheese]

Maybe he's just a bit of a knob?

[DivaDiana77]

Maybe he's just a bit of a knob?

Possibly. Julian Cope seems to think so. But then Julian doesn't seem exactly easy to get along with either. (Yowzah!)

I liked him better with that silent, surly, teenaged/early 20s mystique. But then, most teens and early 20s guys really don't like to talk anyway.

His voice IS still distinctive...but then, so is Courtney Love's--and neither are pretty sounding, but Courtney's never was.