The New Cue #420 September 30: Start the week with The The's Matt Johnson
"Never regret growing older, it is a privilege denied to many."
Good morning
Now, as you would expect from someone who regularly practices transcendental meditation, Matt Johnson has got to a stage in life where he has managed to dilute any temper he might have had previously. But that was before the 63-year-old creative dynamo and leader of The The had to try and log on to the wi-fi in his Antwerp hotel room to speak to The New Cue.
It comes down to two choices for the east London native: lose it and hurl his phone across the room, or do the interview on a landline. Luckily, we settle on the former. By the time Johnson answers the phone to Niall, his composure has been regained.
He's going to need it: on the back of his excellent new album Ensoulment, the first album released under The The handle in almost 25 years, Johnson is currently in the middle of a huge tour that takes in dates across the Europe, the UK, the US, New Zealand and Australia. It is not the time to let a ropey internet connection derail him. “It kept saying ‘You’re connected’, then, ‘You’re not connected’,” he explains. “I don’t like being late to things. You know what it’s like, bloody technology never works, does it?”
In his songs, Johnson has always been good at highlighting the things that don’t work, from society, to the government, to relationships, to the human mind, always with a warmth or playfulness at odds with the dark corners those tracks inhabit. The recurring motif of the soul was established early on – his classic debut Soul Mining turned 40 last year, but its iconic singles sound as timeless as they ever did, like this:
The The’s current shows take in two sets, one performing Ensoulment in its entirety, and a euphoric closer that works its way through The The’s catalogue. Johnson has enjoyed watching the crowd transform from one to the other. “The first set is more of a listening set, because it’s quite a mellow album,” he says. “We go off for 15 minutes, the audience can go and get a drink, and then we go into the other set, which obviously they know well. It gets a bit more rowdy with more dancing.”
We catch Johnson on a day off, which is not strictly a day off as he has an interview with The New Cue in his diary, but after that, he’s planning to go for a nice stroll through sunny Antwerp. But first, TNC’s questionnaire. Today’s edition is a freebie, but if you’d like to become a paying subscriber and ensure Ted and Niall can keep The New Cue keeping on, then click here:
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Enjoy,
Ted and Niall
The Life And Times Of… Matt Johnson
What was the first record you loved?
The Beatles' White Album. It came out in'68, so I would've been six or seven. There's not many records that anybody can say they’ve loved from the age of seven all through adulthood, can still listen to it and get great, great pleasure. It's a beautiful album. I love it. It's so eclectic and diverse. Ironically, they were in a state of decomposition in some ways, The Beatles, yet I think it's their most creative album.
What was the last record you loved?
Bob Dylan's Rough And Rowdy Ways. That was my lockdown album. I think everybody had a lockdown album and that was mine, I listened to it continually. I thought it was a fantastic album. I saw him play live after lockdown, at the London Palladium. It was the first time I've seen Dylan live and he primarily performed that album. I thought it was absolutely fantastic.
What's your earliest memory?
I don't know how old I was, but it's as a baby, playing in my cot with a ball point pen that I must have grabbed off the nearby sideboard. I remember feeling disappointed when my mum gently took it away from me.
What's your daily domestic routine?
My ideal routine, and I try to stick to it a bit on road, but it’s not often possible, will be to get up quite early, maybe 6am or something. I do transcendental meditation, so I’ll meditate for 20 minutes. Then I exercise on a rebounder – if you don't know what a rebounder is, it's one of those mini trampolines - so do 20 minutes on that, 15 minutes of stretches, sit-ups and push-ups, 20 minutes in a steam chamber, because I've got a steam chamber at home, which is wonderful so I'll sit in that for maybe 15 minutes. Then a nice bowl of porridge or a pint of juice, and then ready to start the day.
After that, it'll be work. I'll have people that work for me in the studio and we’ll work Monday to Friday. I try to go to bed fairly early, if I can. My youngest son likes to stay up late, and the only way to get him to go to bed early is if we go to bed early. I’ll go about 10 if I can, but I'm a bit of a night owl. I'm wide awake about one or two. It’s what I call the Sleep Train. If you go a bit early, you can get to sleep fine. But if I don't go a bit early, I can be up quite late. It’s tricky!
Who or what is the love of your life?
My two sons, Jack and George.
What's your worst habit?
Flirting. I've always had a bit of a roving eye. It's got better in recent years as I've got older. I do enjoy female company and that can be a bit destructive on a relationship. My dad was a bit of a flirt so I suppose it runs in the family.
When were you most creatively satisfied?
Writing Ensoulment, the latest album, oddly, I felt it was a very calm and happy period. It was a quarter of a century since the last one but when I work, I'm very fast, it's just that I like to take lots of time when I'm not.
I'd be getting up at five or six in the morning, sitting at my little writing bureau. It's an old piece of family furniture and I love sitting there. It belonged to my dad from when he came out of the army when he was in his 20s. It's been in the family long time so it has a history and I find it quite comforting to sit at this little writing bureau at five or six in the morning. I've got about four or five hours by myself writing, and I felt very, very happy to sit there writing the lyrics and so on.
Has anyone you've ever met made you feel starstruck?
Yeah - when I was 22, going to dinner with Leonard Cohen. His manager was my lawyer for a short period of time, and he called him Lenny. He said, ‘I want Lenny to advise you', because I’d just signed a big contract with CBS, which was Leonard Cohen's record label as well. And so his manager arranged a dinner with us and I was a bit starstruck. I've never been starstruck since but I was a bit starstruck then. He was a lovely chap, very warm and humorous and charming.
Who or what is the greatest influence on your work?
I'd say my late older brother, Andrew, also known as Andy Dog. We were very close. There was two and a half years age difference between us, but he was a huge influence on my life and my work. He really helped shape my aesthetic sensibilities with music and literature and film. I miss him, I think about him every day still and what he would have thought of things. He was a very original thinker. He had a very unique take on things, and I really do miss talking to him.
What do you wish the 18-year-old you knew?
I left school as a 15-year-old. I was a truant and I left school, and probably had a bit of a chip on my shoulder when I was younger that I felt pretty much educated myself. So what I would tell the 18 year old me was that education is no substitute for intelligence and raw life experience. Go out there and just enjoy life and travel and meet people, and that will be your education.
What would people be surprised to learn about you?
It would be that behind the scenes in The The, we laugh most of the time. Ironically enough, it was one of the things that Leonard Cohen advised about. He warned me. He said, ‘You've got to be careful to avoid being pigeonholed’. He was bemoaning the fact. This was obviously long before the internet but what he said was, ‘It's as if there's a giant computer out there and every time a journalist types in the name Leonard Cohen, up comes gloomy and depressing and it drives me mad’, and he was laughing when he said it. Of course, the same thing happened to me that he warned me about. It's the nature of the lyrics, I suppose. But the way I compare is like you get the cliché of the comedian where they're laughing on stage but they're very depressed behind the scenes. Well, I'm the reverse. The music's quite intense, but behind the scenes, we're actually laughing.
What one book would you recommend we read?
Well, of course, in this day and age, it would have to be George Orwell's 1984.
What was the home you grew up in like?
It was very unusual. I grew up above East London's most famous music pub in the 60s, The Two Puddings. Not many kids of that era, I suppose, grew up in a place that was a regular haunt of the Kray twins, Bobby Moore and bands like The Small Faces, The Kinks, David Essex, so it was quite an unusual upbringing. But when you're a kid, you don't realize it because it's normal. It's only in later years I thought, ‘Bloody hell, that was pretty intense!’ It was fantastic, lovely customers and the staff were lovely and a lot of family relatives worked there as well. It was a very unusual and wonderful but I'm very grateful to have that upbringing.
What's the best advice you've ever been given?
It was by a Fleet Street journalist when I was about 20. I’d just signed a big deal with CBS and he was a friend of mine and he said to me, because I'd just come off the dole and suddenly I had this big advance, he said, ‘Don't feel guilty, feel grateful. Never feel guilty about success but always feel grateful’. That always stuck with me, feeling grateful for all the good things that happen, and acknowledging them. Don't take them for granted.
Do you mind getting older?
A friend of mine just celebrated his 70th birthday, which is a way away for me yet, but on his invitation, he said, ‘Never regret growing older, it is a privilege denied to many’. Having lost a couple of brothers now, that really stuck with me. The benefits of being here, waking up every day, far outweigh the negative.
What's the secret to a happy relationship?
Giving each other enough space. I think the problem is when people get into relationships and you end up taking over each other's lives, and, this is when you're younger, maybe cut away from each other's friends or from your own friends. I think it's really important that you each have your own space and your own life so that you miss each other and you enjoy the time you spend together, rather than canceling each other out. I think it's very important to maintain your own lives, your own friendships and your own space alongside your relationship. I think that that keeps it fresh.
What's your greatest regret?
Hurting the feelings of people that I love.
What's the worst thing that anyone's ever said to you?
I was a terrible truant at school and my school reports were dreadful, and that's even if my parents managed to see them because sometimes I destroyed them. My parents went to a school parent-teacher meeting, and my dad was so outraged. He said, ‘You're going to end up a dustman’. That stung me!
Where and when were you happiest?
The birth of my two sons. Jack, who's older, was born in Greenwich Village in New York, and George was born in Whitechapel, London. But that moment when this little person comes into the world and you hold them for the first time, it’s got to be the most powerful feeling in the world.
What's your favourite film and why?
The Misfits, a film that was made in 1961, the year I was born. It was written by Arthur Miller and directed by John Huston, and it was the last completed film for both Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe, and it was one of the last films by Montgomery Clift as well. It's beautifully shot on black and white, and it follows these complex lives of these lost souls who are trying to find meaning in their lives. It's just a very haunting, beautiful film
.
Which living person do you most despise?
There probably will be a few and most of them politicians, but I've really tried hard to cleanse myself of grudges and hatred and negativity. Let God sort them out. I don't want to project negative because you only end up poisoning your own mind by feeling hatred against other people.
What talent would you most like to have?
Time travel. I don't know if you call that a talent or a magic power, but let's stick with time travel, because I'm fascinated, I’d love to go back to the height of the Roman Empire, or the fall of the Roman Empire, or London in Victorian times, I just fascinated by other times, and the smells, the sounds, and how it would have been, the way people would have dressed and spoken, all the things that were written out of the history books, the minute detail that has been forgotten.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
I haven't come close to achieving it yet. I still feel full of vim and vigour, and hopefully, please God, last long enough to be on my deathbed at a great age, and then I can reflect on what it was. It wouldn't be a career thing. I think it will be a personal thing about love and helping people rather than any career thing.
ND