Repo Man Interview: “The quality of the ideas is more important than any kind of dogma”

Bristol-based Repo Man are veterans of Britain’s esoteric sound lab. While some may see the term ‘veterans’ as a stretch, the state independent of music as we know it, well… any band that has a swathe of long-players under their belt can be considered as such, in my opinion.

Formed in 2011, constantly playing to sweaty crowds in grimy bear pits up and down the country, Repo Man’s debut LP, All Mind in the Cat House, followed two years later. From here, Repo Man spent the decade on a steady run of releases, 2015’s Minesweeping next, continuing their withering brand of improv’ noise-rock madness, while 2019’s I Can Live With It If You Can, Son capped off a productive decade indeed rounded.

The line-up, now functioning as five-piece, features Bojak (vocals/ saxophone/ clarinet/ violin), Anthony Brown (bass/ vocals), Liam McConaghy (guitar/ piano/ keys) Simon Mawson (drums, effects), and Aron Ward (guitar/ synths/ vocals /piano/ buffalo drum), and four years after I Can Live With It If You Can, Son, Repo Man bring us their fourth fizzy slab of fractured noise: the wonderfully titled Me Pop Now.

17 tracks filled with cacophony and all the twists and turns of an epic fever dream, the only person with the tools to make sense of this grueling sound world is producer, Wayne Adams (JAAW, Big Lad et al), who steers the ship by fighting fire with fire.

In the usual one-two combination with Stephen Kerrison (Remote Living, The Lichen Slow et al) undertaking mastering duties, Repo Man begin the rolling wave of chaos with Back on the Meat. The discontent continues with the searing dub-inspired Butter Pump and Sirhan Sirhan. Both spiked with the kind sounds that form the bedrock to an acid trip.

Daily Guile sees Repo Man giving it The Seer-era Swans treatment, with the kind of dry humour this band has always been renowned for, while the sonic death march of Ratsgrave, the droning blues rock of The Blues Laywer and the Mission of Burma rumble of ConTemptation renders Me Pop Now as À la carte Repo Man. While adhering to the all-important rule of bringing the noise, they do it by never taking themselves too seriously.

Last week Brown, McConaghy and Ward answered some of our questions about the band’s beginnings, Me Pop Now, and what’s in-store for the future.

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Sun 13: Me Pop Now seems to like all the best bits of Repo Man rolled into one. Can you tell us about how the album took shape?

Anthony Brown: “It’s been quite a wild, long process with Me Pop Now as the roots came from an odd period where the band briefly slimmed down to a three-piece of Bojak, Simon and I, when Liam needed to take a break from the band. We weren’t sure whether the band would continue or whether it would turn into something else, though Aron ended up joining, as a long-time friend seemingly on a mission to save the Repo unit. COVID then occurred and most of the tracks were constructed in this period intermittently. For a while we did not know if this beast would be one album, a series of EPs, or a double album. In the end we decided to amalgamate it all into one slab of oddness.”

Liam McConaghy: “I had to step out for a while quite suddenly due to a rapid deterioration of my tinnitus – an unfortunate occupational hazard of band life – so things changed pretty significantly behind the scenes for the creation of this album. It ended being a couple of years before I could venture back tentatively to playing again with the band, something I had missed sorely, but meanwhile these songs had been written, and it was amazing to be brought back in for the latter part of recording sessions and get to witness in hi-fidelity all the crafting that had gone into these tracks. For once, my role was to add some final textural elements, as I had no part in the writing itself. On the other hand, the interludes came later on out of a boozy, intense and sweaty weekend of jamming at Aron’s house with a bunch of synths and various other instruments hastily assembled, and undoubtedly much laughter and a few heated exchanges along the way!”

Aron Ward: “I was invited by Ant to step in on guitar. Of course, I said yeah, but on one proviso that I’d not play our Liam’s guitar parts, and instead write a whole new set with the guys. From following Repo for fucking ages, what you hear guitar wise is sort of my interpretation / amalgamation of, like, the roots of Repo, so yeah, I get the idea of best bits.”

S13: You mix a lot of styles that naturally have their own tension, but with Repo Man it’s always sounded to me like you guys have a so much fun. Is this the case?

AB: “Well, it becomes a means to hang out together as well, you try and make the most of it and put everything into it, it can veer to extremes at times, which probably adds to the tension, as well as the dynamic of individual personalities. It means the highs are pretty great, but it does take tons of work to maintain. In terms of styles, I think there was definitely a conscious attempt to expand on the more oddball elements of the sound with Me Pop Now whilst ironically it also being probably more of a riff centred album than previous Repo, due to Aron’s different guitar style to Liam.”

AW: “When you’ve been playing for a while you realise you to have a fucking laugh sometimes, and actually enjoy what you’re doing. All that serious-all-the-time bullshit you can leave at the door.”

LM: “I think we’ve tended from the beginning to always be drawn to intensity, but it’s a cathartic release and definitely fun too when the going’s good. There’s nothing quite like it when everyone’s locked in and giving their all with a shared sense of purpose. Equally, when everyone’s knackered and drained from a hard week of work it can be a challenge to find that energy, but we try to push it collectively to where it needs to be. There are plenty of opinions in the band about all sorts of things, so it’s not always easy to reconcile and debates do of course happen, but that’s all what makes it feel very alive. It’s no one person’s pet project.”

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S13: There’s plenty of tongue and cheek as well, particular with the song titles. Is this an extension of your individual personalities, or is it more of an outlet to  escape from everyday grind?

AB: “Well, the song titles were originally things like Sade and Craigfish so if anything they are more toned down for the final album! There’s definitely a ton of us, as friends and idiosyncratic people, in those titles, without it being some overt wacky thing. I think there has been continuity in some themes between the albums, often dark thematically though with an absurdist humour, this one is perhaps more playful with it. I see the absurdity of some of it as being more a sort of laugh or you’ll cry reflection on the world, history and tragedy, though with the onus on trying to display the intensity of all this that we go through. Bojak’s cryptic lyrics are also a puzzle box of their own, almost fighting against the music, and integral to the Repo ethos. I don’t see it as escapist per se, more a grotesque mirror, though the physicality of playing takes you out of yourself at times.”

LM: “The song titles do tend to carry the collective humour of the band and are often another chance to get creative and embellish meaning or add intrigue. As Bojak’s lyrics are fairly opaque and there’s not much in the way of big choruses, there’s plenty of freedom in choosing titles. Probably not so much escapism as the titles tend to have an undercurrent darkness that’s definitely carried over from the world around us.”

S13: At 17 songs and 53 minutes I like how it goes against the norm of modern day ‘listening trends’ Was this something you were conscious about?

LM: “Growing up with CDs, records and tapes and even for a brief period, minidisc as the common  formats for consumption, the idea of something you can hold in your hands, open up, read and look at in a very physical sense while listening to the music playing has always felt like the natural way to do things and an important part of the experience, so for this reason it was never a consideration to a digital only release. We would have loved to have done a vinyl edition too, but it felt more important to keep the album flowing the way it does than try and compromise to fit the format constraints. Trying to guess listening trends is fruitless anyway as things change all the time with developing technology and shifting tastes. Better to go with what you would want yourself as an end user.”

AB: “It feels like it needs to be listened to in one whole. I think by the end we were generally thinking, ‘Fuck it, what have we got to lose’ and that it needs to be presented as intended. If no one listens then at least we didn’t compromise on it, it’s there for those who want to listen.”

AW: “Yeah, I think it was necessary, out of respect to Liam coming back into the fray, to make more tracks and, yeah, make what’s almost like a double album. We XL’d this shit.”

S13: It’s the first record you’ve done Wayne Adams who has been at the forefront of recording in the U.K. underground for a while now. So too with Stephen Kerrison who mastered the record. How was it working with both of them?

AW: “Yeah they’re great! I reckon it’s down to their DIY backgrounds that they’re so easy to work with, in terms of communication, and their use of time in the studio when we worked with them. Savvy listeners as well. Grateful we’ve got good people like this around. And like, despite Wayne and I being close mates, he wasn’t cutting any of us any slack. Kept us focused even when he found Liam, Ant and I tops off, no sleep, in the studio’s garden at 10am blasting Depeche Mode’s 101… ‘Go to bed now””

S13: I was speaking to Steve Strode the other day, and he was recounting a show you guys did with Bodies on Everest back in 2011. In underground and DIY Culture these are the memories that provide the vital thread for me, which makes it all the better when you release music on a label like Cruel Nature. How important do you think this is?

LM: “Yes, definitely. I remember that show. We really enjoyed that night in Newcastle and the atmosphere was very encouraging for us as performers. We prefer to be on the ground close to the audience where there’s more of a shared experience rather than up on a lofty stage where there’s sometimes a bit of disconnect if you’re not careful. We had played a few shows with Fret, Nottingham being one of them if I recall correctly and we hit it off quickly. Steve and Cruel Nature was very much on our radar for some time before we finally got this album set up and ready to go. It’s an impressive roster of diverse and quality music from various corners that he’s been steadily putting out over the years, so it’s definitely an honour to finally join the ranks!”

AB: “It’s definitely important and exists as a hidden threadline throughout the country. It’s a difficult time for everyone and hard for people to put on gigs and try and sustain this culture. The people you meet over the years and form connections with, in this manner as fellow enthusiasts, are vital. As soon as we contacted Steve regarding this album he got back to us almost straight away, support like that is fantastic, and the cooperation with Cruel Nature and Aron’s Totality label in getting this out there.”

S13: It’s been a steady run of albums over the last eight years or so. While you are in other bands, do you see Repo Man as the central point to your creativity?

LM: “There’s a healthy two-way dialogue of ideas and thoughts that goes on when you have other projects on the go besides the one band. Playing with other musicians as well and in different combinations keeps things fresh as you naturally bring different approaches and influences back in with you. Also, although we squeeze a lot of different things into Repo, there is not the pressure to put absolutely everything of yourself into the project. I don’t mean that in the sense of less commitment, but in terms of not forcing ideas that don’t fit simply because there’s nowhere else for them to go.”

AB: “It’s definitely something very close to my heart as being something we have kept together for a long time now and battled against various setbacks that may have hit us! It’s sort of rooted in long standing friendship really, that goes all the way back to 2001.”

AW: “I wish I could say yeah but I still put as much work into the creative process, as well as help with the hustle, and all that. The writing comes quick and pretty easy between us. Kind of reading each others’ minds.”

S13: Are you constantly working on ideas and exchanging them with each other. Is there a set process or is it more abstract?

LM: “Frequency, productivity and approaches of course vary greatly depending how busy everyone’s lives are at any given moment, though over the years things have tended to generally start out from group improvisations. That’s always been the preferred method. We record jams religiously and scour them for gems to extrapolate from, as it means the DNA of a track has the essence of the whole band in it rather than just coming from one individual. Ultimately though, the quality of the ideas is more important than any kind of dogma, so it’s a preference rather than a rule!”

AB: “Me Pop Now brings to the table a slightly more fragmented approach, we wanted it to have a more cut up clashing element rather than just a flow of tracks, we’d talked for a long time about having a more cut up This Heat style approach for some things, and decided to build on the more studio based experimenting of the last album – then adding home recorded sections, for a cut up feel, with the interludes. It was important for the interludes to feel a part of the whole piece rather than just some crap chucked in.”

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S13: Having started in 2011, you guys probably caught the backend of culture insofar as physical product. Since that time, streaming has really taken a stranglehold on how we consume music. Did you envisage capitalism degrading art like this over such a short space of time?

AB: “It’s depressing to see music treated as such a disposable commodity. Whilst it has always been used to oil the wheels of capitalism, it seems that it’s status to many is now akin to the earlier consumer ‘freedom of choice’ revolution of millions of pointless TV channels. Whilst bands on a Repo level may not matter to the millions, it becomes harder for small bands to survive/ tour etc. My mind boggles at the large amount of albums some of the old ’70s or ’80s cult or underground bands sold who were considered ‘failures’ or low selling at the time. They were pretty much small businesses in comparison to the modern-day bands scrabbling to get people to gigs.”

S13: How much does Bristol influence the music you create?

AB: “It is difficult to say, none of us are from here originally but, apart from Liam who moved here when he was very young, I guess we all gravitated here for a reason, at a certain place/ time and era. The existence of places like The Cube early on and meeting other musicians through the improv’ sessions there definitely feels in retrospect like it was the start of something that now has a strong presence in Bristol more than other British cities, that has grown more, that we have seen develop and has become popular with a new wave of younger bands and artists. When we started Repo though we were reacting more against the sound of other bands in the city at the time, which was generally more ethereal and instrumental or more doom oriented. Bristol has become an extremely expensive city to live in which has had a negative impact, though there is still an abundance of creativity and plenty going on.”

S13: What’s next for the band?

AB: “We actually have another album that should be out fairly soon, which is an improv’ collaboration that Liam, Bojak, and I did with sax/ bass player Matt Lord and drummer/ percussionist Kordian Tetkov, from the band Capri Batterie. We recorded this just pre COVID, with Joe Garcia from Anta, at his studio, Joe’s Garage. I think it was roughly in a period where either Jess had left the band or was on tour with Gnod, and just before Liam’s hearing trouble escalated. We had done some gigs with Kordian and Matt, and I had previously played with Matt in a noise-rock trio when I first moved to Bristol. As Capri Batterie, they recorded a pretty wild album with the comedian, Stewart Lee. It was great working with them and bringing out a full documentation of our improv’ side. Liam and I are mixing that with Joe in August and it will be released on Liam’s Aphelion label, as Repo Tetkov Lord.”

AW: “Hopefully playing this album out of Bristol and out of this country with some small jaunts abroad. We’re all extremely keen to crack on with writing the next record but we’re like ships in the night. Hopefully we’ll crash into each other soon in the fog and get this fucker started.”

LM: “Start writing the next album! It’ll be the first to truly feature the band as full-fledged 5-piece and the possibilities are very exciting. Playing our launch show, which is looking like it will be in Bristol on August 25 at the Grain Barge. Get some tour dates together, both for UK and also hopefully some in Europe if we can get the logistics and bureaucracy straightened out! Collaborate with Stock, Aitken and Waterman!”

Me Pop Now is out now via Cruel Nature Records / Totality. Purchase from Bandcamp.