I was in Laurel Canyon with a Ferragamo model girlfriend — she wasn't doing drugs — sitting in my sauna just doing dope until I pulled myself out of that hole.
I wasn't in alleys or anything. For a musician whose beeline, as painted by the film, was a psych ward or the gutter, and whose DIY stubbornness was depicted as foolhardy, Newcombe's musical longevity has given him reason to boast. Even this far into his career, recording music and producing artists, on his own terms and outside the corporate machine, is his livelihood.
And it's not a commercial studio, it's not something you can hire. I just talk people into doing records. It pays for everything; I don't need a day gig.
I had to pay 70 grand in taxes in Germany alone last year; this is my only gig. Following his salad day tribulations with record label types "All mafia dudes," he says, "and scouts that were essentially call girls that would come with coke to get you to sign with them" , his disdain of industry, and the way money-hungry suits interrupt talent, hasn't waned. I don't wanna see your 10 yachts and your Instagram crap, you know what I mean? People used to actually do things, like throw festivals or a really good party, open a restaurant or a club, just because what the hell, you know?
So we have to create the culture we want to see: it won't be provided for us. Newcombe says an 18th self-titled slab, what he calls BJM's best record in years, is already slated for October. He also says an "anniversary gig" — the anniversary of what, he can't recall — with the Dandys "and maybe Tame Impala", to be held on a vineyard outside Melbourne owned by the family of Dandys drummer Brent "Fathead" DeBoer's Australian partner, is on the cards for next year.
The show is getting close to a sell out, so hop to it here for tix. Skip to content Home Advertise Contact Shop. Liked it? Share this: Twitter Facebook. Like this: Like Loading Leave a Reply Cancel reply. Loading Comments It reminds me of Colt 45, it has the same exact taste. Thornburgh: You have come a long way, baby. Newcombe: Yeah, exactly. So what can you say? Thornburgh: We were talking about the ghosts of San Francisco, how the town just seems to be somewhere else and you can only remember what used to be.
Newcombe: I really feel it. I know very few people that still live there. Joel from my band and some people come out of the woodwork, and there was an Exodus for a while to the East Bay, and I know people there too. Thornburgh: Well, the economy chased them over there too. Newcombe: Yeah. Everywhere I move becomes this amazingly popular place including here.
Thornburgh: You mean this whole time it was you. Portland, Oregon, you name it. Thornburgh: This is the truth man. And then you fast-forward to a couple of years ago and there were Patagonia pop-up stores and Tesla pop-up stores. This is ridiculous. They have this thing, sneakers and things. And it used to be this club that had a basement cave grotto thing and then the top floor, and it was called White Trash a Go Go, and it was a crap American-style restaurant. Chinese interior. It was just mad, right?
I realized that it was all subsidized by the actual clothing companies. Live music was only in bars, and you had to be 21 to drink. So that was the end of live music and that was the end of the youth culture. Thornburgh: So you started out going to clubs in Newport Beach?
Newcombe: Well, let me tell you the story. But in the later 70s it was there for international acts. Thornburgh: They closed it to kids? Newcombe: W hat happened was, there used to be coffee houses that had Go Go bands. It's just retarded that they would do that. But then there is a tradition of English groups completely lifting other people's shit, whether it's Led Zeppelin or whoever.
I like to think of my heroes as innovators. They didn't need to do that to me. Courtney Taylor of Dandy Warhols called you "the craziest and most talented musician I ever met". When I DJ I always play that song.
It was a shame what happened to Syd but some of that stuff I really, really love. I just wish he could have been as childlike as it seemed he was going to be, as his personality was hinting at, if mental illness didn't take him out like that, with the aid of psychedelics.
Skip Spence on Oar 5 … he was great, too. All those guys were amazing. Were you debunking people's perception of the mentally ill cult rocker?
No, it was about me. Because people — my mom, whoever — always said, "You're insane. I was like, "I'm insane? OK, well thank God for mental illness. Did it affect you your dad being the way he was?
He always treated me like a Catholic saint, regardless of how old I was. He'd be praising me and asking my forgiveness. Very strange, right? It'd be like, "I love you so much — please forgive me. Things not working out whatever demons he had. I didn't see [his suicide] coming, though. He was living with his aunt, taking care of her. He expressed to me that he was very stressed about that; her Alzheimer's was freaking him out. I was saying, "Please don't worry.
Because suicide is a selfish act. I know mental illness factors into it but not everybody with mental illness kills themselves. Obviously he was a sick bastard because he left a note saying: "Don't tell Anton.
I had an accident. I fell out of a loft and broke my arm really badly to where the bones were sticking through my skin. I was in hospital for two weeks on morphine and Demerol and what that does to your brain is, it sets you up, because there's nothing in the world that's quite like that.
So eventually I tried opiates, whether hydrocodone or whatever it was that led to the opiate addiction, which ended up being heroin. I quit all that stuff around The way I quit, I was using a men's group in California. Then I went to a care facility. I started drinking to segue out of that and that took me a little while to quit that because I felt progressively worse. That stopped about four years ago. It's perfectly fine.
When you're done drinking, it really is a case of, booze is killing you. It's not hard to quit.
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