Carl Barat, musician

In 2010, Carl Barat of Libertines fame came to Tokyo to promote his eponymous solo album, which was rather good. I interviewed him at the offices of the company promoting him in Japan.

Even though he was extremely jet-lagged and a bit dishevelled, he allowed me to video the interview. Here is the interview itself and the tape-script. The article that this produced can be read here or here, while a couple of quotes from it made it into his Wikipedia entry. 

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Liddell: OK, right, let's get down to brass tacks. New album, I listened to it, I liked it a lot, I thought it was very interesting. And I was wondering why you chose, well, you or the record company, why you chose "Run With The Boys" for the first single?

Barat: I guess that, well, I mean, presumably the record company thought it was catchiest, I guess. I don't know. We're not really doing a massive sort of single-led campaign. You know, the single and album come out on the same day, suicide for singles market thing, but it's more about the album as a whole. But, I mean, that...That song is kind of the one that refers to the bands I've been in and the lifestyle I've led for...

Liddell: That's what I figured, yeah. It's a kind of ironic comment in a way, isn't it?

Barat: Yeah, it kind of celebrates it at the same time as questioning it.

Liddell: And sort of draws a line under it?

Barat: I guess so, yeah. My personal conclusion would be that you can definitely strike a balance and, you know, embrace both. As long as you're growing and still on the journey.

Liddell: But now basically you're solo and maybe sometimes you'll do, you'll pick and choose projects to do with other people occasionally, maybe get some of the old bands back together just for a short time like you did this summer.

Barat: Yeah, that would be a nice way to go.

Liddell: In a way, I guess the new albums are a lot more mature, you know, you're sort of like you're really doing things your own way and you know there's a lot of variety in there and it's quite a sophisticated album and would you say that maybe being in bands has kind of held you back in certain ways?

Barat: It came to a point when being in a band became something of a comfort zone I think I didn't really realise it at the time but I felt kind of trapped in a prison of my own design really like obviously like something of a dwindling audience and trying to write hits, you know, that's where I never wanted it to be, I don't know how I ended up there, and so, I had to stop doing that and have a clean break, and that's how I ended up here, writing a really selfish album, you know, which helped me deal with the past, which, you know, really, objective number one, in terms of getting me to write, was that, remember, it doesn't have to sell anything, it just has to be the honest.

Liddell: With a band, there's always that pressure, you've got to...

Barat: Especially if you're signed and everything already. I had the luxury of being free from deals and I wasn't tied to anything. I just managed to get dropped by a wait to write new stuff until I was dropped by my last label.

Liddell: Yeah, so it's like with bands you've had different kinds of problems, like maybe in a way the Libertines are too successful and that causes all sorts of problems and with the Dirty Pretty Things it kind of fizzled out a bit, didn't it?

Barat: Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, we kind of got a second album syndrome in a way, I think. Just the pressure of the first album and, you know, there's alleged different factors really.

Liddell: Yeah, whatever you do, something seems to go wrong.

Barat: Yeah, yeah. That does happen a lot, yeah.

Liddell: Anyway, you're on your own now, so you've got complete creative control. And you chose to write most of this on piano instead of guitar. What's going on there? Because basically people think of you as a guitarist.

Barat: Yeah, well, it's just you fall into habits, so I do, as a writer. And as soon as I pick up a guitar, my hands naturally form the same sort of shapes. But the piano is a whole different...landscape really. If you don't play piano, which I don't, apart from a sort of classical six finger guitarist, vamping. Yeah, you just find yourself going in the directions you wouldn't normally.

Liddell: So it's just another way into originality and freshness? Yeah, I think so. So the next album will be written on a saxophone, is that right?

Barat: A French horn. A Fugle horn, isn't it?

Liddell: Yeah, so you just go through the whole orchestra and come up with new ideas all the time.

Barat: Yeah, well, I was going to do a covers album on a conch.

Liddell: On a conch, yeah. I can imagine that, yeah. What does Pete think of this album? Has he actually given you any feedback?

Barat: He... I still didn't send him it, actually. But I played him a couple of the songs and he was... Yeah, he related well to them.

Liddell: What did he say about them?

Barat: Well, he liked them.

Liddell: So how close are you guys now because you obviously you go back together for the summer and I mean maybe because it's it's more limited it's easier you know in away?

Barat: Maybe. We're both very different people but the people we are with each other hasn't really changed in all these years

Liddell: So it's a bit like going back to the guitar, your hands take on certain shapes, when you meet certain people again, your personality takes on certain shapes.

Barat: Yeah, I guess you could say that.

Liddell: Right now, I heard you're married, you have a kid now, you're living in the country.

Barat: None of those are true.

Liddell: Really?

Barat: No, no, I'm not married. I'm going to have a baby in December, and then I've been in North London. I can't drive, so the country would be rubbish.

Liddell: Which part of North London?

Barat: Muswell Hill.

Liddell: That's near my brother. About the album, can you tell me a little bit about how the songs got written? What did you start from? What was the starting line for this album?

Barat: I think this is the first album I've done that's kind of introspective, rather than escapist, I guess, the way it was written. Yeah, I realised I had a lot of things to work with. That's how it's all come about so quickly. It was all written and recorded this year. But, yeah, just doing the personal things. We were taking out the guitars and things, and looking at the more... Taking out, stepping away from big loud guitars, it stops you hiding behind that.

Liddell: So hiding behind guitars, what would you be hiding from? The audience or life itself?

Barat: Yeah, both of those really. I mean, it wasn't always like that, but it kind of ended up like that. It just felt like a loud guitar was expected, leather jackets and whiskey and cigarette.

Liddell: You said guitar rock band is a bit of an immature thing, it's a way of prolonging adolescence.

Barat: It did feel a bit like that for me, I wouldn't say that was true in everybody's case. I was definitely stuck in a bit of a rut, which is why I had to end that kind of way of life, I had to run with the boys.

Liddell: Which song did you do first, write first? Well I started writing "So Long My Lover" and I wrote a basic version of that last year, basically because I was playing a gig in Scotland and I had to have something new, otherwise I might be a lambasted. That was a great gig. But yeah, so I had to have something new to play, so I pretty much started that on the bus, but then I put it away. And then that came out. And another song called... What's it called? "Run with the Boys." I started those two last year. But then I didn't do anything until April this year. And then I wrote everything.

Liddell: Yeah, "So Long My Lover" is quite, it's a little bit downbeat, isn't it? And then "Run With The Boys" is very upbeat. Yeah. So you're sort of experimenting with shade and light there in different directions.

Barat: Well, I guess so. I wanted it to be an album rather than two singles and a bunch of fillers. It does take on the same conceptual shape about frivolity, finding love, enduring love, you know, loss and then finding love again. I mean there is a sort of loose narrative there. And yeah, seven was... it's just like a sort of a pivotal ballad really [

Tadanori Yokoo (横尾 忠則), artist

Back in 2008 I had been hoping to interview the artist Tadanori Yokoo face-to-face with the help of an interpreter, but that didn't work out, so, instead I submitted questions in Japanese by email. Unfortunately, Mr. Yokoo's answers reached me too late to be translated into English and used in my article. Here is the interview in both English and Japanese! 

Liddell: Many of your recent works (depicting boys gazing at something) seem to carry themes of innocence and a sense of adventure. Why are these themes important to you now? Does it have anything to do with your age?

Yokoo: The boys in my paintings are inspired by those in the adventure and detective novels I read in my teens. The various experiences of my teenage years, which shaped my personality, also greatly influenced them. Most of the inspiration for my creative work stems from the experiences, thoughts, and memories of my teenage years. This has only grown stronger as I’ve aged. My feelings toward my teenage years are akin to a longing for my hometown. The fears, anxieties, hopes, dreams, and other ambiguous elements (pre-modern, indigenous things) I experienced in my teens have settled into my unconscious, but through the act of creation, I bring them out one by one. This process has been my way of overcoming modernity itself. That’s why I return to it again and again.

Liddell: What does adventure mean to you? From works like "Reminiscence of Love," I feel that adventure is equated with losing innocence or sexual knowledge.

Reminiscence of Love

Yokoo: Adventure is the act of encountering another world through the body. It’s a way to recognize another reality separate from this one—an expansion of reality, and also an expansion of one’s own domain. The existence of “I” is full of mysteries. It’s the question of “Who am I?” posed to myself. This needs to be viewed not only from the perspective of life but also from the perspective of death. Adventure is always accompanied by danger. By stepping into dangerous places, rather than staying in safe ones, we encounter the true “self” (which you might call the soul). You say that adventure leads to the loss of innocence or sexual knowledge, but I see it the other way around. Within adventure lies the infantilism of children. This boyish (or infantile) quality is both a taboo and, at the same time, possesses cruelty. This infantilism is the core of an artist’s creative drive. I feel a liberated or suppressed sexual emotion within the innocence of boys.

Liddell: I can’t help but think of Freud when looking at your paintings—for example, the combination of water, danger, and sexual desire. The fight between Tarzan and the crocodile [in one of your works] seems to express an attempt to suppress sexual desire. To what extent is such a Freudian interpretation valid?

Yokoo: The fight between Tarzan and the crocodile signifies liberation rather than suppression of sexual desire. Or perhaps it’s a battle with the ego within oneself. The ego may liberate a person and grant freedom, but I want to unleash that ego even further, ultimately dissolving it. For me, creation may start with the ego, but it also ends with the ego.

Liddell: Why do you often repeatedly reference the same material? For example, “yodare" (drool) appears later in works like "Hong Kong 1997" or "Elsa’s Scream." Mishima Yukio is also frequently referenced. What is the purpose of this?

Yokoo: My repetition represents time. I used to think time was static. But in modern times, time began to flow. My repetition is a theory of time: yesterday’s time repeats in today, and it repeats again in tomorrow.

Liddell: Why did you choose to parody Rousseau in this exhibition?

Yokoo: For me, Rousseau represents the unconscious. However, people generally see his works as naïve, dreamlike, or joyful. I don’t see them that way at all. I wanted to draw out the anger, fear, cruelty, anxiety, and laughter hidden deep within the unconscious—things Rousseau didn’t depict but which are concealed in his work. I wanted to drag out the mystery lurking behind his seemingly naïve, dreamlike paintings. By doing so, I aimed to critique Rousseau’s art. It’s an attempt at a critique of painting through painting.

Theatre of Memories (2007)

Liddell: 最近の作品の多く（少年達が何かを見つめている姿が描かれている作品）は無邪気さと冒険心のテーマをもっているように思います。なぜこのようなテーマが今、貴方にとって重要ですか。貴方の歳と関りがありますか。

Yokoo: ぼくの絵画に登場する少年達は十代に読んだ冒険小説や探偵小説に登場する少年達である。ぼくの人格を形成した十代の様々の出来事に彼等も大きい影響を与えました。 そしてぼくの創造のインスピレーションの源泉の大半は十代の経験や思索や記憶が忠心になっています。それは年齢を加えるに従って大きくなっています。十代に対する想いは郷里に対する想いでもあります。十代に経験した恐れ、不安、希望、夢、または他の不透明なもの（前近代的、土着的なもの）が無意識の中に沈澱していますが、それらを創造行為によってひとつづつ吐き出すことがぼく自身の近代の超克でもあったのです。だから何度も何度も反復するのです。

Liddell: 冒険とはどのような事を意味するのですか。「愛の回想」のように多くの作品から、私は冒険とは無邪気さや性的知識を失う事と同じだと感じます。

Yokoo: 冒険は肉体を通して異界と接触する行為です。そのことによってこの現実と分離したもうひとつの現実を認識するためでもあります。つまり現実の拡張です。また自分自身の領域の拡張でもあります。「私」という存在は謎に満ちています。「私は一体誰なのか？」というぼく自身への疑問でもあります。それを生の側から見るだけではなく死の側から見ることも必要です。冒険は常に危険と隣り合わせです。安全な場所からではなく危険な場所に足を踏み入れることによって本来の「私自身」（それを魂と呼んでもいいかも知れません。）と遭遇するためです。あなたは冒険によって無邪気さや性的知識を失うとおっしゃっていますが、それは逆です。冒険の中には子供の持つインファンテリズムがあります。この少年性（幼児性）はひとつのテレビであると同時に一方では残酷性も所有しています。このインファンテリズムこそ芸術家の創造の核になっています。ぼくは少年の無邪気さの中に解放された、または閉鎖された性的な感情を感じます。

Liddell: 私は貴方の絵画を拝見しながらフロイドを思わずにいられません。例えば、水、危険、そして性的欲望の結合です。また、ターザンとワニの闘いは性的欲求の抑制の試みを表現しているように見えます。そのようなフロイド派の解釈はどの程度、正当でしょうか。

Yokoo: ターザンのワニの闘いは性的欲求の抑制というより解放を意味します。または自分の中に存在する自我との闘いかも知れません。自我が人間を解放し、自由を獲得するかも知れませんが、ぼくはその自我をもっと解き放って、最終的に自我を解消させることを望んでいます。ぼくにとって創造は自我が入口かも知れませんが、また自我が出口でもあります。

Liddell: なぜ、しばしば同じ素材を繰り返し引用するのか教えてください。例えば、「よだれ」は「香港１９９７」や「エルザの叫び」などで後に使われています。また、三島由紀夫も多く使われています。それはどのような目的がありますか。

Yokoo: ぼくの反復は時間を表わしています。かつて時間は静止していると考えていました。しかし近代になって時間は流れ始めました。ぼくの反復は、昨日の時間は今日の時間に反復し、それがまた明日に反復するという時間論でもあります。

Liddell: なぜ今回の展覧会に於いて、ルソーをパロディー化する事になったのですか。

Yokoo: ルソーはぼくにとって無意識の表象でもありました。しかし一般的にはルソーの作品は素朴であるとか、夢であるとか、楽しいという風にとらえています。ぼくは決してそのように見えません。ぼくはルソーの絵画に隠蔽された（ルソーが描かなかった）無意識のさらに奥にひそむ怒り、恐怖、残酷、不安、笑いを引き出したかったのです。実はルソーのあの素朴な夢のような絵の背後に隠されている謎を引きずり出してみたかったのです。こうすることによってルソー芸術を批評したかったのです。絵画による絵画批評の試みです。