Meat Beat Manifesto tells it like it is.

Meat Beat Manifesto Tells It Like It Is
By: Jeremy Ferrick 12/11/08
Lights shift and beats trickle in, a booming voice comes over the PA and declares, "Only 11% of what we learn comes from what we hear." For two decades, Meat Beat Manifesto has promulgated the theory that the picture makes the sound come alive.

Here’s how: A collage of moogs and a clip of Marshall Applewhite of the notorious suicidal Heavens Gate cult saying 'survive,' repeats over and over. MBM's music provides an angsty backbeat as further clips of George Bush Sr., Jimi Hendrix, footage from old movies, vintage microphones, typewriters, buttons, and fractal patterns shift between double screens. When the song ends, transfixed cheers anticipate what will come next.

Basically, we have a blueprint of Jack Danger's creative brain, his obsessions, possessions, fears and joys. A lot of sacred and profane, yin and yang energy, showing us the absurdity of life on earth; the staples of society chewed up and spit out for all to see. Before the show, Dangers sat down on a couch with MetroWize.

MetroWize: How long has Lynn Farmer been your drummer and how did you meet?

Jack Danger: Back in ‘96, I met him in San Francisco and have been working with him ever since. He plays on the albums, he's been on every tour. I've worked with drummers before that, but it was sort of a revolving door policy. The first time I ever brought a drummer onstage was 1990. That was Phil from Consolidated. I had different drummers you know. It was like Spinal Tap—drummers dying in mysterious gardening accidents!

MW: How much preparation goes into your live show? Do you consider it during the recording process?

JD: A lot of work goes into the visual side. Ten years ago, we didn't have the technology to do what we're doing now. So, the music was definitely the first thing, and everything was built around that, where in the last few years it sort of drifted a bit into songs being written around the visuals. So at this point, it's sort of like fifty-fifty. We'll find something like the guy from Heaven's Gate, and build a song around what he's saying, and how it breaks. It doesn't translate unless you're doing a DVD, so it's definitely more of a live thing. So we work the whole process out in rehearsals.

MW: What made you decide to move to San Francisco?

JD: I met my future wife. It's a beautiful place. Nothing else like it in the States. It's open minded, not really like the rest of the country.

MW: Does living in America inform your work?

JD: Yeah, when you experience more. I lived in England for twenty-six years in one town, Swindon. Anybody would want to get out after a while. But I don't think I'll be here forever. You get that alienation thing as well, when you've moved from your own country. Even if you're American and you move to Europe, like Johnny Depp living in France. People ask him why? You get the third degree. Doesn't matter which country you're from. Like when you do an interview with somebody in Britain, they always want to talk about, "Why did you leave? What's it like there?" Well, I bet if you had the opportunity you would too! If there's any country it would be here, especially with music, it's the number one market, then it's Japan. I don't know if Britain is as big as Germany or France, but they have their own spoken language bands. You go to Holland, and they have a number one album but you've never heard of them. Over here, there's a formula, there's one language, more or less. People understand it.

MW: When you started out in the mid ‘80's, you worked with Andy Partridge and XTC?

JD: I was working in the studio in Swindon. I quit school when I was sixteen, in 1981. I got a job working in their studio, doing tape Op, and making the tea, stuff like that. And that's where they were rehearsing for English Settlement, and that more or less corrupted me! Made me want to make music forever.

MW: And you gravitated more to electronic music…

JD: I was definitely into Kraftwerk, Human Leagues' first two albums, definitely Caberet Voltaire. But XTC was good because they mixed some of that stuff in with what they were doing, like he was into electronics. His solo album, under the name Mr. Partridge, called Take Away, had dub versions of XTC. It was great. He was into that kind of music. He had Sequential Circuits, Prophet 5, in the studio at that time. Andy definitely helped me with my career.

MW: With your current album, AutoImmune, how much of your creative expression comes through politically as opposed to personally?

JD: If you listen to a Nine Inch Nails record, it's more “me, I, etc.” He's good at doing that. I tend, if I write lyrics, to look back at and take stuff out, leaving it more ambiguous and open-ended. With politics you can have the opposite reaction, you can play with it more.

MW: Are you still remixing other artists?

JD: Yeah, off and on. The last one I did was Excepter.

MW: Is there anything lately that's come out that you like?

JD: I like Scorn's new album. It's great, an inspiration.

MW: Are you still using a Synthi 100?

JD: Yeah, but I can't take it on tour. It's bigger than this sofa. It's all in one unit. It's a really odd shape. You can't get it through the door.

MW: Stockhausen used to use one right?

JD: He did!

MW: Is he an influence?

JD: Yeah, more his early stuff, later ‘60's, ‘70's, the theatrical stuff. More like Mauricio Kagel - who died recently, like a month ago. The way they did it back then, it's not really done the same way any more. The craft. That's why I have a big collection of that stuff. There's no one who's making it like that any more.

MW: You’ve gone on the record saying, "Meat is Murder." What are your views on vegetarianism?

JD: I used to be vegan, now I'm not so much.

MW: When did you start with that?

JD: Since working with Consolidated, Phil, it rubbed off on me in a good way. I've known a lot of vegetarians through the years who have gone back to their old habits.

MW: Vegetarianism is the healthier choice, and you’ve been applauded for putting it out there.

JD: It's better for the ecology as well, deforestation, cattle, the amount of methane that goes into the air. I wouldn't want to ram it down anyone's throats. I put the message in there where I can without treading on meat eater's toes. But…yeah, meat is murder.