Peter Hayes, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Interview
As a teenager in California, Peter Hayes first tried his hand at playing guitar by learning the Jimi Hendrix song “Castles Made of Sand.” Years later, after four albums with his garage rock band Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, he is keenly aware that a career in music is just as fragile these days as a kid's construction on a beach. He laments high-spending rock stars that ruin the good name of modest, hard-working musicians and low-spending music fans who would rather download BRMC for free than support the band with a little cash. Check out our interview.
Where/how did you grow up? I was born in California and raised in Minnesota on a farm of 90 acres until I was 14, then I moved back to California. I guess I grew up with a healthy disrespect for city folks. Us farm boys stuck together. I still have a bit of that even though I live in a city now. Just holding on to the roots... I just look back at that and what I do now I don’t really consider work. That was work, on a farm. Out here, playing music, is nowhere near working. I try to keep that reality in my brain.
Do you have to compromise between art and money? Definitely. All the time. Absolutely. We’re out on this tour right now and we had to drop a musician because we weren’t making enough money to survive on the road, which affects the music. This guy would play bass on some songs while I was playing piano. He’d play acoustic guitar, he’d do three-part harmonies with us, but we didn’t have enough money to make that survive and that affected the music. We could also use an extra guy to help us with the house sound. At the same time some of this stuff can be looked at as just extravagance. It could be done without those people, but it’s affecting the music.
What was your greatest moment of doubt? I still doubt it, man. I still doubt being able to pay rent. All I wanted to do was be able to pay rent.
But critics love your music, and kids love it… But it doesn’t mean that they buy it. They just seem to be downloading it. But that’s fine. That’s a culture thing that’s pretty sad. It’s confusing and it’s a shame, but it’s understandable. Why would you pay $13 for a CD when what’s most likely gonna happen is that musician is gonna get rich, buy 13 cars and develop a drug habit and spend $4,000 on a new shirt. That’s a waste. That’s not art, that’s a culture of crap. So once all that shit gets out of the way, hopefully we’re left with musicians that can just do their art.
I love where I’m at, because I’m able to play music, so far. I don’t really want to be anywhere else. I just want to try to keep this going, to make music that people care about and support. If you’re having the same conversation with a politician that’s not getting funding for their political campaign, is that going to work for them? If they give a fuck about it they’d happily do it for free, as long as they find a way to keep it going. If you’re a writer and you love writing, you’ll do it for free, but still you need to at least turn it into a barter system so someone gives you a sandwich for your article.
So what's the future of the music biz then? The Radiohead model? I don’t know what’s the future of that. I do believe art is worth something. And if you’re gonna have it in your life it needs to be respected somehow. Doesn’t matter if you’re giving it away or not, people are taking it anyway. I guess it’s a nice gesture, it makes the point that art should be free, but that’s been going on from day one. Yea, art should be free, but so should food and clothes and so should the roof over your head.
Have you considered starting your own label? That don’t work. Major labels have had their wings clipped, which is good in a way. It went down the road of just money hungry businessmen for a long time and it turned musicians into the same thing, money hungry businessmen. It’s been long overdue for that to go away. We went with an indie in England for a little while. As far as releasing ourselves, it’s possible, but… I’m not much of a businessman, I’m really not. And you kinda have to have a little bit of that to survive. I thought that’s what a record company was for. They were people that were able to get your music out to places, they schmooze the magazine guy. I like the idea of musicians being musicians and business people being business people. I don’t have to deal with having to kiss ass to have someone write about my music. I think that’s a bunch of bullshit. That’s what it’s turned into, you have to be nice to everybody. It should be if you like something you write about it. Same with MTV, if you like the band, you play it. Music is held ransom by people’s attitudes, it’s ridiculous. There should be a line in the sand, you do that, we do this.
Should artists have a political cause? You have no option but to be political. It goes back to lines drawn, there’s us and there’s them. That’s the point of art. That was my point of art, anyway. Be it comedy or movies or poetry or writing or music, it was there to give voice to something that was not being said in the culture. That’s needed and is disappearing.
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