Chatting with Jon Langford – HuffPost 3.12.14
Mike Ragogna: Jon, you launched your single and video for “Drone Operator” and a little while back, you did the same for the single “Mars.” How do you approach your later works differently than how you created projects with The Mekons and the Waco Brothers?
Jon Langford: Originally, the solo stuff came about cos it couldn’t wouldn’t fit comfortably into the way those bands sound and operate. The original Skull Orchard record was mostly about my hometown Newport in South Wales. Here Be Monsters is all songs I wrote on my own but it worked very differently this time. The Skull Orchard band played a lot after Old Devils came out and this really is a collaborative effort with everyone having a say. I like that better.
MR: Playing devil’s advocate and examining the song’s concept further, do you feel there is any value to the government using drones?
JL: I’m sure its valuable to Obama in a short term political way. He looks tough and we don’t lose any soldiers. The long term cost is what I’m worried about. What do we look like to the rest of the world? Darth f**king Vader. The toothpaste is out of the tube and Amazon dropping off your new leather Gucci tote via drone is a little frightening as well. “Drone Operator” is a song about a moral vacuum. Who would do that job and what issues might they have after work?
MR: How do you feel about the government’s use of data collection on US citizens?
JL: It’s amazing how little most people seem to care. I am sad that all the things that really scared me about post 9-11 Bush policy have been extended by Obama. I’m sure it was much the same at the end of the Roman Empire. “Weightless” was written partly about Bradley Manning but its weird how it fits the Edward Snowden situation much better.
MR: It took three years to record your album Here Be Monsters, and now that you’ve had a little distance from recording it, what are your thoughts about the results?
JL: It was a sonic adventure. Me and Jim Elkington started off trying to make tiny little British Folk Revival acoustic record and it turned into Crazy Horse. I’m glad is sounds like a big monstrous rock band playing really loud. We weren’t working on it all the time for three years! We were mostly eating sandwiches and talking about old British TV shows.
MR: What inspires you these days, where does your creativity come from?
JL: I’m not a great believer in inspiration. I work really hard at what I do and the constant exercise seems to keep the creative juices flowing. I really like playing music and I’m too old and pissy to get a proper job so I’d better make the most of my puny skills.
MR: Do you have an equal passion for creating in the audio and visual
realms?
JL: That’s the point of this album really – a bunch of the songs came about as ideas for paintings. I can’t separate the two anymore – it all comes from the same part of my brain and if you look at my tax returns you’d see that I need to do both to survive. Indegoot were really nice about letting me go bonkers with the artwork. There’s a painting for each song.
MR: What is the earliest memory you have of creating something musical or visual?
JL: Drawing, doodling, cartooning, copying photographs of Newport County soccer players out of the South Wales Argus. Didn’t think about making any music ’til I was much older. I can blame Marc Bolan for that!
MR: You’re considered a pioneer regarding the merger of country folk with punk. To you, what is the state of each of those “genres” and do you feel that you’re participating or possibly leading in their evolutions through your works?
JL: There’s a great thread of musical simplicity and social engagement in the roots of both of them but the current/mainstream versions have been bankrupt for years and are stinking up the place. I still listen to a lot of Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline and the do-it-yourself punk ethic permeates everything I do but this album doesn’t sound Country or Punk to me.
MR: What advice do you have for new artists?
JL: Success of someone else’s terms don’t mean a f**king thing…that’s
actually a lyric I wrote a long time ago.
MR: What would you like to be five years from now?
JL: Lead singer in Led Zeppelin.