PipemanRadio Interviews Billy Bragg at Punk Rock Bowling XXIV

0:04 Hey, you have then two censure, Wow, pray young row Wake up America. It's time for the Adventures of Pipe Man on W four C why dot Com. Wis pomp Beats is number one Internet radio station. Here's your host, the pipe Man. I don't want to change the world. I'm not looking for New England, just looking born another girl. I was a minor, I was a doer, was a whyman between the walls. It's the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c Y Radio.

0:57 And I'm here with its right, nice pity, bloody brag here at punk Rock Bowling. That's right. Have you seen any bowling? I did not go to bowling, but it is kind of cool to have bowling at a music festival, isn't it. It's really cool, And even if you know they weren't paying me to do it, to be able to say to people in England, oh yeah, you know next week I'm playing in Las Vegas at Punk Rock Bowling. It's just just the kudos of saying that it's been so great. Yeah, I've been dining out on that. Everyone thinks, oh, that's really mad. Le's you be here. It's even madder than you fool, folks, it's even matter it is. And I mean, listen, I do a lot of festivals. This is one of my favorites because they just like punk's overtake Downtown Las Vegas. There's club shows everywhere, there's the festival. One of the best things about this festival too, is when you play, Yeah, everybody gets to see it. That's right.

1:55 Yeah, you know it's you don't have that overlapping them. They hate making choices. Yeah, it's really good. I keep everybody to their forty five minutes pop from the headliners. You know, I think it's a good thing. Yeah, exactly, And then everybody gets a chance at the audience, you know. And I mean, and it's just so cool, the vibe here and like we're just one big family. Cool would be good. Since the sun went behind the Golden Nugget Hotel, it's got a bit cooler. But I wouldn't say cool as a word I'd use I'd say fried. But yeah, right, from a very temperate country, yeah, and I mean, I tell you what I mean. Your country has bipolar weather. Like I'm going there to go do Downloaded in a couple of weeks. Oh my god, what's the weather, weight away packed. I gotta bring like five super and it's been awful. You know, we're just you know, where are we now at the end of May. We haven't really had spring.

2:46 We just had wet, wet, wet, And I was just texting with my wife now saying, you're so hot here. You can't believe how hot he is. And she said, well, we've had three days of sunshiny and now it's raining again. So I'll take your wellies. Mate. If I was you, yeah, one hundred percent. Yeah, So tell us, you know, like, what's your best story, what's your craziest, coolest, bad, worst, best, whatever it is about, what your whole journey in this musical world, in this musical world, craziest thing. Well, a couple of years ago, I was on stage while England were playing Germany in the finals of the Women's European Soccer Championship and it went to extra time. So I was literally on stage while the game was on.

3:32 Five thousand people in this tent were looking at their phones and my biggest worry was they were going it was going to go to a penalty shootout. That would be a nightmare to be on stage. Everybody would be looking at their phones and then they would go oh, and I wouldn't know if we'd missed or they've scored. I'd be like the only person in the tent. And but fortunately, uh, we won the game. But the game ended in the middle of one of my songs, greetings to the new Brunette. I theyre singing my song, and all of a sudden, everyone through the beer in the air. Yeah, And I thought, oh, well, obviously you know time has come. So then I kind of said a few appropriate words and got off stage. But I'll be honest with you, it was such a difficult gig to judge because I like to feel well, not come to a festival. I like to try and suss out the mood of the audience and try and pitch my set to fit that. It's a bit of a bus but I managed to do it normally. But the idea of being on stage in front of an audience whose mood could change catastrophically and you have no control over it is my kind of nightmare. Yeah, I will admit to laying awake the night before fretting. I don't normally threat at all about gigs. Gigs are the least my worries is my happy place, you know.

4:40 I look forward to it. But yeah, that gig was a bit of a nightmare. But it turned out great and afterwards I'd agreed to do a signing, which was great because having come off stage, I'm not sure if I've done a great gig or it had been terrible. Everybody in the tent was like, well, you know, it was so great to be with five thousand people when that at that moment, it was such a great moment, you know, and I thought, you know, it's right because if I'd have been the headliner, I'd have been at my hotel room with one watching it on the telly on my own I'd have jumped off the bed, texted my wife and that would have been it. But as it was there, I was with five thousand excitable English people having a fabulous experience. Because we don't often win them championships, we won one. We won the World Coup in nineteen sixty six. That's when I was born. There you go, you see, and we've won nothing. It's my fault and the fact that I don't take it on you, but the fact it was the women as well. It was such a it had such a change in our attitude towards sport and stuff. That was so great, the women's team and it was just a lovely, lovely moment and it was just, you know, it's unforgettable, whether you're in the audience or stuck on stage trying to grab hold of the attention of the crowd. And you know, you perform all over the world. You're here in the US, now you're from the UK. How would you compare performing their opposed forming here? And how has it changed as you've been artists, Because I know for me as a listener, yeah, Like I remember being teenager and it's like my goal was to get to the UK because that was the only true punk scene. Yeah,

6:11 yeah, that's true. There's some truth in that, I think, But you'd be surprised how similar is you know. I've been thinking a lot about this a lot lately, that the things that we were involved in in the seventies and the eighties, how similar things are now. You know, if you think about it. You know, I was involved closely in antiparthite stuff, you know, and that involved a boycott of an aparthep regime. It's the same what young people are doing now the state of Israel, you know, their opposition to what's happening in Gaza. To the people in Palestine, they're starting a boycott. I was also involved in Act Up supporting gays and lesbians both in this country and in the UK, where there was a ban on talking about sexuality in school. And now it's a transc community in that front line. So I find myself as I'm old now I'm sixty six, talking to young people and saying, yeah, we've thought, we've done this before, and it works. You know, we managed to make a contribution to bringing down the aparthep regime in South Africa. We managed to support in solidarity of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters to the point now where we have equal marriage. So you know, keep on keeping one and don't stop.

7:20 And I think that the real thing that's changed is that music is no longer as a vanguard role in youth culture because of the Internet. You know, when I was nineteen, there was only one medium available to me with which to talk to the world. I had to learn to play guitar, write songs and do gigs. That was the only that was my social media. It was all that social media. Yeah, but now of course, you know, if you're angry about the world, you can make a film on your bloody phone, you know. So it's not doesn't have that central role, but it does still have a role to play in bringing people together, firing people up. You know, there's a there's a there's something in music that you can't get online, and as long as that means the same, I think people will be coming to festivals like this or you know, getting together in England or wherever to have that kind of sort of social emotional solidarity that you get from loud music. You know, based on what you just said, do you think that the new punk bands of today, the reason maybe they don't have the same angst as the seventies eighties punk bands is because of what you just said, that there's another outlet for that anger and frustration. There is, there is, but you know, things happen that make you angry and you want to do something more than just be on Twitter about it. Trump would be one example, you know. I mean, he's much worse than anything we had to deal with, and he's he's worse than Thatcher, he's worse than Reagan, you know, and I think climate change is a bigger threat than the Soviet Union ever was, because there's you know, with the Soviet Union, you could guar up against them and you know, have mutually sure destruction and I'll ultimately bring him to a camp.

8:56 But climate change could be much more destructive. We're already seeing it, and so I think there's a lot more things to get fired up about. And I'm always pleased when I see young bands run a stage at Glasshomy Festival. We have young musicians coming there. It's left field, you know, who've got something to say about the world. Not in the same way as I did. But why would they. I'm their you know, grandparents generation now, but they're still they're still trying to make sense of the world in the same way that we were. You know, it's funny how you said Trump compared the Reagan and Thatcher because my best bro life who since thirteen, he passed away in September. But he said, you know, even though I hated Reagan and hated his policies, I at least believed he thought he was doing what was right for the country. And he's like, that's what makes Trump scarier because I don't think that No, he's not interested in anything except himself. Reagan at LEAs he's paid lip service to the notion of America as a democracy, a country with a constitution that was good, you know.

10:07 And and you know, similarly with Thatcher, you know, she was accountable. And the trouble with Trump and some extent with Boris Johnson as well, is they were refused to be accountable in their in their personal life and their professional life and their political life. And you know, acting with impunity. That's that's fascism. You know, you can't escape from that. You know, that's totalityrorianism. So they're dangerous people and you're going to have a right fight on your hands this year with the election, I think, oh, I don't even know what to think, except I might be getting a place. In the UK. Well, we've got an election coming up in a couple of few weeks now. It's hopefully well, it looks like Labour are going to get in. But whether they're going to be able to turn things around, it's a big it's a big question, big question, you know.

10:54 And it is interesting what you said, because the fact the matter is is one thing I can say at least Reagan tried to unite the country, whereas Trump tries to divide it. Yeah, you know, and that's the oldest trick in the book. I don't know why we're so stupid. The whole world has become stupid that way. It is, Yeah, viization, I think unfortunately, because of the digital nature of discourse as well, it's so much easier to just be oppositional and be angry. Rather, there's not much room for nuance on Twitter. Yeah, that's true. We sound like old gezus, don't we see? No, right, we'll start telling that quite the clash are in a minute. You haven't lived until you've seen the clash from that. Oh that's great. I love it. But man, I love that you're still here rocking it. We're still doing that. We're still here. We're hanging in there. And do you have anything else you want to share with the listeners that we haven't covered yet? Well, just really, you know, music is about bringing people together, yes, about empathy. Yeah, any kind of music, punk music, whatever, music.

12:00 You know, it's all about making people feel that they're not alone. And in a world where so much does to divide us, to come to a gig and sing your favorite song with a person who wrote it and a thousand other people singing it too. You make you feel like you're not on your own. You're not. You can't get that shit online. So you know, as long as people need that, there'll be space for festivals like this and music to bring people together. And so you know, I'm a proof of that. I've been coming to America for forty years. Fortunately I am that people still give a shit about what I have to say and what records I make. So you know, I think you just have to tell people to keep on keeping on, and eventually they'll they'll find a way. I think it's because you're real, because you're a musician, or you're very kind. I'm barely a musician. I'm just about I'm a rhythm guitar player in a punk band without a punk band. But yeah, thank you.

12:46 Well, you know, after forty years, you might have learned the instrument, you might not have known it. We'll find it about an hour, I will say that far. I've got looking forward to it me too. Thanks a lot for being here at Punk Rock Ball. Thanks for being on the Adventures of Paintment. My pleasure. Great to be here. Thanks for having us. Man, thank you for listening to the adventures of Patement. I'm w for c u I Radio. Hi, this is Billy Bragg and you're listening to pipe Man on Wacky Wacky's It's W four c y dot com.

13:28 Wacky dot com sound so much better, Man,