How do you see your role as a performer? Do you have a responsibility to the audience, and if so, what is it?

yes we have a responsibility to the audience, just the same way they do to us and to each other. as PEOPLE we all have responsibilities to each other.


I read the DiS (Drowned In Sound) review of you guys, the one about THE POINT and its a great review. But I wanted to ask about this:
"To get out of other people's control (keep it indiependant), to lose control. Form collectives, allegiances, unbreakable relationships, then bring these parts together and then, and only then, will things (be it music, culture or global societies) change."
Okay, so... you, as a band. You are the folks with the power. You are the audience draw and for the length of time that you are on the stage, you are in control.
You are out to inspire the audience to take control themselves, and to be in control enough to lose it. But its a collective control that you want on your side. If the audience DID take control of the situation and it moved away from your intentions, (maybe they start to spit on you, hit you, beat on Eva for being a girl... ) then that's not the kind of allegiance and independent action and control you want... is it?

no of course not. this is very important, especially because it has HUGE political implications. i mean, a major element to fascism is the idea that if people are too "free" then all kinds of craziness will happen so they need strong leadership, to be controlled. actually this isn't far from what western "democratic" governments do now, they just do it in more concealed ways than the fascists - using force is far too obvious, but using tv is a whole lot easier to get away with.

if people get crazy in a way which is totally different to our intentions then something has gone very wrong, obviously. our music and our lyrics are largely about people taking more care of each other, of being kinder and less selfish. the idea of collective control and unselfishness are very closely related. it's like this: in order for you as an individual to reach a point that you feel like you are free to do as you please, you must be in a group situation which makes you feel sufficiently comfortable. all the people in the room have to feel OKAY for them to start freeing up. now if someone starts hitting you, you are no longer free. there is no longer collective control. one person is taking over. FREEDOM begins with empathy and understanding and respect, for others and yourself. if the audience got so worked up they felt free enough to hit eva, then she is no longer free, she is not okay. the basis for everyone to be free, to be in control, is other people. if you start fucking with that then as a group your control is fucked, you are undermining the very thing which allowed you to be free in the first place.

it's kinda like if someone CHOSE to be a slave. i mean, it makes no sense because by choosing to be a slave you deny yourself the freedom which allowed you to make the choice in the first place. same thing with the audience taking more control. it's about collective control. as soon as someone gets violent or something like that, then it's a power relation, some people become "more equal than others", they are INDIVIDUALLY in control, they destroy the basis on which they got to that position of freedom - the basis of community and empathy.

so yes we want the collective control to be "on our side" but then it has to be otherwise it's not truly collective control (unless, i suppose, if EVERYONE got violent and was okay with that. which is such a ridiculous proposition i'm not gonna waste time on it)


Do you see it as a responsibility of being in control, that you ensure that the kind of ACTION you provoke is positive?
(just thinking about how hardline 'straight edge' developed out of something completely innocuous - would you be happy if people took your message to mean starting up fundamentalist groups?)

this is very important. of course we wouldn't be happy if people ran out there starting up fundamentalist groups. we accept that some people are gonna get the wrong idea or do things we would hate. there's not much you can do about that! everyone has to accept this in their lives...i mean, there are friends you have that will go out and do things you want to kill them for but you can't control everything they do! it's the same situation here. so yes we do have a responsibility to suggest positive actions, and hopefully we do that. but again the responsibility lies also with the audience because they shouldn't and won't just do what we say all the time! it is not just for us to figure out what is a positive or negative action, it is for everyone else to decide, all we can do is contribute to that, suggest, give pointers. inspiration without direction is a pretty devoid form of inspiration. you have to inspire TO do something, but that something is not gonna be defined in black and white, it's often gonna be very vague.

like, if someone read our lyrics about women being used in adverts and then decided to go out thumping every female model they knew for "selling out on women" then i think everyone has a responsibility to put that right. not just us...i'm repeating myself again but it's all about collectivity, about the group being responsible. rather than pointing a finger saying "you made them do it", the issue is how everyone contributes to preventing bad shit from going on, which of course includes us.


You seem to be selling the ideas of unity and society, power rebalance and humanity. Would you say that the underlying politics of the band are socialist or anarchist..? or something else?

the core of both anarchism and socialism is the same. the goals are the same but the main differences are in their reasoning and some of the specifics of their strategy for those goals. to me marxism has much more substance to it, it has a whole understanding of history and society and power which is more developed than any anarchism that i have read. some people even go so far as to call marxism a "science of society" tho i woudn't go that far. i'm VERY into a lot of thought which has developed from marxism - the situationists, a lot of what is called post-marxism or "critical theory" because it deals specifically with the culture industry and music (a dude called Adorno, check it out, it's amazing). Marcuse as well, he's another one....he's not an orthodox marxist, he develops marxism with bits of freud etc, and just basically updates it. simple marxism is way too obsessed with the importance of class for me. i believe there are other groups and divisions fundamental to society such as gender, race, age, nation.

a lot of feminism also develops marxism and fucks with it, and i'm influenced a lot by that. again you can't call it strictly marxist, more like "post-marxist feminism".

SO basically i wouldn't say either the band or myself personally were either. ultimately i think the point is that these different positions agree on what is GOOD. and if we agree on how things should be (or at least have some idea because it's actually incredibly hard to create a vision of a future good society), then what is at issue is how we get together and DO IT. the issue is not the finer points of our different theories or understandings or how we label ourselves, the issue is "how do we go about making this happen?". it all comes down to a basically humanist thing: we need to treat each other a helluva lot better. simple as that.

Cat on Form website

interview by Xoë Kingsley
Photos by Owen Richards at www.whenwordsarenotworking.vze.com