Re-energized band is back in business, and iconic frontman Ian McCulloch’s legendary gift of the gab is alive and well on this week’s Noisemakers on Noisevox with John Norris
For decades now, Echo and the Bunnymen’s Ian McCulloch has rarely been at a loss for words, even during the downturns. So with his band recently enjoying renewed visibility and back with a new, remarkably pop-friendly album perhaps not coincidentally called The Fountain, why would Mac stop talking now? On this week’s edition of the interview series Noisemakers on Noisevox, John Norris gets an audience with the leader of what some have called the second most influential Liverpool band in history.
“It feels like a debut album to me,” says Mac of the new full-length, the band’s eleventh, “I mean, I know we’ve been doing it for thirty years, but the energy coming out of the speakers when we recorded it felt new.” There’s no denying the energy of the album, which the singer calls the band’s “most complete” record since 1984’s landmark Ocean Rain. And some have likened The Fountain’s pop sheen, evident tracks like “Shroud of Turin” and lead single “Think I Need It Too”, to anthemic arena acts like Coldplay. While Mac is a fan and friend of Chris Martin and Co., he’s having none of those comparisons, telling Norris that in fact to him the Bunnymen’s latest harkens back to his earliest punk favorites. “I hear the Sex Pistols and a bit of Iggy Pop. There’s a little bit of the Pistols in the first track…like “God Save The Queen” or “Pretty Vacant”.
“He’s one of those guys who is a sound bite machine,” says host John Norris of McCulloch. He can talk and talk and he’s got such history that it’s like throw him a topic, sit back, and you can listen to him for hours.” Noisemakers on Noisevox has the scruffy Scouser behind shades, waxing quotable in his baritone on a whole host of subjects. A sampler?
On social networking sites: “MySpace? It’s like a pen pal. Go out and get a friend!”
On The Fountain’s producer, John McLaughlin: “He’s done some cheesy stuff in the past. But all of it had the balls underneath, even though it was cheesy pop.”
On his fourteen year old daughter Mimi: “She go on and become president of the world for all I know. She’s a feisty little sod. But dead funny.”
On Donnie Darko bringing “The Killing Moon” to a new generation: “I think it had a big impact. Until the director was stupid enough to do his own director’s cut and put INXS at the beginning. I thought that was ridiculous. He’s done sod all since without the Bunnymen’s help.”
On last year’s Ocean Rain show at Radio City Music Hall: “It was my favorite show I’ve ever done. From ’78 to now. I’ve never felt that, I just felt so in it.”
On the difference between US and UK music fans: “I’ve always felt in America people like what they like and stick with it. I once said if Neil Young had been British he’d be retired now, because they’d have just let him go away.”
Enjoy a Mac attack, courtesy of Echo and the Bunnymen’s main man, on this week’s edition of Noisemakers on Noisevox. Since June, the series has posted more than twenty conversations and exclusive performances with some of the most compelling names in music, among them Arctic Monkeys, Dan Deacon, Vivian Girls, WHY?, Deerhunter, HEALTH, Animal Collective, The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, The Thermals – and even Lady Gaga. Experience all of the Noisemakers episodes at www.noisevox.org
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