INTERVIEW: Mark Chadwick (July 2010)

Mark Chadwick - the irreverent, good-time libertarian best known for fronting Britain’s premier folk-punk outfit, The Levellers - released his debut solo album last year during a brief lull in band activity. Written over the course of a decade, All The Pieces is a psychedelic pop record rooted in the tail-end of the 1960s. It’s also, perhaps most crucially, directly autobiographical, using Chadwick’s own spiritual awakening at the infamous Elephant Fayre gatherings of the mid-1980s as a springboard for charting the highs, lows and personal fallout of being part of what was, for a brief period, one of the UK’s biggest bands.

It’s been an odd ride for The Levellers and me – followers of this page may already be familiar with the review which prompted my journalistic association with the band over the last few years. I’ve encountered Mark several times since first meeting him as a fan back in 2000, and have found him by far the most difficult member of the band to engage with – an absolute riot when you catch him in the right mood, but with a tendency towards sardonicism and surliness when not. That’s just who he is, of course – and, like they say, there’s only one way of life. Nevertheless, to the uninitiated, it can be a disarming experience - as one of his fellow bandmates has remarked on more than one occasion: “He really can be an absolute cunt…!”

Our paths have crossed several times over the last decade, and we’ve since made our peace for that heartbreaking initial encounter – in fact, he once confessed in a moment of drunken candour that he kept a copy of the article in question next to his computer to remind himself of the aforesaid cuntishness. However, whenever I chat to him, I’m not entirely sure if he remembers me or is just playing coy. Either way, only a fool would deny that he’s on top form today indeed – in fact, even in the earliest days of the Con-Dem coalition’s formation, he seems to have a fairly accurate idea what lies in store for the country…

So, here it is - the lost-promised, long-threatened solo album…

[Laughs]

My first question is more contextual than anything: coming off the back of a rejuvenation in the band’s form and what was acclaimed as the strongest Levellers record in over a decade [2008’s Letters From the Underground], why have you decided to put this album together now?

Ah… basic timing – the timing fell together really nicely. And the fact that there were songs that I’d written for the next Levellers record which essentially didn’t really work because they’re very, very personal – very micro as macro to macro, which is what a lot of Levellers material is. And they’re pretty much describing my life, as I’ve been through quite a bit recently, and so it was like: okay, this is a good time to be a songwriter, a singer-songwriter, instead of just a member of The Levellers. Which is a great thing to be, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a chance to express myself in that time, and that way.

It’s been kind of a running joke in The Levellers every time a song like Before the End rears its head – I remember you saying when the last album came out that when you first played that song to the rest of the band, their initial reaction was: “Yeah, solo record…” – do you ever feel a bit pigeonholed by what you can and can’t do within the band?

Within The Levellers I’d say so, but I think all bands are, to be honest. Bands stand for one particular way of looking at the world, generally – not in all cases, but over a period of time, bands are of one voice. To stick to that as a songwriter can be quite restricting.

The album spans over quarter of a century - how long have you been working on this material and plotting this project?

Probably about ten years… yeah, about ten years, on and off. The opportunity and speed to do it was actually very brief; it didn’t take very long to make it and record it and enjoy doing it – at all, actually. It took about two months.

Anyone with a long-term interest in The Levellers has probably been able to get a pretty good idea over the years what you stand for a person, but this is perhaps the first chance that people might have had to really get to know you: some of your history and, in some cases, even your own feelings. Did you have any qualms about laying yourself open on record like this?

…No. Not as a songwriter, no, or I think as an artist - any artist or creative person. I’ve done it in the past, in The Levellers, and I’ve hidden it quite well and no-one’s noticed, that’s been fine – but at this particular juncture I really wanted to let people know what it’s like to be in a band for twenty years, and the actual hardships that are suffered. It sounds really wet, right - and it is! - but it goes on in the background and you don’t see it: you see them onstage and you think, “Oh brilliant, great, life’s fantastic!”, and I’m not saying it isn’t because, generally speaking, I would say it is. It’s a great life. But it’s kind of the background story of what happens to people who’ve been in bands for so long – how they can exist; how they feel, really. And it’s quite open, quite honest - sometimes dark, to be honest, at points…

It seems to chart a shift in your own perspective over the years - the optimism and idealism of the album’s early songs eventually gives way to the cynicism and more jaded outlook of the second half. It seems to suggest that the journey’s taken quite a heavy personal toll on you over the years – is this a fair assessment?

Yes, I think that’s a very fair assessment – I think it’s a fair assessment of anyone who’s been in a band for a period of time. You’re kind of public property to a degree, depending on how successful you are – and I don’t mind that, it’s not a problem, that’s what comes with the territory. But it makes you creative too, all of the sad parts, which I don’t get to write about in The Levellers. And it’s what I wanted to write about.

There was an obvious sense of momentum quite early on in the band where it seemed like you felt you really could change the world in some way, but in more recent years I think the Levellers songs which have been most powerful and interesting are the more reflective tracks like Confess and Wake the World where you seem to really step back and take stock of the situation. At one point here you utter the line “Peace and love, and all of that” – looking at the trajectory of this album and your own life as a whole, do you still consider yourself as much of an idealist as in the early days?

I don’t think that I’ve changed - I think that the world around me has altered massively, and I think the same, actually, of the rest of The Levellers. Our idealism is the same; it’s just that rest of the world, political situations, everything else changes so quickly now - almost to the point where I find myself in another recession, after literally leaving school in the first one I remember, forming a band in the second one, surviving a third one, and here we are again in the fourth! It’s ridiculous. Nothing really changes in the band - I haven’t changed as a person, and nor does my ethics or principles. They don’t alter at all, it’s just that the world around us changes, so it’s how you reflect that back to a different audience every time. That’s quite tricky.

As a child of the Thatcher years and someone who’s expressed such a strong political outlook over the years, what’s your take on the state of the nation at the moment? Do you think things are looking up or, to quote one of your own songs, do you think the Indians show any signs of abating?

Ah, no. They never will! They’re just changing their tack, and they’re asking us questions. Which is an old ploy – a cynical ploy, actually, by anyone in government - “Oh, let’s pretend that we actually care what people think!” And they try it for a bit, but then ultimately they have to compromise, because they have a bank balance they have to work out, ultimately they’ll fuck anybody – and the people they’ll fuck, particularly this party, this coalition, will fuck the poor. They always have. And yeah, it’s all sitting pretty now, it’s all summery, it’s all nice, everyone’s going, “Oh yeah, great, our right to freedom, I’ll type in what my freedom thoughts are, I wanna… yeah, fuck it, I wanna ban this, I wanna ban that, I wanna repeal this law”… nonsense. Nonsense. UTTER – FUCKING – NONSENSE. I know it, and anybody with half a mind knows that.

- Ah! That’s the Mark Chadwick we all know and love…

Yeah. That’s fixed! And you know, that’s what I’ve tried to get across on this album, “Peace and love, and all of that” – I am deeply cynical, yes, but ultimately there’s a lot of optimism on that record. A lot of optimism. There’s a lot of like, “Come on. We can be better people. The world is a better place”.

The song Indians specifically targets politicians – do you actually vote?

Of course I do.

You do? That’s surprising.

Well, yeah… I shouldn’t do, in principle, as an anarchist, no, but I do because people died for it. Simple as that. A lot of people died for me to have my stake in democracy - which is up for question anyway. Democracy’s an interesting subject! We could write a whole new newspaper about what democracy really means. We really could, d’you know what I mean?! And it’s up for grabs at the moment. What’s democracy and capitalism – how do they connect? I’m finding that they don’t connect at all – in China, they don’t connect at all! You’ve got capitalism and communism connecting! What’s that all about?! Explain that one to me! How are we supposed to compete against that? And how are we supposed to compete against India, which is a true democracy, but it’s actually based on a hereditary system of families, so it’s weird. It’s more like ancient Rome than it is anything else…

I don’t know if you’ve seen Michael Moore’s latest film Capitalism: A Love Story, but he seems to suggest that maybe its time has come, and it’s run its course. Do you still possess that kind of hippy-ish – or maybe even more of a punk mentality – of just, “Break it down, start again”?

Well, I can certainly tell you this. I’m not a capitalist; I don’t give a flying fuck about money. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. What happens in your local society, your community, where you live, how you choose to live with other people, how you share… whatever… how you spread the work and spread the money around. You can’t avoid money; it’s been around much longer than capitalism. It’s there. Right? So it’s how you spread the work, how you spread the responsibility for those that cannot, and those that can. The ultimate point is to avoid greed. So anyone that’s greedy, and wants all the toys, is ultimately evil! D’you know what I mean?! Otherwise, I can see it working - it can work! It can work in any society.

The Levellers have almost created their own mini-industry over years with the formation of the Metway – did you foresee the collapse of the record industry in any way, or did it just seem like a cool idea you wanted to explore at the time?

No, what we foresaw was our own futures. We thought, why give your future to somebody else to look after? Why give it to a record company; why give it to a publisher; why give it to a management agency when, in actual fact, if you look at it, they take ‘x’ amount of your money and they can turn around to you one day - and I saw this, it was awful – I can’t remember the name of the band, but I was on their tour bus, and they got a phone call from their major record label’s accountant saying: “It’s all over, boys. You’re dropped, and that money that goes into your account every week? That stopped a month ago”. They were on tour, and they had to do a gig that night, and they knew that they were broke. It was awful. And that’s what The Levellers always made sure would never happen to us. Basically, at the end of the day, we’re not stupid people. We’re clever people. We like to get things done. But we also like to do things that are inclusive for other people, like when we do our festival and so forth. It’s for the people. It’s not a massive amount of money for them to come in to be corn-fed ideas and nonsense – it’s for them to enjoy, and know that they haven’t been ripped off.

In the album’s press release you talk about music being “transformative” for you – has that been tainted in any way by your experience of the industry and business you work in, or has it been the one constant over the years?

No. I’ve never paid any heed to the industry, it’s of no interest to me. It’s boring, it’s dull, it’s essentially greedy. What I’m interested is, for example, if you go on Spotify and look up Stephen Stills’ Roll Tape, Suite: Judy Blue Eyes – it’s him going in, and recording, when he could, on the back of someone else’s session, practically begging outside the door, going in and recording a three-song suite… that’s what music’s about for me. It’s amazing. And it can be amazing.

Where do you think you’d be if The Levellers had never materialised – do you think you’d just be busking?

Probably. If I hadn’t got together with the characters I’m with, I think I’d have carried on doing pretty much what I do as a songwriter and yeah, probably busked and got picked up somewhere along the line. You can’t avoid your art, you know - it is my art, and it is what I love to do. You can’t avoid it. And I’ve loved being in The Levellers for years, and I’ll continue to love being in The Levellers until the day we all die – it’s a simple fact. But, as an artist, yeah… I’d have done something to have got picked up somewhere along the line.

Back to the album, musically it’s perhaps quite different from what people might expect from you – the artwork has a late-60s psychedelic folk-pop vibe to it, and quite a few of the tracks on here wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Hello Pig. Is this an area that you’ve wanted to explore for a while now in your music?

Yes, it is. It’s much more expansive, much more tempo changes and key changes, stuff that’s more experimental. It might appear to be more challenging to a live audience at a Levellers gig - and you can’t beat that, d’you know what I mean? They want what they want, and they get what they get. They get given what they like and we deliver it, and we love to do so. But… yeah, basically, I want to be Stephen Stills. Simple as that! [Laughs] You like to emulate your heroes, don’t you? I want to make music that’s like… the music that first captured my ear as a child was that sort of music.

As a member of a band that’s always been very much out of step with popular culture, what sort of contemporary music do you listen to?

Well, I actually listen to a lot of contemporary music, you might be surprised… MGMT are my favourites, because they’re genius.

What about Lady GaGa?

Yes! I’ve got a daughter, you see, you can’t escape it! Yeah, I like Lady GaGa, I like Black Eyed Peas, I like all sorts… but, you know, Mumford & Sons fascinate me, because I really like their sound – and really hate their lyrics. Are they really saying anything, have you noticed?

Oh, I dunno… I rather like them!

What are their lyrics saying, then? Go on, then, tell me.

Er… well, off the top of my head, you might have a point…

Exactly. If you analyse them, they don’t say bloody anything. But it doesn’t matter, because it’s a nice sound.

The bands involved don’t like to call it this, but there’s been a bit of a folk revival over the last couple of years.

Yeah. And I’m just going to tag along with it!

Obviously there are now commercially successful acts like Mumford & Sons, Stornoway and Laura Marling – do you see yourself as a sort of godfather to that scene at this stage?

D’you know what, until I meet Stornoway, which is going to be at Beautiful Days, and Mumford & Sons, who I’m going to meet somewhere quite soon – I’ve no idea, ’cos they’ll have to tell me that. It’s not my decision, is it? I can’t go, “Oh, ha ha ha! Siblings, siblings!” if they’re gonna go, “Levellers? Never heard of you. Never listened to you, actually, funnily…”

A couple of slightly more probing questions now - the last few tracks on the album in particular are very solemn and reflective. You talk about loving the entire experience, but do you think there’s anything you would change if you could do it all over again?

…Ah… [thinks] …that’s a good question. [Pause] But no. I don’t think so. No. I don’t think so. There’s nothing you can change – people are people, situations are situations, and at the end of the day, so far so good, as it goes, with the band that I’m in and the life that I lead.

I asked this question of Simon about ten years ago and I got an answer that I imagine was quite different from that which I might’ve got from you at the time, so I’m going to ask you now. I heard a rumour that out of all the people in the band, you’re the person who’s always felt perhaps a little disappointed by the way things turned out, or that you maybe didn’t have as much of a social impact as you would’ve liked. After 25 years of doing this though, you’re still releasing albums, still selling out big venues, you have your own festival… So my question is this: are you happy with your niche?

[Cautiously] …Yeah. Yeah. But… [laughs] …but, I want it to be bigger. It could be a bigger niche. You know, I want people to like really good music. It might be arrogant of me to think that the music I make is really good, right - it might be impossibly arrogant. But I want more people to hear it. At the end of the day, I think it’s great – that isn’t arrogance. So no, I’m not happy with my niche, nor should anybody who’s creative, because if you’re creative you want as many people as possible to experience your changing seasons.

Are you happy in general?

[Emphatically] Oh, God, yes.

Yes?

Oh yeah, brilliantly.

Oh, good. Because I do worry.

[Laughs]

Finally, then – I always find this an interesting exercise when interviewing musicians with a substantial back catalogue. Of all the songs you’ve written over the years, which five would you like to be best remembered for? Which are your five favourites?

Five songs I’ve written that I’d love to be remembered by? Okay, Gold and Silver on Hello Pig… Galahad, which doesn’t appear on any album… One Way… Beautiful Day, and… Christ, last one… oh! One from this new album, Satellite.

And conversely, which five songs of yours would you be quite happy to never hear again?

Oh, right, okay. Belaruse…

Oh, really?

Yep, yep, yeah. Never want to hear that one again… er… oh, God, there’s loads! [Laughs] There is loads! There’s bloody loads… Er… the thing is, right, I so hate them that I’ve expunged them from my memory.

What about The Weed That Killed Elvis?

[Mischievously] I love that song.

I thought you might…

I fucking LOVE that song! The thing is, right, it’s great. But you have to smoke the weed that killed Elvis while listening to it – that’s the only trick! But no, I wouldn’t assassinate any of our work. It’s pointless, because when we were doing it we wouldn’t have made it, otherwise. Like, what’s the point of working on something shit, then later going… it’s not like John Lennon and Paul McCartney went, “Oh yeah, Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, that’s a work of genius, and we worked on it separately!” Everything I’ve worked on with The Levellers we’ve worked on together, so we’ve kind of come to a cohesion there. Generally speaking, someone’s going to like something about it, so it’s foolish to assassinate your past.

I love Belaruse. Why do you hate that song so much?

The thing is, when we play it live, I don’t have to do much! I just stand round looking like a bit of a lemon.

I heard that the entire Levellers album wasn’t a popular one…

Not really, no… I’ll tell you what, though, it’s a bloody good record due to the adversity it was made in. But it was really hard work. It took me a long time, probably about ten years to listen to it, and then I actually liked it. But it took ten years. It was… oh, it was hideous!

Well, that’s it, then, I suppose…

Anything else? I’m wearing red panties and a green bra, and I’m off to an art exhibition in East Sussex.

Thanks for that lovely image. Cheers.

Ta ta…


All the Pieces is available now on Stay By Records.