Anton Newcombe is the artist, composer, producer who frons the Brian Jonestown Massacre; Josefin Öhrn is a London-based Swedish singer-songwriter. Josefin’s debut solo album Cherry is out today, with Anton featuring on the track “Lose Yourself.” To celebrate the release, the two got on a call and caught up about Bobby Gillespie, Anthony Bourdain, and much more.
— Annie Fell, Editor-in-chief, Talkhouse Music
Anton Newcombe: How did you get your last name? Is it your birth name or is it from marriage?
Josefin Öhrn: Birth name. It means “eagle.” I guess some great-great-grandfather was a soldier, and he had a normal [name] like Johnson or something, and he took Eagle and instead.
Anton: That's cool.
Josefin: I'm really happy about our collaboration. I think you're an amazing songwriter and artist.
Anton: Thank you. You ended up working with several people on this record. Did you just ask them? Did you just ask somebody, “What's Bobby [Gillespie]'s email?” I have his email and number, so I was wondering how you got it…
Josefin: [Laughs.] Kalle [Jerneholm Gustavsson], my producer was like, “Wouldn't that be really fun to do?” We had RAK studio booked for a Friday, and it was Wednesday and I was like, “OK, I'll ask his manager.” I sent over the track and it was like, “OK, what do you want him to sing?” So I was just like, “Well, I'm at RAK studio tomorrow if you want to come by.” And he came and it was great.
Anton: Very cool. I like him. When I did Anthony Bourdain, it was CNN and all these people, and they were like, “What are you going to do?” I said, “I'm going to cook dinner for 15 people, and I'm going to write and record a whole track in the studio while I'm doing it. I'm gonna do the shopping and the cooking for 15 people and set up the table while I'm producing and writing and recording a track.” They were like, “What the fuck?” And I'm like, “Listen, every single woman in the 1940s did this much” — you know, raised a family of 15 kids, fucking did all this work, got all the food, made it, spanked the children — I can do this.
Josefin: Very feminist.
Anton: So I was talking to Ride and I'm like, “Just come over and I'll record you guys. I'll pay for the hotels, whatever…” And then Anthony kept changing the dates because of the lady he was seeing and there was all kinds of shit going on behind the scenes. So then it just was too fucked for them. I was trying to get Andrew [Innes] and Bobby to come over and start a single because we kind of talked about it before — I was like, “I’ll fuck you guys up so much in the studio. It's crazy. You have to just trust me.”
Josefin: That would have been so amazing.
Anton: But they were like, “What?” And I was like, “You should do this because it's so much bigger than Jools Holland. You can't imagine how big this show is.” And they were like, “You're crazy.” So then finally I ended up just saying, “Fuck it, I'll do something stupid myself.”
Josefin: I liked the episode.
Anton: Yeah, it was weird. I really liked him, but it was very strange. I don't need to spill any secrets about him or my thoughts…
Josefin: I’ll just ask you another question. How old were you when you wrote your first song?
Anton: Well, there's one on My Bloody Underground where I'm playing piano and I wrote that one at 9, so I would say that's pretty early for me. But the first guitar song that was a song-song is on one of my records, and it’s called “Stars.” It’s acoustic. I think it's on Thank God for Mental Illness. But it's really pretty. [Sings,] “I thought I could touch the stars. I lie awake at night. I don't know where you are. My face explodes teardrops into tears. And every second I'm not with you, well, it seems like years…” It's a real song, even though it's so simple. That was very early in the band. They all kind of came one after another. And then I was playing music and writing stuff before that, but I couldn't show you those songs. I had teenager bands and shit.
Josefin: How old were you when you started BJM?
Anton: I guess 22 turning 23, maybe, in 1990.
Josefin: And lyric-wise, do you have any people you admire?
Anton: Oh, everybody. I like so much music. I'll listen to these women singing from, like, 1970 in Turkish, some psych pop song, and I'll get attached to it and then eventually Google the lyrics and it's like, “After we walked in the peach orchard, I can no longer enjoy the taste of the fruit because you've taken my flower.” [Laughs.] And I've been loving this song forever and I'm like, Oh, this is heavy. She's saying, “you fucked me and chucked me and you're a bad man and now everybody looks at me funny.” I love it. But I seem to have a skill for finding this stuff.
Josefin: What kind of art inspires you?
Anton: Once again, it's so much art. Classical music from the last 120 years is very nihilist. It's like, “I lived through this crazy apocalypse or lost my family and this represents that.” And I hate all that. I hate scratchy art… I got to see, maybe it was at the Guggenheim, like 56 Rothkos at once in one building, and it's so easy to look at those stripes like, “This is just blue and yellow, anybody can do this. This is bullshit.” But it's not. And if you see them all, you can see the ones you don't like. And then you see the ones that you can't move from. Some of the red and black ones are just like, Wow. You're just looking at two red and black shapes meeting and you're like, Fuck, this is insane.
Josefin: Everything is on another level. It's beyond words.
Anton: Yeah, they're actually vibrating.
Josefin: Did you cook last week? I know you're a very good cook or chef.
Anton: I didn’t. I need somebody to be here when I do it.
Josefin: What would you cook for me if I came over for dinner?
Anton: It depends if you want something mostly vegetables or if you don't care. Sometimes I do this thing where I get really good filet mignon and I cut halfway through it stripes and then flip it over and do the other directions, so it's been cut a little bit, but it's still in the shape. Then I'll either make it a more French style or it's an almost Japanese style.
Josefin: Oh, that sounds amazing.
Anton: Yeah, it's really, really yummy. French would be with some really delicious mushrooms and butter, and it would be so simple. And then I like this thin broccoli that they have sometimes here. And I could even slice some kind of veg into tiny strips and cook them just enough.
Josefin: Should we do that in October?
Anton: We could try. But there's a lot I can cook. It just depends. I even make Mexican food — I make it real. Even if I make burritos, it tastes like you're in California.
Josefin: I love that.
Anton: What got you interested in music?
Josefin: I think it was on a subconscious level. Some of my family in Belgium were musicians, and my school growing up in Sweden, we were always in choirs. So it was something I would just do.
Anton: In America, people don't understand — you could just join up in a band and some guy’s playing some shit on guitar in any key and then girls are screaming these days. But in the ‘60s, everybody had choir and choral class. So it's interesting that you had the background of music in school. I think that's so important to introduce music to children.
Josefin: What does your son like to listen to?
Anton: Well, it sucks because his mom dominated — I was buying him records and he had 1000 records, and I tried to make his phonograph collection so insane from Tammy Wynette to Exterminator by Primal Scream. I put a record player in his room and I tried to make it so any record he grabbed would be some kind of life changing experience, but he just never looked at them. So I came in one day with three giant backpacks and took them all away. Now he just listens to what his mom listens to. So it'd be like — who are those kids that we love so much from Ireland?
Josefin: Is it Fontaines?
Anton: Yeah. So he's into that, and now he likes Fcukers because they covered one of my songs. [Sings,] “L-U-C-K-Y, I’m lucky…” He thinks it's nice that those people like me and I like them.
Josefin: I mean, of course. That's very cool.
Anton: It's cool for them that they got, like, 14-year-old fans. It'll keep paying the rent. [Laughs.]
