Billy Bragg

**_Beth Ward_ and _Nick Mosley_ talk with the politico-folk legend Billy Bragg about his exciting new projects, touring, and where now for students, music, and the man himself. **

_So despite no new album since 2008, you’ve still managed to have yourself a very busy year in 2010?_

God I have! I haven’t worked so hard for a long time. I wouldn’t say knackered, ‘cause I’m geared up for the tour, but I’ve got a bit of spare time in January and I’m working hard to keep that empty.

I ran the Leftfield stage this year at Glastonbury and I actually spoke on a panel with Mark Thomas of all things at Latitude on aspects of English identity. Nice festival Latitude, Reading and Leeds are just gigs in a field! Then I did three trips to America this year with Mavis Staples and Breaking Rocks; a documentary about my Jail Guitar Doors campaign to benefit the lives of prison inmates through rehabilitation. I took that out on the road twice this year in the UK, and the important campaign against the BNP in Barking.

_And you wrote for the theatre project Pressure Drop?_

Yeah, and the Play!

_So after that busy year, what’s next for Billy Bragg?_

I’ve got the tour coming up; I’ll be seeing you in Leamington in a few weeks. And I’m going to be recording some music with Jonny Cash’s daughter Roseanne and a guy named Joe Henry who’s a friend of ours who brought us together to do some concerts in Germany in 2009, which is exciting.

_You haven’t released an album since ‘Mr. Love & Justice’ in 2008. Was there any particular reason for the tour right now?_

I don’t see a huge demand for new studio albums from Billy Bragg every year. I make a living touring, and doing other stuff. If I do a studio album every 4-5 years, then I’m on my point. The reason for the tour this year is we’re putting out the songs from ‘Pressure Drop’. Sometimes, like this year, you can get very, very busy, but by the end of the year you haven’t done really done any proper gigs in proper venues for people to come and see you. You’ve done a benefit here, a bit of Breaking Rocks there, and the Election Campaign there, but you haven’t actually done a formal tour where you’ve done Billy Bragg songs and it’s always good to do that.

_Was the tour a political move or is the timing just a coincidence?_

It’s a coincidence, I’ve been doing this political stuff all the time, whereas everyone else hasn’t political, my tours tend to have that dynamic anyway. I’m just pleased that your generation is beginning to stand up for its own rights.

_You said that you wanted to get a message out on Facebook, and through Social Networks. Recently you used them to send a message of solidarity to those protesting at UCL.
Do you feel this is an important time to be engaging with and supporting students and student groups generally?_

Yeah I was down at UCL this Saturday. Students have put themselves out in the front rank of opposition to government cuts and it’s a long time since we’ve seen this kind of radicalism from any group. It just so happens that students are the first to be taking onto the streets. I think this is a very good time to be connecting with students.

_You’ve said after the coalition’s recent actions that you felt British Democracy had been betrayed.
Before this you’d been writing about English Patriotism and trying to reclaim it, what do you think has been lost, and what needs to be reclaimed?_

The thing that makes me most proud is, and this is not just an English thing, but a British thing, and that my parents’ generation were so determined that the future would not be like the past. They set up the welfare state which provides free healthcare, free education, decent proper pensions and that was an incredible achievement and we owe it to that generation to make sure that vision doesn’t die because the IMF tells us that cuts are absolutely essential and we’ve got to cut public spending. If the markets are dictating public policy, then this is no longer a democracy.

_When you expressed solidarity with the students, did you support the whole movement including the more extreme and radical action of protestors who grabbed the publicity?_

No, I don’t think anyone should be doing that. You don’t change the world by smashing windows. This is the reason why anti-globalisation movement went nowhere, because they concentrated on smashing the windows of MacDonald’s.

You’ve got to organise, make links with people who are facing the same problems as you are, the people in the Trade Unions, in the public sector, the disabled, the disenfranchised. If you want to live in a cohesive society you have to organise together and that’s what I support the students in doing: in organising the sit-ins, in raising these issues, in building momentum each week with the marches. There will always be confrontation if police try to kettle them. There will always be some boneheads looking for a ruck, but there has to be some way worked out to isolate them, to allow for the vast majority of students to express their protest.

_Other bands my seem to be more closely connected to students in 2010, the Kings of Leon, or the Arctic Monkeys, yet so few have spoken out in defence of their audience. Do you find that disappointing?_

If I reflect about my experience, I wasn’t political until I learned through things happening, until I went to Rock Against Racism, that made me political, when Margret Thatcher came along and cut all the things I took for granted, that made me political. I think now this generation has encountered all this, don’t be surprised if people begin to write now. No bands in America wrote songs against the Vietnam War until they began conscripting college kids.
So let’s not, please let’s not dismiss this generation yet, they’re still trying to feel their way, and hopefully people like me (getting out on tour) talking about our experience can help younger artists speak up and write for their generation.

_You’ve collaborated with a lot of people like Natalie Merchant, Johnny Marr, Florence and the Machine, Kate Nash, Wilco and Mavis Staples. Is there anyone you’d still like to perform with?_

Loads and loads of people. I’m always interested in getting in a room with someone else and sitting and playing with them. Loads of good stuff comes from it, my experience that came with making the Mermaid Avenue records [_where Billy Bragg was commissioned by Woody Guthrie estate to develop songs, and sketches Guthrie made_] which I made with Wilco, changed the way I make records. Previously it had just been me in the studio, and I’d take responsibility for everything, and just me deciding what were gonna play, when we’re gonna play it, when we’re gonna have a tea break, how many sugars we’re gonna have, [laughs] Hobnobs or Digestives. But now it’s more much of a collaboration when I’m in the studio with my band. Sometimes I go off for a day and they work on tracks they want to work and I come back and work it up with them, which is much more conducive.

_So, other than the obvious artists like Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs, do you have any major influences?_

Soul music, particularly that of the 1960s because it was very political and it reflected the Civil Rights movement. Someone like Marvin Gaye, he made a great album with _What’s Going On_ which was a big influence on me. Or Smokey Robinson who was a great writer of love songs, simple songs, simple chords, beautiful tracks and very powerful ideas, wrote the _Tracks of my Tears_, and _Tears of a Clown_, that’s hugely inspirational.
And some more punk bands, the Clash, or the Jam, and Paul Weller is still a big hero of mine.

_On ‘Mr Love & Justice’ you seemed to focus much more on the personal, emotional side of your output. Are you trying to change people’s perceptions of you?_

Yeah, I’m not a political songwriter. It’s Mr Love _and_ Justice. People try and dismiss me as just a political songwriter and I strongly object to that.
I don’t mind people labelling me a political songwriter but you’re writing about the world as you see it, the world isn’t all about politics, it isn’t all about love, the world is a wonderful, amazing, confusing mixture of all of it, and I’m writing about the bit that interests me which is the bit where they all overlap.

_My favourite album is Talking Poetry with the Taxman… but do you have a favourite song or album of your own which you’re attached to?_

I think there are some songs which I wrote which will always get me. There are songs like _Tank Park Salute_, which I wrote about the death of my Father and when I play that I’m right there. Other songs like _New England_, I could do it with my eyes closed … not that I would because I’d probably fall off stage as I tend to run around during _New England_. But the songs that really give me a buzz are the brand new ones, I love doing that, and returning to ones that I might not have played in a while which I’ll be doing on this tour.

_Billy Bragg will be playing The Assembly in Leamington Spa on the 9th of December 2010_

We later informed Billy of the action Warwick students were taking, with the ‘Teach Ins’ to which he told us:

_“Please send the Warwick students a big up from me, and give them my solidarity, it’s great.”_