Music interview: Massive Attack on their new album Heligoland

Thursday 4th February 2010

Steve Harnell catches up with Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja at the band’s Bristol studios to get the lowdown on their much-anticipated new album Heligoland

Massive Attack have never done things the easy way, and after 20 years together, they’re not about to start now.

The labyrinthine story behind the making of their fifth album Heligoland is one of reinvention, false starts and the reconnection of two founding members.

Their last full-length studio effort, 100th Window, was effectively a solo project for Robert “3D” Del Naja (with help from co-producer and co-writer Neil Davidge) as Grant “Daddy G” Marshall took a sabbatical citing the odd creative difference and a new arrival in the family.

But the pair reunited for the ensuing world tour and G is now fully plugged into the Massive set-up once again.

It’s been seven years since the release of 100th Window, but as D points out, they’ve not exactly been twiddling their thumbs in the meantime. They’ve mounted two world tours, released career retrospective Collected, curated a Meltdown festival as well as D and Davidge contributing to numerous film scores under their 100 Suns alias. So how long did it actually take to complete Heligoland?

“It was recorded from October 2008 through to June 2009,” Del Naja explains. “About nine months in total. But you’ve got to take into account that we dragged a few tracks from before that into the equation.

“Historically, we never take that long to make a record. The time in between is taken up with doing other stuff like touring.

“We go to every continent – we did 50 shows in Europe pre-Christmas before launching the new album. This year, we’ll go to eastern Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, the States and Canada. South America, too. We’re even talking about going back to the Middle East and Africa.”

The new album sees Massive working with more collaborators than ever before. It’s something of a dream team of acclaimed vocalists which takes in Damon Albarn, Elbow’s Guy Garvey, former Mazzy Star frontwoman Hope Sandoval, TV On The Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe, former Tricky muse Martina Topley-Bird and the ever-present reggae veteran Horace Andy.

“I’ve been banging on about making a Gothic soul album for years now but it just hasn’t happened. Heligoland isn’t it, so that idea has become very elusive,” says D about the birth of the new record.

“We discarded a whole album’s worth of material in 2008 after the Meltdown festival and decided that we needed to start all over again.

“We went to work with Damon Albarn and then Tim Goldsworthy in New York. It was a new start. All the tracks we took with us were redeveloped – new rhythms, rearranged songs, new vocals whatever...”

There’s a more human and organic feel to Heligoland – 100th Window was quite a tough listening experience...

“I actually think 100th Window is quite warm and light,” D counters. “You can take it in different ways. It’s one of those records which you put on and it will just take you somewhere else. It’s funny, we got a lot of criticism at the time, now loads of people come up to me and say ‘we love 100th Window, we think it’s your best album’.

“When Mezzanine came out I remember reading The Face magazine where they called it my first punk album. They said I’d lost all the soul music sensibilities of Massive Attack and destroyed them in one moment. Protection got tons of stick after Blue Lines. We’re not new to that sort of criticism.

“On the last album I felt like I’d become this horrific cyborg – the terrible result of a marriage between a Bristolian prostitute and a Pro Tools rig. I was the offspring, and 100th Window was the album that I regurgitated.

“It had to be the opposite of Mezzanine because I was sick of it by that point – all those big loops and guitars, big statements etc. We toured it extensively and there was the inevitable fall-out between us all. I just wanted to do something different and get into a new headspace from Mezzanine really.

“The criticism versus praise was 50/50 overall. It divided people, but then all of our records have done the same.”

One of the new album’s stand-out tracks is Paradise Circus (formerly known as Harpsichord for all those who saw the band’s last tour) which features the reclusive Hope Sandoval.

“The first person who suggested we should work with Hope was Geoff Barrow a few years back. We never followed it up. Then some of the guys from [Bristol band] Robot Club reminded G about it. G, being an absolute muppet, had never heard Mazzy Star and only knew she’d done something with the Chemical Brothers – and you can quote me on that!” – he laughs.

“But he sent over a great backing track for her to work on and we went from there. We never got to meet her, it was all done long distance. But she’s up for doing a show with us in London. Hopefully, that’ll work out.”

Hooking up with Damon Albarn must have been on the cards for a while now...

“It was fun recording in Damon’s studios. He works in a completely different way to us. He’s very impulsive and spontaneous. He’s definitely not up for this Bristolian attitude of gazing at a snare drum for two days to get it right.

“He catches the moment then moves on to the next thing. It’s a really good way of channelling energy. The problem with what we do most of the time – and G will tell you the same – is that particularly with me, I’ll over-consider it, analyse and dismantle it, then finally get bored. There’s a definite bit of male OCD about it all.”

Were you wary about working with Martina Topley-Bird because of her strong links with Tricky’s early records?

“The only thing I was worried about was failure,” explains D. “I’ve always wanted to work with Martina.

“From the moment Tricky first played me one of his demos, I thought she was amazing. She seemed to somehow merge soul and punk together in one personality. That was perfect for where my head was coming from.

“She’s a one-off. The trip-hop thing never came into it for me.”

Unfortunately, there’s tragedy, too, attached to Heligoland through the accidental death of session drummer Jerry Fuchs who played on half of the albums 10 tracks.

After attending a New York charity event to raise education funds for underprivileged Indian children on November 8 of last year, Fuchs was caught in a broken elevator. When he attempted to jump out, he fell to his death down the elevator shaft. He was just 34.

“It was awful news,” says D. “We heard while we were still on tour. It was atrocious. He was the sort of person who lit up a room when they came in. He was a really lovely, warm guy and a brilliant drummer.”

The band’s last major gig in the West was headlining The Other Stage at Glastonbury back in 2008. Among the setlist was a bunch of still unreleased songs. They’ve been dropped from the new album or at best radically reworked. What exactly happened?

“I think it was a case of us not having the enthusiasm to follow through and mix that stuff.

“I don’t know if it’s about faith or boredom or a bit of both. Whether it came from a sense of dissatisfaction or fatigue I’m not sure.”

Apparently, a new EP will appear in the next few months to mop up some of the unreleased material.

“Yes, there will definitely be an EP. We’ve got three tracks with Mike Patton from Faith No More that hopefully will see the light of day. He’s like the equivalent of Damon Albarn on the other side of the Atlantic. An absolute genius.

“We’ll be trying to release as many different things as we can over the year – digital-only and download tracks, demos and lots of different artwork ideas for the album.

“Hopefully, by the time the album finishes its natural cycle – or gets flogged to death – however you want to look at it, it will be a very different shape than it is on February 8.

“You don’t have to capture everything in one moment. It’s like buying an iPhone and adding apps to it. It’s something you can completely alter as you go along to suit yourself.”

So you’re not one of those musicians who only wants their album to be listened to in its entirety?

“There are no rules. The old model is no longer relevant. As a soundsystem we used to rip apart people’s songs for fun. People can do with this record what they see fit.

“There’s a part of me that wants the album to work as a complete piece over 50 minutes and another that just says screw it, tear it apart and do what you like with it. This is all there to be stolen from and abused. Music isn’t a precious commodity.”

We move into a grey area though when talking about the mooted Heligoland remix album from dubstep producer Burial.

“We hope it’ll happen! There’s no deadline – we’ve been very loose with it. The vibe will be the same as our No Protection album.”

Although Heligoland is unmistakably Massive Attack, each album seems to present a new twist in the band’s style. Is it important that they don’t repeat themselves?

“If you’re doing something you’ve done before, there’s an overwhelming sense of repetition which eventually kills you. The human mind is always hungry for new experiences.

“I think it’s instinctive with us. The thing I’ve always found exciting is disassembling an idea and pulling it apart. It’s that anarchy that I’ve always loved. I was a bit young for the punk thing, but it informed me dramatically. The collage of things when people turned ideas on their head and forced them into places they shouldn’t have been, whether it was storytelling, painting or music, I’ve always dug that.”

What did you all bring to the band in the early days? For people outside of Bristol, Blue Lines seemed to come out of nowhere...

“Grant’s more into the DJ and dub element, Mushroom lived and breathed hip-hop.

“I think I was always just up for jamming things together – forcing them into the same box and seeing what leaked out.”

Is it a bit simplistic just to think that Grant brings the reggae and soul vibe while you provide the electronica and punk?

“It is really, because the most soulful thing we’ve done for years was Live With Me with Terry Callier and that was just me and Neil Davidge. That shows there’s no direct criteria that we all stick to. G’s also got quite a punk background with The Pop Group. He loves his new wave and punk.

“Massive Attack, like the Wild Bunch before it, has always been about throwing different cultural reference points together which don’t fit. We’re all very different people personality-wise, and historically our families come from different parts of the city and the world. The alchemy of all that was what made it so interesting. That’s not so much the driving force, it’s the natural energy that I’m looking for. If it ain’t there then I’m bored.

“But I’m also very mindful of tempering the drive to do something new and original or extreme. We’ve got lots of extreme instrumentals, but they don’t often make it into songs. Extremes don’t always work when you’re writing songs.

“This is the weird thing about us, even though we came from the soundsystem idea and were all about ripping things off, stealing ideas and sampling stuff – that was the anarchy of making music back then. Even now when we’re doing more extreme things, I always like to temper it with the storytelling aspect. We’re working with so many different vocalists and telling so many different stories, it’s important that there’s coherency.

“Sometimes I’ve compromised the extremities of the music to make the songs work. For example, instrumentally Flat of the Blade [Heligoland’s Guy Garvey collaboration] was mad – it was like the opening scene from Saving Private Ryan with these machine gun drums going off all around your head. They were like ricochets from hell – it was beautiful.

“When you think about things we’ve done in the past, putting Angel together was experimental.

“We placed Horace Andy into that strange space and did it again on 100th Window with him on Everywhen – taking this classic reggae singer and putting him in this bizarre operatic, electrical space. It was great fun.”

Has Horace ever balked at some of your more ‘out there’ suggestions?

“Oh yeah, we tried to get him to sing Straight To Hell by The Clash,” D laughs. “But he wouldn’t sing it because he didn’t like the words. I even tried to adapt the lyrics from the Vietnamese angle to a Caribbean one and he still didn’t want to do it. The other one was Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos with him singing before Tricky did it with Martina. We talked about doing that way back.

“I think Horace will always look at me every now again at gigs and say ‘I just wanna do some good old-fashioned lovers’ rock’. I’m like ‘shut up, you’re doing something that’s really weird and experimental and you’re going to hate every minute of it!’

“The thing about Horace is that when he goes back to Jamaica they look at the stuff he does with us and his mates are asking him ‘what the hell is all that weird white man’s music you’ve been doing?’ It’s so far from his roots reggae background...”

Since 100th Window, Del Naja and Neil Davidge have had their hands full with a raft of movie scores. Has their work as 100 Suns informed the way the new album sounds?

“Well, working on the film stuff has provided me with a useful set of parameters that I don’t want to adhere to anymore. I find it can become predictable.

“After Gomorrah and 44 Inch Chest, that’s about all the film score work we’ll be doing for a while. I find the whole procedure a bit depressing to tell the truth.

“The movie I’ve most enjoyed working on was Gomorrah. When the director came to us, I told him that it didn’t need any music. We were talking ourselves out of a job!

“In the end, we wrote something just for the end and it worked really well. People have forgotten just how important silence is in films and music. With this album, I was very keen to restore that sense of ‘space’ that was there in Blue Lines and that may have got lost over the years. 100th Window was full of weaving and intricacy.

“We live in an age where subtlety has been sadly lost, ignored or discarded. Everything is quite vulgar and full-on. You’re sitting there watching the news and, while pictures of Haiti are being shown, there’s subtitles about Brad and Angelina breaking up being run underneath.”

As a band, Massive Attack have been behind some of the most innovative and impressive promo videos of all time. The classic clip of Shara Nelson walking through the downtown streets of Los Angeles and the baby of Teardrop are just two examples. This time, the band commissioned videos for Splitting The Atom and Paradise Circus.

The former is a disturbing look from start to finish of a bullfight – including the kill, while the latter intersperses an interview with a former porn star interspersed with one of her old hardcore films.

Is it important for videos to be talking points?

“The point can be made in many ways. If it’s arresting visually and it’s making an aesthetic point that’s one thing, but if it can do something to provoke a response in a social or political situation then that’s good as well.

“The binge-drinking storyline of our video for Live With Me was provocative because of how tragic the situation was. People drink themselves into and out of despair.

“Our videos live online now. The Splitting The Atom video with the footage of the bullfighter is very disturbing – it’s hard to watch.

“I’ve only really seen it once. I almost felt that watching it more than once was slightly gratuitous and I wanted to preserve the memory of the feeling of how I felt when I saw it the first time.”

As ever, there’s a concept behind Del Naja’s striking artwork for the new album, too.

“It’s based on the idea of the minstrel. Not so long ago, a black man singing black music in a white club was unacceptable so we dressed white men up as black men instead. And that tradition was carried on to television.

“That artificial nature of how culture is distorted I still find astounding. Today’s reality television is similar in that it’s so distorted you can’t actually see the ‘reality’ at all underneath.”

And talking about your painting there’s loads of it around the walls of the studio...

“You know, I got bored of painting after a while. It was a combination of Banksy and James Lavelle who got me back into the studio to paint.

“I’d lost a bit of interest. 100th Window was the most expensive cover EMI had ever put out. This one I did in my back garden for a fiver! My strategy was to get out of the art scene as the art scene boomed, and as we went into a recession, I got back into painting when no one could afford to buy them anymore,” he deadpans.

“The graffiti I was doing initially was done out of my absolute admiration for New York artists. Then, with a typically Bristolian attitude, I thought ‘I’m too cool for this, I want to do something more exclusive’ and got into stencilling just to be different.”

Although the album’s yet to be released, I had to ask 3D if there’s any singer he’s got on his wishlist for album six. Tom Waits has been talked about before, after all...

“A phone conversation with him didn’t quite happen. But Aaron Neville would be great, and Polly Harvey, too...”

The upcoming UK tour for Heligoland takes in the glamorous environs of Newport Centre. Hopefully, the Welsh show will go more smoothly than one of their previous visits.

“We played Cardiff on the Mezzanine tour and I told the crowd that they should have built a wall between the two countries not a bridge. All these Welsh guys lined up in the front and took their tops off and wanted to kick the sh*t out of me!”

As ever, we can’t interview Del Naja without bringing up the old chestnut of the Colston Hall.

“When Elbow played there recently, I waited outside in their tour bus because I wouldn’t go inside. I went to Colston Hall as a kid and saw loads of great bands there. But my thinking is that if they were going to spend all that money on the foyer they should have made a positive reference to the African heritage in the city that it’s intertwined with.

“It could be named the Colston Hall and the Freetown Centre, for instance. It’s not a matter of shame, it’s about a celebration by bringing the two cultures together.

“It’s not about a collective sense of guilt that people should feel, it should be positive and educate people through acknowledging what has gone on.

“Without naming names, I spoke to a national mover and shaker who was connected to the Capital of Culture competition. He told me that there were two reasons that Bristol didn’t win – the first was that the motorway divided the city into two but also it was Bristol’s refusal to deal with its slavery past. Whether that’s the truth or whether it is part of a rumour mill that has been exaggerated I don’t know, but it made a lot of sense to me.

“You’d see more people from St Paul’s and Easton etc in Colston Hall if there was a visible African connection to the building. At the moment, it just represents something totally un-African.

“One idea which I’ve been throwing around the pubs of the West Country would be to build a replica slaveship in Bristol docks.

“People come to Bristol looking for our history and it has been nowhere to be seen apart from the Breaking The Chains exhibition. If you’re an American schoolkid, for example, and you come over to visit Bristol and Bath there’s an interest – particularly at that age – in the macabre and bizarre things in history.

“The slave trade was one of the biggest disasters in human history but there’s no museum anywhere that I know of which deals with it. You shouldn’t Tippex a bit of our history out.”

Massive Attack play the Newport Centre on Monday, February 8. Tickets are priced £28.50 and available by ringing the box office on 01633 656757. Heligoland is released on February 8 on Virgin Records.