“A Real Place Of Joy” Brix Smith Interviewed
Alternative rocker Brix Smith knows how to write a good hook. As a vital member of punk innovators The Fall, she introduced a popular sound to the group’s body of work, writing more accessible, mainstream songs with a distinct, melodic edge.
With a vibrant, colourful career that spans more than three decades, and incorporates music, fashion and retail, her experience in the creative industries covers euphoric highs and deep lows.
Clash caught up with the guitarist, songwriter, and all round creative in connection with her gig at The Lexington in London, where she gave a magnetic live performance with a fresh, all-female tour band, comprising of bassist Deb Googe of My Bloody Valentine, drummer Vas Antoniadou and guitarist Ros Cairney from Deux Furieuses, and Jen Macro who plays keys and guitar.
Having just completed a crisp, new album project, ‘Valley Of the Dolls’ is set for a release at the start of 2023. Tackling the dichotomy of California as she sees it, the musician opened up, and she revealed a few truths about the place she came from, how it inspired her new record, and what it was like to be in The Fall.
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The new album project is personal and true, is that fair to say?
In this case, it was just coming from a real place of joy. I don’t need to do this, I do it because it’s my passion, it’s what makes me happy in life, and that filters right down through the music, and in to the room filled with people.
There were times in The Fall where not everything was my decision. Other people were involved that had strong artistic opinions, which you must take into account, as a band you’re working together, creating as a team.
How did the songwriting process work this time? did you have specific timelines to consider?
For the first time in my life, I wasn’t under any pressure from a record company, a specific timeframe, or even an expectation. Right before lockdown, I did my last show with The Extricated. I was happy with the work I did with that band, it served a purpose, it gave me the chance to come back as a frontperson, and to learn to own it.
This time you worked with Youth – Martin Glover. A song such as ‘Aphrodite’ is significant as it was written during lockdown. Can you tell me about how the song came together?
The way I’d been working was that I’d put a song on my iPad. I’d go out and do my one hour walk that you were allowed to take every day. On that walk the music went on and on, and the inspiration just came down through me, and I’d run home and lay down the vocal. Then I’d layer the harmony, and I’d send it to Youth. He had sent me the backing track for ‘Aphrodite’. It was the first song we wrote.
How did the collaboration progress beyond this point?
We kept going, it got us through lockdown. It took about a year, every week Youth would send me something, I’d work on, and we’d send it back and forth before we got in a room together. I had done ninety percent of the vocals on the album, as my own engineer, in my house, before we even got into the studio.
It’s the best writing I’ve ever done. In Youth, I’ve found the greatest partner I’ve had since Mark E. Smith. I’m grateful to have found it, and I’m enjoying every minute of it.
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It sounds like a healthy and productive working relationship.
There was no pressure, there was no record deal on the table, and no one knew what we were doing, I’d write a song a week. This time I took my time over everything. It saved me mentally during that time, where I lost my father, my brother, and I nearly lost my manager. I was very ill myself, it was just relentless. The focus of doing this took me out of my reality, I used the pain to create the art, and it lifted me up.
It’s good that you were able to stay positive in such dark circumstances.
What I speak about on the record is the collective consciousness of what we all went through, in a positive way. It was cathartic. There were people that lost everything. Then on top of that, it sucked because I couldn’t go and visit my mum, who was alone and scared, but there were people like that all over the world. It makes you empathetic and understanding as we all went through it.
Some great American musical influences are traceable on the album.
The album is about California. I’ve written about it in music for a long time. A lot of the songs that I wrote in The Fall were love songs to California or waking up in the sun. It’s a fascinating place because of the dichotomy it represents. On the surface, it’s paradise. You go there, the sun is shining, and the Pacific Ocean is blue. There are fabulous people in cars with perfect bodies and perfect faces.
It’s where you go to be a movie star, and it’s glamorous. It’s Beverly Hills, it’s palm trees and golden sand. It’s beautiful bodies playing volleyball, but underneath it’s a cesspit, built on a tar pitch. It’s filled with gangs, poverty, broken dreams, disillusionment, and suicide. It’s sick, filthy, awful Hollywood, and the Manson murders.
What you say about California is fascinating. To what extent does this idea of the place transfer to the sound and the musical influences on this record?
It’s an endless name to write about, and that is what this album is about. But I’ve met people who have said it’s The Breeders meet The Ramones, Nirvana meet The Beach Boys etc. There are references to all those people and all those bands, certainly The Beach Boys, The Doors and Red Hot Chili Peppers. All these people shaped my psyche, whether it’s before, during or after, it’s a melting pot of things that infused in me and that resonated.
You make use of harmonies, while you say there’s this dark side on top of it all.
You’ll hear that specifically in songs like ‘California Smile’, it starts off very pure pop, it starts off with a radio jingle, it talks about the beauty of it. But then it also talks about what’s underneath the surface. Like the theme song of Friends, it goes darker, then you realise that behind the California smile may be a different story.
There are these women that go out there and try and be everything. Whether it’s to meet a rich man, to be a film star or be in porn movies, you have this California smile of perfect – white – teeth. I tried to tell the story in the words and the music.
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So if you were to name the California explored on this record, what would it be?
The colour of the album is Dystopian California, because it’s there within everything.
My goal has always been to create. When I was a kid, I’d be like this is what made me want to be a songwriter without me even consciously knowing it.
I remember my parents were divorced, my mum was a single mum, and I’d go to summer camp. I’d get on the bus to go to the camp, we’d go up in the hills in the Malibu Canyon. It was the 1960s, the bus driver would drive us in a Volkswagen. He was a hippie.
What American bands or artists helped you soundtrack that time in California?
They would play the songs that were on the hit parade. It was all Carole King, The Carpenters, and Janis Joplin. Even at night, we’d hear the songs on the radio every day, and ‘Tapestry’ was huge.
I’d go home, I wouldn’t think about it. Then in the middle of the night I’d wake up with the full song in my head. I’d think, what is this magic that I have to hear it in the day? I’d have everything locked in my head at night, it would wake me up , lyrics like “I Feel the earth move under my feet/I feel the sky tumblin’ down.”
Hooks are great, and you seem to use them rather effectively in your own music.
I’m always about a hook, I write with hooks and riffs. It is magical to create something that infects people’s minds, that’s what I’ve always intended to do. Use with confidence a landscape of sound, it was hypnotic, mesmeric, powerful and repetitive. The most concentrated hooks woven into the music in order to give people that couldn’t understand it something to hang on to while they listen. Whatever I write, there will always be the hook.
The new record has punky songs, a few aggressive ones, but when you’re listening, you’ve still got the theme, every song offers shadow, joy, and heaviness. I’d like to take that as making the album, all of what we went through was transformative. I love to have captured something, and to be able to take people on the same journey when they listen, and transform to get them through something darker to something lighter.
You are passionate about making music and the way you talk about it is inspiring.
I feel extremely passionate, the whole commission has been a gift to me. I’m a receiver, I truly believe that I’m a channel. I believe all creative people are channels, and I believe mathematicians are channels, but you need to be open and trusting to receive it. You need to let it flow through you, without editing yourself or letting your ego hold you back, you just let it out there, like someone on a cooking channel.
That’s an honest, uncensored approach. It’s truly creative practice.
As humans we are non-physical energy in a physical body. When our physical body dies, our non-physical energy goes up and out, it expands and becomes one mind with everything. If you allow it, certain things block it.
Fear, anxiety, depression, negativity, and low vibration will block it. Things will come and flow through you, you will not know where they come from, they will just start going, and you’ll be in the moment.
Mark was able to do that too, we did that together, that’s why those songs were special, and it’s happening with Youth now.
That sounds similar to a religious experience, do you define yourself in such terms?
I’m spiritual. I believe that we have the power, and God is in all of us, and we all have the power to create to cocreate together, and by putting our minds and our intentions together, we can get it done. I’m not saying that there won’t be resistance because basically, people have different beliefs, and some of those beliefs are impacting each other.
In terms of The Extricated, some great records were made, are you happy with what you achieved?
The Extricated were great. I’m proud of the records we made, but the trajectory of the band was not moving forward. There were a lot of young fathers with young families that had other jobs and other focuses in their lives.
I knew that it was coming to a natural closure, and I needed to do something else. When you come to the end of the road, you’ll just see what opens up.
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Did hardcore Fall fans take issue with the creative route you took via The Extricated?
It split the audience. We didn’t want to rehash the old words, but the old songs were songs that I wrote, so when people say, you’re doing cover versions of The Fall’s songs.. As a composer, I have every right to reinterpret what I’ve written, I wrote some of those songs, but because they were written for The Fall, they didn’t come out as they were written in my head, it came out through the filter of The Fall.
How did that make you feel? Or do you see things from their perspective?
They don’t know Mark. They didn’t sleep with him or live with him, and they weren’t married to him, but people attach their feelings. When you talk about David Bowie, Jim Morrison or Aretha Franklin, you don’t know them, but a lot of people still have their opinions. Fans have an attachment to a certain era of The Fall, and in their lives that was a pivotal time.
I cannot take any notice of them, if they were into seeing all of us play together, hearing those songs reinterpreted. Those songs deserve to live, because they’re great, all I was doing was bringing them back to life. But most of them are loyal and dedicated fans.
Being a member of a band as original as The Fall clearly generated experiences of highs and lows. How do you see it now, and do you miss being a part of the band?
There are moments that I miss. The high points of that era where we had two drummers for example. The time around ‘I am Kurious Oranj’ was just an incredible time, all that energy and creativity, the music, and the whole thing was just a magical time. I miss those moments, we were at the peak.
Any of those moments where you stood on that stage, and the music lifted you to a religious level, almost, that was something that not many people get to experience in their life, and it’s a blessing to have been in a band like that. You’re always chasing the high of those things, and I miss that, but being in a band is like being in a warzone.
That’s an interesting way to describe it, why do you say that?
It’s similar to being in a warzone, basically. We did maybe a hundred gig dates a year, for five years in a row, which was exhausting, and this was in the very beginning, when it wasn’t in the lap of luxury. We had to work to eat, it was a hard working band. We were always on the road, it was not the most comfortable experiences, it very tough early on, nine people in a transit van up and down the country. It was exhausting, you’re not eating properly, playing your heart out, and you had difficult characters in the band.
How did the pressure and intensity of being in The Fall affect you?
When you’re tired, your resistance goes down. It’s hard being in a band, and trying to move forward, and being in a relationship with somebody in a band is even harder. Just imagine, you’re with your partner, creating day in, and day out.
Someone like Mark wasn’t an easy character. We had a special relationship for a long time, we had a great working relationship, but everything comes to its natural end, when you’re together on the road, and when things aren’t going well, it becomes pretty hard.
When you say Mark wasn’t an easy character, what are you referring to?
Even when we were getting on, Mark was notorious, he was a master manipulator of energy, he would create chaos in order to keep the band on their toes. But this is also what made the band great, it made the band strong. It made us better musicians, him fucking with us all the time.
We had to keep on our toes, play hard and keep it together, that’s one of the reasons it stayed vital for so long. There were good things, but it could be unpleasant and frustrating, because people do things in different ways.
I’m not a perfectionist, but I do like to rehearse. I like to know where I am. I like to get in a car and know how to control it. I don’t want to get in a car and not know where the brakes are, but sometimes I’d be getting in a car, and there would be no brakes, no wheels, and I’d be going down a hill. He would be on drugs, I’d be the sober driver, trying to control things.
To wrap this interview up, please give us a definitive thought on The Fall…
When I was in The Fall it was one of the most important bands that have ever been on this planet, but it took Mark’s death for people to get their heads around it, and to realise how important it was. He used to say ‘We’re always five years ahead of the time’. He was a visionary.
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‘Valley Of The Dolls’ will be released in early 2023.
Words: Susan Hansen
Photography: Paul Scala (unless stated)
