Jeff Barrow of Portishead: “I can’t think of any worse music to make love to than ours” | music

What made you decide to do it? Movie, gameAnd can you tell us a little about it? Zoe2025
As I got older, I found myself having more cinematic ideas than musical ones. With an independent label, Invada Records, I wondered if I could actually make a film. I was at school with [co-writer and actor] Mark Besant, I’ve worked with [director] I met John Minton 20 years ago [co-writer] Rob Williams – screenwriter for Judge Dredd and other things – when he moved to Portishead [Somerset]. The idea of ​​a person trapped in an overturned car comes from Concrete Island created by J. J. Ballard. Initially the film was going to be a horror film with the character being attacked by rabid dogs, but instead we set it during the end of rave culture. I immediately thought of Sleaford Mods’ Jason Williamson for the role of the poacher, and it turns out his father was a rabbit. He’s good at it.

How easy would it be to recreate the 90s rave scene on film? k4ren123
There are only two back-to-back clips, but we wanted to depict the way the rave scene has gone from free festivals to something more institutional where drugs are actually regulated. All my colleagues in Portishead [the town] They were expatriates. I wasn’t. I went to a couple, but for the movie I looked at a lot of old footage and bought most of the clothes for the movie on eBay. The 90s rave wasn’t fluorescent clothes. They were normal kids in street clothes, so I was thinking: What kind of sneakers were they wearing?

When the three classic Bristol albums dummy [Portishead, 1994], Maxinquay [Tricky, 1995] and protection [Massive Attack, 1994] It came out around the same time that analogue/electronic production blew my mind. Did you know how connected and influential those three albums were or were you too busy bickering with each other? Bruce66
There were no hassles, as top artists like DJ Mushroom from Massive, the Wild Bunch [sound system] Both Smith and Mighty were really supportive. I made tea and sandwiches in the studio when I made Massive Blue Lines. Tricky worked with Mark Stewart from the pop group. So there was a wealth of experience. Everyone had the same vicious attitude of ‘The people in the London music industry are a prick. Don’t try to mess with us. We’re not desperate for your money.’ But we were all signed to major labels who had money to promote us, which made a big difference. We all worked at different studios, so we didn’t see each other very often, and once the recordings started, we didn’t see anyone. I was against the idea of ​​there being a ‘Bristol scene’, but before us there were people like Rip Rig + Panic or a punk/reggae band called Head, so there was definitely something in the air that influenced everyone.

Did you ever imagine that your vocal experiments on Dummy would become the backdrop to many romantic entanglements – and How do you feel about being the unsung hero of the ’90s sex playlist? VerulamiumParkRanger
I’ve heard that people would go out, get high, come back, smoke cigarettes, and dress the doll up. If you just listen to the music, you’ll think, “Man, this is really cool.” However, the worst thing anyone can say about my music is that it’s cold! This makes me throw up. They just listen to Beth [Gibbons]It’s her voice, not what she says, that makes a big difference. People were actually saying “my daughter over there was made to your music,” and I was like “fuck.” I can’t think of anything worse to make love with.

Is there a chance for any new Portishead music in the not too distant future? Sebastian10
No. Not for me. There’s a lot to learn in film and film music, so that’s my heart, but we’ve never been apart. We just do things differently. We played a concert for Ukraine and recorded Brian Eno’s Roads Together for Palestine concert. These are the things that bring us together to do something.

How did you get? will [Young, no relation to the pop star] inside Beak>? I know him from Brighton. He was claiming that Beck needed some eyes sweet. Fizzing bombs
Ha. We definitely need the eye candy. He died [Williams] Left and Ben [Power] He called me from Blanc Mas and said, “I know someone who can do this.” Will came to Bristol and was great and a lot of fun. What I loved about Beak is that it didn’t matter if we were petty. We toured in the car and played King Tut in Glasgow in front of six people – the six people were the Horror Band, who were playing the next night – and that was after they had headlined Latitude or something. [with Portishead]. I’ve had to leave the band now because after touring Europe I was starting to feel tired and exhausted, which I took as a sign from my body telling me to slow down.

A friend of mine once played on a soccer team alongside you. Was I good? johntaylor
I was never good. Maybe I’m a little better now than I was. There’s an over-50s team in the unofficial Bristol League called Brian Munich, and I always threaten that if I play twice a week, I’ll be fit enough to play for them again. I never do, because I wake up on Sunday morning, feeling grumpy and thinking “no.” Cinema and music are a drier pastime.

Do you remember the first time you were taken to the cinema and does that cinema still exist? Bath wife
It was a cinema called the Clevedon Curzon near Portishead that still exists, and is one of the oldest cinemas in the UK. I was taken on a Sunday school trip to see Bambi. Later, when I was 16, my father took me to see Blue Thunder, a kind of cheap Airwolf. I was 18, so my dad said, “Sorry kid, you can’t come in.” He was very honest. Cinema has an amazing history. My grandmother and Aunt Kay were inside when it was bombed during World War II. We will be showing our film there, which will be really special.

I can listen to the opening 50 seconds from Roads On loop for hours. Is there any song intro that makes you feel the same way? Dejong and restless
Held on World Love Jam, a Terminator It starts with the church bells, and when the beat kicks in, no matter how many times I’ve heard it, it still gives me goosebumps. Some low key songs do that to me too, especially Plastic Cup.

I loved the Quakers album with the singers on Myspace. Do you know any of them who went on to work in music? Jewett
When I set up Invada Records with Ashley Anderson AKA DJ Katalyst, Myspace was booming and it was a great way to discover music. We had a lot of hip-hop beats, so, in addition to reaching out to professional MCs, we put tracks on MySpace and asked people to rap over them. All these kids ended up in a register next to someone they really respected. There was a man named Johnwine [who] Now beats tutorials; A hardcore Christian rap crew from Texas that sang about God and then broke up. Comet Simpson does a lot of things. Tone Tank is an Italian guy from New York who is an extra in CSI and so on. I recently watched a video of him driving a Cadillac alongside a guy dressed as a fish.

Still angry on social media? Fig
I’m not angry. The music industry has let me down so much. I’ve met a lot of great musicians who don’t get praised because they don’t have the marketing budget. When you get into this industry, you realize there are some pretty bad people out there, but I never lost that feeling of “this music sucks,” which is probably not a good look for a white guy in his 50s.

My uncle John played keys for Portishead back in the day, so they were the first band I saw live. What was the first party you went to? Samuel Stockley
My first proper gig was Cameo in Bristol – amazing alien funk supermen from the US, with codpieces and big hair. However, the first band I saw was a three-piece band playing hits at a mobile park in the mid-70s. The drummer, Roy, let me play his drums when they had a break. I was nine years old and still learning the drums when I gave my first public performance at Pontins in Torbay. There was a comedian in the camp who dressed as a Nazi and walked around with a disabled air pistol, saying to anyone who saw him kissing: “We have no indecency in this camp!” One night he ordered the band to stop, pointed his gun and made the drummer disappear. The organist asked: Do any of you know how to play the drums? So I got up and played.