{"id":3977,"date":"2015-06-05T19:17:43","date_gmt":"2015-06-05T18:17:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eyeplug.net\/magazine\/?p=3977"},"modified":"2024-09-12T14:57:38","modified_gmt":"2024-09-12T13:57:38","slug":"dave-barbarossa-talks-to-eyeplug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/dave-barbarossa-talks-to-eyeplug\/","title":{"rendered":"Dave Barbarossa talks to Eyeplug"},"content":{"rendered":"
Dave Barbarossa drummer with Adam & the Antz and Bow Wow Wow<\/strong><\/address>\n

01 Where were you born, and where did you live as a child if different?<\/h3>\n

I grew up in Hackney \u2018til I was about fourteen, then lived in Enfield for another five or six years.<\/p>\n

02 What sort of neighbourhood was it? Did it inspire you?<\/h3>\n

It was all Jamaican, Jewish, and Irish in those days, now it\u2019s all the Guardian reader, Socialist Worker party, in those days it was a very urban, vibrant, edgy sort of place to grow up. I imagine environment steers any musician.<\/p>\n

03 What first got you into music, specifically joining\/forming a band?<\/h3>\n

I grew up listening to a lot of Latin American music; my Dad was a huge Latin American fan that inculcated rhythm into me without knowing it. I listened to chart music, glam rock of the era, Bolan, T. Rex, and Mud. I started quite late, fifteen, sixteen, learning the drums, saw someone playing them and tried really hard to get some drums. They were very expensive things; I would jam around with some guys in the school hall. I was into everything musically, I found I enjoyed the constant repetition of drumming, the learning of it, and then I got a break with the Ants.<\/p>\n

04 What memories do you have of your Ants days, specifically writing\/recording \u2018Dirk Wears White Sox\u2019 did you feel you really had something there?<\/h3>\n

No, not at all, I played with the usual combination of fear and desperation playing for Adam, but we knew we were good; the shows were really good, we would sell out everywhere, we were really loved by the underground, and we knew the album was a bit different, it wasn\u2019t the usual banging punk rock tunes. Adam was a special guy; he had his own vision, and a great leader. It was all Adam, apart from the drums, because he couldn\u2019t play the drums. You just live in the moment don\u2019t you? You just get it done and look forward to the shows after that. We didn\u2019t realise it was going to be such a well thought-of LP. Adam was a very open-minded guy when it came to the rhythm side; he knew I was quite an experimental musician for a punk rock drummer, so he encouraged me to go out on a rhythmic journey within the constraints of his songs, which are very ordered.<\/p>\n

05 The Burundi drumming was very much the signature sound of the early 80s. How did you arrive at it?<\/h3>\n

I was exposed to a lot of what I suppose you\u2019d call World Music by Malcolm McLaren. I was told not to play a straight four\/four beat in his presence, on pain of death. That style just came out of me. It was my Hackney version of what I thought Latin American or African music might sound like.<\/p>\n

06 What were your feelings about the fashions of the period?<\/h3>\n

It was just one of things that happened. We were dressed in BowWowWow, by Vivenne Westwood, those squiggle designs. It was nice having new clothes, felt a bit of a pillock at times, nobody else looked like it, but looking back it was extremely stylish and it was pioneering, like the sound of BowWowWow. You got quite a bit of abuse, and strange looks, but it united the band. We were the first people to wear it; all the builders having a go, the other lads taking the piss, but it was alright.<\/p>\n

07 When the original Ants were disbanded, how did you feel?<\/h3>\n

I\u2019d had three, four years of Adam, and it had been brilliant, but he was very much the boss, you did what he said. With Malcolm, he said we could be bosses, I could lead the band with the drum sound, incredibly exciting and it was an opportunity I couldn\u2019t turn down, especially from the great Malcolm McLaren.<\/p>\n

08 How did you feel about BowWowWow at the start, particularly being fronted by a young girl?<\/h3>\n

It all seemed part of the whole \u2018out there\u2019 wild tribal style, we were all so gung-ho about it and she was really brilliant performer, the chemistry worked. I think it was Malcolm\u2019s way, to be pioneering, to break down barriers. Today, nobody looks twice at anyone, but maybe the way we looked in BowWowWow opened the doors for people to be themselves. I don\u2019t want to sound like were claiming responsibility for the lifestyles of today, but they were seminal attitudes. We toured and toured and toured, got tired and Matthew Ashman, guitarist at the time, contracted diabetes, he\u2019d had enough, people were in hospital, we were over-toured. There was no real leader in the band, so the thing just folded. Matthew went off to do Chiefs of Relief, which I was a part of for a while, then I ended up a year or two later, broke, working on building sites and cabbing.<\/p>\n

09 When you started session work, did you feel enthusiastic about it, or was it just paying the bills?<\/h3>\n

It was a mixture of both. It was great to be able to work without having to think of the direction or the writing, or the image, or anything to do with the machinery of the band. Little sessions and bits of work, I can\u2019t remember them all, but there was Beats International, Republica, and then there were people like DrizaBone, that\u2019s all I did for a while. Session work does have its advantages, but the disadvantage is, you are not really part of the band, you are staff. It\u2019s not that pleasant, but if you want to run your own band, run your own band.<\/p>\n

10 What do you feel are the differences in the music business today, compared to when you started out?<\/h3>\n

One of the better things, possibly, is that recorded music is worthless now. From when I was a kid in the Ants, BowWowWow, the dream was to get a record deal, an advance, make records and sell them. Today, if you make a record, it will just get ripped from the internet in seconds, without anybody having to pay. It\u2019s almost pointless, apart from a promotional tool, so you can play live. When I was a kid, you could play live and nobody would give a fuck, an agent was just someone who would get you gigs, if you had a good agent, he\u2019d get you better gigs. Today, the agent is king, and the A&R man is the dwarf. It\u2019s just the complete reverse of when I started.<\/p>\n

One of the most brilliant things, the country\u2019s so proud of its great musicians and great bands, the Olympics paid tribute to it. I think the reason that all these great bands existed, was that they could go on the dole, and just indulge their musical predilections. I was on the dole, I had no money, but I could get together with the lads and play. Now, you have to get a job.<\/p>\n

I still do OK out of my old records, it\u2019s a generational thing, the people who bought my records will still buy records, but for a young band now, how can they make a living? How can they become professional? That said, there\u2019s not that many places to gig any more.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m involved with Will Crewdson, a session man who\u2019s played for Rachel Stamp, lots of other people, the band\u2019s called Scant Regard, we play Spaghetti-ish rock, evocative styles, with loops and sequencers, and I jam along with the tribal beat, funky drum n bass, bits n pieces. I\u2019m hoping to do a whole tribal show-off project, that\u2019s still in my mind at the moment, but I think I could possibly go out on my own and play those styles for people.<\/p>\n

11 Your novel Mud Sharks \u2013 Is it autobiographical?<\/h3>\n

It isn\u2019t an autobiography. There are no names, dates or events that actually happened, but you could say it\u2019s a story about my story. It\u2019s because I have a past that people know about, they think it\u2019s an autobiography I\u2019ve been told that you should write your first book about what you know, and what I know happens to be drumming in pop groups. It\u2019s also about my childhood, my relationship with my Dad, schooldays, it all about those. I\u2019ve fictionalised my story, a couple of times removed, and I can say more doing that, than if it was factual. I think it\u2019s that old one, that everybody\u2019s got a book in them. I was on the road with a very famous band, in the mid 90\u2019s, and I became very disillusioned. As a session man, it\u2019s a pretty loveless task, I was travelling round the world, I was missing my family, and in the end it sort of collapsed into a nightmare. I was just sat in front of one of those big old computers, and just started writing a character, and I just enjoyed the writing, and about four or five years ago, I started this on-road travelogue.<\/p>\n

12 Do young musicians ask your advice? Do you offer any?<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s very gratifying when they do. I say if you\u2019ve got something inside you, you want to express, don\u2019t be fearful, express it with what technique you have.<\/p>\n

13 Burundi drumming is fairly consistent throughout your career. Why do you think this is?<\/h3>\n

I\u2019m playing it now, more than ever. It\u2019s just a style I have where I just refuse to pay kicks or snare as a backbeat. I use all the drums to create different patterns and textures, because it pleases me. It\u2019s not really derivative of anything ethnic; it\u2019s like the Latin I grew up with in Hackney, the Glitter Band and The Sweet and punk rock and the soul I listened to in discos as a schoolboy, and it all blends and comes out like that.<\/p>\n

14 Which of today\u2019s artists do you like? How do they compare to your earliest favourite artists?<\/h3>\n

No-one in particular. My two sons are in the music business, my eldest is MCB Live, quite a notorious grime MC, professional, and I do like a lot of that modern dance music, it does remind me of the Roxy Club and the Vortex, people going potty with whatever they can, I really like that sort of abandoned recklessness in music. You don\u2019t really hear that in guitar bands today, you get more coming out of tower blocks and illegal stations.<\/p>\n

15 If you could backtrack through your career, what would you edit, if anything?<\/h3>\n

There isn\u2019t man. I\u2019ve been lucky, I\u2019ve had my health, I\u2019ve had lot of love around me, I\u2019ve had a great career, I\u2019m playing I\u2019m writing, I can\u2019t complain.<\/p>\n

Links<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

barbarossabeat.com
\n<\/a>facebook.com\/dave.barbarossa<\/a>
\nignitebooks.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I grew up listening to a lot of Latin American music; my Dad was a huge Latin American fan that inculcated rhythm into me without knowing it. I listened to chart music, glam rock of the era, Bolan, T. Rex, and Mud. I started quite late, fifteen, sixteen, learning the drums, saw someone playing them and tried really hard to get some drums. They were very expensive things; I would jam around with some guys in the school hall. I was into everything musically, I found I enjoyed the constant repetition of drumming, the learning of it, and then I got a break with the Ants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":4010,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,128,73,71,92,80],"tags":[698,701,700,699,121],"series":[],"class_list":["post-3977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-hot-plugs","category-interviews","category-music","category-post-punk","category-punk","tag-adam-the-antz","tag-bow-wow-wow","tag-burundi-drums","tag-dave-barbarossa","tag-eyeplug"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3977"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16402,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3977\/revisions\/16402"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3977"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=3977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}