An Interview with Gordon Anderson of The Aliens - 7/19/2007 |
After forming psychedelic rock/downtempo The Beta Band in London, and mere weeks after signing a contract with Parlaphone, Gordon Anderson decided to leave the band and return to Scotland to combat his growing mental illness. After spending nearly a decade in and out of hospitals, recording only sporadically and receiving nearly 150 electro-shock treatments, Anderson went on to join former bandmates John Maclean and Robin Jones in The Aliens. The bands cheery, uptempo psychedelia, found on their debut Astronomy For Dogs, sounds like the flipside to Beta Bands slow, melancholic trip music. Yet it still showcases the members penchant for experimental music with accessible pop elements. Calling from a cottage in the middle of the Scottish countryside, Anderson is friendly, frank and surprisingly at ease with his past. He talked to Baeble about how the mind works with the creative process, dreaming of songs and how religion helped him conquer his demons.
B: You started working again with John Maclean and Robin Jones from The Beta Band after a long absence. What was the vibe like when you were recording? Did it feel natural?
Gordon Anderson: There was very little work done. It was mainly just giggling and laughing. It was just side-splitting laughter.
B: When you started recording with them, was it just for fun then or was there intent to put stuff out?
GA: They just arranged a time to come around to my cottage and we just started laying down some demo tracks. It was maybe late 2005. We got these done and then arranged to do some stuff in Edinburgh so we booked a little room there, kinda underground room.
B: Was the vibe similar to when you first started in the late 90s?
GA: No, no. Back then, [Beta Bands] Steve [Mason] was always a bit more serious. Robins quite quiet and he tends to listen a lot. John and I are on the same level where we just giggle and talk a lot and Robin was suddenly brought into something. It was mainly comedy moments with some music in between.
Also, Beta Band was generally a more clutter of instruments cause everybody would bring their glockenspiels and tambourines and just a multitude of things but [The Aliens] have maybe one drum kit, one bass guitar, one guitar and maybe a tambourine. There wasnt a great amount of instruments to play with.
B: Youve recorded stuff alone as Lone Pigeon and wrote most of Astronomy For Dogs. What are the main differences between writing alone versus collaborating with others?
GA: [With] writing alone, you can be a lot more intimate with the music and it seems a lot more warmer and [with] more depth and meaning. Just a bit more peaceful and richer. It has a quality that you cant capture in a studio. I think the album was okay, but it was very rushed. It was our first stab at doing something and we didnt have a lot of time, but people generally like it.
B: Does that mean you see yourself changing your sound going forward?
GA: Yeah, our next albums gonna be a lot more electronic and experimental. With [this album], we didnt really have the time to experiment with it. Next one, we want it to be darker, sadder and more experimental. A lot of my Lone Pigeon stuff is quite zany and mad. Theres not really any of that on [this album.]
B: As a creative person who spent years in a hospital for mental illness, do you see any link between creativity and an alternative mental state?
GA: Every day, things get stronger and life gets better and happier. I noticed when youre very ill in your mind you are incredibly creative. I wasnt as creative with music as I was with art. Music was quite a technical thing versus when I wanted to do with my art, which was more hands-on.
B: Do you worry about this creativity going away as your health improves?
GA: Obviously, Id like to write better songs. In many ways, its a good dry-up. I dont write half as much as I used to cause Im doing music full-time so I dont get any time to do it. My heartbreak is the fact that Ive written so many songs that Ive never gone back to listen to or ever put any work into that are still as good as the day I wrote them. If I didnt write another song from today onwards, a voice in the back of my head says, Well, youve already written all these. Why dont you actually work on one of them?
B: How many have you written?
GA: Its kinda bits of music. With songs, probably only a couple of thousand.
B: Its funny you say only. Thats enough to last many lifetimes.
GA: Oh of course. I think Ill probably work on 100 songs in my life if Im lucky. Ill have a song in a dream and itll be something brilliant. I dream a lot of my songs. Mostly ones Ive not written but sometimes its something I wrote quite a while ago and in the dream, itll sound excellent. You never remember all of them once you wake up. Ive got lots of sounds that Ive gotten in a dream that Ive gotten up and recorded there and then. Ive got an albums worth of dream songs.
B: How did you first become aware of your illness?
GA: I knew right away when I suddenly became ill. I was in London at a girlfriends house. I was looking in the mirror and I just felt this thing come into me; this kind of spirit. Back then, I was following Jesus quite wholeheartedly, so I was aware of spiritual dangers and dark stuff. One night, I felt this thing had gotten into me. I dont know what it was. In the Bible, demons enter people all the time. The next day, I was like, Oh my gosh, Im not myself. It felt like something was controlling my own mind. Within a week, I left the band and got back to Scotland and lay in a bed for three months and then went to a hospital. One moment, I was just sitting in the seat of my own mind controlling my thoughts. You can imagine sitting in that seat and then losing control of your own mind and slowly getting eaten away by this horrible, evil, dark thing.
B: How do you explain it?
GA: I believe it was evil. I believe it was demonic. After that length of time in the hospital, a couple of Christian friends I knew quite well said, Well take you back to your house and pray for you every morning for the next month or so and see how you get on. I was there for three months at their house and I was fine. I got a record out. I got my own flat and started going out with girls. My life suddenly became brilliant. A couple of months with Jesus and I was fine.
B: Do you think the medication had any effect?
GA: Naw, I never really took the drugs they gave me. I threw them outside or hid them in plant pots. I thought they were so bad for you. They made my eyes go back and forward. You cant stop walking in that kind of staggering, mental hospital way. Its a terrible thing to see people in there. Ive seen people go in there for depression and end up looking like mental patients.
B: During this time, were you conscious of what was going on?
GA: Well, whats happening is that youre in the room of your own mind and your thoughts get abstracted. Its almost like theres other rooms between you and the world. Youre quite far away. So you come out with a word, but it comes out as a mumble. Or you see somebody doing something and you look again, and theyre not doing it. I felt like my mind was slowly becoming locked in rooms. This was all the time. Youre 100% aware of whats going on, but at the same time it feels like youre getting controlled by something. I saw a doctor battering a patient, then I looked again and he wasnt.
B: You sound very comfortable talking about your illness, almost as if you had a broken leg or something.
GA: Yeah, I think once youre through something, its fine. I think if I was still very ill, I might talk about in a more knotty kind of way or I might talk about things you might not understand. I was ill. I understood my illness. No one else did. The doctors would come up with terms like schizophrenia.
B: Are you skeptical now of the mental health industry?
GA: I find it terrible. I mean, they gave me 144 electric shocks to the head. A young man having to go through that in that macabre kind of way. You dont put electric shocks to somebodys head.
B: Do you think it helped at all?
GA: No. Within a couple of days, all the problems came back. Its quite an archaic thing. Even the equipment they used was quite old stuff. The hospital I was in, they mainly keep the people in there on tobacco. And thats a weird thing to see. Theyre completely addicted to the stuff. Its a criminal thing. They could really go in there and help these people and all they do is give them these mind-bending drugs that simply nullifies them.
B: Do you worry that this will come back in the future?
GA: I think if you do things wrong, something probably will go wrong. If Im at a festival and everyones taking drugs, Im conscious that maybe if I smoke some dope, I might start getting ill again. So I have to be careful. Like anybody, youre not gonna walk along a cliff right along the edge and expect to not have the danger of falling off. If I keep myself centered, every day seems to get better in many ways. - Jason Newman
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Astronomy For Dogs is out now on Astralwerks. For more info, check out The Aliens site HERE and Myspace HERE. |  | Permalink Share To:       |
|
|
Articles:
a conversation with alan palomo of neon indian and chaz bundick of toro y moi
a natural belief
an interview with 88 keys
an interview with barry hogan of atp
an interview with beach house
an interview with bruno dallesandro
an interview with ebbot lundberg of soundtrack of our lives
an interview with ed lay of the editors
an interview with fredrik saroea of datarock
an interview with jessica lea mayfield
an interview with josh epstein of the silent years
an interview with luke crowther of the rifles
an interview with nate ruess of fun
an interview with ross jarman of the cribs
an interview with the twilight sad
Arcade Fire @ Randall's Island
baeble goes to bonnaroo
Baeble Goes To Lollapalooza
baeble's best albums of '08
behind the lens: simon taffe
best of cmj
Black Lips
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
BoB '09: Best Album
BoB '09: Best Concert/Guest Apartment
BoB '09: Best Feature
BoB '09: Best Video
Cake's Vince DiFiore
cmj '08 top ten
cmj panel feature
cmj-must-see-list
cmj-wish-list
Daft Punk @ Coney Island
David Arquette
dinner with vandaveer
Drug Rug
Ellen Campesinos! of Los Campesinos!
exclusive interview: los campesinos!
exclusive interview: noah and the whale
favorite beatles songs
Five OClock Heroes
for the love of mongolian blue cheese
Fujiya & Miyagi
gettingdownwiththao
Gordon Anderson of The Aliens
hello 2010!
Illinois
intern warz
is kesha a parody of herself?
Jihae
laugh track: aziz ansari wants to spend the night
Marissa Nadler
matt and kim save brooklyn
metric, on their own terms
mugison feature
neo folks latest luminary, phosphorescent
pitchfork preview
radio city dreaming
rap battle: julian casablancas vs. bradford cox
Reine Fiske of Dungen
remember the lucksmiths: sunlight in a jar
Shiny Toy Guns
shout out louds: the work goes on
Skeletons and the Kings of All Cities
snow day: shovel this, clouds
sobering up when the hype is gone
Sufjan Stevens' BQE
sxsw 2010 free parties
t.g.i mixtape: top 10 edition
t.g.i mixtape: top 20 edition
t.g.i mixtape: volume 41
t.g.i mixtape: volume 46
t.g.i. mixtape 44
t.g.i. mixtape 45
t.g.i. mixtape 47
t.g.i. mixtape 48
t.g.i. mixtape 49
t.g.i. mixtape 50
t.g.i. mixtape 51
t.g.i. mixtape sxsw edition
t.g.i. mixtape: vol.39
t.g.i. mixtape: volume 38
t.g.i. mixtape: volume 40
t.g.i. mixtape: volume 42
t.g.i. mixtape: volume 43
t.g.i.mixtape: best songs of the summer
t.g.i.mixtape: volume 19
t.g.i.mixtape: volume 20
t.g.i.mixtape: volume 21
t.g.i.mixtape: volume 22
t.g.i.mixtape: volume 23
t.g.i.mixtape: volume 24
t.g.i.mixtape: volume 25
t.g.i.mixtape: volume 26
t.g.i.mixtape: volume 27
t.g.i.mixtape: volume 29
t.g.i.mixtape: volume 31
t.g.i.mixtape: volume 32
t.g.i.mixtape: volume 33
t.g.i.mixtape: volume 34
t.g.i.mixtape: volume 35
t.g.i.mixtape: volume 36
t.g.i.mixtape: y.b.p. edition
taylor kirk's mysterious timbre
tgi-mixtape:volume-37
the 52nd annual grammy awards
the bad plus - for all he cares
the guide to fall festivals
the horrors of indie rock advertising
The Kin - Interview
the many faces of michael jackson
the mythology of joanna newsom
the obligatory grammy post 2010
the-worst-record-of-all-time
these united states' jesse elliott
ticket to ride: why we should care about live nation
Tim Green of the Fucking Champs
top 5: exotic dance songs
top 5: summer collaborations
Top five songs featuring incessant perfect handclaps
top five summer shows
top five summer videos
top5songsforalonelybroken heart
topfivefakefeudsoftheweek
we are scientists interview
wish list snl bands
worst record 2
worst record 3
worst record 4: there is no hope
years in the making
You Say Party! We Say Die!
Young Galaxy
Archives:
March, 2010
February, 2010
January, 2010
December, 2009
November, 2009
October, 2009
September, 2009
August, 2009
July, 2009
June, 2009
March, 2009
February, 2009
January, 2009
December, 2008
November, 2008
October, 2008
July, 2008
June, 2008
May, 2008
March, 2008
January, 2008
October, 2007
September, 2007
August, 2007
July, 2007
June, 2007
May, 2007
April, 2007
March, 2007
|
