INTERVIEW

Interview by : Maxime Nordez Pictures by : Karl Joseph on Friday, December 03rd 2004 - 10 440 views  Print        Reactions  (0)    The Twinkle Brothers were in Paris last month. The day after this one-off concert, we met Norman Grant, the charismatic leader of the band. Here he gives us his opinions and convictions and looks back on the group's career, begun now 40 years ago. Reggaefrance / What are your impressions of yesterday's show? Was the atmosphere different in the south of France? Twinkle Brothers / It was very different. Last night, there was something special in the acoustics. It felt more like a studio vibe than a concert. I've played in a lot of different venues and, after a while, you come to know the vibes that each room gives off. In Toulon, we played for more than 2 hours 30 and people were still asking for more! Can you introduce the musicians on stage last night? On drums: Barry Prince. He worked with Misty in Roots, and he joined the Twinkle a year ago. On bass, Dub Judah whom you know, and my brother Ashton (vocals and rhythm guitar). My brother Ralston wasn't there. He finds it hard to travel. He lives in the United States and doesn't like flying. And you, where do you live at the moment? I live in London while making regular trips back and forth to Jamaica. But with my Jamaican passport, it's not always easy to travel. Everything has to be planned well in advance to be sure there are no legal problems. Isn't it too hard to live your Rastafarian faith in London? No, you can live it anywhere. The Rastafarian faith is your way of life, it's more or less inexplicable. You can talk about it but above all you have to live it: it's the livity. You have to know what is good and do it. The Rasta faith is above all peace and love. Rasta is your way of spreading the message. Today, peace no longer exists and love has become too rare. People don't love each other any more... As for Rastafarianism, everyone has a different point of view. I think we all have a small role to play. Mine is to pass on the idea through the word. The word is powerful and we live in an age when it still carries weight. In our world, everything has its opposite. If light stands against Darkness, we must enlighten people so that they can see the light and understand through our music and our words. What does it mean to sing your first title from 1966, Somebody Please Help Me? I was born in 1950, when it all began in Jamaica. We listened to a lot of American and British music. The songs were all about my heart is broken, baby don't leave me... . We listened and wrote taking inspiration from that. When I was old enough to see what was happening in the world, I decided to create my own style. It's the best way to stand out. I chose to sing about the world, always trying to write lyrics that anyone can identify with. How do you go about writing? There is no single way to compose, but once you have learned how, things come easily. Nowadays it's the riddims that draw people in. They take to a tune more readily if they know the riddim. They like it without even hearing the artist sing. Personally, I do both: I sing and I produce riddims without having any idea what I'm going to do with them. Then we sit down and listen. The lyrics come from whatever the music gives off. In the studio I often turn up in front of the mic with no idea what I'm going to sing. It's a simple line, or even a title, that will determine the content of the words. Lyrics on the themes of prayer or praise should come easily. If they don't, I take no pleasure in it and it doesn't work. Above all, it is essential to enjoy yourself. You worked with most of the Jamaican producers (Leslie Kong, Duke Reid, Lee Perry, Phil Pratt, Bunny Lee...) Yes, I went from studio to studio and hung around wherever they were talking ‘‘music business’‘. That's how, singing in front of guys through chain-link fences, I did my first auditions. Did Coxsone never audition you? We went to Coxsone's. He was finishing a session and said to us: ‘‘ Hey youths, if you come early tomorrow, maybe I can record you ’‘. But to be sure of being recorded, you had to live in Kingston, going back and forth, again and again. At one time there were so few producers that they would tell you to come back six or ten months later! Studio One was a dream, with the Skatalites, Toots & The Maytals, the Melodians, the Paragons, Stranger Cole… We were there waiting our turn. In the end we never recorded for Coxsone. I was lucky enough to get into a studio very young, around 11 or 12. I knew it was a privilege and that I had to push myself to deserve that place. I learned the business from people like Bunny Lee and Phil Pratt. I quickly realised that if you wanted to make a bit of money, you had to take care of it yourself. That's why I created Twinkle Music. In the Twinkle Music catalogue, there are a few female artists… We try not to forget the women; some of them really deserve to be heard. People have little regard for women in reggae, but there is still an audience for them. They lack support, from women in general too, for that matter… Man needs woman and vice versa. It's great that women are there doing their thing. We need them to make themselves heard, provided they don't sing my heart is broken, baby don't leave me... . If they sing lyrics with a message, they deserve more attention. These days a woman has to fight five times harder than a man, seriously! How do you feel about the position of roots on the international scene? Roots has never been so big. Ska turned into rocksteady, then into reggae, which in turn transformed. These new musics were given a whole lot of different names. The big problem is sales. Clearly people appreciate roots, they sing it but… won't necessarily buy it. The best songs are the ones you love from the first listen. In that case you'll make the effort to put your hand in your pocket more readily. With the new generation it's special: they keep buying music made 30 years ago. They know that if the music is good, it stays good. Every ten years something new comes out and the kids love it. That doesn't stop them appreciating music made… a hundred years ago, as long as it's good. But if you want to express the ideas of your time, you mustn't stay stuck in the past. We live in a very aggressive era. The leaders and the preachers no longer do anything so that the people can really choose what they want. They force people to act and think in a certain way. But who are they to tell us what to do when they do nothing for us? Is there still an audience for roots in Jamaica? There's an audience for roots everywhere. As long as the music is played, people can choose what they want to listen to. But right now, people are being told what to listen to. They aren't offered enough to be really able to choose. If a tune gets played on the radio and works, you can be sure the DJ will try to put out a second, almost identical one. So you hear the same thing 24/7, on a loop. What the radio or the TV plays is rubbish, and it makes people say that today's music isn't good. But good music still exists. The audience may be smaller and find it harder and harder to buy, but there is an audience. I try to play something that any music lover, in any era, will want to get hold of from the first listen. I'm not trying to force anyone, I just let them listen. I realise we get very good reviews in the press, so let them do their thing. If you hit hard with your music, you can hit very hard in every field (laughs). Has anyone ever told you that you have something of Jacob Miller on stage? I've heard that before, yes. I'm 54 and I think that, if he were still alive, we'd be more or less in the same bracket. People like to make categories and I think we'd be in the same one. I did a tour as the singer of Inner Circle (1981, editor's note). We both come from the same vein; our musical inspiration is similar. What can we expect from the new album? This new album is a continuation of the Twinkle message. Most of the songs I sing at the moment were written 30 years ago. They're the songs people want to hear. If you don't play them, everybody will be frustrated. You have to let the music live. You have to let the power of the word act on the world. We go to many countries where English isn't the first language and people know the tunes and sing along. That proves they listen closely. It tells me that we're doing something right. Even if you only sell a few thousand albums, tens of thousands of people will be listening. Among them, some will become emotionally attached to this or that tune, and that's how it can work. Almost everyone who comes to our shows knows nearly all the songs, but not all of them have a Twinkle album at home. At every show I try to have a merchandising stand so that people can get access to our music. There are also people who come for the first time and discover you. If you can win them over with your first performance, it's a victory over the future. The problem is that my catalogue is huge… Yesterday on stage you joked about 50,000 albums… (laughs) You have to make choices, like reissuing a particular album or putting out dub versions. What I've learned about production is that you shouldn't try to mix too many elements. We try to focus on what the public expects from us. As a musician you keep creating, but you must never forget to give them what they want, because if people buy, the producer will keep producing. I've seen that we have an audience in France. We're trying to organise a big tour of France. We have two CDs coming out next week and arriving on the market; I'm delighted, and I know the French should like them.  Print       Reactions (0)

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