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WILL: The Gunga Din is touring with Boss Hog right now. Do you enjoy or dislike touring?
BILL BRONSON: Touring can be a pleasure with some bands (like this one) or a nightmare with others. Fortunately, the Gunga Din is in a good touring groove at the moment. This one we are on now is our sixth since our inception and we are still paying our dues. The road is an important part of the business and like everything else, its a lot better if you make the most of it.
WILL: What characterizes a good live performance for you?
BB: The good live show is an elusive animal. For me, if I can forget for a moment what time it is, where and who I am, I'm doing something right. However, a lot of work must go into stacking the odds for the band as well as the audience. For instance, the room, the sound reinforcement, all the little things that one forgets to take care of, really matter in the end. To allow myself the freedom to remove the walls between audience and performer, to lead the band into uncharted sonic territory and to put on a "show" is what everyone comes for and what we try to give.
WILL: There seems to have been a resurgence in darker pop recently, with bands (like Cat Power, Elliott Smith, Tindersticks) showing an overt influence of singers like Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake, Lee Hazlewood. Do you see the Gunga Din as fitting into that tradition? Any thoughts as to what precipitated the resurgence of darkness in pop and pop culture?
BB: As long as there is music, there will be dark music, light music, smart, stupid, ad nauseum. I don't really believe that there is a resurgence going on, but I do believe that some special talents like those artists you have mentioned, are facing the same alienation that I am, and as a result, writing music using all the colors available to them as opposed to just using black and white.
WILL: A lot of the Glitterati reviews I’ve read reference the cabaret movement, both in Weimar Germany and in France. What was your first exposure to cabaret artists like Kurt Weill and Jacques Brel? What do you feel that you as musicians have taken from cabaret?
BB: I really don't know where the connection is. The only thing that I think we and cabaret share is maybe a more melodramatic approach to songwriting. We write about sex and death, love and loss, unsavory people and unsavory situations, but to say that our band has a cabaret sound would be a misrepresentation I think.
WILL: I hear a bit of a soul influence on Glitterati. It’s, surprisingly, a lot funkier than most “indie” records. Is that intentional?
BB: Everyone in this band loves soul music but none as much as our bass player, Chris Pravdica. As well as being the most naturally gifted musician in the band he is also the backbone of our sound. Without him, we'd sound like shit.
WILL: Was most of Glitterati recorded live, or was it largely multitracked?
BB: Glitterati was half and half. We all played together in the same room but took liberties as far as overdubs and track space allowed.
WILL: Do the lyrics to your songs come before the music or vice-versa?
BB: There really is no one way we write songs. We have tried every imaginable way in order to steer clear of any formulas and traps that lay out there.
WILL: One of the highlights of Glitterati is “In the Garden.” It’s a beautiful song and kind of a “quiet in the eye of the storm” moment on the record. The lyrics have this kind of weird fairy-tale quality to them and it seems to be mostly about decay and aging, except the end of the song is strange and ambiguous: “No it can’t be / he fell down / all I can see / was left to perfect strangers…” Tell me about that last stanza in the context of the song.
BB: You are right. "In the Garden" is a metaphorical story about these issues. The last line is for myself. Only I know who and what I'm talking about there and I actually prefer it that way. Sorry.
WILL: I read that you chose your name from randomly picking through a lot of film titles. It strikes me that there’s something very filmic about the music on Glitterati, the way it makes strange, vivid images rise up in your mind. Has the band ever thought of doing any soundtrack work? A related, fantasy question: if The Gunga Din could have composed the score for any film, what would it be?
BB: Three of us worked together in a video store for a while. However, I hardly have anytime to go to the pictures these days. I'd be ecstatic if anyone asked us to do serious film soundtrack work but I'm not holding my breath. Years ago I contributed some music to some Richard Kern films but these are so far unavailable here. My favorite soundtrack to have done would have been "Midnight Cowboy" but the existing one would be very hard to top. No?
WILL: What do you feel is the most frustrating thing about the state of rock music today?
BB: Unfortunately, the good music out there, (and there's plenty of it) will tend to go unrecognized (and undercompensated) for years until people have the courage to find it and support it. The "business" is also in a time of transition and loss so naturally the labels are now forcing us to eat shit again until they are back on their feet.
WILL: What records do you yourself listen to most?
BB: The tape I just made for this tour includes The Yardbirds, The Congos, Suicide, Television, Wire, Scott Walker, Nina Simone, Jah Lion, Neil Young, Fred Neil, The Beach Boys and Love.
WILL: What do you want people to get out of listening to Glitterati?
BB: Escape and Identification.
Listen to mp3s by the Gunga Din (from Audiogalaxy.com):
from Glitterati
Brave New World
interview used by permission of Audiogalaxy.com
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