Page 24 - Black Velvet Issue 85

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baptism of water and they were both sym- does,” Jonny agrees. “It’s like for example, someone you know dealing hard drugs to
bolic in different ways. The baptism of water if someone grew up watching, let’s say chick people who have legitimate problems with
was symbolic of new birth, like the water that flick kind of movies, that’s just the one com- them and saying, “Well, it’s not my fault,
comes out when a baby is born, and it even ing to mind right now… I mean guys have that’s their responsibility”. But it’s like what
kind of relates to the ocean and evolving out movies as well that are a totally trick version are you talking about? You’re the one sup-
of that in some ways, I think, on an instinc- of reality… if you just watch those kind of plying, you’re contributing to the shit that we
tual level. The trial by fire, the baptism of fire movies all the time and mistake it for reality live in and I think MTV does that. Apple, I
was once you’ve had a rebirth or this change it’s going to fuck with you a little bit. Guys don’t know, I have less to say about them be-
of paradigm or mindset and you start on a watch these action movies that are just cause it’s not as obvious. Maybe they do -
new path. The fire baptism is the process ridiculous. I mean it’s entertainment and it’s but again the point of the song is more for
you go on the path, like when someone says fine, there’s nothing wrong innately about it us to ask ourselves. Those corporations are
trial by fire, it’s the same concept, so it’s lit- but when you have people like MTV putting made up of people, and at the end of the day
erally a paradigm shift. I remember when I on air whatever is going to get the most it’s easy to say “it’s this corporation blah
grew up, I was very religious and then I be- shock value, and relating to people’s lowest blah blah” but that’s a bunch of people mak-
came very clean slate, not religious and kind common denominator as far as just the ing decisions and those people all justify
of set off on this new path and then the bap- shitty side of humanity, then that does those decisions because they’re a corpora-
tism by fire was many of those songs, figur- change the world in a negative way. I think tion. They think 'well, it’s okay for me to do
ing out life after that.” everyone wants to disconnect and say “well, this because it’s my job”, like somehow that
Songs like 'This Is The Time (Ballast)' it’s just business,” but saying that doesn’t now justifies bringing bullshit into the
and 'Mr. MTV' contributed to the success of change what’s happening. That’s an easy world.”
the self-titled record. Although 'Mr. MTV' is way to say, “Oh, it’s just this” or “it’s just
extremely popular with fans, the meaning of that' and “we’re just making a buck”. It’s like
it is often misunderstood. “It’s
probably one of the most misun-
derstood songs in a lot of ways be-
cause I think as soon as people
hear the metaphors we use, for ex-
ample ‘My iLife, My iPhone’ from
Apple, a lot of people immediately
think “Oh, so you’re against cor-
porations or Apple?”, then they’re
like “You have an iPhone!” you
know, totally hypocritical. But
we’re not using it in a literal sense,
it’s a metaphor for narcism, and
this enables our narcism a lot
more. 'My iPhone, my iLife, me me
me'. It is about corporations, but
as much as it is about us as indi-
viduals, it’s not pointing the finger
in one direction, it’s pointing it in
every direction. I think it’s very
easy for people to get latched onto
the corporate side of it because of
the title and the metaphors like
iLife and all that, but it was in-
spired by what MTV has become in
the United States. I don’t know
what it’s like over here but they
don’t even play music anymore.”
MTV has changed here in the
UK too – the channel stopped play-
ing music videos in 2001 after real-
ising that there was more money to
be made elsewhere. “Yeah, it’s de-
volved from what it used to be, and
we thought it was a picture of what
is happening in parallel to all of us,
culturally. We’re just kind of dumb-
ing things down like the soundbite
wins today, it’s like, if people can’t
pay attention for longer than ten
seconds then it’s not worth putting
on TV, it’s not worth doing this and
that, rather than... I don’t know...
holding each other to a higher
standard. People are addicted to
the fast, the quick, the easy and
you get what comes with that, it’s
like fast food television. If you start
eating a bunch of fast food you’re
going to look horrible and feel hor-
rible and in the same way I think
we’re addicted to fast and easy an-
swers.”
Corporations like MTV have
been criticised a lot for having a
negative effect on young people,
even Apple has been given a bad
name. “I definitely think MTV
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