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The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster

Words by Emily Gosling. Monday, 06 August 2007

“This is really our time” Right now, we need The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster. In a world where scuzzy sonic tales of unwashed trousers and microwave dinners infiltrate our bloated eardrums; American apparel and neon spandex has become a uniform and MySpace becomes our primary pubescent grunt of communication, they answer our collective nigglings that there simply has to be more to life than this. Frontman Guy McKnight’s’ onstage persona is a torrid enigma of feral fury and of le petit-mort; but offstage he exacts a striking, measured wisdom. He explains where their visceral, unparalleled live energy lies: “Two of us practice Buddhism and chant Nam-myoho-reng-kyo. We believe that inherent in all life is this infinite potential, and by chanting we put that into action and into our lives. I’m absolutely convinced that that is a huge part of what enables us to express ourselves the way we do and share that, and touch peoples lives.” It’s this channelling of something deeper that McKnight attributes to the ethereal power and dark theatrics of their stunningly strident live shows. “Without trying to take myself too seriously, I think that whether you like it or not music has profound power,” McKnight elucidates. For the uninitiated, the rabid following TEMBLD amass have found something in the band that somehow makes sense. The band exude an intangible sagacity that has the power to metamorphosise the shy, meek and mixtape-wallflowers into a heaving pit of energy, gouging chunks out of hearts and young minds. “I think music is perhaps the purest and the most easily accessible and understandable form of art and expression. Music is something that can really move people and its culture.” This sort of wide-eyed intensity and sheer passion for his art is something all too often left faltering in our flimsy, bargain-bins and downloads pop-culture: the underlying primordial quality to what TEMBLD do is what really sets their psychosis driven rockabilly from the rest: “I think that lyrics are really important but beyond lyrics I think the feeling, the determination, the intention and the tone; whereabouts in your mind the voice is coming from is really what touches people. Buddhism aside our aim is always primal: to touch people’s lives and encourage people to open up. Beyond hairstyles and clothes and fashion and trends, in the end we’re floating on a rock spinning around a ball of fire in eternity.” In the three years since the release of The Royal Society, a lot has changed. Alongside Island’s decision to drop the band, original guitarist Andy left to concentrate on his death-jazz freak combo Vile Imbeciles. All this has contributed to the calculated development the new EP showcases. “It’s a re-focus of our original intentions; I certainly think the song-writing has matured. Everything up until now has been relatively juvenile. There’s a lot of humour, and some of it was satirical.” Underneath the striking, measured wisdom and depth McKnight exacts, sly mockery of “Ourselves, being in a rock & roll band and the cliché of drug abuse, alcoholism” which forms part of the wry wit underpinning the bands eccentric personae and oblique lyrics. Despite the spirituality of the band, McKnight admits ambiguously that this chemical leaning is “still present but not as relevant.” Lyrically there has also been a shift; for a band perhaps best known for their divinely deranged squalls of mother-fucking, drinking all night, sleeping all day and suffering from ‘mental’, this could mark an interesting departure. “Up until now, the majority of our lyrics have been quite fantastical and have been more of a storytelling nature than to share feelings. Our new EP energy wise is definitely harking back to the early material. I’m aiming to write much more about my personal experiences as a human being. That way people can actually relate to it more.” With the new EP and a national tour ahead, the phoenix-like resurrection of TEMBLD is needed more than ever. Oft forgotten in the post-Libertines, trilby floundering quagmire of 2004, their decadent goth-horror charm is not something to be ignored. Theirs is the sound of eyes rolling back in your head; of fear and love and paranoia and ecstasy; of cathartic implosions: yet lies criminally underrated. Guy’s final elucidation is all the confirmation we need: “This is really our time. Life flashes by in an instant and in five years or so we won’t be in the same place to be able to do this. Its absolutely about seizing the day now and letting people know what it’s all about. Where’s the band heading? For greatness.” In The Garden EP is out now Catch them at Scala, August 7 www.myspace.com/eightiesmatchboxblinedisaster Share it! Quote this article on your site Be first to comment this article Only registered users can write comments. Please login or register.