In conversation with John Robb

For this issue we hear from musician, author and journalist John Robb. Best known as the bassist and singer for the mid-1980s post-punk band the Membranes. John has written many books around the theme of music including 'Punk Rock - An oral history' he currently writes for and runs the Louder Than War website.

How have you seen any cultural shifts that have influenced music trends over the last decade, and can you pinpoint a specific moment that marked a significant change?

It’s been longer than a decade but key is the internet and the impact of socials. It’s been a creeping shift but changed everything and in unexpected ways. Instead of making the world all sci fi and modern it means there is a space for everything and all genres of music and styles that could have died out or been ignored have staked a claim in the 21st century. No one dominates the narrative anymore and culture has fractured and people get to make a bricolage of sounds and styles from the debris! Like all tech and new ideas it’s made the world better and worse all at the same time.

What has been your most surprising or enlightening moment with a musician, and how did it change your perspective on their work?

Just getting on stage and playing! Punk rock DIY was the real revolution in that it empowered nervous kids to actually get onto stages and play even though they had no idea what they were doing. When we started we couldn’t even tune up and had no idea how to make music but we did it anyway. So many of my contemporaries were the same…thats an amazing cultural shift when you think about it. It freed up a generation to create.

How do you think globalisation has affected the music industry, are we losing our identity as a consequence?

We can be greedy and have both at the same time. Pop culture has always been about globalisation. Either selling the UK on a post empire world stage as the coolest country with the soft power of pop culture or the very music itself being a product of globalisation. Rock n roll was built on black blues music from America! This process has speeded up and now we have everything available all at once…what’s really fascinating is that we somehow filter that with our regional mindsets! We can be local/international. The north has never felt so northern and yet the soundtrack and the styles passing the window where I’m typing are truly continental! truly international!

The music industry is a global industry and the flow of sounds and ideas worldwide is a good thing!

In what ways do you believe technology, such as AI and streaming services, is reshaping the music industry and the way we consume music, do you believe it is a good change?

Every change is good and bad…always has been! It’s how we adopt to stuff. We already live in a wold of AI. Primitive AI ! In the future, arena gigs will be like an AI Rolling Stones playing classic songs in classic periods, and you will think it's real, and the band, apart from Keef, will be long dead. It could be all classic bands from Sex Pistols to Elvis or even Spice Girls doing huge AI arena shows with no humans on stage - is it any different from watching an old film? The undergound will then be a world of ‘real’ music but what is ‘real’? as soon as you amplify music or put effects on it, it technically becomes AI!

Streaming has made the whole history of music current. If you are a teenager, The Doors are as much of the now as the latest hip hop.

Everything is now.

Of course, the other future is Terminator 2 eternal robot wars! The film will be looked at in the future as a visionary film and not a Hollywood blockbuster…!

Do you believe that artists should use their platforms to support or critique social or political movements?

Ha! Depends if you agree with what they say doesn’t it!

This stuff used to be a lot simpler when everyone was perceived to be on the same side, but now it's fractured and blurred, and many favourite artists are not the sort of people you would want to share a toboggan with! Kid Rock has a right to shout his pro Trump hot air but do I want to listen to it? It helkps that I have no idea who he is and what he sounds like so I can easily ignire.

In the end, an artist has to go with their art - if they want to sing about flowers, then travel with the muse! If they want to sing about changing the world then do that as well. Sometimes your hair or you scarf (ha!) are a more powerful political statement than your lyrics, sometimes a Joe Strummer can still change the world…art is messy but politics is messier but one thing is urgent … we need to make the world better whether we do it with pop culture or not.

What are some music genres or cultural movements that you feel are underrepresented in mainstream media, and why do you think they deserve more attention?

All guitar music is somehow sidelined. there is still the notion that you have to ‘water it down’ for radio or the mainstream? Yet when it ever gets heard people embrace it. Mainstream media edits pop culture down into tiny chunks…sometimes its great like Billie Eilish but often its hot air.

How has the role of the music journalist evolved with the rise of social media and direct artist-to-fan communication? Do you see this as a positive or negative development?

Not so much a positive or negative - it’s just different. The whole battlefield has changed. In the past, music writers and certain DJs were conduits and gatekeepers, but now the bands are their own media which has changed the role of the writer.

Once, bands relied on the press to spotlight them, and that gave the press a lot of power…a power that was often misused as they attempted to carve the narrative to their own desires. Nowadays, there is not so much a filter, but the bands/fans deal directly with each other.

Bigger band's Facebook pages are bigger than most media’s Facebook pages. The music is all over Spotify and YouTube and anyone can listen and make up their own minds. The problem is that this democracy in art has created so much STUFF! Bands lose out now not because they fell out with the music press but because they got drowned out in the volume of other bands. It’s a different world, and it's a different way to navigate. A writer now can still spotlight music old and new, they can still add context to the agenda and they can also connect people together like bands and the music business and they can make things happen as catalysts but the days of thinking (falsely) they were bigger than the bands are over…a` writer can still be a game changer in this new role and ironically they can become a media ‘brand’ like the bands have become.

How important is it for contemporary artists to preserve traditional music and cultural heritage in their work, and can you give examples of artists who do this well?

It’s great to hear a band like Lankum somehow mix trad Irish music and modern drone rock into something unique and different but it’s not a band’s job to be a museum. A musician has to follow their muse and they have no duty to culture or heritage. They can break the past, ignore the past or trash the past and if it sounds good, then it's valid. They can also immerse in the past and trap themselves in its long-lost codes, and if they make that work, then that's cool. The ultimate endpoint is a captivating sound and vision because it's not just the music, is it? The art form is what it looks like as much as what it sounds like as venerable scarf makers know only too well!

What role do music festivals play in shaping cultural trends, and how have they adapted to the changing dynamics of the music industry?

You only have to look at the annual meltdown over Glastonbury to see just how important festivals are in the culture. At that level everyone seems to think they have a right to do shout about what the headline band should bo even if they have no intention of going! Festivals are key in the culture.

The culture is not as simple as it was in the seventies when it was long tours, music press ads and radio play then Top Of The Pops and the charts.

Now it’s playing the streaming game, dealing with socials, touring the smaller venues of which there are more than ever, getting the right support tour and creating a big show for arenas and festivals. Festivals are not all of the culture, of course…there is no one dominant sector of the whole thing that dominates, but they are a key part of the spider web.

Finally, looking ahead, what emerging trends or movements in music and culture do you believe will define the next decade, and why?

Scenes will splinter into sub scenes music will mix and match and spark. It will still embrace technology and reflect the world back at itself. Every band that ever existed above a certain level will send AI out to tour their classic periods. The fans will vote online for which these periods are, and the AI will adjust accordingly. Meanwhile what is now the indie underground will be the small percentage of music fans who don't want the Hollywood movie AI version of greatest hits but still want to see see humans grasping for something musical and magical and often fucking up.

In the meantime, there will be music that embraces all new tech, but there will also be classic styles and traditional styles like ‘lad bands’ who still score number one albums in 2024 without the permission of the music biz…there are some things like chord changes, and ways of making music that will always resonate.

There will be more and more woman making music and also behind the scenes doing live sound or driving bands around or running the whole show and filling up the whole infrastructure. The Anglo-American music axis will continue to decline, and music from all over the world will mix and match like a Bladerunner street scene.

America will remain a cultural powerhouse despite its decline. The UK has a chance if it reconnects with Europe and the rest of the world and celebrates the fact that we make great pop culture because of our multicultural cities. However, this means we need to get music back into schools and empower youth from beyond the middle class suburbs to make music and art. Light their creative sparks and stand back and thrill to their results…

You can purchase a signed copy of John's latest publication The Art of Darkness: The History of Goth here