PipemanRadio Interviews Billy Bragg at Punk Rock Bowling XXIV

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Hey, you have then two censure, Wow, pray young row Wake up

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America. It's time for the Adventures
of Pipe Man on W four C why

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dot Com. Wis pomp Beats is
number one Internet radio station. Here's your

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host, the pipe Man. I
don't want to change the world. I'm

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not looking for New England, just
looking born another girl. I was a

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minor, I was a doer,
was a whyman between the walls. It's

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the pipe Man here on the Adventures
pipe Man W four c Y Radio.

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And I'm here with its right,
nice pity, bloody brag here at punk

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Rock Bowling. That's right. Have
you seen any bowling? I did not

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go to bowling, but it is
kind of cool to have bowling at a

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music festival, isn't it. It's
really cool, And even if you know

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they weren't paying me to do it, to be able to say to people

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in England, oh yeah, you
know next week I'm playing in Las Vegas

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at Punk Rock Bowling. It's just
just the kudos of saying that it's been

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so great. Yeah, I've been
dining out on that. Everyone thinks,

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oh, that's really mad. Le's
you be here. It's even madder than

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you fool, folks, it's even
matter it is. And I mean,

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listen, I do a lot of
festivals. This is one of my favorites

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because they just like punk's overtake Downtown
Las Vegas. There's club shows everywhere,

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there's the festival. One of the
best things about this festival too, is

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when you play, Yeah, everybody
gets to see it. That's right.

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Yeah, you know it's you don't
have that overlapping them. They hate making

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choices. Yeah, it's really good. I keep everybody to their forty five

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minutes pop from the headliners. You
know, I think it's a good thing.

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Yeah, exactly, And then everybody
gets a chance at the audience,

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you know. And I mean,
and it's just so cool, the vibe

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here and like we're just one big
family. Cool would be good. Since

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the sun went behind the Golden Nugget
Hotel, it's got a bit cooler.

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But I wouldn't say cool as a
word I'd use I'd say fried. But

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yeah, right, from a very
temperate country, yeah, and I mean,

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I tell you what I mean.
Your country has bipolar weather. Like

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I'm going there to go do Downloaded
in a couple of weeks. Oh my

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god, what's the weather, weight
away packed. I gotta bring like five

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super and it's been awful. You
know, we're just you know, where

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are we now at the end of
May. We haven't really had spring.

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We just had wet, wet,
wet, And I was just texting with

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my wife now saying, you're so
hot here. You can't believe how hot

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he is. And she said,
well, we've had three days of sunshiny

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and now it's raining again. So
I'll take your wellies. Mate. If

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I was you, yeah, one
hundred percent. Yeah, So tell us,

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you know, like, what's your
best story, what's your craziest,

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coolest, bad, worst, best, whatever it is about, what your

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whole journey in this musical world,
in this musical world, craziest thing.

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Well, a couple of years ago, I was on stage while England were

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playing Germany in the finals of the
Women's European Soccer Championship and it went to

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extra time. So I was literally
on stage while the game was on.

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Five thousand people in this tent were
looking at their phones and my biggest worry

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was they were going it was going
to go to a penalty shootout. That

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would be a nightmare to be on
stage. Everybody would be looking at their

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phones and then they would go oh, and I wouldn't know if we'd missed

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or they've scored. I'd be like
the only person in the tent. And

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but fortunately, uh, we won
the game. But the game ended in

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the middle of one of my songs, greetings to the new Brunette. I

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theyre singing my song, and all
of a sudden, everyone through the beer

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in the air. Yeah, And
I thought, oh, well, obviously

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you know time has come. So
then I kind of said a few appropriate

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words and got off stage. But
I'll be honest with you, it was

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such a difficult gig to judge because
I like to feel well, not come

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to a festival. I like to
try and suss out the mood of the

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audience and try and pitch my set
to fit that. It's a bit of

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a bus but I managed to do
it normally. But the idea of being

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on stage in front of an audience
whose mood could change catastrophically and you have

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no control over it is my kind
of nightmare. Yeah, I will admit

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to laying awake the night before fretting. I don't normally threat at all about

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gigs. Gigs are the least my
worries is my happy place, you know.

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I look forward to it. But
yeah, that gig was a bit

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of a nightmare. But it turned
out great and afterwards I'd agreed to do

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a signing, which was great because
having come off stage, I'm not sure

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if I've done a great gig or
it had been terrible. Everybody in the

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tent was like, well, you
know, it was so great to be

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with five thousand people when that at
that moment, it was such a great

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moment, you know, and I
thought, you know, it's right because

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if I'd have been the headliner,
I'd have been at my hotel room with

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one watching it on the telly on
my own I'd have jumped off the bed,

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texted my wife and that would have
been it. But as it was

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there, I was with five thousand
excitable English people having a fabulous experience.

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Because we don't often win them championships, we won one. We won the

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World Coup in nineteen sixty six.
That's when I was born. There you

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go, you see, and we've
won nothing. It's my fault and the

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fact that I don't take it on
you, but the fact it was the

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women as well. It was such
a it had such a change in our

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attitude towards sport and stuff. That
was so great, the women's team and

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it was just a lovely, lovely
moment and it was just, you know,

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it's unforgettable, whether you're in the
audience or stuck on stage trying to

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grab hold of the attention of the
crowd. And you know, you perform

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all over the world. You're here
in the US, now you're from the

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UK. How would you compare performing
their opposed forming here? And how has

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it changed as you've been artists,
Because I know for me as a listener,

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yeah, Like I remember being teenager
and it's like my goal was to

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get to the UK because that was
the only true punk scene. Yeah,

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yeah, that's true. There's some
truth in that, I think, But

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you'd be surprised how similar is you
know. I've been thinking a lot about

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this a lot lately, that the
things that we were involved in in the

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seventies and the eighties, how similar
things are now. You know, if

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you think about it. You know, I was involved closely in antiparthite stuff,

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you know, and that involved a
boycott of an aparthep regime. It's

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the same what young people are doing
now the state of Israel, you know,

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their opposition to what's happening in Gaza. To the people in Palestine,

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they're starting a boycott. I was
also involved in Act Up supporting gays and

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lesbians both in this country and in
the UK, where there was a ban

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on talking about sexuality in school.
And now it's a transc community in that

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front line. So I find myself
as I'm old now I'm sixty six,

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talking to young people and saying,
yeah, we've thought, we've done this

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before, and it works. You
know, we managed to make a contribution

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to bringing down the aparthep regime in
South Africa. We managed to support in

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solidarity of our gay and lesbian brothers
and sisters to the point now where we

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have equal marriage. So you know, keep on keeping one and don't stop.

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And I think that the real thing
that's changed is that music is no

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longer as a vanguard role in youth
culture because of the Internet. You know,

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when I was nineteen, there was
only one medium available to me with

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which to talk to the world.
I had to learn to play guitar,

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write songs and do gigs. That
was the only that was my social media.

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It was all that social media.
Yeah, but now of course,

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you know, if you're angry about
the world, you can make a film

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on your bloody phone, you know. So it's not doesn't have that central

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role, but it does still have
a role to play in bringing people together,

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firing people up. You know,
there's a there's a there's something in

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music that you can't get online,
and as long as that means the same,

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I think people will be coming to
festivals like this or you know,

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getting together in England or wherever to
have that kind of sort of social emotional

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solidarity that you get from loud music. You know, based on what you

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just said, do you think that
the new punk bands of today, the

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reason maybe they don't have the same
angst as the seventies eighties punk bands is

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because of what you just said,
that there's another outlet for that anger and

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frustration. There is, there is, but you know, things happen that

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make you angry and you want to
do something more than just be on Twitter

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about it. Trump would be one
example, you know. I mean,

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he's much worse than anything we had
to deal with, and he's he's worse

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than Thatcher, he's worse than Reagan, you know, and I think climate

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change is a bigger threat than the
Soviet Union ever was, because there's you

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know, with the Soviet Union,
you could guar up against them and you

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know, have mutually sure destruction and
I'll ultimately bring him to a camp.

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But climate change could be much more
destructive. We're already seeing it, and

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so I think there's a lot more
things to get fired up about. And

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I'm always pleased when I see young
bands run a stage at Glasshomy Festival.

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We have young musicians coming there.
It's left field, you know, who've

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got something to say about the world. Not in the same way as I

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did. But why would they.
I'm their you know, grandparents generation now,

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but they're still they're still trying to
make sense of the world in the

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same way that we were. You
know, it's funny how you said Trump

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compared the Reagan and Thatcher because my
best bro life who since thirteen, he

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passed away in September. But he
said, you know, even though I

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hated Reagan and hated his policies,
I at least believed he thought he was

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doing what was right for the country. And he's like, that's what makes

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Trump scarier because I don't think that
No, he's not interested in anything except

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himself. Reagan at LEAs he's paid
lip service to the notion of America as

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a democracy, a country with a
constitution that was good, you know.

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And and you know, similarly with
Thatcher, you know, she was accountable.

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And the trouble with Trump and some
extent with Boris Johnson as well,

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is they were refused to be accountable
in their in their personal life and their

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professional life and their political life.
And you know, acting with impunity.

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That's that's fascism. You know,
you can't escape from that. You know,

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that's totalityrorianism. So they're dangerous people
and you're going to have a right

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fight on your hands this year with
the election, I think, oh,

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I don't even know what to think, except I might be getting a place.

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In the UK. Well, we've
got an election coming up in a

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couple of few weeks now. It's
hopefully well, it looks like Labour are

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going to get in. But whether
they're going to be able to turn things

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around, it's a big it's a
big question, big question, you know.

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And it is interesting what you said, because the fact the matter is

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is one thing I can say at
least Reagan tried to unite the country,

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whereas Trump tries to divide it.
Yeah, you know, and that's the

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oldest trick in the book. I
don't know why we're so stupid. The

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whole world has become stupid that way. It is, Yeah, viization,

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I think unfortunately, because of the
digital nature of discourse as well, it's

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so much easier to just be oppositional
and be angry. Rather, there's not

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much room for nuance on Twitter.
Yeah, that's true. We sound like

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old gezus, don't we see?
No, right, we'll start telling that

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quite the clash are in a minute. You haven't lived until you've seen the

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clash from that. Oh that's great. I love it. But man,

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I love that you're still here rocking
it. We're still doing that. We're

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still here. We're hanging in there. And do you have anything else you

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want to share with the listeners that
we haven't covered yet? Well, just

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really, you know, music is
about bringing people together, yes, about

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empathy. Yeah, any kind of
music, punk music, whatever, music.

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You know, it's all about making
people feel that they're not alone.

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And in a world where so much
does to divide us, to come to

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a gig and sing your favorite song
with a person who wrote it and a

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thousand other people singing it too.
You make you feel like you're not on

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your own. You're not. You
can't get that shit online. So you

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know, as long as people need
that, there'll be space for festivals like

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this and music to bring people together. And so you know, I'm a

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proof of that. I've been coming
to America for forty years. Fortunately I

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am that people still give a shit
about what I have to say and what

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records I make. So you know, I think you just have to tell

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people to keep on keeping on,
and eventually they'll they'll find a way.

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I think it's because you're real,
because you're a musician, or you're very

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kind. I'm barely a musician.
I'm just about I'm a rhythm guitar player

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in a punk band without a punk
band. But yeah, thank you.

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Well, you know, after forty
years, you might have learned the instrument,

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you might not have known it.
We'll find it about an hour,

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I will say that far. I've
got looking forward to it me too.

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Thanks a lot for being here at
Punk Rock Ball. Thanks for being on

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the Adventures of Paintment. My pleasure. Great to be here. Thanks for

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having us. Man, thank you
for listening to the adventures of Patement.

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I'm w for c u I Radio. Hi, this is Billy Bragg and

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you're listening to pipe Man on Wacky
Wacky's It's W four c y dot com.

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Wacky dot com sound so much better, Man,