Lessons in Cultural Interests with Bedouin Soundclash: A Conversation with Jay Malinowski, Eon Sinclair and Pat Pengelly

Last week Bedouin Soundclash surprised the folks of Winnipeg with a MySpace secret show at the historical West End Cultural Centre. I had the chance to catch up with the trio (Jay Malinowski, Eon Sinclair and Pat Pengelly) before the show. It was a nice day out so we elected to chat under the clouds instead of a roof. Things went fairly smoothly, with a few less-than polite fans interrupting us, as well as some MySpace junkies that didn’t even seem to know who they came to see (“Hey, um, you guys are like, um, the band playing tonight? Hey? Are you?”) Needless to say, nothing could have prepared us for the abrupt ending to our fun in the sun, but we’ll get to that later…

Bedouin Soundclash’s latest effort, Street Gospels, while still keeping its reggae roots, shows a distinctly soulful influence. Having recently done a last minute tour with Ben Harper some might assume that he had something to do with the new sound. Those people would be wrong, as Jay tells us.

“A lot of this record was written before the last record came out so I think it’s the direction that we were going in anyway. I think there is a lot more pop on it in that sense. Although I know Ben Harper does have a strong spiritual side, I think in general we were [already] going that way.”

During an interview on Much Music, Eon mentioned that he doesn’t listen to his own music after the recording process is done. Aside from the egotistical implications, he has his own, more logical reasons.

“Typically, after we record the album, I’ll listen to it for a week or two and then I’ll just put it away,” begins Eon, “because we’re playing a lot of the songs and they take a different shape, but also it’s hard to separate yourself from the overall enjoyment of listening to a song that you’ve been a part of. First of all I get drawn instinctively to my own part, and then in that I find things that I would’ve changed or things that I maybe didn’t; then you start over analyzing the music and not accepting it for what it is. I prefer to just play the songs after we finish putting them on record. [That is] where I get a better sense of what’s happening.

With their sophomore record, Sounding a Mosaic, came their first, full-fledged, radio hit single: “When the Night Feels My Song”. All the attention equaled a much larger fan base, with much larger expectations. Did the boys of Bedouin Soundclash feel the need to create more “radio friendly” music?

“Amongst us? No,” answers Eon bluntly. “But the people around you start telling you [that] you need to. It[music]’s product for a lot of people and we’ve never looked at it that way. I don’t think that’s the way that we’ve ever written, thinking that ‘we’ve got to make this sound good on the radio.’ I think by virtue of the fact that we listen to a lot of great songs that have been on the radio, we just take parts of that and it [that song that’s on the radio ] comes out. It’s three and a half minutes long like an old soul song -- most of the songs are like two minutes and thirty seconds -- and its just like ‘boom, boom, boom, first chorus, first chorus’. It’s a simple arrangement but it’s effective and it works.”

Ok, so we all agree that they have some darn catchy, radio ready tunes. But then what of the incredibly gospel, anti-pop, a cappella “Hush”?

Eon explains, “That’s an old Negro spiritual song. It’s been sung in churches for a long time [and] it’s been popularized in movies. The song that follows it, ‘Bells of 59’’ is a song that Jay wrote as a kid to his grandmother -- who passed away -- and they’re [the two songs] actually a pairing. Whenever we play them live we start off with ‘Hush’ and go into ‘Bells of 59’’ to create the effect of taking the sad events and creating a positive; a sad event like a death -- ‘Hush’ is a funeral march, ‘Bells of 59’’ is the celebratory song of the life of that person -- so that’s kind of how it [‘Hush’] fits in there. But again, we’re not making records for radio and for anyone else, so creatively it made sense to put in a song like that -- which will never be on the radio, but is on the album -- because it created flow.”

Clearly doing their own thing, not playing to fit in, there can sometimes be a battle to break through all of the trash surrounding the music industry. With the screamo flavor of the week getting two million page views on MySpace -- claiming to be unique yet being the exact opposite -- some might find it a struggle to get the right kind of attention. Jay believes that it is not up to him to direct the listener, but up to the listener to make smarter decisions.

“We don’t have two million hits on MySpace, so it’s not working out for us,” says Jay jokingly. “We don’t fight it as a band; I don’t think that’s the point. Maybe that’s the listeners’ -- the music fans’ -- battle, but as a musician it’s not really your concern. You’re [the musician] sort of doing your own thing anyway. It’s up to the people; unfortunately the reality of things is that Paris Hilton is not boring, she’s actually considered quite culturally interesting to everyone. She will soon become like Britney Spears -- no one gives a shit about Britney Spears anymore -- but it’s really our own fault [as people]; the majority of us really just find trashy entertainment appealing, and I think that’s the way it will always be. But it’s not up to us; we don’t wake up in the morning and think ‘shit how are we gonna get our MySpace together.’”

As if on cue to Jay’s “trashy entertainment” comments, an old van swerves around the corner with a teenage boy dragging outside the passenger door. When the boy realizes who he has just passed, he manically screams, “BEDOUIN SOUNDCLASH!!!” to which Jay quietly replies, “Stay in the car…” At this we all laugh, and when Jay suggests that, “We’ve got to get out of here before that guy comes over here,” we all happily heed his advice.

Crazed fans being dragged in moving vehicles? Just another day at the office for Bedouin Soundclash. Besides, as Pat pointed out when the topic of Dr. Phil’s guests came up, “It’s fun being better than those guys.” Not to be outdone, Jay smiles, “It’s also fun to make fun of Dr. Phil.”