JAHWOBBLE Being mostly known as a bass player of Public Image Ltd, JahWobble remained a mythical character for most of his fans. He left the band after the release of one of the biggest musical masterpieces of the XX century… Metal Box. We sat down with Jah Wobble discussing overthinking of “Metal Box” and artistic expression, about painting and post-punk, various meanings of what dub is culture, drum and bass and music of the East. Cleopatra Records just released “Metal Box–Rebuilt In Dub”, which is the reason why we’re talking today, John. A fewyears ago you and Keith Levene ( Hi, Keith!) did a series of performances titled “Metal Box In Dub”–what made you get back to this record now? Em…Well. It’s not a sudden decision! I’ve been playing some of the old Public Image [Ltd] songs with my group. With Invaders Of The Heart.And we do different versions. A bit different to quite a lot of new versions of Rebuilt in Dub. But it got strings! We use strings and we have a lot more dynamic tension with the bass and drum patterns…It’s quite [like] Messian in a way. The liveversion we do. So that’s a very highlighted harmonic. I think, [it’s like] being able to go back in time to re-live your youth. Not to criticize the original versions! But to work with them again and bring a little bit of a mature attitude. An old man's variation of this.We already did a version of “Public Image” for Cherry Red Records a few years ago.We made it more minor-key.And [with] backing vocals on the stuff.So,we had a fewdifferent runs on this. Cleopatra approached this. I think they were surprised! I think they thought it would be a hard thing to do. [But] I was like: “Let’s do this! It’s time for me!”. I’m doing a thing in London called “Tuned In” which is a community-based project. I do that with the guy called Jon Klein, the guitarist. John and I are friends.We were working because the pandemic happened. We had to work on Zoom like this.With the classes,with the people.Some people could deal with these issues.And some couldn’t. So, it was kind of difficult.But it was good!We did a lot of recordings! Jon was themost fantastic person for me to say: “Listen,I’d redo Metal Box!”. We already talked a lot about post-punk styles. John was in Siouxsie and The Banshees. We had these conversations all the time. So, it was like a perfect time. And I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to do with a few of the tracks. I sat down with a keyboard.Made backing tracks. Sat down with a keyboard. And just worked very simple,thematic atmospheric things over.Put some changes. Some modulations. “Albatross” and “Poptones” were particularly the first two tracks. I think, Jon was a little bit: “Em…That’s too easy!” and I said: “No! This gonna work! Believe me! And this is how it was!” www.peek-a-boo-magazine.be - 10 - © Ali Catterall One of the things that certainly attracts attention is the fact that you not only took the majority of the songs from Metal Box but also added Public Image and Fodderstompf… I was thinking…I wanna make an album. Obviously as a kind of homage to Metal Box.But I really like some of the tracks of the first album. Very much. The theme is fantastic.And Annalisa.Those two could have easilymade the cut. But when I was thinking about them, the feeling I had with the original tracks was: “I don’t know. I don’t want to mess with this!” – somehow, with Theme. It was just the feeling! What was in Theme that didn’t make it work? It has a great harmonic in there…But would you put strings there? Hmmm…It won’t necessarily work. You could do something good. But I just felt [like] you start getting into a pointless cover-versions. [Which is] what I wanted to avoid. I’d rather annoy people! And they’d say: “Fuck off! What you’ve done is fucking ridiculous!” – rather people say that. So, I did was something…A little bit challenging,maybe. Why didn’t you choose songs like “Bad Baby”, for example, and took these instead? The way the album was flowing in my head was: “I don’t necessarily need that!”. “Annalisa” – that was even a harder decision. ‘Cause, it’s just the great track! “Metal Box” – I think “No Birds” was difficult. That would have been a great track to add on there. Somehow, with the way it all developed, it felt like those ten tracks I chose seemed correct. Seemed right. And it flowed. And of course, a lot of those tracks were instrumentals. So they
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