{"id":64190,"date":"2020-08-06T09:47:27","date_gmt":"2020-08-06T08:47:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/essentiallypop.com\/epop\/?p=64190"},"modified":"2020-08-06T18:10:29","modified_gmt":"2020-08-06T17:10:29","slug":"interview-with-paranoid-visions-guitarist-peter-jones-on-anarchy-ireland-and-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/essentiallypop.com\/epop\/2020\/08\/interview-with-paranoid-visions-guitarist-peter-jones-on-anarchy-ireland-and-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"PHARMAGEDDON – Paranoid Visions’ Peter Jones On Anarchy, Irish Punk And COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dublin’s longest surviving punk band, Paranoid Visions <\/strong>formed in the Irish capital in 1981.<\/h4>\n

Influenced by UK anarcho-punks like Crass <\/strong>and Flux of Pink Indians – <\/strong>they operate outside the mainstream music industry, releasing music under their own label FOAD <\/strong>(Fuck Off And Die).<\/h4>\n

Having overcome splits and line-up changes over the years, they’ve been tapping a rich creative vein in the wake of the Missing In Action\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>EP in 2007.<\/p>\n

Musically diverse and politically active, they’ve also not been afraid to ruffle the feathers of Irish rock royalty, launching a “Fuck Off And Die U2” campaign in 1987.<\/p>\n

The band released a Bono-<\/strong>bating EP, I Will Wallow<\/strong><\/em> parodying U2’s album Boy<\/strong><\/em> and single I Will Follow<\/strong>.<\/em><\/sup><\/p>\n

To celebrate their 40th anniversary, PV announccd an ambitious plan to release a series of five box set albums, every three to six months.<\/p>\n

But then COVID-19 got in the way and screwed up the timing a bit.<\/p>\n

Not that the band were held up for long.<\/p>\n

Working in isolation, they recorded their parts to four new tracks on their home computers, mixing them together with the aid of producer Niall Daly<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The new songs all tackle various aspects of the pandemic and are included in the box set Corona-Verse Reality, <\/b><\/em>complete with a 56-page book of poetry and lyrics an art print and lyric sheet.<\/p>\n

To mark the release\u00a0Matt Catchpole\u00a0<\/strong>caught up with the band’s founding member and guitarist Peter Jones\u00a0<\/strong>(aka\u00a0PA System<\/strong>), to see how he’s coping with life under lockdown.<\/p>\n

Eloquent and humorous, Jones outlined the band’s alternative world view, his cunning and successful assault on the Irish charts and fruitful collaboration with\u00a0 Steve Ignorant <\/strong>of Crass<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Paranoid Visions -with founding members Peter Jones and vocalist Deko (left and 2nd left)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A group named Paranoid Visions seems ideally suited for the Covid-19 pandemic – what made you <\/strong>decide to tackle the outbreak head on with this release?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was an obvious thing really. The outbreak is clearly one of the more serious issues we have witnessed in living memory, I can\u2019t imagine what the death toll or infection rate would have been without the strict measures that were taken. We were all in a state of flux and unprepared for the days and weeks (and months) ahead, so we thought it would be best to complete the record, while on lockdown and see what we could come up with from scratch to complement the material already completed for side one.<\/p>\n

Then the whole thing took on a life of its own –\u00a0 a revised title (it was originally Converse Reality<\/strong><\/em>) and a full book of new poems written during and about the pandemic. So we wanted to get a feeling of our optimism and refusal to let the lack of gigs and human contact ruin our creativity!<\/p>\n

Do you think in some ways the outbreak has been a metaphor for the restrictions that governments impose on us and that we sometimes impose on ourselves?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not really. I think that, for once, everyone is on a level playing field. That means people AND countries. So steps were taken that would likely have been ignored if there was a \u20ac10,000 per pill cure. I do think that all areas of society have felt a sense of their own mortality though and that we should all accept that the driving force of life on this planet is not a government, but nature. We need to realise that we are fragile and are only borrowing this Earth.<\/p>\n

What has your lockdown experience been like?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Weird. On the plus side: I completed, published and sold out a book. We completed, mixed, created artwork for, pressed and released a record. I kept my head above water workwise. I spent valuable time with family and value my friends a bit more.<\/p>\n

On the down side. I got increasingly frustrated with idiots on the internet. I drank FAR too much and I missed gigs!<\/p>\n

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Dublin Up – Aoife Destruction and Deko share the mic. Picture by kwkfld Photos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Has the Irish government made a better fist of dealing with the virus than the Brits?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, yes to a certain degree. The truth is that the Irish government, or more’s the point the chief medical officer, followed the guidelines and strategies that Italy and Spain and China had adopted after their earlier infections. I firmly believe that {chief adviser to Boris Johnson Dominic} Cummings thought he knew better than the medical experts, because he had published papers on Corona viruses – the likes of which we witness every year – but this particular COVID strain is new and not yet understood. So his papers were worthless, and his knowledge was nonsense.\u00a0 His arrogance and the blind ignorance of\u00a0 Johnson – who could only see a Brexit-styled \u201cWe are better than the EU and can go it alone\u201d attitude – was way off the mark. They believed herd immunity was the way forward, but it clearly was a different beast than they thought.<\/p>\n

Did you ever dream the band would still be going after all this time?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not a chance! We were taking it week by week! Its just happened that way, partly helped by being based here. There’s no overexposure to gigs to get bored with. I always get a laugh out of Ian Glaspe<\/a>r<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/span>‘s books where a band talks about the hardships they had: \u201cWe did our first gig after one rehearsal\u201d, \u201cwe used to carry the drumkit in a shipping trolley to the garage where we rehearsed,\u201d \u201cwe all met a a Crass gig\u201d-\u00a0 Fucking luxury! Everything has been a struggle, so it’s been fun kicking against the pricks for 40 years!<\/p>\n

When you started out as a band, Thatcher and Reagan were in power, now we have <\/strong>Trump and Johnson – does it feel like things are as bad as ever?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s worse! Thatcher was a seriously evil bitch, callous, cold, heartless – but she was open about it. There were no popularity contests to win in the ’70s, there was no social media influencing. So Johnson to me seems like a very very dangerous man. He is underhand in the worst way, he is a talentless politician who only believes in the interests of the few, but people – more than\u00a0 50% of them at least – have voted for him as a leader. People have bought into lies and conjecture and have voted themselves into a potential recession.\u00a0 At least with Thatcher everyone she shat on, knew they were being shat on. Can you imagine the working class voting for that monster?<\/p>\n

I see American politics slightly differently. After the optimism of Obama its returned to the cult of personality that started with Reagan. Clueless puppets, self serving fools putting a face on backdoor politricks. Both vile creatures. Trump is a bit worse though as I don\u2019t think anyone at all believed he was as genuinely unhinged as he is.<\/p>\n

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Corona-verse box set art print<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This release is part of a series of box sets to mark your 40th anniversary, h<\/strong>ow do you think your musical style has changed over the years?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It hasn\u2019t really changed as we have always been very eclectic. Our style is that we have no style! The line up we have held for the past seven years though is the best we have ever had both musically and personally. We don\u2019t have any limitations, so our exploring of new sounds is easier to achieve.<\/p>\n

What about your thinking? The band espoused an anarchist viewpoint in your early days – do you still believe in that as a viable system?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I can only speak personally about this. For me, an anarchist attitude was living your life using your own moral compass and trying to treat everyone with the respect they deserve on your own terms. For example, I wouldn\u2019t break into someone’s house, because I personally feel that is the wrong thing to do, not because it’s illegal to do so. I have always believed that if individuals all held themselves accountable and operated with a passive, respectful and autonomous lifestyle, then the world would be a better place. Theoretically if we all felt that way then there would be no need for a government or laws, but that\u2019s a situation that is unobtainable, so really it’s as Flux said: \u201cStrive, survive, causing the least suffering possible\u201d.<\/p>\n

Did you always set out to be outside convention, a kind of anti-band if you like?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No it was never contrived like that or was never a conscious decision to operate outside the norms of the musical industry. It’s just the way were are built. It’s in the psyche. The staunch DIY ethos that we utilise is not used as a label or as a mantra, it’s just the way we do things and will always continue to do so. There are a lot of bands who claim DIY status, but DBSE is more appropriate – Done By Someone Else.<\/p>\n

What first made you decide to try and form a band?<\/strong><\/p>\n

For me, it was because I just wanted to play music. I loved the creative side of designing, writing and playing, so I HAD to form or join a band. One of the principal catalysts was the {Crass} album Bullshit Detector – <\/strong><\/em>here was a collection of people, who for the most part had no musical talent whatsoever and were making a horrific racket. Yet what they were doing was as relevant to me as a Clash<\/strong> record. I now knew it was within my grasp to do something like this. The final piece of the jigsaw fell into place when I went to see Poison Girls<\/strong> in Dublin. I met the band and Richard Famous<\/strong> had a lovely conversation with me about playing and said I should keep trying as there\u2019s nothing in the world that compares to getting in a room with likeminded people and making music.<\/p>\n

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Deko – ‘he may have looked mental, but he was a decent character’<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Was it tough to get gigs during the showbands era?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first wave of punk here did one good thing, it opened the pubs and clubs to the idea of young bands playing gigs rather than showbands in dancehalls. The death of a young punk at a Radiators<\/strong> gig put a stop to punk gigs for the most part, but we all still tried to muddle along and convince pubs to let us play. {frontman and founding member} Deko was always a master at this, it’s weird, but every old person who ran a bar thought he was wonderful and would always end up letting us use their function room. I think he came across as a bright young man who may have looked mental, but was a decent character. They assumed that the rest of the punks were the same, and they also knew that bar takings would be sky high. So we got to play in a few venues, but once trouble started we found it pretty hard to get a gig put on.<\/p>\n

We promoted our own shows from the beginning, but there was a period of about 18 months where the only shows we could get were at Battle of the Bands competitions. We usually came second in those,\u00a0 because even though we got the best reaction (50 starved for entertainment punks descending into a basement where a load of shit pop bands were making an effort), but we weren\u2019t very good, so winning a competition against someone like Sinead O\u2019Connor<\/strong>\u00a0wasn\u2019t the correct political choice!<\/p>\n

Did you ever experience any dangerous moments as a young punk at the time?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gigs were always a dangerous thing. We had a lot of violence that would usually break out as soon as we stopped playing. We were usually the headline band, even at the early stages, so by the time we were on, everyone was pissed and often those who discovered over the following few years that alcohol didn\u2019t suit them, would get aggressive. So when everyone starts jumping around and beer gets spilled etc, as soon as the music stopped, a fight broke out.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why we still, to this day, run the first three or four songs in the set into one – that way we were guaranteed to get our best few songs heard before the police got called.<\/p>\n

Was it the difficulty in getting gigs that prompted you to take things inhouse and Do It <\/strong>Yourself?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was difficult getting gigs, but the DIY thing was the only way we looked at doing things. We never considered asking other people for gigs or getting other people to set things up for us.<\/p>\n