A Conversation With Depeche Mode's Justin Rice

A LOOK AT MUSIC

Justin Rice '99

Once in a while the Crimson Arts staff likes to take a step back and give things the old once-over--nothing fancy, nothing haute couture-ish, just straightforward reevaluative rumination. This week, the music, always the music: The Crimson sits down with Justin Rice `99.

The Harvard Crimson: This interview is about music, Justin, but you should feel free to talk about other subjects as you see fit. Does this sound acceptable to you?

Justin Rice: Yes.

THC: I notice you play music.

JR: That's correct.

THC: What sort of music do you like to play?

JR: I like to play music that's quirky and by that I mean rhythmically frantic and sparse.

THC: As a reporter, I listen to the radio sometimes. What do you think of the music on today's Top 40 stations?

JR: I think it's important to listen to Top 40 stations all the time so that you can know what's going on out there in the world. I like Top 40 radio. I like that it's often so saccharine, and it mostly amuses you.

THC: Going back to what you said earlier--that you play music--what instrument do you play?

JR: Guitar, bass, keyboard--mostly guitar. Some drums, too. But mostly guitar.

THC: Do you play in a band? If so, what band? If more than one, please list.

JR: One: Tactic. Two: Depeche Mode. That's it right now, although there have been others in the past.

THC: How do the two bands differ?

JR: One fronts like it's serious, and the other doesn't.

THC: You probably get this a lot, but the name Depeche Mode rings a bell for me.

JR: Yeah, we're pretty famous.

THC: So how did you break into the business of playing in bands? Is there much business? If so, please list.

JR: One day I decided to play in a band. That day I played in a band. No money changed hands. I've heard there's a business out there, but it's largely irrelevant to what I'm doing.

THC: How long do you hope to play like this, Justin?

JR: Like what?

THC: Like, you know, playing in these bands, for fun.

JR: I'll play in these bands for fun until it's time to start new bands. One day I'll wake up and be a rock star.

THC: What sort of guidelines could you give to aspiring rock stars?

JR: Stay in school.

THC: I'll be frank with you, Mr. Rice. A lot of bands these days like to try to be cool. What do you feel about the cult of cool and do you feel it limits expression, personal or music-related?

JR: In many ways, coolness is obsolete. The birth of New Wave in the late seventies means the end of cool, means the end of the particular posturing that defined cool. Cultivated instead is a sort of anti-cool, something that comes along with the anti-rock star. So far from cool that it becomes very much like cool in many ways. The formulation of anti-cool is the inevitable product of rock, in many ways: coolness comes from jazz; it was invented by Miles Davis and perfected by John Coltrane. White people can never really be cool. That's why they invented rock as distinct from blues, as distinct from jazz. Even the coolest white person, say Bob Dylan in 1964 or so, even that guy can't quite get it right.

THC: So what was rock's claim to fame?

JR: Rock 'n roll is the way white people can resist dominant structures. It's a way to imagine and create yourself outside of what created you and to say something in a way that can be subversive. People with no reason to resist imagine a reason and sing it. Which is why even though rock begins white, it spirals out control, becomes desegregated almost immediately.

THC: Is the average listener missing out if they're not conscious of this? Or are they just experiencing it anyway?

JR: In many ways, the average listener experiences it. Any connection to rock is primarily visceral.

THC: Does this make it's worse or better, the way popular music is commercialized? It's like selling sex or something.

JR: Not necessarily worse, not necessarily better. In some ways worse, in some ways better. What I mean: making music a purely or primarily commercial venture co-opts the subversive potential of music. It's the visceral connection that gets sold, not the political one. But you can't just take one without the other; inadvertently, you end up with both. A kid who buys a Sex Pistols record at Blockbuster music still has a Sex Pistols record. It's like selling sex if selling sex also meant selling commentary on sex that forced you to think about how sex functions politically. This is all getting too serious, though. It's like this: rock'n roll is fun for the kids.