Tamil Nadu's most wanted.
As you may have read, the Black Lips recently ran into a bit of trouble in a certain subcontinent. For those of you rapt in fantasies of stolen passports and tawdry Indian prison sex, we just talked to the guys at their safehouse in Germany. They're OK now, but only after living through their own punk version of Midnight Run with shady Indian tour promoters taking the place of Turkish customs. Considering the Iranian-level shitstorm that occurred when Richard Gere was broadcast kissing an Indian woman on the cheek, we think it's a miracle the band got out of that country's equivalent of the Bible Belt without being hauled off to rot in some bug-infested sweatbox. Or maybe just really really good karma. Read below for Das Skoop.
Vice: So you guys made it out all right? When we got your last letter it seemed like you were one cop away from getting thrown in the black hole of Calcutta.
Joe Bradley (drums, van): They're all black holes over there. They weren't ready for us, or maybe just not the people who set up the tour.
Where are you guys holed up right now?
We're at King Khan's house in Berlin. We caught the next flight outta there as soon as the shit hit the fan. Like, we literally left Chennai at 2:30 in the morning and drove 10 hours to Bangalore.
What happened in Chennai?
Well, we hadn't had a chance to get even the slightest bit drunk the entire time we were in India, so Jared bought a bunch of whisky before the show. The venue was some weird, shitty auditorium at a college. Things were uncomfortable to begin with; no eating inside, no smoking outside or anywhere really. The show was sponsered by Nokia, Honda, and VH1 and they had these crappy production projections on advert screens on either side of the stage. The college had these wireless mics though, so Jared got jazzed up on whisky and started pumping up the crowd by cursing at them, getting them to repeat things like "When I say 'weak-ass', you say 'bitch'! Weak ass?" "BITCH!" "Weak ass?" "BITCH!" The crowd was eating it up but I think we only ended up playing like, seven songs. Eventually things got really energetic and Cole mooned the crowd then proceeded to kiss Ian while Jared continued ramping up the crowd, which eventually led to him taking a running dive into the audience. Really, our tour manager was the only one freaking out. No one tried to put a stop to the show. We even told the crowd "Remember! there's only four of them (security) and 150 of you."
Nice.
We tried to get everyone on stage too, but they weren't too happy about that either. In any case, everyone was into it except our manager and his production company Only Much Louder—which I will go on record suggesting that no band go through for a tour. I haven't been on such a disorganized and disfunctional tour in a long time, though in their defense, they are one of the first independent, non-Bollywood promoters in India. But they've got a lot to learn about the biz, like getting contracts from your sponsors and such.
Yeah, that seems pretty fundamental. Do you think that's just India, or you just got a bum deal?
I'm sure metal bands, hardcore bands, nu-metal bands, and crap-pop like Creed would do just fine. I would like to think there are punk kids there. There must be. It's a country of 1.3 billion people. We heard about a punk band called Tripwire that kinda sounds like the Ramones but we didn't get a chance to check them out. It must exist somewhere in India though. It's not possible they missed out on 40 years worth of Western music.
No joke. How were the rest of the shows? Pitchfork claimed you were "visibly shaken" after one where people threw bottles at you.
We're not concerned with plastic bottles, it was more the scene at the show. It was in the middle of this dirt field and then all of a sudden you see plush green grass and a red carpet and all this sponsorship bullshit everywhere. There was even some family living in a shack close to the backstage.
Ian and Jared had to stay there to judge the "competition," which consisted mostly of metal bands and alterna-rock. Imagine an audience member sitting through six hours of that and then having to listen to us, something completely different.
Were they into it or just like fed up with all the junk-rock?
Oh no, kids were moshing and dancing. There's footage of it on its way to you guys right now.
That sounds awesome, but was it that weird sort of jock-moshing, where it's slightly too aggressive and nowhere near in sync with the music?
Basically yeah. The dudes kinda just run into each other, like how jocks bump chests.
So what happened after the show with your passports?
Well, our tour manager came up to the hotel room and grabbed his luggage (this was after hours of arguing with him about the lost money from the rest of the dates and how they were going to recover it) and he said, "I'm going to go hang out downstairs for a while." We left the room to shoot some stuff outside for VBS and Cole starting to get a little sketched out about his passport, so we went to the reception desk to get our passports and they told us they had already been collected by our tour manager. I saw him standing outside with this unknown third man and when we approached him for our passports he said, "Oh, they're in this car." They were locked in a car outside and the tour manager was about to leave with this third-party guy who apparently worked with Only Much Louder productions as their "accountant."
Jesus.
So, Rob from VBS bucked up on him and all of us surrounded the car and got our passports back. He got up in his face and was like, "Are you a lawyer? No? Then shut the fuck up. This is only between us and [president of Only Much Louder] Vijay Nair, and you are not him. Now give me my fucking passport."
He also said, "I'm not saying this to be a dickhead American but if you want to get into a legal battle over this, we will crush you. Their lawyer is Britney Spears's lawyer. You can't match that!"
Good one.
Now, one might dismiss this as an ordinary miscommunication, but minutes later, we had a phone conversation with Vijay about the money and out of nowhere, third-party accountant man mentions to Vijay, "We gave them their passports back." Which would lead us to believe a scheme had been hatched.
Wow, no joke.
I confronted them about it and why he would have made such a statement. Of course, he denied everything and assured me that "If we wanted to take your passports, we would have done it a long time ago. This is OUR country." He refused to admit that Vijay Nair at Only Much Louder Productions had anything to do with our passports being locked in a car outside, even know he had just informed him that he gave us our passports back. We knew we had to get outta of there as soon as possible. They tried to say we owed them $10,000 at first and finally after hours of having to sit with this third-party accountant guy and our tour manager, going over receipts, the actual number came out to around $3,000. But, in fact, we don't owe them anything because there was no contract.
That's unreal. So was it them who threatened you guys with jail or the cops?
They were paranoid about the Tamil police. I suppose it's a more conservative part of the country.They kept saying if it had happened in Delhi it would have not been such a big deal, but since we were in Chennai they told us that if anyone filed a complaint with the police the festival people would inform the authorities of our location and it would have been about a week dealing with jails and embassies and so on. It's really hard to say what was going on, it certainly wasn't a calm atmosphere. I would like to think that we would have been OK in Chennai and we could have gone on to finish the shows in Calcutta the next day, but the company was so paranoid they booked us overnight cars to drive out of the state. Who knows what the right decision was. Either way, we're outta harm's way now. We were so happy to arrive in Germany, you have no idea
I'd probably be kissing the tarmac after all that.
Basically, yeah
CRAP R. PORTER
Photo by Nick Gazin.
i was wondering when we'd get the real story on this. glad everybody got out without jailtime in what i'm sure would have been very, very shitty conditions. i really hope it was all captured on film.
Posted by: lowbrow | 26/01/2009 at 23:34
berlin with king khan sounds way more fun to me anyways. oh well, i guess there won't be another american band in india for a while. at least you made your mark.
Posted by: christian | 26/01/2009 at 23:48
why anyone would subject themselves to an 8 hour battle of the bands is a mystery to me. black lips or not, i couldn't take it.
Posted by: buried alive | 26/01/2009 at 23:58
of course whiskey is involved...
Posted by: sang | 27/01/2009 at 00:25
So, now the Black Lips can't tour in Canada or India. That is what we call a "career ender."
Posted by: thursty4moore | 27/01/2009 at 01:48
Wow, it just now occurred to me that Vice Magazine is associated with Vice Records. At least I'm cute..
Posted by: pmw | 27/01/2009 at 02:12
Of course, thursty, scandal never helped anyone's career!
Posted by: pmw | 27/01/2009 at 02:18
Black Lips are bogus
Posted by: | 27/01/2009 at 03:06
ooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!
Posted by: short | 27/01/2009 at 04:01
black lips booked the wrong show.
same thing would happen in the US.
imagine if surfjan headlined a slayer show.
theyre morons for getting drunk and naked.
stoopid hispsters have no brains.
Posted by: bahl | 27/01/2009 at 06:13
Rock and fucking roll.
Posted by: Hutch | 27/01/2009 at 07:12
Hey, where will you guys hang out in Berlin? any clubs or venue you will make an appearance to apart from the gig in Kreuzberg?
Danke schön!
Posted by: Noé | 27/01/2009 at 10:48
Black Lips, you stupid hipster jackasses. You deserve everything you got. When you're in another country, you're stupid hipster sensibilities do not apply. Why not go to Singapore and start vandalizing the venue? See how that works out for you. Did you even bother to check to see if your jackass antics would be ok in that country? Btw, your music sucks anyways. Do you think bands like TV/Radio, Interpol, An Collective etc would have a similar problem? No. Why? Because they're a bunch a white trash jackasses.
Posted by: AMD | 27/01/2009 at 15:16
Who the fuck is An Collective? All these comments from pitchfork readers are weird.
Posted by: ... | 27/01/2009 at 15:57
AMD, try reading the interview. They didn't get in trouble with the cops or the audience - by all accounts the kids loved it. They had a shitty manager who filled them with the fear and tried to kidnap their passports. And seriously, TV/Radio? Do you even like music?
Posted by: Dingo, Dingus | 27/01/2009 at 16:01
That's what you get for whoring yourselves out to all those big Brand-sponosored shows. Why the fuck were they even playing a Nokia battle of the bands in India? What do you expect?
Posted by: | 27/01/2009 at 19:27
i guess the comments are so bad because pitchfork doesn't let you spout your stupid opinions (they have enough of their own).
Posted by: | 27/01/2009 at 20:13
Having spent the summer in southern India (Kerala, Tamil Nadu's neighbor), I can vouch for the conservativism of that area. I'm trying to imagine a show like this going down in that region, and how the people would react. I'm sure every Indian person involved with putting that show on were scared shitless about the cops stepping in, and it makes perfect sense that they were trying to get so much money from the band (cuz it's pretty easy to pay off the cops around there if you have enough money).
Southern India is a beautiful and wonderful place, but they made the right decision to get the fuck out. It was probably the wrong decision to moon the crowd, kiss a bandmate (homosexuality is basically illegal in India), and incite the crowd, but hey, that's rock n roll!
Posted by: Randy | 27/01/2009 at 21:59
Dingo fuck off. TV/Radio is a great band you moron.
Posted by: | 27/01/2009 at 22:03
If disliking third-rate doo-wop by the whitest bunch of blacks this side of the white house makes one a moron, then you can call me Corky.
Posted by: Ding Dang Doodle | 27/01/2009 at 22:34
I really hope someone starts a band called TV/Radio after reading these comments.
Posted by: Randy | 27/01/2009 at 22:39
I loathe tv on the radio but I'm sure tv/radio would be great.
Posted by: jols | 27/01/2009 at 23:54
Ace stuff, im hoping theirs going to be some raucous proceedings when I see them at islington acadamy in a few weeks! looking forward to it. Ive even been growing my tache......
Posted by: Justin | 28/01/2009 at 12:21
HONORARY REVERSED MOUSTACHES from me to the dudes,
http://reversemoustache.com/?p=277
http://reversemoustache.com/?p=280
Posted by: bob | 28/01/2009 at 17:21
ha, you gotta love em! proper cant wait to see them live in feb at islington academy too...new album aswell out soon, but not soon enough!
Posted by: Chrissy | 30/01/2009 at 15:58