{"id":6594,"date":"2025-01-02T19:08:58","date_gmt":"2025-01-02T19:08:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/?p=6594"},"modified":"2025-01-02T19:08:58","modified_gmt":"2025-01-02T19:08:58","slug":"6594-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/?p=6594","title":{"rendered":"RECENT: Interview with John Robb \u2013 Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/a>Interview with John Robb \u2013 Part 1
\nby Killian Laher
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No More Workhorse interviewed John Robb, of the Membranes and the\u00a0Louderthanwar\u00a0website about his latest book,\u00a0The Art of Darkness \u2013 The History Of Goth
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Were you in fact a goth?<\/strong><\/p>\n

John Robb:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay, well I\u2019m not a \u2018joiner\u2019. That\u2019s the thing for anybody who came out of that punk rock generation. You weren\u2019t punk, you weren\u2019t postpunk, you weren\u2019t goth, but you liked all the stuff. The themes of it would totally chime with me. When I was 12 or 13, I was a glam rock kid then. I like punk, I like post-punk and Goth, but the darker stuff has always been very attractive. The thing is, in 79\/80 that scene wasn\u2019t even called Goth anyway. It was called alternative music. It was a bit after punk that didn\u2019t really have a name because I don\u2019t think even at that time people called it post-punk either. These are retrospective terms. So, like all the bands, nobody would call themselves a goth. I suppose the answer is yes and no!<\/p>\n

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Why did none of the bands ever admit to being \u2018goth\u2019?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think because they formed before it was called Goth because it was a retrospective term for a scene that was already there. They didn\u2019t form as goth bands. The Sisters of Mercy formed because Andrew Eldritch was really into the Psychedelic Furs. They formed as a band that was sparked by punk but didn\u2019t really want to be a straight punk band. They were bringing in what he would see as 70s rock influences. But because he\u2019s using a drum machine, they didn\u2019t sound 70s at all. They sounded very modern at that time. If they said they were a goth band, it would look like to them that there was a goth scene and they thought, \u201clet\u2019s form a goth band to get into this scene\u201d. Which is not what any of those bands were thinking. All those bands were sparked by the energy of punk, but they weren\u2019t punk bands. They were trying to do their own vision. It made sense to people who were into darker stuff and post punk, which was what we shorthand term as Goth.<\/p>\n

I think with all kind of musical terms, there were always complications because once you were lumped into a scene, people expect you to obey all the rules, which were obviously stuck on afterwards. You can see why no band wants that at all. But at the same time, it\u2019s a shorthand term for a scene and we all know what it means. The bands are always at great pains to point out they\u2019re not in that scene. But for everyone else, it\u2019s just a quick shorthand way of describing something that took me a quarter million words in the book to describe! People haven\u2019t got all day to describe what they\u2019re into, so we say punk or Goth or mod. It kind of narrows it down a little bit.<\/p>\n

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