Hearing, feeling and a vibration in the soul.

Rob Birch, vocalist for the Stereo MCs, talked to us about all things performing, communicating, giving and receiving. Good gigs, good audiences, good music. Enjoy.

We spoke briefly, just after your first outdoor gig, which was sort of like a drive-in.  What was that like?

We got there and the sound check was really good and I really enjoyed it. It was great to be on a stage and I thought – this is going to be really good.  It had been such a long time since we’d played, probably the longest period of no activity for almost twenty years. The sound check was so exciting but the weird thing was that the gig was a real anti-climax.  You knew that there were some people out there, but you couldn’t really see them.  Something in you was trying to reach out to something, but it wasn’t really responding.  It was a mental battle to see if I could get through to the end of the set and still feel – sincere about what I was doing.  I think there’s an audience out there but I don’t know how many there are. I was saying to the people “come on, honk your horns, flash your lights.  Let us know that you’re feeling it.”  I wasn’t really getting a great deal of that.   This knocked my confidence because I just didn’t know what I was dealing with. 

I don’t know what people thought of it. I didn’t really come over the way I wanted to and I don’t really feel I gave my best shot there, at all. I felt that about both of the gigs.  I made mistakes that I never normally make, playing songs that I’ve played for years.  I thought – what’s happened to me here?  Has something happened to me in this weird gap?  It’s like I’ve been taken apart and I’ve put myself back together again.  It’s like I’d been through a time warp and something got into the time machine and isn’t quite right.  I don’t know if it was because we were surrounded by cars.  The sound – it was just different.  How you hear things is really important.  And to a performer how you feel and hear things is very important, because it gives you a vibration.  It lets you know that the energy is right.  All I can think is, when it came to the actual gig, it was just very unnatural.  And, for a band, where you need to connect with people but you’re deprived of all the necessary ways of communicating and visual communication – you couldn’t hear them. 

The audience is the gig.  Without the audience, it’s a rehearsal.  The audience, really, is the concert.  If you’ve got a good audience, it’s going to be a good gig.  Even if you play badly, it will still be a good gig.  Because, if they’re a good audience, they want to get down.  And they’re going to get down.  They haven’t paid they’re money to get in and have a bad night.  They’re going to find a way to have a good time.  You’re just going to have to find a way to bear with it and if you’re feeling a bit rough, just hold tight.  It will be okay.  I just couldn’t figure it out. Maybe I shouldn’t overthink it.

Do you have more of these coming up?

We’re meant to.  Things get put back and put back.  I mean, if they’re not going to allow people into football stadiums til March, I can’t see them allowing gigs.  But, as all the footballers say, how come you’re allowed to go into the pub and watch the game but you can’t come into a stadium?  I mean, that doesn’t make sense to me.  You can sit in a sweaty pub watching a football match but you can’t sit outdoors in the open air watching a game.  I don’t get it.

Did it occur to you that this period of inactivity was going to go on?

In the back of my mind, I tried to be logical about it from what they were saying about the pandemic and how they wanted to handle it. If they don’t want people to get together until they’ve got a vaccine…   who knows how long it could be.  In the front of my mind, I was hopeful and thought – well, we’ve got gigs booked for December, you never know.  But that soon fizzled out – who knows?  They’re saying March, they can go back to football stadiums. Maybe we’ll get some gigs then.  I hope so, because I prefer the little club gigs.  I love doing the little club gigs.  If we can get some more of those, it would be great.  We can get out there playing again.  It is a bit of a drag.  It does take a bit of the purpose out of life…!

So why do you do what you do?

I’ve been enormously fortunate. I left art college – well, photography, film and TV college (well, they kicked me out) - because, really, I wanted to be a musician.  That’s what I wanted to do since I picked up a guitar at the age of twelve.  I’ve never had to have a normal job – a 9-5 – in the whole of my life.  I’ve had ‘jobs’, but it was more cash-in-hand, cloak-and-dagger jobs, where I needed to get some money.  I worked at washing up, demolition, the hotel, cleaning toilets or whatever, cleaning people’s rooms to buy gear and survive.  That was all great motivation for me to want to succeed.  At the back of my mind, I thought, there’s no point going out and trying to get a proper job (not that I could anyway) because you’re just trying to walk it 50/50.  You know, if you really want to do what you want to do, then prepare to be poor. You’re in this place and you’re looking at this disgusting wallpaper, day after day and it motivates you and you go – I’m going to work harder.  I’m going to stop being stoned all day and watching TV and I’m going to get my shit together!  One way or another, I’m going to find a groove where I will, at least, have a journey and not be a sad figure for the rest of his life. It changes you.  I’ve been very lucky because I’ve never had to get a proper job.

I do what I do because I love doing it, making music.  I love that feeling of inspiration when you make something and you think – that’s great, I really love that. Some of the feedback that we’ve had, that I’ve never expected from things that we’ve done, has been unimaginable.  We were sitting in a little flat in Battersea and we’ve recorded this music in our front room that reached all the way across the other side of the world.  This thing that we made here, they listen to it all the way over there.  It affected them.  They got something out of it.  And it made them feel a certain way.  You know, people have said things to me about our music and what it did for them.  That just makes the whole thing worth it.  That’s why you do it.

If I didn’t get up feeling excited about turning on my gear and listening to grooves , then, I’d say I shouldn’t be doing it because I’m not feeling it anymore.  I still feel that feeling.  I’m excited about it and that’s the important thing.  It’s the same thing I was feeling when I was twenty – that excitement about what you’re doing, that excitement for music.

Now, with this forced “break”, what are you creating?  And why?

For a start – we’re running a label (connected), releasing afro-house, somewhere between that and techno.  We release a lot of young artists – it’s quite difficult for musicians these days because you can’t make much money out of producing music.  The input of music has been enormous over lockdown.  We’ve had more releases on our label than we’ve ever had.  We were almost putting out a track every week. I don’t think people’s creative output has been stunted by any of this.   You make music because you live in the world and this creative energy needs an outlet.  That’s why you’re a musician.  Over time you might find that you’re making different sounding music or maybe you feel that your purpose within this role has changed slightly. It’s the belief that good music will last.  People are still going to play it.  People will still stream it.  People will still buy it.  

It’s a weird time.  You have to maintain your mental strength and mental shape.  If you’re not surrounded by a little community of like-minded people where you can all thrive off of each other’s buzz, it can be a little tricky and you can start to go a bit – your envelope starts to shift.  It’s a bit odd out there.

I live out on the coast – I’m pretty much on my own here apart from when my kids stay.  It can be pretty weird, being on your own and not really talking to anybody for a few days.  You do start to feel like ‘this is a bit odd.  I’m feeling a bit weird about this’.  There are periods where you have a really good creative streak and it’s important to stay on it.  If you come off it, you start to think about stuff and it’s not healthy.  I try to look at it as – I’ve been given this time to try to develop myself.  A lot of positive things have come out of this. 

What would you do if you couldn’t do what you do?

That’s a weird question.  I’ve never really entertained that concept to be honest.  I’ve always winged it through life.  My partner in music is very together and it allows me to not be together.  To a degree.  I need to not be together.  A little bit.  I need to have a non-schedule.  I like to be able to go – ooh!  I’ve got a feeling about something – rather than feel like I’m slaving away at something, like a job.  I want to make music when I feel like making music.

You talked about never having a “proper job”.

I say “proper job” because that’s how it’s always been put to me.  People look at it and they think you’ve got a breeze of a life.  I’m not knocking my life.  I think it’s a great life and I’m grateful for it but it does have its ups and downs.  It doesn’t mean you don’t work hard. I work as hard as anybody.  I think, if I couldn’t do this, I’d like to teach somebody. I don’t have any degrees in anything, I don’t have a musical education.  I can’t really play an instrument apart from guitar.  I use all these instruments and I know how to get things out of them, but I couldn’t play somebody else’s song.  I’m not that sort of a musician.  I’m right down at the basic element of music where I want to make something and I figure out a way to make it.  So, I don’t know how I could teach anybody anything, but if there was anything out of my experience, I could teach, I would like to be able to give it to somebody.

If another opportunity to do a drive-in- gig came up, would you do it?

Initially, I thought, you’ve got to be very grateful for any gigs at all.  If everybody else said – yeah, let’s do it! – maybe I would, because I want everybody to be all right and everybody needs a gig. All the back line guys, the others in the band – everybody needs to do something.  And some people are having it harder than others – not just financially but mentally.

I’d still probably do it again.  In a way, it’s feels like something I want to conquer.  I’d like to beat this.  Maybe it’s a mindset that I’d like to figure out. I need to figure out how to use any skills that I might have got over the years from performing and navigate through those channels. For me, it was un-navigated territory (a drive-in concert).  

If we had another opportunity at it, I’d probably take a far more meditative view and concern myself more with my own performance and not worry so much about the audience.  The more I tried to draw people in, it almost had the opposite effect.  It’s as if I was treading on ground that was a little bit sensitive.   Normally I like to talk to people when we’re playing.

So – who are you?

Now?

Who were you – before lockdown? And who are you now?

It’s an emotional question.  I can’t help feeling that I’m a different person.  I feel a bit like I’m a Rubik’s cube that was taken apart and then put back together. I’m feeling a bit different. I’m still essentially the person that I was.  But I strive to be Rob B The Man on the Mic.  As long as I still have my marbles, I will strive to be that person.  I’ll come down and I’ll turn on my gear.  And I’ll try to get down into something.  Life has been difficult.  For many people, for many different reasons.  Some people have problems which are – BANG – right in front of their face.  My problems have been different.  Lockdown left me no room to escape from them.  Normal, pre-lockdown would have allowed me to escape them.  This dark cloud rested over the mountain and, unfortunately (or – fortunately) wouldn’t go away.  

It’s a time to look deep into yourself.  What can you do?  You either give into all of this or you look deep. Try to find that bit of compassion for yourself and people around you.  There’s not much you can do about anything else.  What will be there for you at the end?  That thing you’ve got inside yourself.  And that little moment in time which is the present, will be there with you at the end. 

Right now, I’m trying to live in the present.  I’m trying to be present-moment-Rob. I guess I’ll figure that one out.