Derin Sular

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I interviewed Justin Sullivan of New Model Army right before the band’s Vancouver show at The Rickshaw on October 8th, 2009. The interview took place inside the band’s tour bus, since the vehicle seemed to be the only quiet place around. Within the 45-minute interview, Sullivan talked about a wide range of issues, including but not limited to (1) the way the band writes music, (2) the relations between the West and the Muslims in the post-9/11 world, (3) the Ani Ruins in Kars, (4) the Turkish political culture, and (5) Turkey in general. Furthermore, he once again amazed me with his humility – visible not only in his words but also in his manners in general.

Serdar Kaya: Let’s get started… You once said in an interview, June 18th, 2001…

Justin Sullivan: … oh, never quote me, I always forget, but go on, what did I say?

S.K.: Let me try… “If you’re prepared to follow a band who do not belong to any musical category, and are largely ignored by the media, then you already have an independent mind.” Do you deny that?

Justin Sullivan: No, I probably said something like that.

S.K.: OK. This is actually quite flattering for us fans, but how would you compare the American and the European audiences in that sense? Because, it is very common to direct negative comments to the American audience in that regard. I remember Scott Ian of Anthrax being really pissed off on that very same issue some years ago. He was talking about how Europeans would buy an album just because its cover looked cool, meaning they are more likely to want to explore.

Justin Sullivan: I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t think there’s a huge difference between people. There’s something in American culture which is a bit homogenized. People always ask what I think our audience is [like]. And I talk to other singers, and they always talk about “the audience” – singular. And I never really think of it like that. I think that it doesn’t really matter if there’s 50 people in a club or 100.000 people. To me, they are all individuals, and they have all got different reasons for wanting be there, and we’ve got different needs from the music, and they’ve all got different things they like about the music, and they’ve all got very different lives. I never generalize about audiences.

I know that, to some people, the words that I have written over the years are kind of like something they follow really closely. I also know there’s people in parts of the world, where people don’t speak English, they love the band, they don’t understand a word I’m singing. They love the band. They love the feeling and the music. And they don’t understand a word. That’s fine by me too…

S.K.: I would accept that for myself. Because, when I’m in a concert, I don’t usually react to the music the way people around me do. I just don’t like to jump and do stuff like that. I just pay attention to the music, and try to feel it inside of me.

Justin Sullivan: I judge what’s going on in a gig not by how much people clap, or how much noise they make, how much they dance, it’s just the look in the eye. You know, people have dead eyes or alive eyes. If we play a gig, and at the end, half the people still have dead eyes, then we failed. To me that’s a failure.

S.K.: I don’t think that happens a lot to New Model Army.

Justin Sullivan: Not often.

“There is a Process You Go Through When You Lose an Empire”

S.K.: I heard you more than once talking about how storytelling is one of the oldest human activities. But communication is a two-way process, and communicating through music makes it all the more complicated. Because, the story you are trying to tell or the feeling you’re trying to convey in a song can very well be perceived in different ways by the people who listen to it. For example, the song ‘Higher Wall’ is probably about immigration, but especially its concluding sentences always remind me of the nationalist/secularist official ideology of Turkey, and how it tries to constrain the behavior of the country’s citizens. Do you think that happens a lot? Do people receive your messages in their own subjective ways – even being aware of the fact that they are bending the original meaning?

Justin Sullivan: Yeah, it’s kind of why I said in the beginning that everybody’s view is subjective. I mean “everybody.” And when I write something, as soon as it’s released it’s public property, and people can take from it whatever they like. That’s the nature of all art. As soon as it’s out there, it’s public property. People can take from it, read into it, hear it, take the story whatever way they like…

S.K.: Did you experience a lot of people talking to you about NMA songs only to make you realize that they put totally different meanings to the songs than what you had in mind when writing them?

Justin Sullivan: Yeah, possibly. But that’s kind of all right for me, I don’t really…

S.K.: … care what people make of it?

Justin Sullivan: I don’t assume the right to control what people make of it. Do I care what they make of it? Well, I suppose so, but… It’s interesting what you said about Turkey though… I suppose that every country is always a result of its own history, and Turkey is still very conscious of 1918-1920. Because, it’s not very long ago. But gradually, that will fade, and the Turkish people will become more confident in the idea of Turkey. Think of what happened in 1918-1920… All these foreign powers are waiting to take bits of Turkey. So there is this part of Turkish national identity which is basically paranoid, and I think this will lessen as the years go by…

S.K.: It is…

Justin Sullivan: It is lessening?

S.K.: Yes.

Justin Sullivan: And the Turks are more confident in Turkey?

S.K.: I wouldn’t say “Turks.” I wouldn’t generalize. But a portion of the population is raising different kinds of questions.

Justin Sullivan: Yeah, I’ve seen a complete change in the 30 years we’ve been playing in Germany. The young people we were playing to in the 1980s would adopt British culture, or Irish folk culture, or South American folk culture; but anything except German folk culture. Because, they were terrified of German folk culture – since the German folk culture had been co-opted by Hitler, and the Nazi, the fascist thing. But now, we’re far enough away from the Second World War, for instance; far enough away from Hitler. We’re two three generations away from both. Young people in Germany are no longer scared about German culture – which is a good thing. If you have a kind of paranoia built into your history and stuff, this eventually subsides.

S.K.: I subscribe to that view actually, the historical process is a primary determinant.

Justin Sullivan: Yes, it is a historical process. Interestingly, Turkey lost an empire, and there is a process you go through when you lose an empire. Now Britain is kind of the same thing. It’s going through that process. And America, it’s just gonna start, shortly…

S.K.: I was just about to say that!

Justin Sullivan: It’s a natural process. You know everybody had an empire at one point. F**king Lithuania had an empire, you know. Armenia had an empire. Everybody has had empires; and they lose them; and then they go though a process of reevaluating.

S.K.: In Turkey, the nationalist idea is to gain it back, but let’s not go there, because it’s gonna take a lot of time…

“Turkey is Endlessly Fascinating to me…”

Justin Sullivan: Turkey is endlessly fascinating to me…

S.K.: Fascinating?

Justin Sullivan: Fascinating country!

S.K.: In what way?

Justin Sullivan: One, history; and two, geography… There you are sitting “there”… So Turks are forever going, “Are we in Europe? Are we in Middle East? Are we in Europe? Are we in Middle East? Are we in Europe? Are we…,” and they write endless books about it. Of course, the truth is, you’re both! And it’s a land of contradictions, [but] every land is a land of contradictions.

S.K.: I really like the way you approach the politics of the country, but people just don’t want to say what you say, as in we’re both. Maybe so, in a lot of ways…

Justin Sullivan: Yeah, both…

S.K.: But when the West says, “You’re not Western,” even those who do not really feel Western feel offended.

Justin Sullivan: Yeah, you’re too quick to take offense, don’t worry about it. When I was in Turkey last year, I spent a bit of time in Istanbul. I was with lots of rock ‘n roll, liberal, Westernized people. But I wanted to meet some other people. I have a friend in my home city Bradford. She is very religious. She is very Muslim. She had said, “Oh you must meet my friend, this guy in Istanbul.” I met him for dinner. We had a very interesting dinner. He said, “Of course, Istanbul is a European city, and of course, Europe has no problem with Istanbul being in Europe. But Europe does not want to border with Syria.” It’s an interesting way of looking at it.