Wild Man: Martin Martini
“The next door neighbour has a cat, I play Thelonious Monk and the cat starts scratching at the window”
Jazz cats (both kinds) aside, cabaret-rock minstrel Martin Martini is a huge mound of creative energy today. Speaking in a dimly lit but near-empty cafe in Melbourne Town, Martini is restricted only by his imagination, and his inspiration knows no bounds (“I’m reading about Rasputin a lot. He was nuts. I’m gonna write a song about Rasputin”).
So, Martin Martini and his band of musical cohorts, The Bone Palace Orchestra, have just released their latest rock-and-roll circus release, We’re All Just Monkeys. Check out the CD reviews section for a better understanding on the wonderment of the record, but Martin gives me the skinny on the making of his latest tour de force. “The first record we did was stressful, this one was easy. Old movie speakers and pre amps and we just put stuff down in 8 days. There was a great burger shop down the road...Do you know Danny’s? Anyway, basically, the album, it’s really a love album, it’s a romantic album, my partner, who I was in love with left me and I drank myself stupid for a long time. The kind of women I’m attracted to are the kind that enjoys shouting rather than shopping, heh. It’s a ‘return to the jungle’ album. Breaking down the ideas that were human beings, climbing back into the womb...it’s the kinda music that isn’t scared to grow hair and climb trees, the music’s an animal, and it’s made for animals”
Well, as this goes to press, MM & Co. will have finished a successful jaunt around the land, before they jet off to London to play the illustrious Soho Theatre. “Frank Zappa and Tom Waits would do that, play big seasons in theatres...we’ll be there every night for the next few weeks. I like touring, I just like meeting people. I like people. I met a great woman the other day; she gets turned on by people being late. And she tries to make them later. I like weird people and I like finding new stories. I like to stay connected to people. That’s what music is, retelling old stories to people who have never heard them”
If you’ve heard the record, you’d be able to note a fair few religious references, including the ramblin’ track, I Caught Jesus Sleeping In. “You have to answer the Jesus question now, because I asked you” I query, stepping on figurative eggshells, careful not to offend. Thought Martini does not appear like an easily offended man. “I believe in the individual, I reckon everyone’s got a bit of Jesus in them. I reckon I see Jesus when I go just off Smith Street, there’s a guy who works in a car yard and he’s got no legs. And he’s got a little wheelie thing and he goes under the cars and fixes ‘em. I see Jesus there”
“Sometimes I listen to the radio, I listen to radio National now, I love it. It’s the best sounds in the world, weird people talking about weird things. Real people. Everything. It’s just good. I reckon Jesus is when three good songs on the radio come in a row”
“I’ve never found that to happen” I answer, slightly sardonically.
“Well, that’s why Jesus doesn’t exist” Martini answers, sipping his coffee and staring into the middle distance. “Have you listened to the whole album? Where did you listen to it? In the bath?”
“No, on the train”
“That’d be the best, because there are lots of people you can look at. I read a blog about someone in Canberra that had a car accident listening to my music, just after she put the record on, so I said to Caroline Tran (from Triple J); “listen, don’t recommend you listen to it in the car, listen to it the bath” So I’ve been telling people not to buy it and not to listen to it (laughs) The way I write music is, sometimes I don’t even know if I write the music, it’s a weird thing that happens; I wrote this song the other day about an ugly man. It started off, asking myself, ‘can I really write a song about an ugly man?’ but I thought, sure, a really ugly, ugly, ugly man. Like so ugly that the birds are scared to look at him. Sometimes I feel like it’s not me writing it, like there’s someone else writing it....maybe Jesus, heh...I’m more of a listener than a writer, I pick up junk off the street and put it into music”
I rifle though my bag looking for my purse to see if I can summon enough church change to buy a cuppa tea, and Martini notices a few CDs popping out from my overflowing satchel. “I spend a lot of money on CDs” he offers. “I probably have about 5000 CDs; I’ve been buying them since I was a kid. I don’t have a computer, I don’t own an iPod, I’m not really up with the times, so I’m still stuck buying CDs for thirty dollars. If I have to choose between buying a CD and eating, I’ll buy a CD. I’ve been to Readings [Australian book and music shop, renowned for its support of independent talent and left-of-centre stock] three days in a row to listen to a CD because I can’t afford to buy it”
Martini tells me that despite only having just released a new record, there is another in the process a we speak; “It’s already written, it’s gonna be a triple CD. The working title is Pop and Weasel, I think it’s gonna be out in...February? There’s gonna be pop music, like the Veronicas, its gonna be really bad, deliberately awful, and if we get one on Triple M, its gonna awesome. We wanna make music that makes people really angry or embrace it and say, “This is the best song we’ve ever heard”, and Weasel music is gonna be like a weasel...”
Smelly and loud?
“Yup, pretty much”
And the third disc?
Ballads, I love ballads. It’s gonna be romantic.
I hastily complain on the service in the cafe for not bringing sugar with my tea, and Martin runs off to fetch me some. As he returns, and I dole out the brown goodness into my beverage, Martin offers a theory; “The thing about sugar is you can love sugar and it’ll always be there for you but it can kill you” he says, pouring my milk for me as I hold the microphone at the right angle so as to capture his words, “that’s the problem with sugar, it’s the thing that kills you more than anything, it’s the worst drug. People need it all the time”
“Animals are cool. The next photos is gonna be riding an ostrich” Martini notes of the animal motif he has running through his press shots, “I’m gonna put a saddle on it and ride it. Can you see it? I love animals; my favourite animal is the pigeon. Did you know the pigeon is one of only five mammals that can pass the Mirror Test, where it can recognise itself in a mirror? I like rats too. The minute you put an animal in a photo with you, it can’t be a bad photo. Then, after the ostrich: dolphin. I was thinking of having a chicken at one of our gigs, and having it sort of chained to my finger while I played piano, and letting it dance around, then I would hypnotise it, until the last song, when it could get up and dance again. People wouldn’t like that, because of animal cruelty, but...it’s not on a fucking plate, is it?”
The conversations becomes a little blue at this point when I explain the theme of this issue of AFL; “Do you have a fucking album? Do you have an album that you put on when you know you wanna make love to someone?” I mention recently knocking boots to War of the Worlds and am mildly disgusted when Martini asks if it the Shannon Noll version. “There are people you can have sex to, and people you can’t have sex to. Would you have sex to my music?” I answer, that, yes, I might, if I didn’t know him now. “That’s why I write music, the idea that, when I’m dead, in 500 years, somewhere, someone is gonna be fucking to my music. That’s where the term to ‘root for someone’ comes from”
We’re All Just Monkeys is out now independently.
