You’ve been playing with Piano Magic for more than 10 years now. At the same time, it seems like it’s becoming more difficult to “survive” as a band in the music business when you’re making such a personal kind of music. Have you ever thought about stopping making music after all these years ?
Glen A. Johnson : I think about stopping this music farce every single day. But I don’t think it’s any more difficult to "survive" in a band than before. If you make music, you have the choice of how you want to operate - be it by signing to a major label, an indie label, starting your own label, releasing music through the internet, not releasing music at all, etc, etc. "Physical" sales may be down but digital sales are up. Bands are paid more for concerts than ever before and there’s a lot more money to be made from merchandise. You can record and master your music at home, thanks to software innovations so, really, surviving isn’t difficult - you just have to want to survive.
I started a band because I had a desire to fill a gap in my own record collection but I’ve long since done that. Then my impetus became touring - seeing the world and meeting all manner of people but even that becomes more trouble than it’s worth, as I don’t simply just turn up and play, I have to book flights, arrange hotels, check backlines, etc, etc, etc.
These days I make music for myself, primarily and it’s that old cliche of : if other people like it, great. If they don’t, it’s ok too. Certainly, Piano Magic gave up on fame and riches a long time ago. 
Even so, there’s statistical evidence that our audience is bigger than it’s ever been. It’s certainly more multi-national but also the hardcore fans have become even more hardcore (this is evidenced by us selling a 12" on eBay last month for £470). We’re becoming more and more a "cult" group... but a cult that’s listened to by more and more people. A bizarre situation ; an oxymoron.

I’ve heard about that record you sold on eBay, it’s quite an amazing price ! Would you be crazy enough to invest so much money in a record you absolutely had to have ? 
I don’t think the person who won it was crazy at all. He wanted the ultimate treasure - a piece of the band that no-one else could ever have. I can understand that.  As a musician, I’ve lost this magical connection to other artists. No other band makes me more excited than my own. It’s sad really. When I was younger, I lived for other people’s music but being in a band has poisoned me because you see the other side of this wonderful "art." But I miss that innocence ; that pure connection to music. And I’m indebted to the man who bought that record because he helped us finance a new album to some extent.

Piano Magic and Textile Ranch recently joined the Make Mine Music team. How did that happen ?
I’ve swapped emails with Scott Sinfield (one of the founders of Make Mine Music and the guy behind Portal) every day for longer than I can remember. We’re of the same generation and we agree on so much that it seemed a shame not to work with each other. At the same time, I was tired of labels like Talitres not accounting to us, despite being legally bound by a contract. The independent labels are worse than the majors for this. They want the esteem of releasing records but they don’t want the business that goes with it. All fun and no work. Make Mine Music is an artist-owned label. The artists fund their own records and therefore any income they generate goes straight back to them. Hence, we no longer have to chase anyone for accounts, etc and the responsibility of selling records is ours, not that of some inept amateur. Make Mine Music not only liberated us from the conventional music industry but put us in a position well ahead of them.
The added attraction was to be label-mates with the likes of July Skies, Epic45, Yellow6, Avrocar, All Sides, Portal too - artists who records I’ve really liked these past few years.

Well, one can never be better served than by oneself ! Does this mean you have finally found your home ?
Home is in your head apparently. But yes, I’d like to think that finally we have a system that allows us absolute freedom to do what we want to do, with no-one to answer to and no-one to blame but ourselves if it all goes wrong. It’s not exactly the greatest gamble, as we we’ve been funding ourselves and promoting ourselves for years now. We’re just in good company now, on a great label, with a pioneering spirit.

Listening back to your last three albums, I’ve always had the same idea in my mind : I don’t think you’ve made your masterpiece yet. You’ve always had great tracks, good albums - and to me “The troubled sleep” LP is probably the closest thing to a perfect record you’ve made until now - but i’m still waiting for your “Laughing Stock”. What are you looking for when you’re working on a new LP ?
I’d agree with you that we haven’t made our "masterpiece" yet. But I wouldn’t agree with you about ’The Troubled Sleep.’ At the end of the day, everyone forms their own opinion. I’ve had emails from people who love our worst records and likewise, from people who hate our best. It’s all subjective though. I think we’ve written and recorded some great individual songs but there’s plenty of people who would disagree with me as to what they were.
When we start an album, we have little in mind except to do our best and go wherever the mood takes us. There’s no masterplan. Perhaps there should be ? But we were never so conspiring. You have to please yourself first - if other people like it, great. If they don’t, they don’t have to listen to it.
We’ve never finished an album where we’ve thought, "That’s perfect." Imperfection gives you something to aim for. Perfection. Once you’ve reached it, you might as well stop. But who made the perfect album ? 

The words written on the “Dark Horses EP” flyer are quite beautiful. This is the first thing I focused on when I saw it. Where does your interest in language and words come from ?
It’s probably a predictable answer but it comes from reading. I was never much of a mathematics person at school but I liked to make up little stories, fantasies, in creative writing class and I suppose it spiraled from there. Ironically, I don’t read that much these days, as I don’t have much interest in contemporary authors. If I pick up a book, it’s probably by an old favourite - Hamsun, Orwell, Brautigan, Kerouac, Solzhenitsyn, Miller, etc, though I’m equally impressed by a good lyric. Bill Callahan, Joanna Newsom, Simon Rivers, Morrissey, several more. I’m not from this school of lyricists where you say nothing. I have to say *something* and it’s invariably from the heart and about the human condition. Even so, I have affection for songs with the most trite lyrics too. I can certainly see/hear the appeal of Britney’s ’Womaniser,’ for example. Afterall, life’s not all funerals. 

Listening to the song “Cities & Factories”, I was wondering about the relationship that you have with your country. Do you sometimes feel nostalgic about music and life from the past ?
Oh, England is rotting. And it was rotting well before I was born. It’s been so badly governed and money so badly spent. London is truly disgusting and it’s poison is slowly spreading through the land. The little pockets of nature that have so far managed to resist are the last bastions of loveliness ; the last ribbons of a fair land. But our culture is predominantly vile. Alcohol, ridicule, trash tv, trash food, bad architecture, awful politics, money for war but none for health and transport, hate, violence, boredom.... Was it any better before ? Arguably not but there were less people and thus, less shit.
I was born into the wrong time, for sure. I spend hours photographing the beautiful old buildings before they pull them down, to replace them with a Burgerking or a Starbucks. Someone has to remember that it wasn’t always this commercial shit. There was red brick and slate once. I don’t get nostalgic for the old music because it’s there still if you want it. Everything has been re-issued. I play music from my childhood as much as new music. I’m not in some time capsule, wishing it were 1985 forever. That would be too sad. 

Do you also feel that everything’s moving too fast ? There’s no time to think, no time to listen... It has been called “attention deficit disorder” syndrome. Is this something that you have experienced with Piano Magic through the audience, the press or with something else ?
Yes, it’s pretty common. People have so much choice these days though and they’re bombarded with it. The world’s one big candy shop.
Life moves incredibly fast in London, of course - much faster than even in Paris. I actually go to Paris when I want to relax. You have to take time out to enjoy things though. It’s like you French when you eat a meal - you spend three hours at the table and you savour the whole experience. I applaud that but unfortunately, I’m too impatient to actually do it.
It’s said people only play an album 1.2 times on average. If these people knew how much time, effort and money went into making a record, would they give it more of a chance ? No. Because again, there’s too much choice and life’s too short, etc. We’re becoming philistines though because we don’t savour art. We’re always onto the next thing. Like infants, distracted by brighter and brighter colours. No-one wants the black for very long.

Would you consider yourself a Philistine then ?
No, obviously not. I take time to listen to things, read things, observe things. I don’t see much point in anything if you don’t savour it. Obviously, a lot of music and literature, etc is made to be consumed in the moment - a sort of McDonalds culture. Pop music by its nature is generally disposable and yet some of it can stay with you for such a long time. Even your whole life. Like anyone else, I try to separate the jewels from the trash.

Have you seen My Bloody Valentine playing live recently ?
Yes. My third time. Not the greatest show I’ve ever seen but there’s no denying the "Holocaust section" in ’You Made Me Realise.’ Very few pieces have the power to rattle your mind but also your body. Incredible really. But the overall show ? Well, there wasn’t much love on stage, was there ?

I haven’t seen them play. I wanted to keep my own story with their music as it was before they reformed. What do you mean by “love on stage” ?
Well, they’ve obviously reformed for the money. They have no deep, spiritual connection, do they ? I don’t blame them - you have to pay the rent. But as you say, I was tempted to leave them in memory, frozen in time but curiosity got the better of me. I’m glad I went to the show but you won’t find me following them around the world, tongue hanging out.

What are your plans for the coming months ?
Over the next 6 months, I will be feeding the squirrels and crows in the local park every morning. This is my, and their, priority. Beyond that, I will be completing a new Textile Ranch album and a Glen Johnson solo album. Hopefully, I’ll be ready to play solo early next year - perhaps even those intimate little Paris venues where everyone sits on the floor ?

Feeding the squirrels and crows ? Aren’t you a bit too young for this ?
It’s not a matter of age. Animals need to be fed in Winter, just as you and I do. They can’t just pop out for a pizza. There seems to be a real lack of wild parks in Paris but here, they’re everywhere and they’re full of wildlife. Every night there’s a fox in my garden - they call to each other across the neighbourhood. It’s a frightening sound - like the sound of you and I if we looked inside ourselves.

A solo album sounds quite interesting - do you already have some ideas about what it might be like ?
It’s nearly finished so yes, I have an idea. 45 minute trumpet solos. 

I don’t know any real wild parks in Paris but there are some in the suburbs where I was a few years ago (Bougival, the town where Guillaume Depardieu used to live)...
It’s good to know that Depardieu probably got to see a squirrel before he died. Some people never get to see a squirrel or a fox their entire lives. If I had to choose between making music or seeing a fox, I know which I would choose.

interview by jerome
email
october, 2008