hurrengoa
avoiding C, D and E ‘cos E’s where you play the blues.    Wire have been delighting their fans, bemusing the press and confounding their critics since 1976. Maybe no other group has ever evolved as much musically, nor continued to evolve for so long. At the same time, they can still play songs from both their first album (Pink Flag, 1977) and from their latest, 13th album (Change Becomes Us, 2013) in their extraordinary live shows.

I spoke with Graham Lewis and Colin Newman a week before Donostia Jazzaldia.
AB: Does Wire aim to produce any particular effect on its listeners? Lou Reed once said that he hoped he was at least good for a laugh: what is Wire good for on a poor day and on a great one?

GL: On a poor day with grey skies, I hope we are able to provide a yellow filter and provide a contrasting perspective…On a great one….’I feel mysterious today, everything is humming loudly!’

CN: A lot of our effort goes into not being a nostalgia item: we take pride in being a “contemporary” artistic venture.

AB: Where does your inspiration come from? Where does that “piece of string” come from?

GL: Inspiration can come from the most casual or slight encounters… curiosity and an open mind often provide a welcome…

CN: Inspiration? Who knows what that is? I find it best not to think about it to much!

AB: Is the starting point for your songs something physical or is there a more conceptual basis for your compositions, for example wanting to combine certain elements in a piece when you begin writing it?

CN: I just never think like that. For me composition is kind of a zen “no brain” activity. Don’t think before, don’t think too much after. I write very quick but I don’t write at all if I don’t need to! I have lyrics (normally Graham’s) in front of me and just go for it. Whatever feels right! A lot of that kind of stuff is unspoken. There is a wide range of taste in the band but somehow we do coalesce around some kind of aesthetic even if it is pretty broad!

AB: Being described, back in the day, as the punk Pink Floyd and then calling your first long-player "Pink Flag" could be seen as two fingers to the type of prejudice and snobbery which is often rife in the British music scene.

GL: Our promoting of art in the British music press did not make us popular with them… their snobbery was born from ignorance and stupid arrogance… this came as hardly any surprise we were prepared for it… It was what art school had prepared me for.

CN: Wire have never been easy to put in a box. In the past we were often accused if being too clever for our own good! However during the last few years our reception in Britain has been pretty positive.

AB: You're playing at Donostia Jazz Festival - although it's unlikely anyone thinks you play jazz - getting of for forty years after Wire got together for the first time. Do you still have fun playing live? Or is it writing and recording your main interest?

GL: At the beginning of Wire, a few people described us as being ‘jazzers’! I took it as a compliment, it referred to our attitude and what they saw as our abstract approach to writing and arranging. I love the physicality and release of playing live… most therapeutic!

CN: Both live & recording have their fun & serious aspects. I think we're a pretty strong live band and playing live is very important for us.

AB: When you're touring, does not knowing a local language, not being part of the local culture, ever act as a stimulus in any way?

GL: Mishearing or only being able to interpret body language can be fun… People watching’s a favourite sport!

CN: I don’t think anyone expects us to sing in the local language and I don’t think those that only want culture in their own language would be interested in us (the kind of people who have a narrow definition of culture are unlikely to be interested in Wire). In Tokyo I always have a strong sense that the audience “gets” what we do but most don’t speak a word of English!

AB: Does the choice of set lists for concerts depend on criteria you set down, or do you take decisions in a more intuitive way?

GL: The Wire process itself is very intuitive. Set lists are built around what we consider makes a dynamic whole. Usually there is unrecorded new work, selections from the last recorded album and then a selection of old material, which we will reinterpret, based on how it can complement the sonic direction we believe we’re heading in… Sound like jazz?

CN: We have a basic, evolving set but we also have quite a big bag of other pieces we can dip into to spice it up or keep it fresh. It makes for a better performance!

AB: What can we expect (within its unpredictability) from Wire in the future?

CN: The next Wire “thing” will be an August re-release of the “Document & Eyewitness” album.
In December we have an edition of our DRILL: FESTIVAL in a certain British City. I can’t tell you more about it right now.In April 2015 there will be a new Wire album, we have done the main recording already but I’ll need a few months to work the production.

AB: “Avoiding C, D and E, a’voiding E ‘cos that's where you get the blues.” Does Wire avoid certain things in its music and/or lyrics, forbid itself certain things?

GL: Yes, there are huge and growing numbers of things which will not appear in Wire work… The hunt for new metaphor never stops and the recycling of cliche is an honest and necessary business in POP! “Lowdown” was the first text I wrote for Wire and proved to be something of a manifesto, unintentionally… The line is about the shortest route A to B, in our case starting to make Wire music was by completely disregarding rock’n’roll/ blues structures and attitudes.

Wire's concert at Jazzaldia was intense, loud, varied, unexpected (very few of their best-known songs) and, whether that’s or not jazz, I want more!