CityLife

Interview: Louis Barabbas And The Bedlam Six

Louis Barabbas And The Bedlam Six

Chances are, you haven’t yet seen Louis Barabbas. In fact, there is the distinct possibility you haven’t even heard of Louis Barabbas –  the eloquent lit-folk raconteur most prominently renowned as being leader of dirt-swing troubadours the Bedlam Six.

Well, as the man himself reasonably asks when asked to describe himself to the uninitiated in five precise words: ‘WHERE HAVE YOU BLOODY BEEN?’

Increasingly, it’s a question people have been asking themselves as Barabbas continues to carve himself out a niche as Manchester’s cerebral, attention-demanding, independently minded tell-tale hound.

To emphasise the point, even if every page of this week’s CityLife was utilised, attempting to cram in everything Barabbas had to say would be an exercise in futility, such is his overpowering zeal and intensity; that’s before we even mention the sheer scope of his workload  – which he readily admits has him ‘generally knotted up with stress, worrying that I’m not getting enough done, that I’m stagnating’.

So, for the purposes of space constraints (and this writer’s sanity) we’ll shelve talk of his record label Debt Records that gives life to John Fairhurst and The Bedlam Six themselves, his keynote speaking and forthcoming book of lyrics, his long-term ambitions of playwright and novelist accomplishment and of his latest project, an animated version of signature tune Tell-Tale Hound.

They are topics for another day and instead we’ll concentrate merely on the immediate task at hand, the continued rise of Barabbas’ musical outfit the Bedlam Six –  The Bad Seeds to Barabbas’ Nick Cave.

“I try not to flatter them too much,’ he admits ‘but if you’ll permit me to gush for a moment I must say I’ve never worked with such a talented band in all my 10 years on the live circuit.”
Barabbas has a roaming spirit – having been born in Portsmouth, he has lived in India and America and finally settled in Manchester, where in 2006 he formed The Black Velvet Band with a group of musicians who would eventually be renamed the Bedlam Six.

Years of gigging – and the release of the record, Found Drowned – have made Barabbas’ crew into one of the most formidable live acts currently operational. A case of the desired sound finally honed?

“Absolutely, yes. My background is actually in theatre and it was only when I married that side of my upbringing with my musical ambitions, rather than trying to completely reinvent myself, that I really started getting somewhere.

“In my early twenties I was distracted by traditional rock ambitions that have little or nothing to do with playing good music.

“Watching a series of band mates destroy themselves with drink, drugs and every day neuroses made me reconsider what it was I actually wanted to be.

“Once I stopped trying to be a rock star and began just writing and performing for pleasure that’s when I started making progress.

“In the end it wasn’t a question of honing the sound, it was about relaxing into what was always there,” Louis says.

And what was always there was a Tom Waits-fighting-over-a-girl-with-a-stranger cacophonous blend of bar-room dirt and whisky-drenched woe, where convoluted parables of deceit, heartbreak and hostility  – and love triangles between man, women and an eternally panting dog – are soundtracked by gritty, melodramatic blues.

“I’m not surprised when people bring up Waits when discussing my songs but, truth be told, I actually became aware of his work embarrassingly late in life,” he says.

“Waits and I do definitely share some influences though: the murky glitz of inter-war Berlin cabaret is one, the blues singer Howlin’ Wolf is another.

“My favourite lyric of all time is by Howlin’ Wolf: ‘I asked her for water... she gave me gasoline.’ It’s absolutely magnificent in its brevity; an entire relationship is packed into the most economical of one-liners.

“I use that formula in almost all my songs: feed line – punch line. Life reduced to a gag.

“I guess some would call that tragedy.”

A great example of this is Barabbas’ last full single Mother. A sinister, elaborate, foot-stomping ode to his dear ol’ ma.

“The mother/son relationship is one of the great stock dramas, deep set in pretty much every myth going,” Louis explains.

“What do most records concern themselves with? Boy meets girl? Bah! Romeo and Juliet were such light-weights in comparison to Oedipus and Jocasta, Coriolanus and Volumnia... now that’s really destructive, mind-alteringly violent love.

“That is interesting. It’s worth writing about.”

Never afraid to voice his fictional influences, Barabbas’ songs are typically doused with these kinds of knowing nods to literature of the past, a healthy smattering of pretension helping funnel a perceptive wit.

“I’m glad you think my love of literature is obvious, I generally assume no one really listens to the words,” he admits surprisingly.

“I take a lot of pleasure in lyric writing and particularly enjoy the way one can toy with the phrasing of a simple lyric to completely change its sentiment.

“And yes, I like books, particularly old ones. I like the way one is completely at the mercy of the narrative, how one can be invested in a character or chain of events that might be utter spin – the untrustworthy narrator is something I’ve been fascinated by since I read Wilkie Collins at A Level.”

It is this breadth of thought and openness to possibility that Barabbas hopes will keep the Bedlam Six evolving for time to come.

“The Blockheads and John Otway are artists I really admire and my aim is to keep doggedly following in their footsteps. These people do not have the formidable fan base of performers like Lady Gaga and Lily Allen but they do have a work ethic and an independence of spirit that ensures that they repeatedly outlast the banal parade of pop nymphets that plague every passing generation.

‘I simply aim to survive in it as long as I can.

“The Rolling Stones have been doing it for 40 years - that’s the number to beat’.