By Ron Evans
Anarcho-punk-folk-troubadour Danbert Nobacon has returned to his beloved Methow Valley after a whirlwind tour in the US and England. The former Chumbawamba-ian is never too far away from the stage, but after some forced downtime - heart surgery a couple years back, he’s good now - being out and about brings a whole new level of gratitude.
And the timing couldn’t be more fitting because the geo-political landscape being a goddamn dumpster fire always helps when it comes to finding folks to show up to a punk thing.
In 2007, Nobacon moved to the Twisp area with his family while Chumbawamba (hailing from Leeds, England) was still technically together. The band later called it a day in 2012. And while many people (in the US anyway) may still see Chumbawamba as an overnight sensation that had a monster hit in the 90’s (just sing “I get knocked down… in virtually any setting and someone will start singing along), the band had been cranking out their highly political punk-anti-folk-dance tunes for over a decade by the time “Tubthumping” entered the pop arena.
Danbert’s solo recordings are dripping with ferocious commentary on capitalism, racism, classism, the royals, the government and the environment. And somehow…they are also fun. The eclectic styles, country to folk to rock to sea shanty-esque ballads make raging against the machine catchy as hell, and at times - hilarious. I discovered his first full solo LP, The Library Book of the World around 10 years ago — it’s become one of my all-time favorite albums. Since then he’s teamed up with a mostly revolving menagerie of singers and musicians to fill out several studio albums and many live performances. These days, Danbert tends to play mostly solo acoustic shows.
“It’s just so much easier. When you’re plotting a tour you have so many things that need lining up even just as a solo performer. Getting that many schedules to line up only works out every so often.” he says.
Somewhere in the midst of the music, Nobacon also put out a book called 3 Dead Princes: An Anarchist Fairy Tale, illustrated by filmmaker Alex Cox (Sid & Nancy, Repo Man). Before his heart surgery forced a vacation, he was teaching at Liberty Bell High school for the past decade.
I chatted with Nobacon about this latest tour, about living in the shadow of “the big song” and about some fun things he has coming up here in Wenatchee.
Are you mostly touring new music?
Well, yeah but mostly because I re-write some of the lyrics. You know, as the times change.
I imagine there’s a lot to write about right now.
Yeah. LAUGHS. I do have a few new songs as well. Mostly I was touring the East Coast and a little in England. There’s a big punk rock festival they have in August. They asked me and a few other Chumbawamba members to be part of it. There was Bob, Alice, Lou, Harry, Maeve, the old bass player, me and Dunstan, seven of us. Is that seven?
Wow, and that’s not the whole band?
Well we had quite a few over the years. But there were only a couple missing. You know a lot of bands used to trade musicians here and there.
So did you perform there as Chumbawamba?
No it was just a QnA type thing.
Danbert Nobacon live at Rumble Collective Portland OR - photo: Static and Frame Photography
Was the first question when you were all getting back together?
The interviewer said he wasn’t gonna do that beforehand. LAUGHS. I mean…we get asked that all the time.
Of course. Is the answer always just a definitive no? You like how I’m not ashamed to just be another one asking?
Pretty much. We got this offer to do a thing this year actually. The guy that put out Creation Records (Alan McGee ) — to be part of this sort of tour of ‘bands from the 90s…’ but we got to a point where we thought…we didn’t wanna tarnish any of it. But I get the appeal of it — I get why people wanna see it. After touring recently, especially along the West Coast I saw a real appetite for that. I’ve been seeing a lot of old Chumbawamba fans coming out and really wanting to be part of something like this. Especially in the current times.
It’s so rare for anything to reach the level of “Tubthumping,” let alone something that’s so politically driven - even “the big song” is a political anthem.
Oh yeah, well I’ve even heard people suggest that it was some sort of deliberate plan — like a sleeper cell agent or something. Like 13 year olds were even buying the record and the parents would find out the history of the band or listen to the rest of the album. I had a woman in San Francisco tell me that her Catholic parents didn’t let her listen to music that…you know…
Could corrupt their daughter with evil things like politics?
Right. But she said that one snuck through.
I love the idea that you all planned this sort of gateway drug of danceable pop music to get the kids using their heads about the world at large, and that that would be seen as a fiendish plot.
Right? Of course we didn’t do that but…
Well I saw a Chumbawamba documentary (I Get Knocked Down) came out recently — I know one was in the works for a while. Are you happy with how it turned out?
Yeah, it’s pretty good. You know, it was Dunstan’s project and his take on things. There could have been 8 different perspectives of those years, but yeah — he captured some of the earlier stuff and covered a lot of the prankster type stuff we were up to, that sort of thing.
Is there footage of you dumping that bucket of ice on the Deputy Prime Minister of England?
There’s no video of it — this was before everyone had cameras on them. But some of it and the aftermath was caught on a still camera.
Hilarious. And you didn’t get into any serious trouble for that right?
No, they put me in handcuffs for about 45 minutes then… “well we gotta let you go.”
When you are out playing and meeting fans, do they tend to wanna talk politics with you?
Not always. It’s funny though, I have signed more of the old Chumbawamba records lately than just about ever. I do still play a few songs from back then. You hate that some of them are still so relevant concerning politics. I know some of it is nostalgia for people. So it’s a bit of both of those things. I do get to hear people tell me that my songs or Chumbawamba’s songs made an impact on them in a lasting way. That’s great because…it’s kind of like being a teacher where you never know if the students are really taking in what you’re saying. I sometimes tell this story onstage…I can’t really remember if it was the record company or the music press in England but, someone once said “Chumbawamba reads too many books.” And that was said as an insult.
Sick burn!
Right. So the music press just couldn’t grasp this sort of thing, they accused us of “spoiling” this fun, silly pop music world.
Again, as a bad thing.
As a bad thing! We were tarnishing the pop music. You know, “Tubthumping” was pretty big all over but not in Britain.
Really?
Yeah. It may have just been curious timing. Pop songs are all about timing. And you know, it was right around that time that Princess Diana died, so they were really shying away from anything that could be considered even slightly controversial. So “pissing the night away” was not going to work.
Wow. That’s wild. Her death was huge over here, I can’t even imagine what it was like in England. How many solo albums have you released at this point?
Five. And two of them are double albums.
For as simple and bare as a lot of your music is, the production of your albums have an impressive scale — some really good layers and textures without getting lost in it. Do you ever envision a larger group tour at some point?
Well, planning a tour as mentioned is hard. And I’m not great at it. But I had wanted to find a touring agent, and I tried to get one for a while and finally got this guy out of Portland. But it’s always something I can see happening.
Are the kids still buying CDs at the merch booth?
They are actually, I even sold out a few times. Of course everyone wants vinyl but it’s just so expensive. But recently, an old friend of mine who runs the website PunkNews.org — he reached out and said he wanted to put out a limited edition of a couple of my songs on vinyl. We only put out about 50 of those.
Is there a preference you have for room size? You’ve played massive shows, intimate ones in the woods on a snowy night. Is it all the same to you?
There’s no ideal room really. What was interesting was when Chumbawamba would be invited to these sort of massive shows at like…basketball stadiums. These radio showcases. We played one where we went on right before Aerosmith.
Aerosmith and Chumbawamba!
Oh and then Michael Bolton. One artist that I really enjoyed meeting at one of those was Bob Dylan’s son, Jacob Dylan (The Wallflowers). His performance was great and he was a great guy to talk with.
What about in the indie or punk scene — anybody you met over the years that ended being folks you got along with well?
Ian McKaye from Fugazi. The Mekons, you know.
Was it sort of a scene as it were, in the early days in Leeds?
Not really, we would play around Leeds with other bands but…it wasn’t until we started to branch out more, that’s where I met Ian McKaye. We never toured with Fugazi but we played a few shows with them. And even though we were different stylistically, we were coming from similar places you know? And later on, when “the big song” came out…. Ian was kind of fascinated about it. Why we chose to do it. What was our experience with a major label, with the big video and all of that. He wasn’t critical really, he was just like “we couldn’t do that but I respect that you explored that in the way that you did.” And I appreciated that.
That’s interesting. Again it goes back to the fact that you didn’t plan on that being the monster hit that it was, but you never sold out what the band represented. Those are tricky waters to navigate coming from the punk world.
Oh yeah. It’s funny, they have the punk rock museum in Las Vegas. I was a tour guide for a bit.
No shit? So I could have bought a ticket to have Chumbawamba’s Danbert Nobacon take me through the history of punk?
Yeah, if the timing was right.
Well we gotta talk about something fun you got in the works here in Wenatchee. You’re gonna join the Radar Dames for our annual HaHas and TaTas New Year’s Eve show!
Yeah, I’m looking forward to that. I have done some burlesque in the past, so…we will see what I come up with.
And there may be another surprise that we won’t promise. But it should be a pretty fun (and fitting) way to see out this year.
I also asked Danbert to give me his top ten songs necessary for a proper soundtrack for a revolution. His picks (below) are as eclectic as the man himself.
Tix for HaHas & TaTas on sale now at
Visit danbertnobacon.com for stories, links and music and tune into his fabulous radio show at mixcloud.com/danbertnobacon.
