Talking To... Martyn Joseph
#N The other problem is when you're doing it all yourself, at what point do you know to turn around and say, 'Well actually, that one's crap.' ?
#M It's a good point. That's the stage at which you need good friends who won't flatter. I think I've got a pretty good bullshit detector for my own material. One of the good things about working with a team is that there are opinions there. It's far more difficult to be subjective on your own.
#N Listening to your back catalogue it looks like you got the balance pretty much right. With you, take the Brazil projects for example, how long does it take before something that impacts you emotionally starts coming out on the page and in song?
#M It happens quickly for me. Where the comparison between what you see and what is your life is so stark that you really need to do something. You quickly strip away the pretentiousness, it's not a deliberate thing, but when you're used to what you're used to and you meet a family that know there are killings going on around them every night as drug wars go on around them. There was a death rate of fifteen hundred people a month in the part of Rio that the project runs in. That shakes you up. I go back to the hotel room in a pretty raw state and it really doesn't take long.
When people sit around and say I can't write, I've got writer's block, my immediate reaction is to say, get on a train and go somewhere you've never been before and meet people you've never met before. See people that have nothing. It's not being prepared to work at the imagination or finding stimulations for the creativity.
It was Christian Aid that actually asked me to go out there. They had a partnership with an organisation called the MFT, there are details on the website. MFT are like a big trade union over there that are campaigning for land reform and rights. They showed us the terror. They showed us the armed guards and the drugs barons. I got involved and helped raised money and awareness. I promoted it at gigs and things.
I don't know how long a major would have accepted me turning over part of a gig for raising awareness of a non-fashionable cause. It's a quick thing for me and if I write about something I need to feel it.
#N In someways that leads me into the next bit. Last year's Green Belt festival, were you surprised at the reactions your song about tv evangelists and the swearing got?
#M As you're aware it's a Chritian based festival, but it draws on a wide range of artists.
#N Sam Fox even played it one year.
#M Billy Bragg and artists like that have played, U2 played it in the early years. There's a lot of Christian people there, but most are broad minded, don't mind the f word in context. There's always a minority that take offence, which I sort of don't mind, if they also write to Pat Robertson and point out how offensive he can be. 9 11 was the fault of homosexuals etc. Most people were perfectly happy. More people complained about when I wore jeans when I opened for Shirley Bassey and that got me thrown off the tour. There are issues all the time. I go around singing and sometimes people have a different point of view.