B. R. Wallers has taken on many aliases over the course of his career, but none is more prolific than “The Rebel”—whose latest album REMEMBER YOUR FAILURE IN THE CAVE just released on Wrong Speed Records. Wallers’ confronting style has earned a loyal cult following, and cemented a deserved place in punk’s hall of infamy.
This style extends into the interview answers below, which have been left unedited to preserve their…?
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WG Sebald once described things as “if not absurd, then appalling.” Is there an element of distancing or self-protection in satire?
I don't know about this. Irony is PERHAPS a luxury, i.e. if you don't have a certain type of rgeois education you probably won't understand Monty Python etc., and if you don't have enough money to eat you won't be able to roll around underneath a creaking dinner table in a 2 inch deep puddle of sherry laughing about things meaning the opposite of how they are said, BUT; FUCKING HELL; Satire is important, it has to be done, it has to be made and published, it is PHYSICALLY important for the SURVIVAL and WELLBEAING of the idiotic species.
You know when a pipe bursts and there's shit everywhere, or the TV explodes, or or or or or or or or or the roof caves in? You can't fix it can you, you hafta call an expert. Not everyone is a satirist. Conclusion of the foregoing!
Who was/is the biggest knobhead in history?
Thatcher? I mean ... i can't think of anyone else... maybe it's silly not to put Hitler for this one? It's a clichee but i'm not AN HUGE fan of Donald Trump the disgraced Potus? I seem to remember thinking that Joe Stalin was a bit of a twat too, when i done hist. At school. God i really hate that fucker Recep Erdogan Tayip whatever, sorry i can't be bothered to spell his name, am i a racist? Fucking dick. Oh and Assad the Syrian twat, WHAT a twat.
Obvs it's hypocritical not to regard the mote in mine own eye whilst the n=beam is in my neighbour's but i don't really pay Boris etc any attention, i just think we should have got the Tories out long ago and because "we" didn't, "WE" obvs deserve them, because in fact WE are the biggest knobheads in history. We voted for Boris, we voted for Trump, we voted for Bexit. Cunts, cunts, cunts. Endov salad!
What links your roast pork to the Labour Party [this is in reference to a joke in the liner notes of Wallers’ latest album]? And what did you make of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader?
It's a tricky one this but i'll have a stab at it, obvs as UCan imadge in8 there's we've i mean i have rather a large 'team' of people working on any project given at one time tbh so and they often aren't not able 2 communicate very deeply, so i should think that what has happened is the arts dept put in a Pork Joint and then the Press guys had to come up with something to 'explain' it, probably during their break, reading the Grauniad and having a cup of coffee, 2 sugars please, and do you have blue milk? If you only have green or red top, you could always just pour it up in your ass homestyle french fries?
No but seriously so i expect/suspect sorry missed a trick there so anyway I ex/sus - Pect that "Pork" made someone in press think "jewish" and that lead of course to "Labour" and then "Anti Semitism". As you know, everyone here at The Rebel are KEEN Zionists. during the Haj, and also when folkes longen to goon on pilgrimauges down to Canterbury, and also when the catholics gather in the courtyard of St Petersburg to listen to the Pope smoke dope, MYSELF AND MY FOLLOWERS ALL MAKE A JOURNEY OF SELF-SACRIFICE TO THE ZION HOUSE OF FLESH, new Hope Ney Jersey where we sacrifice a calfskin wallet and 2 baby ostrich-crocodiles on an altar made of original jewel-case copies of Ween's fin-de-siecle masterpiece QUEBEC compact disc. is that heavy enough for you?
I love Corbyn; i'm very pro-Jews/jewishness/muslims and all the rest of them; i disagree/disapprove of the Israel government as i tend to disapprove of every govt. worldwide that i've got any awareness of; i wish the poor Palestinians could be safe, same as i wish for the Syrians and on and on and on. Corbyn seemed like an antidote to British politics's heavy emphasis on EVIL and BEING A DICK. It would be so nice to have someone LOOKING AFTER US who wasn't EVIL and/or A DICK. Don't you think?
I know every fucker asks you about Star Wars, but could you give a very brief review of Star Wars 9?
Oh my god, now you've REALLY got me started. Fucking Star Wars 9!!! Jesus christ. Let me open up this 1,0000 word answer with a report on how bad i felt after STar Wars 8, was it called Revenge of the Jedi or something? Where fucking Luke drank the green giraffe-cow marine milk and you knew that THAT was going to be the only good bit in the whole film? I was LITERALLY depressed. It was christmas and i had placed quite a lot of Hope on that film rescusing me from Yusual Yuletide Yumisery. Instead it made it worse. The franchise was LOST. I gradually reassessed The Force Awakens, which i had LOVED, and watched on dvd many times, usually very slow with sound off so i didn't hafta hear Daisy Ridley's plummy voice reminding me of the girls you used to get at balls when you were at Eton and harrow.perfectly nice girls of course but the accent is not something you want to meet up a dark alley in Homerton.
Anyway where was I... so i was morally defeated and the Forcs was weak in me as i accepted my fan's link to the last one. I was looking forward to seeing my old mate Ian Macdiarmid of course. But i was disgusted from the outset. I also love wotsisname Adam Driver, plus i actually love daisy herself - incredible tits, sorry Mum - but NO-ONE could have saved this film from what appears to be death by a thousand cuts, edits, committees, franchise compromises, i don't know, the SCRIPT, oh my god just the script SHOULD BE BURNT, LET ALONE THE WHOLE FILM, THE REELS. Oops caps lock off sorry for shouting. I'm not that bothered! I adore Rogue One. Classic, brilliant. Contains a strong message : we might have to kill or die for the cause. The Lego movie basically says the same thing but without the killing or dying.
P.s. i always like being asked about Star Wars. It's my fault everyone asks me, because i AM an obsessed person with it. Yesterday i finished watching the original trilogy on vhs pre-Lucas re-edits., i.e. 1995 ish. Then i watched them again the other way round with the sound off, pausing to go to work, look after my daughter, etc etc. I prefer to have Star Wars on in the background than not.
The Mandalorian introduced a baby Yoda. Do you think Yoda shags like normal people or does it work differently for his species?
Yoda: obviously the Force was not with you when you asked that disgusting question. Yoda is oh whats that word Stephen Fry Morrissey CELIBATE that's the one thank you Diane. Yoda's celibate. I would imagine that yodas are born hermetically is that the word? Like trans people, you know. They just pop out of their backs, like in Gremlins. Cryogenically? No that's not it. Hermaphrodite, the greek goddess of wanking and showers. Species with neither male nor female gender like when Tiresias offended hera and she made him into a broad so that he could find out whether dames have better orgasms than guys, remember that old movie? Classic. Obviously he told her, it was Broads all the way, so she struck him blind! Ha ha ha ROFL, typical dame!
You’ve described your writing as automatic. Is this universally true, or are there times of writing a song with a specific goal or message in mind?
the writing is automatic in that it comes out naturally, i think of a funny line and usually verses 1 to 2 write themselves, then obvs i hafta try a bit if i want more. But i don't think "Right let's adress the Race issue today" or "Now i think i should write about my feelings about my Welationthip", no. And then after i've recorded the music of a song, i just have to find a lyric/poem/set of words that FIT, i.e. scan... so you know it's boring to even say it but you can often end up with a happy tune and sad lyrics, it's just because that lyric scanned in the same metre as the fucking drumbeat already! Sometimes i 'try' to write a song. It never works out. I just carry a notebook and when i think of something i write it down. I've got a large box full of them; usually i'm not satisfied with what i wrote .... so there's a ton of useless material in those notebooks.
'S automatic though yes you know why? Because i REACT to things that happen AUTOMATICALLY and write down my verbal response. That's why i often regret the things i write. Not regret exactly but ... i try not to edit my utterances too much, a bit like Tourets syndrome, because i like that pure natural response a lot better than my expensive education voice. Know what i mean, knowwha'amsayin'? Morrissey said it better, something about trying to be natural, he CAN'T be natural, the people in the photos on Smiths records that Morrissey adores, THEY are natural. So Morrissey and i - alas, poor geniuses, cursed really - hafta ARTIFICIALLY be Natural or in my case try and catch myself at it.
I write a lot of jokes at work, they aren't funny, except to me, who finds them hilarious. One liners. Wooden tit be strange if a girl's breast was made of oak, stuff like that. How did the junky punish the kid, gave it some smack on the bottom etc. See what i mean? Useless.
Remember Your Failure in the Cave is, with some exceptions, instrumental—was this a conscious decision or did it just come out that way?
As you can imagine by this point i am sick to death of my voice, lyrics and the attempt to sound cool which is really hard so i just left lyrics off most of the music so i wouldn't ruin it. It wasn't deliberate; and probably next LP i will deliberately try to write 10 standards with verse chorus pattern!
You did a lovely cover of Julee Cruise’s “Mysteries of Love” that’s featured on Live at Urge. Was wondering if you caught the new Twin Peaks series, and what you made of it? It had a nuclear bomb in!
Oh my God are you kidding me? I watched each episode as it came out, i think it was Monday mornings in England, i even asked my friend to teach me how to watch things illegally on a webstream or whatever. I HAD to see it IMMEDIATELY. I really really loved it. My friend Simon and i watched it on his big telly also, as it came out. We couldn't wait to see what happened next, exactly same as original series, which is hilairsballs because it wasn't like "Who Killed Laura" or anything... quickly it became clear to us that everything else on telly - and as you know, there is a FUCKING LARGE AMOUNT - is 10 or 20 years behind Twin Peaks 3rd season (was it the 3rd? Whatever). One of my many theories included that David Lynch had been driven by despair to try to show everybody what they're doing wrong. I liked The Wire, i liked Mad Men and i'm sure i might have liked Breaking Bad if by that point i hadn't realised that something really bankrupt, cosy and entrapping was going on.
We were being sucked off into our sofas with Sainsbury's Taste The Difference Chocolate Deluxe Luxury 5 inch chocolate double cookies for $1.50 sorry my keyboard doesn't have a pound sterling sign. We were being melted off like cheese. Pathetic. So Twin Peaks came along and said "Don't watch all that brain-rot you idiots, watch this."
I dunno if you can tell but i am actually right now deliberately mproving the quality of my listening experience because i was getting too cosy and flabby: i ordered Status Quo's Back to Back and Dire Straits' Bros. In Arms and they both arrived in not too bad condition except the rain had got to Bros.In Arms a bit.... but then i realised that i was giving myself a soft ride so i put on The fall to stay sharp. Not that listening to The Fall is hard, mind; but you know what i mean? Police should break into people's houses at night, strip them, put their heads down the toilet and search their cd shelves. If they've got Brothers In Arms and Paul Simon etc - the greats, essentials, Elton John too - all brilliant records we must all have, but haven't got any Fall cds, ALL THEIR CDS MUST BE SMASHED UNDER THE TRUNCHEON.
Yeah the nuclear bomb episode was probably the greatest achievement so far on TV. I could watch it a million times. Practically cried first time.
How has your worldview changed since having a child?
Erm .... radically, totally different, yeah. For a start i practically lactate and go all soft whenever a mum or dad brings a young kid into the garden centre. The really cute ones, oh my god! Not just me, we're all like a pack of adoring wolves descending on them. I used to hate kids, disgusting. I was with Doug Stanhope, Woody Allen and Bill Hicks : don't have kids, there's too many already, sans greeen cards, don't pay insurance, don't work, just take take take! Yeah that all went str8 out the window. It was biology, i didn't make myself into a good person suddenly. And thank goodness i retain my evil misanthropy etc. and decent tastes for extreme culture etc. Like for instance i didn't suddenly throw away my Brianbombs cds or anything.
worldview ... i dunno, the thing that has changed is just the workload, the being busy and tired etc. I'm the luckier of the 2 parents because i live up the road and am able to have free time and sleep in the nights. But i get up at 5 and go down there to look after her til 8.45 and then i zoom offf to work. It's relentless!
Are there any artists working today who you feel don’t get the attention they deserve?
Oh gosh ... erm ... i don't know! Or i can't remember? How famous is Micachu's band Good Sad Happy Bad? Their album Shades should have sold like a million copies, i don't really understand why that hasn't happened, unless it has, and i just didn't notice. I'm racking my brains ... Yawn/Sigh by The Birthmarks isa high point of pop music, in my opinion. I'm a huge fan of Charli XCX and although yes she is 'huge' by our small standards down here at street level, she does complain sometimes about not being appreciated and i personally think she is THE BEST. No one else in the charts can touch her with a long fucking ladder. Her/her team's ear for a tune and production skills are amazing, i love her. I think Mica Levi is "a genius" but i also think Charli XCX is at the very pinnacle of the game. I think there might be a bit of funny record company business going on somewhere scuppering things. Who knows! Maybe they're treating her mean to keep her keen ...
I also got that album by Nilufer Yanya, Miss Universe i think it's called, and i really dug it. Can't wait for her difficult 3rd and 4th albums!
The Rebel’s latest album REMEMBER YOUR FAILURE IN THE CAVE is available for purchase and streaming here.
INTERVIEW: Andrew O’Keefe