Billy Bragg’s enduring weapon of choice

Still fighting fascism with his guitar, Billy Bragg has finally arrived in Australia for his One Step Forward, Two Steps Back tour. It was around three years ago when he was first supposed to be here, playing three nights at Freo.Social, with each night focusing on songs from a different era of his storied 40-year career. Due to pandemic problems, the tour was postponed numerous times, but he never cancelled on us, holding true, steadfast in solidarity, waiting for his moment, because that’s what Billy Bragg does; and so do his fans, who reciprocated with love as he told ALFRED GORMAN over a video call from Byron Bay ahead of his upcoming Freo shows on April 4-6 next week.

It’s so great you’re finally in Australia to play these special three shows! I’ve still got my tickets from three years ago! Well done for postponing and not cancelling!

Well you see I can’t be cancelled Alfred. People have tried to cancel me, but I can’t be. I can be postponed, as you know, but I can’t be cancelled.

You’ve already been playing some shows over east I believe and in New Zealand. How’s it been going?

It’s been great! I’ve had three nights in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. I’ve been to WOMADelaide and the Port Fairy Folk Festival. The three nights have worked really well I think. But you know the most important thing to me, is that 6,000 people in Sydney, 6,000 people in Melbourne, around 2,400 in Adelaide, all held onto their tickets for three years. And that loyalty, I’m really humbled by – that they should be so into the idea of me coming and playing, that they’re not asking for the refunds. That’s meant a huge amount to me. My Australian audience has always been really supportive of me, which is why I wanted to make sure I came over here with this tour. It’s great to be here at last.

Indeed. I’m really looking forward to the shows. You’ve always been very generous with your touring, you’ve been coming here for many years. The first time I saw you was the Big Day Out in 1996. You also played 2008. Which incidentally I noticed were the two years Rage Against The Machine played!

Nothing to do with me! It was always great to be on those kind of shows. In England we would refer to it as the Big Day Off, because you spent so much time just hanging around. It was brilliant. It was Australia, everyone’s happy to see you… It was a great thing to be a part of. Like running away to the circus.

I really love the three-night concept of this tour – each night focusing on a different era of your career – the first being a selection of songs from across your career, the second playing songs from your first three albums, and the third night you play songs from albums four to six. It sounds like a big undertaking that would require a lot of practice.

Yeah, and the weird thing is, you play that set and then you don’t play it for a week. We’ve just done three nights in Sydney – so the last night we played on Wednesday. Now I’ve been in Byron Bay for three days hanging out, and we’re playing Byron Bay tomorrow, then there’s another two days off, then there’s the three days in Brisbane, and we’ll play that show on the last night there – so it will have been 10 days since we played that set!

The main thing about it that’s really great about it is it allows me to sleep in the same bed, five nights in a row. Which is just brilliant at my age. But it also allows me to play a set I’m not that familiar with, and I’m not just going by rote. Because for me, my set has a narrative, it’s not just the songs, I’m talking as well, I’m setting up the songs, I’m asking questions. For instance on this tour, I talk a little bit about the indigenous voice to parliament. In the sense of giving the audience some of my experience with referenda. I like to keep what I’m doing current, to keep making songs from 40 years ago current. And it’s a bit of a challenge, but it works, it works for me, and it seems to work for the audience as well.

I mean y’know, you’re wearing a t-shirt with a slogan that Woody Guthrie wrote 80 years ago! And that slogan still resonates [I am indeed wearing a t-shirt with a guitar and the phrase “This machine kills fascists” on it, in honour of not just political folk legend Woody, but Billy who famously was given the honour of working with Wilco on turning a bunch of found Guthrie lyrics into songs, for the Mermaid Avenue albums].

So yeah, the thing is, the fascists are still there. It would have been great if Woody and his generation had dealt with them in the 1940s, and we wouldn’t have to worry about these things, but unfortunately music and guitars alone can’t get rid of that idea. Every generation has to face up to it. With my experience in Rock Against Racism and Artists Against Apartheid, I have that to offer to the new generation who are coming through, saying to themselves, ‘how do we deal with the threat of racism, transphobia, sexism, or any kind of discrimination?’ Those who have been involved in it for a long time, have something to pass on. Y’know, like Woody passed it on to us, and pass it on to the new generation.

Yeah well that’s it, sadly as you say, it seems there’s still a fair bit of fascism around. In fact, I saw just a few days ago, not long after you arrived in Australia, there was that horrible incident with British anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, who was in Melbourne (as part of her tour down here) and giving a speech, when some masked men clad in black showed up doing Nazi salutes. It’s hard to believe, in this day and age. You wrote a really great post about it on social media.

Yeah, unbelievable. I’ve known her from the UK, and we’ve said she’s a loose cannon. She’s been flirting with the far right, particularly in the USA. But when those people turn up, literally Hitler-saluting Nazis, then I’m afraid my alarm bells go off. So I’ve been trying to, in the last week, get her to reflect. She’s said “oh we didn’t invite them.” Yeah sure, but reflect on what it means when they turn up to support you. What does that say about the message that you’re putting out?

You can’t just ignore that and say ‘That’s nothing to do with me’ when they’re stood there on the steps next to you. She’s more of a troll than a campaigner, very much in the mode of the ‘shock-jockey’ on the radio in America, trying to provoke a reaction. But it seems to me that she’s kind of inoculated Australia against transphobia, which is really encouraging in an odd way, as it seems it’s given many Australian pause for thought, to say, you know what, ‘this isn’t right, this is discrimination and it’s not acceptable.’ So in many ways, what she hoped to achieve, she’s done the opposite.

That’s it, we can only hope so. Definitely the positive side to it. I also noticed in the news that the other day you’d joined the picket line in Sydney where ABC union workers were striking. And last year when you were in the US, you spoke and sang at a Starbucks union protest. It’s great to see you still getting involved with the cause at street level, showing solidarity to workers. Is it comforting to you to see that younger generation getting active like that?

Very much so. And to me it’s kind of continuing Woody’s work. If I’m going to be the guy that’s representing for Woody, through Mermaid Ave and other things. Woody never did a gig like I’m going to do in Fremantle, or the sort of touring I’m doing. He played picket lines, he played political meetings. So for me to go and play when I’m invited – I’ve been fortunate enough on this tour to perform on picket lines and protests in New Zealand and Australia – for me to go do that work, only lends credence to the things I’m talking about at the gigs.

When I’m at a gig and I’m singing There Is Power in a Union I’m just singing about it, but when I’m on a picket line, it’s real there, and it’s connected with the genuine struggle of ordinary working people. So it’s a great honour for me to get invited to do that work. And if I’m in town when it’s on, I always try to turn up. Even though some picket lines, like the teacher’s one, start at 8am in the morning, which is a bit much for me as a musician. But you have to do your best and get down there in solidarity.

Speaking of There Is Power in a Union, that is off my favourite album of yours, Talking With The Taxman About Poetry, which I have right here in fact [flashes record sleeve] and you’ll be playing songs from on night two, which focuses on material from your first three albums. It’s the night I bought tickets for three years ago.

Yes, Taxman! That’s my post-miner’s strike album. The miner’s strike was my political education. I think most people when they think of me, they think of me in terms of that era and that album. And I’m cool with that. I was at the ABC to do some interviews and they said they were out on the picket line tomorrow, so I said cool, I’ll come down! And they said, ‘oh that’d be great if you came down.’ They had to get me an acoustic guitar to play, because I’ve only brought two electrics on this tour. They were really happy I came down – someone said to me “Oh Billy Bragg! What are you doing here?” and I said “I’m Billy Bragg mate, I’m supposed to be here, that’s what I do. But it’s the fact that you’re here in solidarity, that’s the important thing.”

Absolutely. Well it’s so great you do that. But yeah, that night where you’re playing songs from the first three albums should be really cool. Really looking forward to that one. It would kinda be like choosing children I guess, but do you have a night that’s you’re favourite to play?

Well I enjoy them all. The first show is my current set, and I have a new song I Will Be Your Shield that I like to think of as really connecting with my audience. And the second show is really up-tempo, or what we call ‘chop n clang’ [those albums have a real raw, punky, almost percussive style of playing electric guitar], and the third one is more ballads, more soulful, more reflective. They’re three completely different shows and I love doing all of them.

In the time since you were supposed to come here three years ago, you’ve recorded and released a new album The Million Things That Never Happened. It’s miles away from the sound of those early records, and has that more, modern-era Americana Billy vibe. I believe it was recorded in lockdown. How did that make it different to other albums? And I believe you worked with your son on it too?

Yeah it was recorded in lockdown, and my son did a bit of songwriting with me. But mostly it was me sending in my guitar-vocal demos and them [the producers] sending me backing tracks that they thought would work well with it. And that was great because when I’m in the studio, I might raise an eye when they put the third mellotron on a track, but when I left them to do whatever they wanted, they were sending me a complete cake with icing and cherries on top, and I was like wow, that looks great! So it was an interesting way to make a record, I kinda enjoyed the process.

I saw online that during lockdown you were also going through a bunch of old boxes of musical memories from throughout your career, tour posters, t-shirts and merch, and auctioning some things off and telling some amazing stories – did this experience also give rise to the idea of putting together the amazing Roaring Forty box set you have coming out later this year?

Yes it did. I was clearing out my basement, putting all my stuff together in one archive, looking at all the tapes… It did come out of that. And very timely as well I think – the 40th anniversary is a good time to take a step back and make an event of it. I mean really, this three night tour thing should have ended in 2020. It’s kinda weird that in Australia it kinda rolls into the 40^th anniversary, because this should have all been done in 2020, and then we would have moved onto the new album tour and then would have moved onto this. So you’re a bit out of sync in Australia, but when this comes out it will all make sense I’m sure.

I have to ask you as well, since you’ve been here, have you had a chance to catch up with Albanese?

No I haven’t. I think he’s a bit more busy this time compared to last time I saw him! Last time I saw him was Fairgrounds Festival, he was a backbencher, in 2018. And we had an In Conversation then, talking about pop and politics. But I think he’s probably got other things on his agenda now, so maybe next time. But more power to him – couldn’t happen to a nicer bloke.

Absolutely, it’s so great he won. It’s been a long wait for Labor supporters… He seems to have great policies with his heart in the right place. And it’s even cooler that he has great taste in music and is a fan of yours. I believe you heard how he quoted one of your songs in his first speech to the ALP caucus after the election. When talking about the cabinet appointment of relative newcomer Kristy McBain, over some more experienced men, he quoted lyrics from your great song To Have and To Have Not, “Just because you’re going forwards, doesn’t mean I’m going backwards.”

To have someone in that position who is a fan of contemporary music bodes well for people in Australia. And I know that music funding and culture is an issue in the NSW State Election [which Labor would go on to win that night]. So I think that’s part of what Albanese has done, is bring that culture to the centre of his politics. I wish our government would bring music back to the centre of culture and bring music back to schools and give children the chance to express themselves through music, that’d be great policy.

Do you think we will see the rise of the Labour Party in the UK soon, and the ousting of the Tories similar to what has happened here? Surely it’s time now after Covid, Brexit and Boris and all the other bollocks!

Well they are 27% ahead in the polls. If they can hang onto that, it would be positive. We do need that change. We do need to move on from the Johnson years, and mend the divisive aspects of Brexit. So, I hope so.