Project Description
Interview with
Justin Burford
Interviewer – Karen Lowe
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You may know Justin Burford from the band End of Fashion or you may have seen him play Kurt Cobain – either with Nahvana or with the Perth Symphony Orchestra in Nirvana Unplugged: Reimagined. Well, Justin is back performing with PSO in their brand new show – Love Him Madly – The Doors Reimagined. Karen Lowe spoke to him about the show (2 August 2019 at His Majesty’s Theatre in Perth), End of Fashion and life lessons.
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You’ve got Love Him Madly – The Doors Reimagined show coming up soon. How is preparation going for that?
Yeah really well. I was actually just with Bourby (Webster) on Friday evening going through some of the script and trying out a few different voices and going through some of the charts. We’re looking down the barrel of the last few weeks where everything gets really real.
Without giving away too many spoilers, what are your favourite Doors songs and do you get to sing any of them on the night?
Oh absolutely yeah. Like Nirvana (before this one) I was pushing Bourbs to do The Doors. They’ve been a favourite of mine for a very long time – longer than I care to reveal (laughs) so I actually get to sing most of the favourites.
I think the set list contains a lot of stuff that fans of The Doors or even just people who are familiar with their music will recognise a lot of the songs.
You’ve done a few tribute acts now including Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain where you portray them as accurately as you can – right down to the voice. What do you do to prepare yourself to play these roles?
I think Kurt especially, comes from a decades’ long admiration – obviously at the start, his music and then became more and more about the man himself so I guess that was more innate.
With Jim, it does feel a lot more like I am putting on a character so it does feel a bit more externally derived rather than internally derived. I also feel a little bit more removed from who Jim Morrison was as a human being.
I guess it’s just research and I will listen to a lot of… not just the music to try and take on some of the aspects of the singing voice but also the speaking voice. I read a lot of his poetry and been listening to a lot of his interviews.
I read a really great biography a few years ago called Love Becomes A Funeral Pyre for anyone interested in Jim Morrison or The Doors. It was quite eye-opening and I remember coming away from it wondering whether the author absolutely loved Jim Morrison or despised him. I couldn’t tell. It was no holds barred unblinking.
Something interesting to me actually – during the writing and the researching for Bourby (and she’d probably tell you this as well), she started with Nirvana, not knowing much about the music and not knowing much about Kurt Cobain but she came away admiring the music and loving Kurt as an artist and I think the opposite has actually happened with The Doors. She was like “omg Jim Morrison was a nasty, narcissistic megalomaniacal piece of work.” I was like “yeah…” (laughs)
I don’t know if it’s just the 27 thing but there always seems to have been some kind of link there between Jim and Kurt. Maybe it’s that they were icons but I think it’s more that they were both poets. I think out of the two, Jim Morrison is actually the more misunderstood figure. Kurt was a little bit more transparent and he wore his heart on his sleeve where Jim has unfortunately gone down in history as a little bit of a drunk and buffoon but he was fiercely intelligent which was probably part of his struggle. It was so much of a challenge for him to face the world as it was in that time.
What are some of the things that you have learned about yourself by putting yourself into other artists shoes?
I think that most artists are fundamentally broken? (laughs) Myself included. It kind of becomes a self-awareness as you see aspects of yourself in other people where you think “yeah I would probably do the same thing if I was in a similar situation.”
I think sometimes it’s the differences between yourself and the characters that really inform you of who are. I can’t imagine what it would have actually been like or reality to have been the voice for a dispirit generation at the age of 23 or 24. What kind of pressure would that put on a young mind? No wonder a lot of these guys break.
Just the struggles that all artists go through. It’s insane when you actually look at that and see yourself in them
Oh absolutely yeah and it’s something about these particular people that rise and rise to become legendary that they are like the canvas that you can project yourself on to – that you see so much of yourself in. It’s a bit scary.
Is it any different working with the Perth Symphony Orchestra as opposed to working with a band? Are there different steps that you have to take to ensure that you are ready to step out on stage?
Ooh yeah. The thing that springs to mind and reveals some of my inner narcissism; working with the orchestra, I am not as in charge. I think it’s… when I walk into the rehearsal room or the studio with End of Fashion, I tend to know what I want. Even if I don’t know exactly what I want, I know, after this many years, the quickest way of getting towards what I want or finding it.
With the orchestra, I like to think I have a good ear for music but then there’s the sheer number of players that are involved and a sheer number of different elements that takes years and years and years to get a command of. My role is so different with PSO and it’s quite freeing that I can just focus on whatever I am bringing to any particular project.
And as you asked before “how do you get prepared?” well I get to focus on just that. I’ve been a little bit more hands-off with The Doors show and it’s coming along really nicely. I was a little bit more hands-on with Ash for the Nirvana one because I was far more familiar with that material than Ash was.
With the music of The Doors, it’s much older so therefore it permeated much more of the culture so didn’t need as much guidance and direction from one individual. There’s already this huge store of information out there to tap into.
I almost just get to put on a pair of black pants, a conch belt, a flowing white shirt and go out there and croon – let the script do the talking. I know Bourby’s put a lot of work and time into the staging – the visual aspect. I think it’s going to be a huge part of this show.
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You have just announced that End of Fashion will be playing some shows on 26/27 July and that you have new music. Will you have the original line up? Are you excited to be playing shows again as a band?
Very, very excited. Line up is a bit of a hodgepodge of old line up and new. The bulk of the line up is the line up I had for the 2016 nostalgia tour where we celebrated the release of the first record and we have brought on board Anthony Jackson on bass. He’s hit the ground running.
Rehearsals are going really, really well. We’ve got a few more before the weekend of the shows. Really loving where the songs are at.
I’ve kind of been joking with this hashtag #classicfash because that’s what it feel like. I’ve compared this stage with End of Fashion with when we first started. It reminds me so much of then. It’s come from a place of freedom and ease. There’s no record company deadline. We didn’t have to do this if we didn’t want to so it’s really out of choice. We get to take our time and the songs feel lighter.
When I first started writing songs, I was just a guy in my bedroom writing songs and then I got a band together and we started playing shows and became interested in it and got to make some records. It’s like we’ve come full circle. For the last couple of years, I’ve just been a guy writing songs in my bedroom, got a band together and now he’s going out there with his mates and playing some songs.
What are some of the biggest life lessons that you have learned since first forming End of Fashion?
(laughs) how long have you got? I think some of the biggest ones have just been patience and kindness. You can’t have everything now. I learned to slow my breathing down a whole heck of a lot and let things happen the way that they happen. A lot more open to ideas.
The environment that the band came up in – I don’t know if anyone else felt like this but it always felt like there was a competitiveness to a lot of the bands that we were put together with and that’s all gone away. Now, you just hope that everybody does well.
You also care less about the little things.
As a fan, it’s often quite hard to go up to your idols and say hello for fear of being turned away or fear of seizing up and sounding like an idiot. As a musician, how do you go at meeting your idols? Do you have the same fears?
I have the worst case of ‘starstruckness’. It’s not a word but… I get really intimidated, really easily and by the silliest people. Oh god, this is so stupid to admit but I did an interview with Steve Vizard and I couldn’t string a sentence together. It was ridiculous! I walked away going “It was Steve Vizard!”
Then there’s other people who have some kind of celebrity status who I’m good friends with and it doesn’t bother me at all. I guess it’s all in context of how you get to meet someone.
Oh man, I remember the first time I met Kevin Mitchell! I was a mute. He brought that up years and years later and I was like “yeah I know. It’s really embarrassing.” Beyond saying hi, we hung out in the same room. I think we had dinner together. Vanessa was in the band but it was like “omg you’re Kevin Mitchell!” I just could not say a word for about 90 minutes and then I left.
I remember meeting Phil Jamieson and I was a crazy, crazy Grinspoon fan but I pretended not to know who he was. That’s how I was able to deal with that one. He introduced himself and put his hand out and I was like “oh I’m sorry man, I didn’t catch your name.” I kinda put him in his place.
Too many people these days seem to prefer to watch a gig through their mobile phones. What are your thoughts about phones at gigs?
(laughs) Honestly, in this day and age, I’m just glad they’ve come. I’m not even kidding. There’s so many options now. You can sit at home and watch Netflix or you can put on some clothes and go outside, brave the world, part with some money and listen to people play loud music at you for an hour or so. I think it’s quite a big ask so I appreciate every, single person that parts with their hard earned cash and comes along to support the arts in any way, shape or form.
I don’t care then how they choose to take it in and digest it.
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