Chumbawamba
    Interviews

Instead of whining about how there's "no future," Chumbawamba strive to make the world safe for the obliteration of democracy, or any other political institution for that matter. For the last 15 years they've been waging a war in Northern England to smash the class system, dissolve capitalism and still keep their artistic appetites well sated. They've released 10 wildly divergent records that range from folk-pop to industrial noise, participated in countless protest marches, and been arrested for numerous crimes including suspicion of possession of explosives and delivering a bag full of excrement to Barclays bank.

"All of our adult lives, we've been involved in riots," says blue-haired vocalist Alice Nutter. "We've always been part of the counterculture and we're not reformists. We're not going, 'Hey, if only we could get the policemen to be a bit nicer, it would be alright.' We're saying that society's ruthless and we have to be ruthless. And the police are your enemy. We're saying the police and us are not on the same side because there's a class divide and we know which side they're protecting."

At the moment, Nutter and Dunstan Bruce, two-eighths of the Chumbawamba anarchy collective, are hunched in a corner room at their record label's office building, when a long-awaited knock comes at the door. Is it revolutionaries arriving with bulletproof vests, spy cameras or tear gas? Nope, it's their publicist, supplying them with breakfast.

"Oooh, pancakes!" exclaims Nutter, sounding much more like a pig-tailed girl on Christmas morning than a comrade-in-arms. A few years ago, such enthusiasm would have been warranted. At the time, Chumbawamba were starving artists with only a minor record deal and a few loyal extremists to finance their revolution. But these days, the band is being showered with greater rewards than pancakes. Their new album Tubthumper --which mixes buoyant hip-hop beats, infectious pop hooks and easily digestible politics -- has already sold over a million copies, landing as high as number six on the Billboard Top 200. Credit much of this to the album's unforgettable single "Tubthumping," which is reminiscent of pop fodder like EMF's "Unbelievable" and Jesus Jones's "Right Here, Right Now" and has hit as high as number seven on the singles chart. That's right. Any way you slice it, the terrorist lefties Chumbawamba are now wealthy pop stars.

"If you don't think pop stars are any better than you and you never have, than once you officially become one, you still don't think you're any better than anyone else," insists Nutter. "We assume there's tons of money coming in, but actually we haven't seen any of it yet. But when we do, we'll use it in appropriate ways. In the past, we used money from some of our gigs to fund women in Leeds that couldn't afford abortions."

Surely, there aren't that many Leeds women who can't afford abortions. So, will Chumbawamba go the Noel Gallagher route, and use their royalty checks to buy houses and cars? "I think it would be alright if we bought houses because we've always paid rent to a landlord, which is the worst social system going," asserts Nutter. "But once you've got the house, you don't need to start wearing Gucci. There's a level of security that everyone should have, whether they work in a cafe or play in a band, but beyond that there's a lot of meaningless indulgences. We split all of our finances eight ways solidly, and we try to make sure the crew takes home the same as we take home. The things that we've fought for years for are still important to us."

Maybe so, but the more the mainstream caters to Chumbawamba's irresistible pop ditties, the more flack the band receives from former fans who accuse them of selling out. After all, the group went from being resolutely independent to allowing its consumer-friendly music to be marketed by a major corporate entity. But for Chumbawamba, being popular means more opportunity to spread the faith, and being on Universal Records allows the group to use the tools of the mainstream for subversive purposes. "We're working with a multinational corporation, but ultimately, we want the downfall of it. We're not on the same side," says Nutter.

"For years, we were like fans at a football match, standing by at the sideline, shouting at people, but having no real role," adds Bruce. "Now, it's like we're actually playing, and we have some influence at last about the things we were never able to reach the people with before. I think we've got to take this opportunity by the scruff of the neck and use it for whatever we see fit because we might not get another opportunity."

Unlike many soapbox bands who whine about how bad fur and animal testing are, but whose overall presentation offers little real political awareness, Chumbawamba's music and message are one and the same. Tupthumper is sprinkled with samples and soundbytes that reflect the band's lefty views, and the lyric sheet was originally filled with quotes from Chomsky, Plato, George Orwell and others before the evil corporate oppressors asked them to remove it for fear of being sued. The quotes can still be obtained on the group's website at www.chumba.com.

"When we make an album, it's not just a collection of songs. It's a much bigger concept full of ideas and issues," says Bruce. "To me, this whole record to me is saying, 'This is how we feel on these issues, and here's a lot of other people from the art world who feel the same way. And if you have these views as well, don't worry. You're not alone."

			"Tubthumping"
			"Amnesia"
			"Scapegoat"

"The thing is," adds Nutter, "we just want to put ideas further. We don't want to offer any solutions because we're fallible. It's up to people to decide things for themselves."

With all the one-hit-wonders that have stormed the charts recently, it's hard not to wonder whether Chumbawamba's chart fortune isn't just transitory. At this point it's too early to tell whether "Tubthumping" is the whimsical breeze of the moment or the first in a series of meaningful, enticing projects. Either way, critics and record execs are probably more concerned than the band. "Even if this is just our 15 minutes of fame, that doesn't particularly worry us because before we did this album we didn't know this was going to happen in the first place," says Bruce. "The important thing is for us to take this 15 minutes and do something with it."

Or, as the band says in "Outsider," "You see me, you hear me, there are millions think just like me."