A conversation with J. Willgoose, Esq. of Public Service Broadcasting
Hilda Matheson.
A name synonymous with inventing talk radio.
A name synonymous with developing the standards for factual reporting of social commentary, politics, current affairs and news.
And for courage.
A pioneer.
She was born in 1888 into a relatively comfortable, middle-class family. Forced to pause her educational studies at age 18 when her father’s health dictated the family move to Europe, she became fluent in French, German and Italian. Upon her return to England in 1908, Hilda enrolled in the Society of Oxford Home-Students (now known as St Anne’s College), where she gained a degree in history. She was recruited by TE Lawrence – the actual Lawrence of Arabia – to MI5 during the First World War and subsequently went on to become political secretary to Nancy Astor MP (a Conservative MP… must have been an interesting partnership with the socialist leaning Matheson). She was then headhunted in 1926 by John Reith (the first DG of the fledgling BBC) and appointed its first Director of Talks until her resignation in 1931.
One of her radio programmes, “The Week In Westminster”, first broadcast on 6th November, 1929, is still aired on Radio 4 today.
She brought ‘This New Noise’ – her phrase to describe the sound of unfamiliar wireless radio broadcasting – to the people.
Fast forward 100 years give or take.
Especially commissioned by the BBC to celebrate their 100th birthday, Public Service Broadcasting took to the Royal Albert Hall stage on 30th August 2022, with Jules Buckley and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, to perform a collection of songs that became their own LP “This New Noise”, released on 8th September 2023.
It’s an astonishing, immersive and emotional voyage.
Let’s start at that show at the Royal Albert Hall….
Giles Sibbald
I talked to Paul Ferguson, the drummer from Killing Joke, after they played there in March this year – they played their first two albums back to back. I remember Paul saying that the emotion of playing there was next level. From soundcheck through to the very end when he stood up and saw the crowd’s reaction, it almost brought him to tears. You’ve played there three times now, what was it like for you?
J Willgoose, Esq.
That’s the kind of reaction you get when people have been living with your records for that long. And they mean that much to people, that I think it takes the emotion to another level. So, I’m not surprised at how Paul felt. Not surprised that they were a bit overwhelmed by it all. That’s one of the virtues of sticking around a bit really, isn’t it? But in terms of how they’ve all been very different for us, the first show we did there was for our own album tour. That was probably the most straightforwardly enjoyable because it felt like there was less pressure on it. It was a funny one because we sold the choir seats behind us as well, so when we got to the end of the show and people were making a nice noise, when we acknowledged the crowd, we started turning and we just didn’t really stop turning – it’s like a full 360, like being on a merry go round. It was a bit of an out of body experience. Playing a venue like that is genuinely just a bit surreal anyway, and it’s especially hard for your brain to take it in on a third time of asking, you know, when we did the This New Noise show. So yeah, it’s a surreal experience. I think that word is overused, but it does feel like it’s not really happening. After the fact, even with an artefact as tangible as the actual This New Noise record, it still feels like it couldn’t possibly have happened. It’s a strange one.
Giles Sibbald
The history of the building and who it’s hosted in the past must be quite palpable when you’re doing your preparations on the day.
J Willgoose, Esq.
Backstage, they’ve got all these images of who’s played there in the pop world and also the classical world: Dvořák conducting his own premieres there as part of the proms or as part of classical music seasons. It’s quite overwhelming. And it says at the bottom of them all “Royal Albert Hall, the world’s most famous venue”. I thought “Come on, no, it’s not”. And then you start thinking, “Oh, actually, maybe it is, you know….Madison Square Garden, maybe?” I struggled to think of somewhere that has as much kind of carry, especially abroad. People know the Royal Albert Hall. They know it. It’s a special place, that’s for sure. I mean, acoustically, it’s not actually that great, but in the bones of the building, it’s definitely pretty special.
Giles Sibbald
Yeah, I’d heard mixed opinions about the acoustics….
J Willgoose, Esq.
You know, it’s not just about how it sounds, it’s about the feel, it’s about the prestige, about the look of it, it’s about the history, about the status. If you’ve got to the level where you can play and sell out the Royal Albert Hall that, in itself, is another step on the way up the Everest of music, I suppose, and many people would give the right arm for it.
Giles Sibbald
I think my pinnacle of opulent venues was as a cellist playing in Blackburn Cathedral as a maybe 15 or 16 year old. It could fit – I think – about 800. Multiplying that by, what – 6? I can’t even imagine playing the Royal Albert Hall – well, I could and it scares me!
So, looking top down on your achievements since the first EP to now, how are you feeling?
J Willgoose, Esq.
Good, yeah. I mean, we didn’t really know how it would go down when we announced plans to release it, because it is a live record, but at the same time, it’s the only version of those tracks that exists. So, it’s not purely a live record, it’s also part of our output, I suppose. I didn’t know how people would approach it, whether they’d see it as a live album, and it wouldn’t get much attention, you know, relative to the studio records, or whether they’d see it as a proper record. It’s definitely veered closer to people saying it’s a proper record, which I think means that people are really paying attention to it. Our fans are very perceptive and attentive in that way. So, it’s nice to have been able to give it that extra lease of life because, otherwise, it was a lot of work for one concert. I mean one big concert, but one concert nonetheless.
Giles Sibbald
For me, your whole output evokes feelings that I’m being taken to a time and place that reflect my memories of those times and places. Like “Every Valley”. I remember growing up seeing the effect of Thatcherism on communities and coal communities were obviously one of those communities. It makes me remember that history and to never forget it. The interviews, the samples, the minor chord progressions, the arrangements. For me, that album is about remembering that history – or learning about it for the first time – and learning from it. And with “This New Noise”, the addition of the orchestra takes things to a stunning new level.
J Willgoose, Esq.
Oh, thank you. That’s very kind. Yeah. I don’t know what it is, I can’t explain it. But people seem to have an emotional reaction to our music, you know. Something strikes a chord literally and metaphorically and we’re very, very grateful to have that kind of connection.
Giles Sibbald
Clearly technology is one of the mega trends that’s impacting how we live our lives. How do you anticipate the future of music will be affected by tech?
J Willgoose, Esq.
Well, it’s always been a very central part of what we do. And I think, unlike a lot of bands, we haven’t really hidden that. A lot of bands are backed by the whole playback system and laptops, but they will often be hidden from view, so the audience may not necessarily even realise that some stuff is coming off track, unless it’s something obvious that you’re using like backing vocals, for example. So, we’ve tried to be relatively honest with our use of it. And that use has been part financial necessity and part musical necessity, I suppose. In the early days, we wouldn’t have been able to afford to do the kinds of shows we do now, where we’ve got three permanent musical members, permanent visuals, and then four or five guest musicians at every show. We just couldn’t really do that. So, we had to rely more on looped stuff and had to work out a way to do that reliably and interestingly, make it musically engaging and we also had to rely on a certain amount of track for some of the speech elements and some of the stuff that’s just not easily reproducible live. So, it’s central to our show but hopefully the bigger and more ambitious our live shows get, ironically the less we probably will have to rely on that technology – which is a good thing for us. It’s so difficult on every level as a band starting out, but especially financially. So, this is a great option for bands starting out to make it work as a three piece and be able to get your music out there and get playing. And then, if you can get to another level, to add members and take stuff off track and play live. I think most people in the gig-going world understand that, nowadays, it’s just not possible to start and tour with a six or seven piece band unless you’re really, really lucky. So, we start small and rely on technology a lot. And as we’re getting bigger, we can use more live musicians. We’re thankfully reducing the playbacks but are still clearly heavily reliant on it in terms of running the show the way we want to run it.
Giles Sibbald
Do you think that technology changes a musician’s approach to perfectionism?
J Willgoose, Esq.
I think it’s easier to get really wrapped up in the minutiae and start, you know, editing and mixing with your eyes rather than your ears and becoming obsessed with everything lining up perfectly and kind of becoming super robotic, not really human. And I think the ease with which technology allows for that to happen almost starts to send you down that road if you’re that way inclined. I think you do need to be wary of that, depending on the kind of music you’re trying to make. If you’re trying to make electronic dance music, where it really is about the regularity and the pulse, then you don’t really want a lot of sloppiness getting in there. But Talking Heads, for example, that’s not looped. That’s all percussion and guitar played live. And it’s not as tight as some of the modern stuff you might hear, but it does have that energy, that human pulse to it that some other music doesn’t have because it’s been overly finessed. So, it’s really, like most things, about finding the right balance between taking advantage of the technology to your benefit and not then being dictated to by it in terms of how far down the rabbit hole of perfectionism you go. I normally get bored at a certain point and just leave it. I mean I do do a lot – from a technical point of view, not necessarily musical point of view – but at some point, I just think, you know, you’re gonna take the life out of this thing. Don’t go too far.
Giles Sibbald
A couple of years ago, you spent some time in in Berlin. I read an interview and you were talking about Tempelhof airport.
J Willgoose, Esq.
Yeah, the one that’s not an airport anymore.
Giles Sibbald
I’m interested in future living and one aspect of this is our physical environment. This started to come about when I was reading about Detroit, when it was going through its awful decline and how the downtown area and some suburbs that had been devastated were regenerating, sometimes through community projects. I’m interested in your thoughts on cities and what cities might look like in the future – you know, how buildings, factories or airports, as they did with Tempelhof, can be repurposed for future living….
J Willgoose, Esq.
Well, I don’t think I’m especially qualified to talk about it, but I do find it interesting. I think cities are going to have to change, especially in the European part of the world, because heat is going to become so unbearable, we’re going to see a very big change in terms of how we view all sorts of things. And it’s starting to happen, but the pace of it is nowhere near where it needs to be to really make changes effective. But Berlin was inspiring, because I think it’s a much more progressive city than London. Environmentally it feels like it’s a city that’s more in touch, that makes more space for nature. And I think there’s no better example of that than Tempelhof. I think it’s inspiring that they’ve left that space both for human recreation and environmental purposes, you know, to cool the city down. It’s getting hotter and hotter there every year, the summers are really unlike anything in the past 50 years preceding it, you know, it forms a big heat sink in a way. And unlike concrete or asphalt, you know, it doesn’t absorb the heat and just radiate it back out all night long. It does do a better job of dealing with it. And I also just find that it’s a welcome tonic to having lived in London most of my life and having to get used to the fact that money always wins in London, you know. There’s no way that a space that big would be left for that purpose in London. It’d be gobbled up for property development. I find that quite depressing, but you know, it’s nicer to try and take inspiration from places like Berlin and try to encourage that kind of thing over here. And that can be really small scale stuff: I’ve got really involved in our street tree planting scheme. I just want to look after them and try and do my own little bit in my own little patch of London to just encourage greenery and encourage evapotranspiration and all these kind of things that can help to keep the greening of buildings, growing ivy up buildings as a way of insulating them… all of that stuff. It’s actually a really cheap and really effective way of doing it. But people are scared of it. People are generally scared of nature when they shouldn’t be. So yeah, I’m trying to bring my little bit of Berlin back to London and make my corner a little bit more green and a bit more wildlife friendly.
Giles Sibbald
Do you think that small community based projects are the way forward for big change?
J Willgoose, Esq.
Actually, no, I don’t, no. Big change has to be driven by government. It’s too big to rely on factions. To try and get through the crisis that we’re facing and pretend we can all just carry on as normal with enormous cost to all of us is just fantasyland, really. It’s so dispiriting to see this happening, not surprising, but dispiriting and dispiriting to see it politicised as well, because it’s too important to play with in that manner. And I think the current mob have enough to be ashamed about already, but they should be deeply, deeply ashamed as human beings of what they’re trying to do now.
Giles Sibbald
I completely agree. It’s a struggle to see where the change is going to come from. I hear you that these huge problems have to be driven by government but, with this lot, I don’t see the desire to serve anything but the elite and drive divisions. Everything in government and business is so short term, isn’t it? I think it was Mark Carney, when he was talking about climate as the governor of the Bank of England, who called it “the tragedy of the horizon” that people can’t or don’t want to see that far ahead. I struggle to see where, you know, the political visionaries are.
J Willgoose, Esq.
Yeah, and where the appetite for that change is, and where the appetite among the general public is for the fact that there is going to have to be a certain level of sacrifice. And it probably won’t come until it’s too late. It’s blindingly obvious to everyone, even the most, you know, blinkered, intellectually challenged thinkers, shall we say. So, when it’s too late, it will be vastly more expensive to try and solve, which is stupid. Totally counterproductive. And the result of decisions that we’ve seen in the last few months, you know, is the longer you leave it, the worse it gets. I don’t know why they don’t understand that.
Giles Sibbald
For a government that is so motivated by economic and money, it’s ironic and baffling that they do deny it, then have to pay over the odds to come up with their patchwork solutions that they then crow about as being their revolutionary vision.
J Willgoose, Esq.
I can’t explain the thinking other than in terms of raw political cynicism, which makes it even worse.
Giles Sibbald
Do you think music still has a role to play in activism or as an agent of change? Do you think that its role has changed over the years?
J Willgoose, Esq.
I think it definitely has. It can be small scale or large scale, I think. Somebody like Taylor Swift certainly seems to realise her responsibilities and her powers more than most, and is trying to be a force for good by trying to change things using her standing and you know, trying to ensure that her part of the industry is run better and run more fairly by highlighting some of the exploitation that she’s faced along the way. In terms of music, having a political message and encouraging change, I think it’s extremely effective. I just think you need to leave room for people to find their own way through, you know. With a record like our “Every Valley” which is extremely thorny politically, you can’t be beating people over the head with stuff. You need to leave them a route or a map to find their way through your stuff and form their own attachment with it. And I think the hectoring, belligerent style of doing it, which might, unfairly or otherwise, be associated with people like Billy Bragg, you know, the speechmaking on stage kind of stuff, people just find that very easy to tune out of, if they are against that way of thinking. So, I think there’s a way, there’s definitely an argument for it, I think it just needs to be more subtle and careful than beating people over the head with a big message stick. And I’m hoping that the way that we’ve structured our records is helping with that in our own very small way.
Giles Sibbald
I’m really intrigued as to how messages can deliver the desired impact. The psychology behind it. It’s an interesting one with PSB because you don’t have lyrics per se, apart from the samples and occasional guest vocalist, so you’re largely reliant on the music and the feeling and ambience that that gives you. In a way, you are offering the subtlety you mentioned just now, through non-verbal communication and the feeling that evokes. You’re encouraging the listener to ask themselves “What does this mean to me?”
J Willgoose, Esq.
Yeah, and avoiding the most obvious symbols: so, no Thatcher, no Scargill on that record. No big names other than Richard Burton. But, you know, you’re not relying on force of personality to make your point, you’re relying on the testimony of the people who lived through it and who very kindly gave us permission to use their testimony. Like everything artwise, you need to leave space for the audience. Because if you don’t, you’re not going to create those lasting bonds of the likes that Killing Joke experienced at the Royal Albert Hall. You need to leave room for people to form their own bonds with the work itself and recognise that the work is not something you can control once it’s out there, and that’s where the real power is. Once you’re in people’s lives to that extent, and once people have got married to your songs and buried relatives to your songs, they’ve had all kinds of life experiences and with your music forming part of those experiences. That’s the bond that can’t be broken. That’s the real strength of music, I think. And it’s not reliant on us as personalities, and it’s not reliant on us lecturing people, it’s relying on us leaving our space and what we do for people to form those relationships.
Giles Sibbald
That’s such a strong point and very well made, J. Have you noticed the demographics of your fan base changing over the years?
J Willgoose, Esq.
I think our audience has been very solid in the UK, it’s been a 6 Music audience, because that’s where we’ve had most exposure, so you’d expect that station’s demographic to be replicated to an extent in our fan base. We’ve been around in some form of public consciousness for 10 years now – it’s 10 years since the first album and 11 since the War Room EP with Spitfire. And it’s strange what happens in that time, kids who grew up listening to the music in the back of the car, suddenly they’re 18/19 and coming to our shows and coming to the signings that we did last week, and, you know, seeming very nervous. I had a guy come up to me in Bristol, and say, “Do you remember the gig you played at The Fleece here in 2013?”. And I was like, “Yeah”, and he was like, “Well, I was in the front row with my daughter, it was her first ever show”. And I remember that because she looked like it was a bit much for her. I remember mouthing to him “Is she okay?” Because if she wasn’t, I was going to have to stop the show or something and help them out. So, he mouthed back “Yeah, she’s fine”, then the next thing is, we’re talking 10 years later and she must now be 21, 22, 23 or something. Now, how did that happen?!! So you have these kids who have grown up and they have these relationships with your music that are totally independent of you as a person. It’s quite {pauses to reflect}…it’s quite remarkable. So yes, we do see younger folks, especially at festivals where they’re allowed in, but because we continue to receive the most support and most exposure via 6 Music, whatever that looks like is what our audience is gonna look like – for the foreseeable future in the UK, at least.
Giles Sibbald
I love that story. Music being passed between generations, like books, like poems, art. I know it’s been happening forever, but I just think that because we now seem to have far greater and deeper divisions in the world, these are stories of hope that music can act as the glue or the means of carrying forward messages to the next generation. When I see much more diversity happening at concerts, that makes me very happy.
J Willgoose, Esq.
Yes, an amazing thing isn’t it? It’s the power of music, isn’t it? I mean, it’s far from unique to us. I was at The Walkmen the other day at Koko. Must have been their first gig in over 10 years and it was just a beautiful thing to be part of, especially when they played their better-known songs because people were just lost. They almost lost their minds because the songs mean so much to them and you’re all there together for the same reason. It’s part of the human experience in that way. It’s a good kind of check to any kind of burgeoning ego, I think. I realise that some people might view that from the other way around and think “God, this means so much to people, I must be absolutely bloody wonderful”, but still…{laughs}
Giles Sibbald
Artists are very different in how they view their back catalogue. How do you see your catalogue and how do you see its role in the future?
J Willgoose, Esq.
Well, I’m quite open to the fact that it’s almost certain that a record that we put out in 2015 (The Race For Space) is going to be the most successful one that we ever make, and it’s going to be the one that people have the strongest emotional reaction to and not to get my nose put out of joint by that, despite subsequent efforts, and to just recognise that we got lucky and how wonderful it is to have had any kind of connection with fans, much less one on that kind of scale. I don’t think it’s miles and miles ahead of the others in terms of the bond it has with the audience, but it’s definitely the one that people will tell you, more often than not, is the one that they love more than any other record like that. Obviously, that’s a big part of your past. But it’s also – provided you don’t get somehow offended by that – a big part of your future as well, because new people are going to discover it and it’s just going to keep on growing in those levels of meaning and emotional response to it. I can’t really imagine playing Go! in 10 years’ time. I don’t know what the crowd reaction to that kind of thing would be. But, I knew it was good, and I very rarely say that about anything because it sounds immodest – I’m riven with self-doubt as any creative person worth their salt is – but um, yeah, it was good. But it’s only once you’ve been playing it to audiences for 2,3,4 even 5 years that you realise you’ve really got one there. It’s not going anywhere anytime soon, you know? It’s a weird feeling how that kind of creeps up on you.
Giles Sibbald
It must be a pretty special feeling, knowing that something that you have produced hits a chord with so many people.
J Willgoose, Esq.
Well, yeah, it should be {laughs}. The way I think about it, though – and Brian Eno said a similar thing on the Buxton podcast he did ages ago – is that the further away you get from it, the less and less it seems like you had anything to do with it. You can kind of almost divorce yourself from all ownership of it. I don’t feel like that song is mine. Even though I clearly wrote it, in an odd way I don’t feel like I did write it anymore. It doesn’t feel like it belongs to me the way it did when I was working on it. But it’s just been amazing to get eight years of people getting progressively more enthusiastic about it. You wonder where the ceiling is really….
“This New Noise” is out now on Test Card Recordings
