ROCK’N’ROLL CONFIDENTIAL
MATT JOHNSON
The The’s returned generalissimo talks iner tia, prescience, life and death.
Burning blue soul: Matt Johnson looks you in the eye.
“I ’M MUCH more mellow and laidback now,” promises Matt Johnson, AKA The The. These are not words often associated with ’80s LPs such as Soul Mining, Infected and Mind Bomb, where the Stratford-born auteur gene-spliced post-punk and pop to conduct unflinching examinations into extreme emotional states, a world in flames and, as a song from 1992’s
Dusk powerfully stated, how Love Is Stronger Than Death. There was, however, a lengthy hiatus after 2000’s Naked Self, broken by a surprise tour in 2018. Johnson is full of praise for his current group and film director Tim Pope, who, that year, helped him make the new live-at-the-Royal Albert Hall concert movie The Comeback Special. Filmed days after Johnson’s father Eddie passed away, the pin-sharp performance runs the full gamut of The The, from death, lust and despair to ultimate transcendence. “You’ve got to adopt the sense of an alchemist really,” says Johnson, who also keeps busy running his own Cinéola label and studio, and promises a new The The studio album. “There’s so much darkness and negativity. How to create something beautiful and hopeful from it?”