Life has never been easy for THE GOD MACHINE. But their talent was to turn whatever fate threw at them into rich, intensely emotional music. Now, after the death of their bass player, they�ve decided to call it a day. SHARON O�CONNELL spoke to them about faith, finality and the future.
"There�s no imaginable way to continue. It�s like
trying to replace a best friend rather than a bass
player" - Robin Proper-Sheppard.
"I FEEL CHEATED BY LIFE" ADMITS Robin Proper-Sheppard,"
and by the fact that someone who affected my life more
than I ever really knew. I feel cheated by the fact
that somebody that spread so much beauty and happiness
should be taken away from the world, rather than by the
fact that we can�t create music any more."
Robin, The God Machine�s guitarist/vocalist, is struggling
to explain the sense of inconsolable loss he and drummer
Ronald Austin still feel four months after their best
friend and bass player, Jimmy Fernandez, died unexpectadly
of a brain tumour. And he�s here now with Austin, sitting
forward on the squeaky new leather couch in a hushed ante
room of Fiction Records telling me why - a week before
the release of their most emotionally powerful and musically
adventurous record to date - it�s all over, why they
couldn�t possibly contemplate replacing Jimmy and carrying
on as The God Machine. He wants this opportunity to close
the chapter and lay their gorgeous, thundering ghost to
rest.
The God Machine were always more a spiritual alliance
fuelled by awesome self-belief than just a band. The
fact that they moved together from San Diego to a cold
and soulless London, where initially they endured squat
life without electricity or hot water and found it hard
to make friends, must have cemented that bond, but both
Robin and Austin reckon that at the end of the day these
circumstances were always more peripheral that other people
made them out to be.
"The God Machine is just about our experiences," says Robin,
picking his way carefully. "There are certain experiences
that you continually relive throughout your life and
I have a feeling that those are at the core of what we
are about as people. In that sense, I think no matter
where we were we would always be how we are now; we could
be in New York or we could be in Russia. But, if we�re
talking about the music, then what we�re expressing is much
more primitive than a superficial experience here and
there.
"It�s strange," had adds, "because I don�t imagine this
album sounding the way that it sounds if we were in
California, lying on the beach drinking Margaritas. But
then again, I also think that, no matter where we are,
we�re going to express the kinds of things we live
internally. To me, there is a core at the centre of out
being, almost.
"Don�t print that," Robin laughs suddenly, "because it
sounds incredibly pretentious. But I don�t know how else
to explain it."
"ONE Last Laugh In A Place Of Dying" was written and
recorded in Prague, "a suitably unstable part of the world",
as Robin sees it. They shifted there in September last year,
exhausted by almost two years of solid touring, "a bizarre
and lonely lifestyle" which made them feel they were slowly
losing their individuality. It seemed like they were all
being suffocated by the identity of the band, by what they
were supposed to be, and the move was an opportunity for The
God Machine to rediscover who they were as people, to
reaffirm their self-belief as a band and make the album they
wanted to make, free of expectations. It worked.
Like all their records, "One Last Laugh�" tackles The Big
Issues on an almost biblical scale. Life and death, trust
and betrayal, loneliness, loss, faith and doubt are all
here in these 14 mini-psychodramas, but they�re nowhere
near as dank and claustrophobic as previous songs. Tracks
stretch out and breathe deep, some dipping into plain
beautiful melodies, others swinging like rock songs,
while that bleakness is - "Evol" and "Painless" aside -
always tempered by a life-affirming spirit.
It concerns Robin that The God Machine have always been
perceived as doom �n� gloom merchants.
"A lot of people talk about the pain and darkness in our
music and how forbidding and depressing it is," he sighs,
"but to me it�s not. Although I might be experiencing these
things when I write something, for me that�s a release.
If I didn�t do that, I�d walk around day after day with
these things going around in my head, which is much more
destructive for me than getting it out. A lot of things
I write about I just can�t talk about people on a one-to-one,
conversational level.
"Essentially," adds Robin, "this is my therapy." What of
the clamorous certainty in your music, I wonder ? The sense
of black as distinct from white, of wrongs that are so
obviously not right? Do you always fel as sure as you
sound ? Robin smiles. "Let me put it this way. Sometimes
I�m an optimistic pessimist and other times I�m a
pessimistic optimist. To me things are generally black
and white, but for some reason there�s this hope that
things aren�t always as they seem. I�d like to believe in
pure goodness, but I�m not sure that it does actually
exist - I probably have quite a negative attitude toward
humanity and to myself, in that sense. "The music
might seem bleak and overly realistic," he continues, "but
deep down inside I have this romantic notion that hopefully
it�s not really the ways that I see it."
ROBIN and Austin admit that right now they are in a
very real and scary limbo. The loss of their closest friend
has burst the bubble of security that the three of them
created with The God Machine and, although Robin has his
Flower Shop label and Austin is involved with film, it�s
thrown up a huge question mark about their futures. What
they do both know for sure is that The God Machine died
with Jimmy.
Robin tries to explain: "I don�t know if people can
really understand what a complete totality The God Machine
was - not in the public perception of it, but emotionally.
The only thing I�ve ever applied myself to in my whole
life and put my faith in was this.
"I never had anyone die in my life," he adds. "No relatives,
never. And Jimmy was closer than my closest relatives are,
so I�d never experienced that. It takes years to regain you
faith in life - and that sounds funny coming from somebody
as negative as I probably come across - but, you know,
there were a few things in my life that actually made me
happy and that was one of them. And to have that taken
away doesn�t seem fair."
Given the monumental importance of The God Machine to all
your lives, don�t you think Jimmy would want you to carry
on ?
"He probably would," Robin agrees, "but the reality of one
or more of us going on without the others would never feel
right. If I was to pass away right now and I was sitting at
the gates of heaven and I saw Jimmy and Austin worrying
about what they were going to do, I�m sure I would say
continue. But because I�m living through this experience
now, I can also say there�s no imaginable way to continue.
It�s like trying to replace a best friend rather than replace
a bass player."
IT�S been an intense and weighty conversation and we all
feel drained, but Robin is interested to know what I
think of "One Last Laugh�". I tell him honestly it�s
the most affecting, adventurous, plain thrilling thing
they�ve ever done and that I�m selfishly but genuinely
sad I�ll never hear "The Life Song" and "The Hunter"
played live.
Austin nods gravely, lights a cigarette and speaks for
the first time. "It�s like you hear yourself in the
music and you hear your past," he says. "You here
everything on this little tape but it doesn�t exists
any more. Sure, you were there, but it�s almost like a
dream in a way, and that will never come back. It�s like
a childhood that you can never get back to. That�s part
of the reason we decided to finish it, because why chase
those memories?"
Robin: "That is honestly the one thing I actually feel
good about now; the fact that the whole of my life until
this point has been summed up with this record. Now it�s
coming out and it�s a tribute to out best friend.
"It�s just letting him go."