Family of God

We Are the World (Dull)
An interview with Adam Peters
by Chris Adams

Over the past two years,The Family of God have become “a secret all over the block” in New York City. Self-proclaimed “disco mystics,” the FOG have released two albums, The Family of God and We Are The World, that match elements of Indian classical, ’60s electronic pop, lounge music, and contemporary dance with lyrics that span both the political and the spiritual. Recently, their appropriately warped version of Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Were Made For Walking” was featured on the Playing God soundtrack, and their “Exploding Plastic Inevitable”-style “happenings” have been creating a buzz within the Lower East Side art and music communities. Recently, I caught up with the FOG’s Adam Peters to find out a little bit more about the group. Here’s what transpired:

What other projects have you been involved with over the years, either as performer, producer, or arranger?
The first band I had was the Flowerpot Men – that was ten years ago.

Yeah, actually, I have the Janice Long Flowerpot Men EP sitting right in front of me at the moment.
That’s a pretty scary picture, isn’t it?

Yeah, it looks like you’re both freeze-dried.
Yeah, actually, I felt that way, for a long time. (laughs) It was me and this guy Ben (Watkins) who I still talk to, occasionally. That wasn’t the best thing that we did. I think the best thing was called “Joe.”

Didn’t you do “Walk On Gilded Splinters?” That’s one of my favorite song titles ever.
Yeah, that was great. Do you know the original?

Dr. John, is it?
Yeah, it’s great, that. I used to love that album. But, I’ve worked with lots of different people. The Triffids I enjoyed working with. I really love Dave (McComb, head Triffid.) He’s a great singer and songwriter, and he’s a great friend. He’s been quite ill lately. Heart transplant.

Jesus…
Yeah, that’s quite severe, isn’t it? They give you a beeper, and you have to walk around with it, and they say “well, if no-one’s come in in the next six months, that’s it, you’re dead. But as soon as somebody goes out and drives themselves into a wall and kills themselves, we’ll beep ya.” So you have that hanging constantly over your head.

Well, let’s hope that somebody drives into a wall.
Yeah… what a strange thing to live through. But I’ve worked with lots of different people… I’m pleased about the stuff I’ve done. I stand by all of it.

How long, in general, have you been involved with creating music?
Since the middle of the ’80s, really, when I met the Bunnymen. I was a kid, and that was the first thing that I did. “Never Stop,” “The Killing Moon,” and then “Ocean Rain.” So really, that was when I started.

According to the Flowerpot Men EP, you play electric cello. Were you classically trained?
Yeah, I was. I built this weird cello, and put pickups all over it. I was really into Suicide, and DAF, who were this German synth band. They were very exciting for me, when I was a kid. I just always wanted to make weird sounds, and the cello seemed the obvious way to do it. And I play keyboards, which, you know, obviously… I play anything, really, if you can hit it, or make a noise with it.

How long have you been doing Family of God?
It’s been going on for about two years. We put out an album ourselves about a year and a half ago. It was a double album, just on vinyl. The Family of God is me and Chris Brick, as in “Another Brick In The Wall,” my partner. I’ve known Chris since I was back in London, when we were both running around sort of drugged-out parties and that – we actually talked about doing stuff then, but we couldn’t get it together. We live here in New York now. We started talking about this band conceptually about two years ago. I’d just stopped working with all the other projects I was involved with, and just thought “I wanna do this” ‘cos it was the only thing that really interested me.

Lyrically, the album seems to have a lotta Alan Watts-type Zen stuff floating around. Is that something you’re into?
Well, I’m not convinced about Alan Watts, but there’s some of that in it. It’s more about just looking at yourself, ‘cos that’s something we’ve gone through a lot of, and that reveals itself in the music and the words. If anything, I suppose, Krishna-Murti had more influence on it than anyone else. He was an Indian philosopher, he’s dead now. But this is nothing like guru territory. Again, it’s just about looking at yourself. I don’t believe in any fixed method, Christianity, Buddhism, whatever you call it… that’s just something people take refuge in. It takes people away from the real issue.

“Opiate of the masses,” as they say…
Yeah! All the obvious stuff, but it’s true. But the album’s not about anything, it’s just the way me and Chris spend our time, getting through each day, making stuff. But there’re themes… I think they’re more interesting to talk about and sing about than (the music) that other people are talking about, out in MTV-land.

Where does Family of God stand in relation to the stuff being churned out of MTV-land?
I dunno… I stopped listening to that stuff years ago. I’m sure there’s some great stuff there, but… it’s not relevant. I’m not that interested in pop music, or rock music… It doesn’t do it for me.

What does?
At the moment, my Christmas tree is doing it for me. And trynna sort out what I’m gonna do with my girlfriend at Christmas. I don’t really listen to a lot of music, except for stuff that she plays.

Why the name “Family of God”?
It was the straightest name we could think of. I’m not interested in shock/horror tactics. I wanna do stuff that’s sort of the opposite of that. It’s all laid out, that land, it’s all been mapped, and it’s covered with people – has been, for the last 30 or 40 years. The name just seemed to fit the bill. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I can certainly see why you’d wanna move away from the Alice-Cooper-isms of crap like Marilyn Manson. I mean, how many naked people do you need to see in a video before it gets old?
Exactly. I’m big on fully-clothed, anyway.

Given the characters on the subway over there, I can’t say I blame ya. When I first heard your album, I was struck with how portentous and genuinely scary-sounding the opening track “Our Permission” is.
It’s about waiting… waiting for words to come down. That’s why I put it at the start. I think lyrically, it works in that way. I think it sounds quite futurist, somehow. It’s about whether you’re gonna get out of your own way… if you’re open to seeing stuff, and feeling stuff. It sets up the album really… it says “Are you gonna bring your preconceptions to the table with you and to your life? Is your conditioning gonna be the thing that you listen through, or are you gonna be open to the moment?” I know it sounds sorta slow and big, so I can see how you could perceive it as scary, but I think it’s an optimistic track, if ya get inside it. It’s like opening a door.

Yeah, that’s kind of where I thought the Zen stuff came in. Like on the next track, “Beautiful People.” One of the lines is “When the brain is quiet, intelligence is present.”
That’s Chris’ thing. But we kind of operate as the same person. I have the softer voice. I sing on “Our Permission,” and Chris starts “Beautiful People” with talking.

The album seems to have a lot of social/metaphysical/psychological… not protest… but disquiet on it.
It’s not disquiet… it’s just looking at it. Chris and I just spend a lot of our time looking at ourselves and looking at the world. You get to a stage where you have to do that. But yeah, like “Theme From the Bible” is just about that feeling you have when your town or your head has been taken over by stuff you don’t want in there.

What’s the language used in that vocal sample on “World of Squalor”?
It’s Italian. It’s like a papal mass in the style of a Hitler rally. And I think the title, to me, is really honest. To me, that’s what’s going on. But it sounded good… and sounding good is all of it, ‘cos otherwise you’re gonna come off like some jerk, or you’re gonna come off like you’re preaching. The sound of the music, and the way the lyrics and the words work with the music is everything. That’s how you touch people.

I think that people get way too caught up in the “meaning” of music, and what a song supposedly means.
(Laughs) Yeah, it’s like… who cares? Dylan already did it. Dylan’s clarity is way beyond anything that’s gone on, before or since.

Speaking of Dylan, the track “Centre for the Dull” struck me as a sort of take on “Desolation Row” updated for the ’90s.
That was recorded completely live. I had this drum pattern, and some instruments, and Chris just made up the lyrics on the spot – the whole thing… totally spontaneous. But there’s a lotta truth in it.

“Living Without Why” struck me as a real dub-type thing. Is that a style you think you might pursue?
I feel like it, sometimes. And when I feel like it, we’ll do it. There’s no set pattern to anything we do. It’s about not being bored that day. We’ve been doing a buncha tracks with a whole lot of heavy lyrics, so my reaction to that might be to do some throwaway stuff. It’s all part of a daily process, that’s all it is. It’s like what I had for breakfast, really, or what I thought last night. I don’t know what we’re trynna do with it, really. I know what we’re not trynna do. We’re not trynna be like anything else. But in terms of what we’re trynna do, I couldn’t tell you if it’s gonna be a dub thing, or a disco thing, or an easy listening thing. Slow disco is a big part of it, that kind of disco sound, like playing old disco records on the wrong speed.

Arrangement-wise, you use a mix of live and programmed drums. Besides you and Chris, who else is on the record?
Will Sergeant played guitar on “Follow the Light” – he does that Eastern, sorta Pakistani stuff on it. He did that really well. We have a drummer, Chris Lackamac, and our percussionist, Chris Lovejoy, and our bassist, Chris Wilson. And Eric Schemmerhorn, Iggy’s old guitarist, played on it.

How many tracks was this recorded on?
It’s all on 8-track. We have a little studio down here in Manhattan. Chris has a clothes shop, which is “The Centre for the Dull,” and it’s beneath that. There’s not much sampling on this record. I think “World of Squalor” has the only sample. There was a lot of sampling on the other album.

Who’s putting the new album out?
Ochre’s putting it out in London, and there’s a new label over here that’s putting it out… I think it’s gonna be called “Burning Bush.” Basically, our label is Dull Recordings, and we’re licensing it to them.

You were on the Playing God soundtrack doing a cover of Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Were Made for Walking.” I haven’t heard it, but I love the idea…
Yeah (laughs)… the idea was better than the final thing.

Did it get you any label interest?
No, I don’t think they really get what we’re doing. We’ve been playing around New York a little bit. We’ve been putting together these big parties, where we DJ and play and do the whole thing, and find strange venues for it. We’ve done disused spaces, we’ve done a synagogue on the Lower East Side. Once we get the album out, we’ll start doing shows in other places. When the demand is there, we’ll start touring. But I’m not really interested in trynna crusade around the country. I’m really interested in doing stuff that works, and for the moment, what works is for me and Chris to sit around in our room and bang tracks out, then to do shows around New York, – our little parties, our little freakouts. Once people start to get it, then we’ll start traveling.

What else do people need to know about the Family of God?
Well… what else do people need to know about themselves? (laughs) That’s what it’s all about!