Buñuel renders a gritty reality

Buñuel interview

Only two years after Italian noise rock group Buñuel made their debut in 2016 with their striking debut album, A Resting Place for Strangers, bassist and founding member Pierpaolo Capovilla left the band. This left the band’s remaining lineup of former Oxbow vocalist Eugene S Robinson, Afterhours guitarist Xabier Iriondo, and Il Teatro Degli Orrori drummer Franz Valente, with the challenging task of enlisting a new fourth member. They found a more than capable replacement in Andrea Lombardini from The Framers, who joined the band as they were in the pre-production stages of their ambiguously titled third album, 2022’s Killers Like Us, which proved to be their then-strongest set of narrative-based noise rock.

Buñuel’s fourth album, the 13-song double LP Mansuetude—which, deceptively, is an archaic expression meaning “gentleness”—is out October 25 via Skin Graft, and it is their most epic, expansive, and ambitious album yet. With a sound pitched somewhere between The Birthday Party, Scattered, Smothered & Covered-era Unsane, and latter-day KEN mode, the album continues its predecessors’ tradition of creating an atmosphere of menace, horror and violence, but in a far heavier, more direct and unsubtle way than that in which Oxbow fans might be used to hearing a Robinson-fronted band establish these moods.

Robinson kindly sat down for a Zoom call with Treble to discuss the making of the album.

Treble: You’ve previously referred to the first three Buñuel albums as a trilogy. Do you consider Mansuetude to be the start of another trilogy, or a standalone record?

Eugene S. Robinson: Well, that’s an interesting idea. The reason that you do a trilogy is because nobody wants a six-album record, right? You can either break it up or you can include the first record and figure it out that you weren’t completely done with saying what you needed to have said. Then you start to lose patterns, and things start to appear to you in aggregate. So I think that a second record makes sense, with art that unifies it with a lyrical preoccupation. And then because two doesn’t seem to be a sensible number, you do three. But I think now, if you look at it in a certain way, this is really Buñuel’s second record. I consider the trilogy to be a single record, and this is the second record. The idea that we would then do a second record that would be two, three, four, or one record and then three, four, five, doesn’t make any sense to me at all (laughs).

So I think that this three-sided double album, which is what Mansuetude is, is strong enough to say everything that needed to be said up until the time we finished recording it. The next record will probably be the next record. Will the lyrical preoccupation remain? It changes slightly, but I don’t think there’s going to necessarily be any connection between that and Mansuetude’s. But like you have a period at the end of a sentence, it was important to have Mansuetude come after the trilogy. Will the others group together in a trilogy? I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s a need for it, and I don’t feel there’s an emotional need for it. It could happen, but at this point now, it’s only old people like me that listen to albums. It’s just music, so I think we’ll just do Buñuel music, and let that speak for itself.

Treble: You said during some of the promotional interviews for Killers Like Us that negative experiences at your former employer (OZY) were a factor in that album’s harder tone, relative to the tone of the first two Buñuel albums. You’ve since left that workplace. Would you say being away from there has influenced the tone of this album?

ESR: Yeah. Yeah (laughs). If you consider how long I was at that company, whose CEO [Carlos Watson] is now looking at 37 years in prison, for which he’s already been convicted and will be sentenced in November, it’s not just me complaining about my boss in a casual way. He’s been adjudicated and found to be criminally responsible for some of the worst fraud ever. So it was a pretty hellish place, and I’ve written a bunch about it on my Substack if people care to dig deeper into what happened at OZY Media. But yeah, Mansuetude—hence the title—was the first record that I did not record under incredible, hellish pressure.

Let me give you an example. I think we added a song, or some such thing. So I had to go back into the studio to record it. I left work during lunchtime, rushed to the studio, and then had to do a Zoom meeting from the studio. I had to pick a room in the studio that looked like it would be in my house, and do the Zoom meeting from the studio that looked like it might be at my house. And even then, I got questioned about, “Well, where are you?” I said, “I’m at home right now, eating lunch, but I figured I would take the meeting here, so as not to delay things.” They started commenting on the background, and I’m like, “Can we get to the meeting, because I don’t want our time to run out.” These are the crazy kinds of interleaving pressures that [I was dealing with]. Anybody I know who’s in a band has another job. Usually, they’re decent jobs, they’re very easy jobs that kind of go hand-in-hand with their lives as musicians. My boss was actively, actively opposed to any kind of musical, artistic, outside urge I might have had. Up to and including making me cancel festivals, up to and including telling me, “We’re going to get you to stop all that stuff soon,” because he thought that it was distracting and it meant I wasn’t all in. Mansuetude was the first record on which I didn’t feel like I was losing my mind. So yeah, it was therefore an enjoyable experience, as recording music goes.

Treble: The album features a number of guest performers. How did Jacob Bannon from Converge, Duane Denison from The Jesus Lizard, and Megan Osztrosits from Couch Slut come to be involved with it?

ESR: I asked. My old band played with Converge for the first time maybe 20 years ago, and I’ve subsequently become friends with Nate [Newton], the bass player. I interviewed Jake [Bannon] for an article I’d written, because unbeknownst to many, he is a licensed mixed martial arts referee, as well as a guy who does Muay Thai, which makes a lot of sense if you’ve seen them live (laughs). He’s keeping in shape for his hobby, and it’s possible for him to keep in shape for this other thing that he does. So I’ve done a piece on him, and I had incredible feelings of trepidation, because I’ve always wanted to do a dude duet. I mean, in Oxbow, you had my time with Marianne Faithfull, Lydia Lunch, Jarboe, and so on, but I’ve never really done one with another guy. I did Chapel in the Pines, this thing with Philippe Petit and Percy Howard. Percy Howard is from Materiali Sonori, I think, with Bill Laswell and Vernon Reid. But he really, really sings like an angel. I was wanting somebody from my neck of the woods, and it was either going to be Jacob from Converge or Shannon [Selberg] from the Cows, who I really wanted to sing with for a long time. I didn’t want to ask, because I didn’t want them to say no. I love their music so much, it would have made me feel bad. But in the end, I decided to just ask, because if you don’t ask, you don’t get. And they all agreed to it.

There were different circumstances under each one. With Denison, I don’t know if many people know this, but I did the liner notes for the big Gang of Four boxed set. Their record label had me do the liner notes for them. I said, “Well, who are you going to get to play guitar, now that your guitar player’s dead?” They said, “Well, we don’t know. We’re casting around.” I pushed so hard for Duane to be the guitar player, and it didn’t work out, but I had to call him and say, “Hey, do you wanna…?” I think he felt kindly toward me as a result of my advocacy, so he agreed to do it. I mean, he could have just had artistic reasons for wanting to do it as well. With Megan, Couch Slut got my attention right away for naming their band after a line from an Oxbow song. They played with [Oxbow] a bunch a few months ago. I just like her approach and angle of attack, and [so I] asked. That wasn’t a done deal. She said, “Well, if you’re putting out another record on Profound Lore, sorry, can’t do it.” Apparently, there was some interpersonal beef. But then SKiN GRAFT got in there. We went, “No! SKiN GRAFT is going to do it.” So she was happy to participate.            

Treble: On the third song on the album, “Class,” you sing about “stealing and lying and fucking and dying” as if they are universal pursuits. As the song is titled “Class,” does that mean that the song’s message is that these pursuits are in some way intrinsic to the functioning of the class system?

ESR: I think I had probably read the book by [Paul] Fussell, Class. It’s a book about class, but it’s from an American perspective. America is purportedly a classless society, which always makes me laugh, because I say, “Yeah, you got that right. We’ve got no class here!” (Laughs) But of course, we do have many class considerations that nobody in America’s really being honest about. I decided to pare back the machinery so we could look at the heart of what it is that we’re talking about, and I do believe that these [activities] are both universal and very particular to the American oeuvre, the “stealing and lying and fucking and dying.” I can’t get too away from the fact that everything that we believe we’ve earned we have not actually earned, but gotten via crime. This starts to cohere a little bit too closely to this Judeo-Christian idea of original sin of some sort, but based on what I can see, that is indeed how the West was won, if you want to think about it that way.

I think that that’s what undergirds a lot of this political season that’s involved Trump for the last eight years now. All of these things are very much in some kind of crazy interplay with each other. I mean, the Democratic Party is supposed to be the college class, which says a lot. Which is why you get this fantastic push now from Trump voters to say, “Hey! You don’t need to go to college. What are they going to teach you in college, anyway? How to be trans?!” (Laughs) I actually heard that this morning. That was a direct quote this morning from a guy who I know. So America can tell all the lies it wants about how it’s different from the UK in regards to class, but that’s exactly what they are: lies. It just breaks down differently for how we are and how we choose to feel bad about what we don’t have.           

Treble: Whereas violence seemed to be the overarching theme of Killers Like Us, sex and violence seem to be the dual main thematic concerns of Mansuetude. Would you say this is a fair assessment, and if so, of what would you say this partial shift in focus was born?

ESR: I’d say it’s a correct assessment, and I’d say you pretty much nailed all 237 songs I’ve ever written (laughs). So it is correct. But it is not bold. It is vision, because that’s all I ever write about. I think that might change due to a change in locale. As I’ve written about in Alta Journal, in the middle of next year, I’ll be moving to Europe. I went to visit the place that I’m going to be moving to a couple of times, and I came back with this incredible sense of ease and comfort that has lasted until now. I was talking to one of my kids about it, trying to explain how different it is to leave your house fully embracing the idea that you will be able to return to your house. That’s never, ever how I feel here in America. Ever. I leave the house and I have thoughts akin to, “I wonder who’s going to water my plants when I’m dead?” (Laughs) And it’s not clear to me at all. In weird ways. Cellphones and decriminalizing weed have actually helped, if you can believe it. The edginess that was so much a part of at least Californian living, or American living a few months ago, has given way to this sort of lassitude that indicates to me that everybody’s high or looking at their phones. So I’m a lot less likely to get shot in traffic, but it happens. I mean, four or five weeks ago, my five-year-old daughter was ducking behind a car because of gunfire, and I live in a $1.3 million house. This is in our neighborhood. So it’s like, “Man, I just can’t fucking take it.”

On the one hand, it might sound like these are preoccupations; in other words, an inordinate focus on, or paranoia about, something that maybe is not as real as it could be. But if you understand how it is that I’m living and where I’m living—these are not preoccupations at all. I think I’m correctly rendering my present reality as I choose to depict it in songs. Actually, we had a collision, because on the cover of Killers Like Us, we had our first transcontinental issue. Those guys were completely not into the gun on the cover. They’re like, “Nah, man. You with this American shit…” I go, “Well, first of all, that’s my kitchen table, that’s my gun, those are my bullets, my wife took that photograph, and the record is called Killers Like Us. So you have to understand that this is not me just choosing to write a script for a movie that seems strange and interesting, but in actual fact, this is what I’m living with on the daily.”

Treble: Would you say the characters in Mansuetude’s songs have gotten where they are as a result of choices, fate, or a mix of the two?

ESR: It’s a mix of the two. I mean, the guy who inspired “Drug Burn” had been the crystal meth king of Oklahoma, and he’s not from Oklahoma. I always say it like that, because it cracks me up. He’s not at all an Okie, he just ended up there. He got arrested by the Feds. They said, “If you don’t roll over on everybody you know, guys bigger than you, we’re going to give you 25 years in prison.” He said, to his credit, “Do what you gotta do.” So they ended up giving him 17 years in prison, and he got out in 14 years. The first person he called when he got out was me, and I could hear [what he was going to say] immediately before he said it. What he said was, “This was probably one of the best things that ever happened to me.” He had lots of crazy stories from the old days, but he was a changed man as a result of prison. A better man. Smarter. Spent all of his time reading and studying, and has no regrets now. He’s working on a construction crew there. His life has stabilized, and he’s got a nice girlfriend and so on. But he and I used to work together doing bad-guy stuff in the old days (laughs). So it was an interesting window into change, and the passage of time as well. As a result of me leaving, I’m taking stock of what I’ve done and where I’ve been. That kind of affects my lyrical preoccupations, I think.

Treble: You’ve spoken previously about Buñuel’s music being like a film, as opposed to a documentary. Aside from Luis Buñuel, are there any film directors to whose work you would liken Buñuel’s music and/or lyrics?

ESR: Yeah. My long-time fave, who you might know, is Joseph Losey. He was blacklisted here in America and then made a lot of movies in England, my favorite being The Servant with Dirk Bogarde and Sarah Miles. Losey is one of my massive faves. I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for Peter Greenaway. I don’t think it’s been noted, but for all of the brutality in some of Greenaway’s movies, there’s a beauty that seems to be paramount. I was remembering what the guy who put together Wallpaper said after he got back from the Balkans. He said, to paraphrase, “I had enough of blood and guts, and I wanted to do something that was just beautiful.” I haven’t gotten sick of blood and guts, but I do have a desire to spoonful-of-sugar it so that your instantaneous reaction or response is not one of repulsion. I was talking to Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu the other day, and I announced out of nowhere, “I’m going to make a movie.”

[I]f you understand how it is that I’m living and where I’m living—these are not preoccupations at all. I think I’m correctly rendering my present reality as I choose to depict it in songs.

I think that’s the only thing that I really want to do and haven’t really put my energies toward, mostly because it’s collaborative, and that just sounds like a drag to me. It’s tough enough to keep a band together with four people and four personalities. Forget about when you’ve got a grip and a best boy and a script girl and a cinematographer. It just seems insurmountable. Of course, [Stewart] responded, exactly as they should, “We should make a movie.” So it’s, “Right, we’re going to make a movie.” As soon as I write it, we can do it. So film has been a major [interest]. It’s weird, though, because I don’t think of actors as artists. They’re craftspeople. Writers are artists, and directors are, very much so. So those are a few that I like. And I also like Michael Haneke, the Austrian guy who did Funny Games. I like the chilly brutality of his movies as well. I think I can say about him, as I might say about myself, he’s not a great humanist (laughs), which I really like.  

Treble: You embarked on a touring cycle for Killers Like Us that was impressively extensive, given the logistical issues presented by three of you being based in Italy and one of you being based in the US. Do you plan on embarking on a similarly extensive touring cycle for Mansuetude?

ESR: Yes. And this time I’ve tried to avoid it, because everybody over-romanticizes it, not realizing how miserably hellish it is—we’re also going to start touring a lot more in North America. Thus far, we’ve only played Montreal, but we’ll be touring. There’s time on my schedule, with the demise of Oxbow. Pretty much everything that Oxbow would have done, I’m having Buñuel do, up to and including extensive tours of both Europe and the US. There’s interest in a push to maybe head out to Australia as well, and possibly South America, so we don’t know. At this point now, we’re trying to do it so it makes sense and doesn’t destroy us all, like a really bad tour can always do.

Treble: You are all very experienced musicians. Would you say that that combined amount of experience across various projects is a help or a hindrance to the songwriting and recording process for Buñuel?

ESR: Oh, it’s a help, completely. I don’t even know how to describe it. The way that everybody’s been successful in other regards, and is professionally well-ensconced, means that we approach it from this wonderfully kind of ego-poor or egoless place. There have not been arguments about anything. The first one we ever had was about the [Killers Like Us] cover (laughs), and that was more of an artistic argument. It’s rare for me to do anything without actual … what is that great line from that movie? “I’m not doing things just to do them.” There are no mistakes when it comes to lyric-writing or vocal performance. Everything I’m doing is underpinned by a thematic or theoretical purpose. It’s purpose driven. I’m open to being able to defend anything I do. You may not agree with me, but I’m open to defending it, because I’ve thought about it. So we haven’t had any dust-ups or arguments, and I think that’s largely as a result of really being able to appreciate our place and space, given that we’ve had hellish bands that we’ve been in, and this is not that. It’s like having a really wonderful mistress (laughs).


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