Personally I can’t fault any of the Brian Jonestown Massacre’s offerings in the last thirteen years. But my fascination and respect lie with founder, leader, singer songwriter, multi-instrumentalist Anton Newcombe and the fact that no one could successfully argue his genius.

Philanthropist by day, most prolific of songwriters by night, perfectionist 24/7, Mr. Newcombe is without a doubt a complex character and maybe, at times, misunderstood. To firmly stand by his strong beliefs and principles, many a time he has “cut his nose to spite his face”, but Anton Alfred Newcombe, born August 29, 1967 in Newport Beach, California, proclaims continually that he is not for sale. Unable to find proof to the contrary, I wonder how many of his contemporaries could join his club?

Outrageous, provocative, outspoken or just downright rude, I can tolerate his arrogance given his brilliance. A man of his words – Anton in prior interviews declared: “I’ll eat my own shit if The Arctic Monkeys or Oasis produce as many albums as we have!” Well Mr. Newcombe, I think that your eating habits are safe for the foreseeable future and beyond.

Of course many people have become familiar with the Brian Jonestown Massacre and its master in the last couple of years – or to be more precise since the release of documentary DiG!. It follows their ‘career’ path as well as that of close friends, Portland, based quartet The Dandy Warhols.

To the disappointment of fans and critics, cinematographer Ondi Timoner probably needing a strong selling point The Dandys story couldn’t provide. Instead, the film concentrates on Anton’s seemingly darkest moments. Clever editing portrays him as quite a volatile, tantrum-throwing, psychotic, abusive jerk. I am somewhat very keen to prove otherwise, if only to myself.

But to be fair we also discover someone capable of moments of pure genius, totally dedicated to his cause, his ‘revolution’. Someone of great influence and inspiring to his fellow musicians. Some, like Courtney Taylor-Taylor will readily admit it and many more won’t.

Notoriously, Anton won’t speak to journalists, preferring the rare e-mail interview. It seems more a case of “once bitten, twice shy” than awkwardness. Speaking from his home in Berlin sipping a cup of coffee, I find Anton to be personable, charming and polite (if you can swear politely). He’s seemingly happy and talks at length about the things that excite him, enthusing about his wife and son. In short, he’s a delight to talk to.

With an impeccable phone manner, Newcombe comes off as likable, well-read, and courteous. He’s thankful for being given the chance to tell his side of the story. And it doesn’t take him long to blatantly prove his intelligence, with references to obscure Islamic sects, Philip K. Dick, and alpha-wave simulators. There is little doubt that he knows his own level of intelligence, as when he announces, ‘’I can speak in a sentence without non sequiturs that is, like, 75 words long and makes perfect sense and have old ladies from the Oxford dictionary go, ‘Right on.’‘’

Fame, on any level, can come with a steep price. Anton Newcombe has repeatedly faced levels of media scrutiny for both his personal and public antics. Still, because of this, a lot more people have heard of him and his band, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, now more so than a year ago before the movie DiG! came out. Since the film’s release, his record sales have taken off, his live shows have routinely sold out, and he’s even been invited to play Lollapalooza alongside the Pixies and Weezer. There’s just one drawback: most people think Anton Newcombe is a creep.

“You know what, I accept that. You’re absolutely correct in your high view observation because until now that’s all you have been able to gauge of me personally. I know that’s what most people think of me. But they are wrong! Personally, I consider myself a very down to earth person…in a far-out way. I’m a very unique person. Not many people know this, but I’m also very conservative in a far-out way.”

In the film, Newcombe is hailed as a musical genius – the more talented artist and the one perhaps more deserving of fame. But he’s also painted as a sad and troubled individual who sabotages his career with onstage fistfights, a raging ego, and a grim spiral into heroin addiction. ‘’You know The Man With the Golden Arm?’’ asks Newcombe, referring to the harrowing 1955 film in which Frank Sinatra plays a junkie musician. ‘’That was me!’’

“That film is what I can only consider as art, that’s all it is. A film, a fictitious movie that I happen to appear in. Me and Courtney [Taylor Taylor] play two lead characters in a movie that has been seen by thousands and thousands of people. How many people in the world can say that? Am I happy with the way that I’m inaccurately portrayed in the movie? No. Of course not . I am a musician. I’m not an actor.”

Newcombe is fully aware of how he comes across in DIG!, and he understands why people don’t like that guy. But, while acknowledging addiction and bad behaviour, he also accepts the Anton Newcombe on screen is somewhat fiction, edited to look like a cartoon bogeyman. He insists that the truth isn’t so convenient. ‘’The reality is, I’m a dynamic person,’’ he says. ‘’I’m not some object to put into a box.

“What I want you to understand is that Hitler is famous and infamous. As a person, I am infamous – but as Anton from Brian Jonestown Massacre I’m practically famous – just as Hitler,” muses Newcombe. “People know me. Yeah…I have had my share of negative controversy and things said about me personally and not enough said about my music. For the right or wrong reasons, people know me. I’m a man but I’m also a musician. I’m Anton but I’m also your friend. I’m not trying to start the anti-Semitic movement. I’m making art!”

Only after likening himself to arguably the world’s most heinous evil dictator, Newcombe says he first saw DiG! when the director, a first-time filmmaker named Ondi Timoner, asked him for permission to use his music in the film. When he watched it, he immediately felt sick. ‘’I was scared,’’ he says, drawing on an unfiltered Camel. ‘’I told my lawyer, ‘People are going to attack me and wreck my livelihood’.” He laughs, now very much in conversation mode. “At that point, I was already having to fight off people that come to my shows to give me a hard time because they hear I’m going to lose my shit.’’

When the film appeared in theaters (with the BJM’s music; Newcombe eventually agreed to license it), Newcombe claimed publicly that it was riddled with inaccuracies and was assembled to look like he ultimately disappeared into a black hole of heroin addiction. In reality, he says, he got clean before the film wrapped and never stopped making music and releasing records.

“The film that I agreed to, the film that won Sundance [film festival] was not the film that I saw in my attorney’s office. The film that was released was full of time gaps and inconstancies – so really, tricky editing can make the most normal and kind and honest human look like a horrible person.”

Still, Newcombe isn’t blind to the film’s upside. ‘’Let’s give [Timoner] credit,’’ he says. ‘’We’re sitting here talking about it, so that has to be a good thing…We plan to capitalise on the momentum of the movie instead of fighting it.

“I’m very much a free thinker. I have a very open mind and I will never say that art is wrong! What if I told you that the Mona Lisa is wrong? You couldn’t say anything to that, because we would never have that conversation.” Anton laughs at his explanation, amused with his own argument. “I couldn’t ever say that. If I was there at the time and I had seen it painted wrong with my own eyes – then I could say that it was inaccurate – but never wrong!”

Actually, things have rarely been better for the BJM, which have featured a revolving cast of mutton-chopped hired hands since being formed by Newcombe in 1990. Anton and his band have continued to released albums on their own label The Committee to Keep Music Evil and have toured the globe successfully – completely self-funded. The band has also been invited to perform at Lollapalooza. Still all the while Newcombe refuses to believe he and his music is for sale.

“There is simple logic to this. I can play on the biggest stages in the world, in front of the largest audiences and I will still never have a price tag for my music,’’ declares Newcombe. ‘’Everything about my music is entirely self-funded. I don’t have to ask my record company because I am the record company! I’m not for sale.”

The phone line drops out – the interview is not nearly finished.

In the next installment, Anton talks to FasterLouder candidly of his family, future albums, his concern and joy for advances in modern technology, the upcoming Australian tour…and hints at of performing at Australia’s largest summer festival.

Tickets are flying for the Brian Jonestown Massacre shows this August.

Wednesday August 27 – The Arena, Brisbane

Friday August 29 – The Metro Theatre, Sydney

Saturday August 30 – Hi Fi Bar & Ballroom, Melbourne

READ FASTERLOUDER’S VERDICT ON THE NEW BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE ALBUM, MY BLOODY UNDERGROUND, HERE.