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(Click Here to download "Suicide," Elastica's awesome MUSICBLITZ Exclusive!)
After a five-year absence, Elastica returned to the scene with a new album in 2000, but it almost didn't happen. Burnt out by sudden fame, two years of touring, and thoroughly vicious slagging in the British press, singer/guitarist Justine Frischmann and then-guitarist Donna Matthews had decided to call it a day. It took a chance meeting with bassist Annie Holland, who'd left the band at the height of their popularity in 1995, to show Justine that Elastica could still be fun. "I bumped into her quite a long time after Donna and I decided Elastica was going to be no more," Justine reveals. "I bumped into her at a gig, and she said to me, 'I miss playing so much.' So we decided to book a rehearsal -- not for any reason, just for a laugh, to see each other and play music together."
That rehearsal resulted in a full-blown revival of the band, with founding drummer Justin Welch back, and Paul Jones (guitar), Mew (keys), and ex-Fall member Dave Bush (keys) added to the mix. Now in a healthier state of mind, Justine feels that she's finally conveying the message she wants to. "The Sex Pistols' message was 'no future,' and I want our message to be 'no rules,'" she says. "I don't feel like I can exist from hate. I want to exist for positive reasons, and I've always wanted the Elastica message to be positive. I've always felt that." MUSICBLITZ recently talked to Justine about working as a band, acting on influences versus plagiarizing, and why she considers Elastica a punk rock band.
 Let's just get this out of the way right from the start. How sick are you of being asked about your breakup with [Blur lead singer] Damon Albarn?
I can understand why people want to know about Damon [and me, but I've always been] interested in playing and making music, and for me, I was really hurt by what I see as kind of rampant sexism on the part of the English press. You know, seeing as I was a girl going out with a musician, I had to be A) not writing my own songs, B) I'm getting somewhere because of who I've slept with, you know? I want to concentrate on people's similarities rather than their differences, so when I feel that kind of sexism at work, I find it kind of … a bit depressing.
Are you uncomfortable talking about it, or do you really feel it's nobody's business?
I always felt comfortable about it, because I always felt that there was an understanding there, that people realized that we were together because we inspired each other, and we both love music, and I felt like we brought music to the relationship equally. I'm a music lover first and a music maker second; I think Damon's a music maker first and a music lover second, so I was the one that was always playing records, and I was the one teaching him about taste, and all the bands, and he was the one teaching me about spirituality in music, and arrangements and writing. I felt that it was a pretty symbiotic kind of set up, but I think because he was a bloke, people make weird assumptions, or because I'm a girl, they make weird assumptions.
Can you talk about Donna Matthews leaving? How did that affect you, and what is your relationship is like now?
Well, basically, with Elastica Mark I, we never really had any idea that we were going to cross over to the extent that we did. I felt very uncomfortable with the press and the fame and the kind of conventional ideas of success. I think Donna and I were kind of in a similar head state, but I don't think we'd really known each other for long enough before the band started taking off to actually really be able to rely on each other as friends. I think basically, we all just got increasingly isolated from one another, and things just got weirder and weirder. In the end, Donna and I just started blaming each other for it, and neither of us really knew what the fuck was going on in our lives. We'd both been through this incredibly damaging experience, touring all around the world, and the band started breaking up, and the record label breaking up, and falling out and everything. I saw her for the first time again this year, and we're friends again now, but we needed a couple of years off from each other. |
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