Music is Magic

Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie

By Marcia Allass
August 1, 2006

I've known Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie since the heyday of the Warren Ellis Delphi Forum, where they were regular visitors and yet still managed to remain sane. Since then I've run into them at various conventions and drink-ups and admired their writing and their art respectively over that period. I was excited to hear that they were working together on a project to be published through Image and intrigued when I heard the concept.

Phonogram: Rue Britannia is a comic in which music (and specifically pop music) is a magical force that can shape people, events and the world. In the hands of certain people, known as phonomancers, music can be shaped in order to change things in certain ways.

Music has had a strong influence on my life, and I do believe that music can have a profound effect on people and therefore on the wider world, so as you can imagine I couldn't wait to talk to Kieron and Jamie about this project.

Sequential Tart: Firstly, tell us a bit about Phonogram: Rue Britannia.

Kieron Gillen: Phonogram's basic concept is "Music is Magic". Pop music alters people in inexplicable ways, so we're taking that literally. How does listening to a song make you happy or sad or walk down the street feeling like some god of the modern age? Well, magic of course. The world of Phonogram is full of people who are aware of this and fight their own private wars beneath the surface of the real world. Modern Urban Fantasy: the world being more than it initially appears.

In terms of the Rue Britannia story we're telling in this mini-series, we're following a Phonomancer-cum-bastard by the name of David Kohl. The Goddess, the Feminine Principle itself, has charged him to try and find out who's interfering with a lesser goddess by the name of Britannia, whose intervention a decade back turned Kohl into what he is today. Who would want to alter the long-dead Patron of Britpop? Kohl, to begin with at least, is only motivated by self interest of a curse laid upon him by The Goddess and the fact that if Britannia changes in any meaningful way, he'll probably be written out of existence. The majority of the story is Kohl running around like a particularly panicked chicken, trying to find out what's going on while his memories twist into new shapes like melting vinyl.

ST: Explain the concept of music as a magical force?

KG: We keep things fairly low-key, for matters of tone. It's not as if people will be throwing fireballs at each other. Generally we look at ways which music does alter us, and then fire it through the metaphor. To choose an example which I haven't used in the comic, you know how you occasionally flip on the radio or pass a shop and hear a snatch of music — just a chord shape or a choice lyric or something — which somehow allows you to make an intuitive leap to some new insight? Effectively, that's almost identical to consulting an oracle in a more traditional fantasy and that's how it would play out in Phonogram.

Jamie McKelvie: Anyone who has played in a band can understand how the music you play can alter the way you feel and see things. It's not really that much of a leap to get to music as literal magic.

ST: How did your backgrounds in music (journalism [Kieron] and playing in bands [Jamie]) inform this idea of music?

KG: Oh, in everything. Phonogram is about music, but it's a lot more interested in how it changes people on the ground level than the distant rock-stars. I'm not interested in Joe Strummer or Bono or Britney Spears per se, but how their work makes people's lives better or worse. So anything I've seen music do to people over all these years — in writing, in shitty bands I've played in, in hanging around in clubs people-watching — works its way in.

In terms of specific techniques, the journalism I've done has really helped me in being able to form arguments precisely. While we think Phonogram's entertaining, it's also trying to talk about very specific times, places and emotions, and what they mean in the end of it. Being able to gather my evidence, put it in sequence and reach a conclusion is of paramount importance.

Oh, and in terms of characters' voices, it's a big influence. Kohl specifically thinks and speaks in that pidgin English that music journalists spout, all contracted sentences and desperate neologisms.

ST: Is Phonogram set in a particular time period? The covers riff on classic UK '90s albums and the music references in the first issue are very specific. What is it about that time period that you find so compelling?

KG: While set in the present day, what drives the story are the events of 94-96: That is, High Britpop with Oasis, Blur, Pulp, et al. What makes Britpop interesting for us is its basic position in history. The main topic of Rue Britannia is the relation between nostalgia culture, history and personal memory. We could have abstractly used any pop-movement for our purposes, but that Britpop is the one which has just passed its decade anniversary and so entering that sort of phase means it's particularly pertinent. That it wasn't actually a very important pop movement in the universal scale of things is also useful. Writing a requiem for punk or '60s mod or whatever is pretty damn easy, and you'll end up coming across saccharine and just nostalgic — which is the last thing I’d want to be. It's better to do make general points about nostalgia and memory through talking about a movement which, ultimately, meant very little.

That said, Common People remains a fucking incredible single.

JK: Much like Kohl, Britpop was where my musical identity was "born". I was about 14 when Britpop hit, and it was the first musical movement that was mine. My second ever gig was Elastica, third was Supergrass. It was a time where I could go see bands I loved two or three times a month. I created my identity through it.

ST: The lead character, David Kohl, sometimes sounds suspiciously like you Kieron - especially when you're on one of your Kenickie rants. How close is he to your own personality and how does he differ?

KG: Well ... fairly. I think of Kohl as existing at some mysterious point between Eddie Campbell's Alec and Grant Morrison's King Mob. He bears as much relation to me as Ziggy Stardust did to Bowie or Slim Shady does to Marshall Mathers. In terms of voice, Kohl is pretty much a byline with legs. He speaks directly in my Music Journalism voice (which isn't exactly the same thing as my real voice). He's a cartoon of me and my ideas — but worth stressing that he's not idealised. If anything, as far as self-portraits go, Kohl is pretty fucking lacerating. I suppose the real difference is that is that he's a complete bastard and, at least to start with, completely morally bankrupt. Part of me thinks that I used to be a lot more like Kohl, but I'm glad that I'm not anymore.

In fact, most of the characters are drawn from life with me trying to write the myth, of why they're memorable. A chunk of the other major characters — Emily Aster, Indie Dave, The Myth — are other music writers, with me trying to pastiche their voices. Which is a handy device for the book's philosophy, as if I'm trying to frame a debate about the issues I just choose two characters who disagree, wind them up and let them go. And they're entertaining. That's what they do.

ST: Kieron — did you have an audience in mind when you wrote this book?

KG: I think I did most of my demographic calculations in retrospect when I was working out how to pitch it. Its urban fantasy angle would work well with anyone who likes Hellblazer or Sandman. Its pop-obsessive stance would be adored by Blue Monday readers. And there's a big crossover between music and comics where it will hopefully find an audience.

But really, I wrote it as I thought of it and realised it's a book I'd kill to read. And since no-one else was going to write it, I'd have to go ahead and do it.

ST: How did you two guys meet and what made you decide you should work together? (In other words, what the fuck made you want to work with this crazed lunatic, Jamie?

KG: I'm hurt, Marcia! I’m extremely stable. In exactly the same way a gyroscope is.

JK: He offered me cash and sweet, sweet love.

ST: Jamie — is it tricky trying to illustrate a book that relies heavily on music that the reader can't hear? How did you approach using the art to best convey the nuances of music which are central to the theme?

JK: I'm not even sure I think all that consciously about it, to be honest. There are some very specific tricks we use — handwritten lettering for sung words, for example. That way I can change the lettering style to reflect the way the words are sung. Aside from that, making use of the fashion conventions of each scene is a good way of letting the reader know what sort of music is featured. Especially with a scene such as Britpop, where the clothes and hair and makeup were such an integral part of the culture.

ST: I know you both share a love of largely unknown UK indie band Kenickie. What is it about them that makes your hearts beat faster?

JK: Lauren Laverne, a Northern angel.

Plus, you know, they were fantastic. Kieron will clearly talk about this in much greater detail than I could so I suspect it's best to just leave him to it.

KG: I'll limit myself to one paragraph. They were just really smart in an unpretentious way, never falling into the false dichotomy of mistaking intelligence for seriousness. They realised that life, as lived, was the most important thing in the world — they wrote about the most normal things (going out and staying in, primarily) but elevated them by the intensity of approach. Their Catholic guilt and imagery which pervaded some of their better songs. An awareness that despite being complete children of the Pop-Stars-Or-Nothing mindset of their time, they were still always totally doomed. Turning entire gigs into whirlwinds of glampunk girls in glitter. Their use of elements which always work on me: three-part girl harmonies over fuzz-punk guitars with extra hand-claps. The extended metaphor of Robot Song. Their gift for a kiss-off line ("And I know you care when you say that no-one wants you ... and that's why no-one wants you"). The perfectly natural North-eastern accents. And, in the immortal words of Rufus, they're excellent for dancing.

ST: If ever a comic deserved a soundtrack this has to be it — what tunes were on permanent shuffle when you were writing/drawing the book?

KG: I actually note down whatever I'm listening to whenever I'm scripting a book, so I've got a day-by-day record of what was playing as I was typing. There's certain touchstone songs — for example, when writing Emily Aster I gravitated Avenue D's Do I look like a Slut. Songs which completely nailed the emotional timbre tend to get looped indefinitely until I've worked my way through it. I almost overdosed on Suede's Still Life before I finished the story's climax.

When doing the plotting and world-building for Rue Britannia, I emptied out my iPod and just filled it with songs from the 94-96 period I was investigating and listened to them to the exclusion of all else until I had a really detailed synopsis worked out. Since I included stuff I despised to try and get closer to the full range of emotions, this was actually fairly masochistic, but I was pleased with the results. After all these years my sneering at (say) Kula Shaker had become somehow ritualistic, but having to grind my teeth through Tatva so many times made me realise that — no — I really would like to wipe them from existence with a sudden pulse of psychic energy.

JK: I was listening to: Metric's Live It Out, Tiger Army's three albums, some Johnny Cash, You Say Party! We Say Die!'s Hit The Floor!, The new Horrorpops, and a lot of Brian Setzer.

ST: Kieron — who are the main influences on your writing (within comics or elsewhere) and how did you get to comics from music and videogame journalism?

KG: I could talk all day here, I suspect. I'll spare you and hit some of the more relevant ones. If I could be any living writer, I'd be Kurt Vonnegut. In terms of comics ... well, there's the usual selection of British guys whose surnames begin with "M" and "E". I came into comics as an adult with that Vertigo generation, and the stain's pretty evident in Phonogram. I'm even trying to somehow renovate ludicrously flowery captions. Generally speaking, and for Phonogram especially, my tendency to convoluted sentences is seriously influenced by the whole music press — from Lester Bangs through Jon Savage, Paul Morley, The Stud Brothers, Simon Reynolds, Everrett True, Neil Kulkarni, Taylor Parkes and right up to the present with people like Miss Amp and David McNamee. Writing about music is like dancing about architecture, and if you get a kick from the pure joy of words dancing then music writing's a place to go to get it uncut. And anyone who's read one of raw scripts will testify that the biggest influence on my writing's the primary school teachers who really just couldn't be bothered to correct my spelling or grammar.

In terms of starting to write comics, I just went to the Bristol Comic Con around the millennial click, got drunk and came back home and hammered out my first script. I was compelled. I get compelled a lot.

ST: Jamie — how did you get into drawing comics from being a punk rocker with all the ladies throwing themselves at your feet?

KG: Pttth. He wishes.

JK: Wait ... I don't get ladies throwing themselves at my feet in comics? Aww, man.

An ex made me read Sandman when I was about 21. I thought, "I want to do that. I better start drawing." True story.

ST: Are there going to be further Phonogram stories after this series?

KG: Depends on how well it does, but we hope so. Phonogram is a device and a world which was created to support whatever thoughts about pop music I could create. I'd hope that Phonogram's the sort of thing I'd return to for as long as I'm writing comics whenever I had something new to say about Pop Music. In terms of what next, there're a couple of ideas which think would support a decent mini-series. One has a working title of The Singles Club and the other The Word "Girl".

In terms of future episodes, it's probably worth noting that while David Kohl is the lead character in Rue Britannia, the comic's called "Phonogram" rather than "The David Kohl Adventures". Its cast will alter and revolve to serve the stories. I've got an absolute hate of the false security of superhero comics when you know that someone's going to live because they’re on a million fridge magnets they're going to sell later that year and even if they did kill them, they've brought people back so many times to render death more akin to being sent off the pitch with a red-card rather than real mortality. I don't ever want to write a comic where anyone is sure who's going to survive.

ST: Will either of you be at any conventions this year to meet your adoring fans?

KG We're sharing a table with Matt Fraction and Steven Sanders at SDCC, which is going to be terribly exciting. I've never done it and hope to have gone completely native by its close and come home wearing a particularly slutty Power Girl costume or something. Hopefully I'll have managed to get out of it in time for Caption this year, which I haven't been to for a couple of years and am looking forward to doing this time. And if there's a November comic con in the UK, I'll be there too.

JK: San Diego, and I was planning on Brighton but I hear it's not going ahead this year, which is a shame.

ST: Apart from Phonogram what are you both working on at the moment that folks should look out for?

KG: I keep on trying to work on my next projects, but Phonogram keeps dragging me back for tweak upon tweak upon tweak. I think that since it’s my first book I'm not going to be able to really give my real attention over to what I want to do next until Issue 6 flies off to the printers. Another pitch still exists in a corporate machine, which I have hope will emerge after Phonogram with Len O’Grady. And Busted Wonder, my Graphic-Novel-for-Web with Charity Larrison is getting to the meat of the topic.

JK: Suburban Glamour, my original graphic novel, which I will be working on once Gillen takes these chains off me. It's all written, just waiting to be drawn. It's modern urban fantasy. With pretty punk girls, as in all of my work.

ST: Do either of you watch Big Brother and if so who are you putting your money on to win?

JK: It upsets me that I will miss two weeks of Big Brother while in San Diego. We already missed Nikki's eviction! I did want Pete to win, but now I think Glynn. I like how his Welsh accent is so thick he sounds almost Transylvanian. One housemate, two housemates, ah ha ha!

KG: Brought this up with a friend who's watching it while working my way through a bottle or two of wine with him, and he tells me that Tourettes-boy Pete's going to walk it. Which horrifies me, as the two minutes I've actually seen of this year's Big Brother was just him, and it was enough to give me Tourettes. And he's the likeable one? I mean, I know the cynical nihilistic writer thing's a bit played out, but it's things like this which make me scream abuse at the blinking cursor every bloody day.

Is it just me, or does that sound like a particularly filthy euphemism?

ST: It's just you, Kieron ...

Phonogram Website
Kieron's Work Blog
Jamie's Website