Interview: Kory Clarke from Warrior Soul, Nottingham Rock City, 24th March 2007

If there was any way I could write this stuff as being about a nineties rock band still doing the biz after 16 years - uplifting, safe, very slightly ironic - then please believe me, I would.

It would be just so cosy, so nice, so - unchallenging.

Thing is, Warrior Soul (which was basically pared down to frontman Kory Clarke, and then built up again, as good or better than the original) – that Warrior Soul, is not about the past.

(They actually never were, for all the Doors and Iggy references lazy reviewers threw up time and again, in a desperate effort to have seen it all before.)

Fuck-Off Teeshirt

Warrior Soul, perhaps alone among all the bands that hit our consciousness in the nineties, deserve to wear a big fuck-off teeshirt saying "I Told You So" - now that Nirvana has self-destructed, Soundgarden is silent - and, as predicted in GNR’s Paradise City, Captain America is, finally, dead.

When Kory Clarke agreed to an interview at Rock City, Notts, you can understand I was well keen to hear where he thinks we're at right now.

==

Nova: So, Warrior Soul hit the UK in 1990, '91, and ten years later, there was the 9/11 thing in 2001, and now Warrior Soul are back – tell me what's changed for America, what's changed for you?

Clarke: I've put Warrior Soul back together, it's been in hiatus, and my explanation of the rest and as for what happened, what's changed, I think the documentary Loose Change, which is online, probably covers a lot of what I think is going on right now.

And, as for Warrior Soul, we're doing a new album, and I'll express what I think of all that, on the new record.

N: We read about stuff like the US Patriot Act in the UK, and I wonder, how does it affect an artist, someone with a public voice – what's the feeling for you as someone who's not just clocking in and keeping your head down?

C: Well certainly, some of the laws, that they're trying to get sneaked through the Congress right now that affect free speech, that could certainly harm an artist like me, and it's meant to.

N: Is the wider political environment harmful? We seem to have imported wars from the Middle East to our own countries, the US, the UK, I wonder why?

C: It can certainly harm anyone – and it's coming up from all over, not just there, we have people coming up from the south: what I think is, it's designed to dilute the belief in your nationality - that your country doesn't matter, your rights don't matter. You don't matter.

N: What do you think about the way the Oklahoma bombing got blamed on nationalists, but there are so many questions…?

C: I think that was probably a run-through. I think maybe for several other things that happened.

War On Terror

N: What’s the "war on terror" about for Americans?

C: I'm just a rock dude, I don't undertand it all! (laughs) No, be serious, go on.

N: We've got a lot of big rock bands who broke in the nineties coming over now, playing arenas and stadiums, and I love it but it’s like "The Silence of the Lambs" – how come they're not talking about this stuff?

C: I think they're scared. They've always been chicken!

For the first time in my life, I've felt personally like there's a lot of decisions made at the top that, it doesn't seem like the world's a normal place right now, these guys are beyond ruthless, and it's not that safe to speak your mind in front of a microphone.

Why would anyone risk their life!? Point is, they're not here to do something, though they probably do behind the scenes, and I don't know what – I'm sure there's tons of charity work, stuff like that.

Re-Release

N: And Warrior Soul are coming back, when we most need to hear this stuff.

C: Well, I re-released all the records, because I thought, it's still good, it's still relevant, so let's get it out there, and let's go out and do a little tour, and we're also doing the Dirty Rig tour.

I'm not doing politics in Rig! It's just, seriously rock n'roll.

N: It's almost a political statement just to say, "I want to do, what I want to do" these days…I mean we have one CCTV camera to every 14 citizens here in the UK, watching every choice and every move.

C: My comment is, why?! What are you being protected from? The security side – nah, I just don't want to talk about that shit, just put a chip in my arse!

Shaman

N: A lot of your stuff references psychadelia, the sixties, the whole trippy thing – and there's a shamanistic precedent of using altered states to bring back truth and power.

You guys have referenced the whole idea of altered realities, so, what do you think you bring back from that perspective?

C: Well Daoist meditation, at this point, going through the energy fields that we're going through on the planet - and it's bringing a huge psychic awareness as well as huge energy - anyone can access it through meditation, if they want to.

The success of things like The Secret and all this stuff, there's this growth in people whether they're artists or not, in this area of meditation this reaches out and brings more love into the world.

As an artist, when I am performing, I am putting on a play, every night is a different play, with the characters being the songs, and I just like to perform.

I don't know if I'm trying to get into trance necessarily, at one time I probably did that, I'll tell you though now I'm more like - Vegas! The Rat Pack!

N: It's always been pretty counter-culture to be so physical – you should really just become a slave - clock in, clock out, eat GMO gruel, live for the TV …

C: You don't feel that's appealing?! It's, no, maybe not!

N: When has Warrior Soul manifested its goal? What's the guy in your audience getting then?

C: When, I'm playing the stage I want to be on, the people there are learning about performance, about society, about what's going on, and he has what he believes.

Victory

N: And if "Warrior Soul" was an entity, to be a bit surreal and abstract, when has the Warrior won?

C: That's a good question – I've never been close enough to find out. Yet. I'd visualise, people clapping, everybody in love, everybody having a great time.

I'm not trying to deliver some sort of cosmic message, what I'm trying to do is shake my arse, and throw myself round, sing some cool shit, and I give you my soul, you give me your money!

I wanna love everyone - I think what I want is, people need someone sometimes to stand up, okay, but I can't do that right now and so I'm the misfit guy, who just got picked on and is still kicking them back and saying, fuck you, still, I didn't turn into Bon Jovi!

N: There's like, the politically aware band, the hedonist band, the whingey "life hurts me" band, and what I love about Warrior Soul is you transcend those boundaries, you have the attitude and yet you feel and you say fuck you, and you don't get sliced into focus group categories, or a single facet.

C: I just write about, whatever I fucking feel like, so yeah! But transcending the boundaries, yeah, (laughs) you can write that one down.

N: Thank you very much, Kory Clarke.

==

So, Kory would still NOT get up onto his goddamn pedestal, where he belongs by right but from which so many of his peers, his partners in grime, have fallen so hard - and so permanently.

But then, Warrior Soul has never been about preaching and leading in the first place – they take away our excuses for living the half-life, the safe-life, exactly by not being superhuman/subhuman cartoon cliches.

Licence To Live

In an age where our very identity is a commodity licensed back to us (via a smartcard) from the state, we all need to hear this more than ever, rather than handing off onto selected heroes to numb us into complacency, and make all our desires into a niche market.

The songs WS pushed into our consciousness, like Superpower Dreamland, The Losers, The Wasteland, are more relevant now than ever, and if that seems at odds with Capital Radio's sugary airwave Prozac, or the "one issue band" that died off when we outgrew that issue (Zack de la Rocha, I'm talking to you - the internet machine being the greatest freedom tool yet invented, and what about the camera phones blowing the gaff at Abu Ghraib - so, duh, Mr spiky head) then ALL of that is exactly why WS are a band we need more now than ever.

And after the chit-chat ended and some beers had been drunk, this amazing rock n' roll band did one of the top kick arse rock shows I've ever seen, proving that in the end, the best way to fuck the "powers that be" is to simply be human, be yourself, and not give up.

Warrior Soul's back catalogue is available from Escapi Music and Dirty Rig are playing in the UK throughout May. For more info on Warrior Soul, you may like Jon Reed's most excellent writings on them - JonReed.net.

(This interview was arranged in conjunction with Organ magazine, and conducted on 24th March 2007)