Song As Protest: An Interview with John Diment of 'John D Revelator' and 'The Pipistrelles'
Whilst reflecting on the current social situations and the protests for Black Lives Matter I got to thinking how I could make a difference with my music and my writing. At a time where we feel insignificant and helpless it is important to turn to something familiar and calming to help process the negativity in the world.
I decided to talk to musicians who use music as a form of protest and a way to give a voice to the stories of people that are affected by some of these issues.
I started by talking to John Diment . John is the front man of 'John D Revelator' with his wife Ann. They have also started a new band project 'The Pipistrelles'.
John and I met 2 years ago in Glastonbury, Somerset which is around 1 hour from Bristol where protesters pulled down a statue of Edward Colston, an old slave trader.
I asked John for his thoughts on this incident and how we can take a stand.
"The statue should have come down years ago. The whole of Bristol and Bath and British society is based on Slavery and colonialism. Once you start digging down into it you see strands everywhere. You see grand houses from the late 18th and early 19th century in little villages like Glastonbury and Wells and can trace their money back to plantations and we're all involved in this. The hostility towards Black Lives Matter on some sites in the UK allows you to see the divide of people that have never thought of this.
I think with the whole Colston thing, the right wing have hung their hats on protecting statues and our culture by not looking at any of it at all. It's become a dividing line, good riddance it should have been in a museum years ago. Even Colston private school has had to change its name which is great but even this is tokenistic when you look at the whole thing. That's a step I don't think the country is ready for yet.
"What are you working on at the moment?
I'm recording 2 songs today and one is a country song about heartbreak and terrible mobile mobile phone coverage in the countryside. Waiting for a call to come through that doesn't come but rather than the guy being a loser and thinking the girl has left him he blames it on bad mobile reception. The song is called 'The 5 bar gate'. The next song was about corona virus and hope and moving forward.
I write about things that make me excited or angry and often a protest song just flows out because I'm so pissed off about something. I’'m just finishing a recording of a song called 'Cheers Drive' about the Bristol bus strike in the 1960s and how it ties in with the windrush. In the middle of 60's people came over from Jamaica and they were heroes. They came over to a freezing cold place where they didn't know anyone to earn a living and rebuild our country and they were treated like absolute shit. They have been treated this way (even if not in an open discriminatory way) ever since. Listen here
Talking about this with John reminded me of a Wind Rush event that I attended in Glastonbury. Whilst there I went to a talk by Joanna Cobb who is an arts historian and was talking about all the brilliant and talented black composers, artists and minds that are not covered in school education or represented in main stream culture. After this talk I felt I had been robbed of knowledge all these years. It made me realize how many young black people are also robbed of black role models and representation of the brilliance of their culture and intelligence. Through this misrepresentation I feel it has created an unbalanced and misinformed society who hold an incomplete picture of black culture.
John reflected:
“Glastonbury is a relative pin prick of progressive thinking although it still has its monsters. But although it is full of progressive and forward thinking people, you only have to go a few miles down the road and you are back in the 1970s. You rarely see black people and there is an undercurrent of white privilege.”
Growing up in a town where many people are from the Asian or black community it was a shock when I first moved from London to a small village outside of Glastonbury. It made me feel uneasy at the lack of multiculturalism and so I can only imagine how it would feel as someone from another culture visiting or living there.
I was curious if John remembered what first inspired him to use song as protest?
My mum was a strange influence as she listened to all kinds of odds and ends of music from the 50s through to the 70s. I was brought up on country music like Dolly Parton and Johnny Cash. Johnny Cash was virtually a family member, every car journey was accompanied by Johnny Cash. There were songs like 'The Ballad Of Ira Haze' and some of the stuff he did with Bob Dylan that got me more interested in what Bob Dylan was doing as a young teenager. Then Billy Bragg came along and Bruce Springsteen and as a teenager that was brilliant. I never really intended to be a protester even now I don't like to be lumped into that category.
I reflected that if music makes people aware of situations and think then that is a good thing. John's songs have definitely made me more aware and want to learn more. So even if he is not going out and protesting he is still spreading awareness so it has the same purpose.
“It spreads solidarity especially living in a place like this when you feel like you are the only left leaning one. You get to an end of a gig and people say I loved that song you were bang on right there it brings all people together. The last gig we did in Weston it was rammed with people dancing and cheering and then I checked facebook the next day and the only comment on there was 'First gig I've ever walked out on'. Maybe they didn't like our stance. But I'm not doing it to be popular I'm doing it because it's something that excites me.”
I reflected that everything John is doing through his gigs are like a protest. He is coming together with like minded people. There is always going to be people that don't agree but for me that is a good sign, when you are saying something very powerful that not everyone can get on board with or feels comfortable with is when you're are doing something right!
John's songs are very catchy and get the audience singing along, which is a great tool for keeping these ideas in the audiences' head.
Do you consider hooks when you are writing?
"Yeah I do, I'd love to say it's just a gift it just comes to me but I do think about it. I often start with the hook. My jobs as a dry stone waller and driver are actually very meditative, because you are spending all day alone with a repetitive job I'll often have a loop going round my head. There is a certain rhythmic element to this type of work when you are hitting things or moving or packing things. I'll build on a hook with a few rhyming couplets and then I'll have a chorus. Often I then run off and scribble it down on whatever I've got and then I might not see it for months. Then when I see it again if it's a good enough hook I can remember the exact tune, then its a question of sitting down with guitar in hand and working out the chord progression and build from there. So I do think about the hooks because I love 3 minute pop songs although all my songs are 4-5 minute long because I feel like you need that time to tell a story."
I agreed with John and reflected that if you have lyrics that are really important and have a message you need people to have time to take it in and be engaged. I was interested that John wrote these songs whilst working as some of the oldest protest or message songs were written as work songs to carry secret messages between oppressed people.
Recently I had experienced this meditative state whilst weeding. We agreed that although we choose to do our work and it is no way imposed on us there are certain rhythms of the day which lead to an affinity with the people that did that sort of work
It made me think of how important getting to the root of issues such as racism and corruption is and taking time to really eradicate it. If even a small part of root is left in the ground it will grow again. Although the process of doing things this way will be painful and slow it is better than just burying these issues only for more seeds of hatred and violence to emerge again. I think this repetitive type of work allows the creative mind to emerge.
John's passion for social and political justice shines through in his music, I wondered if he was often inspired by things he saw in the news
“Shoot the wounded came from a throw away quote that someone said on a video on the internet. They were talking about the government's attitude to people in hospital and said they would shoot the wounded and I thought that's a great line. This song blurted out in 15 minutes then you build a performance on top of that.
Corona virus being a big thing, in the early part of lock down I was firing out songs and poems and then work took over and sometimes the muse just takes you. In spring I was writing everyday and completed 5 songs in a week.
Recently I have avoided the news for my mental health. I think the same sort of people who are going to sit down and write a song are the same kind of people who are going to get angry about this. I've been bitterly disappointed since the election in December and by the governments here and America. All of the things that are happening in the world seem to be happening at odds with everyone I know and value and all of my values. I feel we are utterly powerless. So it is really easy to sit and swear at the television for half an hour before bed which I found myself increasingly doing. I think people like us get affected by this because we are more sensitive than other people and we pick up on emotions as this is what we are writing about a lot of the time. I haven't written a lot recently regarding the news but generally if something has annoyed me it will be a news based tune.
I do a lot of research about old stories and look at local history. I've written a song about the gentleman who introduced rabbits to Australia who came from nearby Baltonsborough. I often retreat into that folky thing when I can't quite face current affairs."
I agreed that I'd had a similar experience where at first I wrote about the virus and the environment but after a while I couldn't face it anymore and so I focused on research and writing articles to try and educate myself and have a new focus.
“Sometimes you can write a story out of indignation or rage and get the facts wrong. I am coming at the angle of quite left views and environmental views. Nearly every story has multiple facets and things people accept as facts. So sometimes it is easy to write a protest song and get the facts wrong but it is important to me coming from a scientific background (John studied Zoology) that I don't write a lot of crap and be shot down, hopefully I've not written anything factually incorrect. If you are going to all the effort of writing a song and standing up in front of people you need to get it right.”
Have you ever performed at a protest?
I've performed at a protest when Boris Johnson avoided Glastonbury and was on channel 4 news playing my song 'The Boris Johnson Blues'. I've also performed at rallies and union events. It was pretty fun.
Can you tell me about the reactions you've had about that song
Almost universally people have said you have that bang on, what a bastard he is but I did have one guy who tried to noise me up through Youtube as I was fortunate enough to get an assisted place at a private school in Wells. He had gone through my profile and said I was a typical private schooled labour hypocrite. Which I responded to by saying not sure how that is relevant to the song, thanks for dropping by. That was a weird reaction.People get on the internet and say things that they wouldn't dream of saying to you in real life. There are odd reactions but on the whole they're good.
Have you found that being so open about your political views has lead to people thinking they can shoot you down?
"They have a go, there was a guy I was playing to and he decided to talk really loudly through my set. He started slagging off the labour party. But what he had forgotten is that I had the PA. Basically I would taunt him and say "What's that ya saying mate?" in the end he had to give up. Apparently he had been barred before for doing the same thing."
You and Ann support local charities with your music such as the food bank, can you tell me more about the work you do?
"We are trying to get a few people to do an online gig for 'We shall Overcome' which is run by Joe Solo a protest singer. He is a brilliant and driven guy. By day he is a washing machine repair man and then all the profits from his music goes to charity. He collects mainly for homeless charities and during the lock down he collected around 10k. The recent gig that we did for 'We shall overcome festival' raised around 30k. I am hoping to run another gig for this in October in Glastonbury and I am also trying to organize more online gigs to support homeless charities."
I reflected that over the time of the virus suddenly the government started to house homeless people where before it was left to people like John and Joe to raise funds independently. It made me angry that this could have been done before. These people are worth investing in as they have something valuable to contribute to society and the world as people. On a purely economic level I would have thought that this would be a good investment for the government too.
“They have intrinsic value as people. As a society we should not be leaving anyone behind. This idea that people have to have an economic value in order to have intrinsic value is wrong. You only need to look at the attitudes of some of the local people here around Glastonbury towards people who are homeless or live in buses. Bare in mind I am a local yokel, I was born here and grew up here. My dad was born in the house I grew up in. People say things like back in the 1960s it wasn't like this. I can tell you there were people like this in the 1970s and 80s living in buses and not doing anyone any real harm. They were no different they were just people, I went to school with some of them. The kids that lived in buses were no different to any other kids. Even the farmers to be honest were understanding.
I reflected that some people are scared of the unknown or do not want to accept that this is a viable lifestyle choice. Some of these people choose this life and some do not. Those that choose perhaps do not want to be a cog in a wheel or be limited by a system. I think those people are given a bad reputation because they don't want other people to live outside of the system.
“It is a multifaceted situation, it's for a whole bunch of reasons. Could be illness, bad luck or their choice. They still need some kind of contact with the system though through using roads, schools, hospitals or they might need to claim from the benefit system. So it is almost impossible to be out of the system. So I get why some people might call them spongers because they feel that they don't contribute anything in regards to tax. Personally I think they do contribute through being artistic, they have cultural value. There has always been travelling people and its interesting how this government and a lot of other governments have specifically, under the radar gone for gypsies and the travelling community. Any time anything goes missing, if there is a gypsy encampment within 15-20 miles it will be blamed on them. I'm not saying all of those people are angels but it's still unfair to blame them. My father was old enough to remember a time when the Romany people would come and help pick apples on the farm. So come October time you would traditionally have a lot of these people setting up camps and working really. really hard. People would be genuinely pleased to see them as they were a travelling workforce then they’d travel up the country. Country people tended to have a lot of respect for these people."
I reflected that there are thieves among every class or group of people. Some wealthy people for example embezzle large amounts of money or avoid paying taxes and they take millions.
Lastly any advice for new songwriters?
Whatever your song is about it needs to be from the heart. You can do all the research you like but you can tell when someone is writing by numbers. I’ve been playing the guitar since I was 13 and been through various stages of being rubbish at it or alright at it and probably like a lot of teenage boys wanted to be in a rock band. It being more about how it looked rather than having something to say. I see many young performers who at the age of 18 you haven’t got much to say. If you’re writing a song about heartache or losing your job you’re making it up. In your 20s you maybe have something to write about.
I was in my 40s before I really started churning out song it was when I had something to say that people might want to listen to. Up to that point I’d just gone to university and got a job. I hadn’t been down a coal mine, I hadn’t had a long or varied or troubled life. (laughs) You have to believe what you’re singing and really care about it.
Songwriting is great because it is something you can grow and mature into. I think often people think you can only be a performer whilst you’re in your 20s or 30s. Even though alot of the songs sung by these people are written by people in their 40s and 50s. Often people think that you have to look a certain way which is why it is refreshing when artists that don’t have typical boy band looks become popular.
"Often people say they want to make it but it depends what you call making it? I get paid to play my songs and if I could just do that for a living it would be great although like most other jobs I have made a living from I might come to resent it. I am happy that I have a few different jobs. Even if I can make a difference or a part living from music I am happy.
It’s important to have a balance in your life. Most of the people I know who are full time touring musicians they don’t tend to have a settled life or kids to look after. I have a home and a lovely family life with my 2 gorgeous kids (13) and (16) and spend a lot of time with them. During lock down it has been great to spend more time with them, we’ve had some real belly laughs. I think we’ll look back on it as an opportunity to know each other well. I have made sure I have the flexibility in my life to take time off to attend school events. Also because I have this kind of life it is easier to write and relate to my audience more than I could if I had just been on tour for the last 20 years even though I might have some great tales."
I reflected that by having this balance and spending time with his family he is doing great work in creating two human beings who have been cared for and will be better out in the world because of this. Time is so precious and many of us wish for more time with our parents at some point in our lives. It is important to have time to idle or live in order to have something to write about.
John has just released an album you can listen to here
with ‘The Pipistrelles’
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Learn more about ‘We Shall Overcome
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