"Krone" interview

Crime & The City Solution: The spirit is back

A globetrotter with an unmistakable penchant for delicate indie melodies: Crime & The City Solution head Simon Bonney.

(Bild: Martyn Goodacre)

In the lesser-noticed wake of Nick Cave, Simon Bonney also shaped the post-punk of the late 70s and 80s in Australia. His band Crime & The City Solution is rightly revered as a cult band and only released a new album last fall: "The Killer". The introverted creative took time out for the "Krone" to reflect on his globetrotting gene, the legend of his indie band and the disadvantages of modern times.

"Krone": Simon, you've lived in different parts of the world - do you love this nomadic lifestyle?
Simon Bonney: It seems like it, but it's not quite true. I've really moved around a lot and I don't like just visiting places. I prefer to delve deeper into them to really grasp and understand them, I'm very driven by chance and opportunity. As far as I know, I've never had a longing for a particular place. Unconsciously, I perhaps wanted to go to America, where I was for ten years. I was also in Papua New Guinea because it just happened to me. It was the same when I returned to Australia. Sometimes I feel like I have to move on. I always enjoyed being in Berlin. It's a relatively obvious place for artists to live.

Where do you feel at home? What would you call home?
It's hard to say. I just like having a bag where I can cram everything in 30 minutes to leave a place. The internet has made keeping in touch with everyone easier than ever. I'm not so good at staying in one place.

That can also be applied to your music. You're always heading for new worlds of sound, trying to reinvent yourself.
There is an internal logic to everything I do that is not always recognizable from the outside. I always write music out of a certain necessity, otherwise I couldn't call myself a musician. I also write film soundtracks, for example, and when I write about the USA, the sound has to reflect this attitude to life. If a movie is about Berlin in the late 70s, your sound will probably sound a bit like Einstürzende Neubauten. If a movie is about Texas, the sound is completely different. I don't think in terms of music and genres, I just think about how the sound can support the lyrics.

Does music have a lot to do with imagination for you? With a form of visualization?
I tend to see things from different perspectives. I can observe things that are superficially political or socially connoted, but reflect them in the music from my own personal point of view. Or I can choose an obscure approach to a topic that is more hidden as a result. "The Last Dictator" can be about dictators per se, but the song can also shed light on a precarious family situation. I like to look at topics from several angles. I do a lot of research, which gives the music a drier, more academic approach. But that doesn't fulfill me in the same way as when I write about the same subject from a personal perspective.

Crime & The City Solution consists of several phases. The Australian version from the end of the 70s, when there was no album yet. Then the English version that you started in 1983 with Mick Harvey and now the American version. How do they differ for you?
The respective region always had a big influence on the music and the lyrics. London perhaps not so much, because before that I was very strongly influenced by Australia and that still shone through in England. In any case, the Berlin years were a very strong influence on my music and my development. The USA version is a kind of continuation of the solo albums I made before. Of course, the new albums have a Detroit touch, that's essential.

Were the Berlin years not only the most successful for you, but also the most creatively productive?
I like the US version of the band because it reflects me very well now. Of course, the Berlin years were formative. Meeting Alexander Hacke and working with him was a very important point. The Berlin musicians didn't have much of a sound brief and managed to free me from my guidelines. How should a song be, what is allowed, what isn't, how should music be? Alex didn't care about any of that. Combined with the musical qualities of Mick Harvey, the result was something quite unique. The current version of the band is my favorite when it comes to live performances. We communicate a lot, there's a great understanding and we find each other quickly. That was also the case with the Berlin line-up, but we didn't work together long enough back then to really experience it. I'm older now and have nothing to lose. Mentally, that's certainly a difference to the past.

Were there certain criteria that you used to select musicians for Crime & The City Solution?
Not really. Most of the time you get to know people, make friends and, in the best case scenario, a collaboration develops from that. You have to get along well and there should be a certain dedication to the project. The Berlin format came about completely by chance. I once met Chrislo Haas in a bar and it was about a charity concert. Then Hacke came into the picture and suddenly Mick Harvey was there. It could have gone horribly wrong, but it worked out great. Sometimes things just fall into place.

When it comes to art and creativity, it's certainly not a disadvantage to work with strong and confident characters.
There are strong characters and there are strong characters, if you know what I mean. (laughs) A lot of bands have serious conflicts with each other but make great music. They create two or three good albums before they explode and people partially die or completely sink. There are plenty of examples of that. I always wanted to be able to go on tour and make a living from it. I always preferred that to making albums. There's no guarantee, but I've tried everything. It works with the current version because the dynamic is right and we are very secure with each other. In the past, we might have had good albums, but we weren't necessarily good friends.

Is this kind of friendship more fundamental today than it used to be?
For tour life, definitely. It's elementary for that. The various versions of Crime & The City Solution were very different. The Berlin version was probably the most successful, but certainly also the most explosive. Each type of band had its different approaches and strengths. Our music was never based on a guitar riff or a chorus structure. It was always more organic, with more teamwork. The teamwork was always important.

Was it important for you to share your visions and ideas with your fellow musicians? To hear their opinions and incorporate them?
Definitely. When we play live and they play a part that I like, then we incorporate it the next time. We listen to each other and have developed a common language with which we communicate about the instruments. Every new musician has their own ideas. Some are possible, some are not, but the important thing is to listen and talk about them. But that has always been the case with Crime & The City Solution. We can't create a crime show or a version of a crime show to a certain format - it would never work. That always makes it a bit stressful for the first few months, but this current band has developed extremely quickly.

Ten years after the last album, a new Crime album finally followed in the fall with "The Killer" ...
We spent eight days in the studio for it. We worked on it for a relatively long time and then the vinyl pressings also took a lot of time. That's the way it is today, you have to expect that. I'm highly motivated and don't have a plan B. I have no money in the bank and am currently putting all my eggs in one basket.

In 2022, after a 32-year absence, you played in Austria for the first time again, at the Volkstheater in Vienna. Then later in Linz and Ebensee. The tour took place without a new album - why at all?
It was simply time for a tour. The pandemic had held us back for a long time and we wanted to get out again. We were all in the mood and it was great fun. My daughter was also very supportive. She thought this tour would be a very good idea and that I shouldn't wait another ten years. At 71, it might be a bit difficult. Normally, only very successful bands tour at such an advanced age because the luxury of traveling is completely different.

Sitting in a van at over 70 is something completely different. I feel very good on stage and I think I'm in good shape musically. You never know what will happen. Many of my friends and acquaintances are dying. There are more funerals every year. You can't wait too long, you just have to do it. Many people have waited 30 years for us, others have never even seen us because they are too young. We play small venues, but they are well filled and the people are enthusiastic. It's also an honor for me to play for people who might have been with us 30 years ago.

We also lost Mark Lanegan, who idolized your album "Shine", a few years ago. Do such tragic events make you see or reflect on life differently?
Mark's death was a terrible tragedy. He had so much left in him that he would have given to us and to himself. He was one of the most generous and honest people I've ever met and although he was a little younger than me, he was always like a big brother to me. Mark is still very present and I feel like he oversees a bit of everything I do. That he gives me advice from somewhere else. I've always really respected his advice and opinions. I didn't know him for very long, but we became very close very quickly. But that was also because of the type of person he was, because everyone who knew him loved him. It was only when he died that you realized how many people had a positive attitude towards him.

Being in a band for so many years with your private partner, as in your case with Bronwyn Adams, is also not usual. That will have its advantages and disadvantages.
Of course, we like to argue and it's not always that easy, but it also has a lot of advantages. It's a bit more comfortable sharing a room as a couple than with a couple of sweaty band brothers and fellow musicians. Bronwyn knows me better than anyone else because we've always been very close. She's a fantastic violinist and has been very actively involved in the lyrics for a long time. If she wasn't my partner, I would definitely still like to have her in the band. It's great fun to share the stage with her because she feels comfortable there. We are very well balanced, privately and professionally, and that is incredibly pleasant.

Crime & The City Solution has always had a very dark, but also shimmering, sometimes gloomy and majestic sound. Does this sound reflect your personality?
I'm not the most positive and optimistic person in the world, but the lyrics are also laced with a lot of black humor. There are some songs like "Grain Will Bear Grain" that aren't necessarily dark, but of course I'm more at home in that corner.

Does Crime & The City Solution have the same meaning or importance in your life today as it did 40 years ago?
There were so many different bands, but they are all connected. Going from Crime & The City Solution to a country album was a really big leap. But there's always a natural progression between the different versions of the band. There are a lot of things where getting older has great advantages. You don't take yourself so seriously anymore. When you're young, you want to fill the whole page of the story. It's all about you, but at some point that gets boring because you pay far too little attention to and observe everything around you. Today I can reflect very well on how I have developed and broadened my perspective. I have seen many countries and cultures and things that seem important in one culture are completely irrelevant in another. Realizing this made me feel a lot calmer because I no longer stressed myself out so much and, above all, no longer saw myself as the center of the world. I am very happy that I have been so lucky in life and have seen so much of the world.

In the mid-90s in Los Angeles, I went completely underground. I drove my truck through areas that weren't glamorous and observed everything closely. You recognize and discover so much there. You test your own prejudices because you get directly involved in this world. That's the only way you can learn anything, because everything else is third-hand and serves stereotypes. Papua New Guinea is a country that you can only understand if you live there. You can look at the statistics on crime, population etc. in advance, but none of that tells you anything about life there. In Australia, everyone has an opinion on Indigenous policy, but only a minimal percentage of Australians have been to the outback and encountered Indigenous people. I don't have the answers to these issues either, but I have had personal experience, which many have not. We live in a society where everyone wants to impose their will and views on everyone else. This only leads to us increasingly separating ourselves from each other. You can't find a solution that way. You have to be able to listen. Learn to understand.

Unfortunately, the world today often only communicates with each other virtually. Mostly from the safety of our living room bunker - confirmed by our own bubble.
The whole world is more polarized than ever before. Do you agree with me or not? There is no center, no understanding. It seems as if it is no longer accepted to listen to others and approach each other. But that's not me and it's not my style. By being open to the world and its cultures, I have seen things that I would otherwise have been denied. What a loss. The worst thing is always when you want to establish yourself and your culture somewhere else. Australians come to Papua New Guinea and say "this is how we do it here" and settle with this attitude. It's just awful and incredibly arrogant. It's always about context and understanding.

Do you see music per se and yours in particular as a common language? Do you want to use music to convey a form of community and a way of approaching one another?
I would never expect people to see my music that way. I'm sure it's more for a specific form of western audience. Maybe not, what do I know? I also love Sufi music, but I probably don't understand it the way someone from Afghanistan understands it because I don't have the cultural connections. Nevertheless, I can like this music. The lyrics revolve around Allah and are mostly very religious and I can appreciate this work without being Muslim. I think you can also like Crime & The City Solution without belonging to the same culture. You just have to approach the music differently.

Are there actually still places in the world where you would like to live temporarily or even stay permanently?
I don't know. My daughter will certainly have children and then I would like to spend time with my grandchildren. I'm open to everything and closed to nothing. Los Angeles was probably at the bottom of my list of places I wanted to be and yet I ended up living there for ten years. I was incredibly happy there, which I would never have expected before. I don't know if there is a place where I can be happy forever. That thought somehow seems very distant to me.