Download PDF - Xlr8r

Scenes from Cunningham’s Rubber Johnny
“If you want to
play around
with the rules
then first you
have to know the
rules inside out.”
“I’ve been doing nothing but crafting
for five years,” he admits. Surprisingly
old-fashioned in his approach to art,
Cunningham–an exquisite draughtsman
who didn’t attend art school–firmly
believes that artists should do their utmost
to master their chosen craft. “I think if
you want to play around with the rules
then first you have to know the rules
inside out,” he says. “Let’s say you’re
making music videos but you hate bigbudget
MTV videos, that doesn’t mean
you should make cheap and nasty videos.
You should try to make videos which are
as technically accomplished as the cheesy
clichéd ones.”
When he started working in the
film industry as a teenage assistant to
Stanley Kubrick, Cunningham wasn’t just
attracted to being a sculptor or an engineer
or a make-up artist–he wanted to
excel at every discipline, like a latter-day
Renaissance man. “My plan is to be really
multimedia,” he says. “I don’t want to be
a jack of all trades and master of none,
but be a master of all of them. I’m not
saying I’ve mastered any yet but that’s the
aim.”
With this in mind, and given his obvious
love of music, Cunningham attends
all manner of gigs and raves in London
and can occasionally be heard DJing a
fine blend of synth pop, soundtracks, and
musique concrète–it’s not shocking to learn
that he’s written stacks of his own tracks.
“I love learning stuff and setting myself
challenges,” he says. “Making those videos
I became more interested in music to the
point where I realized I spent all my time
studying and writing music. What usually
happens is a video director goes off and
makes a feature film. I’m in a weird position where
I’m more interested in music than I am in film.”
It’s a tantalizing prospect, certainly. As to the
precise nature of his compositions, Cunningham
isn’t giving much away. But you don’t need to be
Fox Mulder to figure out what his music might
sound like. “The bottom line for me has always
been songs,” he says. “If something crosses over it’s
to do with the songs, the craft of the songwriting.
The trouble with most electronic music is it’s just
one long verse. That’s why I love Kraftwerk–
Computer World is innovative sonically but it still
has incredible songs. And that was my rule: I’m
not doing anything unless I’ve got a really good
song first and then I go off and start.”
Cunningham says he’s always sketched out songs
on his guitar and keyboard. For him, refreshingly,
melody is king. For this reason he adores Aphex’s
celestial harmonies and French techno whiz
Vitalic’s stirring anthems. “My favourite kind
of pop music is melancholy pop music: Giorgio
Moroder, Abba, you know, Tears For Fears’ first
album. All the best songs are sad songs about
missed opportunities and longing.”
Whether his music will be released remains to
be seen. But there’s no doubt he’s keen to master
this latest craft. “To people I know, it looks like I
haven’t been doing anything,” he adds. “But in a
year’s time it’s going to be obvious what I’ve been
doing because I’ll have a load of stuff out. And everyone
will be like, how the fuck did you find time
to do all that stuff”
And with that he shuffles out of the bar and into
Soho. He slips his headphones over his long hair.
What’s he listening to Phil Collins. You have been
warned.
Rubber Johnny is out now on Warp Films. www.warprecords.com
54