HEALTH Hate Work But They Know How To Make Men Dry Hump Walls

Los Angeles’ cult noise heroes, HEALTH, recently came through London on a short tour to trial a handful of new tracks from their rather delayed third album. The pause hasn’t necessarily done them a disservice, as their legion of fans continues to swell since their brilliant LP Get Color. Their new stuff is noticeably more imposing than previous material as the band plunge deeper into the electronic realm. I had a chat with bassist and general noisemaker John Famiglietti about what had happened to HEALTH in the past four years.

Noisey: Alright, John? Does it take a lot for you to get to the point where you can totally lose yourself on stage?
HEALTH: If the crowd’s there you feel that adrenalin, and there’s almost the working class thing of, “these people paid to see you.” You’ve got to give it to them.

Even if it’s 3pm in a country that doesn’t know you?
Yeah, but that’s the old fashioned thing of, “goddamn these people drove to see you.” I feel a duty. Also, the best thing about music over other art is that you get the adulation in real time. You can slave away on a book for years and someone says like, “Hey I liked your book”. You don’t get to read your book and have people yell at you and shit.

I was watching a few people in the audience just now having a really strong reaction. There was one guy actually dry-humping the wall.
I think that’s great. For me going to shows as a kid or whatever, that’s what it was about. You have this crazy energy and you want to fucking express yourself and fuck everything. That, to me, is why you go to shows.

That seems a little lost these days.
Kids are the fucking same. There’s no way anyone’s feeling that different. We’re just mass-produced machines. We’re all the same.

When was the last time you were in London?
A serious minute. I think I should really hang here for an extended period of time. London’s like LA, when you visit you’re like “fuck this place”, but when you’re with someone who knows it it’s like, “Oh, this is fucking amazing.”

I read a couple of times this week that it was a total pain for you to make the new record?
I think if it was other people it wouldn’t have been. It’s purely as it’s ourselves.

What is it about you?
We hate fucking writing and recording and producing music. I don’t like work of any kind. Of course you want to, and you’re driven to, because you want to play the show and you want people to hear it, but the actual process of making music fucking kills.

Is that because it takes a lot out of you to make it? Are you perfectionists?
No, I just hate working, like anybody else. I mean yeah, we really give a shit, and there’s all the connotations of that, but the greater, grander reason is, I don’t know, does anyone like working? I don’t like fucking working. What the fuck do you think I do this for? If I really gave a shit about working I could have done a tonne of other stuff with my life.

But you love playing shows?
Touring is the best. I don’t think it’s work. I mean you get tired or something, but you mostly have fun. You’re bored when you’re driving, but who gives a shit?

So are you really looking forward to playing Berghain this week?
Yeah. Whenever I go to Berlin I find a way to go to that club. Usually we have to leave that morning, so it’s just like fuck it, let’s get destroyed.

Have you seen the freakier underbelly of it?
Yeah, I wandered in there, I was like “Holy shit.”

Anything particularly strange that you saw?
Dude’s dick was fucking gigantic. It was like a Pringles can.

My friend came back recently with this story about a guy who just scuttles around sucking people’s balls as they’re fucking other people.
Really?

Yep. Anyway, so you played three new songs?
We played four new songs.

They seem more grounded. Less twisting the nerve ends and more plugging into the core.
Yeah. Even the people who like more experimental music really respond to them. I mean obviously there’s some other stuff. We’ve been a band for a minute. Then there are “hits”, and those songs are pretty standard compared to the others.

Was that calculated?
You think I don’t think about things?

Of course. What I meant was it seems like with a lot of your tracks they’d initially come from jams?
No, everything is extremely calculated. Extremely deliberate. Everything is written, written, written. There is no soulful exuberance. Some people are just vessels of art, but I’m not. None of those guys are.

What about having to engage more through press and social media this time around, is that a pain?
Press is pretty easy. Social media is really great. Stuff keeps adding up though. It’s like now you should do Vine. Goddammit who cares? In the old days musicians had mystery, they were cool and that just goes out the fucking window if you’re like taking ten second videos of you taking a shit, or tweeting “ I’m in London and I just ate this really good meal.” It’s like this guy sucks.

Has anyone in particular gone down in your estimation through their Twitter feed?
Nothing that extreme. I mean, I don’t want to say this but, OK, I love Brett Easton Ellis’ novels. He’s a great writer. I love his stories. Then I’m on his Twitter and he’s saying all this stuff, and it’s like he’s this total pretentious fuck ass. It’s fucked up the books for me.

Is there anyone you listened to recently that’s really made an impression on you?
Ice Age. We met those kids before their first album. The singer brought us out to Copenhagen to play a show. He saved up his money and it was really amazing. They played too. We hung out with his dad, they made us food. Then it was like, “Remember that kid? He’s got a band”, and it was like, “Holy shit, this guy’s band is amazing.” His voice is killer. I mean you listen to those post-punk records, and it’s like how did people have voices like that back then? I don’t have that voice. That dude has that voice. I listen to a lot of electronic music. I like Dark Sky. I like Blawan.

Yeah?
I love it. I like XXXY. Is he from London too?

Manchester.
I really like UK electronic music. It’s cerebral, but it’s cool, and it’s really interesting.

It's pretty much the only interesting scene we've got. So, when is the record finally going to come out?
The record should be out this fall. It’s pretty much done. We’re negotiating who’s going to put it out, and we’d love to write one more song and put it on there. We’re really just getting the sound of the record right. It’s been a hard thing to reconcile our live instruments and the stuff that’s programmed.

Guess you’re going to be hugely relieved when it’s finally done.
Fuck, I hope so. I feel like I’ve been living this deja-vu bullshit for like a year now.

What are you going to do when it’s over?
Same shit I do already, just more of it.

Jealous. You sound like you have a really fun life.
I hope so. It’s just every time I have fun, I have this really nagging guilt of why the fuck is the record not out?! And if I think about it too much it really ruins my good time. So I would love to get it done, get back to the good stuff, and also have the good stuff already without the worry. I’m a simple man.

Sweet. Thanks, Health!