M.O.A.B. is, if nothing else, Robbi's brilliant attempt to remind us that all cultures are special and that we have a common chord between us all, which is the truly holiest thing going; our sacred individual beauty, together. As King's X so aptly put it on Gretchen Goes To Nebraska, we have to remember that, "Everybody knows a little bit of something".


MORGAN Y. EVANS: How's the weather out in Joshua Tree, where you live, today?

ROBBI ROBB: There's snow all around and in the mountains around me. It's very beautiful. We had snow here also a few days back. About 2 feet. It covered the desert. Just beautiful. It's crazy. You don't know what to do with yourself when you look at it!

MYE: I love the concept you've put forth considering that "all fire is friendly fire". Like, in war there is still a common humanity. It made me think of recently, some of the news from the hospitals in Gaza and people who were caught in the crossfire over there.

RR: I wasn't sure how many people understood that line. Since 9/11 I did a lot of questioning. When I arrived in America I didn't know what the holidays were or anything like that. I would wake up in the morning on those days and make coffee and turn to friends and say, "It's funny, it feels like a Sunday or something." And they'd say "Maybe it's because it's a holiday". I could actually feel the holidays in my body in America. There was something in the quality of the air. When O.J. Simpson was tried and they were reading the verdict that day, I felt the same feeling. Whoa! Everything felt so quiet.

MYE: A still tension or apprehension.

RR: Yeah. And when I saw the 9/11 images I thought,,"That's amazing! What a trick." And then I realized it wasn't a TV show. It was horrible. And here in California when we had a big earthquake, I was one of those people who suffer from what they call phantom earthquakes. You walk around and feel it for weeks afterwards! You feel it in your body. So that sort of happened to me. Then people started saying it was Al Qaeda and then slowly emerging out of that was that the Muslims wanted to slay the infidels and that guy made a movie about the negative sentences in the Koran. I thought, it can't be! I started studying the Koran myself. Then someone pointed out the story of Deuteronomy. Look at that story. I thought, "Wow, this really is a story of genocide and something we practice and celebrate every year." So I was like, wait a minute, it was the same feeling I had in Africa. I would sneak into the townships and play jazz music. I would meet a Zulu musician or a Tswana musician and they were completely different guys than you heard. So,,I had this feeling in my body. "Fuck, I wish my friends were here to see this!" That's how this Tribe record came to be. I wished my friends would see who are Jewish folk or anyone. I have a lot of atheist friends but a lot of religious people are in my life. Before we part pointing fingers at the Muslims and their strictures we really should look at ourselves as well.

MYE: Yeah, it's so complicated all around. There's not one group to blame and so many reasons. I was watching a DVD recently of the Dalai Lama speaking and he was talking about the Western notion of Karma and how people often think it is their destiny or fate but Karma is really people's intentions or thoughts clouding how they see or interpret the world. How you look out makes you create things around you because of how you think. Tied into extremists of any culture or religion, any fanatics, it sends up with the same result. Perpetual conflict.

RR: Yeah! In quantum physics and quantum biology they say your body is the outpouring of your beliefs, your life around you. We coagulate around stories and those stories have energy in them. By integrating those stories into our psyche, that determines patterns of karma that we will manifest. I saw it inside Africa firsthand in my own life. One of the first stories you got told about as a kid in South Africa was about King Dingaan who invites these people in to have dinner and at the peak of the party he whistles and all the Zulus come out and club the men and women to death. There's a picture in the history books of enormous Zulus, drawn extra big, and a little baby over there getting clubbed to death. After that you could never trust a black guy! Even later in life that story could come between me and a relationship with a black guy. It's fuckin' hard to get that shit out of your body! I've worked hard at it.

MYE: Yeah, growing up around it so much in South Africa.

RR: So stories determine the quality of your karma. Karma is not necessarily "what you sow shall you reap" but it's got a lot to do with how you will respond.

MYE: Deuteronomy, I know you have different readings from it throughout the album, but I was wondering how literal or interpretive you wanted the music to be of that Biblical book of the Old Testament?

RR: Well, you see, this is the one story. Deuteronomy was written in the language of flames, ancient Hebrew. It was only meant to be spoken in temple space, not a language for daily life. Words, like cities, represent metaphysical ideas. They don't represent actual people. Joseph Campbell pointed out that once we conquered time with the symbology of our religions, we froze them. People started believing it was actual history. If it is our history, are we not integrating a type of God into our psyches that justifies genocide? Basically, on one level, the story of our record is telling people that if you believe Deuteronomy is a fact, then you are getting the "Holy City Warrior" and all the names of the songs are representing modern day symbols of what happened in time manifested. Moses goes up the mountain to speak to the Burning Bush. At this time it was George Bush, you know what I mean? Then there's the Holy City Warriors, people who will die for the belief that they are on God's side.

MYE: So you are drawing parallels.

RR: I also did try to embed in the songs things for someone who has unwound the kabbalistic meanings of the Bible and could have a different conversation. For example, the first line in "Holy City Warrior" says ,"I'm a holy city warrior/I'm not looking for direction." In other words, it's got nothing to do with something outside of me. The real Jihad is something that takes place inside of you. There's three aspects to it. Number one, you kill the thoughts that stop you from gradually progressing along the spiritual path. Number two, you kill off the fears and the emotional body that will stop you. And number three is kill anybody that stops you from doing that for yourself. You're not allowed to kill anyone else! [laughing] It's all internal work. So I have written this to hopefully illustrate that there is an inside healer. The whole of the Deuteronomy story represents a journey from bondage to freedom, from Apartheid to the Holy City. It's apt to give you a chuckle if you approach it in a Hindu way. [laughing] But, the moment you say God is actually on your side it becomes a whole different story and you impregnate the world with a whole different, negative story.

MYE: I was thinking about how movies were slanted after 9/11 and there was a lot of censorship and I just finally saw a bug Hollywood movie from when things were starting to turn around, Kingdom Of Heaven with Orlando Bloom. It's about the Crusades and I thought it was cool in that, I'm not sure how accurate it was, but it portrayed some of the Muslims in a better light. Ghassan Massoud plays Saladin and he picks up a cross he sees lying on the ground and rights it on a table, even though it is not "his" symbol. I thought that was refreshing.

RR: That could be wonderful. Those are stories we need. I was of a double mind making a record like this because the things you pay attention to inform themselves in your life. In the dawn of psychology of man we were impregnated with this story and now we act it out to this day! In South Africa I was impregnated with the story of Dingaan and had I not picked up the jazz music vibe, I might have been a heavy racist to this day! It's storylines we coagulate our consciousness around, and people are afraid and pay attention to this stuff, and it is a blaming game. There has to be a more positive way! For example, there's a wonderful book someone lent me the other day called Kindness. The guy says maybe if at a young age they would teach the Palestinians the Israeli dances, they could dance like them and feel what it feels like. I remember watching the black folk dance and always trying to imitate it! It creates an empathy! A human empathy! It's like when they asked the Dalai Lama what he thought was the quickest path to peace and he said, "Everybody must cool off and have more picnics and festivals." Not just festivals, but festivals where they play world music!

MYE: It;s funny because I was reading your blog A Cry Above The Jungle on your website and people were saying your label-mates 4Lyn shouldn't play China and should boycott it because of the disrespect of human rights and then I thought about how cool it was that some things like A Perfect Circle came out in China and maybe that helped some peoples’ lives. You can't say all China is bad, or America for that matter.

RR: Exactly. When I read the biography of Mao Tze Tung, I got halfway through and had to put it down. Jesus Christ! I didn't know where the Chinese people were coming from! I had to put it down because it was giving me a one-sided view of the Chinese people and I didn't want to think like that. Then I saw a movie about Japanese doing things to the Chinese, and then the Germans coming, and in the middle of that story there was a journalist who wanted to tell the story of China, and he got stuck with an orphanage and protecting these kids from the Germans. It was a beautiful thing. That is what I feel is my truth now. Like, I've seen Amma, the Hugging Saint. Fucking amazing! She does nothing but give love and generates so much money and she's taken in orphans who've lost it all in the Tsunami and built all these orphanages. 30,000 people! No government guy is doing that! I was looking at her and remembering how Pink Floyd got $55 Million from Dark Side Of The Moon. Wonder what happened to that money? I wanna make orphanages and dancing schools and the whole thing.

MYE: Or the 9/11 relief money, they had mega-star concerts, but how much money got to the people?

RR: Katrina, too. They only built a few hundred houses. Amma has done 30,000, and this year is putting millions of dollars into houses. She just gives the keys to people, no strings attached. That to me is a noble story and should be on the news. Amma just gave a million houses to somebody!

MYE: I wanted to ask you about "Truth And Reconciliation" from M.O.A.B. The line "I feel much better now that I have told the truth." [Note: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was a court-like body assembled in South Africa after the abolition of apartheid. Anyone who felt that he or she was a victim of its violence was invited to come forward and be heard. Perpetrators of violence could also give testimony and request amnesty from prosecution.]

RR: That's somewhat a little sarcastic. See what happened, this is one of the main reasons why I got into trouble in South Africa. I was supporting the children who got shot in riots and would run back into the townships. We had a bunch of organizations. Rock Against Management would help fund the black folk when they went on strike, so they could afford it. A lot of people think that's why I got into trouble and had to flee South Africa. That wasn't the truth. I made a big, bad mistake and I attacked the equivalent of Adolf Hitler. We threw eggs and tomatoes. AWB is the organization and you can look it up. This guy had a swastika made up of three sevens, the same coloring and everything. He believed in military killing. It was partly based on Hitler's stuff. So I had some friends and we went and threw tomatoes and eggs at this guy and part of them, bad people caught one of us. I was part of that and so they attacked me often and almost killed my bass player and were after my career. I had to get out of Africa at that point. In "Truth And Reconciliation" the song I said "I threw the first egg into his face...I feel much better now that I have told the truth." It's a bit of sarcasm because I didn't feel better by telling the truth. Look at the danger I put myself in doing that, and the white folks have still got all the bucks. There's AIDS, and the gold mines are still controlled by someone, not the people. People are still in poverty and crime is out of control. I didn't get a chance to go to the Truth and Reconciliation that they had there. I think it was the intention of the Truth and Reconciliation to create some sort of healing, and it may have on some levels, but I don't know.

MYE: In the future do you think some of the ingrained mistrust or established racism, like in America Obama was healing for a lot of people, but down the road will it ever be healed when people accept how harmful it has been in history? Or will there always be new ignorance?

RR: I can only hope towards it. There's the question of the bacteria consciousness that feels encroached on by others and we need to kill that guy. Maybe it's part of the reptilian brain or something. That was the original idea behind religion, I think, to evolve that one, but I think the reptilian brain ended up infiltrating religion and is running it in a bigger way! If we can get more people like Amma and the Dalai Lama on the planet... I saw an advert on Sony speakers and it said, "To change the system, you've got to change the speakers!" There you go. [laughing] We need the new poets and speakers and the new journalists who can facilitate communication towards global community in better harmony than the past.

MYE: Bill Maher, the brilliant comedian, he put out that funny movie Religulous and he says "There's nothing I hate more than a prophecy except a self-fulfilling prophecy!" People bringing about their Apocalypse themselves!

RR: And some of them want to do that! It's a really dangerous thing in the Christian faith. Have you ever read any of Sam Harris' works?

MYE: No.

RR: He's a radical atheist who can't keep his mouth shut about religion. He goes into what happened in the White House. Every Monday morning Bush was having meetings with these guys and these guys believe in the Apocalypse because only when the Apocalypse takes place can Jesus come back to Earth. So they wanted it to happen!

MYE: Right! They want Jerusalem to be the original way of ancient times. I remember hearing about that on one of Jello Biafra, the ex-Dead Kennedy's singer's spoken word records.

RR: Right! And he would know about that. So these guys met with the President and part of it was setting Israel up for a fall. They want to have Israel get up to this thing and at some point Jesus would come and all the Jews would be annihilated anyway!

MYE: Some people think, besides the money and W's revenge/Daddy Issues, that that super right wing religious angle was part of our real reasons for going into the Middle East again.

RR: I saw this documentary, Jesus Camp, where little kids go to these camps...

MYE: I saw it on Netflix and was too scared to watch it! I'd get depressed.

RR: Yeah! You don't want to watch it. One kid is 9 years old and he already has the preaching thing down where you go into a fit and they talk to him afterwards in a suit on the side of the road giving out fliers. These are kids, leave 'em alone!

MYE: Jesus Christ! No pun intended. [laughing]

RR: [laughing] Yeah!

MYE: I really like the groove in "Burning Bush", the relentless funk aspect. Do you think groove is left out of hard rock too much these days? I love when I find a band like Year Of The Dragon with mixed elements. It's a more exciting experience, like your world music elements.

RR: For me, definitely. People, some say we are too much like U2 for our own good. I like that band but I never owned a record. I like them, but I can't take a whole album of it. Sepultura, I do like them, but can't listen to a whole album because I love to put my system on random. After Metallica will come some epic guitar player or Bushmen singing. It makes Sepultura more beautiful to me for what is special about it. You hear Bushmen singing and it is as dark and as heavy as heavy metal.

MYE: I don't understand when people overly compare you to U2 because you are made up so much of your own cultural influences, also.

RR: Yeah. Yeah. U2 are part of it. I grew up with sitars and droning in my life. I've got beautiful Indian instruments in my house that I've been studying to play. I get on the guitar and you don't want to hear chords. You want to hear something backing you like the second hand is the piano. You want to play a melody at the same time and, "Shit, you sound like the Edge now." "Ah, fuck, really?" It has more to do with Ravi Shankar! Certain sensibilities... We get compared to Jane's Addiction. When I heard Jane's Addiction I almost cried. "These guys are doing what I want!" I thought they were beyond me, and the drummer wanted to play with us, and I thought, "You've got to be kidding me!" And I saw his drum kit and thought, that's the drum kit I would have if I was a drummer. It existed in our head, but it's just our environment, I guess.

MYE: What is one of the most unexpected musical situations you've been in that you never expected?

RR: Last year we played Woodstock in Poland. We woke up and saw a train crossing and people on it having a great time and I remembered people were getting to the concerts in the train so there was no drinking and driving. I thought , "Cool!" So we went on the train and had a good time getting to the concert. And we get there and our manager is beside himself. He said, "C'mon, you've got to get onstage! People are waiting for you and chanting for you." I said, "What the fuck? Who knows Tribe After Tribe in Poland?" He was pointing at the sky and said we were this big over here, gesturing. So we were like, "Oh shit!" He said 300,000 people were out there. I thought, "You've got to be fucking kidding me". There's thousands and thousands of people and they've got this mud making machine and it was amazing. So we tuned up and get onstage and a huge thunderstorm breaks out. 300,000 people disappear! We're looking out at them and they are vanishing. Lightning is striking and the band got sopping wet. I thought, "This is so fucking weird." For a few seconds I was living my dream and I was about to turn them on to the longest and deepest groove, jam-wise, they've ever seen. I'm not even gonna play a song! [laughing] So I said, "Just put your hands up to the sky and chant and we'll get rid of the rain." And then the rain stopped! We were like, "Whoa!" Good timing! We're winking at ourselves. The journalists picked up on that. "You're mystical!" What can I say? I had to milk it a bit.

MYE: Is it ever hard coordinating such a large group of musicians?

RR: I've never had a difficulty with that. They come to it with joy and gratitude. If I phone Doug Pinnick, he's like "I'll see you soon." If I go into the studio there's an attraction there between all the players for this. I love Joey Vera. He loves me. It's not really difficult. The biggest is my drummer who lived in Philadelphia. That's the hard one. He's irreplaceable. Not much coordination takes place, and a lot of laughter!

MYE: You worked with Joey Vera again on this record.

RR: Joey's a wonderful person, man. Someone said to me, I had to play with him. I walked into the rehearsal room to jam with him and there was this guy with the long black hair, like all the other L.A. bands. Someone said, "There's only four musicians in America and they're in all the bands."

MYE: [laughing]

RR: [laughing] I thought he was one of these guys! So I'm testing my amplifier and tuning my guitar and so is he and we're messing around and twenty minutes later we are still doing something like that! There's music in the air and concentration and a listening going on. I was like, “Fuck! I made a mistake and judged him by his hair!” He'd played with African musicians for years before we met. Now when you see him he looks like he's getting younger! 12 years old! I think he's a vegan. He's timid and talks so quietly, and next thing you know he plugs his bass in and the house is breaking apart, and you're like, "Oh! Joey! Stop it!" It's amazing! [laughing]

MYE: How did you know it was the right time to do another record?

RR: We hadn't taken a hiatus as much as I thought America was too much. If you didn't sound a certain way you weren't getting a record deal. The record companies would say,"Put the beat on the 2 and the 4. You can be the next U2." I thought, "God! Can't I just be a band that plays African Rock?" People actually enjoy it live. The Grateful Dead made more money live. People didn't understand the jamming. Now it's a big thing. The song "Out Of Control" was 22 minutes live! The song is just the portal to the present where you can leap off. I went into the dessert and made ambient music, and I went out here and had a good old time. The record label, very much like what happened when we were with Megaforce, said , "We love you just the way you are." They don't expect a hit single or a video unless we want it. No showcase needed. So that's nice.

MYE: How was the Spaceland show in L.A. in January?

RR: It was fun. We were gonna stream it live. There was a nice crowd. But organizing the people in L.A. reminded me why I didn't want to play music here anymore. Playing in Germany, people help you load in and the sound engineer greets you and there's a chuckle. We try and remember names. It's generally a good time. Here, the person wouldn't even call me back for many days. I didn't even know if we had the gig. I don't need it. I'll set up my own gig. In South Africa we'd play parks or halls. There was no liability insurance.

MYE: [laughing] That's nice!

RR: Fantastic! And just as well, because of all the stabbings. Racists would come down there.

MYE: You can't blame yourself, you were trying to bring something positive.

RR: I try, yeah.

MYE: Talking about different cultures understanding each other, I heard a new DJ group, NASA, who had people like Chuck D from Public Enemy work with David Byrne. It ties it back to commonality between people.

RR: I wanted to start a radio station like that here in Joshua Tree. I'd get a strange flute player from Japan and have Max Cavalera lock up with him at the same time. I've got so many instruments lying around and whatever instrument they are drawn to they could jam with the other guy.

MYE: I wanted to ask about the song "World Drum", it has a nice somber ending to the album.

RR: The Divine Comedy, that book, there always seems to be something like that with me. Two guys walking around talking. The guys in that song are first walking around Palestine and one says, "Look here, there's a book." The other one says, “It is nothing.” The other guy says, “
People don't understand.” And the other says, “They must.” It's two kinds of soldiers. One is saying things are happening and one is saying they aren't. People say in fashion to have your finger on the pulse. What does that mean in social conflict? There is a pulse. The depths of human desire, there's a pulse there. One thing is, all the tribes have their own dance. People want to dance. In the song it isn't about worrying about what is breaking more than looking at the world. The world is hungry. There's a desire for freedom outside of us. "Heal the wound in the broken bell." That bell is the slavery bell. I love that lyric because it is about healing the capitalistic approach to freedom and into a field for a different ending. "Listen to the world drum." Dance, dance, dance. I hope to make a dialogue.

MYE: This is nerdy, but I was reading J.R.R. Tolkien's book The Silmarillion and he talks about sub-creation. Not that all industry is inherently bad, but that some want to create within creation and others want to dominate. It is true in real life.

RR: Somebody wrote about this gorilla. This guy saw a sign that said, "Student wanted", and someone saw it and said, "What the fuck?" and sees this gorilla in a cage who tells him there are two kinds of people. Leavers and takers. Very good book. I forgot the title of it. Here it is...someone wrote about me… [reading] "Robbi is a giver, not a taker. He's on the side of the life-force and contributes to it. Those lucky enough to find themselves in the radiance of his love find themselves energized and reconnected to their best selves, inspired to get out and do their own thing." If I have to go through the gates, that's gonna be my resume! I didn't write it! I always hope to inspire people.