Music: Jeff Hemmings
Albert Hammond Jr – The Strokes guitarist has just released his best solo album yet
Heaven and hell are within us and all the gods are within us. They are magnified dreams, and dreams are manifestations in image form of the energies of the body in conflict with each other. That is what myth is.” So has said Joseph Campbell, the mythologist, in his book The Power of Myth.
For Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr, the idea of myth and myth making is at the nub of what his third solo album, Momentary Masters, is about: “The record is about how, with time, you gain knowledge but simultaneously lose your innocence.. It’s about finding a new curiosity in life…
“What he (Campbell) has to say from what he has learned in his life is amazing,” says Hammond, whilst on tour in America. “It feels poetic and romantic but it’s not falsifying truths. That’s why people like to tell stories, especially in music, to embellish things and it becoming myth.”
I suggest to Hammond that Momentary Masters is about mortality, death, getting older, changing, and identity. “I don’t know if it’s because I grew up playing music but I feel like it’s fun to be given the opportunity and the time to think about things, and have conversations with people and then try your best to put words in to melody and into rhythm, and try and make something entertaining, that can also have different layers to it. Part of me wants to be serious, part of me wants to make fun of myself,” he laughs.
Momentary Masters is also based on the famous image of Planet Earth, taken from deep space; a ‘pale blue dot’. “The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena”, says Carl Sagan in his 1994 book Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Future in Space, in which he shares his thoughts on the deeper meaning of the image. “Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot”.
“I like the idea of shadow work,” says Hammond. “People you know have this good side, but they also have this other side. I got to see mine so clearly. To be given that opportunity to try to use them both to become whole… all our emotions are felt very similarly even if we’ve done different things. And sometimes there’s some story telling, mix things up…” The myth making continues…
The Old Market, Thurs 26 Nov, 7pm, £12.50, theoldmarket.com
