Living Things, Dead Government
By: Christa White

The brothers Berlin, Lillian (vocals/guitar), Eve (bass), and Bosh (drums), rock political lyrics and biting guitar riffs that will get into your body and mind. With riveting songs about war, social pressures, politics and best of all, President Bush. You know you are in for an exciting ride.
It all started back in 1997 when rebellious Lillian took to the streets of America. He traveled anywhere he could in search of drugs and money. It wasn’t until his Mother caught up with him in Chicago and set him straight. That is when this musical journey of the brothers began. “I really thank my Mom for this. I was walking around dead and that was the first time that I was alive.” Lillian voiced, “Everyone at some point hates their parents but we all realize at some point or another that they’re right.”

Living Things have since released four albums. Their first four track EP, Turn in Your Friends and Neighbors (released 01.01.03 Geffen Records) which contains the track “Bombs Below” that was re-released as track #1 on their newest album, Ahead of the Lions (released 10.04.05 Jive Records). Lillian explained the title for their newest album, “The lions are the leaders of America, the people that run our country into the ground. They are wild untamed beasts. The rest of us are to catch them in metal cages and send them off to another country somewhere where they belong. We need to be ahead of them. Hence the title, Ahead of the Lions”

All of their records were lucky enough to have been produced by Steve Albini, a great producer who has worked with bands such as The Pixies, Nirvana, PJ Harvey and more. “It was great to work with him.” Lillian added. “He has a great working environment. He is like a recording scientist.” The Berlin brothers could not have been luckier to how they first got to work with such a producer. “We looked him up in the Chicago yellow pages actually. We called him up and believe it or not he actually answered the phone himself!” Without sending him a demo, the brothers went in and recorded Turn in Your Friends and Neighbors. They have been working with him ever since.

I talked with Lillian about recording Ahead of the Lions. To make the recording process go much faster, they had set up as if it was a live show in the studio. “If you play everything at once, you are mixing instantly. If you build track by track, you just go in a circle. It’s much easier to do it this way because if you need to tweak the drums then you tweak the drums and rerecord. If that happens in a track you might have to rerecord everything else and it would take a lot longer.” Lillian said. The band tried to be as prepared as possible when they went into recording. They went in very well rehearsed and were ready to rock out. Lillian noted, “You go in there with a skeleton of songs, maybe 20 songs or so. You’re not going to use all of them. It’s always good to record extra songs though, incase something didn’t turn out good.” While being in the studio for such long periods of time and not really being able to go anywhere, Lillian started to get inspired by other things around the studio for songs. “In Albini’s studio, there isn’t anywhere that you can go. It’s located in a hole, in Chicago. So when I was sitting around, I would read the paper. I read about some of the issues that were going on and it made me right a song about it right then and there. It was fresh and inspiring. It’s important to record at the last minute sometimes. You start to get in a pattern of recording the songs that you came into the studio with. It’s easy to get something going.” The band quickly wrote lyrics and music to the songs and they are all featured on Ahead of the lions.

The brothers Berlin have made three music videos for Ahead of the Lions, “Bombs Below“, “I Owe” and “Bom Bom Bom.” Lillian’s wife, Floria Sigismondi who is a photographer/film-maker assisted in the making of all three videos. “It was great to work with her.” Lillian said, “I respect her work. She is so talented and experienced. I let her do whatever she wants. It always turns out amazing.” Floria came up with the idea for their newest video, “Bom Bom Bom.” The video shows the Living Things as a traveling circus. Lillian described it as, “The liberals march to the left and the liberals march to the right. It’s like one crazy circus.” He also noted that it was a blast to make. He had to learn to walk on stilts and working with the animals was great for the whole band. “The Bom Bom Bom video was to only take us 12 hours to make. It took us 22! But come on, I got to walk on stilts!” Lillian said. The video features live circus animals, from Elephants to Camels. Animals and all, this was not the most fun video for Lillian to make. “The video for, I Owe, was so spontaneous and so much fun. Floria doesn’t shoot and she was holding the camera for most of this video!” Lillian said, “It was shot in, basically, our living space. It was a last minute punk rock wave.”

“Bom Bom Bom” is the first single off their album, Ahead of the Lions. It is already picking up fairly fast! The song is currently featured in a Cingular/Itunes commercial streaming across our television sets. When asked about this publicity Lillian replied, “It’s fantastic! What is even greater is that it is an anti-war song.” Lillian explained the song as being about an 18 year-old boy, drafted for the Iraqi war. “The boy is fighting for a war that he isn’t even sure he believes in himself.” The band is very excited about the song being on this commercial. “Millions are going to listen to it.” Lillian noted, “You never know who will pick up its message.”

Living Things is a band today that has very strong beliefs in the US Government. “I don’t really care if people label us as a political band. Every band is a political band in a way.” Lillian said, “If there is a band that sings of love, there are politics in love.” Lillian doesn’t think that it is hard to be a band today with such strong political beliefs. “I think our nation will soon see the music of the 1960’s all over again. More and more bands are singing about the war in Iraq, the government’s mishaps and President Bush. Every band has something to say. This is ours.”
“It really bothers me when people tell me that mixing politics with music is silly. All people of America, whether they work at 711 or at a dot com company, we are all Americans.” Lillian expressed, “Everyone voices their opinion no matter their occupation. Musical artists express about being dumped by a girlfriend or being arrested. We discuss our president’s decisions.”
The hurricane Katrina really stirred some emotions within Lillian. “There are some things that a president will always face and he really screwed up on this one. The entire government, hundreds on men and women, all fucked up.” Lillian explained, “How hard is it to protect a piece of historic land? He can go off and bomb Iraq and kill their land but not protect ours? This is just a stale un-colorful world.”

Lillian feels that America is an extremely amazing country with strong thought out values. “The constitution is great. It’s the leaders that distorted it. No one really follows what it really says anymore. It’s like the Bible. So many religions have taken their own interpretation of it in their own words, that it doesn’t have the same meaning anymore. That’s what happened to the constitution. It will take at least ten more presidents to get it all back in order. There is no better time to be more patriotic.”

I asked Lillian who his ideal president would be since he’s not too crazy for President Bush. He said, George Clooney. “He has a clean cut look. People love him. He has interesting things to say and his two latest movies were socially driven.”
Due to Living Thing’s political views. They have been kicked off many stages and have even been dropped by their first label, Geffen Records. That is not going to stop them. They are still going out and playing some amazing shows. The Living Things are on the bill for the Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival in Indio, California, April 29 th and 30th. They will be playing on the second day of the festival. When the band is not playing they will be walking around checking out other sets. “I haven’t been to this festival before. I am planning on taking in the whole experience.” Lillian noted. Be sure to look for them when The Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, Franz Ferdinand and Depeche Mode perform. Lillian said he is not going to miss these performances. Also look out for the Berlin brothers to come rock the west coast in April and May. Dates are not yet released for this tour.

George Bush’s presidency has made a great impact on music. Many bands have taken his negatives and brought them into positives for the band. Living Things is a great example of this. Not only President Bush but the US government as a whole has spurred the creative juices of the Berlin brothers. As Lillian Berlin once said, “Rock’n’Roll is the vector to give directions.” So take that one for a whirl.