FINALSAY...
The music industry’s biggest names have the last word on their time in the biz... THIS WEEK: Anton Corbijn, director & photographer
Dutch photographer Anton Corbijn got his break via NME in 1979 and went on to create era-defining images, album artwork and videos with Joy Division, David Bowie, Nirvana, Jeff Buckley, U2, Depeche Mode and more. To celebrate his new film, Depeche Mode: Spirits In The Forest, he looks back on a lifetime of matching images and music...
The key to my bond with Depeche Mode is… “My visuals and their music go really well together. We started with videos and then photography and then live films, design, logos and staging. Initially, in the early ’80s, I was not keen on them. They asked me a few times to work with them and I held back, I couldn’t believe it was going to work. But it did.”
The secret to working with musicians is… “Trust: whether they trust my ideas enough. I’m not a great communicator, so there needs to be trust. Initially, all I had in life was photography, it meant so much, I didn’t know what else to do. I veered towards people who also threw everything into their work. I think that’s why I worked with so many diverse people who are so talented and I’m still around. I was able to work with Jeff Buckley and Kurt Cobain. Music was the start for me, that connection, I came to England mostly because I wanted to meet Joy Division, it’s 40 years since I photographed them, then later I made the film [Control]. Those photos gave me a career, so did the film, I’m so happy we made it. I don’t really have a great method, you’re always between elation and desperation.”
NME opened the door for me…
“It was the bible. They ran my first picture in 1979. I moved to England that year, [The Clash’s] London Calling came out, The Specials’ first album, [Public Image Ltd’s] Metal Box, it was exciting. I sent in some pictures and the editor liked them. Six months later, I arrived and he didn’t know who I was. He took me to a room full of editors and writers, it was very chaotic, messy desks, papers everywhere. They all stopped typing, looked at me and started typing again. Then one guy started to sing, ‘I hate the fucking Dutch’. Within three months I was doing covers.”
I shot David Bowie when I wasn’t supposed to… “They told NME no photographer was allowed, but I knew the journalist who went to Chicago for the piece and my parents had given me some money for a cooker in my little flat in London, so I used it to buy a ticket. I
58 | Music Week 25.11.19
“Kurt Cobain asked me to make another Nirvana video and I said no. I thought he’d be disappointed”
INTERVIEW: BEN HOMEWOOD
Corbijnista: Anton Corbijn
turned up, showed them some of my work and they made an exception. I did those pictures of him as The Elephant Man. We had seven minutes or so. It was how I’d done it in Holland, if you got a few minutes with musicians in a hotel room, you became very inventive and you worked fast. I still work fast. People book a whole day and I wonder what I’m going to do for all that time.”
I’ve always been drawn to intensity… “Kurt Cobain asked me to make another video and I said no. I thought I couldn’t give him a video like Heart-Shaped Box; it was so good, I thought he’d be disappointed. And then he said, ‘If you don’t do it, I’ll never do another video’. And he never did. I later thought I should have done it, of course. You look differently at these things. I had a Dutch friend [musician Herman Brood] who I’d photographed since 1974 and he committed suicide. It’s intensity, these people care so much about their work. I can relate to that.”
musicweek.com
PHOTO: Stephan Vanfleteren
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