Dave Barbarossa - Interview

  by John Clarkson

published: 17 / 4 / 2025

intro

Dave Barbarossa, the former drummer with Adam and The Ants. Bow Wow Wow and Republica, talks to John Clarkson about his second novel ‘Mute’ and new band Third House.

Dave Barbarossa is a London-based drummer, who has been a member of iconic bands such as Adam and The Ants. Bow Wow Wow and Republica. In recent years Barbarossa has turned his talents to writing. His debut novel, the semi-autobiographical debut novel ‘Mud Sharks’, came out in 2012, and is about 15-year old Harry, who after falling out with his dad, flees to a hippy squat, where he discovers a battered drum kit, just as punk dawns in the mid-1970s. ‘Mute’, Barbarossa’s second novel ‘Mute’, was published in November. Its main character is the socially-awkward Daniel, who is the keyboardist in Torin, a successful group, which takes its name from its charismatic but manipulative and nasty singer. As the book begins, Torin has just sacked Daniel’s bandmates, bassist Alana and drummer, but he guiltily stays in the group to protect his mentally ill mother by continuing to pay their mortgage, After a chance encounter on the tube, he starts dating the beautiful Kerry, but she is not all she seems. ‘Mute’ is beautifully written, and captures a time at the turn of the Millennium when many bands started dropping members to replace them with computers and synthesisers. Dave Barbarossa spoke to Pennyblackmusic about ‘Mute’. PB: Why did you decide to make Daniel a keyboardist? DB: At the time that the book is set in the late 1990s, there was very little work for drummers and bass players and guitarists. There was the Brit Pop thing going on, but beyond that bands were essentially being written by technology. You didn’t have to have a drummer when you people love bands and they are playing again, but at that time it was very, very hard for drummers to get work or even be involved in making new music because all the fascination was with the digital age and what you could do with a drum machine. You didn’t have to have a drummer at all with all his banging and tuning up and sound checking, although having said that I was one of the few lucky enough to be in a band. I was in Republica and playing the drums for them. PB: Why do you think with technology becoming more and more sophisticated we have gone back to bands? DB: Technology is ultimately a tool used by humans, and, after the fascination of unwrapping the Christmas present in the morning, it becomes another thing that you use like a car or whatever. Cars can literally drive themselves nowadays, compared to the older models which you had to work at. It is, however, still only a car that gets you from A to B. I think that people are now using technology with humans, and I think that is when it works best, rather than it going off on its own as it did with music in the late 1990s. PB: Torin is an absolutely despicable character. He is verbally nasty, a bully, discards people at whim and, probably worst of all, is talentless and jumps on his bandmates’ talents. Do you see him as having any redeeming features? DB: Not really (Laughs). He has that entitled rich kid thing, which is very evident in London, and especially West London. These people are just incredibly wealthy through their parents. They pose around looking very beautiful as artists, writers, sculptors, designers, painters, but they do fuck all. They never put their heart on the line to actually create anything of any value. Torin is very, very good looking, but it is style over substance. PB: Daniel thinks that he has sold out on his bandmates, Alana and Corbossa, by keeping in with Torin but his mum is mentally ill and he has a mortgage to pay.. His bandmates don’t think that he has sold out. Do you think that he has sold out? DB: No. I am not the greatest session man in the world but I have done a bit of it over the years. You do have to bend over a bit to those paying your wages sometimes. You have to accept that as they are paying your way and you have to keep your mortgage or whatever, You have to be at their mercy because another guy can take your place if you don’t make the best of yourself. That is commercial capitalism though, isn’t it? You have to compromise. I am not doing it anymore by the way. I am not doing any commercial stuff at all now, but I have been in situations in the past where people have been fired just on the whim of whoever was in charge. PB: Daniel and Kerry have an oddly sexless relationship. They tend to go out to tea shops and restaurants instead. It turns out has been sexually abused by most of the men that she has been involved with before. Was it important that their relationship was in many ways quite innocent? DB: Yeah, I guess that I am trying to say that just because a woman from a bloke’s point of view has looks it doesn’t mean that she is a sex machine. It is just an accident of birth that she looks the way she does. She is just a human being like you or I are. I wanted to say with Daniel and Kerry that love is stronger than lust. Many people including myself have found that in their lives. PB: Do you think that her attraction to Daniel is that he is quite naive in some ways? DB: Yeah, he has a damaged face and the cares of the world on his shoulder and his friends in the band have just been fired. She senses this similar vulnerability about him that she doesn’t outwardly have because she is this glamorous woman. PB: Alana is a fascinating character because she is a sort of big sister figure to Daniel but she only appears in flashback until the last ten pages. Why did you put her in flashback? DB: Just to make the narrative work. I couldn’t really get her because of the timing of the storyline in the main narrative, but I tried to in flashback make her a giant, a real musician, the real musical director of the band. PB: She is the spokesperson for common sense in the book, isn’t she? DB Yeah, women are though, aren’t they (Laughs)? The mother basically runs the world. They stand for common sense, and get things done without fuss. Blokes don’t. The women I have known, even my daughters, are eminently more sensible and calm. All the thing men label women are what they are themselves. PB: Daniel’s face has been scarred by a childhood accident. It turns out that if he had stopped scratching his face it would have healed up much moré quickly. He also when he is not playing gigs leads what he describes as “the quiet life”, living off unimaginative, microwaved meals and watching videos. Is his biggest problem that he can’t escape himself and he holds himself back? DB: That might be part of it, but what I wanted to above all say there is that a lot of the successful musicians I know are very ordinary people beyond when the lights go on and the crowd’s roaring and clapping. It is an amazing buzz but afterwards a lot of musicians invariably want to go home and watch TV or football or go for a walk in the park. It is hard enough going up there and giving it everything, let alone leading an impossibly glamorous lifestyle outside it, There are those that need that buzz to continue after they have been on stage, and many of them are no longer with us now because they have needed that buzz through alcohol, drugs or other sorts of addictions. They can not stop feeling like that. They just want it more and more until eventually kill themselves or lose themselves entirely. Daniel is a classic example of someone who despite having had a big hit record just wants to look after his mum and get on with things quietly. That is what I am like. I am a family man. I don’t go to parties and things like that which people expect me to. I would much rather come home and write a book or watch football (Laughs). iI wanted to show that the rpock and roll lifestyle is a bit of a con, a bit of a fairy story. PB: Do you see fame by its very nature as being destructive? DB: Yeah, with someone like Torin and other people I have known it is, and it is sadly particularly for being lead singers. It is the hardest job in the band to be a lead singer. You have got to go up the front of it and there are no props, whereas I can hide behind the cymbals or whatever (Laughs). PB: Your first book ‘Mud Sharks’ came out in 2012. It was badly distributed. You wound iup publishing it again by yourself. Do you plan to republish it? DB: No, People can still get it from me. I didn’t really have any publishing skills. I sell it off my reputation and through my Facebook page. It has done really well, but it has not had the professional machinery behind it that ‘Mute’ has. PB: Why has there been such long gaps between books? DB: It is hard for me to write. I didn’t have a formal education. I never sat any exams. I left school at fourteen , but I was a voracious reader since I was very young, so I have done all my learning myself on the side. I learnt so much from writing ‘Mud Sharks’ but ‘Mute’ is a more professional and polished book. ’Mud Sharks’ has its moments but it has its failings as well. PB: A couple of reviewers have picked up on the rhythmical feel of your writing. Do you think that comes from being a drummer? Much of it is really poetic. DB: Thank you. It is definitely from being a drummer. Much of ‘Mud Sharks’ is autobiographical. It is the story of my story. Because of the way I grew up, I need order in my life, and there is no other instrument than the drums in which you need to be so exact, so anything I do from driving a car or working out or even talking I have a sense of rhythm in my head. PB: Are you working on a third book? DB: Not at the moment. I have recently moved house and put a new band together, and if you are writing a novel you really need to focus and give it time and patience. PB: How long did ‘Mute’ take to write? DB: Three years. There were a few gaps in between, but I started with it at the end of Covid. PB: You also have a new band, Third House. DB: That is me and a guy called Umair Chaudry. I was asked to do a session on his record, and I said to him, “I will tell you what. I will wave my fee if you come and do some stuff for me.” The chemistry is amazing. We just clicked and we have got an EP ‘Inside Outside’ out and it has done really well. It was a labour of love, but it is now becoming more and more serious. PB: So you are planning to take that further? DB: We have just done our first real gig at the Water Rats in London and we have hopefully got management and distribution people interested, and so hopefully we will be able to take it to the next level. PB: Thank you.

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