Most films about bands aren’t made by its own members. But there again, Sound For The Future isn’t your average music film or documentary.
Much like artist/photographer/filmmaker and performer Matt Hulse himself – it’s a hybrid. Or, as Matt recently put it, “A part animated, kaleidoscopic, queer, musical docu-drama that takes its name from the cassette E.P. that my brother, sister and I recorded in 1979”.
During the film, Matt and his crew (including young cast director Vicky Mohieddeen and editor Nick Currey, more on them later) recreate the Hulse siblings post-punk band The Hippies by collaborating with kids from a theatre workshop in Glasgow.
Featuring archive, performances, interviews with family, friends and others who have been part of Matt’s life and work at different stages – Sound For The Future is a raucous and heartfelt film, where the personal and the political live together in joyful (dis)harmony.
[Watch the trailer]
KV had a chat with Matt ahead of the film’s World Premiere at London Film Festival, where it plays as part of the Experimenta strand on Sat 10 October on BFI Player.
The film doesn’t fall into a particularly neat category (which makes it more interesting to watch, though harder to explain) – So let’s start with the question filmmakers love. How would you describe it?
It’s about the relationship between music, addictions, romantic love, lost love, loss, yearning, yet more addictions. How these might be the reason for someone, like me, as a kind of archetype, to make a film in this way, and not another? This, this kaleidoscopic, multi-levelled, panoplied, holistic approach rather than the classic ‘three-act’ narrative that points to one resolution, like a phallus.
Piecing together your family history through archive, and collective memory of family and friends is a daunting task for any filmmaker, especially when they’re also contributors – how hard was it to get them on board?
Ha! Let’s just say that being a ‘middle child’ one is already equipped with a natural degree of negotiation skills. I’m a serial, even rather obsessive – ‘inclusionist’. This may also come in part from having moved so often in formative years? Always being the new kid, having to work out how to ‘fit in’ on the hoof, improvising to get by. It was therefore of paramount importance to me to at least try and represent family and those involved in ‘The Hippies’ from that specific period. I relied on the simple fact that you can’t persuade folk to do something they’re uncomfortable with – and why on earth should you?
In the end I allowed participants to be as involved to the extent that they felt comfortable with, trusting that this would represent their role in the broader picture, and my relationship to them. So, the fact that my mum’s very present is true to the fact that we are – and have always been – in close communication. The fact that my brother is noticeably absent also reflects his feelings in relation to the project.
During development I was often asked: “But where’s the father in all this?” Well, that’s a good question, and if the audience asks the same, then I feel I have done my job. I wasn’t going to write a ‘role’ for dad that wasn’t truthful, just in order to ‘show him’. For him, I realised that he’s not a guy that wants to speak on camera, so I suggested he took a role as a kind of ‘music influencer’ – which is true to his impact upon my life. He – in cahoots with my uncle Phil – introduced me to loads of music, at an age when I really shouldn’t have been listening to such. Ugly by The Stranglers, for example. I think it’s important to say also that I grew up in an environment where putting on a record or tape meant actually sitting there, listening to it, talking about the music, with more or less undivided attention; going ‘into’ the music, into that world.
There’s something quite post-punk in the making of this film. You’re gently poking fun at the process and yourself as a filmmaker throughout. Was that there from the beginning?
Yes. It’s been an important distinction for me to flag up, the difference between the idea of ‘punk’ – that brief explosion, that flash-in-the-pan – and the actuality of ‘post-punk’, the repercussive phenomena following punk, that continues to this day. After all, I was barely 7 or 8 years old around the time Sex Pistols made their impact. But even a precocious music-aware kid like me is not going to pretend he was at the Lesser Free Trade Hall with Morrissey and Ian Curtis on June 4th 1976.
I always intended for the film to have a certain feel…a kind of ‘zine feel (even though it doesn’t rely upon the visual tropes of ‘zines). If I could make the film smell of Pritt and UHU that would be ideal.
I think it’s important to namecheck a couple of maverick post-punk releases here: Cherry Red’s 99p compilation Pillows & Prayers (possibly my favourite LP?); The Clash’s all-over-the-shop Sandinista; poets John Cooper Clarke and Linton Kwesi Johnson and also the humour of artists like Ian Dury. Genre-leaping times. The idea of the compilation as a stand-alone form in itself is something to be respected; it’s not simply a means to re-package old triumphs. And let’s not forget the early impact of rabble-rousing Two-Tone, which did so much to establish the idea of inclusion, led by music. Oh, and magazines that we had access too, like Spare Rib.
During the film, two-thirds of The Hippies (You and your sister Polly) reunited for some pub performances as part of the film. What do think your younger selves would have to say about the film?
That’s a mind-bender. I for one would have been fascinated and enthusiastic about the very fact that it had even been attempted. I would have been inspired by that. I would have been fascinated by the hair and clothes. I suspect my brother would have asked: “But where’s the narrative?” I think Polly would probably have thought Andy Gill was quite cute.
There are lots of themes running through Sound for the Future, but one that ties them all together is the spirit of collaboration in art and storytelling. You set it up right from the beginning, blurring the lines between cast and crew, and it’s there in your last feature Dummy Jim – have you always worked like that?
This is an evolution from the fact that I got into filmmaking from experiments at art school that sought to combine photography with sound/music and performance. I was never interested in writing a script or ‘telling a story’ per se (although I was quite strong in creative writing). I have tried it but in the end words on a page are not cinema. For me it’s all about how images and audio rub up against one another, to produce this or that effect; a fancy word for this is phenomenological filmmaking – an approach usually associated with female directors, like Jane Campion or Agnès Varda.
It’s now over three decades that this approach has come into collision with the risk-averse conventions of those with the keys to the safe (i.e the producers/backers). However, I fought very hard during this production to assert this way of working. The results of that fight are written into the very fabric and direction of the film. So, the film is, in some ways, also a record of filmmaking in the UK at a certain point in time. I think this is what BFI’s Experimenta’s programmer Sara Perks also picked up on. This is a rare way of making films – and we applaud it. Hopefully I’ll not have such a struggle next time around. “We have no idea what he’s going to do, but we know he can do it.” For me, it’s almost a political stance. Blame Brecht?
You can see the young cast becoming more confident, and adopting more of a punk attitude as the film goes along, have they seen any of the finished film?
No, they have not seen the film yet. We should acknowledge my collaboration with the brilliant creative anarchist Vicky Mohieddeen for that evolution. She and I were like their surrogate post-punk minders for the periods we were lucky enough to work with them. Love them all! Such amazing characters and performers. We just approached the young people as equals and said: “Right, what are YOUR ideas? We’re writing this here and now, based loosely on these fragments of information from 40 years ago. Let’s send a message to the future about how to live, free from fear and pettiness!”
The film features the late, great Andy Gill from Gang of Four, how did that come about? Did you know him before?
I knew him from his music since the age of around 11. That song Anthrax is as close to me as a childhood book or something. So, in that sense I ‘knew him before’. But. We had a limited budget for licensed tunes, so I asked my siblings to choose three songs each that were important to them from that period (and they duly chose). One of mine was of course Anthrax. There was some issue clearing the rights to the existing recording – I don’t know the details – but rather amazingly Andy seemed to want to go out of his way to help us out with at least some version of the tune.
So he rang me (imagine my shock) and suggested that he perform feedbacks à la Anthrax in his studio that I could record and use, and maybe work with him on a kind of ‘homage’ version. Then I thought…” aaaah… let’s film this iconic feedback performance in an interesting space”. And the brilliant folk at Tileyard sorted out an amazing old warehouse for us. So, Nick Currey shot that sequence. My main role that day was trying to remain calm, not appear too in awe. I also bought Andy a custard tart. So now I can say: “I bought GO4’s Andy Gill a custard tart.”. Which is an awesome thing to be able to say. He was delightful company and very, very funny. Then a month later he passed away, from respiratory complications thought to be related to Covid-19 (but not verified).
Eventually we secured the rights to the LP version of the track; but we also had this footage ‘in the can’. It’s all pretty strange, honestly, but I feel incredibly honoured to have met a genuine childhood hero and mentor, that turned out not only to be ‘not-a-dick’ but also actually very generous and kind and humble. I have also had some heartening contact with Andy’s widow, Catharine Mayer, a brilliant writer, and co-founder and President of the Women’s Equality Party. All of this stands in stark contrast to the very upsetting, personally humiliating experience I went through trying to negotiate the rights to the song 12XUby Wire.
There’s a little post-script as the credits roll which is a sort of updated version of The Hippies’ song Rabies for these times. What else would they be singing about if they were kids now, instead of 1979?
You mean what The Hippies would be singing about now? Well. Polly is in a duo called The Twelve Hour Foundation with her beautiful long-time partner Jez, and they sing about all sorts: macaroni cheese, stick insects, German grammar. I’m currently in a band called Pinhole Computers with my German pen pal Julia Zinnbauer, and we sing about different skin-coloured objects, knitting rifles out of porridge and the world beyond the large coat. There’s discussion about a band called Blame Brecht? with the ex-bass player of Pimblico. Toby? I have no idea, but he’s a playwright and director and his work has included song, plus his son William is a talented musician and composer.
Follow Matt Hulse on instagram and hashtag #soundforthefuture. You can catch the film at its premiere on BFI Player this Saturday 10 October at 20:30 (free, but ticketed)