True Stories?

I SORT OF WANT TO PUNCH Eddie Argos. For a man named after a catalog
store from our home country, his insistence that the group’s songs
aren’t ironic is… well, it’s frustrating. “They’re true stories,” he
says. “I think the songs are quite sincere.”

This is the tension that runs through all of Art Brut’s work. You
can loathe them for being so emotionally conflicted, or give up on
being pissed off and dance like a maniac. Or both: My favorite song is
“Fight!” with its lyrics “Come on, come on, let’s have a fight,”
proving there’s a twisted emotional release in being English, after
all. As long as the word “release” is placed in air quotes.

The band just performed at London’s Brixton Academy with the Pixies,
which is about as big as it gets in England without playing Wembley
Stadium dressed like Freddie Mercury. They also flew to Salem, Oregon,
last year to record their latest album, Art Brut vs. Satan, with
the Pixies’ Frank Black. “He’s such a nice, friendly, enthusiastic
man,” Argos says of Black. “Although it was a bit weird for everyone in
Salem to see five drunk British people walking around.”

I do worry that success will ruin Art Brut, because my favorite
songs are about when they’re failing at things. For example, what’s the
song “Rusted Guns of Milan” about? “It’s about my cock,” says
Argos—as in, his erectile dysfunction. But the song itself also
represents artistic failure of a broader kind, he explains. “I was
writing an entire concept album about the Gatti gang, they were these
Italian terrorists, but they weren’t very good at being terrorists,”
Argos continues. “They tried to rob a bank, but their guns were all
rusted up.”

Infuriatingly, I suspect even this story could be made up—the
only references to the Gatti gang online link back to Art Brut. And
there’s precedent: Argos (for the sake of translation, imagine he’s
called “Eddie L.L.Bean”) used to read to his little sister from the
Argos catalog, he says. Then he made up a character called Eddie to
keep her entertained, and took the name for himself when he started
going out in Bournemouth. “For years people thought that was actually
my real name,” he says. “So I changed it.”

So he’s an art-punk trickster. Take my reaction when I first heard
“Emily Kane”—a song about still being in love with a girl Argos
dated when he was 15. “I hope this song finds you fame,” he sings. “I
want school kids on buses singing your name.”

Funny as that sounds, Argos says my unbelieving reaction is typical
of the cynical English. “Whereas in America, people say, ‘You really
loved her. That’s really sweet,'” he muses. “I like it
better—because Emily Kane is actually a real girl I’m still in
love with.”

I would bet five pounds she doesn’t even exist. But whether Argos is
being sincere, or he’s simply so cynical about life he’s come full
circle and is intent on goading us, it’s infectious. We all want to
believe in the healing power of simple things like “DC comics and
chocolate milkshake,” and on the other hand we all need a sense of
humor to avoid brutal realities like alcoholism, erectile dysfunction,
and death.

“There’s so many people I might have upset, I apologized to them all
with the same group text,” he sings, recounting hangover guilt.
Seriously. No, no. Joke.