BARR (aka Brendan Fowler) loves talking so much he even talks his songs. That’s partly because he’s tone deaf and can’t sing. It’s also because his songs are candid, spoken-word anecdotes about life that have led some to describe him as a "motivational speaker for lapsed indie kids." Even when he’s not on stage, Brendan chats at 10,000 words per minute. His verbal hyperactivity is mirrored in his body language (he bear-hugs everyone he meets) and his work (when he’s not doing BARR, he edits the arts magazine ANP Quarterly). We met up with Brendan and talked about talking, rap and fighting hecklers who think he’s an art-school fag.

Vice: It seems as though you love talking so much, you’ve turned it into your job.
Brendan: I used to just want to address people. I was initially only interested in the performance aspect. I thought it would be compelling live, and that I could create a really direct, active dialogue. I felt that I could do something political and proactive and rad without it being cheesy or corny.

Isn’t that all a bit too earnest? You must get heckled a lot.
On my last record there is a song about going to the heckler’s house and confronting the heckler for hassling you. That story is about when I played with Battles and there were these two insane hecklers. I love Battles, both personally and as a fan, but their audiences are all made up of Don Cab and Tomahawk fans who are totally moronic. Their audiences can be really aggressive and I can get violent in return. I don’t seek it out, but it is there and it exists. They’re all like, "Who’s this skinny fag on stage." If they are already in that mindset, they won’t be expecting me to take them outside after the show and rip them limb-from-limb. Which I will do, straight off… Either respect me now, or I will destroy you when we are done. Either way it shuts people the fuck up. It’s not like I’m some ultimate fighter but sometimes you just end up in those situations.

What makes you think that people are interested in listening to you talk about how your ex-girlfriend broke up with you? Do you think there is a wider audience for people wanting to hear about you domestics?
Well my publicist was telling me the other day that she felt that I had done a rad job in making the record accessible and my art was the best it has ever been. But she said that there was one song that was gonna fuck up the whole record — like people were going to get to that and be like "What?" But I wrote that song for people who were driving in their car and wanted to die. I really hope the person I wrote it about doesn’t hear it any time soon. I had a pretty big knock and that’s a harsh song. Although I try to watch what I say, I have a pretty big mouth.

Despite the vitriol directed at your ex-girlfriend, you come across as a very positive person. What things upset you?
Drugs. I don’t do drugs. My Dad was a drug user and he was adamant that I shouldn’t use them. A lot of my friends in New York are addicted to heroin. New York is a weird place. It’s difficult to navigate, it pulls you in, and there are all these junkies trying to trip you up.

Which lyricists are you really into?
I think Cam’ron is a genius. I’m not so interested in the imagery, but the way he puts words together is genius. I like it when people are just in outer space doing their own flipped-out thing, you know. It’s not really that challenging for someone like me to assume that mantle, but for someone from his background it is pretty out there. He just isn’t afforded that freedom, he’s from like the opposite of art school, which is rad.

* BARR’s latest album, Summary, is out on 5RC (US) and Upset the Rhythm (Europe)

DOM TUNON