Rumours of me being Banksy are greatly exaggerated. We are all Banksy.
— Robert Del Naja
I think the problem with the art market and the art scene is that it is its own beast. It thrives and breathes and defecates independently of the artist.
There's a rumour that we actually make all our albums in the last six months before they're released and the rest of it is procrastination.
I have total faith in the next generation. Looking at their response to climate change is really interesting and, again, that’s the power of social media at its best, to mobilise people.
I mean, I love buying albums, I’m obsessed, but now you just click ‘add’, don’t you? And when do you actually listen to anything? You know, unless you’re in the car or you’ve got time to do that, it’s just not the same world any more in terms of concentration.
I stopped feeling nostalgia for the moment because I imagine myself looking back on it from the future, which really freaks me out.
Massive Attack has always been more of an experiment than a band or even a collective.
As human beings, we create belief systems that make us feel happy with the choices we make. You’d have a lot of unhappy people regretting everything if they didn’t create the belief system in which they could explain all their choices and feel like they’ve done the right thing.
It’s good to learn and be engaged and listen to people, see what’s going on. But that’s not the motivator: if I was a political person, I’d have gone into politics.
I've always been interested in Catholic iconography. My dad's from Naples and I was brought up in a Roman Catholic school.
I was looking at the work of the New York street artists and then discovering Basquiat and Haring after that and seeing how the contemporary art scene was, and then going back into Warhol and all that was happening in the 60s.
If the EU and the US pressured Israel for change and forced the end of the blockade, we might get somewhere. That pressure should also come culturally, with from without and within.
I’m really excited by science and technology and the whole social media thing. I think it’s fascinating. But at the same time I’m wary of bureaucratic systems and managers.
I guess that is what I remember of 'Mezzanine': it was a proper struggle.
It’s been well documented how we start to believe in our virtual or digital selves more than our real selves, but it’s strange to think that human behaviour hasn’t really changed at all since that legend was created.
I remember being given a demo of the ‘World Wide Web’ at Peter Gabriel’s studio in the early 90s, and I had zero comprehension that I was staring into the future. I was just happy with my pager and teletext on the TV.
When you’re on tour. there’s a contract between you and the audience: do what you want, as long as you do what we want. You’re having to play with the past at every gig.
I just get involved in things when people come to me: I’m not a musician-slash-activist, that’s not the word.
When you look at Banksy's work as a catalogue of ideas, it's undeniably brilliant. Going back to my days doing stencil work back in the 80s I knew that it wasn't exactly the most demanding work: it's like printing, but then Warhol was a printer.
After touring an album, you have this strange void that follows it, where you feel slightly displaced, like you've just finished with the circus and you've got to find a new job. You think, OK, what shall we do next.
In my opinion, Israel has the right to its security in as much as the Palestinians have the right to resist occupation. Israel has the power in this perpetual stalemate, as it also has the power to break it and begin a meaningful peace process.
I’m not a total pessimist; I’m excited by the future as well.
I don’t think I’ve got a problem with nostalgia, because a lot of the time things are self-referential.
We resurrect 'Mezzanine' with a promise that we can break free from the data of the past and escape the feedback loops.
You can quite happily exist in your own version of the world built around you, which you can build for yourself.
Nostalgia is a strange and powerful emotion. As much we try and fight it and fight ourselves, it’s very hard not to.
