'Dig!' - Ondi Timoner interview

Peter Watts catches up with the director of the brilliant rock 'n' roll documentary.

Jul  1 2005

Ondi Timoner's documentary 'Dig!' contrasts the fortunes of two up-and-coming American indie bands of the mid-'90s – The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre – to analyse the workings of the music industry.

How did this film come about?

The original intention was to use ten bands to look at what happens when art meets industry. But then I saw The Brian Jonestown Massacre. They were totally off the grid after all the bands we'd met who were trying to be whatever the industry wanted them to be.

They came down to play the Viper Room and lead singer Anton [Newcombe] said, 'We're going to have a revolution in the music business and we're going to show how to do it in your movie. Let's go and meet The Dandy Warhols.'

I wasn’t going to argue with Anton after I'd just seen him beat up a bunch of people on stage. The core relationship in the film is the one between Courtney of The Dandy Warhols and Anton of The Brian Jonestown Massacre.

How did that develop?

I went to meet The Dandy Warhols, and they were also these totally uncompromising characters, rock stars before they were rock stars. The Dandys would win the Most Likely To Succeed Award but The Brian Jonestown Massacre were churning out three records a year with no money.

Courtney and Anton were two different visions of artistry and they each possess what the other one doesn't have. Courtney is Anton's barometer of success and Anton is Courtney's barometer of integrity. Courtney was always analysing Anton, he was obsessed with Anton just as much as Anton was obsessed with Courtney.

In the end, I asked Courtney to be the narrator and he did the narration without even having seen the film because he felt it was true to his experience.

Why did you make a film about music?

I had an experience with a major talent agency in LA that scared me into making this film, and looking at artists who are trying to commodify their art. They took my story about women in prison and changed it entirely.

I saw bands as little dysfunctional families and wanted to know what happens when they start to make business and aren't in the garage any more, when the lead singer is made to stand over here on his own rather than over there with the band.

It's very different when money is involved. I wasn't a fan of either band and I wasn't trying to make a film for music fans. I love music but that was never the intention. The camera was a bridge to a world I could otherwise never figure out. It wasn't a case of trying to find out what the indie rock world is about, it's about finding out what I'm in for as an artist.

'Dig!' opens today and is reviewed here.

• 
•