The Brian Jonestown Massacre is about to dose Phoenix with their signature psych-rock sound

It would be easy to say that the infamous documentary, “Dig!” from 2004, was my introduction to The Brian Jonestown Massacre, and in a way, it was, but it would also be a bit of journalistic laziness. Like the band’s enigmatic leader, Anton Newcombe, I can not abide by any kind of artistic malaise, so we will start with the real stuff and get more and more real as we go. 

I had actually heard of the band, which plays the Van Buren on Friday, November 7, 2025,  over a decade before Ondi Timoner’s highly entertaining film, which showed the unflattering rivalry between The Brian Jonestown Massacre, who then called the San Francisco Bay Area home, and Portland, Oregon’s Dandy Warhols. 

In those days, Flipside Fanzine was a great way to read about new bands that mainstream media was not covering, and in an article I read about happenings in the Bay Area, it mentioned a performance by the, at the time, ‘shockingly’ named band. The name caught my eye, and I had to hear them. 

But I still haven’t seen them live. Before you read further, I want to point out that if you’re a curious, semi-fan of the band like me, I think you should absolutely go see them on Friday night. I must warn you, though, there may be moments in this article where it may feel like I am steering you in a different direction. 

Hold your judgment and decision-making to the end, please. 

During a conversation with Newcombe, I shared that I had stumbled on the name in Flipside, and it seemed to delight him a bit. The next thing I knew, he was one-upping me and talking about seeing Washington, D.C. legends, Minor Threat, somewhere in Southern California in the early ‘80s and reading about it in Flipside. This is Newcombe in a nutshell. Everything seems to revolve around him. 

A bit later, after a short reflection on those early days of SoCal punk, Newcombe shared that he had wanted to name the band “Blur,” but had quickly found out that a certain British band had beaten him to it. 

“We started in 1990, and the first name of the band was Blur. I opened up, like a week and a half later, two weeks, whatever … I opened up one of these English music weekly magazines, and here was this new band, Blur. And I was like, ‘Goddamn it.’ It was that time period in the early ‘90s or whatever, even late ‘80s, where everybody was having one-word names,” says Newcombe.

For Newcombe, taking a measured approach to finding the right band name was important.

“I was gonna think of something that nobody’s ever thought of and that they can’t think of. And also I want it to be like, really, sort of destructive to my own possibility of success, because that will increase the longevity of the project,” says Newcombe over Zoom from his current home in Germany.

When I finally tracked down a copy of The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s 1996 record, “Thank God For Mental Illness,” I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. It was different from what I had expected, but my opinion was based solely on thinking that a name like that had to be more punk. In those halcyon pre-internet days, you actually had to roll the dice on things before checking them out on a streamer. 

Different wasn’t bad, though, and over the years, The Brian Jonestown Massacre would sometimes grow on me. Their take on rock ‘n’ roll is a mix of the best of the Rolling Stones, an ‘I don’t give a fuck’ attitude, a hazy drug thing that puts the current culture of weed, kombucha and Ambien to shame. I have to believe the people in The Brian Jonestown Massacre party, and when I saw “Dig!” In the early 2000s, I was certain of it. 

I mean, there is more than one point in the film where Newcombe and the Dandy Warhols’ lead singer, Courtney Taylor-Taylor (is there a more pretentious-sounding name in rock ‘n’ roll?), seem to be having a dick measuring contest about who parties the hardest, but I digress. The potential for spectacle is always a plus in my book when it comes to almost any band. 

Despite any lifestyle choices that may have been impacted by Newcombe’s proclivity towards self-destruction, he and his long list of bandmates (current and former) have also continued to be prolific in their recorded output. 

As of this writing, the band has released almost 70 recordings if you count singles, EPs, live recordings, and LPs. Newcombe is quick to admit, though, that creating with him isn’t always the easiest for his collaborators. 

“I always just pick up an instrument and start playing, and then press record. I never want there to be any extra songs left. It just hits me really quick when I hear a sound, ‘oh, this could be a song,’ and I get on it. And I know immediately, intuitively, how it should be,” says Newcombe.

This intuition means that there is often little room for input from his band. Currently, The Brian Jonestown Massacre is up to seven touring members, including longtime collaborators, Joel Gion (tambourine) and Ricky Maymi (guitar), but it seems there isn’t a lot of room for creative license from many of them.

“(It’s) really hard in a lot of collaborative situations, because other people want to grow and experiment within that context, and if you got someone like Mozart, like with a crazy gift, you know what I mean, it just takes the wind out of their sail,” says Newcombe.

The smile on Newcombe’s face made it clear that he wasn’t really speaking of himself and Mozart as if they were peers, but it was also clear that he was having some fun with me. The guy truly seems to embrace the whole ‘rock star persona’ with an ease and blunt honesty that is both hilarious and refreshing. If you watch the aforementioned “Dig!,” for example, which was re-released in 2024 for the 20th anniversary, you might see some of this mix of bravado, charisma and talent. 

I like this about him because he is not someone I have to deal with every day in my life. After talking with Newcombe, I was reminded of a great speech given by Mark Linn-Baker’s character, “Benjiman” in the fantastic film, “My Favorite Year” (1982) where he tells Peter O’Toole’s hilarious, yet alcoholic, character, ‘Alan Swann’ that he doesn’t need him human, but needs him “bigger than life…as big as I can get him.”

This is how I feel about Newcombe. The rock ‘n’ roll fan (and the music writer) in me needs him bigger than life, even if he’s full of himself. This is the guy who is going to put on a great show, one way or another. 

In some ways, though, this is a kinder, gentler Newcombe at times in the interview. He had a brush with death recently due to heart issues. He says it changed his perspective and has actually been an inspiration for wanting to get out on the road more, even if it does come with a price.

“I did have a double bypass, so my manager asked me, ‘Do you even want to play anymore?’ And I was like, ‘hey, yes, you know, yeah, but it’s increasingly very hard work,’” says Newcombe.

As for the Phoenix show, Newcombe seems to think there is a bit of payback necessary, too.

“I had been drinking a little bit last time (in Phoenix) specifically, and was sort of talking a little bit of shit about the Arizona thing, you know, the conservative side of (the state’s population). It was really uncalled for, because that is a kind of prejudice, you know, like you’re in a room with fucking 2000 people, and you start saying, ‘You people…’” says Newcombe. 

While he didn’t go so far as to promise a great show, it did seem like he and the band have something to prove. Perhaps this goes back to the early days of the band when they would do shows in a building that once housed early meetings of Jim Jones’ People’s Temple, which ended up being part of the actual Jonestown Massacre in Guyana in 1978.

“When we started playing, we were playing at a place called the Lion of the Tabernacle Church. Connected to that was a place called the Peacock Lounge, and that church was the place the People’s Temple started. So I already knew the history of the cult. It was in that room that it even started,” says Newcombe.

The Brian Jonestown Massacre plays the Van Buren on Friday, November 7, 2025. Doors are at 7 p.m. and the show begins at 8 p.m. Tickets are available here for the 13+ show. Alex Nicol opens.