Martyn Joseph Photos: Linda Anderson
'What sparked it off in me is that something inside you that’s been crying out ever since you were a kid and someone pinched your sweets or whatever. It’s not fair.'

At the UK launch of Jim Wallis’ book, God’s Politics, Linda Anderson caught up with singer and songwriter Martyn Joseph.

It’s three years since you visited Brazil with Christian Aid, what have you been doing since then?
Solidly touring really. Since 2003 I’ve also made two albums.

When I came back from Brazil we raised the issue of the MST [Movimento Sem Terra, an organisation that fights against social exclusion and aims to gain rights for landless families by organising camps next to land which is not in use. It then campaigns for the land to be given to the occupiers so they can set up farming settlements. Over 250,000 families have won land titles after MST land take-overs, rallying round the slogan 'Occupy, resist, produce'] at concerts and made the album “Till the End" to add to the financial resources for the MST.

We talked about the issues at concerts for a year, raising awareness.

And then I’ve just been on the road. I did 325 or 326 gigs in two and a half years. A stupid run never to be repeated. I couldn’t do it again. Part of that was I was fired up by the election in America and everything and I was doing a lot out there and I just wanted to stay out there getting rid of my anger or my feelings. Venting them.

Since visiting Brazil and raising awareness of the MST you have become patron of Advantage Africa. Does your heart lie with any particular part of the world?
No! I just think that it could be downtown Cardiff or downtown Rio. You don’t say some deserve justice or some deserve a better deal more than others. I try to find these issues, and highlight them if they move me. No country or cause has a monopoly on that. The world is very focussed on Africa right now and rightly so but there are many other countries which need our attention as well.

What sparked it off in me is that something inside you that’s been crying out ever since you were a kid and someone pinched your sweets or whatever. It’s not fair. You realise things are unequal in the world. It moves you and it saddens you that people suffer and it fires you to try and do something about it.

I think that’s part of the way in which I work. If you sing about a nation it’s a pretty tough thing to do. There are many different strands that make up a nation. To try to find that all encompassing song that somehow sums up a whole demographic is a huge task to set yourself and perhaps at the end of the day one that isn’t going to work.

Whereas I think that if you take someone’s individual story, and of course Jesus was an expert at doing that, you take someone’s story and you relate it, and one person relates to that one person’s story. We relate as individuals rather than to a whole nation’s turbulence as it were. That’s my job to find a story. You highlight one person’s story and you highlight everyone’s story. We’re all not far from the same playing field.

Do you have one song that sums it up for you?
No not really, because there are so many stories. I suppose I think “The Good in me is Dead' really catches, I’m grateful it does, many different people on different levels. It talks about the refugees during the Bosnia crisis but that of course can apply to a refugee anywhere at any moment in time.

That sense of waiting, looking for one’s family. The disruption, the fragmentation if you like of family ties through no fault of their own. Death, loss of one’s inheritance, everything that a generation’s worked for, all that stuff. Then suddenly you’re on the side of the road with nothing and that is the plight of millions.

And therefore I guess when you sing a song like that you can wrap that around the world if you like, and I suppose I think it kind of does a decent job of doing that. But as for a favourite I don’t really have one.

As you’re getting older is your anger burning more fiercely? Or have you mellowed with age? Is there a sense of acceptance that things aren’t going to change? Didn’t Jesus say the poor would always be with us?
Ah – that old excuse which is not what he meant anyway. I won’t go into that. I think that all those things are true. In some ways you do get more angry. In some ways you do get more despairing. In some ways you get more hopeful. It depends what kind of a day it is sometimes.

But you know what you really believe in and you keep going. If everyone just throws up their hands and says that its all too much isn’t it, let’s just party till the sun comes up, nothing happens. I think that, whilst there are huge obstacles to overcome in all of this, one of the things I find a great encouragement is that when people like Bono and Geldof or Tutu or whoever it is galvanise people.

You do see this common thread of humanity that people aren’t happy with these things and whilst there will always be the few selfish people who don’t want to get involved and say 'that’s tough' the majority of people want a fairer world and don’t want to see people without food and a decent chance of trading, people without justice in their lives.

I think that art and music and all these speeches made by people sometimes galvanise people and you can feel that thread of hope running through this. The thing is do we have the willpower and the well being to move it onto the next stage.

I think there are signs of that and when you see that you get hopeful. When it gets knocked back through whatever it might be – someone’s vote or someone promising one thing and not keeping it - then you do despair and like anybody you have off days when you want to give up. I don’t think its anything to do with age.

It’s just the way it is. There are days when we’re encouraged, and days when we’re discouraged. I have to say I’m more angry and more cross than I was when I was younger.

When you’re a kid you’re too busy. Well, I was but I think perhaps young people are more informed these days but I just didn’t understand these situations and I had a very simplistic view of the world. As you journey more you take on more complex issues.

You mentioned the anger you felt when you were in America – did you get that out of your system?
I don’t know. I think there were lots of things going on with me at the time. I love playing and there were things inside me that were gong on being turned over and I think some of my way of dealing with this was to vent some of my frustration with what was happening in America.

There was this build up to a war that millions of people didn’t want. A war that looked so illegal and yet there was an inevitability about the whole thing. 'That’s it folks, that’s what’s going to happen'. And there was nothing I was ever going to say or do that was going to change that.

I suppose because I could get up everyday and sing my piece and have a few folk cheer me on and maybe one or two walk out there was something I found very driven about all that.

You did upset one or two people in America…
Oh yeah - one or two but that’s okay. If I didn’t then I wouldn’t be saying the right things I suppose. And they take it a lot more personally over there you know. They take it a lot more seriously in terms of they think it’s a personal attack on them whereas we just go and have a drink down the pub and discuss it.

So, yeah, I think it does help every time I get up and play, and you feel that response and you feel that you are doing a little bit of good. When someone comes up and says 'thanks that encouraged me' or whatever then there is a circular effect. It does help. And yeah, I’m beyond some of that now but Bush has only got a few years left anyway and he can’t be President again so there you go.

How did you get involved with the launch of Jim Wallis’ new book?
I’ve known Jim Wallis for some time, many years actually. We haven’t done a lot together but we’ve always threatened to. Jim asked through Steve Chalke whether I was available to do this and Steve rang me up.

And I really admire Jim, and get the regular Sojourners newsletters and I think he’s a wonderful guy. It’s a great job they’re doing down there in Washington and they’re very well respected outside of the church scene. Just in mainstream, Sojourners are known for their social works and that‘s what the church should be.

It’s great when that happens, that people just see people of faith actually making sense and doing something incredibly worthwhile and good in the world. That’s what we need so much more of. I was very happy to come up and do my thing.

Can we come back to your music for a moment? People might say that some of your more recent songs are the sort that Sony may have been asking for in the 80’s and might have brought you more commercial success – has that been a deliberate move?
No – I’ve given up on commercial success. It’s not something I actively seek out because you destroy yourself if you do that. You’re no better than someone going on Pop Idol or something. Just to have commercial success – for what? But if it means I can get to a new audience, to more people, there is something in me that understands that.

Bob Harris likes you doesn’t he?
Yeah, I’ve always had this mixture and indeed tension between the old church audience that I once had and the sort of you know mainstream audience that came along from the early nineties onwards. And I’m happy to combine the two.

But when I sit down to write a song I don’t worry if it will fit. There is a song on the new album that people are saying it would be good to take to radio but it’s too long so obviously when I sit down to write I’m not sitting there thinking about that. You know – three and a half minutes was the rule to go to radio or it was too long.

I don’t know if those songs necessarily were what Sony was looking for. I think maybe there’s one or two on each album. They weren’t looking for anything. All they wanted was to sell albums. I can understand that – they are a business.

They are still pretty miserable songs though – didn’t Sony have something to say about that?
They said if I could lighten up I might sell more songs – and the boy ain’t going to do that! That’s okay. Every day you have to take stock and look at what you are doing and feel that it has some sort of integrity and that’s what I try to do really. And you know if it doesn’t sell millions so be it. And it doesn’t.

Final question – we missed you at Greenbelt last year – will you be there next year?
I think so. The way the schedule is shaping up I hope to be. Not sure in what capacity yet but yes, looks like I will be there.

• Jim Wallis book launch