Johnny Tupolev interview: ‘The Best Unknown’ and Art You Can’t Measure
Johnny Tupolev
(Interview by Karo Kratochwil) Johnny Tupolev recently released their debut album “The Best Unknown,” created in collaboration with producer John Fryer. The record presents songs built on contrasts between physical impact and emotional tension, and its title addresses the relationship between artistic value and visibility in the current media environment.
In the following interview, vocalist and songwriter Tom Berger from Johnny Tupolev explains the idea behind the title “The Best Unknown,” discusses his use of contrasts and contradictions in composition, and outlines his approach to lyrics and editing. He also comments on themes of selective blindness, social attitudes toward respect and education, and what growth means for Johnny Tupolev in the coming years.
Johnny Tupolev interview
(S+): The title of the new Johnny Tupolev album, “The Best Unknown”, feels like a statement and a provocation. At what point does “unknown” stop being romantic and start becoming a cage, and did that tension shape the record?
Tom Berger: Hey Karo, wow, first time someone is asking the right questions—it’s nice that you want to take a peek “behind the curtain”… The title “The Best Unknown” of our new Johnny Tupolev album is indeed meant to be provocative: Today, the quality and value of something is equated with popularity, manifested by clicks, likes, and followers. Manipulable, controllable, predictable. Art and music become arbitrary, degenerate into arithmetic tasks and are thus forced into rules that make it impossible to grow, to surprise, to cross boundaries and to develop further. Art is not measurable!
S+: A lot of these songs run on forward momentum, almost like controlled acceleration. When you write, are you chasing a physical response first (movement, adrenaline), or an emotional one (pressure, release), and how do you know when the balance is right?
Tom Berger: Well observed: my compositions are both, and alternately both: physical and emotional. Brutal and tender, loud and quiet, color and black and white. It’s the contrasts that interest me—and the challenge of bringing together something that supposedly doesn’t belong together. Do your feelings and emotions go on a roller coaster ride when you listen to my music? Then the balance is right!
S+: There’s a recurring theme of selective blindness — “the joy of not knowing,” buying dreams, refusing the truth. What scares you more: people being manipulated, or people choosing to be manipulated because it’s comfortable?
Tom Berger: That’s exactly the point: what scares me is the willingness to “look away” because it’s supposedly the easier path.
The reason is the brutalization of a society that confuses respect and education with weakness.
S+: Industrial rock can easily become a costume if it’s only about attitude. What’s the one thing you refused to compromise on to keep this album feeling lived-in rather than “performed”?
Tom Berger: I never asked myself that question—every song, every idea, every live performance first springs from an extremely clear, deeply physical attitude—conveyed by playing real instruments—and only secondarily by programming sequences. The Power of JT is real and comes naturally.
S+: Some tracks feel like they’re built from contradictions: punchy and bleak, hooky and hostile, seductive and abrasive. Do you write to resolve contradictions, or to keep them open like a wound?
Tom Berger: I have to smile—you’ve captured the essence of my music in just a few words—I’m impressed… Next drinks on me, Karo….
S+: You’ve got sharp lines that sound almost like slogans, but they hit because they’re bitterly specific. How do you edit lyrics: do you cut until only the blade remains, or do you intentionally leave some mess to keep the human fingerprints?
Tom Berger: Actually, I like to leave room to give the listener the chance to come to the same conclusion as me on their own. But sometimes I can’t resist the temptation and shout it right in everyone’s face: Shit doesn’t taste like chocolate. Full stop.
S+: If “The Best Unknown” is a debut that already sounds like a band with history, what part of your “past” is actually present here — scene, influences, personal scars, rehearsal-room chemistry?
Tom Berger: Well observed again: “The Best Unknown” is indeed also a “Best of”: the quintessence of my experiences, my influences, my points of view. Things I love and things I have loved. When I think about it, isn’t that what life is all about? Interesting, I’ll have to think about that some more…
S+: Looking ahead: what does “growth” mean for Johnny Tupolev? More polish, more danger, more vulnerability — or something else entirely that you haven’t shown yet?
Tom Berger: For Johnny Tupolev’s future, I wish to wake up every day, open minded, never tired of trying new things, of surprising others—first and foremost myself and ourselves. And in doing so, never to forget that we are also big kids—who, even today, are allowed to look at the world with curiosity and wide eyes.
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