I first heard Anton Barbeau via mix tapes and CD’s in the 90s, all part of an email list that is still somewhat active today, the Loud List, for fans of the late Scott Miller and his bands. I liked Anton then, and now. In this interview we discuss an album he made with Scott, What If It Works, as well as his own new album, Power Pop!!! Both are wonderful, as are Anton’s answers.

Andrea Weiss: How do you feel Power Pop!!! differs from your other two albums for Big Stir?

Anton Barbeau: Power Pop!!! is my pandemic record. It was made in a weird haze. It’s a good headphones record, for those that do it that way. Donn-Eye plays on it! But honestly, it’s a hard record for me to think about or talk about. Once I got past the initial “I’ll show them!” silliness of the title track, I kinda found myself lost and making music with my eyes shut, always in the same room, always facing the same window. I couldn’t tell which songs were good or what to focus on. There were a million tracks left off the final album. Thankfully, I think it’s turned out a groovy enough album, in spite or because. It’s quite easy to contrast that against the first release I did with Big Stir, the Kenny vs. Thrust record. That was simple -- my UK gang, Thrust, doing battle with my California band, Kenny. Old songs remade, new songs freshly presented. Simple, like I said, and quite fun. And it rocked. Oh The Joys We Live For is similar to Power Pop!!! in that it’s a record made out of more songs than it ended up including. And also like Power Pop!!!, it’s sonically diverse. We kinda promoted it with the idea that it was my domestic-bliss-on-the-farm-during-lockdown album, but the truth is that only a single song on there was written after the pandemic hit. The other songs were written while I was still living back and forth between the farm and Berlin. Also, Oh The Joys is comprised of the fragments of four separate failed album projects! Power Pop!!!, to its credit, all comes from the same stable, if hazy, home.

AW: Would you agree that the power pop genre is so open and wide-ranging that it can encompass anything, including synth pop?

AB: I made the dreadful mistake of naming my album after a genre that I don’t know anything about! That’s me spiting my hand to bite the foot that feeds the horse to water, if I may recycle that old chestnut! On the other hand, naming my album Power Pop!!! has led to me being granted legal rights to the Power Pop™ genre. To that end, synth pop, soft jazz, soft metal and hard prog are now determined to be of sound mind and Eric Carmen shall be seen in public with Eric Clapton for the very last time.

AW: Synth pop as power pop is a welcome addition. Who did you draw on for it?

AB: It was Gary Numan’s “Cars” that got me started playing music, yet my first-ever Ant song was a very wobbly Buddy Holly ripoff. On the Power Pop!!! album, there are a few influences-on-sleeve, like OMD and New Musik. In fact, the track called “Slash Zed Zip” is for the proper OMD detectives out there. I love many of the classic era synth bands and have been digging back into those records. I only discovered New Musik recently, really, but Tony Mansfield is now one of my fav producers. My song “Never Crying Wolf Boy” has me wearing that homage hat.

AW: Could you talk a little about the tribute to Julian Cope? And I agree, he’s great.

AB: He’s such a major influence for me, a true hero. He’s a very free and fearless dude and I admire that about him. His Jehovahkill record will always hover near the top of my list of Things. His recent album, Self-Civil War, is brilliant and would likely please Cope fans who may have lost track of his output. That’s what was in my headphones in the crazy days before I left Berlin. Anyway, my song is, to be blunt, about getting stoned with him when I toured with him in England a decade ago! Write what you know, right? Incidentally, Julian’s longtime/sometime right hand man, Donald Ross Skinner, appears as a guitar sample on my song about Julian, and Donn-Eye appears for real on the title track of Power Pop!!! He sent me eight or ten guitar tracks and they each and all sounded fab. It was delightful challenge to fit them all back together.

AW: A reissue of the Loud Family’s What If It Works? comes out the same day as Power Pop!!! What did you get from working with Scott Miller on that album?

AB: It’s been such a joy to be immersed in memories of those days again. It was a fun record to make, relatively easy and generally very enjoyable. We laughed a lot, shared many abstract and surreal jokes and had a good time, all the time, singing and playing. To try and answer succinctly, I got an extended dose of the same Scott I’d always known and I’m grateful for that.

AW: Would you agree that as great as What If It Works? sounded in 2006, when it was first released, it sounds even better today?

AB: I’m sure Omnivore’s mastering engineer would be happy to hear that!! But in so many ways, yes, I do think it sounds better. There’s more story told, more context presented. Kristine and I had an extended chat about the making of the album and that conversation was turned into liner notes. The bonus tracks, for the most part, give hints into the making of the album. These new elements, I’d say, go towards bringing the songs closer to the listener’s ear. Information makes the song grow fonder!

AW: Do you have any plans to tour?

AB: I haven’t got a single gig booked, which is weird, even this far into the pandemic. I’m back in Berlin at the moment, working on songs and trying to get my book going. I just heard today that the one gig I had booked in my hometown has now been canceled. I’d like to get back to Spain… I used to tour there twice a year. England, too. But the pandemic knocked everybody out of action and it’s simply been too wobbly in my eyes to jump back in yet.

AW: Do you have anything else to say about power pop, the genre?

AB: Out with the old, in with the old again!