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Massive Attack's strategy starts, ends with music

LONDON — When the Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines lambasted President Bush from a London stage for his decision to go to war, it resulted in country stations boycotting the group's songs and forced Maines into an apology.

So when the British band Massive Attack — a vocal opponent of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — performs at the Austin City Limits Festival on Saturday (8:30 p.m. AT&T Stage), it could make for interesting viewing. One thing's for sure: The band's head honcho, Robert del Naja (better known as 3D), isn't one to mince words. In a recent Web posting, he called for the resignation of Tony Blair for the "misrepresentation of the British people, the passive compliance to U.S. global affairs (and) the constant state denial of the civilian slaughter."

Massive Attack plays at 8:30 p.m. Saturday on the AT&T Stage.

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Also, Saturday's show will mark a smooth spot in the rocky beginning of a North American tour. Visa problems kept the band from playing the Virgin Festival in Toronto on Sept. 9, and shows in Montreal, Detroit and Chicago also were canceled. ACL Festival officials said Monday that the problems had been cleared up for the Austin appearance.

Massive Attack first appeared in the public consciousness in 1988 with the debut single "Any Love," and three years later with the album "Blue Lines." But it was the single "Unfinished Sympathy" — a catchy, powerful slice of what was later termed "trip-hop" — that ensured the band's musical legacy.

Along with Portishead, Tricky and Roni Size, Massive Attack pioneered the "Bristol Sound" — named after the small-ish city on the west coast of England in which del Naja and Grant "Daddy G" Marshall still live — although Marshall insists this was "a bit of a marketing myth to sell a certain amount of records."

Marketing ploy or not, the city undeniably had an impact. "There's quite a heavy multicultural vibe there," Marshall says, "and the city is easier to negotiate on foot than London, so you can do a lot of things in one day. That's what our music represents — a variation of different cultures; lots of ideas going into one thing."

You've probably also heard Massive Attack's collaborations with artists such as Sinead O'Connor, Elizabeth Frazer of the Cocteau Twins (the emotive "Teardrops") and Madonna (who covered Marvin Gaye's "I Want You"), but the band's songs also have been featured on screen in "The Matrix" and "Snatch" and on TV shows such as "24" and "House."

And it's precisely because of this public profile that del Naja sees it as his obligation to get his political messages across. "At the end of the day," he says, "we're just musicians, and we'll work alongside organizations that do things we feel are important."

Massive Attack's effort to get this message across could legitimately be described as tireless. The band has been on the road almost permanently since the end of April. It's no wonder Marshall is a little hazy on his exact geographical location. Our conversation goes something like this:

Me: "Where are you at the moment?"

Marshall: "Blahsham."

Me: "I beg your pardon?"

Marshall: "We're in Blahbasham. I haven't got a clue where we are."

Me: "What country are you in?"

Marshall: "I honestly have no idea." (His tour manager, Dave, whispers something inaudible). "Germany. We're in Germany. Sorry."

You can hardly blame him — the band has spent the past four months gazing at the inside of a tour bus and hotel rooms.

"It's a bit like 'Big Brother,' " Marshall says, referring to the reality TV show. "People don't realize it, but on tour you're thrown together with a bunch of people you don't usually spend so much time with. The fact we're getting the music out to people is great. And it's nice to spend some time away from the studio."

For the past three years, Massive Attack had been a one-man operation after Marshall took a three-year sabbatical. He and 3D weren't seeing eye to eye musically, and Marshall wanted to spend time with his family (he has three children).

"I was getting a bit old, and my creativity was being sapped," he says. "Time at home was good, but then things get boring and I missed making music."

He says Massive Attack always was a "shifting project" anyway — bigger than the sum of its parts.

Prior to — and in between — touring, and despite releasing only a "best-of" album this year, the band has been busy working in New York and Bristol on its next studio album, "Weather Underground" — more than a passing nod to the 1960s protest movement opposed to the Vietnam War.

"We don't know what to expect with the new album," says Marshall. "It's evolving and all quite experimental." The band also is working with the Brooklyn-based TV on the Radio, which wowed record company executives at South by Southwest last year. TV on the Radio is also on the ACL Fest schedule (Saturday, 4 p.m. Austin Ventures Stage), so an onstage collaboration could be in the cards.

What isn't so predictable is whether a British band will be able to stand the Texas heat on stage. Last year's festival saw temperatures go above 100 degrees. "We've played in Spain and Greece, in amphitheaters that were over 130 degrees," Marshall says, laughing. "It's not that we're used to it, but we're definitely prepared."

You get the sense that, despite the lineup changes and despite the "sabbaticals," Massive Attack will always be around. "It's still as exciting as it ever was, otherwise it would be a total waste of time doing it," Marshall says. "It's exciting putting a record out. When we made our first album, we were a bunch of guys who had all come from a DJ-ing background, and it was like, wow. At the time, we didn't actually think about making another record. But as you get the opportunity to work with a record company and you see a seed of an idea mushroom into a piece of artwork, of course it's exciting. We're still music fans, after all."