Resurrecting The KLF

Chris Atkins, director of recent documentary Who Killed the KLF, talks about its (very eventful) ten years in the making

“What would the KLF do?”. This was director Chris Atkins’ mantra over the decade he made the truly-excellent documentary Who Killed the KLF.

And it still seems to be his mantra now that it’s out in the world. How do you end a cinema tour that saw filmmakers take their movie to Picturehouses around the country? What would the KLF do? Probably take it to a field in Glastonbury, which is exactly where you’ll find it playing tonight (Thursday 23rd).

A sweet moment for a film that has been a labour of love and perhaps, a little pain. A film that powered on even after the KLF themselves (Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty) made it clear - early doors - that they wouldn’t be involved. A film that, even more unbelievably, still powered on when Atkins received a five year prison sentence for tax fraud (what would the KLF do…).

The result: a wildly-compelling documentary that is far from your average talking-head-athon. Even without the principal players, filmmakers went all out to track down key associates and eye-witnesses from the time. From author and God Alan Moore, to James Brown, the NME writer who broke them in the mainstream music press (often by writing mad made-up stories), and the copper on the Scottish island of Jura who discovered piles of burnt cash after the great million-quid bonfire. There are a series of audacious and ambitious recreations of key events in the band’s history. And the real dynamite: the tapes containing audio recordings of Drummond and Cauty that came into Atkins’ possession. Their voices, on scratchy audio, telling their own (hilarious, emotional) story, are just…well, magic.

Here’s a conversation with Atkins about a making-of story that’s almost as wild as the story of the band themselves.

When your producer Ian brought the idea to you in 2009, what appealed?

It was by far the most unhinged, unlikely and fascinating story about music and art that I’d ever come across. And nobody else had ever told it, so it was there for the taking.

What happened when you pitched it to Bill & Jimmy?

It wasn’t my most successful pitch. They listened to our idea of bringing their story to the big screen and they told me, very politely, to piss off.

Were you tempted to put it on ice?

Well, I pretty much did for a couple of years. I thought, ‘No Bill & Jimmy, then no film’. But then I read John Higgs’ book [The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds], which inspired me to crack on regardless.

You’d imagine prison would really have put it on ice, but you did a lot in there. Did it somehow aid your creativity?

Well it certainly set things back! Going to prison was irritating on many levels, but I’d recently got hold of the audio tapes of Bill & Jimmy talking about everything. So I was really annoyed it had scuppered the film just as I’d unlocked their story. Fortunately, I’d digitised the tapes before I went away, so when I got to open prison my cameraman smuggled in my laptop so I could quietly start the edit. I was at the open prison for about 18 months, and it was actually quite a creative time as I was free from distractions.

The audio tapes are astonishing - can you talk about getting your hands on them?

I can’t! Out of respect for the person who gave them to me, but I can say categorically that it wasn’t Bill or Jimmy…

The reconstructions are as ambitious as the original events and you actually started with burning the cash. Did you ever have to pull back - because of money or practicality?

 When we started doing the recon, I was doing it on my own with my lovely cameraman Chris Smith, so we didn’t have annoying production people telling us not to do things. We really pushed the envelope with the money burning and the car heading off the cliff, but we had to draw the line at the dead cows story. Last thing I wanted was to get in trouble with the RSPCA! So, we did all that with animation instead.

How important was it to have first-hand witnesses, like the local copper, versus the talking heads most common in music documentaries?

I find talking heads are a bit of a curse in some documentaries, and the problem with the KLF story is it’s usually told by armchair commentators who had nothing to do with them. So, I resolved to only interview people who were characters in the story rather than just commentators.

How do you separate the myth from the reality with a band like the KLF? Does it matter?

Well, the KLF story is all about myth and legend, so I didn’t want to be too analytical. I kept saying that we weren’t making an [episode of] Panorama. But I did try and delve into as much rich detail as possible, with the caveat that a lot of the story happened around the rave scene 30 years ago, so memories might be a little frayed.

Documentary as a form is often about imposing order on chaotic material. How do you do that when there is so much chaos built into the KLF?

 I had to strike a balance between letting their chaotic spirit live on through the film, and being fairly rigorous about making a really high production value movie that would resonate with a cinema audience. One advantage in taking over 10 years to make it, is that I spent a lot of time at the start going with the flow and following all sorts of crazy leads. But then towards the end, we had to knuckle down and be a bit more professional about getting it all finished.

What do the band think about the film?

 They love it! I met them a few months ago, before it was released, and they had somehow seen the finished version. So, it all worked out in the end.

Who Killed the KLF is screening at Cineramageddon, Glastonbury tonight (Thursday 23rd) at 10pm. If you’re at home, don’t weep! The film is available to rent on Sky Store, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.

Chris Atkins’ book, A Bit of a Stretch: The Diaries of a Prisoner, is available here https://www.waterstones.com/book/a-bit-of-a-stretch/chris-atkins/9781838950170