I Thought You Were Dead...
Simon Goddard / Uncut
12.2001
12.2001
JIM REID
As the singer with The Jesus and Mary Chain, Jim Reid's volatile relationship with his songwriting brother William was a sibling rivalry every bit as tempestuous as the Davies brothers or the Gallaghers. Thirteen years after their seminal 1985 debut album Psychocandy, and having returned to the haven of former manager Alan McGee's Creation label, in 1998 they split after a dramatic onstage punch-up during a US tour. All bruises now healed, Jim is finally back in action with his excellent new band, Freeheat...
"I think it's well documented that The Jesus And Mary Chain ended in a bloody row live onstage, and believe me it wasn't pretty. Me and William, we just can't be in a band together. It's amazing we lasted for as long as we did. We always fought throughout the Mary Chain's career, but during the last couple of years it became pretty much unbearable. It was nobody's fault. I'm not blaming William at all. In fact, I've just got back from visiting him in LA. We get on fine, but that last tour we did was so bad we couldn't even be in the same room without fighting."
"The day before it happened, William had already decided he was leaving after the gig, so I got incredibly drunk onstage and started on him in front of everybody. We had to give the audience their money back. So he left, but the rest of the band and I carried on and finished the tour which was bloody awful because we were standing on stage as the Mary Chain, but I looked to my left and that big sort of fucking moptop wasn't there. It was weird."
"So when I got back off that tour I didn't touch a guitar, I didn't play any records, I didn't play any gigs, I didn't want to know anything about the music business. But eventually I just got round to wanting to be back in a band again. The way Freeheat started was the way I think it should be, just a bunch of us sitting around in a pub originally, talking about starting our own separate bands. Then we thought, 'Wait a minute, there's a band sitting around this table.' With Freeheat, it really feels like the way it used to in the Mary Chain's early days. Just dead fun."
As the singer with The Jesus and Mary Chain, Jim Reid's volatile relationship with his songwriting brother William was a sibling rivalry every bit as tempestuous as the Davies brothers or the Gallaghers. Thirteen years after their seminal 1985 debut album Psychocandy, and having returned to the haven of former manager Alan McGee's Creation label, in 1998 they split after a dramatic onstage punch-up during a US tour. All bruises now healed, Jim is finally back in action with his excellent new band, Freeheat...
"I think it's well documented that The Jesus And Mary Chain ended in a bloody row live onstage, and believe me it wasn't pretty. Me and William, we just can't be in a band together. It's amazing we lasted for as long as we did. We always fought throughout the Mary Chain's career, but during the last couple of years it became pretty much unbearable. It was nobody's fault. I'm not blaming William at all. In fact, I've just got back from visiting him in LA. We get on fine, but that last tour we did was so bad we couldn't even be in the same room without fighting."
"The day before it happened, William had already decided he was leaving after the gig, so I got incredibly drunk onstage and started on him in front of everybody. We had to give the audience their money back. So he left, but the rest of the band and I carried on and finished the tour which was bloody awful because we were standing on stage as the Mary Chain, but I looked to my left and that big sort of fucking moptop wasn't there. It was weird."
"So when I got back off that tour I didn't touch a guitar, I didn't play any records, I didn't play any gigs, I didn't want to know anything about the music business. But eventually I just got round to wanting to be back in a band again. The way Freeheat started was the way I think it should be, just a bunch of us sitting around in a pub originally, talking about starting our own separate bands. Then we thought, 'Wait a minute, there's a band sitting around this table.' With Freeheat, it really feels like the way it used to in the Mary Chain's early days. Just dead fun."
