I Hate Rock & Roll
Tracey Grimson / On the Street
09.05.1995
09.05.1995
As the Jesus & Mary Chain's machine of fuzz and feedback arrives in Sydney, Jim Reid explains how most folk have got his little sect all wrong.
"It seems like everything we do that doesn't have screeching feedback on it, people come out asking, Where's the feedback?'. We can't get away from it."
The Jesus & Mary Chain's Jim Reid is discussing that ol' albatross called "noise" which has been suspended around the neck of he and brother William since the album Psychocandy was released and justifiably lauded way back in late 1985. At the time, the record was highly regarded for its surreptitious fuzz power and its crafty take on the pop form, developing a new sound which came in the wake of the Brit punk scene but which arrived bearing just as much power, at the same time sparking a scene which the Mary Chain could claim as its own.
Retrospectively, Psychocandy is regarded as one of the most important records of the 80s and, gleaned together with Darklands, Automatic and their various singles, EPs and B-side collections, the Mary Chain have come to be touted as one of the most influencial outfits of the period. But did punters have a problem with their interpretation of the Mary Chain when the feedback gave way, as on their latest long-player Stoned and Dethroned, to more upfront acoustic renditions of songs, a clearer pop ideal?
"People focussed too much on the guitar side, the noise, the volume of the thing," says Reid, "and didn't really go too far into it to discover that there were good songs underneath. Although I'm talking about critics I suppose when you go out there and you meet people who buy your records, people do get the point. Unfortunately the people who seem to write for - particularly - the British music press don't."
When it comes to the "softer" Mary Chain of the mid-'90s, Reid concedes that Psychocandy may be a blight on the face of the group in the long run, especially as "people judge you by your debut in the music business". However, having an album hanging from your belt which is so broadly regarded as a benchmark isn't entirely problematic, especially when it means that "a lot of people get to hear about the band that otherwise wouldn't.
"But obviously it can also be a drawback," Reid continues. "It's like everything you do ten years after the record's out, people still compare to your first album. It's a bit of a pain sometimes.
"The problem with Psychocandy," he goes on, "is that it was the first album that came out to be that noisy and hard to ignore. If it had been album three or album four, I don't think we'd have had this problem. The fact that our first album was so extreme and was out in that particular musical climate, I think that's the problem."
When one considers Stoned and Dethroned in the light of Psychocandy, it's hard to imagine the same band producing both records - except, of course, for the songwriting sensibility which is at the forefront of each. But then again, Stoned probably sits perfectly in the Mary Chain's history. They are, as is the case with most bands which exist for long enough to actually "grow up", simply
more accessible these days, and you don't have to be a teenaged, gothed-up punk to acceptably label yourself a fan. Anyone who tells you that a lover of Psychocandy couldn't possibly get into Stoned and Dethroned has, unlike the Jesus & Mary Chain itself, stayed put in the mid-80s. And probably has the tragic haircut to prove it. As William Reid has been quoted as stating in the past, "The best groups don't follow their audience, their audience follows them."
"I think it was just that these batch of songs wouldn't have suited screeching noise guitar," says Jim of the context of the most recent record. "But we're not finished with noise. We like to do different types of sounds. The acoustic side has always been just as important to us as feedback and loud guitar. During the whole career of the band, if you look at each album, there's always somewhere represented as a slow, mellow, acoustic, ballad type."
When it comes to ballads, the Jesus & Mary Chain offered up one of the best pop numbers of last year with their first single from Stoned, Jim's duet with Mazzy Star's Hope Sandoval, "Sometimes Always". The track was a melodic high, telling the age old story of boy-meeting-girl, girl-leaving-boy, girl-returning-to-boy, and everyone lives happily ever after.
"When we met in 1987," Reid says of his relationship with Sandoval, "she was in a band called Opal which was basically Mazzy Star with a different name; pretty much the whole band was there I think. It was weird - we were on tour with Opal and at the beginning of that tour Kendra [Smith] was singing, and then during the tour of America - a week or two into the tour - the band broke up and reformed with Hope on vocals. So that was where we met her."
Reid says that the reception in the UK to "Sometimes Always" was mixed: "I think a lot of people there weren't really sure what to make of it," Reid offers. At the suggestion of his brother joining him for the duet on their current Australian tour, Reid laughs. "Obviously Hope isn't with us, so we won't be doing that song."
The Reid brothers have extablished a notorious reputation for themselves as indulgent little monsters when it comes to the areas of booze and drugs. When questioned on the topic, Reid has been known to give responses along the lines of, "When you're on tour, you tend to over-indulge
in stuff like bad food and too much drink and whatever drugs anybody wants to give you."
This constant obsession with getting "fucked up" seems to comfortably match that non-guitar punk scene which blew out of all proportion in the UK in the late-80s - namely, the acid house/rave movement. As surprising as it may be, the Mary Chain have done their own tinkering in the techno-related.
"I got into it a few years back when everyone else did," Reid explains. "But I kind of went off it, for various reasons. At first it seemed to be quite exciting and now, looking back, it seems to be making the same kind of mistakes that rock & roll was making, if you know what I mean. Too formularised. I like the Prodigy - I think they're really good. But the thing that I like about the
Prodigy that's lacking in most other dance music is they've got some attitude in their music. There seems to be a kind of darkness that you don't get otherwise. A lot of the dance records that you hear either don't have lyrics of have stupid lyrics. Things like the title Music For a Jilted Generation, that's a good thing to say."
Reid confirms that there have been "occasional remixes" of Jesus & Mary Chain tracks, most notable being a re-working of the Honey's Dead track "Reverence", courtesy of the engineer from the KLF. "But," adds Reid, "that's pretty much it when it comes to our dabbling in dance music."
Regardless of the music they make or listen to however, it's fair to say that the Jesus & Mary Chain will always enjoy a taste of drink and drugs. Enter Shane MacGowan, rock's most public alcoholic, and the provider of vocals on one of the Stoned and Dethroned's highlights, "God Help Me".
"We'd never met him before," Reid explains, "so it's not like he was a personal friend. It's quite simple - we always listened to the Pogues, we always liked his voice, we thought he had a great voice, and we just thought, 'Wouldn't it be great to get Shane to sing on a Mary Chain song?'. You just ask people if they want to sing on your song and if they say no you've lost nothing. I think it worked out pretty well.
"We'd been told that he was into the Mary Chain," he continues, "and we kind of expected that he would do it. And I think the Pogues have done - or they did it once or twice at least - 'Darklands'; they used to do it live."
Reid is obviously pleased at MacGowan's slot on the record and of the Pogues' cover, just as he accepts as a total compliment any group giving a Mary Chain song their own rendering. It's especially flattering, he says, when he is an upstanding fan of a group beforehand, as with the Pixies who covered "Head On" on Trompe Le Monde.
"It was as much a surprise to us as it was to anybody else. We'd kind of heard just before it was released that they were doing it, but it was a wild card. But I've always liked them so it was even more flattering - a cover by a band that you actually respect anyway. Anybody doing a cover is flattering - any-body; it can only be a compliment. But when it's by a band that you've already
bought their records, it's even moreso."
What must also surely be an accolade for the band is that their B-side and out-take offerings (notably Barbed Wire Kisses and Sound of Speed) have been as critically praised and as well-received by fans as a new Mary Chain album.
"The reason we do those B-sides records," Reid explains, "is that we don't really think of the songs that go on the B-sides as B songs. Do you know what I mean? Some of those songs are just as important to us as album tracks or single A-sides. They are kind of raw, rougher, because you can set yourself a target and get maybe five songs done in two days. They come out kind of jagged and rough but I think that's the appeal."
And for anyone who's concerned that the Reids may be performing in something akin to acoustic mode on the tour to coincide with the mood of Stoned and Dethroned, never fear: The show will still be "loud and noisy, even though the album isn't", the band bringing their OTT collection of guitars along for the ride.
And, in keeping with their subversive style and pain-in-the-ass personalities, there will be a suitably-named tour EP released to coincide with the visit. Reid's voice suggests a smug Scottish grin as he offers up the title.
"I Hate Rock & Roll," he says. God bless the Jesus & Mary Chain.
"It seems like everything we do that doesn't have screeching feedback on it, people come out asking, Where's the feedback?'. We can't get away from it."
The Jesus & Mary Chain's Jim Reid is discussing that ol' albatross called "noise" which has been suspended around the neck of he and brother William since the album Psychocandy was released and justifiably lauded way back in late 1985. At the time, the record was highly regarded for its surreptitious fuzz power and its crafty take on the pop form, developing a new sound which came in the wake of the Brit punk scene but which arrived bearing just as much power, at the same time sparking a scene which the Mary Chain could claim as its own.
Retrospectively, Psychocandy is regarded as one of the most important records of the 80s and, gleaned together with Darklands, Automatic and their various singles, EPs and B-side collections, the Mary Chain have come to be touted as one of the most influencial outfits of the period. But did punters have a problem with their interpretation of the Mary Chain when the feedback gave way, as on their latest long-player Stoned and Dethroned, to more upfront acoustic renditions of songs, a clearer pop ideal?
"People focussed too much on the guitar side, the noise, the volume of the thing," says Reid, "and didn't really go too far into it to discover that there were good songs underneath. Although I'm talking about critics I suppose when you go out there and you meet people who buy your records, people do get the point. Unfortunately the people who seem to write for - particularly - the British music press don't."
When it comes to the "softer" Mary Chain of the mid-'90s, Reid concedes that Psychocandy may be a blight on the face of the group in the long run, especially as "people judge you by your debut in the music business". However, having an album hanging from your belt which is so broadly regarded as a benchmark isn't entirely problematic, especially when it means that "a lot of people get to hear about the band that otherwise wouldn't.
"But obviously it can also be a drawback," Reid continues. "It's like everything you do ten years after the record's out, people still compare to your first album. It's a bit of a pain sometimes.
"The problem with Psychocandy," he goes on, "is that it was the first album that came out to be that noisy and hard to ignore. If it had been album three or album four, I don't think we'd have had this problem. The fact that our first album was so extreme and was out in that particular musical climate, I think that's the problem."
When one considers Stoned and Dethroned in the light of Psychocandy, it's hard to imagine the same band producing both records - except, of course, for the songwriting sensibility which is at the forefront of each. But then again, Stoned probably sits perfectly in the Mary Chain's history. They are, as is the case with most bands which exist for long enough to actually "grow up", simply
more accessible these days, and you don't have to be a teenaged, gothed-up punk to acceptably label yourself a fan. Anyone who tells you that a lover of Psychocandy couldn't possibly get into Stoned and Dethroned has, unlike the Jesus & Mary Chain itself, stayed put in the mid-80s. And probably has the tragic haircut to prove it. As William Reid has been quoted as stating in the past, "The best groups don't follow their audience, their audience follows them."
"I think it was just that these batch of songs wouldn't have suited screeching noise guitar," says Jim of the context of the most recent record. "But we're not finished with noise. We like to do different types of sounds. The acoustic side has always been just as important to us as feedback and loud guitar. During the whole career of the band, if you look at each album, there's always somewhere represented as a slow, mellow, acoustic, ballad type."
When it comes to ballads, the Jesus & Mary Chain offered up one of the best pop numbers of last year with their first single from Stoned, Jim's duet with Mazzy Star's Hope Sandoval, "Sometimes Always". The track was a melodic high, telling the age old story of boy-meeting-girl, girl-leaving-boy, girl-returning-to-boy, and everyone lives happily ever after.
"When we met in 1987," Reid says of his relationship with Sandoval, "she was in a band called Opal which was basically Mazzy Star with a different name; pretty much the whole band was there I think. It was weird - we were on tour with Opal and at the beginning of that tour Kendra [Smith] was singing, and then during the tour of America - a week or two into the tour - the band broke up and reformed with Hope on vocals. So that was where we met her."
Reid says that the reception in the UK to "Sometimes Always" was mixed: "I think a lot of people there weren't really sure what to make of it," Reid offers. At the suggestion of his brother joining him for the duet on their current Australian tour, Reid laughs. "Obviously Hope isn't with us, so we won't be doing that song."
The Reid brothers have extablished a notorious reputation for themselves as indulgent little monsters when it comes to the areas of booze and drugs. When questioned on the topic, Reid has been known to give responses along the lines of, "When you're on tour, you tend to over-indulge
in stuff like bad food and too much drink and whatever drugs anybody wants to give you."
This constant obsession with getting "fucked up" seems to comfortably match that non-guitar punk scene which blew out of all proportion in the UK in the late-80s - namely, the acid house/rave movement. As surprising as it may be, the Mary Chain have done their own tinkering in the techno-related.
"I got into it a few years back when everyone else did," Reid explains. "But I kind of went off it, for various reasons. At first it seemed to be quite exciting and now, looking back, it seems to be making the same kind of mistakes that rock & roll was making, if you know what I mean. Too formularised. I like the Prodigy - I think they're really good. But the thing that I like about the
Prodigy that's lacking in most other dance music is they've got some attitude in their music. There seems to be a kind of darkness that you don't get otherwise. A lot of the dance records that you hear either don't have lyrics of have stupid lyrics. Things like the title Music For a Jilted Generation, that's a good thing to say."
Reid confirms that there have been "occasional remixes" of Jesus & Mary Chain tracks, most notable being a re-working of the Honey's Dead track "Reverence", courtesy of the engineer from the KLF. "But," adds Reid, "that's pretty much it when it comes to our dabbling in dance music."
Regardless of the music they make or listen to however, it's fair to say that the Jesus & Mary Chain will always enjoy a taste of drink and drugs. Enter Shane MacGowan, rock's most public alcoholic, and the provider of vocals on one of the Stoned and Dethroned's highlights, "God Help Me".
"We'd never met him before," Reid explains, "so it's not like he was a personal friend. It's quite simple - we always listened to the Pogues, we always liked his voice, we thought he had a great voice, and we just thought, 'Wouldn't it be great to get Shane to sing on a Mary Chain song?'. You just ask people if they want to sing on your song and if they say no you've lost nothing. I think it worked out pretty well.
"We'd been told that he was into the Mary Chain," he continues, "and we kind of expected that he would do it. And I think the Pogues have done - or they did it once or twice at least - 'Darklands'; they used to do it live."
Reid is obviously pleased at MacGowan's slot on the record and of the Pogues' cover, just as he accepts as a total compliment any group giving a Mary Chain song their own rendering. It's especially flattering, he says, when he is an upstanding fan of a group beforehand, as with the Pixies who covered "Head On" on Trompe Le Monde.
"It was as much a surprise to us as it was to anybody else. We'd kind of heard just before it was released that they were doing it, but it was a wild card. But I've always liked them so it was even more flattering - a cover by a band that you actually respect anyway. Anybody doing a cover is flattering - any-body; it can only be a compliment. But when it's by a band that you've already
bought their records, it's even moreso."
What must also surely be an accolade for the band is that their B-side and out-take offerings (notably Barbed Wire Kisses and Sound of Speed) have been as critically praised and as well-received by fans as a new Mary Chain album.
"The reason we do those B-sides records," Reid explains, "is that we don't really think of the songs that go on the B-sides as B songs. Do you know what I mean? Some of those songs are just as important to us as album tracks or single A-sides. They are kind of raw, rougher, because you can set yourself a target and get maybe five songs done in two days. They come out kind of jagged and rough but I think that's the appeal."
And for anyone who's concerned that the Reids may be performing in something akin to acoustic mode on the tour to coincide with the mood of Stoned and Dethroned, never fear: The show will still be "loud and noisy, even though the album isn't", the band bringing their OTT collection of guitars along for the ride.
And, in keeping with their subversive style and pain-in-the-ass personalities, there will be a suitably-named tour EP released to coincide with the visit. Reid's voice suggests a smug Scottish grin as he offers up the title.
"I Hate Rock & Roll," he says. God bless the Jesus & Mary Chain.
