Divine Madness
Lisa Verrico / The Times
28.03.1998
28.03.1998
Hours before the Jesus and Mary Chain are due to play at a pop-star-studded party... frontman Jim Reid is fantasising about the start of the show.
"For ages, I've wanted to strut on stage singing 'I Feel Like Chicken Tonight'," admits Reid. His confession will probably appal fans of the cult Scottish band...
Essentially Britain's answer to American experimentalists Sonic Youth... their influence on other artists has always been greater than their own success.
Unlike most of their contemporaries, however, the JAMC... has grown old with grace... 'Munki'... boasts both the alternative elements of their early recordings and the pop-song structures of hit singles such as 1992's 'Reverence'.
"The songs should keep getting better the longer a band goes on," says Jim, 36, whose brother now refuses to be interviewed. "Making music becomes more instictive. You get more confident. During the forst few years, we were all over the place. We wondered why people came to gigs. A couple of years down the line, we're still here, still selling records. That gives you confidence."
"People thought that because of our extreme behaviour, we would just breeze in and out of town in five minutes, but we didn't see it that way. We always planned to be around for a long time. From the start, we felt that we were good enough to last for years. And we were right."
"Our motivation is still the same. We listen to the radio and it's shite, so we want to make some better songs. It's a serious possibility that if I switched on the radio and heard a good run of songs I would stop making music."...
"Creation wasn't a real label in those days. It was just Alan and his partner in their flat. We used to go round their to assemble our singles. It was like rock'n'roll origami, all of us sitting there folding for hours. We left Creation for a major label because we needed to make 'Psychocandy' and Alan was skint."
The irony of the fact that his band is now funded by Oasis is not lost on Jim Reid. The career of the Gallaghers mirrors the Mary Chain's exploits. Swap speed and the Sex Pistols for the Beatles and cocaine and the bands' founding manifestos are identical...
"Oasis have achieved exactly what we wanted to in the mid-Eighties. When we started out, indie was dreadful. Success was a dirty word. Then we came along and said we wanted to throw Bruce Springsteen out of the charts. No one understood that."
"The level of success that Oasis have would have destroyed me though."
"The trouble is that I'm a loser. I would have been the one to do an overdose or whatever. You know how the cool guys can do all the drugs and it doesn't affect them? I'd probably have sample something once, then pegged out straight away." The Jesus and Mary Chain jealous of the cool guys? Some things really do change in rock'n'roll.
"For ages, I've wanted to strut on stage singing 'I Feel Like Chicken Tonight'," admits Reid. His confession will probably appal fans of the cult Scottish band...
Essentially Britain's answer to American experimentalists Sonic Youth... their influence on other artists has always been greater than their own success.
Unlike most of their contemporaries, however, the JAMC... has grown old with grace... 'Munki'... boasts both the alternative elements of their early recordings and the pop-song structures of hit singles such as 1992's 'Reverence'.
"The songs should keep getting better the longer a band goes on," says Jim, 36, whose brother now refuses to be interviewed. "Making music becomes more instictive. You get more confident. During the forst few years, we were all over the place. We wondered why people came to gigs. A couple of years down the line, we're still here, still selling records. That gives you confidence."
"People thought that because of our extreme behaviour, we would just breeze in and out of town in five minutes, but we didn't see it that way. We always planned to be around for a long time. From the start, we felt that we were good enough to last for years. And we were right."
"Our motivation is still the same. We listen to the radio and it's shite, so we want to make some better songs. It's a serious possibility that if I switched on the radio and heard a good run of songs I would stop making music."...
"Creation wasn't a real label in those days. It was just Alan and his partner in their flat. We used to go round their to assemble our singles. It was like rock'n'roll origami, all of us sitting there folding for hours. We left Creation for a major label because we needed to make 'Psychocandy' and Alan was skint."
The irony of the fact that his band is now funded by Oasis is not lost on Jim Reid. The career of the Gallaghers mirrors the Mary Chain's exploits. Swap speed and the Sex Pistols for the Beatles and cocaine and the bands' founding manifestos are identical...
"Oasis have achieved exactly what we wanted to in the mid-Eighties. When we started out, indie was dreadful. Success was a dirty word. Then we came along and said we wanted to throw Bruce Springsteen out of the charts. No one understood that."
"The level of success that Oasis have would have destroyed me though."
"The trouble is that I'm a loser. I would have been the one to do an overdose or whatever. You know how the cool guys can do all the drugs and it doesn't affect them? I'd probably have sample something once, then pegged out straight away." The Jesus and Mary Chain jealous of the cool guys? Some things really do change in rock'n'roll.
