July 15, 2024 • 44 mins
As Nottingham duo Sleaford Mods release a 10-year anniversary edition of their breakthrough album Divide & Exit, frontman and lyricist Jason Williamson revisits the album that changed his life, the time he threw the bleakest album release party of all time, and how he finally found success in his 40s on his 7th album.
You can watch clips of the podcast online now, just give us a follow on Instagram @midnightchatspod.
Links to stuff mentioned in the episode:
Modern Life is Rubbish... still – early Loud And Quiet interview from 2014
Sleaford Mod Loud And Quiet archive
Jason on Episode 65 of the podcast
Credits:
Interview and editing by Stuart Stubbs
Mixing and mastering by Flo Lines
Artwork by Kate Prior
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
We didn't really talk about it, but it was it
was just an understanding that obviously surely it can't go
anywhere else. We're like in our forties. It's just full
of swearing. It's this thick East Midlands accent. Yeah, it's
clever and that and whatever. It's well written, but and.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
The sun's gone down on another day. Listeners, Welcome to
Midnight Chats. It's our music interview podcast for late night listening.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
My name is Greg.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
I'm here with Stu.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
What's up Stu. Oh. When we record these intros, I'm
finding it amusing how every time we're trying to find
a different way to say it's the end of the day.
But that one was good.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
That was just like that, the sun's come down, the
moon's come out. There you go. Yeah, we're back with
another exciting music interview for you this evening on This
Evening's podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Stewart.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
This is a returning guest on the podcast, somebody we
have had before, but is an absolutely stellar conversation. I
always think. Tell us all about who you've been chatting
to for this week's Midnight Chats.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Yeah, welcome back to the podcast. Jason Williamson from Sleaford Mods.
This episode was recorded at Rough Trade Offices, and I'm
saying that now because I'm aware of the fact that
Jason and I start talking about our surroundings at the
very beginning, and we don't really fully explain it to
the listener. Where we are. We're at Rough Trade. Rough
Trade is, as many people will know, one of the
(01:37):
most formidable independent labels in the world ever, and we
were in the office of the founder of that label,
Jeff Travis, and it was surrounded by some amazing things
on the wall, including a mock up of the Elephant
Stone single artwork that John Squire gave to Jeff Travis.
We mentioned it a little bit in passing, but we're
(02:00):
we're looking at it, and then I realized this is
not a visual medium. Nobody knows what we're talking about.
So that's what that's about.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
I'm imagining you both like two naughty schoolboys, and Jeff
didn't know that you were in his office with his
priceless music memorabilia.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
So when we left once we'd done this interview, I
noticed that Jeff was sort of sat by the door
of the office outside. He had vacated the office very
willingly to us very modest office, very modest for such
an important man in music. But thank you to Jeff
if you're listening, for allowing us to do it there.
It's always really nice to talk to Jason. I've met
(02:37):
him a few different times. These are funny in these interviews,
aren't they, Greg, Because sometimes we really don't know what
we're walking into. We're meeting someone for the very first time,
and we're saying to them, I'm going to record us
talking and I'm hoping you're going to be entertaining, and
I'm hoping I'm going to be good, and I'm hoping
we're going to sort of connect in some way so
that when people listen back to it, it's got something
(02:58):
to it. And then sometimes we get lucky and we
sometimes we meet people more than once, like Jason, So
I have met him a few times and we've done
all the small talk, and we've had that out the
way in previous previous ones. But to its credit, he's
always been very good at conversation. He's very open, and
he's not necessarily the sort of person that I think
(03:20):
the music suggests it is. If you've not listened to
Sleaford Mods, maybe go and listen to it now, or
just listen to maybe twenty five seconds of it, and
you'll get an idea of just how aggressive the music is,
how sweary it is. It's very it's blunt, and it
gives off the impression that the man who's written it
(03:41):
is probably going to smash your head in. But he's
such a lovely, sweet guy, as I think comes across
in this conversation we had.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yeah, definitely, like you're saying, he's on stage persona and
that of him on record, they're not inseparable from the
person that you sort of meet to interview. Obviously the
same person, but he is slightly more gentle and sensitive
in the flesh kind of is I think what you're saying.
Why were you speaking to Sleeford Mods? By the way,
what I like about.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
This is this is actually a focused episode of this
podcast because we're talking very much about a specific time
in the band's history. They are just celebrating. This coming week,
they release a reissue of an album called Divide an Exit,
which was their seventh album. It came out ten years ago,
so they're repressing it and they're putting it out with
(04:32):
some extra bonus content and it's the album that broke them. Really,
they had been going Jason had been doing it on
his own for a good period of time, and then
Andrew from the band joined him two albums before this,
on an album called Wank. I say wank a lot
in this.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Episode, so stud just stop be there, because this episode
definitely contains my all time favorite Midnight That's question, which
is when you say, how did you sound pre wank?
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Yeah? It's deep, isn't it. You don't get this on
the rest is politics. Yeah, we are talking about a
duo here who had an album called Wank. Then they
had an album called Austerity Dogs, which sort of broke
them a little bit, and then this one, Divide an Exit,
came out ten years ago. It sort of really put
them on the map and is the reason why so
(05:26):
many people know about them now. So that's what we're
talking about, and it was just nice to be able
to focus in on something and I think we get
some really good stories from Jason about those early days
and as someone personally who's getting on in life now
and maybe hasn't achieved everything that the younger Stuart Subs
thought he would. I like hearing stories from people who
(05:48):
made it later in life, and Sleaford Mods are one
of those bands. They were in their forties when they
released this album and became successful. So it can happen.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
It can happen, and listen to you. Don't give up
on that dream. You will win Miss America at some point.
Just just keep on plugging away as my advice. Like
you say, this does contain some amazing stories, let's get
into it. One of my favorites in fact is Jason
talking about the Mercury Prize and the fact that they
didn't enter this breakthrough album that you went to go
(06:22):
and speak to him about into the Mercury Prize all
those years ago, like possibly could have been a nail
done winner. But anyway, the Mercury Prize is coming up
soon and so next week on Midnight Chat, Stu and
I are going to be back with a special episode
Looked previewing this year's award. It's a big deal here
in the UK for those listening abroad, but we're gonna
tell you all about it. We're gonna predict who we'd
(06:44):
like to see on the list, We're gonna go behind
the scenes a bit and tell you all about what
happens at the awards and how it gets decided, and
we're gonna place our bets, aren't we, Stu. We're we're
gonna We're gonna ultimately try and do some guest work.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Yeah. I am notoriously shit at this because every single
year I am convinced I can guess all it is twelve,
isn't it. Yeah, I always think I'm gonna know all
twelve Every time I think I probably I think I
average around maybe getting three four at most.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Well ast you says, come back for some white hot
insight this time next week, midnight on Monday. If not,
you know you're nailed on the contenders. We'll trial best.
But in the meantime, this is Stuart speaking to Jason
Williamson from the Mighty Sleepord Mods.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
When was the first time you came into this office?
Would it have been to sign your deal? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (07:42):
I think so.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Would that have been done like in this room that
we're sating.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
It was done in Jeannette's office, which is next door.
It was all a bit of a flory because we
were drunk, but yeah, I was. We were hanging around
and we went in there to sign it. That's where
we had the Champagne as well. And then I think
we came in here. I spoke to Jeff a bit,
and whenever we come in, I just come straight in
(08:07):
here and sit down and we talk, you know, and
you know, tells him, tells me what he didn't like
and what he did like about what we just put
out or whatever, which is always quite Refreshing's.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Good, he's good. He's good at just direct.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah, it's like, you know, like one of those proper managers.
It's like, look, you know, this didn't Yeah, it was
all right. It was a good job, but come on.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
I want more from you. He's pushing you forward.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
But yeah, and he's constantly always thinking about it.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Which is good. Yeah, that's what you want. You want
somebod who's engaged with it completely.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Yeah, I remember it's in the film, isn't it. Yeah.
I remember that you said you were drunk when you
came in. So was that to take the edge of
was it like a nerve? Was it a big deal
coming into Well?
Speaker 1 (08:51):
I always stought I had this thing about signing the
first record deal, and I stored it up in my
head for years and years about it being this massively
fantastic thing and it wasn't you know, for not because
of rough trade or the experience have come down in
and signing it. But you know, these things usually aren't,
(09:11):
are they. It's like when I left work, it was
a massive anti climax. I just got the bus home.
Two days later, I checked into a hotel to you know,
start the support slot on the Specials tour, and it
just felt like another job but not, if you know
what I mean. It was like, I'm in this hotel
(09:32):
room on my own and this is it. It's not
very glamorous at all, touring, isn't you know. But but yeah,
the wife wanted to come down and I regret not,
you know, sort of she should have been there really,
so I regretted that. And then I got home. I
was so drunk. I went to the pub and asked
(09:53):
for a whiskey and he served me in a fucking teacup.
It's like, fuck, you know, this is it?
Speaker 3 (10:00):
It? Right?
Speaker 1 (10:01):
So I had a whiskey and a tea cut and
then stumbled home. It was such a trip coming in
because it's not here now.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
There it is.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
That was the makeup of the Elephant Stone single for
the Stone Roses, which I think John Squire gave to him,
and there was also another thing somewhere, but that's gone
and they nearly signed them, but it didn't. It didn't
come off.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Wow, So that's the prototype, Steve. Yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
I got real buzz out of that. We were very
lucky really getting a partnership with Rough Trade. You know,
we left after each tap pass. They took you back,
they took his back.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Last time we last time you were on the podcast
was in that interim period. Yeah, you just left. Yeah,
and we're maybe thinking, I'm not sure this was a
great idea.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Oh it's a terrible idea. Yeah, you know, but we
parted company with the manager then and it was all wrong.
The energy was just gone. So we came back, you
know what I mean. So, yeah, we've been very lucky.
They let us do they don't let us do what
well they do, let us do what we want, but
you know, they leave us alone, and they'll give us
(11:16):
advice if they think we need it, you know, which
I'm always open to, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
We're here predominantly to talk about the ten years of
Divide an exit, Yeah, which was you're depending where you're
counting from your seventh record. Maybe we'd untangle that in
a little bit, but it feels like that record from
the outside at least is a very special record for you.
And Andrew widely considered your breakthrough record from like the outside, Yeah,
(11:42):
do you see it that way?
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah? Yeah, it was. I mean Austereity Dogs was like, oh,
this works, and then Divide next it was like, oh
fucking hell, I think we'd written Tied Up in Knots
and just couldn't believe it. We didn't think there'd be
a life after that first Mostery Dogs. To be honest,
I was quite happy with getting getting repped and recognized
(12:07):
around tam through that album. Just to achieve a little
bit of local recognition was really all we were looking for.
And then we kept right in as you do, and
Tied Up in Knots came about and tweet tweet tweet,
and we're just an air conditioning and we thought, oh,
(12:28):
this is the second album, you know, and that's when
it kicked off. So it was quite a surprise really.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
So you'd even had you had that conversation like once
you once you put all Steric Dogs out, had you
had you both acknowledged with each other like this might
be this might just be.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
We didn't really talk about it, but it was just
it was just an understanding that obviously, surely it can't
go anywhere else. We're like in our forties. It's just
full of swearing. It's it's this thick East Midlands accent. Yeah,
it's it's clever and that and whatever. It's well written,
(13:06):
but and you know, but then it just did you
know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Yeah, I suppose at that point you're thinking there's not
actually a market for this.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
There wasn't a market for it, no, because at the
time it was just you know, it was the hangover
of the Libertines, the shadow of Oasis was still there.
You know, bands like the Kooks, stuff like that, do
you know what I mean? One Bats is it? You know,
stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
There was I haven't heard the one Bats no time,
who else, just loads of stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
So it was like jakee Borg I think been out
for about a year and but you know, if it's
something else needed to happen, and I think we just
came along at the right time, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
I distinctly remember it coming out, and I remember I
remember the buzz on it, and I remember a lot
of people saying, this is the record that's going to
win the Mercury this year. Oh god, yeah, did you
guys even did you enter it into the make their tweet?
Speaker 1 (14:04):
No, they didn't. We didn't. I mean, you know, we
were quite DIY operation, and our manager was very much
into that kind of thing. You know, we were kind
of read it, cut our teeth on the noise and
sort of independent, you know, sort of independent venue but
like the DIY circuit, you know, and so that it
(14:24):
just didn't It just didn't occur to us to to
either enter it for the charts or enter it for
the Mercury. You know, we didn't think, do you know
what I mean? But then the Mercury actually tweeted us
and said, oh, next time hopefully, I really yeah, But
we didn't win the next time.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
No, I mean, was there like, have you managed to
work out what it was about that record that connected
in the way, because at that point you've been plugging
away at it, you had sure, So what is it
about divide an Exit made it get this?
Speaker 1 (14:58):
I just I just think they true colors of the
coalition had started to emerge, you know, the kind of
what people saw as the complete I don't know, gas
lighting of Nick thing from the yeah, with the student
thing and all that, and just a general sourness that
(15:20):
was starting to take over in England, you know. And
I think that what I was writing about just connected
with that, with that energy, you know what I mean.
I mean a lot of the stuff on there was
talking about gigs, the loneliness of touring, but also what
I was seeing around me. There was a dig at
the Royals in there. All that kind of stuff just
(15:42):
fell in and married itself to the general energy of
that period thing.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Yeah, and it was and I suppose all sterited dogs
had like laid a little bit of a foundation a
little bit, yeah, got it got into a few yea sure.
But then this one was the called where suddenly Pitchfork
were writing.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
About it, and yeah, I mean it was in the
New Yorker fucking everywhere, Mark Fisher.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Mark Fisher wrote your wire.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
And loads of stuff. Obviously it got into the Guardian.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
And were you like from your from the inside, were
you and was your manager? Because at that time, as
you and Andrew your manager is that the team is
there like a had you put like someone doing press
on it like a pr or was it just we
got PR eventually?
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Because how is it getting to like the New Yorker did?
Do you know?
Speaker 1 (16:38):
It was just word of mouth with austerity dogs? And
then I think we got if I remember rightly, we
had PR for dividing exit, I think. And it's a
PR company that just ran a corner. I forgot what
they're called actually, And it probably shout into the into
the into his phone if he's if he's listening to this,
but yeah, sorry mate, but yeah, yeah, that was it.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
I mean, I love it. It's still one of my
favorite records of yours for sure. But as I say,
like obviously before, like there were records before. That's something
you put out yourself before you started with Andrew and stuff,
because there was six before. Uh huh can you can
you remember them?
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (17:19):
In order?
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Can you just listen them for anyone?
Speaker 1 (17:21):
That Sleep of Mods was the first one, self titled,
and then it was he said he can what was
it Dead Cities? Was it Dead Cities?
Speaker 3 (17:34):
I've got down the Mecon.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
No, it was the Mecon Yeah, oh yeah, I remember him.
And then it was the Originator. Then it was a Specter,
and then it was wank, which Andrew.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Was what a specta specter is like a.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Spector was the James Bond doctor. No, it was a
sign of the criminal organization.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
That's what you've got the yes, Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
So I kind of kind of tried to draw down
from that to try and you know, give an idea
of what I was starting to get an idea about about,
you know, being conscious of my standing in society and
you know, my upbringing and whatever.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
You know, so.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
You know, Specter be in the evil government and yeah, yeah,
you know they all seeing whatever, you know, pretty basic stuff,
but you know, a.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Good name for a record.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Those records alike, they're not wildly widely available. They're not
on streaming. No, what what were they? Were they CDRs?
Speaker 1 (18:41):
CDRs?
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (18:42):
And were they was that something that you would you
just flog them at gigs.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Just flog ill we copy. We'd get fifty printed of
each one. Every time I release an album, which was
the first two were done over three years, and then
I had two years off and then did Originate. I
had another two years off, and then did Spector, I think,
and then that's when I met Andrew. So yeah, every
(19:07):
time we did them, we did fifty copies of each.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
So there's out there at the moment if that's if
all of them are still around in circation as fifty.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Yeah, we reissued Specter and the Mecon and the Originator
I think about two years into when we took off.
So there's a load of reissues knocking about vinyl record
on CD onds. Okay, there's an album called Retweeted which
(19:40):
has got all the best of all the old stuff,
right okay, and that's really rare. I think we copied
about five hundred of those. I think they're going for
about six hundred quid.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Now have you seen any of the original CDRs knocking about?
They must be worth it.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
I've got a couple of home. I didn't save any,
like an idiot, but what you do you know? I mean,
at that point, you're not really thinking it's going to
be this. I didn't think anything. I remember doing a
gig in Margate when I we released the Meat, when
I released the mec On, and this skinhead got in
touch on my Space and was like, I really want
you to come down, ex skinhead, I want you to
(20:16):
come down and do a gig for me. And I'm like,
all right, okay, so I went down took some CDs
because you're going to be famous one day, I said,
I'm not. I just could not see it, you.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Know, Yeah, you're out there with your CDs, your fifty
odd CDs? Do they would? They go quite quickly though,
M Yeah, yeah they would. Yeah. When was the last
time you listened to to those old records? When would
you like? When would you have last listen?
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Occasionally? Quick listen? Yeah, listen I quick listen. Yeah. Some
of them are shocking, some of the lyrics are shocking,
but some of the ideas are really good. Some of
the more singar ones I thought were interesting, especially on
the mek On high Noon tracks like that really interesting.
(21:10):
I don't know. If one sticks in my head, then
i'll after a couple of days, if it's still not gone,
I'll listen to it again and just you know, just
to see what the fuss was all.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Yeah, And to anyone that hasn't heard them, which is
going to be a lot of people, really like, like,
what did it sound like? What? What did those records
sound like comparatively to like, I guess, I guess pre
wank because Wank's when when Andrew turns up it starts
sounding like what we know.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yes, yes, yes, described the heavy loops taken from records.
We didn't know how to sample. There was myself and
my friend Simon Parferman, who I've known from another electronic project,
and he agreed to engineer the ideas I had. He
thought they were a bit zany, but he agreed to. Nevertheless,
(22:00):
as long as I bought some booze, it was all right.
So on Saturday, which was the only day we could
do it because it was busy or week recording other bands,
we'd go in there. I'll bring in loops from Ronnie sighs, pistols,
the jam, anything like that, some hip hop stuff, sliding
the family Stone, stuff like that, and then we would
(22:22):
just loop little bits of it and then I would
put over. Then I would start, you know, ranting over
the top stuff that I'd written. Do you know what
I mean?
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Is that why this stuff is not on streaming? Is
it like a sample? It's just a.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Sample clearance thing. And plus I think so again, you know,
some of the lyrics were dodgy, but there's an anger
in all of those early ones that I don't even
think we captured in the stuff that me and Andrew
did you know? So, you know, I'm quite proud of him,
I'll be honest. You know, it was where I learned
to formulate tunes, where I learned to produce things to
(23:00):
a certain degree, and it was the backbone to what
you're listening to now, really, you know.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
So it's also quite nice to have those sort of
rare we get everything now at the instantly, oh god.
And it's nice to know that there's fifty CDRs of
the mecon as, like these ultra rarities, and if you've
got one, you're very fortunate. And if you find one,
you're very fortunate. Yeah. Whereas it you know, if you
(23:27):
did just whack them all up on Spotify and then
suddenly you know, there's a mystique around them as well, right,
I think. So it's quite nice for people to imagine
what they've handed.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Well.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
I think the first one I had a manager in London.
I was doing the toilet circuit around here for a
bit about two thousand and seven, around the time of
Selfish Common sort of who Else No Bra?
Speaker 3 (23:49):
If you can remember No Bra.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
And Andrew weatherall played R and B. Paul Off the
first album on his podcast and it was just such
a because obviously two loan two learned swordsman's were a
big influence, and I just couldn't believe it, and I
thought I'd made it. And occasionally I get people from
the past sort of getting in touch text to me
and saying, I've just doard you on your what's that
(24:13):
sleeping mod thing? It's really good, you know, and you think, oh, okay,
you know. So something was starting to stir, you know
what I mean?
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Yeah, I mean was it going well, let's let's take
around the time of the Originator album three. Yeah, is
it like, how is it? How is it going? Because
it's just you terrible? Then it was still going bad.
It was going bad.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Yeah, the manager in London, it wasn't really working. I
had moved. I was living at my mum's at the time,
and I just met clear my wife, and I think
what happened. I got the sack from a job and
I called her up and said, I've just been fucking sack.
(24:59):
Said you just going to have to move in with me,
you know. So I had to. She lived in Nottingham,
where i'd moved from. I had to go back to
my mom's cause I had no money. I was down
and out. I thought, I don't want to go back
to Nottingham. But at the same time, it was like
we'd met, we were getting on. I really liked so
we were you know, I thought, okay, I'll move in.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
It was so what was compelling you to like keep
doing it?
Speaker 1 (25:24):
What what compelled me was just the ideas. I think
after the Originator, I remember I had an album launch
which consisted of me and a mate in the pub
and we did some wiz and it was just launch. Yeah,
it was just depressed albums. This was Originator. Okay, Claire
(25:48):
was away working. It was just depressing and I had
to go to work on the Monday. It was horrible. Uh.
And after that I just it was too much. I think,
you know, meeting Cleaire was like this big thing and
we were just quite happy, and I was just we're
just doing things and I just felt like, you know,
(26:09):
it felt good to be with someone. So for six
months I didn't touch it, and then it slowly started
to creep in again and I started getting ideas for Specter.
I think we we looped to Wu Tang beat and
I did something over that. I can't remember the tune,
but that's it slowly started to take form. I think
(26:31):
I've written Your Inmate, which is on austerity dogs, an
early version of that. Yeah, and I pulled in a friend,
John Paul, who expressed her an interest in doing some
poetry over you know. He kind of liked what I
was doing. So yeah, that's when it started growing again.
And that's when our then manager spotted us. I was
(26:54):
supporting a noise artist John can't remember his name, go
from La at this at this club Chameleon where we
last played, you know, And yeah, that's where it all
started to take shape.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
After that. Yeah, that you're one and only album launch.
I don't like them.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
I think I wrote a song about it as well. Actually,
because you just get so many people do an album launch.
It's like you haven't got any fucking fans what you're
on about? The fuck are you doing?
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Just put it out?
Speaker 1 (27:28):
If no one takes to it, then just do another one. Yeah,
there's so much of that fluff still is reallyant there,
I guess.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Yeah, yeah, your creativity is essentially what made you like
That sounds a bit grandiose, but I guess is the
is them?
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Well it is, yeah, I mean it was. It was
always the idea. That's the only thing that pushed it along.
That's the only thing that's ever pushed me along with
music is the idea. And it's it's just as simple
as that. It's not you know, fucking the exposure or this,
or that I've got fucking twenty thousand fans or whatever.
You know, It's it's always just been the idea. It's
(28:03):
got to be good, you know. I just convinced myself
I had to be original in order to get anywhere.
You know, I was not going to make it as
a folk singer or a singer and a guitar band.
Too many people have done it and it just lost
it sparkle.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
You know. Was there any element of you that, like
you were you mentioned like obviously when austerity dogs come out,
You're like, well, you know at that point, what you're
nearly forty, Yeah, were you ever concerned about that as
a factor, because that's something that a lot of people
get hung up now. I was just passed me by,
you know chance.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
No, it did bother me when I was in my
twenties and I got into my thirties that it bothered
me then, But by my early thirties, I was experiencing
so many not great times I just didn't care. After
a while, and the music I was listening to, you know,
I started getting to a loads of old stuff, you know,
Terry Kellyer whatever, you know, loads of stuff Jeff backband,
(29:00):
stuff that I wouldn't have normally touched, and just feeling
really quite thinking, well, this is really studied, you know,
and and I love this, and this is what I
should do. I should really just love something rather than
want to be famous.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
You know.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Obviously, when I discovered the Wu Tang quite late on,
I wasn't bothered when they first came out. It was
all right, of course it was. But I started listening
to that and all of those things just came together,
you know, and reinforced this idea that the creativity is
the important thing, you know what I mean, it's something
also that suits you as well. It's got to suit
(29:40):
you. You've got to be yourself in it. I mean a
lot of people get away we're not being themselves. I
mean that's part of entertainment, isn't it. But I was
big on this idea that it had to suit me
because I'd done so much stuff where it didn't suit
me before that. Obviously that wasn't going to work when
we did Sleepord. When we started doing it me and Simon,
(30:00):
it was like, this really works, but my voice is
fucking awful. My accent is terrible. It was going to
listen to this, It was going to listen to me
going fuck this, fuck that, slag this, twat that. But
it was the only thing I knew how to do.
At the end of it all, it was like that
was the only thing left, just to be myself.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
Yeah, you know, you're sort of doing it therefore as
an artistic expression rather than to be famous or to
get somewhere. Yeah, because and that makes sense because at
that point there's there wasn't really anyone that you could
follow the roadmap of no do you know what I mean?
Like because what you were doing and still do doesn't
(30:44):
really sound like anyone else, especially when you're doing it,
when you're the first to do that thing. I know,
like lots of people like to compare you stylistically to
like the Fall of John Cooper, But it's not like
you could. It's not like you and Andrew be like,
we're going to try and do that. Because the four
were still a band and they were still operating as
a band. Yeah. John Cooper Clark came up in the
(31:05):
seventies at a very different time. Yeah, when he could,
you know, come in on this different scene. Sure, and
then there's you two doing this completely different style of
music that no one's really done before, and you've just
got to make it up as you go along, right.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Yes, which we just couldn't believe because it was working
and it was it was almost as if it took
care of itself after the first album. Yeah, it just
rolled after wank after Yeah, it just it just we
just clicked as a partnership, me and Andrew. For a year.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
It was a bit weird.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
I didn't see him much. The stuff we did do.
I don't think either of us was overly knocked out about. Yeah,
but then we started connecting. It was just really weird
and it was like you read it and read about
that in books, don't you. But it happened to us
and neither of us. We'd gone to the end of
(32:03):
our tether with it, and so and yet there's this
thing that what is it is? I used to say
to him, I just want to sound like the Wu Tang,
just musically sound like Wu Tang. And he got all right.
But then after our Stereodogs, he took it, took it away,
and I didn't talk to him about what he wanted
to do with it. He just did it and he
made it his own and that's when it started really working.
But yeah, there wasn't a rule book as such, but
(32:28):
it was just quite fantastic because I'd always sort of said,
if we make it on our own terms, if we
make it with an original formula, nobody can touch us,
you know, and we can. That's how it should be.
And that's how it turned out.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
Yeah, did you have any idea of what making it was?
What was the well?
Speaker 1 (32:48):
For me? Making it was turning edds in, not in
them initially, and then I got greedy and then it
was like turning heads in London and then it was
like being in the Guardian and why we whyn't win
the Guardian this week? Or why an't within you know,
and say, and then it goes on and it you know,
and that's when that's another whole thing in itself, isn't
(33:09):
it that you need to learn to curb in yourself
your ego essentially? But but yeah, I don't know, I
don't know. I mean, you know, you see some of
these other bands and they they came out just afterwards,
and they get a lot bigger, but they're different. They
appeal universally, whereas we're a little bit more niche. And
(33:32):
you've just got to accept that, you know. And it's
not as if we haven't made a decent job out
of it. So shut up, Jason, and just fucking accept it.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
So, yeah, do you have like how about now, like
where you're at now? Yeah? Do you Because one thing
that we you know, when we've spoken in the past,
the one thing I always ask you the same question,
and it all stems from this one interview that I
read that we did in the magazine around the time
A Divide and Extent, where you you say in that interview,
you know, right now we're the flavor of the month
(34:07):
and people will move on and it is going to happen. Yeah,
and people will stop caring about us as much as
they do right now.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Did I say that?
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (34:14):
Fuck?
Speaker 3 (34:15):
And And that was around the time of b all
this Mercury chat, you know, every everyone of being like
have you had disbandcy for months and and every ever
since then, every time i'd see or we do something.
I always say, Oh do you do you still feel
like it's about to like people are about to just get
bored of him? Whatever, But like, now, what are the
(34:36):
goals left?
Speaker 1 (34:45):
There isn't any goals left, is it? Apart from get bigger,
you know, and to expand on the sound, you know
what I mean, Just to keep writing good stuff. I
don't want to. I don't think it's game over for it.
Neither does Andrew. You know, we still think it's interesting.
(35:10):
So just to keep keep that creative thing going, you know,
whatever it may be. I mean, some people might argue, well,
that's just bollocks. You've sounded the same as you have
for the last three or four albums or whatever, but
I don't think we have. You know, it's moved on it.
Every album is a little bit different, and I think
that's how it should be. That's how I envisage the
(35:31):
longevity of a decent act, you know what I mean.
But you know, you notice I said to get bigger
as the first thing. Probably that that I would like
to get bigger, But who knows.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
What I've always admired about the band is one I
think I think you do still sound like nobody else
that's impressive this far in Yeah, you only sound like yourselves. People.
It has influenced some people, and some of them have
you know, done very well.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
They've done very well.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
Yeah, but they don't. But they're not doing Sleaford mods.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
They're not. No, absolutely not. And as much as I'd
like to think they were back in the day when
it challenged my my my ego and my own you know,
sort of less desirable aspects of my personality. But I
agree with you, No, they haven't. People have done what
they want with it. You know, they've done their own
(36:24):
thing with it. I guess, which is good.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Around the time I divide an exit, Yeah, as we're
talking about that, was there a moment or something that
happened during that time where you and Andrew were like, oh,
hang on, something is happening here.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Yeah, do I totally just yeah, as I said earlier,
tied up in notch, you know that it was writing that,
I'm off to me monster now I'm going to write
a tune. I text him back about an hour later.
I said, oh, all right, one, because I want my
mum's on pissed. I've just wrote this killer guitar or
(37:06):
because I think a week before that we we got
paid for the first time. We weren't very good at
getting paid. You know, how did you get paid? We
got paid cashing and but the manager took the dough
and then he give us the money and we get it.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
You know.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
In the early days, it was like straight after the gig.
But then after a while it was like you won't
get paid for a year, and it was like going on,
you know, and whatever. I'm not here to slander or anything,
but I can remember it was those early days of
getting paid and it was like we were both skinned.
And I remember going around Andrew's flat and I walked in,
(37:45):
I went, fucking got paid and I went you went.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
Oh no, it's fucking brilliant in it.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
And then a week later, I don't know what happened.
We were just we've just done one.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
You know.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
We were getting interviewed by people and people coming into
night in them and interview it was all like blah
blah blah. But yeah, that's that's when when when he
wrote the music for Tied of Bin Knots and we
then I think we had an interview with someone and
then we went back to his house, and I'd had
these lyrics and I've written in Berlin at a gig,
and he'd helped me write them. Actually, in this problem,
(38:16):
we were both in the corner sniggering, you know, put
that in? And yeah, I put that to it and
I walked to work the next morning. I couldn't believe it.
And then our manager had phoned us up and he
was like, fucking hell, this is really good. And yeah,
that's when we knew. That's when we knew, and that's
when the hit not the hit factory. So I don't
(38:38):
know if you could put the word hit to us,
but that's when the factory opened, and it was just
tune after tune.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Sure, do you have distinct memories of making the record?
Like where where did you make? Where did you did
you and Andrew make? It?
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Was it out his flat? It was it's flat? Yeah,
we did the first three albums. Yeah, well Wank Austereid, Dogs,
Divide An Exit and Key Markets. We did it as
flat in the evenings after work. Yeah, predominantly. Sometimes I'll
take a day off or whatever. But it just worked
(39:13):
better if he had some beats or whatever, you know
what I mean. Yeah, So yeah, yeah, quite tense periods.
Also because there was no structure, There was no systems
in place or anything. It was totally free for all. Yeah,
(39:35):
it was quite chaotic, but that's how it should be,
I guess.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
In it, I suppose was it like enjoyable to make?
It was?
Speaker 1 (39:42):
And then it got stressful a bit because after dividing Exit,
I think there was a certain expectation and Andrew had
just met someone and was just quite interested in just
spending time with them, which is fair dues, but I
was like, what what, I got an album to make,
got an album to make, And I remember we went
(40:03):
to the studio to start demos for Key Markets. He
literally made beats upon the spot, stuff like couldn't make
it up and you know, stuff like that. Yeah, no
one's bothered. We literally made upon the spot. But we'd
already the formula was there. Divideing Exit allowed us to
(40:23):
you know, you know, borrow that formula again and just
you know, mimic it, so to speak. Although obviously Key
Markets is a different album I thing, but yeah, we
we kind of existed on that for until English Tapass
and when we signed a rough trade, we knew that
we had to shake things up a little bit.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
That was your first record here, wasn't it?
Speaker 1 (40:42):
It was?
Speaker 3 (40:42):
Yeah, So did that come with a a pressure of
where we're on this we've just signed?
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Not really, I mean it was like it was we
needed singles, so I think the first few demos that
we played, Jeff was like, yeah, I like it, but
that drum beat is really fucking annoying.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
That's a huge but I like it, but I don't
like that we released big part of it, Jeff.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
We released an EP first, and we were like, I mean,
this is our ramshackle where we started to record the
EP and the Chameleon right because the sand engine, the
sand guy for the Chameleon lived at the Chameleon in
a small room and he had a mixing desk in
his bedroom. It was fucking grim and it's like, yeah,
I was like what the I mean, any other person
(41:39):
would have gone, what are you doing this fucking band?
You're on the way up and you're not recording in
a fucking bedroom.
Speaker 3 (41:46):
Come on.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
So eventually we got talking to Jeff Barrow. We released
an EP with Invader Yeah yeah uh, and he you know,
we sort of went down there for a week and recorded.
We got we knocked TCR out and that became the
single for the EP. But that's when we start getting
it started getting a bit more. Oh we need, we
(42:07):
need a single. What the fuck is a single?
Speaker 2 (42:10):
You know?
Speaker 1 (42:10):
And we must have recorded about twenty five songs and
TCR came about the second to last day of the session.
Andrew got beyond the set of drums, I got on
a guitar and then we just looped.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
Whatever we did.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
It sounded a bit like Stranglers. And I had this
waffle that I'd nicked off an earlier Sleeford track that
was done on my own. What was what was it
called people Places Parties from the originator? Okay, I'd nicked
the riff off that and which was a sex pistols riff.
But I kind of re regadged it or whatever, reprocessed
(42:46):
it and rejigged it. Sorry, And yeah, that became a single.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
I've got one last question for you. Sure in the
last ten years, Yeah, how many people have been in
touch to tell you that the Final Countdown is not
by Journey?
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Oh so many? But we did that on purpose. Imagine
did it on purpose? It's like, of course, I know
the Final Countdown is by fucking Europe.
Speaker 4 (43:08):
Jesus Christ. I was born in nineteen seventy. I was
there at the youth club dancing to it. But yes,
so many and they still do on Instagram, still do.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
Excuse me, mate, just so.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
You know, you might want to correct that.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, they still do. Twitter was really
bad for it. What it was, what I tried to
bring across was this thing when you're down to put
me I it was fucking thingy by you know whatever, Yeah,
you know, yeah, and everyone agreeing, but it's the wrong thing.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Midnight Chats is a joint production between Loud and Quiet
and Atomized Studios for iHeartRadio. It's hosted by Stuart Stubbs
and Greg Cochrane, mixed and mastered by float Lines, and
edited by Stuart Stubbs. Find us on Instagram and TikTok
to watch clips from our recordings much much more.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
We are Midnight Chats Pod. For more information, visit loudan
Quiet dot com.
We didn't really talk about it, but it was it
was just an understanding that obviously surely it can't go
anywhere else. We're like in our forties. It's just full
of swearing. It's this thick East Midlands accent. Yeah, it's
clever and that and whatever. It's well written, but and.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
The sun's gone down on another day. Listeners, Welcome to
Midnight Chats. It's our music interview podcast for late night listening.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
My name is Greg.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
I'm here with Stu.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
What's up Stu. Oh. When we record these intros, I'm
finding it amusing how every time we're trying to find
a different way to say it's the end of the day.
But that one was good.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
That was just like that, the sun's come down, the
moon's come out. There you go. Yeah, we're back with
another exciting music interview for you this evening on This
Evening's podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Stewart.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
This is a returning guest on the podcast, somebody we
have had before, but is an absolutely stellar conversation. I
always think. Tell us all about who you've been chatting
to for this week's Midnight Chats.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Yeah, welcome back to the podcast. Jason Williamson from Sleaford Mods.
This episode was recorded at Rough Trade Offices, and I'm
saying that now because I'm aware of the fact that
Jason and I start talking about our surroundings at the
very beginning, and we don't really fully explain it to
the listener. Where we are. We're at Rough Trade. Rough
Trade is, as many people will know, one of the
(01:37):
most formidable independent labels in the world ever, and we
were in the office of the founder of that label,
Jeff Travis, and it was surrounded by some amazing things
on the wall, including a mock up of the Elephant
Stone single artwork that John Squire gave to Jeff Travis.
We mentioned it a little bit in passing, but we're
(02:00):
we're looking at it, and then I realized this is
not a visual medium. Nobody knows what we're talking about.
So that's what that's about.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
I'm imagining you both like two naughty schoolboys, and Jeff
didn't know that you were in his office with his
priceless music memorabilia.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
So when we left once we'd done this interview, I
noticed that Jeff was sort of sat by the door
of the office outside. He had vacated the office very
willingly to us very modest office, very modest for such
an important man in music. But thank you to Jeff
if you're listening, for allowing us to do it there.
It's always really nice to talk to Jason. I've met
(02:37):
him a few different times. These are funny in these interviews,
aren't they, Greg, Because sometimes we really don't know what
we're walking into. We're meeting someone for the very first time,
and we're saying to them, I'm going to record us
talking and I'm hoping you're going to be entertaining, and
I'm hoping I'm going to be good, and I'm hoping
we're going to sort of connect in some way so
that when people listen back to it, it's got something
(02:58):
to it. And then sometimes we get lucky and we
sometimes we meet people more than once, like Jason, So
I have met him a few times and we've done
all the small talk, and we've had that out the
way in previous previous ones. But to its credit, he's
always been very good at conversation. He's very open, and
he's not necessarily the sort of person that I think
(03:20):
the music suggests it is. If you've not listened to
Sleaford Mods, maybe go and listen to it now, or
just listen to maybe twenty five seconds of it, and
you'll get an idea of just how aggressive the music is,
how sweary it is. It's very it's blunt, and it
gives off the impression that the man who's written it
(03:41):
is probably going to smash your head in. But he's
such a lovely, sweet guy, as I think comes across
in this conversation we had.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yeah, definitely, like you're saying, he's on stage persona and
that of him on record, they're not inseparable from the
person that you sort of meet to interview. Obviously the
same person, but he is slightly more gentle and sensitive
in the flesh kind of is I think what you're saying.
Why were you speaking to Sleeford Mods? By the way,
what I like about.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
This is this is actually a focused episode of this
podcast because we're talking very much about a specific time
in the band's history. They are just celebrating. This coming week,
they release a reissue of an album called Divide an Exit,
which was their seventh album. It came out ten years ago,
so they're repressing it and they're putting it out with
(04:32):
some extra bonus content and it's the album that broke them. Really,
they had been going Jason had been doing it on
his own for a good period of time, and then
Andrew from the band joined him two albums before this,
on an album called Wank. I say wank a lot
in this.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Episode, so stud just stop be there, because this episode
definitely contains my all time favorite Midnight That's question, which
is when you say, how did you sound pre wank?
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Yeah? It's deep, isn't it. You don't get this on
the rest is politics. Yeah, we are talking about a
duo here who had an album called Wank. Then they
had an album called Austerity Dogs, which sort of broke
them a little bit, and then this one, Divide an Exit,
came out ten years ago. It sort of really put
them on the map and is the reason why so
(05:26):
many people know about them now. So that's what we're
talking about, and it was just nice to be able
to focus in on something and I think we get
some really good stories from Jason about those early days
and as someone personally who's getting on in life now
and maybe hasn't achieved everything that the younger Stuart Subs
thought he would. I like hearing stories from people who
(05:48):
made it later in life, and Sleaford Mods are one
of those bands. They were in their forties when they
released this album and became successful. So it can happen.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
It can happen, and listen to you. Don't give up
on that dream. You will win Miss America at some point.
Just just keep on plugging away as my advice. Like
you say, this does contain some amazing stories, let's get
into it. One of my favorites in fact is Jason
talking about the Mercury Prize and the fact that they
didn't enter this breakthrough album that you went to go
(06:22):
and speak to him about into the Mercury Prize all
those years ago, like possibly could have been a nail
done winner. But anyway, the Mercury Prize is coming up
soon and so next week on Midnight Chat, Stu and
I are going to be back with a special episode
Looked previewing this year's award. It's a big deal here
in the UK for those listening abroad, but we're gonna
tell you all about it. We're gonna predict who we'd
(06:44):
like to see on the list, We're gonna go behind
the scenes a bit and tell you all about what
happens at the awards and how it gets decided, and
we're gonna place our bets, aren't we, Stu. We're we're
gonna We're gonna ultimately try and do some guest work.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Yeah. I am notoriously shit at this because every single
year I am convinced I can guess all it is twelve,
isn't it. Yeah, I always think I'm gonna know all
twelve Every time I think I probably I think I
average around maybe getting three four at most.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Well ast you says, come back for some white hot
insight this time next week, midnight on Monday. If not,
you know you're nailed on the contenders. We'll trial best.
But in the meantime, this is Stuart speaking to Jason
Williamson from the Mighty Sleepord Mods.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
When was the first time you came into this office?
Would it have been to sign your deal? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (07:42):
I think so.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Would that have been done like in this room that
we're sating.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
It was done in Jeannette's office, which is next door.
It was all a bit of a flory because we
were drunk, but yeah, I was. We were hanging around
and we went in there to sign it. That's where
we had the Champagne as well. And then I think
we came in here. I spoke to Jeff a bit,
and whenever we come in, I just come straight in
(08:07):
here and sit down and we talk, you know, and
you know, tells him, tells me what he didn't like
and what he did like about what we just put
out or whatever, which is always quite Refreshing's.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Good, he's good. He's good at just direct.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah, it's like, you know, like one of those proper managers.
It's like, look, you know, this didn't Yeah, it was
all right. It was a good job, but come on.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
I want more from you. He's pushing you forward.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
But yeah, and he's constantly always thinking about it.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Which is good. Yeah, that's what you want. You want
somebod who's engaged with it completely.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Yeah, I remember it's in the film, isn't it. Yeah.
I remember that you said you were drunk when you
came in. So was that to take the edge of
was it like a nerve? Was it a big deal
coming into Well?
Speaker 1 (08:51):
I always stought I had this thing about signing the
first record deal, and I stored it up in my
head for years and years about it being this massively
fantastic thing and it wasn't you know, for not because
of rough trade or the experience have come down in
and signing it. But you know, these things usually aren't,
(09:11):
are they. It's like when I left work, it was
a massive anti climax. I just got the bus home.
Two days later, I checked into a hotel to you know,
start the support slot on the Specials tour, and it
just felt like another job but not, if you know
what I mean. It was like, I'm in this hotel
(09:32):
room on my own and this is it. It's not
very glamorous at all, touring, isn't you know. But but yeah,
the wife wanted to come down and I regret not,
you know, sort of she should have been there really,
so I regretted that. And then I got home. I
was so drunk. I went to the pub and asked
(09:53):
for a whiskey and he served me in a fucking teacup.
It's like, fuck, you know, this is it?
Speaker 3 (10:00):
It? Right?
Speaker 1 (10:01):
So I had a whiskey and a tea cut and
then stumbled home. It was such a trip coming in
because it's not here now.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
There it is.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
That was the makeup of the Elephant Stone single for
the Stone Roses, which I think John Squire gave to him,
and there was also another thing somewhere, but that's gone
and they nearly signed them, but it didn't. It didn't
come off.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Wow, So that's the prototype, Steve. Yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
I got real buzz out of that. We were very
lucky really getting a partnership with Rough Trade. You know,
we left after each tap pass. They took you back,
they took his back.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Last time we last time you were on the podcast
was in that interim period. Yeah, you just left. Yeah,
and we're maybe thinking, I'm not sure this was a
great idea.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Oh it's a terrible idea. Yeah, you know, but we
parted company with the manager then and it was all wrong.
The energy was just gone. So we came back, you
know what I mean. So, yeah, we've been very lucky.
They let us do they don't let us do what
well they do, let us do what we want, but
you know, they leave us alone, and they'll give us
(11:16):
advice if they think we need it, you know, which
I'm always open to, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
We're here predominantly to talk about the ten years of
Divide an exit, Yeah, which was you're depending where you're
counting from your seventh record. Maybe we'd untangle that in
a little bit, but it feels like that record from
the outside at least is a very special record for you.
And Andrew widely considered your breakthrough record from like the outside, Yeah,
(11:42):
do you see it that way?
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah? Yeah, it was. I mean Austereity Dogs was like, oh,
this works, and then Divide next it was like, oh
fucking hell, I think we'd written Tied Up in Knots
and just couldn't believe it. We didn't think there'd be
a life after that first Mostery Dogs. To be honest,
I was quite happy with getting getting repped and recognized
(12:07):
around tam through that album. Just to achieve a little
bit of local recognition was really all we were looking for.
And then we kept right in as you do, and
Tied Up in Knots came about and tweet tweet tweet,
and we're just an air conditioning and we thought, oh,
(12:28):
this is the second album, you know, and that's when
it kicked off. So it was quite a surprise really.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
So you'd even had you had that conversation like once
you once you put all Steric Dogs out, had you
had you both acknowledged with each other like this might
be this might just be.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
We didn't really talk about it, but it was just
it was just an understanding that obviously, surely it can't
go anywhere else. We're like in our forties. It's just
full of swearing. It's it's this thick East Midlands accent. Yeah,
it's it's clever and that and whatever. It's well written,
(13:06):
but and you know, but then it just did you
know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Yeah, I suppose at that point you're thinking there's not
actually a market for this.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
There wasn't a market for it, no, because at the
time it was just you know, it was the hangover
of the Libertines, the shadow of Oasis was still there.
You know, bands like the Kooks, stuff like that, do
you know what I mean? One Bats is it? You know,
stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
There was I haven't heard the one Bats no time,
who else, just loads of stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
So it was like jakee Borg I think been out
for about a year and but you know, if it's
something else needed to happen, and I think we just
came along at the right time, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
I distinctly remember it coming out, and I remember I
remember the buzz on it, and I remember a lot
of people saying, this is the record that's going to
win the Mercury this year. Oh god, yeah, did you
guys even did you enter it into the make their tweet?
Speaker 1 (14:04):
No, they didn't. We didn't. I mean, you know, we
were quite DIY operation, and our manager was very much
into that kind of thing. You know, we were kind
of read it, cut our teeth on the noise and
sort of independent, you know, sort of independent venue but
like the DIY circuit, you know, and so that it
(14:24):
just didn't It just didn't occur to us to to
either enter it for the charts or enter it for
the Mercury. You know, we didn't think, do you know
what I mean? But then the Mercury actually tweeted us
and said, oh, next time hopefully, I really yeah, But
we didn't win the next time.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
No, I mean, was there like, have you managed to
work out what it was about that record that connected
in the way, because at that point you've been plugging
away at it, you had sure, So what is it
about divide an Exit made it get this?
Speaker 1 (14:58):
I just I just think they true colors of the
coalition had started to emerge, you know, the kind of
what people saw as the complete I don't know, gas
lighting of Nick thing from the yeah, with the student
thing and all that, and just a general sourness that
(15:20):
was starting to take over in England, you know. And
I think that what I was writing about just connected
with that, with that energy, you know what I mean.
I mean a lot of the stuff on there was
talking about gigs, the loneliness of touring, but also what
I was seeing around me. There was a dig at
the Royals in there. All that kind of stuff just
(15:42):
fell in and married itself to the general energy of
that period thing.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Yeah, and it was and I suppose all sterited dogs
had like laid a little bit of a foundation a
little bit, yeah, got it got into a few yea sure.
But then this one was the called where suddenly Pitchfork
were writing.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
About it, and yeah, I mean it was in the
New Yorker fucking everywhere, Mark Fisher.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Mark Fisher wrote your wire.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
And loads of stuff. Obviously it got into the Guardian.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
And were you like from your from the inside, were
you and was your manager? Because at that time, as
you and Andrew your manager is that the team is
there like a had you put like someone doing press
on it like a pr or was it just we
got PR eventually?
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Because how is it getting to like the New Yorker did?
Do you know?
Speaker 1 (16:38):
It was just word of mouth with austerity dogs? And
then I think we got if I remember rightly, we
had PR for dividing exit, I think. And it's a
PR company that just ran a corner. I forgot what
they're called actually, And it probably shout into the into
the into his phone if he's if he's listening to this,
but yeah, sorry mate, but yeah, yeah, that was it.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
I mean, I love it. It's still one of my
favorite records of yours for sure. But as I say,
like obviously before, like there were records before. That's something
you put out yourself before you started with Andrew and stuff,
because there was six before. Uh huh can you can
you remember them?
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (17:19):
In order?
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Can you just listen them for anyone?
Speaker 1 (17:21):
That Sleep of Mods was the first one, self titled,
and then it was he said he can what was
it Dead Cities? Was it Dead Cities?
Speaker 3 (17:34):
I've got down the Mecon.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
No, it was the Mecon Yeah, oh yeah, I remember him.
And then it was the Originator. Then it was a Specter,
and then it was wank, which Andrew.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Was what a specta specter is like a.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Spector was the James Bond doctor. No, it was a
sign of the criminal organization.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
That's what you've got the yes, Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
So I kind of kind of tried to draw down
from that to try and you know, give an idea
of what I was starting to get an idea about about,
you know, being conscious of my standing in society and
you know, my upbringing and whatever.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
You know, so.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
You know, Specter be in the evil government and yeah, yeah,
you know they all seeing whatever, you know, pretty basic stuff,
but you know, a.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Good name for a record.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Those records alike, they're not wildly widely available. They're not
on streaming. No, what what were they? Were they CDRs?
Speaker 1 (18:41):
CDRs?
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (18:42):
And were they was that something that you would you
just flog them at gigs.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Just flog ill we copy. We'd get fifty printed of
each one. Every time I release an album, which was
the first two were done over three years, and then
I had two years off and then did Originate. I
had another two years off, and then did Spector, I think,
and then that's when I met Andrew. So yeah, every
(19:07):
time we did them, we did fifty copies of each.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
So there's out there at the moment if that's if
all of them are still around in circation as fifty.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Yeah, we reissued Specter and the Mecon and the Originator
I think about two years into when we took off.
So there's a load of reissues knocking about vinyl record
on CD onds. Okay, there's an album called Retweeted which
(19:40):
has got all the best of all the old stuff,
right okay, and that's really rare. I think we copied
about five hundred of those. I think they're going for
about six hundred quid.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Now have you seen any of the original CDRs knocking about?
They must be worth it.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
I've got a couple of home. I didn't save any,
like an idiot, but what you do you know? I mean,
at that point, you're not really thinking it's going to
be this. I didn't think anything. I remember doing a
gig in Margate when I we released the Meat, when
I released the mec On, and this skinhead got in
touch on my Space and was like, I really want
you to come down, ex skinhead, I want you to
(20:16):
come down and do a gig for me. And I'm like,
all right, okay, so I went down took some CDs
because you're going to be famous one day, I said,
I'm not. I just could not see it, you.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Know, Yeah, you're out there with your CDs, your fifty
odd CDs? Do they would? They go quite quickly though,
M Yeah, yeah they would. Yeah. When was the last
time you listened to to those old records? When would
you like? When would you have last listen?
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Occasionally? Quick listen? Yeah, listen I quick listen. Yeah. Some
of them are shocking, some of the lyrics are shocking,
but some of the ideas are really good. Some of
the more singar ones I thought were interesting, especially on
the mek On high Noon tracks like that really interesting.
(21:10):
I don't know. If one sticks in my head, then
i'll after a couple of days, if it's still not gone,
I'll listen to it again and just you know, just
to see what the fuss was all.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Yeah, And to anyone that hasn't heard them, which is
going to be a lot of people, really like, like,
what did it sound like? What? What did those records
sound like comparatively to like, I guess, I guess pre
wank because Wank's when when Andrew turns up it starts
sounding like what we know.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yes, yes, yes, described the heavy loops taken from records.
We didn't know how to sample. There was myself and
my friend Simon Parferman, who I've known from another electronic project,
and he agreed to engineer the ideas I had. He
thought they were a bit zany, but he agreed to. Nevertheless,
(22:00):
as long as I bought some booze, it was all right.
So on Saturday, which was the only day we could
do it because it was busy or week recording other bands,
we'd go in there. I'll bring in loops from Ronnie sighs, pistols,
the jam, anything like that, some hip hop stuff, sliding
the family Stone, stuff like that, and then we would
(22:22):
just loop little bits of it and then I would
put over. Then I would start, you know, ranting over
the top stuff that I'd written. Do you know what
I mean?
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Is that why this stuff is not on streaming? Is
it like a sample? It's just a.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Sample clearance thing. And plus I think so again, you know,
some of the lyrics were dodgy, but there's an anger
in all of those early ones that I don't even
think we captured in the stuff that me and Andrew
did you know? So, you know, I'm quite proud of him,
I'll be honest. You know, it was where I learned
to formulate tunes, where I learned to produce things to
(23:00):
a certain degree, and it was the backbone to what
you're listening to now, really, you know.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
So it's also quite nice to have those sort of
rare we get everything now at the instantly, oh god.
And it's nice to know that there's fifty CDRs of
the mecon as, like these ultra rarities, and if you've
got one, you're very fortunate. And if you find one,
you're very fortunate. Yeah. Whereas it you know, if you
(23:27):
did just whack them all up on Spotify and then
suddenly you know, there's a mystique around them as well, right,
I think. So it's quite nice for people to imagine
what they've handed.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Well.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
I think the first one I had a manager in London.
I was doing the toilet circuit around here for a
bit about two thousand and seven, around the time of
Selfish Common sort of who Else No Bra?
Speaker 3 (23:49):
If you can remember No Bra.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
And Andrew weatherall played R and B. Paul Off the
first album on his podcast and it was just such
a because obviously two loan two learned swordsman's were a
big influence, and I just couldn't believe it, and I
thought I'd made it. And occasionally I get people from
the past sort of getting in touch text to me
and saying, I've just doard you on your what's that
(24:13):
sleeping mod thing? It's really good, you know, and you think, oh, okay,
you know. So something was starting to stir, you know
what I mean?
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Yeah, I mean was it going well, let's let's take
around the time of the Originator album three. Yeah, is
it like, how is it? How is it going? Because
it's just you terrible? Then it was still going bad.
It was going bad.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Yeah, the manager in London, it wasn't really working. I
had moved. I was living at my mum's at the time,
and I just met clear my wife, and I think
what happened. I got the sack from a job and
I called her up and said, I've just been fucking sack.
(24:59):
Said you just going to have to move in with me,
you know. So I had to. She lived in Nottingham,
where i'd moved from. I had to go back to
my mom's cause I had no money. I was down
and out. I thought, I don't want to go back
to Nottingham. But at the same time, it was like
we'd met, we were getting on. I really liked so
we were you know, I thought, okay, I'll move in.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
It was so what was compelling you to like keep
doing it?
Speaker 1 (25:24):
What what compelled me was just the ideas. I think
after the Originator, I remember I had an album launch
which consisted of me and a mate in the pub
and we did some wiz and it was just launch. Yeah,
it was just depressed albums. This was Originator. Okay, Claire
(25:48):
was away working. It was just depressing and I had
to go to work on the Monday. It was horrible. Uh.
And after that I just it was too much. I think,
you know, meeting Cleaire was like this big thing and
we were just quite happy, and I was just we're
just doing things and I just felt like, you know,
(26:09):
it felt good to be with someone. So for six
months I didn't touch it, and then it slowly started
to creep in again and I started getting ideas for Specter.
I think we we looped to Wu Tang beat and
I did something over that. I can't remember the tune,
but that's it slowly started to take form. I think
(26:31):
I've written Your Inmate, which is on austerity dogs, an
early version of that. Yeah, and I pulled in a friend,
John Paul, who expressed her an interest in doing some
poetry over you know. He kind of liked what I
was doing. So yeah, that's when it started growing again.
And that's when our then manager spotted us. I was
(26:54):
supporting a noise artist John can't remember his name, go
from La at this at this club Chameleon where we
last played, you know, And yeah, that's where it all
started to take shape.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
After that. Yeah, that you're one and only album launch.
I don't like them.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
I think I wrote a song about it as well. Actually,
because you just get so many people do an album launch.
It's like you haven't got any fucking fans what you're
on about? The fuck are you doing?
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Just put it out?
Speaker 1 (27:28):
If no one takes to it, then just do another one. Yeah,
there's so much of that fluff still is reallyant there,
I guess.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Yeah, yeah, your creativity is essentially what made you like
That sounds a bit grandiose, but I guess is the
is them?
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Well it is, yeah, I mean it was. It was
always the idea. That's the only thing that pushed it along.
That's the only thing that's ever pushed me along with
music is the idea. And it's it's just as simple
as that. It's not you know, fucking the exposure or this,
or that I've got fucking twenty thousand fans or whatever.
You know, It's it's always just been the idea. It's
(28:03):
got to be good, you know. I just convinced myself
I had to be original in order to get anywhere.
You know, I was not going to make it as
a folk singer or a singer and a guitar band.
Too many people have done it and it just lost
it sparkle.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
You know. Was there any element of you that, like
you were you mentioned like obviously when austerity dogs come out,
You're like, well, you know at that point, what you're
nearly forty, Yeah, were you ever concerned about that as
a factor, because that's something that a lot of people
get hung up now. I was just passed me by,
you know chance.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
No, it did bother me when I was in my
twenties and I got into my thirties that it bothered
me then, But by my early thirties, I was experiencing
so many not great times I just didn't care. After
a while, and the music I was listening to, you know,
I started getting to a loads of old stuff, you know,
Terry Kellyer whatever, you know, loads of stuff Jeff backband,
(29:00):
stuff that I wouldn't have normally touched, and just feeling
really quite thinking, well, this is really studied, you know,
and and I love this, and this is what I
should do. I should really just love something rather than
want to be famous.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
You know.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Obviously, when I discovered the Wu Tang quite late on,
I wasn't bothered when they first came out. It was
all right, of course it was. But I started listening
to that and all of those things just came together,
you know, and reinforced this idea that the creativity is
the important thing, you know what I mean, it's something
also that suits you as well. It's got to suit
(29:40):
you. You've got to be yourself in it. I mean a
lot of people get away we're not being themselves. I
mean that's part of entertainment, isn't it. But I was
big on this idea that it had to suit me
because I'd done so much stuff where it didn't suit
me before that. Obviously that wasn't going to work when
we did Sleepord. When we started doing it me and Simon,
(30:00):
it was like, this really works, but my voice is
fucking awful. My accent is terrible. It was going to
listen to this, It was going to listen to me
going fuck this, fuck that, slag this, twat that. But
it was the only thing I knew how to do.
At the end of it all, it was like that
was the only thing left, just to be myself.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
Yeah, you know, you're sort of doing it therefore as
an artistic expression rather than to be famous or to
get somewhere. Yeah, because and that makes sense because at
that point there's there wasn't really anyone that you could
follow the roadmap of no do you know what I mean?
Like because what you were doing and still do doesn't
(30:44):
really sound like anyone else, especially when you're doing it,
when you're the first to do that thing. I know,
like lots of people like to compare you stylistically to
like the Fall of John Cooper, But it's not like
you could. It's not like you and Andrew be like,
we're going to try and do that. Because the four
were still a band and they were still operating as
a band. Yeah. John Cooper Clark came up in the
(31:05):
seventies at a very different time. Yeah, when he could,
you know, come in on this different scene. Sure, and
then there's you two doing this completely different style of
music that no one's really done before, and you've just
got to make it up as you go along, right.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Yes, which we just couldn't believe because it was working
and it was it was almost as if it took
care of itself after the first album. Yeah, it just
rolled after wank after Yeah, it just it just we
just clicked as a partnership, me and Andrew. For a year.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
It was a bit weird.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
I didn't see him much. The stuff we did do.
I don't think either of us was overly knocked out about. Yeah,
but then we started connecting. It was just really weird
and it was like you read it and read about
that in books, don't you. But it happened to us
and neither of us. We'd gone to the end of
(32:03):
our tether with it, and so and yet there's this
thing that what is it is? I used to say
to him, I just want to sound like the Wu Tang,
just musically sound like Wu Tang. And he got all right.
But then after our Stereodogs, he took it, took it away,
and I didn't talk to him about what he wanted
to do with it. He just did it and he
made it his own and that's when it started really working.
But yeah, there wasn't a rule book as such, but
(32:28):
it was just quite fantastic because I'd always sort of said,
if we make it on our own terms, if we
make it with an original formula, nobody can touch us,
you know, and we can. That's how it should be.
And that's how it turned out.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
Yeah, did you have any idea of what making it was?
What was the well?
Speaker 1 (32:48):
For me? Making it was turning edds in, not in
them initially, and then I got greedy and then it
was like turning heads in London and then it was
like being in the Guardian and why we whyn't win
the Guardian this week? Or why an't within you know,
and say, and then it goes on and it you know,
and that's when that's another whole thing in itself, isn't
(33:09):
it that you need to learn to curb in yourself
your ego essentially? But but yeah, I don't know, I
don't know. I mean, you know, you see some of
these other bands and they they came out just afterwards,
and they get a lot bigger, but they're different. They
appeal universally, whereas we're a little bit more niche. And
(33:32):
you've just got to accept that, you know. And it's
not as if we haven't made a decent job out
of it. So shut up, Jason, and just fucking accept it.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
So, yeah, do you have like how about now, like
where you're at now? Yeah? Do you Because one thing
that we you know, when we've spoken in the past,
the one thing I always ask you the same question,
and it all stems from this one interview that I
read that we did in the magazine around the time
A Divide and Extent, where you you say in that interview,
you know, right now we're the flavor of the month
(34:07):
and people will move on and it is going to happen. Yeah,
and people will stop caring about us as much as
they do right now.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Did I say that?
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (34:14):
Fuck?
Speaker 3 (34:15):
And And that was around the time of b all
this Mercury chat, you know, every everyone of being like
have you had disbandcy for months and and every ever
since then, every time i'd see or we do something.
I always say, Oh do you do you still feel
like it's about to like people are about to just get
bored of him? Whatever, But like, now, what are the
(34:36):
goals left?
Speaker 1 (34:45):
There isn't any goals left, is it? Apart from get bigger,
you know, and to expand on the sound, you know
what I mean, Just to keep writing good stuff. I
don't want to. I don't think it's game over for it.
Neither does Andrew. You know, we still think it's interesting.
(35:10):
So just to keep keep that creative thing going, you know,
whatever it may be. I mean, some people might argue, well,
that's just bollocks. You've sounded the same as you have
for the last three or four albums or whatever, but
I don't think we have. You know, it's moved on it.
Every album is a little bit different, and I think
that's how it should be. That's how I envisage the
(35:31):
longevity of a decent act, you know what I mean.
But you know, you notice I said to get bigger
as the first thing. Probably that that I would like
to get bigger, But who knows.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
What I've always admired about the band is one I
think I think you do still sound like nobody else
that's impressive this far in Yeah, you only sound like yourselves. People.
It has influenced some people, and some of them have
you know, done very well.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
They've done very well.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
Yeah, but they don't. But they're not doing Sleaford mods.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
They're not. No, absolutely not. And as much as I'd
like to think they were back in the day when
it challenged my my my ego and my own you know,
sort of less desirable aspects of my personality. But I
agree with you, No, they haven't. People have done what
they want with it. You know, they've done their own
(36:24):
thing with it. I guess, which is good.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Around the time I divide an exit, Yeah, as we're
talking about that, was there a moment or something that
happened during that time where you and Andrew were like, oh,
hang on, something is happening here.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Yeah, do I totally just yeah, as I said earlier,
tied up in notch, you know that it was writing that,
I'm off to me monster now I'm going to write
a tune. I text him back about an hour later.
I said, oh, all right, one, because I want my
mum's on pissed. I've just wrote this killer guitar or
(37:06):
because I think a week before that we we got
paid for the first time. We weren't very good at
getting paid. You know, how did you get paid? We
got paid cashing and but the manager took the dough
and then he give us the money and we get it.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
You know.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
In the early days, it was like straight after the gig.
But then after a while it was like you won't
get paid for a year, and it was like going on,
you know, and whatever. I'm not here to slander or anything,
but I can remember it was those early days of
getting paid and it was like we were both skinned.
And I remember going around Andrew's flat and I walked in,
(37:45):
I went, fucking got paid and I went you went.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
Oh no, it's fucking brilliant in it.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
And then a week later, I don't know what happened.
We were just we've just done one.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
You know.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
We were getting interviewed by people and people coming into
night in them and interview it was all like blah
blah blah. But yeah, that's that's when when when he
wrote the music for Tied of Bin Knots and we
then I think we had an interview with someone and
then we went back to his house, and I'd had
these lyrics and I've written in Berlin at a gig,
and he'd helped me write them. Actually, in this problem,
(38:16):
we were both in the corner sniggering, you know, put
that in? And yeah, I put that to it and
I walked to work the next morning. I couldn't believe it.
And then our manager had phoned us up and he
was like, fucking hell, this is really good. And yeah,
that's when we knew. That's when we knew, and that's
when the hit not the hit factory. So I don't
(38:38):
know if you could put the word hit to us,
but that's when the factory opened, and it was just
tune after tune.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Sure, do you have distinct memories of making the record?
Like where where did you make? Where did you did
you and Andrew make? It?
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Was it out his flat? It was it's flat? Yeah,
we did the first three albums. Yeah, well Wank Austereid, Dogs,
Divide An Exit and Key Markets. We did it as
flat in the evenings after work. Yeah, predominantly. Sometimes I'll
take a day off or whatever. But it just worked
(39:13):
better if he had some beats or whatever, you know
what I mean. Yeah, So yeah, yeah, quite tense periods.
Also because there was no structure, There was no systems
in place or anything. It was totally free for all. Yeah,
(39:35):
it was quite chaotic, but that's how it should be,
I guess.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
In it, I suppose was it like enjoyable to make?
It was?
Speaker 1 (39:42):
And then it got stressful a bit because after dividing Exit,
I think there was a certain expectation and Andrew had
just met someone and was just quite interested in just
spending time with them, which is fair dues, but I
was like, what what, I got an album to make,
got an album to make, And I remember we went
(40:03):
to the studio to start demos for Key Markets. He
literally made beats upon the spot, stuff like couldn't make
it up and you know, stuff like that. Yeah, no
one's bothered. We literally made upon the spot. But we'd
already the formula was there. Divideing Exit allowed us to
(40:23):
you know, you know, borrow that formula again and just
you know, mimic it, so to speak. Although obviously Key
Markets is a different album I thing, but yeah, we
we kind of existed on that for until English Tapass
and when we signed a rough trade, we knew that
we had to shake things up a little bit.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
That was your first record here, wasn't it?
Speaker 1 (40:42):
It was?
Speaker 3 (40:42):
Yeah, So did that come with a a pressure of
where we're on this we've just signed?
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Not really, I mean it was like it was we
needed singles, so I think the first few demos that
we played, Jeff was like, yeah, I like it, but
that drum beat is really fucking annoying.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
That's a huge but I like it, but I don't
like that we released big part of it, Jeff.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
We released an EP first, and we were like, I mean,
this is our ramshackle where we started to record the
EP and the Chameleon right because the sand engine, the
sand guy for the Chameleon lived at the Chameleon in
a small room and he had a mixing desk in
his bedroom. It was fucking grim and it's like, yeah,
I was like what the I mean, any other person
(41:39):
would have gone, what are you doing this fucking band?
You're on the way up and you're not recording in
a fucking bedroom.
Speaker 3 (41:46):
Come on.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
So eventually we got talking to Jeff Barrow. We released
an EP with Invader Yeah yeah uh, and he you know,
we sort of went down there for a week and recorded.
We got we knocked TCR out and that became the
single for the EP. But that's when we start getting
it started getting a bit more. Oh we need, we
(42:07):
need a single. What the fuck is a single?
Speaker 2 (42:10):
You know?
Speaker 1 (42:10):
And we must have recorded about twenty five songs and
TCR came about the second to last day of the session.
Andrew got beyond the set of drums, I got on
a guitar and then we just looped.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
Whatever we did.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
It sounded a bit like Stranglers. And I had this
waffle that I'd nicked off an earlier Sleeford track that
was done on my own. What was what was it
called people Places Parties from the originator? Okay, I'd nicked
the riff off that and which was a sex pistols riff.
But I kind of re regadged it or whatever, reprocessed
(42:46):
it and rejigged it. Sorry, And yeah, that became a single.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
I've got one last question for you. Sure in the
last ten years, Yeah, how many people have been in
touch to tell you that the Final Countdown is not
by Journey?
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Oh so many? But we did that on purpose. Imagine
did it on purpose? It's like, of course, I know
the Final Countdown is by fucking Europe.
Speaker 4 (43:08):
Jesus Christ. I was born in nineteen seventy. I was
there at the youth club dancing to it. But yes,
so many and they still do on Instagram, still do.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
Excuse me, mate, just so.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
You know, you might want to correct that.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, they still do. Twitter was really
bad for it. What it was, what I tried to
bring across was this thing when you're down to put
me I it was fucking thingy by you know whatever, Yeah,
you know, yeah, and everyone agreeing, but it's the wrong thing.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Midnight Chats is a joint production between Loud and Quiet
and Atomized Studios for iHeartRadio. It's hosted by Stuart Stubbs
and Greg Cochrane, mixed and mastered by float Lines, and
edited by Stuart Stubbs. Find us on Instagram and TikTok
to watch clips from our recordings much much more.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
We are Midnight Chats Pod. For more information, visit loudan
Quiet dot com.
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