Jesus Jones – the British alt-dance rockers – are playing their seminal album Doubt in full when they tour Australia in March. We catch up with frontman Mike Edwards to get the scoop on the tour and new material. Right Here, Right Now. (Sorry, it had to be done.)
By Angela Allan.
You’re playing Doubt in full on your tour – how did this come about?
For a start, there are songs on Doubt that we had never played live before. It’s a fascinating idea that you can take a set of songs developed in the vinyl era – so you had the end of side one and the start of side two. So you had to have a think about the running order as you had to lift the medium up and turn it over and start all over again.
How do you take your idea and make it work within a set of songs live?
To be honest, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I listened back to Doubt, which I hadn’t done in a long time, and there were songs on there that I thought, ‘dear God, we can’t inflict these songs on a paying public.’ These songs were there to kind of balance out the saccharine pop stuff. Some of those things by and large were, with 25 years’ hindsight, absolute rubbish. So we thought, ‘how are we going make these songs work live?’ So it was one, the curiosity of how it work full stop; two, playing some of the songs we’d never played live, and three, how do we play the songs live that were difficult to play live? So those things made a really interesting prospect.
With Right Here, Right Now, I suspect everyone knows this song. A lot of songwriters when they write a song don’t know they’re penning a hit, was this the case for you?
When you’re writing songs – songs are easy to write where you’re not having to force it and not having to go back a few days later and re-write it. You’re know you’re onto something good when a song just flows. This was the case with Right Here, Right Now. It was done very quickly, which is usually a good sign. When I got to the end, I thought, ‘this is a good one.’ So as thrilled as I was with this piece of music I thought was really good, I rushed it down to the record company, which was down the road in London, and they said, ‘Yeah, it’s pretty good. Go and write a few more.’ So it just goes to show and you can get really excited about these things and then be brought crashing down back to earth.
Do you see this song as a blessing or a curse?
To be honest, if I were only remembered for one song, I’d be very happy if it was that song. With Right Here, Right Now, I always really enjoy doing. I never feel like, ‘oh, I have to pop this one out.’
Are you guys heading into the studio?
We’re re-recording some of the older tracks. It’s gone to what I was saying earlier about some of those songs that were never written to be played live. So one of the songs we worked on went down really well live and it sounds so different to what it’s like on Doubt, so we thought we’d re-record it.
Great, so can we expect any new material?
I am writing new stuff – I was actually writing some new material yesterday and I have loads of little bits and pieces ticking over. It’s now going to be putting time aside to crack on and do those. Most fans from a band don’t really want to hear new material, which is fair enough, but some people want to. Even partial fans of a band may want to hear new songs too.
You seem to have some Aussie influences creeping through – on the Jesus Jones website, you list one of your favourite gigs is with INXS and then your favourite songs include any of those with an AC/DC influence…
Yes, AC/DC are actually one of my favourites. I was actually up last night watching obscure YouTube clips of AC/DC last night. We did a few dates with INXS and they are lovely people to be around. We performed to 72,000 at Wembley Stadium, which is the best gig in the UK. I get serious bragging rights for that one.
Jesus Jones Performing Doubt comes to Australia and New Zealand in March 2015:
Tuesday, March 10 – Kings Arms, Auckland NZ
Thursday, March 12 – The Zoo, Brisbane
Friday, March 13 – Corner Hotel, Melbourne
Saturday, March 14 – Factory Theatre, Sydney
Sunday, March 15 – Rosemount Hotel, Perth
Head on over to Metropolis Touring to get your tickets!
Angela Allan
Angela Allan is Founder and Editor of Soot Magazine. She is a freelance copywriter and social media strategist and music and entertainment writer. Aside from all things word-related, Angela loves her three dogs, blues music, and she believes Stevie Nicks from Fleetwood Mac is her spirit sister. Follow her on Instagram here.
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