BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS

Rip It Up, Issue 166, 1 May 1991, Page 20

BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS

Jesus Jones are one more dance group from England but don't let it put you off. They come from London (for a change) and they have resisted the clone-like British fashion mentality, sporting the odd headful of dreadlocks instead of the grossly unflattering pudding bowl hairdo sported by the likes of Inspiral Carpets, Stone Roses, Happy Mondays et al.

Mike Edwards and lain Baker are the brains behind the band. Seen at their animated and well-scrubbed best in a recent promo video for their new album, Doubt, pale beanpole Edwards is flanked by his silent, square jawed writing partner Baker as the pair sit earnestly discussing their career in a Soho coffee bar. Edwards comes across as articulate, serious, almost earnest compared to the studied slobbisms of the northern band leaders. Small wonder he sounds so chipper. Speaking over the line from London in the midst of rehearsals for Jesus Jones' forthcoming world tour, he announces that Doubtis selling three times better than Sting’s latest

album. This in a year which Mike

Edwards characterises as one of the worst in rock history. Why is he so down on Manchester’s big year?

“Because it embraced the fact that no-one had anything new to offer, you had one or two bands who

were good — not great, but good — the rest is absolute crap. Its not very interesting fo be producing music

that was made as early as 1969 and 1971, even the drum beats are dll very Sly Stone. It could have been made twenty years ago and | don't see that as saying anything great

about rock music except that nothing’s going on at the moment.” Except for Doubt of course. which includes the insidiously groovy ‘Real,

Real, Real’ as well as the latest hit single ‘lnternational Bright Young Thing'. A lot of the rest of Doubtis not nearly as infectious, padded out as it is with slow, heart-felt numbers cheek by jowl with the boppy bits. “The whole point about Doubt:” enthuses Edwards, “is that it's a very eclectic, very varied album: ‘Trust ‘Mé’, Two and Two', ‘Stripped’ — they're as far away from light as you can get, they're verging on the avante garde. The thing is, Jesus Jones is a band about a number of different things. We're not safisfied being just a House band, just a rock band, just a rap band. I'd like to be all of those things at the same time. We thought we could make an album that was very varied and eclectic, each track being different to the one before.” But do Jesus Jones translate well to the live stage? “Ironically, the question we normally ask ourselves is ‘will this translate well to the record?’

Because when we play live that's really where we write the records.” If guitars are 50% of the band, what about samples? “That depends on the way sample fashions have changed. | think we reflect the moves that go on. Its

gone from the Public Enemy type thing of 1988 to more subtle things — most of ‘Bliss’ is all samples but it's not so strident, not so brutal, not so stark. At the moment samples are much more low key. And also having made an album like Liquidiser where all these samples were very much Public Enemy, Young Gods style,

shrieking noises — to be honest, we felt we'd probably done that. Noise forthe sake of noise is still something that | like very much but we've done it once before and we'll do it again.”

Mike Edwards reveals that he spends a lot of time on the lyrics, that he is trying o “Say Something”, even if he's not attempting to put the world to rights. He feels dance music is a great medium for sharing ideas between generations. What about this generation’s eager embrace of psychedelia, a trend which pops up inJesus Jones’ own trippy video for ‘lnternational Bright Young Things'2 “I think psychedelia’s been an interest for people for quite a few years now. For me, its a two-fold

thing. First of all it the influence of the Beatles and the Stones records my parents had in the 60s which | used fo hate. | used to loathe and detest them but a few years after | first heard them | found | quite liked them. But also, house music connected with LSD, it was a perfect gig to be psychedelic with, it was a great soundtrack for it, and that has reinforced my interest.” So what's the next big thing in England, land of the

build-it-up-shoot ‘em-down media2 “Nothing really. | think they're looking around for something now that the Manchester thing is basically dead. But dance music will be

important for a long time in the 90s because the greatest thing about rock music is the rhythm. If you look atfilm clips of Elvis Presley, the reason people liked it so much is the rhythm, the beat, and one of the

great things about rap music is that it brought back the importance of the beat to rock music. | think people

realise that now and it will take a

long time to go away. | hope it never really does.” DONNA YUZWALK

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