Jesus and mary chain

Rip It Up, Issue 249, 1 May 1998, Page 9

Jesus and mary chain

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The \Jesus Arid Maiy %KSr. Chain have been indulging theii ■■ „ na ss i on? pr. ■ gar a gey. • - , ' ■ - - WOO loch 'n' ion class icis' and sonic mayhem foi 14 W B'. ■■ < and sonic mayhem io x 14 feu4 k<n,w.. ■ ■■. " yy- ' y 'Wl ••■■- - years, producing some of ■. yw the most memorable musical y & moment si-of the 80s and early 90s MB BQ& - -from the feedback terrorism of •■ • '. . iSQM ’Upside Down' and the screeching pop- > tones of 'You Tr in Me Up', through the V*bitter pop of Psychocandy and the . ,2 reflective elands to the twisted surf s single 'Sidewalking', and menace of the canned WMI '■Reverence', back with their original label - Creation, Jesus And Mary : Chain's new album himki is ..*■ ; k , ' ■■■ ' Wl a relentless 17-song double album with a sneering lack of compromise, borne of frustrations with getting . . k . , - . ■it released, but no shortacre 01 meat tunes.

~ F j ith the nucleus or the Vy Jesus And Mary Chain being Scottish brothers Jim and William Reid, it was something of a surprise that an interview was booked with Ben Lurie — whose role within the band was a mystery even to the local record company. Normally in these circumstances, we tell the promotions people in question to fob their butlers, DJs, and drivers off on other publications, and get RipltUp the right people to talk to, but Lurie — the Jesus And Mary Chain’s live guitarist since 1989 — played on Munki (said to be an album plagued with hassles compounded by record company

woes) and it seemed likely he would be more forthcoming about the problems than the notoriously ‘difficult’ Reids. Although Jim Reid was quoted as saying, “... me and William nearly ended up murdering each other in the studio,” Lurie is hesitant to blow the whistle on his

employers, explaining it away as gardenvariety sibling rivalry combined with the stress of the record-making process. “When you’re in the studio working on a record, you can’t be pussyfooting around

the way you do if you’re out to dinner with someone and disagree with their politics or something. When you’re making a record, you can’t afford to be pleasant for the sake of it, so we all tend to speak our minds in a straightforward way, which often ends up in huge arguments. Add the brother element and... boom! But they always make up.” Though the brother’s volatile reputation may suggest otherwise, Lurie is adamant

that the Reids never actually came to blows. “They’re not fist fighters. They’d like to be, but they’re just not very good at it,” he says, with barely detectable sarcasm.

While there’s a number of reasons for the four year silence between Stoned And Dethroned and Munki, the initial intention was quite different. After 18 months of touring Stoned And Dethroned, Jesus And Mary Chain felt they’d got it together as a live band and wanted to make an album

which reflected that, and to release it quickly while their fire was still blazing. “The original idea was to rehearse for a week,” explains Lurie, “then get an engineer

in and record it live in the studio. So we did that and took the results down to Warners and they liked it so much that they told us never to darken their doors again.” The fact that Stoned And Dethroned didn’t exactly sell container loads may have figured in Warners’ decision not to give the band another shot, and Lurie says they suspect the label had already washed their hands of the band. “I don’t know for sure, but basically for years Warners haven’t really known what to make of the Jesus And Mary Chain. I think that the decision had been made to get rid ol us unless we happened to come up with something that made them think, ‘Fuckin’ hell, this is gonna change everything’.” But Warners couldn’t see that Munki would ‘change everything’ unless everything about Munki was changed, an attitude that annoyed the band and knocked the wind out of their sails

“We made a record that we liked a lot, and they suggested re-recording it with another producer. You spend two months in the studio doing the best thing you possibly can, then somebody says, ‘well, it’s okay, but do it again,’ and we were like ‘errr... no thanks’.”

Lurie explains that the final decision on releasing the album still rested with the band.

“We could have forced them to release jt. They had a contractual release obligation, and they said, ‘lf you really want us to put it out, we have to, but there’s no interest in the band here and if you want to leave, one, we’d like it if you did, and two, we’ll make it easy.’ And, to their credit, they did.” The Jesus And Mary Chain then fired their management, and spent a year in limbo wondering what the hell to do with their completed album, during which time they discovered how limited their options really were. “Despite what people think about bands knowing the right people, we spent another year after that wondering ‘what the fuck do we do now? There’s gotta be someone out there that wants to release a Mary Chain record, but how do we make contact with them?’” The answer to that was much closer than expected, and out of the blue Creation boss Alan McGee called them up. Creation had released their debut single ‘Upside Down’ back in 1984, so it’s surprising they didn’t

think of approaching McGee themselves. “Jim and Alan have been friends for years, and Jim didn’t want to ask his friend for a favour. He knew that Alan would know we were looking for a deal, and said that if Alan was interested he’d say something. At the same time, Alan was thinking, ‘lf they’re interested, they’ll ask me.’ It eventually became clear that we were both being very cautious about not embarrassing the other.” Creation seem to have afforded the band a lot of freedom. If they were still signed to a major, it would be unlikely that William Reid would have been able to release his solo single, ‘Tired of Fucking’ — particularly with Reid’s complete lack of interest in promoting it. “Definitely. The thing with Creation is that they’re people that you can have a normal conversation with about music that’s not necessarily on their label. And they understand things like William not wanting to do any press for his record, and not wanting to do photo sessions. He just wants to make a record and have it out there. Warners are like (adopts Dalek voice], ‘lt does not compute! If you do not do this, this and this, then what are you doing a record for?’ At least Creation understand the record, and that it’s probably not gonna sell many copies.”

Of all the changes that have happened with the band’s sound since their last release on Creation 14 years ago, one of the most obvious is their use of outside vocalists. Among Munki’s best tracks is ‘Perfume’, featuring William Reid’s sometime girlfriend and Mazzy Star vocalist, Hope Sandoval (who also guested on ‘Sometimes Always’ from Stoned And Dethroned), which stands out so much from the rest of Munki that it appears to have originated from another session entirely, which Lurie says is not the case.

“It was recorded kind of in the middle of everything, and was always intended to be different. Most of Munki is done with a live drummer, but that one has a kind of Suicide feel with a drum machine, a pounding thing. We all really like Suicide, the way they made such amazing songs with an old drum machine and a one-string guitar.” There are parallels between the early live career of the Jesus And Mary Chain who provoked riots at their early shows, and

Suicide, who cut short their first European tour in 1978 for the same reason. “Did they? I didn’t know that. We’re actually playing a gig with them in a couple of months, so hopefully it’ll be riot-free,” says Lurie. There also seems to be identifications with other classic bands this time out — the reference to the Velvet Underground’s drummer on another song featuring guest female vocals. Lurie explains. “Well, ‘Mo Tucker’ came about with Jim writing the song and thinking it needed a female vocal, and Jim and William’s sister Linda came down to visit about half an hour later. It was the first time she’d ever sung out loud. She thought of the title afterwards, but I think it does sound quite Moe Tucker-y. People are always going on about the Mary Chain and the Velvet Underground, so if we call a song ‘Mo Tucker’ it will give someone something to talk about for a while.” Of course, by scattering ‘Paul is dead’type clues throughout Munki, a certain type of fan is going to be drawing all sorts of conclusions from it — like calling a song on the album, ‘Never Understood’, which implies a relationship with 1985’s ‘Never Understand’.

“It’s mainly William’s songs that’ve got a lot of those references, and I can’t really speak for him. I know that often his stuff shouldn’t be interpreted literally.” People will probably also be talking about the song, ‘Supertramp’, with its ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ drum line.

“Well, that was on purpose. The drum beat just felt right.” Obviously the Chemical Brothers felt it was just right as well, seeing as they used something very similar on ‘Setting Sun’. “We were quite disappointed about that,” says Lurie. “Fair enough, they didn’t hear what we were doing and it was a coincidence, but we were a bit like ‘Fuck them!”’

Lurie is currently looking forward to getting out and road-testing the new songs, and he’s confident of the outcome.

“You probably didn’t see us last time we played in 95, but it might have been terrible anyway. We’ll be out your way again about November, or that’s the plan anyway. Major label support didn’t work before, but we’ve got a good record now, and that’ll

Troy Ferguson