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On A Wing And A Prayer With MIKE EDWARDS From JESUS JONES · HEAVY Music Interviews

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  Hello everyone. My name is Mike Edwards. I am the singer with Jesus
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  Jones and we are going to be touring Australia at the very end of February
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  and the first couple of days in March. That you are, indeed,
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  Mike, thanks for joining us today. Sorry I missed that. I said
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  that you are indeed. Thank you for joining us today. It's a real
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  pleasure. I'm sorry I missed it. It was well worth hearing. Haha.
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  No. Also, as you said by Jesus Jones are coming to Australia
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  next year for four shows with Pop Ball Eat Itself, starting in Brisbane on
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  February twenty ninth, before going through Sydney, in Melbourne and finishing at Perth
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  on March the third. So what delights have you got planned for us?
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  Mate? You're going to be time to think about it. You've really put
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  me on spot there. Delights don't off it's delight So either makes makes it
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  sound like we should be bringing I don't know, franking sense and mure or
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  something, but we're going to do that. I was going to say the
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  same thing that we normally do, but it's not quite right. My strap
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  line for this tour. Is that all the energy you used to seeing all
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  the songs you want to hear, but this time played better than they were
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  in the past. How's that now we're more permissioned? I like that.
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  Did you just come up with that on the spot or was that an already
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  good thing? Six months of hard work went into that one. I tell
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  you, well, it's worth every second of it, mate, Thank you.
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  So i'd either yourself or probably in itself, but probably come over by
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  yourselves and done a successful tour by yourselves, mate, So why did you
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  decide to come over together and bring the package deal? You know, they're
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  a band that we have a lot of affinity with. We've played with them
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  in various guys is before you know, don't done? Tools of them great?
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  A bunch of guys, easy to get them with, plus more than
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  anything else. Do you want to go to Australia? Hell? Yes?
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  So what what can austray and fans expect from Jesus? Isn't your shows the
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  mate? Well? You know the proficiency that talked about, which I should
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  promise too much? I can't definitely guarantee will be proficient, but you know,
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  kind of joking aside when we go out these days, we know what
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  it is that people want to hear. You're not going to hear an entirely
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  new set of songs from a new album. We know that people are going
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  to want to hear the hits, and we're entirely happy playing those. I
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  was actually talking with some a little earlier saying that there are songs that we
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  play sometimes in rehearsal that are hard to get through. I'm not going to
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  mention them, but we play through them because when you come to play them
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  on stage, they are completely different beasts. Is actually the reaction you get
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  from the crowd that the fact that you're on stage playing them, you're fortunate
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  enough to be there doing that, means that any qualms you had of playing
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  songs that we consider all grown as once we're not on stage just disappear.
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  It's, you know, we we've got no problem playing the things that people
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  expect us to play. And yeah, you know, I think people may
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  think, all right, there's there's a band that's cracking on these days.
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  We are not a bunch that kind of do we shuffle around the stage,
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  or we don't do a fine impersonation of a bus queue. You know,
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  it's the same energy that we've always had, which I think was has kind
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  of set us apart from a lot of bands. You know, popul eats
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  itself for the same They put a lot of energy into their shows, and
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  for us, it's you know that that hasn't changed. It's like the passage
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  of years. It's just now I'm hoping, having made the promise, we
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  can play the songs better than we've played them before. Are you put yourself
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  on the spot? My head? If you're don't people throwing Yeah, I'm
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  hoping it's it's it's an under promise over deliver, but I'm worried it could
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  be and both you and probably itself for both playing greatest hit sets as well
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  made which sort of should add to the to the fun of the occasion.
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  Yeah, of course, you know. I mean, that's why people want
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  to hear us. We know that. I mean, I know what it's
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  like from my perspective in the time. In the past, I've gone out
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  to let's see, I've gone to see a CDC and I'm kind of thinking,
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  yeah, all right, I'll take a couple of songs, the best
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  songs on the new album. That's fine. Happy to do that, but
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  get to let that be wrong? Will you just hurry up and so procuse
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  this chance to go back in time and then get to know the band a
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  bit better. Bro, So, Jesus Jones formed in Wiltshire back in nineteen
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  eighty eight. So what was the music your climate like back then they gave
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  birth to the band? And where did you fit in? Initially? Wow,
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  that's that's Wikipedia, isn't it Wikipedia, which is is vastly inaccurate.
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  I don't know who wrote that, but I need to go out back and
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  because because it's all all kind of over the place, a certain amount of
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  that is true. But to actually answer your question rather than quibble about Wikipedia,
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  I mean, yeah, yeah, kind of eighty seven eighty eight was
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  the time that the band kind of really took off in a number of ways,
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  like getting new members into the band and getting a new direction. But
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  the scene then was was very kind of fractured. You had you had rock
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  bands, most of whom at that point were trying to sound like the Velvet
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  Underground, and you had hip hop, which had been going for kind of
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  two three four years at least in a very kind of very strong way,
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  starting to become overground and that was really exciting, but crucially to be in
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  London at that point you had the birth of acid house and eighty eight was
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  really it's kind of absolute peak year. And there I am kind of in
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  my history playing in bands and listening to all this hip hop Left rind Center,
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  Jen and I the drummer. We're going out and we're listening to We're
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  going to acid house clubs, places where there's so much dry ice you have
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  to find your way to the toilet by moving your hands along the walls the
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  time. So I've got all that going on the same time, and it
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  just seemed so obvious to me, as it probably does in retrospect talking to
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  your audience. Now, why not combine them all? And it was I
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  was. I was really keen to do that because it We're a struggling band.
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  We haven't made any impression on anyone anywhere, and it really helped to
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  define us because very very few people, with the exception of the likes of
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  poperly etisult the Shame and Age of Chance, very few people were doing that.
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  So it made it really easy to kind of to set us apart from
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  all the other stuff that's going on. So that that kind of climate,
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  that musical climate at the time, plus my determination to try and make a
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  mark, is really what set us are on the road, and ultimately is
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  why I'm talking to you now. You mentioned in those stars that you put
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  together back then were necessarily popular, and they certainly were each other. How
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  did you actually refine you see? Did you just sew everything against the wall
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  and what to stay there? I guess? Or did you more particulous?
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  Did you have a plan in mind it? That's a good question. I'm
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  not entirely sure. What I do know is that I did everything on the
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  basis of does this feel good to do it? I mean, you know,
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  if I'm if I'm sunk from sampling this riff off of a record,
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  if I'm playing that bit of guitar over the top of it, is that
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  good? Does that make me feel good when I when I do it?
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  And that's kind of that was my first first impulse. That's the first thing
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  I'm working with next is kind of does it fit into this kind of overall
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  structure that I have, which is I do want us to be this hybrid?
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  So is it are we just uh straightforward rock band? If I released
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  this song as it is all kind of mess things around, But like I
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  said, it starts. It has to start with does it make me feel
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  good to make this, to perform this piece of music? That's how that
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  you created made it was a big part of what became the chain of dancing
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  in the early nineteen nineties. So at that time, could you feel the
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  change that you helped create at that time or was it sort of wrapped up
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  in what was going on? Yeah, I could see a change because we'd
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  we'd started out down that route and we'd I think it was around about the
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  time we released Liquidizer soon after that, and I'm not saying the two events
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  are linked, but then all that kind of Manchester stuff happened when you had
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  all these bands from Manchester just using the same shuffle beat all the time,
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  and that was the kind of indie dance thing. So I think we noticed
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  what was going on early, did something about it, and then definitely the
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  kind of scenes the scene followed after that, the doors were kind of open
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  for a load of other people who, in my view, were not necessarily
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  as inspired. They just kind of did something because it was fashionable they were.
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  They didn't have that kind of that structure, that set of guidelines that
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  I had. But you know, amidst that, there was some really good
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  stuff. I was always a fan of the Happy Mondays, and I thought
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  they set themselves apart very well doing their own things. So you know,
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  there was that kind of that that zeitgeist. There was that feeling the times
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  where good bands made good music. Now, you guys have been in the
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  music industry for more than thirty five years now, Mate, you started off
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  like pioneering in a lot of ways, but there's been so many changes in
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  the music industry over those thirty five years. Have you you've been a band
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  that's sort of tried to change and move with him or have you still always
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  always gone in your own direction. Yeah, that's interesting. It's it's kind
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  of somewhere between the two. I mean, the music industry has changed to
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  such an extent that I have absolutely no understanding of it whatsoever anymore. As
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  a result, I have to wry on that same thing. You know,
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  when I come to write a piece of music, what is it that I
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  want to do? What is it that makes me feel good doing that?
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  Said, I don't just listen to the music that I listened to in nineteen
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  eighty eight. You know, I'm always listening to to new stuff, and
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  I find as music changes, I tend to change my tastes as well,
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  or at least add to my tastes. So yeah, we change, and
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  the sound of what we do changes. But I think it probably has come
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  to that point of my life where it gets increasingly difficult to do something that
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  is radically new. Yeah, I mean to be honest, that that's why
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  we release less and less music, because it's there's always that depressed there's often
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  a depressing moment part way through writing a song and I think, yeah,
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  I've probably I've probably done this. I have a theory actually to explain this.
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  And my theory is that there comes to a point in any artist's career
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  where you kind of you just kind of rewrite the same song that you do.
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  I've heard it happen to you too. I've heard it happen to the
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  food fighters. And you know, the last time, time, before last,
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  actually I wrote something. I pleaded it to my wife and she said,
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  yeah, yeah, that's the Jesus Jones song. Oh yeah, that's
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  problematic when you realize you're writing the Jesus Jones song. When you're writing the
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  food Fighter song, where you're writing the You two song. There comes a
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  point in most artists career where it's very hard to break out of that and
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  you've got to really really try, and often it's not successful. This next
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  person I find interesting from a personal point of view, mate, Like,
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  I'm sort of I'm on one side of the music industry and you're on the
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  other. But I've been to last say, twenty or thirty years. What
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  did you say in some of the biggest changes in the music industry, Like
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  from where I am, I think it's becoming more cutthroat and more it bends
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  are less and less support of each other on the level anyway that I met.
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  But what are some biggest things that you're saying. Yeah, I wouldn't
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  really wouldn't know about that kind of thing at all. The thing for me
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  is the it's actually the kind of democratization of music in the way that music
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  is so much easier to make now. I mean, when I think about
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  there's so much of Liquidiser was recorded on a demoed at least on a four
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  track cassette recorder, whereas now you know, on this laptop. I'm I'm
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  speaking to you from I can. I could do a ninety six piece orchestra
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  with a five piece rock band if I wanted to, no problem. So
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  there's there's the creation of music, but also the avenues for release. I
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  mean, you know, anyone can. It's very easy to get stuff on
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  Spotify and get it out there and pick up a following, which is only
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  a good thing. It was very much harder in my day to get a
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  record deal and then have a record company support you and becomes successful. That
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  said, I think I think the plus side of the system I worked with
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  in the old days is when you had a record company behind you, you
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  had an entire corporation who were dedicated to trying to make you successful. The
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  Spotify thing, yeah, great, you can get stuff out to the public,
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  but the public have to know about you, and that is a huge
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  job of work right there. So I think it's harder to become successful.
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  It's obviously far, far harder to make a living of music these days.
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  So I actually think it was easier in a way in my day once you
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  had that record deal to have success. It's easier to make music now,
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  it's easier to get it out there, but it's harder to have success with
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  it. Definitely before we let you go by, we start how do you
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  think with Heavy? With the people that we interviewed, just to help Elisa's
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  get to know the band a bit more, I guess. But we've started
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  three separate Spotify playlists, so using only songs of your own. Give us
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  a song for a playlist to get the party started, one for a playlist
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  to stay your marriage, for a place potentially end your marriage, Oh my
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  God, to get the party started. Well, I mean, I'm going
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  to pick Info Freeco because that that's the first song that kind of got the
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  party started for us. It is a good party starting song. What was
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  the next one? I need to save your marriage, save my marriage,
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  Oh my God, because that's not the kind of song that I write.
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  Uh yeah. A track off our album London called the Princess of My Heart
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  and go for that radically different for Jesus shown song and the song to end
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  my marriage one of the last things I wrote actually a song called still Smiling,
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  not on Spotify, so that could be problematic. My wife really hates
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  those song. She thinks it's me complaining about my life. It isn't let
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  me give you an alternative one in case that's not gonna be possible for the
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  Spotify playlist. A song to end my marriage, Well, my wife is
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  not going to like the miserable stuff. I'm going to go for spiral off
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  perverse, very dark, very heavy, and definitely not my wife's taste.
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  If I said that's what I was all about, then I don't know.
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  We might have words. We'll hope she doesn't listen to the mate and you
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  stay happy. Made for the remainder of your years. Thank you very much,
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  Thanks very much of your time. It's been a pleasure to speak with
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  you. Mate. Jesus Jones out here. I'm from February to twenty ninth.
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  Next thing, you're starting in Brisbane, so I might just pop along
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  with the Brisbane show mate and have myself a light out. Oh fantastic.
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  That would be great. I look forward to it. Easy, brother,
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  I'm only take care of yourself until the end of or catch you a brizee.
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  All right, fantastic, See soon.