The Jesus And Mary Chain To Rock Adelaide Tonight…

One of the most influential bands of their generation and beyond, The Jesus and Mary Chain mark their fortieth anniversary in 2024 with a return tour to Australia which hits Adelaide tonight! From the moment the Reid brothers (Jim and William) first pressed the record button on their Portastudio in the early 1980’s, the intense, sometimes brutal, often darkly romantic music they made has always felt like past, present and future smashed together, alchemising into something startling.

Consistently defying musical boundaries, blending intense melodies with raw emotion to create a mesmerising sonic experience, JAMC anthems such as Just Like Honey, April Skies and Happy When It Rains are timeless statements of artistic excellence. Shaping the post-punk landscape with a legacy that continues to inspire awe and reverence.From their origins on the outskirts of Glasgow, The Jesus and Mary Chain have gone on to influence many of music’s greatest minds, and are consistently referenced as a chief source of inspiration for the likes of My Bloody Valentine and Nirvana. 1985’s Psychocandy is widely considered to be one of the most influential post punk records ever released.

With new album, Glasgow Eyes in hand, the duo continue to seamlessly fuse electronica and rock with as much innovation as they’ve always had. Embracing their punk roots, while maintaining their anarchic spirit. As outsiders who shaped the very fabric of British music history, The Jesus and Mary Chain stand apart yet are one of the most influential acts of the modern era. Jim Reid talks to Hi Fi Way about their forty year career.

Congratulations on forty years of Jesus and Mary Chain. How do you feel about that milestone?
It seems a bit unreal really. Thinking back to when it all began, would we have thought we were still doing this? That we’d still be doing this in our sixties. It would have been just unthinkable, really. It’s good to be here, but could I ever imagined that… no.

Do you get nostalgic or is it very much keeping focused on moving forwards?
I get nostalgic as nostalgic as the next person, but I think probably William less so. Is it nostalgia? There’s been a lot of looking back on some of the songs on the album, it’s not necessarily nostalgic or nostalgia because the song jamcod is about the break up of the band in 1998. It’s about that gig at the House of Blues where we actually didn’t quite come to blows, but it was it was pretty close. When you are in your twenties it’s all about looking forward, it’s about the future. When you’re in your sixties, the future is a fucking coffin. You know what I mean? So, you dwell on the past a bit and what you tend to do is to look back and think bad shit happened.

Did it have to happen? You can look at the key moments or the stressful or traumatic moments in the band’s progress, or just throughout your life, and you think, well, what could I have done that could have been that would have been different? I absolutely believe that the band broke up in 1998, it didn’t have to. The band only broke up because we weren’t getting along. Our management team at the time should have sent us off in different directions. They should have said, these guys can’t stand each other let’s give them a break. Let’s take six months of the year out. What they actually did was send us off on a tour of America on a fucking tour bus together. We really couldn’t be in the same room together for more than five minutes without a blazing row. So the idea of doing a four week tour of America in a fucking tour bus… that was insane. The band had to break up under those conditions. I really believe that it didn’t have to had someone more sensitive to our needs been on the scene, the band could have continued.

What was the catalyst that got everybody back together?
My sister and my mother, were the ones who brokered peace between us, and also the fact that William started doing an album with Linda and it came out under the name of Sister Vanilla. Then at some point I got involved in this album. Although we were doing it separately, it kind of brought us back together creatively because we found that we were working on a project in common. At the end of the album, we actually got in the studio together. William was living in LA at the time, and we found that there was a family get together at William’s and that was one of the first of its kind since the break up. It was my mum and dad, Linda was there, aunts and uncles, we all found that we were in William’s House in LA. William and Linda recorded a song together on that trip and that could of all have exploded then, but we thought mum and dad are there, we got to keep it together. It was kind of the beginning of the peace process and the beginning of us getting back together really.

Did you do anything as a band to celebrate the milestone?
There was talk about doing a tour. We kind of missed the boat on that one. If we’re going to do it, we would have had to have organised it a bit. The idea came a bit too late to get a tour together. I would quite like to have done it but I’m not that fussed to be honest with you. There’s talk about reissuing “Upside Down”, our first single or we might bring out re-releases of our twelve inches or something like that, but there’s no more than that. It’s just good to be there after forty years. Still here! Still got a liver and it’s still functioning and treading those rock’n’roll boards!

Since reuniting is there a secret to longevity that you would pass on to a younger band facing the same issues you did in 1998?
The secrets to us keeping it going unfortunately don’t really apply to younger bands because we are in a luxurious position where we can decide what to do and when to do it. If we don’t want to tour, we don’t have to tour. If we don’t want to put a record out, we don’t have to. So, it’s all just like whatever we feel like doing and when we feel like doing it. Unfortunately, when you you’re just starting it’s more of a treadmill where you have to keep the momentum going. These days, simply if we want to go and do a tour of Denmark, we will do it. If we don’t, we won’t and that’s how the band works. That’s how the band’s work since we got back together. It’s only things that we feel like doing really, and if we don’t want to do it, we won’t.

What achievements are you most proud of?
Obviously the records, we went through a lot of ups and downs and we argued, particularly during Munki. Munki we couldn’t stand each other, but I honestly think Munki’s as good if not better than other records we made. Nobody bought it, but what I’m saying is we are still proud of that record and we’re still proud of all of the records that we have left behind. It’s like all of the unfortunate occurrences and arguments, they all just melt into the past, but the records still there, they’re still there for people to dig out and listen to, and thankfully people do dig them out and listen to them.

Absolutely another Australian tour, you must be really looking forward to this one?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s always good to come down under and I’ll be seeing old Ben Lurie that used to be in the band. He lives in Sydney, has done for quite a long time now.

A forty year career must make for some nice discussions around the set list?
I think we do all right. I mean, we always put a bit from all periods. I don’t think there’s any albums that aren’t represented in our live show. There there’s a bit of everything and a bit of something for everyone. If you are into the Mary Chain you shouldn’t be disappointed with what you hear and if you’re not in the Mary Chain, I guess you won’t be there, so.

Glasgow Eyes is awesome album, have you been really pleased with the fan response so far to the album?
Yeah, it got very, very, very well reviewed as well. That’s always good. The reaction all round has been positive. You never know, we felt pretty good about it, but it sounds different from some of our other records, so there’s always going to be are people going to get this? But they seem to.

Was there always the intention to make another album?
It was always the intention and it is still, there will be another album. We’re already looking at the next record. I’m sure people get it that we’re not fast workers. So, will it be out next year? No, it won’t. But we might start recording it next year. Glasgow Eyes actually should have come out sooner than it did. We started recording that record in 2019 and it really got delayed pretty badly because of COVID. We had to stop recording it, COVID hit and the world ground to a halt for several months. After that several months, we found that we were out on the road doing shows that had been postponed, rescheduled and then it just seemed to drag on with us doing live work. It was the guys at Fuzz Club started to get a bit annoyed because we did this deal and they were waiting on this album, which we had put on the back burner. So, they were like, get back in there and deliver our record and that’s what we did.

Were you excited by the results as it was starting to unfold in the studio?
It’s always a bit weird in the studio. I hate the Studio, William loves it, but I find when you start recording and it always seems to drift off at one point, in a direction that you’re not sure about. It either comes together sooner or hopefully sooner or later, and it usually does, but until you start to hear what you imagined in the first place it’s terrifying. You know oh my God, this is not working out. What are going to do and you start panic. There seems to be some weird alchemy in the last couple of weeks or the last week where you go in one day and you listen to and you think, Christ, you know, this actually sounds like a record. That’s when you get your tails up and all bushy tail and you think, oh, this is going to work!

Interview By Rob Lyon

Catch The Jesus & Mary Chain at Hindley Street Music Hall Tuesday August 6, tickets from SBM Presents…