| | | |  | One of the less orthodox bands spawned by the post-Libertines London music scene, the Mystery Jets started at the end of the last century when Blaine Harrison and his dad, Henry, formed a band together. Soon joined by Blaine’s school friends Kai and Will,...
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| Interview | AccessAllAreas.net.au: A second record for Mystery Jets, Congratulations! What is the main message you hope to send out to the world with Twenty One?
Mystery Jets: Twenty One's an album about growing pains. It was us reaching the point in our lives where we were between adolescence and adulthood, we started writing songs that dealt with heartbreak, innocence and waking up and realising that you're a little older and perhaps things aren't so sweet. The message however is a hopeful one....we'll always be able to look at life and laugh (i hope).
AccessAllAreas.net.au: What was the most memorable moment while writing and recording for Twenty One?
Mystery Jets: There were a lot in fact. The whole process of working with Erol Alkan was a real joy, he's very funny and also very intense so it made for an exciting situation to find yourself in. The moment that comes back to me now, is erol insisting that henry ride his harley davidson motorbike in to the studio with all the microphones set up to record the sound. The noise it made was insane and the stench of the exhaust pipe lingered in the studio for days.
AccessAllAreas.net.au: What has brought the Mystery Jets and Laura Marling together on “Young Love”?
Mystery Jets: Maybe its young love???But more likely a mutual love of eachothers music. She is wonderful to work with, she did her vocal in two takes, said in a quiet voice “nice to meet you” and then flew away to write more of her brooding folk songs. It all happened very fast.
AccessAllAreas.net.au: Kai has mentioned that songs on Twenty One are songs that Mystery Jets will always believe in. Which song on the record has been the most significant and meaningful?
Mystery Jets: Thats a hard question to answer, i think each member of the band takes something a bit different from each song depending on what he contributed or how he remembers the recording process. For me, i relish the memory of recording the saxophone on two doors down, because i asked the sax player to make it sound like an elephant being strangled, something really experimental you know.....we did this for an hour, i thought it was going great until it was announced over the loud speaker that i should just stick to playing guitar, and maybe not get any ideas above my station. We didn't end up using the elephant sax in the end.
AccessAllAreas.net.au: There are love songs on Twenty One, with “Young Love” and “Two Doors Down”. Songs like “Soluble in Air” and “You Can’t Fool Me Dennis” had a darker theme. Would you say Twenty One is more romantic than Making Dens?
Mystery Jets: Romantic in the obvious sense yes (love, loss,relationships crumbling....)But i do also feel that making dens dealt with themes that although different are still very romantic. Dennis for example is about the death of a friend, soluble in air about being your own hero and living to the full....there is still romance in these, but just of a different nature. I think romance in one way or another is what drives us to write most of our songs.
AccessAllAreas.net.au: Blaine has said that with Making Dens, there was less worry on how it was going to turn out. By working with Erol Alkan on Twenty One, it seems like the Mystery Jets are more open to taking risks. Do you believe in always reinventing sounds for each record that you make?
Mystery Jets: With a bands first album, they have there whole lives to write it, you spend years gigging and writing and trying to be recognised that by the time you come to make your debut album, you are generally pretty firm on what it will sound like, i think this is what blaine meant. On the second record, and this is a commandment in the mystery jets bible, you have to progress and reinvent yourself. this is absolutley essential, because why would you say the same thing twice. We did take more risks on the second record, but that was because we had more oppurtunity for risks, we hadn't spent six years writing it, like we had with making dens. Will every mystery jets album be starkly different from the last??? Time will tell, but thats something we're striving for.
AccessAllAreas.net.au: Critics have said that progressive rock sounds are more obscure in Twenty One. Do you agree? If so, was it a comfortable transition from progressive-rock sounds in Making Dens to a more pop sound on Twenty One?
Mystery Jets: I don't think there is a single element of the progressive rock sound in twenty one. We managed to shed that skin quite rapidly between the two records. We've always loved pop music too, and with twenty one we just embraced it more openly, we let it out the closet.
AccessAllAreas.net.au: These days, it is easy to be labelled with a certain genre or sound within the music industry. How has the Mystery Jets managed to stay unique and independent of criticisms?
Mystery Jets: By changing. I think only an idiot would ever take too seriously what some critic decides to label music with. Genres, pigeon-holes, classifications...they are only words to me, music is something quite different.
AccessAllAreas.net.au: There is a massive line-up for this year’s Falls Festival. Tickets are sold out for the show in Victoria! What are your expectations for this year’s Falls Festival?
Mystery Jets: I'm bringing a very open mind. No one in the mystery jets has ever been to the land down under, and we are all super excited. I suppose i'm expecting a really good bbq on a beach somewhere, and maybe to hang out with kylie minogue, but failing that i'm sure it'll still be a lot of fun.
AccessAllAreas.net.au: How would you describe the feeling…what goes through your mind when you’re about to go on stage?
Mystery Jets: Its different every night, but i guess its a bit like meeting up with a girl you really like, and you have all those fears as to whether she feels the same about you. Its that uncertainty that makes it very special and never ever boring.
AccessAllAreas.net.au: It was fun watching you playing “Hideaway” in an elevator, as shown on YouTube. There seems to be great chemistry as you perform together. What is it do you think that holds Mystery Jets together as a band?
Mystery Jets: The personalities, the negative/positive pull that you can find between certain people. There is a competitive streak too, and i think that drives each of us quite a lot, the desire to out do one another. We love each other too, we're not complete egomaniacs.
AccessAllAreas.net.au: Mystery Jets are now a quartet band. Is it any different without Henry on stage?
Mystery Jets: Yes it is different. The sound we produce is more muscular and rawer. Because there are less things going on now, its meant that the remaining four of us have to step up and fill the space thats been left by henry. I think having less of us on stage has concentrated the energy too, the shows seem to be more spontaneous.
AccessAllAreas.net.au: Will there be any surprises in store at this year’s Falls Festival?
Mystery Jets: I can't tell you, that would ruin the surprise.
AccessAllAreas.net.au: What would you like to say to your fans in Australia?
Mystery Jets: G'day. |
| Biography | One of the less orthodox bands spawned by the post-Libertines London music scene, the Mystery Jets started at the end of the last century when Blaine Harrison and his dad, Henry, formed a band together. Soon joined by Blaine’s school friends Kai and Will, the band recruited drummer Kapil and started staging gigs in a crumbling hotel ballroom on Eel Pie Island. A new scene rapidly grew up around the Eel Pie shows, giving artists like Jamie T an opportunity to play their first gigs. The final Eel Pie party was attended by over 600 people, but by then the band had signed to 679 Recordings, appearing on Top Of The Pops, releasing a handful of singles and one album, ‘Making Dens’ and spending almost two years on a tour that took in Europe, the US and Japan, including a stint on the road with Arctic Monkeys on the NME Awards Tour in 2006. The last we heard of them was when they hosted a tribute night to their hero Syd Barrett at Islington’s Union Chapel, but for the last two they’ve been busy preparing their second album for us.
Produced predominately by DJ legend Erol Alkan – tipped to be producing the new Franz Ferdinand album – and with one track, ‘Half In Love With Elizabeth’ helmed by veteran British producer Stephen Street, ‘Twenty One’ is a huge stylistic and emotional leap forward for the band. Now no longer residents of the West London scene that they helped to found with their Eel Pie Island parties, The Mystery Jets have spread their wings in style on their second record.
“I love what we did on ‘Making Dens’,” says Blaine “but it’s almost like we were wearing other people’s clothes on it. It was really just a collection of songs that we’d been playing live – we were young and we didn’t really worry about how it was going to hang together. On this album we’ve learnt what our limitations are and what we can do.”
Largely abandoning the prog-influenced weirdness of their debut album, ‘Twenty One’ is a sleek collection of oddball pop born of Erol’s willingness to road-test new tracks at his now-defunct Trash night.
“We’d done a track called ‘On My Feet’” says Blaine “and I had it in my back pocket and I was in the club and Kapil dared me to give it to Erol. So I went up to him and three songs later he played it – he didn’t even listen to it first, even though the songs starts with a 50 second acapella. And I was just standing on the side and watching the dancefloor empty. But Erol loved it. So as we’d record songs we’d bring them in and give them to him and he’d play them in the club.”
After demoing songs in Kai Fish’s bedroom (“it was pretty cosy” says the bassist), the band moved in to Erol’s studio flat on London’s Holloway Road (“just up the road from where Joe Meek had his studio” laughs Blaine) before heading to Ray Davies’ Konk studios in Hornsey. “Konk’s a weird place – people say it’s haunted,” jokes William.
The first fruits of the band’s collaboration with Alkan appeared in December 2006, when they gave away copies of a limited-edition vinyl-only seven inch with ‘Umbrellahead ’ and ‘Half In Love With The Radio’ on to MySpace competition winners. The two tracks were originally supposed to be part of an acoustic EP, but the band decided that they marked an important transition between the young proggers of ‘Making Dens’ and what the group were rapidly becoming.
“People assume that because Erol ran a club for ten years that we’d produce an album full of synth basses or something” says Blaine. “But it’s not that at all. He was just full of energy and instinctive ability. There were tracks on ‘Making Dens’ that had hundreds of keyboard parts or guitar parts. One of the first things that Erol said to us was to keep things simple.”
One of the reasons for keeping things simple was that the band wanted to concentrate on the art of writing pop songs, rather than throwing songs together as studio jams as they had done previously. The inspiration for this came from a source that many people might be surpised by, especially considering the Mystery Jets’ former reputation as saucer-eyed Pink Floyd fans.
“Basically one of the few things that we all agree on is Michael Jackson” says Kai, “especially the stuff produced by Quincy Jones. We’re all loving ‘80s power ballads too. Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Dancing In The Dark’. Phil Collins. Phil Collins is the king of the break-up song. You can’t deny that he can write great pop songs – simple, direct with great hooks and loud drums.”
“There’s one song on the album, ‘Two Doors Down’ that’s inspired by Aztec Camera and Phil Collins” furthers Blaine. “Really glossy ‘80s production. It’s got a sax solo that could’ve been on a Wet Wet Wet record and the keyboard sound was inspired by Roxette…”
“…it’s basically 11 o’clock to 1 o’clock on Magic FM” laughs Will. “That was the feeling we were going for.”
Another major change in the band was the departure of Henry Harrison from the band. Although Henry is still heavily involved in the writing and recording of their music, live the Mystery Jets are now a quartet.
“For our first record, we did the music and Henry did the lyrics,” explains Blaine. “But on this album there’s been a lot more collaboration – different people wrote different songs and lyrics.”
The Henry-less band headed out on a US tour with friends Klaxons at the end of last year. “I think that we have a lot in common with Klaxons” says Will. “We both write pop songs but dress them up in a really weird way.”
“We’re obviously much younger than Henry and we decided that we wanted to go out into the world as a young band without his guidance and experience” says Kai.
This theme of youth is both the inspiration for the album’s title and part of its genesis. When the band took off, the Mystery Jets were all teenagers. Now, after almost three years as a signed band they have life experience to draw on.
“21 is a landmark age” explains Will. “Everyone talks about it as being the best year of your life - you’re grown up enough to not be a foolish adolescent but you’re still young enough to go into things with a certain enthusiasm. And there’s a flipside to it: there are songs on this new record about having your heart broken for the first time.”
This new emotional depth dovetails neatly with the band’s raised musical ambition on the steamrollering rhythms of flyer single ‘Young Love’. Featuring their catchiest chorus and a spine-tingling vocal from new London folk singer Laura Marling, its tale of a one-night stand is also remarkable for the richness of Blaine’s voice. Likewise ‘Flakes’ – a free download before Christmas – where the spare arrangement and Blaine’s near doo-wop vocals showcase a band learning exactly what they’re capable of, and being palpably thrilled by the results.
“We thought that this album would be like The Clash – we’d walk in there and just do it all straight off” explains Blaine. “But it was hard work. It was definitely a difficult second album. In the end, though, we learnt a lot about what kind of band we are – we’re not just this Pink Floyd-influenced progressive group with big instrumentals and choral harmonies.”
“They’re songs that we believe in” says Kai. “Not just now but for the rest of our lives. |
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