JAM

Rip It Up, Issue 47, 1 June 1981, Page 8

JAM

BY DUNCAN CAMPBELL

W PAUL WELLER f & BRUCE FOXTON L INTERVIEWED

The Jam occupy an enviable position in British music. Not only have they survived the punk boom, they've surpassed it. With a string of hit singles, including three number ones, and a brace of never-less-than-excellent, and (in at least two cases) outstanding albums, they're currently at 'a creative peak and show, no signs of letting up. I'm running late for my appointment with Paul Weller and Bruce Foxton. It's an uncharacteristically warm day in London, and I get lost in the garishness and noise of Soho, strolling heedless of the time through Carnaby St, with its very touristy atmosphere and the happy brashness of . the Berwick St food stalls. A frantic tube ride over to Bond St and a breathless dash to Polydor Records, where Weller and Foxton have been waiting patiently. Profuse apologies all round, and a brisk walk to the nearest watering! hole for a chat and an ale before that peculiar British institution of 3pm closing. Weller and Foxton only draw occasional glances of recognition as they wend their way through the shopping crowds. No eager autograph hunters, not even a nudge or a pointed finger. Britons respect each other's privacy, and are too well-mannered for. such gestures. When I'm in. the crowd, I don't see anything My mind goes a blank, in the humid sunshine And everyone seems just like me ' They struggle hard to set themselves free ... • ('ln The Crowd') A bar packed with three o'clock swillers, all conversations fortissimo. Lagers all round, except for Weller who drinks shandy. A thoughtful man of moderate habits and appearance, roughly 24 years old, he's not given to extravagant statements or actions. Often, only his lyrics betray the depth of his feelings. He has a mallr-of-fact outlook, always remaining aloof from the to-hell-with-everything attitudes that typified the late 70's. A nonconformist in his own way, he chooses his own directions, but never flaunts them or forces them on others perhaps a major reason why he rose where others —.

Foxton is affable and witty, and probably the prankster of the band. He makes a good foil for Weller in his more serious moments.

“We don't want to get tied down to being just a singles band or an albums band. "

At the time of talking, the Jam had just recorded a new single, 'Funeral Pyre', and were busy mixing it. The B-side is the old Who song, 'Disguises'. It was due for British release on the 22nd of last month. Is it vital to keep pushing them out?

"Yeah, but we want to improve on the quality as well,” says Weller. "In the last couple of years, people have started taking singles a bit more seriously again, instead of just using them to push an album, so it's vital for us to do it really well." Did you see yourselves as primarily a singles band when you started out? "No, it's not just that. We don't want to get tied down to being just a singles band or an albums band, we believe you've got to be able to do both. But the singles are important, put it that way." John Lennon once said that an LP was just a collection of singles. Could that approach ever work for the Jam? "Oh yeah. Any of the best LPs are always made, I think, with that in mind. If you could devote as much time to every track as you do to one single, you'd have a brilliant LP. We try and work to that idea sometimes, but it gets a bit difficult. Sometimes songs are specifically album tracks, but it would be good to be able to work in that frame of mind."

Having three consecutive number ones was a big kick, but does it also frighten you? "It's a little bit frightening, because anything less than a number one after that is going to seem a bit of a let-down. That's the only thing that worries me. I mean, prior to the number ones, our singles always got into the top 30, so that in itself is really good. It's hard to say if the next one is as good, or will make it, because if it only gets to number ten or nine or something, it's going to be a bit disappointing. But in fact, it's still really good, anyway, to get anywhere in the charts." 'Start' drew criticism for its close resemblance to the Beatles' 'Taxman'. Weller readily admits the influence, but makes no apology. "We were always conscious of nicking stuff anyway, all types of music. It's just that at that time it was the Beatles. I don't see why people should get so up about it, because music is there to use, anyway."

'Funeral Pyre' is not a great advance on its predecessors, which is not to demean it one iota. But it's unmistakeably a

Jam single, and Weller would have liked to see more signs of progress. "It's a lot more percussive, a lot more rhythmic, and it's a lot stronger than the other stuff, but I don't know if it's that radically different. Hopefully, the next one will be. It's very difficult when you've been recording for four years and you get a 'Jam Sound', like any band gets an established sound after recording for a time." But it is important to have an identity. "Yeah, it's good up to a certain point, but it depends how long you carry it on for. It can get very boring. It starts getting really safe, and you know the reason why you're going to do it is because everyone is going to accept it. That's why we always try and move on."

"Half our show is atmosphere, and you can't capture that on record."

Has the basic three-piece format become at all restrictive? "No, on the contrary. We always think about different possibilities, anyway. That was especially so on Sound Affects. The instrumentation there is a lot sparser than it was before. We try to spread it out a bit more, and we're probably going to work in that area for a while, and see what we can do with that. We're trying to find a way to keep progressing, while trying to simplify it more than we've done in the past." When you're recording, do you think about whether you can reproduce what you've done on stage? "That's what we tried to do with Sound Affects, because Setting Sons was getting really complicated. There was a lot of overdubs and strange, complicated arrangements. With Sound Affects we tried to keep the live sound in mind, to do the songs as we do them on stage. We're probably going to try and work like that in future." Setting Sons created real problems on stage, trying to recreate the heavy atmosphere of songs like 'Little Boy Soldiers' and 'Private Hell'. It took 18 months on the road to make such material manageable live. "The majority of the set is really a lot stronger now," says Foxton. "Due to circumstances, you know. Something may come through all right in the studio, but it actually becomes much better when we go out on the road and play it in. That's the main thing we've had trouble with up till now anyway, writing the material and playing it before we record it."

So ideally, do you like to break new material in with live performances before recording it? "That's what we like to do," says Weller, "but it gets a bit difficult because we're sort of pushed to actually write stuff in the studio and we often don't get a chance to air it first." Part of the Jam's desire to keep progressing is their constant updating of their stage sets. New material is confidently substituted for old, something the fans have come to expect. The only survivor from the first two albums is This Is The Modern World'.

"We don't worry about playing the old album stuff too much, we're more interested in playing the new stuff," Weller says. "Otherwise it gets like just trotting out the greatest hits, which is really boring. We always try and update it.

"A couple of years ago there was a lot of moaning that we weren't playing stuff off the first two LP's. But over the last few tours, like you said, they've come to expect that they aren't going to hear the old stuff, and they're going to hear something new." Carbon copies of the recorded sound are also out. The songs evolve in their own way when played live. Newer titles like 'Set The House Ablaze' and 'Pretty Green' have already been rearranged. But don't expect a Jam live album. "I can't see the point in it, really," says Weller. "Because half our show is atmosphere, and you can't capture that on record."

"It's really something to put out when you're long gone," Foxton adds. "While we're still writing good songs and coming up with good material, we don't want to release a live album. It's sort of expected of every band, after a

certain number of albums, 'Oh, you must release a live album sometime'." Weller: "Mostly, bands are into the technical side of it, people want that guitar solo captured forever, and all that shite." Foxton: 'lt's the same as the policy of releasing three or four singles off an album to tide you over until you come up with something else. Ideally, we try to work one album, one single."

"From day to day, we have different ideas on how we want to sound. "

Of course, the Jam have also recorded a lot of songs purely for single release. 'Funeral Pyre' will not appear on a future album. In fact, Weller thinks there probably won't be another LP this year, just singles and maybe an EP of old favourites. But no more soul covers, like 'Heatwave', Weller says they "didn't sound right." A more productive band would be hard to find these days. Five albums in four years, and perhaps thirty or forty singles. Weller has lost count. Is there any sign of his output slowing down? "Well, I go through periods, anyway. I've stopped worrying about it now. It used to worry me a lot, a year or a couple of years ago. I'd go through spells where I didn't write for six months. But it doesn't bother me now, because I know that in the end it'll come out. Whenever I feel like writing I write anyway, so it doesn't really bother me. I don't like writing to a schedule, that's the only thing that bugs me."

Foxton: "After Modern World and All Mod Cons, there was a lot of panicking, trying to write for writing's sake, and it turned out a lot of old crap. We dismissed half a dozen songs, maybe got a couple of good ideas out of ten. It's just not worth forcing it." Foxton has contributed more in the songwriting field recently, but says it's diminished at the moment. He only writes at random, when something occurs to him. The sound of the Jam is well established now, but it's a two-edged sword. While it's a source of pride to be readily identifiable, there's the danger of being stereotyped, something the group tries to avoid. "There's always that underlying sound going through whatever we do, however different we think it is. We can't get away from that," says Weller. "We always try to aim for something different, but it somehow ends up the opposite," says Foxton. "You get a certain work plan, you've got a certain sound ... if any of us went and cut a solo album, it would still probably sound at least a bit like the Jam." So you've no plans for solo albums? Both shake their heads.

"It's like Bruce said," says Paul. "If I sat down and thought about a solo LP, the only ideas I'd have in mind would be like our sound anyway, so what's the point?" Talking of changes and departures in sound, I mention the acoustic ballad 'English Rose' from All Mod Cons, an unashamedly romantic song, and quite untypical. Could that approach have been taken further? Apparently not, according to Paul: "It was sort of a one-off thing. I wasn't really sure at the time whether we should put it on the LP or not. We had nothing to lose at that time, and the LP was a turning point for us, anyway. We tried all the different ideas we had at the time. It's not necessarily one direction I want to go in, it's just one of those songs. Maybe we'll do another one, maybe we won't. "That's our whole attitude, really. We don't have any hard-core policies on how we should sound. I mean, on Sound Affects we really wanted to capture that live sound, but it changes, from day to day we have different ideas on how we want to sound."

The Jam Sound is essentially British, and four American tours have made little impact. Weller considers they were a

waste of time, but that's water under the bridge, and he's not particularly interested in confronting brick walls again. "It's up to them to show some interest in us now. I mean, there are so many other places we haven't been to, and we prefer to concentrate on them."* Are the Jam too British for American tastes?

"That's what everyone says. 1 don't know if it's true or not, I don't personally think it is, actually. I tend to think our sound is more European, I don't think it's just British. I think it's just alien to what they've known before." And yet the Beatles, a very British band, took America by storm.

"Yeah, but you've also got to remember that the Beatles were just entertainment. They weren't saying anything, as far as I could see. It was just show biz, and show biz will make it anywhere in the world, probably. We're offering something a little bit different." The Jam are determined to avoid being tagged in any way. At the height of punk fashion, they looked more like mods, but when Modism had its brief revival about 18 months back, nobody included the Jam as part of that fad. Weller realises the pitfalls.

"Once you get pigeonholed as one type of band, you're finished. People think we sit on the fence and try to keep a hand in everything that's going. But it's not that, it's just that we don't want to get labelled, because once we do,

“The main thing is to make people think a bit more."

that's it. That's why we avoid anything that comes along, we just want to do what we wanna do." You always seemed to be at odds with the punk attitudes.

"Well, a lot of that was contrived as well. That's the sort of time it was. But 1 still think it was the most exciting time of my life, actually. I think it was much healthier, much more exciting than it is today, not just for the Jam, but for music as a whole. Things were happening, they were moving, there was much more of a chance of changing things. There was a lot of good music, a lot of new bands, young bands, but I don't think there's the same sort of unity now, amongst the audiences, anyway. "There have been so many new movements since then, Mods, Teds, Ska, things like that. It sort of smacks of desperation. People are looking for another movement to replace punk. It's all OK, it brings new music and new people into the scene, but it's still clutching at straws." Is it necessary to base your life, your attitudes, the way you look, on a movement or musical style? "Well, that's exactly what I've done anyway, with the Mod thing. Since 1975 I've based the way I look and the way I think and write on the Mod thing, so I can't really criticise that, because I've done exactly the same. I suppose it is important to some people to have a base to work on. It depends how you use it. But then you start getting into this tribalism thing, a lot of bands are trying to revive this showbiz-glamour image, which I think is f**kin' boring. "It's escapism, really. Whenever times get rough, people always try to cling onto old values. That applies to anything, including politics, like the Tories are doing now. I think escapism is the worst thing you can turn to." You want to make people think?

"Yeah, music has gotta do that. Obviously, it's not its sole purpose, music is for dancing and enjoying as well. But it's got to be a mixture of everything." Foxton: "I mean, we're not just entertainers, we can't just

go out and play our nice little pop tunes for an hour or so. That's the way they see it in the States. It's all right for a certain percentage, just to get off on the music, but we want to take it a step further. We hope they've had a good time, but we want them to get something more out of it. Obviously, they don't have to agree with what we're saying, but the main thing is to make people think a bit more, and be aware of something."

I remark to Foxton that the Jam seem to have written very few straightforward love songs, only a handful coming to mind at random.

"Yeah, that's about it," he agrees. "But even those are not as straightforward as 'the moon in June', even those have a bit more substance to them. Paul could answer that better, because I think love songs are a bit more personal." "I can only write a love song if I really feel like it," says Weller. "But I hate the sort of songs that are oversentimental, anyway. 'English Rose', probably on the surface quite romantic, has also got some funny lines in it. "I am a romantic sort of person, but then I don't always draw from personal experiences. Sometimes I use a character or situation to put a point of view across, it won't necessarily come from my own involvement or experience. I use whatever I feel is necessary at the time. "I think the point is that all my songs are drawn from my own way of thinking, regardless of what 1 use." On the subject of inspiration, I ask about the source of 'Down In The Tube Station.' Not one of Weller's personal experiences, it turns out.

"It was brought on by paranoia, really. It uses a situation I dreamt up, but it's drawn from my own paranoia, probably from living in London, coming from a place like Woking, which is a real suburban, sleepy town, and living in London, thousands of people milling past you every day of the week, the claustrophobic feeling of it." For the uninitiated (shame on you!), the song is about a weedy suburban type caught in the underground late at night by a bunch of thugs who proceed to kick the living daylights out of him. Having experienced the London tube system in the dead of night, I can understand the feeling. You're the loneliest person in the world, and the types you meet down there at that hour don't help.

“We won't end up millionaires, but then we've never really been bothered about that."

The Jam are always striving for higher standards, and are extremely self-critical. They still aren't happy with Sound Affects, even though they feel it's the best album they've done. The sound, they feel, is weak, which is why the songs are quite different live. Setting Sons was unsatisfying because it suddenly changed direction while it was being written. Weller originally had a concept of three friends who ended up fighting each other on opposite sides of a civil war, but that was later abandoned, and consequently the ideas don't flow as he would have liked them. He rates All Mod Cons above Setting Sons.

Not long after this inteview, the Jam set off for a twoweek Japanese tour, followed by dates in Canada, then a TV show and a gig in New York.

"There are a lot of people there (the US) who want to hear us," says Foxton. "When we first went over there, in '76-'77, it was just the thing you should do, like most bands, once you're successful in England, you shoot off to America, which we did. It was encouraging, the first time we went, then it steadily declined after that." The band was then due to play a large Scandinavian tour, including several festivals. Europe, again is largely unchartered territory for the Jam. Sound Affects sold twice as much as Setting Sons, but then, that's not the criterion they use for where they'll play.

"We just want to play as many places as we can," says Foxton. "It's not a case of following the success of that record, we don't do that. We still want to play the places where we aren't selling, because the interest is still there, among the kids."

Adds Weller: "We can keep going, purely on a financial basis, on what we make in Britain. We won't end up millionaries, but then we've never really been bothered about that. But we can keep going, and that's what counts."

A hint, boys: You've currently got your first chart single and album in New Zealand. But don't let that put you off. Duncan Campbell