Jesus & Mary Chain - Charm issue 15, September 1998

V98 Festival, August 1998, Leeds: “The Jesus & Mary Chain are a great band on their last legs. Jim Reid happy now to dress like Ian Beale from Eastenders, his fucked up brother William playing his guitar long past the end of each song. Few people watch the last spark of their genius..." (Editor’s note. The Jesus & Mary Chain were to split up later that year)

A pair of crazy brothers stranded in the darklands: The Jesus & Mary Chain’s Jim Reid interviewed by Graham Chalmers
(1998)

Graham: I’ve seen Jesus & Mary Chain live during most parts of your career but the gig where you came across worst was your biggest one, headliners on the Rollercoaster tour at Sheffield Arena in 1992.

Jim Reid: It was a bit of an experiment. The whole idea was suggested to us actually. I don’t even know who by.
This tour is happening, a bunch of bands that may or may not hit it off in huge venues, that none of us were big enough to do on our own. So it was like, let’s see what it’s like to play at being a pop star.

Graham: Did you pick the bands?

Jim Reid: Yeah.

Graham: I thought it was a great line-up. You and My Bloody Valentine and Blur and Dinosaur Jr.

Jim Reid: Not me personally, me and William did.

Graham: Where is William now?

Jim Reid: He doesn’t do interviews anymore. The less said about that the better.

Graham: When I reviewed your Munki album two issues ago I said I thought the Jesus & Mary Chain were like The Ramones or Howling Wolf, just a classic band who’d created their own sound that was timeless. No matter what happens chart-wise now when times aren‘t so good, you’re one of those bands that people will still be listening to in 20 years’ time.

Jim Reid: I’m flattered, what can I say?

Graham: The sign of a great band is great B sides and you’ve always had great B sides on your singles, like Heat on Reverence or Kill Surf City.

Jim Reid: Yeah, hardly anybody ever notices that. That’s the bummer of it, y’ know. We don’t really look at B sides as B sides. To me, when you are doing a single, if it’s got four tracks, you should look at it like it’s an album.

Graham: Can I ask you one question about each of your albums going backwards to the beginning, but not the compilations?

Jim Reid: Sure.

Graham: Munki (1998). The album is very varied but there are a few tracks such as Man on the Moon and Black that sound slightly grungy as if you’ve been listening to American bands. Is that true?

Jim Reid: I like Nirvana. I like Sonic Youth but I don’t see the connection. Maybe with Black, I’ll give you that one but Man on the Moon, that’s not really where that was coming from. Black does sound a bit kinda Seattle-esque. But then it was my big bro’ that wrote that, so I don’t want to talk about it.

Graham: Stoned and Dethroned (1994). This one seems to have absolutely no bullshit on it, like the band had given up playing rock stars. The lyrics are about friends and love and relationships rather than drugs and Jesus and motorbikes and being dressed in black in the rain. Is the album confessional?

Jim Reid: It’s kind of difficult for me to say. I guess it came from William’s deterioration as a human being, basically.
Most of the songs on the album are William’s and are incredibly personal, almost uncomfortably so. Honestly, I’m not trashing my brother because, if he was here, that’s what he would say. He started to go off the rails round about then but he knew it, and that’s what the album’s about. He’s not quite sort of gotten back, though he’s not falling apart like he was then.

Graham: Honey’s Dead (1992). I saw you on TV on The Word at the time doing the single Reverence. Although it was a top five hit, it didn’t lead on to more success. Is that because yourself and William aren’t into image and bullshit and showbiz? Those things are very important in selling records?

Jim Reid: I think definitely so and I think also, to add to that, we’ve never really latched onto any particular musical scene and I think to get beyond the stage where you’ve hit your own peak you have to latch onto another thing that’s bigger than one band. We’ve always thought you should have enough of an identity to not have to be part of a crowd.

Graham: The album Automatic (1989) sounds airbrushed like you were trying to make the Jesus and Mary Chain successful in America?

Jim Reid: It was and we were. It was polished and it was definitely aimed at America. There’s no apologies because I wanted to be a big pop star in America. Looking back on it, though, we must have been mad to think that was gonna break America for us.

Graham: It’s someone a bit warped’s idea of being American.

Jim Reid: Someone who loves the best of American culture, who doesn’t realise no one in America gives a fuck about Bo Diddley or The Stooges or Suicide. When the Velvet Underground did that reunion tour, they didn’t even bother playing America.

Graham: Darklands (1987). Another good album but you could almost call it Goth. Would you mind being called Goth?

Jim Reid: Yeah, pretty much. I don’t like Goth. It used to piss me off that because you used to wear black trousers and a black shirt people would go “Goth Band!” Fuckin’ leave me alone, y’ know.

Graham: Psycho candy (1985). You spent hours and hours in the studio, from what I’ve read, getting the feedback just right. If you liked feedback so much, how come you’ve only used it sparingly since then?

Jim Reid: Whatever people make of it, the view we had of ourselves and the view that other people had of us was out of sync. To us, there was feedback, there was great songs and there was a really great attitude. But people were only talking about one element. Again, I don’t apologise. You learn your lessons. You move on, do something else. You hone it down. You make it more focussed. That’s what we’ve been doing ever since.

Graham: You keep on changing but there’s always been a basic feel that’s gone beneath the whole thing.

Jim Reid: If you change to such an extent that you sound like a different band every time round, to me that’s a schizophrenic attitude to doing anything. You might look at a photograph of yourself in 1978 and you’re wearing sort of funny clothes but you should still recognise yourself. If you don’t, there’s something wrong.


© Modern Music Review (2008)