Manic Street Preacher: An Audience with Reverend & The Makers’ Jon McClure

One of the hardest balancing acts in rock is the one between popularity and credibility. Often, to achieve one, the other has to be compromised or abandoned altogether. Sometimes, despite the best efforts and intentions of the credible artist, being successful and popular becomes the driving force where once maintaining a stance or remaining true to your roots was the main focus.

Given the fact that his band has just scored a second Top 20 album with the follow up to their debut record and have just come off one of the UK’s biggest stadium tours supporting Oasis, a man in Jon McClure’s position may be excused for flicking through a portfolio of mansions or test-driving a new Bentley. Instead of capitalizing on his sky-rocketing profile, the Reverend is planning to pack up his troupe of Sheffield troubadours and busk his way to China.

“I’m not in this to sell loads of records,” McClure says. “If I was, I’d have said yes when David Letterman asked me to go to America. And I wouldn’t have gone to Beirut to play a gig instead. So I’m in a bit of a war with my record label at the moment because they’re on at me to promote the record because ‘it’s not selling as well as we’d like it to’. I’m like, ‘no, the record is not selling as well as you’d like it too’. So instead I’m going to busk from Sheffield to Beijing, going on the Trans-Mongolian and all that shit, railing it all the way, and we’re going to record all these tunes I’ve written with street musicians and film it all. But the record company is all like, ‘you can’t, man, you’ve got to promote the album and do another tour’. Hang on, I’m not a whore. I’m not your bitch. I’m here to make music and inspire people and say it’s a big world, what’s going on in it – have a look.”

Reverend and the Makers may be enjoying an elevated status at the moment with second album A French Kiss in the Chaos beginning to make waves but, just as many of the songs on the record can attest, McClure is still a man on a mission – not to conquer the charts but to open people’s minds. To that end, rather than becoming a slave to popularity, the Reverend is using the growing interest in his band to expand his flock.

“One of the advantages of the band taking off is that people are taking me a bit more seriously,” he says. “One of the crucial things which have come about is Twitter. I don’t have to put my ideas through a publicist – I can just say them. And people are picking me up on Twitter and going ‘yeah, man, he’s talking sense, he’s telling it how it is’. Then I started getting invited onto shows like Newsnight and The Week, you know? So people were then seeing me on respected shows, telling the truth. You go from being this laughing stock, as some sections of the press were making me out to be, to suddenly talking absolute sense on TV. The tide starts to turn. People tell people and then there’s the opinion that, he’s telling the truth, that Jon McClure. He’s not that dickhead they were saying he was.”

Away from the infectious fusion of dance, rock and funk that his band produce, McClure himself has been making headlines in the British press for his outspoken political views and his pro-active involvement in initiatives such as Instigate Debate, which encourages the public to challenge power brokers and news makers on hot topics, and the 10:10 climate campaign to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The coverage he’s been getting has not always been complimentary and at times downright insulting. As a result of what he says is a distortion of reality and a breeding ground for the hate and fear culture he sees within British society, McClure’s distrust and distaste of the media has grown.

“The tabloid culture in the UK is out of control, man. It brainwashes people. The Daily Mail put up a headline recently – “Fagan’s Heirs” – about Romanian pickpockets running riot on the streets of London. Just one person was charged with possession of a stolen mobile phone but the knock-on effect is that British people start to demonize Romanian people which is utter bullshit.

“I think that for a long time I was like a lone voice, that I was literally the only person who’s been saying anything about this culture of fear and hate. Now we’ve got this Instigate Debate thing and other projects and now the face of things, the façade, is starting to crack. Once things start to hit people in the pocket, like with the MPs scandal, or when the death toll in Afghanistan starts piling up then people will start looking around and they’ll say ‘you know what, I think this guy’s telling the truth.’ So I’ve been getting a bit more of a receptive audience as time’s gone on. There’ll always be people like me and people are becoming more aware.”

McClure sees himself as coming from a long line of politically aware musicians whose main goal is to get a message across to the people who buy their records or come to their shows. But the Reverend finds himself in a very different age to many of his heroes, where celebrity holds sway over the national consciousness and real issues get buried under stories of Hollywood divorces and Big Brother scandals.

“My heroes are John Lennon, Bob Marley and Joe Strummer,” McClure says. “Just like some DJs pretend to be channeling the spirit of John Peel while being told what to play, and journalists pretend to further a debate while following the editorial line, so some musicians think it’s enough to have a picture of Lennon or Marley on the wall rather than take the soul of what they were saying. John Lennon said that musicians are the newspapers – we’re just reporting what’s going on. We just sing about it rather than write about it. When you can pick up a newspaper and read such blatant lies, then perhaps the need for people to speak out politically is more important than ever.

“The moment you put your career and your financial profit ahead of the lives of innocent people, then what sort of person are you, man? What does it say about society when Israel is dropping phosphorous on little kids in Gaza, burning their skin off, and they put Jade Goody on the front of the paper? Someone who two months earlier they were calling a racist.”

The dichotomy of McClure’s situation is that he has to operate in an industry he obviously resents in order to get the widest audience possible for the views he feels are ignored and feared by many of those in the music business. As one would expect, he has a strong opinion on the state of music today and the musicians that he feels are ignoring the responsibilities which come from having people’s minds open to your words.

“We live in the era of corporate music. We live in the era of the careerist musician where people, wrongly I believe, feel that they can’t make a statement without being crucified for it. I’ve had loads of abuse from people, like the NME, who you would think would be my natural allies. But they’re not. They’re complicit in it.  Back in the day, they would have been the vanguard, the people leading the charge, but now they just want to put celebrities on the front cover.”

McClure believes that music’s foundations in rebellion and revolution are being trampled on in the stampede for the dwindling cash flow. The music business is experiencing one of its darkest times financially and the Reverend believes the desperate pursuit of what little money is available has added to the dissipation of the art form’s soul.

“People just want to make money because these are tough times, especially in the music industry where people are downloading stuff for free. There again, this is the industry founded on the idea of rebellion and they’re the ones telling people off – don’t steal music. How can you act like you’re the law when you’re supposed to be a rebel? Basically the reason that this decade has been so disappointing in terms of the mainstream is because money is the all prevailing thing. Wherever we’ve been, talking to audiences at festivals and the like, the overriding feeling is that they hate being given what the bands and the media think they want. ‘We think you want four skinny white lads with guitars so that’s what you’re going to get – every week’. Or a company says we want that type of record, and they do it but there’s no soul in it. It’s just for profit.

“It’s the way businessmen behave, like they’re providing a public service by giving the public what they think they want. It’s not how an artist behaves. They want to laud bands like the Klaxons as the future of British music – the same band who said in an interview that they sat down and thought ‘which style of music hasn’t been reinvented yet? We’ll have some success with that.’ And then they decided on rave. And then you get Johnny Borrell saying that he really wants to crack America with this album. What the fuck? That’s what you say in a marketing meeting. You’re supposed to be a songwriter, man.”

After playing some of the biggest gigs of his career as support to Manchester legends Oasis this summer, McClure spent enough time in the company of the Gallagher brothers to believe that the band’s split will rob the music industry of one of the few truly honest and independent bands it could count on.

“I’m gutted about the Oasis split, man,” he says. “I got a text from Noel telling me what had been going on and stuff, so I’m really sad about that. Oasis will be very sorely missed. They were the last band who would say the same thing to you in the pub as they would do in an interview. They would be completely honest without any thought about the effect on the wider aspects of their career. And now we have so many PR trained wankers that it’s dulled down music to the point of tedium.”

Despite the bleak picture he paints of the industry he works in, McClure maintains that he’s an optimist and that change is not only possible but essential – in music and society in general – but we are going to have to work for it.

“Musicians changing the world? It’s got to happen, man. The counterculture has got to readdress the balance because at the minute the establishment’s winning, completely, hands-down. It’s a chaotic time. The reason people like John Peel or John Lennon or whoever the fuck you want to mention made a difference is because they continually did things that challenged the people who were into them already and pushed it. As long as you can challenge and inspire people to think and question, you can fight back and win.”

The Interrogator Grills…Mikel Jollet, Airborne Toxic Event

Musicians, like all artists, are a strange breed. They either profess to showing their true selves through their work or present a public face that they think the people want to see. It’s very rare that a musician or artist will open up and give you a glimpse behind the persona. One of the most tried and tested forms of getting some truth from musicians is to lull them into a false sense of security by asking them seemingly random and bizarre questions, then hitting them with the incisive stuff. It works like sodium pentothal. They struggle but eventually they can’t help themselves.

 This is the job of The Interrogator – the journalist tasked with getting a peak behind the stage curtain at the person behind the rock star. This week, MIKEL JOLLETT, frontman and songwriter with The Airborne Toxic Event gets grilled.

Which great American novel do you wish you had written and why?

East of Eden. John Steinbeck. I think it’s probably cooler to say something like the Great Gatsby or American Pastoral by Phillip Roth. You know, something filled with analyses of America’s worst impulses.

 But I feel comforted whenever I read East of Eden. It’s a hopeful book. Steinbeck writes like a bull, pushing his characters through large swaths of time. He’s also got a canny understanding of the aspirations of poor people and the power of hard work.

 This tendency is comforting in an age obsessed with people’s moral failings and the voyeuristic draw of celebrity, money and pornography.

 Is being a rock star everything you expected it to be?

 No. It’s just another role one plays in life, like “uncle,” “son,” “friend,” “writer,” or “miserable failure.” Which is to say, it’s temporary and nothing is to be taken too seriously.

 What do you feel more comfortable in: nice suit or jeans and t-shirt?

 Nice suit. That’s the worst part of living in Los Angeles. It’s always too hot to wear a good jacket.

 Have you ever hunted anything, killed it and eaten it?

 Sort of. My parents raised rabbits for food when I was a kid. We used to slaughter them every few months and make stew. I still have dreams about it. I think to them it was about respecting the life cycle: you know, if you’re going to eat something, you should kill it yourself so that you understand the sacrifice.  To me, it was just another chore and I always wanted to go to Wendy’s.

I think about the rabbits sometimes. How they died. It wasn’t some romantic thing like death always seems in stories. It was just a dull thud, a kick of the legs, then silence. It’s not like a Silence of the Lambs sort of thing where they’re screaming and haunting me or whatever. Just that the very banality of how they died sticks with me. I read somewhere that in a study of black box recordings on airplane crashes, for 80% of people, there last word is, “shit.”

 How much of an influence does your medical condition have on your life?

 Some. It keeps me within certain boundaries I would otherwise probably transgress. The only way to deal with Autoimmune Disorder, generally, is to live a balanced life: you know, sleeping well and eating well and avoiding stress and that sort of thing. Which of course is the way one is supposed to deal with life. Otherwise, I don’t really think about it except that every now and then when I’m really stressed I lose a clump of hair or an eyebrow. It’s kind of funny.

 When it comes to a night out on the tiles, are you a full-on dancer or an appreciative nodder? What gets you on the dance floor?

Full-on dancer. Old soul, new hip-hop and Swedish electro. Put Al Green, Kanye West and the Knife into a blender and hit “puree.” Lately I’ve been into new dance moves like “the jacket toss,” “the tie-straightener” and “the sleeve brush.” There’s also been a lot of pogo-ing at shows lately.

 Who are your heroes in music, literature and life?

 Leonard Cohen.

 What are the benefits of fame?

 Your friends think you’re rich. Your ideas seem more important. These are also the drawbacks of fame.

 If you could front a band of musicians, living or dead, what would the line-up be?

Eric Avery and Stephen Perkins from Jane’s Addiction in the rhythm section. Jason Lytle from Grandaddy and whoever plays all those greats lines in Passion Pit on keyboard, playing songs co-written with Regina Spektor in a production conceived and orchestrated by David Bowie

Would you ever wear a cowboy hat, either seriously or with irony?

 Yes.

Are you mentally compiling notes on life in the music industry to turn into a book one day? Would such a book be complimentary of the industry or a warning to others?

No. There really are no secrets. The best moments in music are the ones that happen between your ears as you listen to your favorite song. The rest is all folklore and mythology of a world which doesn’t really exist.

Away from the on-tour catering, do you cook? What’s your specialty?

 Salmon and various types of breakfast scrambles.

You’re trapped in a lift with a critic who has been very severe in his/her appraisal of your work (think Pitchfork review). What do you say to them?

You can’t use my phone.

Many of your songs are about heartache and loss in relationships, what are the most important lessons you’ve learnt about the affairs of the heart and what advice would you give about avoiding the pitfalls?

I’m probably not a good person to ask. And anyway, I think people figure out such things for themselves. It’s never anything you read. I will say that I tend to think that fate does not exist and that symbolism in relationships is pointless. You know, “this event means this.” et cetera, and that if you want to be with someone, the way to make it work is to work at it.

You can either have the problems of a single person or the problems of a person in a relationship.

What would be your first reaction to an Airborne Toxic Event?

I’d probably want to know my folks were OK.

Do you read your own press? If so, do you take any notice of it?

I try not to. I think it’s human nature to want to know what other people think of you but it’s the kind of thing that can also make you very self-conscious. It’s probably best to take it with a grain of salt. Most people have no idea who you are.

Having said that, I really like music journalists. They tend to be smart and kind of sarcastic. They’re cynics and true believers at the same time. We have a lot of good conversations about David Bowie and Sufjan Stevens.

There’s also something kind of great about a good writer who can capture in words why they love a piece of music. The feeling in the room. The excitement at a great show. The ideas driving the music. Why people are responding, jumping, clapping, screaming, swooning. Like it’s the last night on earth. It’s not easy. You know the old line about dancing about architecture… It’s true.

What’s your favorite (legal) vice and why?

 Ambien. Europe is a whole other experience when you can sleep at night.

 TATE are now a Big Thing, after being the Next Big Thing. Who in your opinion is the Next Next Big Thing?

Passion Pit. They’ve cornered something. I can’t decide if it’s a sound or an attitude towards songwriting or a gift for rhythm and melody, but whatever it is they are fucking talented.

What would your personal profile description be on Facebook?

 ”I am not on Facebook.”

 What’s the deepest statement you’ve ever come up with and does it still resonate, or does it sound pretentious now?

 In a drunken stupor I once scribbled on my wall: “Everyone is an orphan.” Yeah, it sounds pretentious as hell.

 After meeting which famous person did your opinion of them completely change? What did you think before and after you met them?

David Bowie. He was shorter than I thought he’d be.

We talked for a long time about Nietzsche and moral-relativism and the death of God in the 20th century and we ended up having this oddly paternal moment when he asked me if my generation had a problem believing in anything.

 I nearly wrote a book trying to answer that question.

Was Michael Jackson really the King of Pop? What’s your favourite Michael Jackson song?

Yes. Right now I’ve been into that song “Say Say Say” he did with Paul McCartney.

What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve done when drunk, that you can tell me?

Hmm… When we were in San Jose for a show, for some reason I decided to go to the bar downstairs and play the piano. The bar was closed. Security showed up and told me to stop. I just kept looking at him and saying, “Hey man, someone’s got to be the piano player.”

He called the police. 10 minutes later (as I was walking away across the street) five police cars arrived. A block later one asked me if I’d been in that hotel. I said, “no. But could you tell me where Carl’s Junior is?” He gave us directions and we went for milkshakes.

I guess that’s not very embarrassing. There was a time when I was nearly passed out drunk in a field and I had this hour-long conversation with a very polite and well-spoken girl. It turned out she was a blogger. She printed an account of the whole thing including pictures of me lying passed out under a diesel truck.

Which is more expressive: literature or music?

Who knows? Every major change I’ve ever made in my life has been predicated upon a book. But then you never love anything like a song.

Are we doomed?

No. But it’s best to think we are.

You have won a major music award at a flashy industry event and are expected to take the podium – who do you mention in your acceptance speech? Who would you credit for inspiration and support?

Philip Roth, Milan Kundera, Eric Bachman and the Henry Clay People. The first three because they were the ones that it seemed like they were whispering in my ear, you know saying things that sounded familiar and true, but a little incomprehensible and beyond my reach. And the HCP because they are a great local band from Silver Lake and I think they’d be excited to hear their name on TV.

Your album has been widely acclaimed and rated as one of the best rock albums of the year. Surprised or what?

Sometimes. Sometimes I wonder how anybody ever even listened to it, because it’s just like a role and not real and feel like it’s all absurd and it was just a home recording we made at our friend’s house and I should be somewhere writing a book. Other times, I feel like it was two wrenching years of life poured body and soul into 38 minutes and I guess I understand it.

You’ve been given your own state to govern – let’s call it Mikelistan – what would be the five most important laws of the land? (And remember – you’re the boss, it can be anything!)

It would be a terrible idea. Power corrupts. Always. I think all five rules would have to be about how to equitably share power and make that power based on a democratic system. That and that everyone would be required to listen to the Final Cut by Pink Floyd.

Is there really no place like home? What do you love and loathe about LA?

Los Angeles is widely misunderstood because most people think L.A. is Hollywood and Hollywood is dominated by white people and Los Angeles is not. It’s mostly Latino and black and Asian immigrants. It’s sort of like how 4 years ago if you went to Europe, everybody thought everyone in America loved George W. Bush. We only exported the worst caricatures about ourselves.

L.A. is like that. All it exports is Hollywood. Hollywood is a tiny island of 90,000 power-seeking, white people surrounded by an ocean of 14 million working people from all over the world.

Which is to say, I love the tacos. I love playing basketball in the park, I love the Korean Barbecue, the Ethiopian food, the empty beaches by the airport, the weather at my parent’s house, Fox Hills mall where all the black people are rich and the white people are poor. The Armenian ladies at Hollywood Park who try to steal chips when they lose a hand. The Vietnamese noodle shops. The hills above Griffith Park and the way rushing, muddy rivers form in the gutters when it rains.

What would you say to the 16-year-old Mikel Jollett if you could go back in time and meet him?

Don’t waste your time on math.

What is your opinion on rock stars using their standing to address political and social issues? Can musicians save the world?

We all can. It’s like a billion ton boulder we all have to push together.

Which is more difficult: writing a novel to learning to play guitar?

Writing a novel. Playing guitar is fun.

What are your initial impressions of President Barack Obama? Are you optimistic about the future of your country under him?

I’m worried he’s going to be shot. All the extremist right wing redneck rhetoric is frightening. It’s like the anti-Semitic propaganda of the middle ages or something. There’s so much blind hatred. All these people worried about socialism and that n***er president. And here he is just trying to make sure people have health care.

I picture some guy with an ailing mother threatening Obama’s life because he’s trying to reform health care. The mother is dying in bed of cancer and her son is at some rally screaming “Socialism!” It’s madness.

The Republican Party in America has convinced poor southern white people to vote against their own interests by fanning the flames of racism, nationalism and xenophobia. They are out of ideas.

Having said that, I think Obama is the most promising politician the world has seen since Roosevelt. He’s a pragmatist at heart and I like this about him since our system is designed to reign in the schemes of ideologues. He’s not a revolutionary; he’s an exceptional steward with a silver tongue. Every great elected leader in history has shared these two traits.

Does being a guitarist automatically make you awesome at Guitar Hero? Ever tried it? What song do you rule at? Any of your band colleagues any good?

It’s actually the other way around. I suck at Guitar Hero. Daren is pretty good. I think the game appeals to the drummer world-view which mostly revolves around hitting things in rhythm.

Cold beer or scotch-on-the-rocks?

Yes, thank you. How kind.

What are your expectations for the band? Do you have a plan to become the biggest band in the world?

I don’t think you can plan for that. It’s out of your control. We don’t talk about it. We focus on more basic things like staying friends or maintaining balance in our lives. This is getting harder though. The balance part (we are better friends than ever).

I think we’ve all lost our minds a little bit. Life is beginning to feel like some endless waking dream. Like my band mates are just recurring characters and every new face I see looks like the composite of a few I’ve seen before. I’m currently  typing this on a laptop on an airplane in a string of endless flights, shows, wild nights out drinking, phone calls home, quiet hung-over mornings slumped over a guitar, deafening wild-eyed evenings slumped over a microphone, meet-and-greets, sound check parties, signing tents, band meetings, rehearsals, bus trips, jet-lagged days where you wander aimlessly through the streets of a foreign city reading signs and looking for basic necessities like some kind of bleary-eyed zombie in tight black jeans.

The whole thing is kind of silly.

Another Score for Satan: Introducing The Black Box Revelation

Jan Paternoster is missing. Two hours before Belgian blues rockers Black Box Revelation are due on stage at the Cactus festival in Bruges, the singer/guitarist is AWOL. No-one knows where he is. Thankfully someone knows who he’s with, which seems to reduce the latent unease among the group’s entourage dramatically. “He’s with his girlfriend,” says Dries Van Dijck, the band’s cherubic drummer. “Don’t worry, he’ll be here,” he adds, calmly. “Want a beer?”

This confident and cool response speaks volumes about the relationship between front man Paternoster and his pint-sized powerhouse partner-in-crime. After the laconic singer eventually ambles into the backstage area, it’s clear the bond is strong. They banter like brothers; cracking each other up with shared anecdotes and memories. On stage, the connection is almost telepathic. Trust is everything. It has to be when the show, the music and even their futures rely so heavily on just the two of them.

“From the very first rehearsal, we agreed that we wanted to become a really good band and not stay a shitty little Brussels group that just played for about 20 people,” says Paternoster, after relocating to the band’s dressing room in a nearby school. “We like the fact that it’s just the two of us. In the old band, there were four of us and when we wanted to rehearse there was always trouble getting everyone together at the same time. There was always someone who couldn’t make it. We ended up hardly rehearsing. With the two of us, it’s easier and we’re more committed to making it work.”

The old band is – or was – the Mighty Generators. Legend has it that after a demo session for a recording the Mighty Generators were entering into Belgium’s biggest band contest, Humo’s Rock Rally, Paternoster and Van Dijck used the remaining time to jam on some songs the singer had been toying with away from the band. “I wrote one song, Love in Your Head, and it didn’t fit with what the Mighty Generators were doing,” Paternoster says. “So I said to Dries that maybe we should try and play this song together, just guitar and drums. We rehearsed just the one time and it was like ‘Nah…’ but then I wrote two more songs and we played them again and it sounded pretty good. The music we played, just the two of us, was more like the music we wanted to play.”

Both the Mighty Generators and the embryonic Black Box Revelation recordings were entered into the contest. The Mighty Generators were eliminated in the first round. The Black Box Revelation won the silver medal. The rest is recent history

“After that, we thought we should stick with Black Box Revelation and try and make a go of it,” says van Dijck. “We’ve never really regretted the decision to leave because we’re doing quite well and this is where we want to be. From the start we said to each other that we wanted to go for it and become famous. And it’s happening.”

It certainly is. Despite their tender ages – Paternoster is 20, Van Dijck is just 18 – they already have a wealth of knowledge gained from growing up in the business and stories from the rock ‘n’ roll’ coalface.

“My first gig ever was with a band called The Feminists,” says Paternoster.  “I wasn’t playing guitar at the point. I could only sing and not that well, I hadn’t learnt how to breathe properly in the songs and I had this very low voice. And they made me sing Stairway to Heaven. On the one hand it was terrible but on the other it was really fun. Robert Plant had nothing to worry about though. And the guy on drums is the only drummer I know without any rhythm. He just played whatever he wanted over the top of the guitars and my singing.”

Just how famous the Black Box Revelation will get remains to be seen but the initial signs are good. They already have a growing reputation and a burgeoning following in their home country while high profile support slots on international tours and increasingly large headline shows around Europe are helping to spread the message.

“We’ve done three tours since the start of the year,” says Paternoster, putting his band forward for a nomination as one of the hardest working new acts around. “We toured through Europe with the Eagles of Death Metal and then we toured France with (fellow Belgians) Ghinzu, which was weird because in the Flemish part of Belgium, they’re not that big but in France they were selling out big venues of 2000 people every night. Then we did our own headlining tour in Germany and Switzerland. But now we’re playing one or two festivals a week.

“Things are also going okay in the UK,” he adds. “We were in the NME three times and our next single comes out there in three weeks and then we’re going to play a show. But it’s hard to create a buzz around our band in the UK because they have lots of bands there. I think they have so many bands that some people wonder why they should listen to bands from outside the UK. It’s working out well though, but it’s not easy. “

“We played the Scala in London with dEUS and White Lies and that was cool,” says Van Dijck. “The guys from dEUS told us that we had to come back and play as many times as we can in the UK. Just keep coming back and playing. Get as much attention as you can. So we will, when we get the chance. Last time we played in London it was a great show and the people said they liked us, so…”

Despite the increasing exposure to the hard-living rock’n’roll lifestyle, these young Belgians seem to have their heads screwed on and their feet planted firmly on the ground.

“We’re not the type of band to have superstitions and rituals,” says Paternoster. “I think it’s too dangerous to start with superstitions. Once you think you have to have those things, like the lucky underpants, you might have one day when it’s like, ‘oh shit, the lucky underpants aren’t clean’ and then you think it means that it’s going to be a bad show.

“We know how important this all is,“ adds Paternoster. “We always drink a beer before a show but we never get drunk. We’re not drunk onstage because we did that once or twice and it wasn’t that good so from that moment we said that we would always be sober on stage. But we have the one beer to get in the mood.”

“We don’t act like big stars because we’re not…yet,” adds Van Dijck. “On our rider, we only ask for two bottles of wine; one red, one white; a bottle of whiskey, enough beers. If we get really big maybe we can ask for something stupid before every show and see if they bring it for us. We can see if they pay attention to the rider or not.

“Dries used to have Red Bull on the rider,” laughs Paternoster, imitating an over-caffeinated drummer. “He would say that he wouldn’t go on stage without his Red Bull. Some bands have their booze album, some have their cocaine album – our first record was our Red Bull album. The next one will be the coffee album.”

True to their word, after a series of neck rolls and intense pacing, they toast their band with a single beer and go into a two-man huddle before taking to the stage. The atmosphere, already electric due to a series of passing downpours and threatening storm clouds, crackles from the moment the band greet the crowd. After the briefest of introductions, the band tears through an hour long set of funked-up punk blues at illegal volume and breakneck speed. The majority of debut album “Set Your Head on Fire” gets the high octane live treatment, with Van Dijck splintering drumsticks with abandon while Paternoster struts and screams like a possessed young Jagger, torturing supernatural riffs from his battered guitar. While the White Stripes and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club comparisons make sense when confronted with the cut-and-thrust of songs like Love, Love is on My Mind and Gravity Blues, it’s the band’s love of the Rolling Stones which drives the scuzzy jive of crowd pleasers like Stand Your Ground and I Think I Like You. It’s a fast-paced celebration of the Devil’s best music.

They are even granted the festival rarity of an encore, an even more anomalous event considering they aren’t even the headline act and this is a mid-afternoon slot, not a closing set. One breathless discussion later and the band are back on stage for a ballsy, truimphant version of Fighting with the Truth. Then they’re gone in a squall of feedback; ears ringing and drenched in sweat.

It’s obvious from the state of them after the show that creating such a noise and generating such incredible energy leaves both band members on the point of collapse.

“We have to create this wall of sound, just the two of us, so we have to give 100 percent all the time,” gasps Paternoster, as he shakily signs autographs while Van Dijck struggles to find the power to hand out drumsticks to young fans nearby. “I have three amps but it’s as much to do with the power and effort we put in as much as the amplification. I think it has a lot to do with the way we play together. We’ve been getting louder and louder as we’ve gone on. The first year, we never used ear plugs but after that, the ringing in the ears was so bad we had to start wearing them. I think since then we’ve been even louder. I can’t put my amp at just one or two because Dries is drumming so hard I can’t hear it. I have to turn it up to eleven, like Spinal Tap.”

Once the adoring hordes have been satisfied, it’s time for friends and family. “I’m here for all the Belgian shows,” says, Elisabeth Van Lierop, Paternoster’s girlfriend, as she props up the exhausted singer. “It’s the only time I get to see him at the moment. They’re either in the studio or on the road.”

Considering the band are due back in the studio in August to put the finishing touches to their much-anticipated second album, she may have to get used to her boyfriend being away from home a lot more.

Rock out with your Cocker out: Jarvis, Live @AB, Brussels, June 6, 2009

In the song The Professional, one of the darkest exercises in self analysis on Pulp’s Britpop comedown album This is Hardcore, Jarvis Cocker whispers: “I’m only trying to give you what you’ve come to expect. Just another song ’bout single mothers and sex.” On a record littered with painful introspection, the message here was clear: Cocker had woken up in the litter of the last party to find he had become a parody.

The bright light of clarity eventually proved too much for Pulp. They laboured on for one last lacklustre studio album (the ironically titled We Love Life) and a Greatest Hits collection that nobody bought before finally shutting up shop. Jarvis – who, it was once said, would turn up for the opening of an envelope – became a recluse. Absconding to Paris, it’s likely he spent the next few years wondering how he went from being one of Britain’s most revered songwriters to an author of the musical equivalent of mucky seaside postcards.

Now, after a slow rehabilitation, Cocker is back. Unfortunately, over a decade after he became a victim of his own foibles, he seems to be falling into a similar trap.

Jarvis comes to the Ancienne Belgique with a set-list compiled from two album’s worth of solo material which tends to show up his weaknesses rather than play to his considerable strengths. After making a strong comeback with his eponymous debut, the majority of his latest effort fails to cut it in the live arena. The wry humour is still there along with that clever social dissection which makes him a brilliant, observational lyricist but, just as in the mid-1990s, Jarvis has been seduced by an obsession which often buries his insight. Whereas it was once that typically British brand of naughtiness – extra-marital affairs behind net curtains, the voyeurism and self-loathing of suburban repression – he now seems consumed by the inadequacies of the male gender.

Songs such as I Never Said I Was Deep, Leftovers and Hold Still are lyrically sharp but tediously interchangeable in tempo, tune and topic; all melodramatic, mid-paced stories of the various failings of men. They are, like many of the characters involved, sadly flaccid.

But let’s be perfectly clear: Jarvis Cocker was, is, and always will be a true rock star; a larger-than-life persona, an idiosyncratic artist who calls it like he sees it, and – while the title Legend in bandied about all too frivolously in the music world – he is undoubtedly an icon, a national treasure.

And despite the periods of ponderous balladry tonight, the rock star Jarvis gets more than a few chances to cut loose. He high-kicks and spasms his way across the stage in that electric shock dance style of his while remaining pitch-perfect and passionate in his delivery. In between the songs, he oozes tailored class as he glides from one wing to the other, effortlessly engaging his adoring crowd in humorous banter as if he’s passing out scones at a garden party. He cuts a distinctly more relaxed and jovial figure than at any time since Pulp went into hiatus.

When he delves into the more incisive material from his first solo effort and the rockier efforts from new album Further Complications, he can be forgiven for his current bouts of self-indulgence. Homewreaker, seemingly based on the 1960s Batman theme, and the frantic Caucasian Blues raise the crowd from its stupor while the glam stomp of Angela, the scathingly brilliant Fat Children and the triumphant Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time, are all worthy of Pulp’s heyday. Jarvis may not chase fame and fortune as he once did but when the mood takes him it’s clear his passion for music and the live experience remains undimmed.

When all is said and done, it’s wonderful to have him back but if he does choose to leave us once more and return to solitude, only to resurface a couple of years further down the line with his obsessions in check, I for one won’t be sorry to wave him off. And I will be one of the first to welcome him back with open arms when he rises again.

More Crazy, Crazy Nuits: Les Nuits Botanique 2009 Part 2

After Monday’s day of rest which saw a depletion in paracetamol stocks and contributions made to the burgeoning sleep deficit, Les Nuits Botanique gets underway once more. Over at Cirque Royale, the capital’s culture vultures are enjoying the smörgåsbord of world talent collectively known, for tonight’s purposes at least, as Babel Live. The second incarnation of this eclectic free-for-all includes, among many others, orchestra maestro Jean-Paul Dessy, UK indie stalwarts Tindersticks and trance-roots experimentalist Hindi Zahra. As the Cirque stage creaks under the weight of a hundred styles and voices, across town Le Botanique is serving up a wholesome feast of noise-mongers.

Despite the shiverings of mid-festival flu, I’m sufficiently medicated and ready to enter the fray once again. I’m particularly drawn to the tent tonight for the arrival of We Are Wolves and Metronomy. But before I get my post-punk and electronica fixes, I slip into the Orangerie for a taste of Quebec. Opening on the stage dedicated to bands from the Francophone province are Karkwa. These alt-rockers begin by cranking out their disconcertingly offbeat tunes to a threadbare crowd as if it was a bulging arena. It soon turns out to be a self-fulfilling approach as the Orangerie starts to fill up as more and more people are drawn in. I buck the trend and leave, not out of making any statement on quality but because fellow Canadians We Are Wolves are expected to draw a big crowd and I want to get in on the front stage action.

A line-up to howl for

The buzz is not wrong. The Chapiteau bulges with eager fans all wanting to confirm their lupine status. Soon rolling bass and screeching electronica sends seismic calls of the wild through the crowd and the place is soon howling. This is where post-modern rock, punk and dub collide; it’s like the Jah Wobble-inspired Public Image Limited jamming with Basement Jaxx. And everyone here seems to love it. They Are Wolves, no doubt about it. Me? I’m not all there yet…which maybe makes me a dingo or perhaps some kind of mongrel. It’ll take a little longer for my canine affiliation to be confirmed.

Metronomy are a weird bunch too but there’s less full moon madness about them which, given the return of my mono hearing and thick head, suits me just fine. Flitting between the more whimsical aspects of Frank Zappa and the pop sensibilities of late 80s Bowie, Joseph Mount and crew deliver a thoroughly professional set of alternative electro pop which distracts me long enough from my ailments to achieve a level of normality. As the steam in the tent rises along with the voices of the crowd, I pop another DayMed and delay the inevitable for another day.

Wednesday sees a banquet of Belgian bands laid out on Le Botanique’s already groaning table of talent as the noisy old greenhouse plays host to musical fledglings, bands on the rise and established and celebrated national treasures. The Nuit Belge line-up throws up a lot of names I’ve never heard of – which is the whole point of the exercise, not just tonight but every night. While the festival can give some international acts their first taste of Belgium, it also prides itself on bringing homegrown musicians to a wider audience. And just as Le Botanique has provided now world famous artists a foothold in Europe, the festival continues to give Belgian bands their first rung on the musical ladder.

Great White Sharko

Headlining act Sharko are just one of many Belgian bands who credit Les Nuits for giving them their first big break. David Bartholomé, the band’s lead singer and founder, recalls the moment he went from pub singer to big stage act courtesy of the festival’s Nuit Belge policy. “I’d been playing in the small clubs and pubs for about six months when Le Botanique asked me to play Les Nuits for the first time,” he tells me as we stroll through the grounds in the early evening sunshine. “I was supporting Arno in the Chapiteau and this was a big step up. Arno is this big act and then there’s just me with my acoustic guitar. I thought the crowd was going to tear me apart because they didn’t know me. So this was pressure. But there was also no pressure, no expectation. I could just do my thing. So I really wanted to take that chance to impress these people who didn’t know me and make an impact. It gave me a huge boost. I’ve been back about five times now but I’ll always remember that first time and the opportunity it gave me.” Bartholomé believes the festival’s success and its track record of nurturing and promoting local talent comes from getting the basics right. “With something like Les Nuits, the concept has to be good first. And it is,” he tells me. “How it brings people here with its philosophy and its choice of bands. It works. It creates a wider audience who are attracted by the festival’s range. Then you can bring the Belgian bands in and they can connect with a lot more people. But the concept has to be right before you can do that and Le Botanique has it just right.”

Once the gigs get started, the festival soon offers further evidence to that effect. After a week of wondering what it takes to make a Brussels crowd lose its mind, the answer comes in the form of the Experimental Tropic Blues Band. Peddling Luciferian speed blues which would make Jon Spencer look like a Valium-addled couch potato; this high octane trio injects something previously unseen into the Orangerie crowd. It may be the light speed boogie-woogie; it could be the relentless rockabilly rhythms or it may even be the sudden flash of the guitarist’s penis – whatever it is, it turns the front of the stage into a writhing unbridled mass and prompts two separate stage invasions by unknown crash-helmeted space cadets.

Ground Control to Major Space Cadet

“That was totally surprising,” exhibitionist guitarist Dirty Wolf (or Jeremy to his mum) tells me after the show. “We get crazy crowds back home in Liege, the people just go nuts but this is Brussels, you know? Usually they’re too cool in the capital. But these guys were mad. The guys in the crash helmets? Well, the one in the front with the radio tied to his head, he’s a regular. But the other guy? No idea. He’s new. He kinda surprised me. But you know, shit like this happens sometimes.”

The fact that this type of behavior is seen as commonplace in some corners of Belgium suggests this particular reporter is either going to the wrong gigs or needs to do an extensive underground club tour of the country. However, things start to become a bit clearer when Les Vedettes Disque No. 1 hit the stage. Again, the crowd goes wild for the satin-clad, eight piece girl troupe and their glittery male band. Looking and sounding like Belgium’s next Eurovision Song Contest entry, Les Vedettes squeak out trashy 60s pop which seems to hit the spot with the over-excited fans beside me.

Les Vedettes keep their modesty covered

As the girls on stage struggle to coordinate their basic choreography while keeping their modesty covered by tiny running shorts, it soon dawns on me that this enthusiasm doesn’t come so much from the music – which, in Les Vedettes case, is patchy to say the least – but from national pride. These audiences are upping their game because these are Belgian bands. The local crowds are out in huge numbers to support the homegrown talent, as I discover as I try and catch Lionel Solveigh in the Grand Salon (no visible view available) and Major Deluxe in the Rotunde (one out-one in policy on the door). Even negotiating my way through Le Botanique to watch Daan in the Chapiteau takes twice as long as on any previous night. After briefly watching The Bony King of Nowhere from the last available space by the speaker and snatching a glimpse of BaliMurphy through the stairs, I take one look at the bulging tent and the massive queue outside and decides to give Sharko’s headline slot a miss. Hailing a cab, I speed home with a new perspective on Belgian music – and Belgian audiences – to consider.

Come Thursday my flu is back with a vengeance and I’m wondering if any of the crowd on one of the nights I was sandwiched between sweaty strangers had recently arrived back from Mexico. Such is the level of wooziness and the paranoid fear that I have the Grippe Porcine – as well as the fact that straying outside into the massive electrical storm and torrential rain could be life-threatening – I decide that I’ll stick with the two bands I particularly want to see and forgo the rest. Luckily, one follows the other so once safely ensconced in the Rotunde with tissues and cough drops, I settle in for Sleepy Sun’s set before indulging in some Pink Mountaintops.

The former, an American octet who are not very Sleepy actually, prove to be one of those revelations that Le Botanique is adept at providing. It’s the sound of decades of San Francisco influences; West Coast harmonies drift below alternative glam while pseudo-religious influences and esoterica combine with psychedelic blues to add a spacey, trippy aspect to the band’s aura. It stops mercifully short of being flaky and provides a dose of aural soothing to my now aching bones.

Man Mountain

Friday begins with disappointment as news reaches me that, despite my best efforts and my hard-earned festival press pass, there’s no way that I’ll be able to get in to see Bat for Lashes in the Rotunde tonight. The policy of sold-out shows being only open to VIP passes and those with tickets prevents me from exercising the freedom I’ve enjoyed for the past week. All credit to the security staff, though. I can blag with the best of ‘em but there’s no getting past the burly dudes on the door even when I employ the exaggerated English accent ploy ( – this is sometimes perceived as exotic and adds some kind of weird credibility, although I have never quite worked out why).

Never mind, eh? Faint heart never won fair maid and while bat-lashed Natasha Kahn was my main target tonight, I’m more than happy to settle for Anita Blay, otherwise known as Thecocknbullkid. This 22-year old East Londoner peddles electro-trash and grime with a combination of rapid-fire sing-speech and full-on diva swoops and hollers. Her songs are catchy and insightful with more than a little dash of dark humour in them. The way she commands the Orangerie with her attention-grabbing image and powerful voice certainly adds credence to the hype that she’s stardom-bound. It’s not my musical cup of tea but I like to think that preference rarely clouds my judgment. This girl has a good chance of becoming huge – and we, oh leery Orangerie audience, can say we were there.

And so to the last day.

Saturday dawns and my voice finally gives up. The scratchiness of the past few days has been replaced by a thick swelling and while I can now breathe through my nose without the aid of menthol, I can barely make my voice heard – which is a pain in the arse, as well as the throat, as I’m meeting Paul-Henri Wauters, Le Botanique’s artistic director and the brains behind Les Nuits, for a chat this afternoon. Luckily, the ever-affable and accommodating Paul-Henri has a lot to say and needs very little prompting from yours truly to wax lyrical about all things Les Nuits.

I manage to croak out a question on attendances and he runs with it.

“People have been deciding to buy tickets later this year than in other years; we’ve had more people just turning up than we have had buying in advance, but in comparison to other years, the attendance is about the same, maybe a little higher than most years,” Wauters says. “I think the big artists have attracted less people than we thought they would and the lesser known acts have seen more, maybe because of the lower prices for the tickets. The first week was down on our expectations but this week has been better than we expected.”

I’ve seen him scurrying through the complex on a number of occasions over the past week, I tell him. Does he get to see many bands during such a hectic time?

“As the director, I try and see as many bands as possible but there are always people I have to see or there are people I bump into and have to talk to. There are always a lot of questions from the crews, the technicians…we have between 200 and 300 people working on the festival…but even when things are running smoothly, the chance to watch a band and just enjoy it is pretty rare. But I did get to see some bands. A lot of bands have impressed me this year. I loved Sleepy Sun…the Asteroids Galaxy Tour, Battant and Beast were great…Babel Live with about 40 people on stage together was amazing…And The Experimental Tropic Blues Band during Nuit Belge were also fantastic. Last night we had Thecocknbullkid, the first time for her and an artist that no-one knows, which really shows what we’re about. Of course we like to promote new artists but there has to be a mixture of unknowns and big names. If people don’t have confidence in your program, they won’t come. If we have 100 unknowns, we won’t attract anybody. With around 25,000 people coming here, you have to provide known bands to get that amount of people to come.”

The festival has been running for a long time now, I ask Paul-Henri how he manages to keep it fresh.

“Les Nuits has been built up every year by learning from the experience of what we did, what we can do to improve this, what worked, what didn’t work,” he says. “We’ve found out that people want to be closer to the bands, which we’ve tried out with the Grand Salon this year, and maybe we can try other things like that. We have an idea to make some themed rooms, perhaps, or bringing the stage into the middle of the room. We will also be looking into ways of making the festival more environmentally-friendly. But the beginnings of next year’s festival are here now with what we have done with this year’s event. The future of Les Nuits begins with the end of the current festival. We will build it from there.”

His phone rings and after a warm hand-shake, he’s off again, making a promise to meet for a drink later which I know he wants to keep but ultimately won’t be able to. I stand and look out over the botanical gardens under the darkening sky as the sun sets on Les Nuits Botanique 2009. Sunday, the day of rest, beckons over the dimming horizon and I decide to go out in style. My sore throat cries out for constant lubrication and I oblige in the form of beer. These tokens I have in my pocket will be useless tomorrow anyway so I exchange them for as many cold plastic glasses of the local brew as I can carry and head off to catch the much-anticipated (by me anyway) Great Lake Swimmers.

A Great Lake Swimmer

The Canadian folk rockers have been bleeping loudly on my radar ever since their festival appearance was confirmed a couple of moths ago. Tony Dekker’s troupe arrive with more melodic tunes in their arsenal after releasing their fourth album, Lost Channels, just six weeks earlier and from initial listens, the new record has enhanced the band’s already impressive repertoire. Live on stage, the dreaminess of songs like Everything is Moving So Fast and Stealing Tomorrow takes on a more robust hue while faster numbers like Palmistry and She Comes to Me in Dreams become cinematically epic. Dekker and Co. even get a few toes tapping with the Gram Parsons-inspired The Chorus in the Underground. While it may not be the most explosive end to the festival – Autokratz in the Chapiteau would have provided a more up-tempo finale – Great Lake Swimmers bring down the curtain on Les Nuits in the perfect way for me; a show which embodies the class and professionalism of the ten-day soirée.

Crazy, Crazy Nuits: Les Nuits Botanique 2009 Part 1

Despite the official opening of the 25th anniversary edition of Les Nuits Botanique kicking off two days before with a sold-out show by Zach Cordon’s folk-world music project Beirut at the Cirque Royale, I enter the fray on Friday as the festival opens on its second and main front. As the host venue gears up for its grand opening, Le Botanique is a hive of activity as teams of staff apply the finishing touches to the four stages which will host over eighty acts in the coming eight days. The former royal horticultural complex is buzzing with anticipation and driven by the sound of a ticking clock.

Amid the organized chaos of these final preparations, I grab a few minutes with Eddie Argos and Jasper Future from British art punks Art Brut. Freshly off a darkened tour bus, singer Argos is slightly disorientated but happy to be back in Brussels. “We’ve been really looking forward to this,” he says. “I’d forgotten it was a festival though. I got off the bus and it was like ‘oh it’s this place again – brilliant! Oh, loads of bands are playing here.’” Guitarist Future looks less ruffled but is no less enthusiastic. “It’s not very often that you get to play in a botanical garden so it’s pretty awesome,” he says. Art Brut bring their ironic brand of shouty faux-anarchy to the Orangerie later this evening and Argos expects a lively crowd. “Last time we were here there were loads of old skool punks and a fight broke out,” he reminisces, almost fondly. “I jumped into the crowd and shouted ‘if you wanna fight, fight me’ and then it was all like, ‘what am I saying?’ They were really big punks. But luckily no-one fought me.”

Art Brut, Live in the Orangerie

There are no outwardly visible punks in the crowd when Art Brut take to the stage later in the evening; the swelling audience is mainly made up of slightly bemused locals with a few hardcore fans dotted around. It takes a while for the band to get through to the majority of the audience but a few raucously delivered songs in – and after the robust Argos leaps into the crowd to deliver a monologue on crashing a Van Gogh exhibition – Art Brut look on course to record another victory on Belgian soil.

Taking a hint from Argos himself, I leave the manic Brits to enjoy their away win and fight my way to the exit, heading for the outside tent where spiky Canadians Metric are due on stage. Weaving through the milling punters and resisting the allure of the hot-dog stands, I exit the 19th century greenhouse and shuffle into the temporary sweatbox outside to catch the end of The Official Secrets Act’s set. With their voluminous blouses, Adam Ant face paint and Killers-esque theatrical pop, I wonder what strangeness I may have missed while feeling that lady luck has played a small part in bringing me here at the end of it all.

Metric offer something a little more palatable to my taste. The Canadian quartet come across as a mixture of The Cardigans and The Strokes and soon have the crowd bobbing along to their sweetly sung, angular new wave-pop. Unfortunately, due to the fact that Le Botanique’s cup runneth over with exciting acts, Metric are scheduled on stage at the same time as Brakes, a band I’m eager to see. Perversely wanting to end the night with ringing ears and sweat-drenched shirts, I leave Metric to their now adoring crowd and heads for the Rotunde to catch the last half of a high-tempo show by the Brighton rockers.

Knowing Saturday is another day, I eventually call it a night after a couple of draughts of the local throat charmer before catching the Metro home.

Andrew Bird in conversation

Les Nuits is a marathon, not a sprint so with a full week of gigs still to negotiate, I decide to take it down a notch for Saturday. The Cirque Royale is offering a night of melodic folk and experimental alt-rock so I roll up in good time to get a good seat (oh yes, it’s all very civilised) and have a word with headliner Andrew Bird. The Chicago multi-instrumentalist is just one of the many artists fitting Les Nuits into an already bulging list of live dates and is unsurprisingly a little lethargic after months of being on the road. Despite this, as Bird himself admits, he and his band are ready to dig deep to produce a show which will both surprise and entertain. “I’ve played Botanique about six times and I always look forward to coming to Belgium,” he says. “If I have some dates in France I always make sure that we manage to get a couple of shows in over here too. So we’re looking forward to the concert here.” Bird is renowned for his live looping, hyperactive switching between instruments and his darkly ironic yet beautifully delivered songs. He promises that tonight will not disappoint. “You know, the record is only a moment in time but we like to make the live show into something else. We won’t change things so they’re unrecognisable but the songs get a different treatment on stage. We like to challenge the crowd and mix things up. Hopefully, the audience here will appreciate that.”

Later at the bar, I accost Lasse, a travelling Swede, and ask if Andrew Bird is the main reason why he’s here tonight. “I was visiting friends in Brussels and was due to fly home last week,” he says, expertly holding four glasses of beer at one time. “But this festival sounded cool so I stayed on. I’m here for Phosphorescent tonight but I hear Andrew Bird is excellent.”

Phosphorescent, Live @ Cirque Royale

After a lilting, acoustic solo set from British folk singer Laura Marling and a rousing masterclass in country rock and tight musicianship from Brooklyn hairies Phosphorescent, the slight, diminutive Bird takes to the stage to show Lasse and the rest of the Cirque Royal why this reputation precedes him. And he does not disappoint. Skipping between multiple microphones, treading on effects pedals with the dexterity of a tap dancer and swapping guitar for violin and glockenspiel, Bird whistles, sings and handclaps his way through a mesmerising performance. I head out into the midnight hour in search of frites with the standing ovation still ringing in my ears.

Telepathe, Le Botanique

I’m back at Le Botanique come Sunday but before the fun and games can commence once more, I have a date with a couple of babes from Brooklyn. Melissa Livaudais and Busy Gangnes from avant-gardists Telepathe bring their brand of electronica to the Rotunde tonight and are in relaxed mood despite the gruelling tour which has already taken them around much of Europe. “What a beautiful place,” says Busy, reclining in her chair and admiring the venue from the sun-drenched terrace below. “We’ve never been here before.” The girls have enjoyed enthusiastic crowds so far in Europe and Melissa hopes the Belgians won’t be any exception. “We hope they’ll be into it, maybe even dance around a bit,” she says. “The live show is pretty intense, with the two of us mixing live and climbing over each other to get to all the equipment. In the States we’ve started experimenting with dancers on stage but we won’t be able to do that here. It’ll just be us doing our thing.” If tonight’s show hinges solely on the Telepathe sound, fans of the multi-layered richness of their recorded material won’t be disappointed, according to Busy. “If anything, we can do more with the songs live,” she says. “We can drop samples and loops all over the place and really let the songs expand. We love the studio because we’re essentially producers and we love that we can work on a sound to make it perfect, but the live show is just really fun because it’s seat of the pants stuff.”

Clare & The Reasons, Live @ Grand Salon

After I wish Telepathe good luck, I enjoy a brief private show at British folk rocker Hugh Coltman’s soundcheck before looking in on the free samba lessons in the bar (and avoiding enthusiastic attempts to get me on the dance floor) on my way to the Grand Salon for some 1940’s-inspired pop from Clare and the Reasons. Playing in the round to a crowd reclining on low chairs and cushions in Le Botanique’s spectacular exhibition space, the US-French quartet deliver a relaxed and engaging show of effortless lounge tunes and chanson. The atmosphere is so casual there’s even time for an impromptu recorder rendition of the Rocky theme tune and a mid-set Rubik’s Cube challenge. If any show so far underlines Les Nuits’ diversity it’s this one. “This is the second time we’ve been to Le Botanique but this is the first time at the festival,” singer Clare Muldaur tells me after the show. “The Belgian crowds have given us a great reception both times. Maybe we share a certain quirkiness.”

That quirkiness is so enthralling that I have to dash at full-tilt around the fish ponds to get to the Rotunde to catch what’s left of Telepathe’s set. The booming bass almost lifts me off my feet even before I enter and those ear-plugs previously found among the lint and ticket stubs come in mighty handy. Telepathe has the crowd enraptured but there’s very little movement on the dance floor. A few nodding heads will have to suffice. Sorry girls – the Belgians appreciate things in a different way.

Leaving the thudding electronica behind, I duck into the Orangerie just in time to see Vinicio Capossela, Italy’s own version of Tom Waits, leave his piano stool behind and dance like a gibbon in front of the heaving, hugely-appreciative crowd. Failing to get more than just a glimpse, I consult our schedule and head for hobo-folkie Charlie Winston’s headlining set in the Chapiteau. However, the audience in the tent is equally bulging so I make the decision to call it a night. Monday is a day off. Time to take stock – and maybe get some sleep in preparation for the days and nights to come. Stay tuned.

Beer & Loafing in Austin: Adventures with The Cheek & Goldielocks @SXSW 09

In a suburban area of downtown Austin, the Red Bull Moontower stage glows luminously among the bungalows and car lots like a recently landed UFO. Punters, drawn by the eerie throbbing light and otherworldly hum, gather mesmerized. They stand waiting, seemingly caught between hope and fear, watching to see if alien beings will materialise from the swirling smoke that has engulfed the neighbourhood. When a figure does appear from the backstage airlock, there is a moment when its terrestrial credentials are brought into question. But once the fog of dry ice blows away, it soon becomes clear it’s a human of sorts. “Alright Austin, Texas,” croaks the being. “We’re The Cheek and my voice is fucked.”

Backtrack five days and East Anglian pop-punk scamps The Cheek arrive in Texas for the South by Southwest festival already suffering from a substantial sleep deficit and a raging collective hangover. The Southbridge five-piece barely have 24 hours to adjust to Austin after the craziness of Tokyo and a tantalizingly short, surreal stopover on home soil. Wednesday is their first full day and they have two shows to play in this wholly new and intensely weird environment.

Austin’s Lower East side is swarming with the full gamut of human life. Indie kids and rock fans stand out from the super-sized families with big gulps like the skyscrapers rising from the banks of the Colorado River while platinum blonde cheerleaders totter between them all in slinky summer dresses and stilettos. Now in its 22^nd year, SXSW has grown from a cosmic cowboy and blues festival into the lovechild of a weekend at Glastonbury and a night out in Manchester’s clubland.

In the packed streets, the air is filled with the soundclashes of a hundred bands playing side by side and the excited chatter of crowds filling the cramped sweatbox bars and jostling for views at the open windows. The sickly-sweet smell of cheap liquor and fast food vendors hangs over everything, caught in the blanket of Texas humidity. On a curb outside BD Riley’s, one of the many Irish pubs on East Sixth, The Cheek look like a bunch of students who have partied way too hard way too early. Heads down in that time honoured pre-puking fashion and with charity-shop shirts drenched in poisonous sweat, the band look to be struggling to keep their dinner down and their spirits up. The time zones have not been kind.

“Just before we left for the first gig, the jet lag really kicked in,” says Thom Hobson, the band’s laconic bass player, by way of explanation for the state they’re in. “Somehow we got up for it. Now we have to do it again, only an hour later.” The band’s previous performance, a short set at an industry party a little down the street, was plagued by PA problems and a threadbare crowd more interested in the glowing screens of their Blackberrys. Now The Cheek need to dig deep for their SXSW showcase show. Asked where he’s going to find the energy to perform, Thom replies as if faced with the most obvious question in the world: “From the music, man.”

The music certainly seems to energize the band. Ripping into opener Just One Night, the pavement casualties of a mere few minutes before are transformed into a quintet of spasming lunatics. Eyes popping, faces contorted, and throwing punky shapes, The Cheek are different animals on stage, albeit on one which is about the size of a card table. Somehow the show passes without any injuries sustained despite the close proximity to flailing, stabbing guitars and the epileptic dancing of lead singer Rory Cottam. The crowd in BD Riley’s and in the street outside soon grows in size and enthusiasm, attracted by the wired eccentricity and choppy riffing which made heroes out of a long list of British weirdoes, from XTC to Blur. When Rory climbs into the open window and gyrates his rubbery frame for the passers-by during set closer Slow Kids, it’s clear that The Cheek have studied their rock traditions long and hard. Nothing pleases an expectant crowd more than the promise of an adventurous front man coming a cropper right in front of them. The singer survives unscathed but the combustible and irresponsible nature of the final song’s theatrics makes sure The Cheek make an impact, even if Rory doesn’t.

In the breathless aftermath, the Cheek spill out onto the street outside again, amped on the energy of the performance and the vibe from the appreciative crowd. The buzz will last long into the night, taking them to bars and gigs throughout the downtown area. The jet lag can wait to mount its next assault. The Cheek are in town and eager to experience what Austin has to offer.

Back at the Red Bull House, the band’s rented pad they’re sharing with up-and-coming London dubstep/grime star Goldielocks, The Cheek listlessly pour out of one piece of garden furniture into another in an unconscious game of musical chairs under the relentless morning sun. It’s their first day off and no one seems to know what to do with themselves or where to do it. The conversation is bizarre and fragmented as befits a group of sleep-starved minds. It ranges from a short debate on the future of the red panda as the rock animal accessory – “Monkeys are so 80s,” says Ali Bartlett, The Cheek’s thoughtful drummer – to whether half-naked wrestling in ski masks would make for a good photo shoot.

South by Southwest is The Cheek’s first taste of the US as a band. Despite enduring stereotypes about America back in the UK, they’re keen to point out they arrived with open minds.

“It didn’t seem fair to come with preconceptions,” says Christian Daniels, the lead guitarist. “I prefer to make my mind up after experiencing something.”

“I always wondered if the US would be like in the movies,” adds Ali. “And you know what? It totally is.”

In contrast to the ruffled, borderline psychosis of the band, Goldielocks reclines in the shade of a benevolent birch as if she’s the guest of honour on a Greek shipping magnate’s yacht. Decked out in summer dress, trilby and gargantuan shades, she seems unaffected by either travel or the prospect of her first Stateside shows proper. “I played in New York before,” she drawls, her London twang halting the incessant chirping of curious birds. “But these are my first real US gigs.” As well as her SXSW showcase and her 2 am slot on Saturday’s Moontower stage, Goldielocks will be performing a DJ set. “I’ve only brought four CDs,” she adds nonchalantly, unfazed by the prospect. “It’ll have to do, I s’pose.”

Soon everyone finds the energy to party again, although it helps that it’s in the comfort of their own home-from-home with an energizing array of local celebs and international faces in attendance. The likes of Lady Sovereign and Daisy Lowe rub shoulders with the geezer who runs the strip show just off Highway 71 and a guy who looks like a Hells Angel who has taken a wrong turn. The humid dusk and subsequent sweaty darkness is filled with a multitude of accents and laughter as spirits rise and inhibitions are cast aside. While the diverse guest list kicks-back, The Cheek still have work to do. Huddled together in the downstairs living room, the band perform an edited reprise of their BD Riley’s set with an encore of Twist and Shout to finish, playing with as much heart as if the cramped confines were the stage at Madison Square Garden while party-goers weave through the wires and amps on their way to the bar. Outside Lady Sovereign conducts a football master class while various random assailants physically assault a clown-shaped piñata with an ineffective plastic baseball bat.

Friday’s scheduled visit to a shooting range to experience another part of traditional Texan life – the handling and firing of assorted weaponry – is intelligently postponed until the following day given the number of shaky hands in the camp after the previous night’s hi-jinx. Stories of paddling pool wrestling and the effects of questionably cooked meat slosh between the self-afflicted as the tour bus drives everyone to a thrift store the size of a supermarket. The shopping is lethargic and is soon called-off in favour of sustenance. Goldielocks heads off to prepare for her first show of the day while everyone else votes for time to recover before catching her live.

The gig at Beauty Bar, a venue designed like a 50’s hair salon, goes well. “That wasn’t a true representation of a US crowd so I’m not going to say I rocked America but they were into it,” says Goldielocks on her performance. “Southern hip-hop is pretty bassy, like grime and dubstep, so I think they get it here.” Asked whether the prevalence of industry faces at SXSW gigs makes a difference to her shows, she answers in typically laidback fashion. “I’m playing for the fans, not the suits. It’s just fun to do. Maybe I’ll meet other artists who I can collaborate with but my main focus is just performing.”

Later that night, three fifths of the Cheek roll up at the Billboard Magazine showcase event to watch an exclusive acoustic set by Graham Coxon. After an intimate half hour in the company of the Blur guitarist and seven of his new songs, Rory and Thom are awestruck. “How ridiculously good was that?” asks the singer rhetorically.

“Abso-fucking-lutely amazing,” adds the bass player.

As Friday becomes Saturday, the entire Cheek, along with Goldielocks and the rest of the entourage roll up to the Lady Sovereign gig at Club de Ville on Red River. It’s another long, chaotic night which includes a prolonged period of crowd-surfing and stage invasion by Thom at the Black Lips show and ends with brave but futile attempts to ward of sleep and the sunrise back at Red Bull Central. Fatigue and the rotation of the earth finally win. Despite everyone’s best efforts, they always do.

The huge sign above Red’s Shooting Range is just one of many billboards crammed on the side of the dusty slip road off the main highway. Diners, fast food joints and, more bizarrely, motor boat showrooms and dentists vie for attention in this one of a thousand out-of-town commercial enclaves. No-one would notice this pre-fabricated one storey warehouse of sun-scorched brick were it not for the intermittent echoing crack of discharging handguns coming from inside. But this is another world for The Cheek and Goldielocks. This is where New Britain meets Old Texas. Racks of shotguns fill the walls alongside displays of military grade semi-automatic weapons. Sizeable bullets which would not look out of place in a sex shop stand proudly erect; potent symbols of potential death and damage. The gung-ho attitude the majority of the group had before arrival quickly dissipates as British and American ideas about guns meet head-on.

After a short moral debate which divides the group, those who choose to shoot receive a quick tutorial and shuffle through to a cramped corridor to wait for a free firing alley. Bear-like locals in trucker caps and plaid shirts blaze away at distant targets with a variety of pistols while a denim-clad couple enjoy a date with matching rifles. Outside in the pot-holed parking lot, guitarist and vocalist Charlie Dobney and drummer Ali Bartlett contemplate life, but mostly death, and the reality of gun ownership in the US. Neither is comfortable with the now obvious connection between weaponry and mortality.

Soon they’re joined by the other members of The Cheek who filter out with their preconceptions and excitement in pieces as if blown away by a booming 12-gauge. Not one of them has converted their pre-trip enthusiasm into a confirmed love of guns. Goldielocks has also refused to shoot and the overall atmosphere outside Red’s takes on a dark and disturbed hue under the blinding glare of the Texan sun.

Half and hour before their set at the Moontower, The Cheek are showing more than a little wear-and-tear. An ailing Charlie wraps himself in an unflattering, oversized hoodie and takes another chug on a bottle of cough medicine. This isn’t some pharmaceutically-charged act of rock’n'roll hedonism. Charlie, like the rest of The Cheek, is paying the price of excess. “I feel well dodgy,” the guitarist growls from under a cloud of tour flu. He looks it too. The band have been fighting off the inevitable for most of the past week but now the inevitable seems to have the upper hand. Saturday is their big night but one look at the clearly-ill guitarist and one has to wonder whether or not they’re even going to make it on stage.

Given everything which has gone before – the partying, the gigging, the constant culture shock – it’s no surprise that The Cheek look more ready to drop than to rock before performing at the Moontower. But just as before, when they were still on Tokyo time in an Irish pub in an Austin street some five days ago, the band dig deep to give a typically frenetic show. Under a thick shroud of darkness sporadically punctured by psychedelic search lights, The Cheek puff through the first couple of songs but find their sea legs on the hook-heavy You Let Me Go. As if to give them further encouragement, the two video screens mounted either side of the crowd start beaming images of The Cheek in action to the wider world. The band responds to this closer inspection with increased effort and by the time the insane plea of Give Me You Hand rolls out over the audience, the boys are at full tilt. Despite his opening profane apology, Charlie’s voice holds out to the end, and the lads push themselves to another finale of full-on physicality before bidding Austin goodnight.

By the time Goldielocks brings a taste of Croydon attitude to proceedings in the early hours, the crowd is wired and inspired. Buffering the audience with waves of earth-tremor bass and sassy rhymes, she soon has a sea of hands in front of her. A triumph is on the cards until The Man intervenes. The venue is surrounded by surly looking cops and a fleet of cruisers as an announcement of closure rings out from the stage. The music is stopped but the party continues; no-one is ready to leave and the call for an orderly dispersal is ignored. After sticking around with the majority of the resilient crowd until the sun dares to rise over the tense scene, the British contingent eventually ride the Moontower buzz all the way home.

“This has been a great festival,” says Christian, gripping hard on the last remnants of his determination. “You walk around with your head down and this could be Reading or Glastonbury but when you look up, there are all these skyscrapers and this sprawling city. It’s totally rad…just an awesome experience.”

“Just having all these bands in all these venues…it’s mind-blowing,” adds Thom from under a towering fishing cap which would make Elmer Fudd blush. “This is probably the best place to have an urban festival. It’s been a blast.”

With that, The Cheek and friends forget their ailments and party on. The previously at-death’s-door Charlie even gets the girl in a real Hollywood ending. That’s the healing power of music for you.

Staying out for the Summer: Selected festival guides 2009

HOP FARM FESTIVAL, PADDOCK WOOD, KENT, UK.

July 4-5.

www.hopfarmfestival.com

After conducting a survey of festival goers, the Hop Farm organizers found that many fans felt jaded with modern events and so decided to go back to the good old days when only the connection between music and audience mattered. Hop Farm attempts to return to the roots of the experience by avoiding all branding and sponsorship and promises to give everyone with a ticket the same experience. Getting down with Joe Public will be an eclectic line-up of old warhorses like Paul Weller and Echo & The Bunnymen plus festival feel-good favourites such as Ash and the Fratellis. Try not to sleep in and miss noisy upstarts Johnny Foreigner either – not that you’ll have much choice in the matter. If the music’s not enough there will be a full fun fair on site and the celebrity Soccer Six footie tournament to boot.

SONISPHERE, KNEBWORTH PARK, HERTFORDSHIRE, UK

August 1-2.

http://uk.sonispherefestival.net/

If moshing to within an inch of your life under a hail of flying missiles is your idea of fun then Sonisphere could be the festival for you. Brand new for 2009, Sonisphere comes to Knebworth, a legendary venue steeped in musical history – from the 70’s pomp and pomposity of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, to the moment Oasis were crowned as kings of Britpop. Sonisphere is gearing up to be Valhalla for hard rock fans with a line-up bordering on the relentless: Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, Linkin Park and Anthrax among them. One of the other highlights will be the first reunion show for seminal US metallers Fear Factory. Once you’ve had enough of bleeding eardrums, you can recover in the peace and quiet of nearby Knebworth House and its grounds which reopen once Sonisphere is over. For those still pining for monsters of rock, the concrete dinosaurs in the surrounding gardens will have to suffice.

BESTIVAL, ROBIN HILL COUNTRY PARK, ISLE OF WIGHT, UK

September 11-13

http://www.bestival.net/

Fans familiar with this edgy little festival’s penchant for theatre will know that one of the things that sets Bestival apart is its love of fancy dress. Those attending this year’s Space Oddity bash will be required to get glammed up in futuristic fashion. Get your look just right and you could even win a prize from Lily Allen and her team of judges. Failing that, you’ll just have to stand around looking like C3PO listening to the likes of Elbow, MGMT, Fleet Foxes and Friendly Fires. Smart people will add a few extra inches to their Chewbacca costumes to get the best view of rising electropop starlet Little Boots. If all the space weirdness gets a bit much, you have the choice of slipping into something more comfortable and heading across to the Big Wheels of Motown festival at the Whitecliff Bay Holiday Park where a host of tribute acts will be getting soulful from Sept. 11- 15.

MELT, FERROPOLIS, GRÄFENHAINICHEN, GERMANY

July 17-19

http://www.meltfestival.de

Situated in an open air museum surrounded by huge, looming machinery, Melt is like watching your favourite bands in the gasoline compound from Mad Max or in a forgotten corner of Blade Runner’s futuristic nightmare. Ferropolis, the City of Steel, makes for a dramatic setting and one which gives the festival an End-Times atmosphere while creating a tribe-like community within the crowd. Providing the headlining vibes in this post-apocalyptic scrap yard will be heavyweights such as Oasis, Kasabian, Klaxons and Bloc Party. Don’t miss acts like jungle legend Goldie on the Red Bull Academy Floor and keep your eyes peeled for excellently titled local electrofreaks Mediengruppe Telekommander. For more German hipness, Berlin with its extensive social agenda is only a short train journey away.

FREQUENCY, GREEN PARK, ST. PÖLTEN, AUSTRIA

August 20-22

http://www.frequency.at

Frequency moves from Salzburg to St. Pölen for 2009 with the organizers saying that the new site offers better environmental opportunities, larger arena sites and lower costs. As well as moving, the festival is essentially splitting into two; the Daypark, which is where all the main events and headliners like Radiohead – playing their first show in Austria, The Prodigy, Grace Jones and MIA will be performing, and the Nightpark, where those who never sleep can party on at the dance and DJ stages. There are plenty of new bands on the menu too but make sure you take the time to hunt down Sweden’s International Noise Conspiracy if you’re suffering from Green Day or Foo Fighters deficiency. If you fancy a slower pace of festival during or after Frequency, Vienna’s Summerstage event runs from May to September and takes in everything from food and drink to sport and music, all by the banks of the Danube.

EXIT, NOVI SAD, SERBIA

July 9-12

http://www.exitfest.org

Started as a form of protest against Yugoslavian dictator Slobodan Milosevic, EXIT has gone from strength to strength while somehow remaining one of Europe’s best kept secrets. Symbolically situated in the18th century Petrovaradin fortress on the banks of the Danube in Novi Sad, the festival has remained true to its initial mission of providing entertainment to Serbian youth while keeping political and social issues on its agenda. It doesn’t do too badly in attracting big names either. This year Manic Street Preachers, punk godmother Patti Smith, Arctic Monkeys and Moby are all making main stage appearances while a bulging list of international DJs such as Carl Cox and Laurent Garnier will spin and mix on the dance stage. The ancient, accommodating  and lively city beyond the fortress walls provides a good reason to extend your stay once EXIT is over.

SUMMERSONIC, TOKYO/OSAKA, JAPAN

August 7-9.

http://www.summersonic.com/

For those who want to go that extra (thousand) mile, Summersonic is definitely worth the trip. Just like Reading and Leeds in the UK, this Japanese festival rotates its acts through two cities: the unsleeping, surreal capital Tokyo and Osaka, Japan’s commercial heartbeat and the nation’s kitchen. Both play host to an eclectic line-up with something for everyone; Beyonce, My Chemical Romance, Elvis Costello and Keane are set to dominate the main stages. For something new, try and catch precocious teenage singer-songwriter Never Shout Never at some point and be sickened by his undoubted talent. You have two chances so there’s no excuse. If it all gets too much you can eat your way around Osaka or shop ‘til you drop in Tokyo – neither of which will give you must respite from the frantically exciting pace of Japanese life.

AUSTIN CITY LIMITS, ZILKER PARK, AUSTIN, TEXAS, USA

October 2-4.

http://2009.aclfestival.com/

For those who never want summer to end, thank the oppressive Texas sun for Austin City Limits. Avoiding the deadly heat of the high season, this festival brings things to a close in early Autumn. It should be well worth the wait. As well as featuring headliners such as Pearl Jam, Beastie Boys and Kings of Leon, Zilker Park will also play host to current buzz band The Airborne Toxic Event and The Dead Weather, Jack White’s new supergroup featuring The Kills’ Alison Mosshart and various Raconteurs and Queens of the Stone Age. Set in rolling greenery on the banks of the Colorado River, the festival also hosts a food fair, an art market and a children’s festival running alongside the main event. For those wanting more than the festival can offer, head to Austin’s famous Sixth Street, the reason why the city is known as the live music capital of the world. If you can’t find what you’re looking for there, you must be dead.

The Road From Hell: On Tour with The Airborne Toxic Event

It would be fair to say that you’re having a bad week when your doctor diagnoses you with a potentially life-threatening auto-immune disease; your mother reveals she has cancer and your girlfriend walks out on you all in the space of a few days. In such a situation, many people would question the fairness of life; a few may even sink into despair. Mikel Jollet probably did both before channeling his energy and feelings into a collection of songs which would eventually become one of 2009’s outstanding rock albums.

As the old saying goes, out of adversity often comes creativity. Jollet came out of his “week from Hell” with a new perspective and, after deciding to leave his promising literary career behind, set about taking his band, The Airborne Toxic Event, from local LA celebrities to nationwide phenomenon. In the six months since releasing their debut album in August last year, the Los Feliz five-piece have been the band to name-drop in the US. Now it seems the juggernaut of critical acclaim has overtaken the band’s tour bus somewhere on a distant highway, leaving The Airborne Toxic Event to put the pedal to the metal in an attempt to keep up.

The result has meant that, here in Europe where their album is not even released yet, Jollet and Co. are arriving at smaller venues expecting to play the kind of “paying your dues” shows that all new bands from the US have to go through, only to find packed, breathless crowds clamouring for their stories of damaged goods, broken hearts and lost souls. “We’ve been pretty shocked by the reaction,” Jollet says. “It’s not something that we ever expected because the record’s not even out in Europe for a couple of months. It just seems weird that so many people know who we are. It’s like we’ve been on this whirlwind. We’re this local band from LA who made this homemade record…We just figured we’d slug it out like every other indie rock band in history and tour for ten years.”

“It’s hard to get some perspective on what people like about us,” he adds. “I think the live show is a real factor; we tend to have a lot of screaming, jumping around and a lot of movement so that might have something to do with it. As for the record…I don’t know. I’m just glad that people seem to be connecting with it.”

Their current European tour has taken TATE to toilets and bus shelters up and down the length and breadth of the old continent, putting them in contact with the weird and wonderful characters that Europe has lurking in its most distant corners. Jollet and his band, it seems, take playing to a bunch of backwater weirdoes in their immaculately suited stride.

“We’re probably the weirdest people in the room when we play,” the singer deadpans. “We come to get down with people, we like our fans a lot and half the time we’re in the audience and half the time the audience is on the stage so we don’t make a lot of distinction about those things. We come along and play some songs and, you know, we’re in the room too. We hear of bands coming over here and meeting people who want to get into fights but we haven’t had that. We’re more likely to be the first to jump into the fight anyway. We’re just as wired to mix things up as anyone.”

While the album has been steadily reaching new levels of popularity back home, it’s the single Sometime Around Midnight which has provided The Airborne Toxic Event with their breakthrough in Europe. A slow building narrative based on a personal experience of heartbreaking rejection, it’s a song which shows Jollet’s undoubted talent for storytelling and his willingness to lay bare his life and experiences. Apart from its rolling musical power, the song has an honesty that legions of fans have connected with.

“Kurt Vonnegut used to say that the first rule of writing is that the writer must impugn himself, to not be afraid to look like an idiot and not be afraid to say things that are true,” Jollet says. “A politician’s job is to say popular things that aren’t true whereas an artist’s job is to say things which are true but unpopular. I think there is something in saying ‘well, you know, this happened and it’s all fucked up’. I think some people relate to that. Others are uncomfortable with that. They want their rock bands to be disinterested and cool but that’s not who we are.”

More calculating rock stars may have tried to suppress the personal traumas which have become intrinsically linked with the story of his band but Jollet accepts that his period of trial is now public knowledge and continues to feed his own experiences into his work.

“That’s the deal if you’re an artist, right? People are going to know you,” he says. ”I feel it comes with the territory. My job is to write stories and to observe the world. I try and write about things that are affecting me and hopefully relate that to other people. I’m just writing songs and it seems that if you’re a songwriter you have to trade on some pretty personal stuff. It feels fine to me.”

“This whole thing of music as a coping mechanism, that wasn’t true for me,” he adds. “All that stuff happened but then a lot of good things happened too. I just wrote a record about it. It’s not like I needed to do it to cope or have catharsis.”

Jollet may have strayed from his initial career path, one which he hoped would lead to him writing the Great American Novel, but the latent novelist in him is being put to good use in TATE’s growing cannon of narrative-driven rock songs. However, while bouncing along the highways and byways of Europe, the singer-songwriter still wonders aloud about his choices, his new artistic direction and the one he left, maybe only temporarily, behind.

“I was a writer for a few years and all this feels a little absurd,” he says. “I should be on my second novel right now and married with a kid or something but I’m in this bus with a bunch of my friends, touring around and playing all these shows all the time. So sometimes this feels weird but most of the time it’s very natural.

“Suddenly, for whatever reason, all I wanted to do was play music…which was a kinda irresponsible decision! I had quite a promising writing career going and then I fucked it up with this rock band.”

The prospect of writing the next record, the almost mythic “difficult” second album, doesn’t faze Jollet. But questions remain. Where will the stories come from now that the “week from Hell” has been dealt with? Is he now living experiences which fans will get to hear about in the next year or so? Where will the inspiration come from now things are finally looking up?

“Who knows? Am I going to make another heartbreaking record or write an album without having to go through some horrible times, I hope so and I think so,” he says. “We already have about seven songs for the new record. Joe Strummer of the Clash said if you want to write songs then just look around you, everything you want to write about is where you look so I think that’s pretty much where the second record will come from.”

Right now, the sometimes raw subject matter of Jollet’s songs from that dark period is their stock and trade. And far from shying away from it, fans have embraced the vulnerability and honesty.

 At TATE’s show at the Muziekodroom in Hasselt on April 24, their first time in Belgium, the crowd is packed in like sardines. For a band which has yet to release its album in mainland Europe, they soon find that, with all things, where there’s a will there’s a way and the crowd sing along to songs they have no right to know about yet. The band responds in the way which has helped drive on the monster they have created. They rip through their set with an intensity and physicality as though it could be their last. Knowing that life can change in a second, maybe that’s how Jollet works. Maybe that’s why his band is living for the moment and maybe that’s why so many people are willing to join them.

While you can never really be sure what’s going to happen next, you wouldn’t bet against The Airborne Toxic Event being one of the biggest bands on the planet by the time they return to Europe later in the year for festival performances which could be triumphant, and, dare I say it, life-affirming.

Paolo Conte: Farmhand, Lawyer, Jazz Legend

The road to success more often than not starts off as a tiny strip of flattened grass. Simple beginnings which lead to greatness can make the rise to fame that much more intriguing. An upbringing miles away from the bright lights of the pinnacle of a career makes us all believe that this is possible.

One wonders if Paolo Conte, Italy’s grand old man of jazz, ever thought that he would be treading the path to concert halls the world over when he and his brother started their piano lessons as children in the early 1940s. Perhaps he thought that he would join the long list of relatives who had practised as solicitors in the small city of Asti, in the north-western Italian region of Piedmont, for generations. Perhaps he thought the idyllic days spent at his grandfather’s farm would lead to a life tending the land.

But music was all around him and his contact with a wide range of styles soon convinced him where his life would lead. “My home was always filled with music,” Conte says. “This made it clear to me that listening to good music was paradise.”

While music had been a constant in his early life, so had law and Conte was still on the path to becoming a solicitor when his life took a turn which would lead him to the stage, not the bar. The American influence in Italy after the war had brought jazz to his ears and while still studying for his law degree at the University of Parma, that seductive genre led Conte to put his piano skills to good use in a number of amateur jazz bands around town. “Jazz had a sexiness that the other music did not have,” he says. “Earl Hines, Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, the great masters of the sintassi and the drammaticità, they all had a great influence on me.”

It would prove to be not a fleeting affair but a passionate and deep love. While his own playing career took longer to reach fruition, Conte found early fame as a writer and composer. Already coming from an area of Italy where the French influence was deeply felt, he found himself drawn to the likes of Charles Aznavour, Jacques Brel and Georges Brassens, developing his own style which combined traditional Italian rhythms with the dry wit and cynicism of the Francophones. It proved to be hugely popular. His work with Adriano Celentano in the late 60’s brought him his first number one hit, a Coppia piu’ bella del mond. His second success with Celentano, Azzurro, was a classic-in-waiting and has since proved to be, being performed by countless international artists.

While his composing and writing talents were sought after by everyone from Patty Pravo and Enzo Jannacci through to Johnny Hallyday and Shirley Bassey, Conte didn’t become a singing star in his own right until the 1974 album Paolo Conte on which he wrote, composed and performed. “Deciding to be the singer, I became the person for whom I had written,” he says. “It was for sincerity.” It was a connection with the genius behind some of the great jazz compositions of the 60’s and 70’s that his audience had been waiting for.

His success as a performer continued throughout the 1980s and 1987’s Aguaplano and 1990’s Parole D’Amore Scritte a Macchina, a change in direction and style with backing singers and electronic experimentalism, brought him considerable success throughout Europe. He followed up these successes on record with acclaimed tours throughout the continent and Canada. His greatest hits compilation released in 1998 brought Conte’s music to the land of jazz, bringing his influences full circle with his first US success and shows at the legendary Blue Note club in New York. He would return to the States for even bigger tours throughout the early years of the new millennium.

These days, established as one of Europe’s greatest jazzmen, Conte shows no sign of letting up. Despite all the success and with new and diverse albums and directions explored on an almost yearly basis, the 72-year-old is ever evolving. Asked what keeps him going, the Maestro says simply: “passion.”