Interview taken from HermAphrodite #10

JJ72 are notable in their general politeness towards other bands. Not for them the path of cocky strutting roosters, chests puffed out, declaring themselves (and themselves alone) to be the saviours of rock. And roll. But it’s not just because the three of them are so nice. (Though that is a part of it.)

Mark – “My image of people talking about why they play songs and write certain lyrics, no matter how much they want to makes themselves sound to have it all sorted out in their heads, they obviously don’t. They write songs, play songs to people – they must be, a bit confused, you know? To say the least.”

But he doesn’t not slag people because he recognises himself in them. Oh no. (More that by not doing so, he won’t. If that makes sense. At all.)

Mark – “I don’t put myself in a position where in three years time when we’re all cock-eyed, people turn around to us and go ‘they’re cocks!’ and they could actually be very right. Because we’ve all got the potential to be complete dicks. Especially if you’re in a band. Especially when you start to get attention, everyone’s got the potential to turn into an asshole. The key is to try not to, you know? We’re not going to start calling other bands assholes cos I could be one myself.”

Do as would be done by, then.

Mark – “You can generalise and slag off people like Westlife, cos they’re the spawn of the devil, and all that sort of stuff. But when it comes to slagging off bands like Coldplay, or Travis, or whatever; yeah you can, on a really basic level, go (sneers) ‘Oh they’re so nice and they don’t do this or that’ but you don’t know what sinister things or great things they’ve got going on in their heads.”

But he’s not wary so much through reluctance as through general respect.

Mark – “There’s no point, because I don’t know what’s going on with other people in bands, what’s going on in their heads. And that’s what makes music so special. The fact that you can listen to it, and interpret it in 10 different ways, but you never really KNOW what the buzz is. So that’s where it comes down to individuals. Which makes it so special.”

Which is another reason why he’s in a band.

Mark – “One of the aims, in my little game-plan, is to bring pop music over to us a little bit. Keeping the emotion pretty raw, but still making eleven-year old kids go (startled meerkat face) ‘Oh! What’s that?’”

That the songs all seem to manage to be both bombastic and impactive helps.

Mark – “Yeah, you’ve got to be in people’s faces. And there’s ways of doing that – you don’t have to have amazing lyrics that say this and that about the world and make political statements. I think it comes out in the way you play stuff, you know? YOU can make it bombastic. I’ve been listening to the Smashing Pumpkins for a while now, epic rock. And that’s what we’re doing at the moment. Until our ears give way.”

And while JJ72 are not currently ticking things off their wishlist to do before Christmas (‘Make ears bleed with guitar, tick’), that isn’t to say that they’re without goals.

Mark – “I was to write a perfect album.”

me – “Are you close?”

Mark – “Oho no.”

Fergal, meanwhile, would be quite happy if he could shake the feeling that he was growing to resemble the drummer from Travis. I take the time to reassure him – seemingly apropos of nothing – that he doesn’t look like the drummer from Travis.

Fergal – “Thankyou very much. I was getting paranoid. Cos I get this really bad ‘tache thing in the mornings…”

Mark – “In that green parka you did look like him. Specially on a rainy day, cos that’s when they have all their press pictures taken…”

Stirrer. Tcha.

And then to change the subject a teensy bit…

From the interview-mountain I’ve been reading today, the idea has been rooted in my head that JJ72 see songs in terms of colours and textures, rather like Sparklehorse do. And yes, when questioned, they do.

Mark – “I did this – was it for you?”

Fergal agrees.

Mark – “…at school, I wrote down all the songs from start to finish with symbols, you know? To me, a song like say ‘October Swimmer’ has all these little levels, it goes up and up, it gets smoother, then there’s little spikes. I think everyone does that.”

Do they?

Mark – “I think everyone does that, just with days of the week. For me, days of the week was on a graph in my head. Where you have Saturday – BIG – and Sunday – BIG but in a dark colour, Saturday’s more yellow. And then Monday’s lower than Sunday, Tuesday slightly higher than Monday, and then Wednesday was like a half-day so (struck by sudden realisation) it must’ve been something to do with school time-tables.”

Fergal (grinning happily) – “Yeah!”

Mark – “And Friday was red, Friday was class.”

Bless.

me – “Before you’ve written the songs, do you have a visual idea of what they look like?”

Mark – “Musically, yeah. Lyrically, no. Even the new stuff I’m writing now – like riffs and things, different parts of songs – I don’t remember the song by writing it down, cos I don’t note down chords going ‘right D Minor, G’, I just remember it in shapes. It seems slightly pretentious, but shapes and lines, it works.”

And the new stuff is coming fairly constantly.

Mark – “Yeah! Little bits of stuff. Never a full song. Just bits and pieces. That’s why the songs are so simple on this album because I’d write a certain amount and then I get really lazy, think ‘Oh that’s grand’ and then just repeat it over and over.”

Hee-hee.

Mark – “But now it’s more to do with those shapes again. Finding a more interesting pattern. Enjoying it. Rather than just ‘I’ve written a song and now we’re going to record it’. That’s boring, you know? The new stuff that we’ve got now I want to really reflect the intelligence that’s in the band. Instead of just making an album of songs. I don’t want it to be a rock opera or anything. I want it to be more, sort of, classical music. (hurriedly) In its effect. Oh dear, that sounds terribly Queen.”

He thinks about it.

Mark – “If we’re going to make a pop song, let’s make it a John Lennon pop song. A timeless classic, but that still really connects.”

And he could even get his violin expertise into the picture.

Mark – “Oh yes, there’s always room for violins. It is the best instrument in the world. Next to the voice.”

Well yeah, he would say that.

But if you’d care to venture towards their records, you might find yourselves equally biased…

Last revised: 26/07/01