Back in January, I got the opportunity to interview Jack and Blaine from Mystery Jets.
How did the session with the shoes go, and how did you guys ended up working together ?
Jack : The session went amazing, it’s the third one we do with the Shoes. Blaine wrote songs with them about a year or two ago…
Blaine : Over two years ago. Basically we were introduced by a mutual friend who is wicked. He made a video for us, and the Shoes spoke to him and said : « we want to work with some interesting vocalist on our new album » and he said « you should speak with Mystery Jets”, so the Shoes contacted me, they sent me some music and I really liked it. I wrote some vocals and said : « we’ll come out tomorrow and do it in the studio”. I came out and spent a crazy twelve hours.Â
Then they played me some other music and I said « what’s that? » they said « it’s not on the album it’s just an idea that we have. » and I said « that sounds amazing, like Portishead. » and they said « oh we should try some of that » so in the space of two hours we wrote the lyrics, recorded the vocals and that was Submarine. That’s come out as a single and they made an amazing video. It’s just been a really great opportunity for me and Jack because we’ve been coming out, and performing live with them. It’s been really cool for us to reintroduce ourselves with France and with Paris. I’ve always loved Paris but I have never spent enough time there. We have been coming a lot this year so it’s really good. The last time we were here was the day of the attacks. We did a TV show called « Ce soir ou jamais », we came off air, we heard about the attacks and it was such an emotional time for France and we had a little impression of that, so that’s why it was so important for us to come back, it shows some sort of solidarity in people. It’s important that live music, and music in general prospers in this kind of times. For us it’s wonderful to be given the opportunity to come back and finish what we’ve started.
Jack : It had quite a heavy effect on us, actually. It’s good to be back.
Are you coming soon to play in Paris soon ?
Jack : I’m sure we will. I think we will find out the next month.
Have you ever played in Paris with Mystery Jets ?
Jack : No I haven’t yet. I’m excited !
Blaine : We’ve only played about 5 gigs yet.
Jack : The idea of coming to any city, especially when it’s as beautiful as Paris makes me really excited.
Blaine, do you have a favorite show in Paris among the ones you already did ?
Blaine : We played a show at La Flèche d’Or, right when 21 came out and I remember vividly, we started the gig, behind a curtain, we used to start the show with these air-raids sirens and it was the first gig that we played any of the songs from 21. I remember the curtains opening and it just felt so exciting, playing new music and in a foreign country. Maybe we played once in Paris with the Arctic Monkeys before that but it was the first time on our own.
It took you more than three years to come back, why so long ? Are you happy to be out of the studio ?
Jack : Yeah definitely ! It was so much fun making that record but it was a very long both space and time doing it and coming out the other side to it. « I can’t believe I’ve done it », still now, it’s coming out next week, I can’t believe it really, I still feel like I’m in there everyday. We didn’t leave for a very long time. You should have seen us, by the end of it our hair was all stood up on air, we had black eyes ! It feels good to be out of there.
Blaine : I think it took three years because we didn’t really have to conform to any kind of external pressure. This is the first record we’ve made where we’ve been independent from record labels during the making of the album. Now we have a deal again so it’s great and there’s a machine working but in that time we were very much just in our own world and that’s a really wonderful place to make music. When you’re in that space, time doesn’t really exist. And I think what we knew is that we weren’t gonna stop until we knew we’d written the greatest things we’ve ever heard.
Jack : All the things that we were the most happy about.
Is Henry (Blaine’s dad) still helping you with the music ?
Jack : He wrote all the lyrics with us.
Blaine : He is kind of the glue in the sense that he’s been there from the beginning and we’re the ones who go in the room and we’re all sweat out together and we play loud, and we’re the ones who go out on the road to play the songs to people, but he’s still such an important cog within the machine. We bring him some ideas and we ask him « what do you think there is? » and he says « it’s great, what is it about » and we say « I don’t know » and he says « well let’s explore what it’s about! » and you have this kind of dialogue and I think he really helps to shine a light on what we’re trying to say, he is behind the curtains.
What’s your favorite song on the album ?
Jack : Mine is Bombay Blue.
Blaine : Mine is Midnight Mirror at the moment.
Jack: Actually mine used to be 1985. The End Up was all our favorite for ages.
Blaine : The End Up is my favorite recording of the album because it captures the real moment where we’d all been out.
Jack : We went to a party at Jude Law’s house. We’d never meet him but he took us to his house.
Blaine : We almost died at the back of his Jaguar.
Jack : We woke up the next day with a filthy hangover. We went to the studio because we had to work and I remember we all sat around in the live room and we were all looking at each other like no one wants to be here, and Will was like “let’s record The End Up”. And we just recorded all of us just sat in this room like dying.
Blaine : not having slept.
Jack : And you can really hear it on the song.
Blaine : And when we sang I was really thinking I hope I don’t end up like this.
Do you already know what the 2nd single is gonna be ?
Blaine : It’s a secret. But we can talk about Telomere !
Jack : I remember the first time I heard Telomere, Blaine did all the writing on this boat just outside London like a..
Blaine : It looks like a baked beans can.
Jack : So he used to go away recording for weeks at a time and he’d have no reception on his phone so I was trying to call him all the time like « Hey man, you gotta come to some great fashion party….
Blaine : And I was like « No I’m trying to write some songs ».
Jack : and I’d be like “let me come I want to listen to some of the songs ». When I came up for the first time I sat down with him and you’d been there for a few days and I heard Telomere for the first time and we were looking for that song, the first single and I was like « That’s it. » Then we took it home like, back to London and played it to everyone else and then recorded it straight away. And it was the quickest recorded one. It happened so fast and everyone’s so excited about it.
Basically you’ve got the idea for this song from Patti Smith’s book (Just Kids).
Blaine : I wanted to write a song about the idea of ancestry and the idea that there are qualities that we have that come from generations before us. A great great ancestor of mine was a soldier, I was thinking about that a lot and I was thinking about what was going through his brain, and what he was like, and what did he look like, did he have good hair, did he dress well ? So I wanted to write a song about the idea of ancestry, and the DNA that lives within us, and the telomeres are the end of our DNA’s strands. The video is an exploration of the same idea. I’ve still got mud in my ears from it.
Jack: This is a mad story actually. We had a gig in Japan like two days after the video, and during the video Blaine would wear earplugs to cover his ears from the clay and there was a point where he had to mime along to the all thing so he was like I can’t hear you to the director, so the director was like take your earplugs out, so Blaine took out his earplugs and clay got stuck into his ears.
Blaine : And it went hard, I couldn’t hear anything for like two days. I’m still trying to get it out. I went to the doctors and they syringed it out.
Jack : They wouldn’t let Blaine fly on our plane so we had a gig in Japan and they wouldn’t let him board the plane because he told them he was worried about it and they were like “you can’t get on this flight so you have to leave Blaine in England.”
Blaine : The whole band went in Japan and I was left at the airport. I had to go to the doctors, get my ears syringed and get on the next plane. I flew on my own.
Jack : And he still can’t hear.
Blaine : Yeah I still can’t..What ?
Jack : What was that ?
Do you remember the first time you played Telomere ?
Jack : We played this gig in London, at the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts). On this gig no one had heard the record and it was only press there. So we played the whole thing from start to finish and no one had heard the songs before and no one had seen the band live for such a long time, so we kinda kicked of with Telomere, we played the album in order and Telomere that people heard first and the whole time we were terrified about playing and then when the end came I thought it was a good reception.
Blaine : Yeah it was great. We probably played it too fast.
Do you still enjoy playing old songs like Young Love ?
Blaine : I do. It’s funny we had a conversation two days ago in the studio. We were playing a very old song of us, Diamonds on the Dark. We’re playing it in the room together and I was telling Kaps that it didn’t feel like we wrote this. It felt like, not necessarily like covering another person song but I couldn’t remember ever being in the mind set of writing those lyrics and this music. I was like « I feel like a different part of me wrote this song and then write the songs. » It gave me all kinds of thoughts, I think we all felt like that, it came from somewhere else.
Which bands are you looking forward to see live this year ?
Jack : I’m really excited about the new Last Shadow Puppets. I’d really like to see Taylor Swift and Coldplay.
Blaine : I tried to go see Taylor Swift last summer but she wouldn’t let me in.
Jack : We both did actually, we lied and said that our booking agent had put us on the guest list and he didn’t. We basically got to the queue and we just looked like idiots in front of loads of people, we won’t go into it!
Blaine : There’s probably a black mark next to our name on her guestlist.
Jack : I send her love letters all the time, I sign it in blood.
Blaine : I’m excited to see the artists that are supporting us on our tour which is two bands, one artist is called Son and he’s the singer from a band that’s called Tribes who played with us in the bus. Johnny Loyd was in a band with Tribes and he played on the End up on our record. His new project is amazing and he’s one of our favorite British songwriters. He’s very different. He’s like the 6th Mystery Jet.
Jack : He’s our best friend.
Blaine : and also an artist called Declan McKenna.
Check out the French translation of the interview here !
