Reverend and the Makers-Poetic Heavyweights

Tue 28th Aug, 2007 in Features

Jon from Reverend and the Makers is clearly the kind of person that has a million thoughts flying around his brain at any given moment; you can ask him about one thing and end up somewhere very different from what you asked about in the first place. During our conversation we will talk very little about their new album The State of Things but we will talk about getting sued, the music press and why the actor who plays Toadfish got banned from the Neighbours tour.

Most people in Australia wouldn’t be too familiar with the Sheffield music scene but bands like the Arctic Monkeys and The Long Blondes call it home, and while Jon is considered by some music press in the UK to have started the whole scene, it’s not an accolade he is entirely comfortable with. – œOften in the British press they say I’m the ‘godfather’ of the Sheffield scene, but it’s not reality, there’s a lot of good bands that come from here but there’s a lot of rubbish too, and I don’t want to be thought of with those bands. There’s a lot of people trying to cash in on the Arctic Monkeys but they’re just pale imitations.’ When I ask who specifically we need to avoid he reveals that his honesty in regards to this topic has got him in trouble, – œAh I don’t want to say, I’m getting sued by a band at the moment because of what I’ve been saying, my mum’s always told me to tell the truth but fool on me for thinking we have free speech!’

Their debut album The State of Things took a year to record and the writing of it took a couple of years prior to that, while this may appear to be a long period Jon doesn’t understand why other musicians don’t take their time while recording. – œWhen I started making this record I wanted it to be the greatest album in the world, and I think it is, I wouldn’t release it if I thought it wasn’t. I don’t understand when you hear people saying, – œoh the record company rushed me, they wanted to release it’ you just say fuck off, this is my record, you’ll get it when it’s done’. Like a lot of electro/rock/funk/ indie/insert other hip genre here bands Reverend and the Makers have a history with NME, but unlike many bands the feeling towards the dictator of what’s cool and what’s not in music is not all negative, “I actually don’t mind the NME I used to buy it all the time when I was a kid. The problem is that that they hype up a lot of things, and distort the real truth, the scene that they portray in NME isn’t they way things really are, they make it seem like some bands are huge when in fact they aren’t that popular. It’s the critic’s music, not necessarily the people’s music.’

It’s clear from looking at the different issues addressed on their album- the first single Heavyweight Champion of the World talks about the familiar path many people choose to take- married with children but still wishing for something more out of life, while the next single will be He Said He Loved Me ,which tells the story of a teenage girl who falls pregnant- that Reverend and the Makers don’t want to be just another electro band talking about boys, girls, drugs and dancing. – œI want to get a message across. Heavyweight Champion is about the unfulfilled dreams that so many people have; it was taken from a poem I wrote called Stamping, which was about how people get sucked into the idea that they have to find a partner, get a job, have kids and all the rest, and then the stark realisation that their lives are actually empty.’

Just as it seems that the end of our conversation has taken a very serious turn when I ask about Reverend and the Makers making a trip to Australia Jon interjects with an exceptional Doug Willis impersonation (a character in Neighbours for those of you who pretend you’re not fans of the show) and relays the following story, – œDo you know Toadfish? Well he used to be on the Neighbours tour that goes round to all the places but he was getting off with all the girls on the tour so they banned him! What a lad!!’ So if you’re on the Neighbours tour around December and January and hear someone impersonating Doug Willis towards the back of the bus, there’s a very good chance that when you turn around that that this person will be none other Jon from Reverend and the Makers, and if I were you, I’d book your seat now.