Interview: Sleaford Mods’ Jason Williamson Talks To The 13th Floor

It’s very possible that, if you live in Auckland, the last show you saw before lockdown kicked in was Sleaford Mods at The Powerstation at the end of February.

Now the dynamic duo of Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn are back…kind of…with a new compilation album, titled All That Glue, due out May 15th. The album mines the band’s past, digging up old, forgotten gems and a few previously unreleased tracks…22 in all.

Vocalist Jason Williamson spoke to The 13th Floor’s Marty Duda about the new album and how he’s spending his time in lockdown.

Listen to the interview here:

Or, read a transcription here:

M: You were just in Auckland like a month ago weren’t you? Or a little over a month?

S: Yeah we were touring there, we did one day in Auckland and then went over to Australia.

M: And do you have any memories? You’ve been in Auckland before right?

S: No, first time.

M: First time? Ok. Did it make any impression on you?

S: It was wicked, absolutely brilliant.  We want to do a full New Zealand tour next time if we can.

M: Because you filled The Powerstation without any problem if I remember correctly.

S: Yeah so we’re looking at probably either two nights there or do some gigs somewhere else you know what I mean? Wellington …….

M: Excellent, very good. So you’ve this record coming out next month ‘All That Glue.’ I’ve been listening to it, it’s got twenty two tracks? And it’s stuff that was recorded earlier and has since been sitting around or what’s the deal?

S: Yeah it’s stuff that…we wanted to do like a retrospective, something for fans and stuff like that. A lot of these early records you can’t get anywhere, they’re not on Spotify or anything stuff like Jobseeker, Jolly Fucker. So we wanted to get an album to consolidate these tracks and we’ve got about six or seven unreleased tracks on there that needed to see the light of day you know what I mean? Also we wanted to use it as a go-to for any body that’s not aware of the band you know what I mean?

M: Yeah. You guys seem quite prolific, I mean you’re just cranking stuff out, is that the case? Does it feel like that to you?

S: Yeah, we do one every couple of years you know what I mean? It just feels right to do that and it still feels right to do that so yeah. It’s not easy but we feel compelled to write you just …. you know you can’t just sit around I need to create you know what I mean?

M: Well that’s good to hear. There are some people that can just sit around and not do anything.

S: Oh God yeah we know that don’t we?

M: There you go. And since a lot of your music is politically motivated or at least maybe not politically but you’re commenting on things, I’m wondering how it feels in the UK right now with Boris doing his thing.

S: Yeah terrible. The conservative party are back to their usual money before people …. you know what I mean? Now we have a little bit of a better idea about this virus. You know it looks like eventually the virus will disappear but it’s just gonna leave a lot of dead people and people that didn’t necessarily have to die given the right precautions but because the government were so mindful of the economy being…like Donald Trump, where they’re hesitant to shut everything down. Yeah it’s terrible and it’s gonna have dire effects I think. Obviously the poor which is before anybody else but I think generally it’s just gonna add to this feeling that we are powerless against pathetic government.

M: Yeah, you mentioned Donald Trump and I know you guys toured the States a couple of years ago. How does your stuff go down there? Because even just a lot of the verbiage that you use, I would think would be kind of alien to them.

S: Yeah it’s all right I mean we’re doing like a thousand capacity venues, people are turning up and we should have been there now but obviously the virus put paid to that. And what can I say? Hopefully next year or the end of this year we’ll go back over.

M: You don’t want to be there now that’s for sure.

S: No, no, no. You sound American yourself are you?

M: Well it’s complicated. I was born outside of London in England but then raised in the US and then I moved to New Zealand about twenty six years ago.

S: Oh ok you’ve got the right idea there it’s a beautiful place New Zealand isn’t it?

M: Right we congratulate ourselves every day that we thought of it…..

S: Yeah great idea it’s a beautiful place.

M: Are you taking this lock down opportunity to do some more writing?

S: Yeah I’ve been doing lyrics but I can’t do anything else until I see Andrew and I’ve not spoken to him this week but I think he’s alright. He’s trying to cope with it as best as he can.

M: So how does the composition work with you two?

S: He’ll give me the music and then I’ll just vibe off that and then we’ll go from there. But at the minute it’s gonna be a case of I’m just waiting for him to send stuff through so hopefully we’ll get another album done by sort of August time.

M: You’re music, especially your lyrics, are kind of so UK centric, yeet you seem to be managing to spread the word all over the place, are you surprised at the reaction you get from overseas?

S: Yeah a little bit. It’s kind of quite weird sometimes but generally speaking it carries a lot of familiar traits the music. Stuff that you can connect to whether that is in the emotion of the vocal or the style of the music there’s a lot in there that can connect itself to music’s historical timeline you know what I mean?

M: I do indeed. I mean I found myself just being drawn in because they’re simple riffs and stuff but they grab you and force you to listen it seems.

S: Sure, definitely. There’s definitely something there you know and it’s great…the more the merrier.

M: Yeah I definitely would go along with that. So maybe run through a couple of the tracks on the album that people may not be familiar with. Which ones would you like to discuss briefly at least?

S:The ones that people aren’t familiar with? I don’t know really, you know the unreleased stuff goes from 2013 to about 2016 and none of it made the albums but it was recorded around the same time. I’m really, really proud of those songs they are timeless and just as good as the stuff on the albums to be honest do you know what I mean?

M: I do.

S: So they’re the songs that I’m more interested in on this album obviously.

M: Ok, and there’s also some live footage, a video that’s being released along with it. Can you tell me what that’s all about?

S: That’s from the Hammersmith Apollo. We did the gig in November last year to about five thousand people so that was a really good night actually. It was really good.

M: And that’s the Hammersmith in London right?

S: Yes.

M: I was there once. I saw Mott The Hoople reunite five nights in a row there.

S: Wow when was that?

M: It was in 2009.

S: That’s fantastic.

M: It was fantastic but there you go. What’s your musical background? What kind of stuff did you listen to when you were growing up? Was it The Clash and The Ramones.

S: No never a Clash fan really or Ramones, more Pistols and The Jam and Motown kind of Stone Roses, indie, hip hop, Public Enemy, Def Jam stuff like that.

M: Do you find it easy, cause it seems like you do, easy to mix kind of the hip hop with the punk vibe? They seem to kind of go hand in hand with what you’re doing.

S: Yeah a little bit. I mean it is what it is, I think there is elements of rap in it. Yeah without a doubt there’s definitely that presence there.

M: And that just reflects the stuff that you guys have been listening to?

S: Yeah course especially hip hop, I listen to more hip hop than anything else.

M: And even just saying hip hop is kind of a blank slate, is there anything specific that really turns you on?

S: Yeah at the minute lots of stuff like Conway The Machine, they’re kind of up and coming rappers that have been going for a few years, I’ve been following them and they’re really taking off at the minute. So I quite like that, Roc Marciano and some English stuff you know drill some English drill music bits and bobs you know what I mean?

M: Right, right. And what about roll and roll? Do you listen to much of that?

S: No, not at all. I haven’t listened to any rock and roll for quite some time to be honest. It’s obviously very good but no. I think the nearest I’ve got to rock and roll perhaps is Little Barrie, he’s a guitarist, he plays with a lot of bands but he does a really good thing on his own. Niagara Boys from Stockholm, they’re like a punk band they’re really good. That kind of stuff I suppose that’s the nearest thing to rock and roll that I’ve got to be honest.

M: Is that because that’s where your interests have kind of floated off to other things?

S: Yeah I just like more minimal kind of beat orientated music, you know what I mean? And that comes under the guise of hip hop or soul or grime or drill you know.

M: Yeah, those minimal beats, they’re part of what you guys do. I’m wondering how you get them down to that, do you have to talk about it a bit or work on it or does it come naturally?

S: Andrew’s a really big fan of minimalism as well so we don’t like colourful, fizzy things really. So he’ll get to it and he’ll send me some and it will usually be something that I like.

M: Is that what got you guys working together initially? That kind of similarity in taste?

S: Yeah definitely I mean his music before I met him was very much going in that way and so when I met him by accident we kind of discussed that and that’s what we started doing.

M: You’re obviously not a teenager or in your twenties, is this kind of what you imagined yourself to be doing at this point in your life?

S: No, not at all. I mean I dreamed of it but I never imagined I’d get there. We didn’t make it. until we were like forty, forty three, forty two? So you know, by then you’ve kind of given up but we kept going in our individual lives and then when we met it took about two years and we were there you know what I mean?

M: Yup, and does that age reflect in your audience as well or are you appealing to everybody? How does it work?

S: Yes a little bit there’s obviously that element there but obviously in New Zealand it’s a more varied audience were and in Australia as well and it’s getting like that at most places but the core audience I would say still probably is the white male between the age of thirty five and fifty.

M: I’ve been to so many concerts when there’s like bands from the nineties and the eighties and it’s just a sea of black tee shirted middle aged bald guys.

S: They need somewhere to go don’t they, you know what I mean?

M: Well what the heck. Now I just wanted to touch on a couple of the tracks. Mcflurry, can you tell me a little bit about that one?

S: Mcflurry was one of the earliest tracks that we did together that gave us the impression that things were going well. That discusses the kind of then phenomenon, the hipster phenomenon which was started to infiltrate society you know? But also the state of British politics at the time which hasn’t changed so we could pin that song to today quite easily you know what I mean?

M: Yeah. I mean the British political system for somebody, an outsider like me, just seems totally confusing, bewildering, whereas the States, I mean it’s that way in a different way at least I understand them.

S: Really not in a good condition in America but it’s not in good condition here either really.

M: Yeah I guess. Now Job Seeker, that’s another tune I wanted to touch on.

S: Job Seeker just discusses obviously the realities of signing on and I wrote it whilst I was working in a cold storage chiller where I was checking the temperature of cold, frozen meat delivered by artic lorries. I wrote that in the canteen over two day periods and then it was originally put to a sample taken from The Yardbirds For Your Love, which I think you can still find on YouTube. But when I met Andrew, it was suggested to us that we should resurrect Job Seeker and give it a fresh edge by giving it different music which Andrew did. I didn’t like it initially, but it turned into one of the biggest songs we did. And as we talked about that was a big motivation for getting this retrospective done so we could consolidate songs like that that weren’t available into one album you know what I mean?

M: Very cool. So you once had a job working in a meat packing plant, is that what it was?

S: Yeah I used to do all that kind of business loads of stuff.

M: Since the lockdown, people are learning that those kind of jobs, which are kind of looked down upon as kind of lower echelon, are the essential jobs now, the people working in the grocery stores and supermarkets and I’d love to see if the attitude changes as much as these people start to get paid decently as opposed to some other people.

S: Yeah it’s gonna be a weird one. I can’t see that happening with this government but they’ve really got no choice. Of course there is a massive reaction, backlash by the public. The public have been partly sewed up by the media so the media control the public so to speak they control people so to speak. It helps to keep a lid on any potential uprising. But saying that, this pandemic is really taking it out on the poor so I would imagine there to be some kind of uprising from that part of society after this is finished, if not before you know? I mean it was pretty bad before the virus so I would imagine somewhere around the world that’s gonna happen more so but it remains questionable in this country but we’ll see you never know.

M: Yup, it will be interesting. I mean, here in New Zealand, things are a bit different because the government is a little more forward thinking but who knows?

S: It can change at any time can’t it but yeah, you’ve got it sewed up there, you’re prime minister sounds and seems just fantastic.

M: And she’s so approachable I mean she’s been up here at my place and done a radio show for my website.

S: This is the thing you know what I mean? This is it when people are doing their jobs properly, this is what happens.

M: Yeah.

S: It’s quite something that.

M: Well the Labour government went through a change, the Labour party I mean. Is that a good thing?

S: I don’t know, I’ve kind of lost interest in Labour.

M: Yeah I think everybody did.

S: Yeah they really have kind of shot themselves in the foot. I’m not even interested in looking into it, I’ve lost interest. I’ve lost all passion for the Labour party, it’s not really in opposition of sorts. They just seem like absolute centrists. It’s ruled by Centrists which is not good for the people that really need it at the minute you know what I mean?

M: Yup. So when you’re doing gigs, I assume you must have some interaction before or after with your fans or people who come to shows, what kind of reactions do you get? What kind of comments do you get from people?

S: Yeah the people love it you know what I mean? I’m not the greatest to …. we’ve been doing it a long time now and I love but sometimes I think why do people like it? I’m not the greatest when it comes to receiving or thinking positively about it. Receiving good messages, I like it, it’s nice, people obviously like it, we’re not an internationally encompassing, mega famous band, we never will be. We’ve got a particular person or the audience will keep growing but it will grow very slowly. It doesn’t seem to be something that people are tired of or bored of, it keeps growing.

M: Would you say you’re an angry man?

S: Yeah. Unfortunately, I can be a touch moody.

M: Right.

S: My wife’s laughing in the background there.

M: I mean it obviously comes out in your music.

S: Yeah.

M: Is it cathartic when you’re performing?

S: Yeah it is cause a lot of the time it’s not based on any firm evidence. It’s quite unreasonable, one sided so in order to exercise this art, the good thing about a song is it’s not in the arena of discussion, unless of course you’re being interviewed. When you perform the song, there’s no feedback apart from the audience clapping and that’s all they are gonna do. So a lot of these songs carry content that isn’t thoroughly fair and isn’t necessarily correct so it’s good in that sense that I can get this out onstage and it’s almost like self help you know what I mean? So yeah it’s definitely the thing to do it live.

M: So are you a more content person now that you’re doing this stuff live and getting it out of your system?

S: Yeah I think so. I’m definitely a lot more content but it’s like once you’ve done an album, that’s it. I don’t think about it anymore I need another one sooner or later, I’ve got that energy to do another one to challenge myself, to see if it’s there Andrew’s the same so we have a think about moving forward really.

M: You’ve got a lot of work behind you already which is pretty impressive so to have you to the point of thinking forward is fairly cool.

S: Yeah definitely. I mean there’s a lot of …. there’s a lot of rappers who release an album a year which is even faster. You can’t keep up with their workload but I think that’s a sign of todays you know in a lot of respects, that’s what a lot of people do they just…….

M: Ok well I think that’s everything that I can come up with unless you’ve got something else you want to bring up about the album itself that needs to be talked about.

S: No just hope people like it. I’m sure people will. We’ve tried to consolidate songs in there that best represent us without trying to do the obvious greatest hits thing. You know there’s songs that we haven’t put in there that should perhaps be in there for reasons that they’re popular with people. We wanted to do a collectors piece, more of a thinking piece than the obvious hits piece and I think this best represents what Sleaford Mods are about.

Sleaford Mods’ forthcoming compilation ‘All That Glue’ is being released via Rough Trade on May 15^th.