WE ARE OUTSIDERS: WE HAVE ALWAYSBEEN COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT.Interview with Simon Huw Jones from And Also The Trees
by Diego Centurión.
by Diego Centurión.
1979 – Morton Under Hill and Inkberrow, Worcestershire, England.
Two brothers and another pair of brothers decide to form a band. As they
learn to play their instruments, they begin writing their first songs. They are
immersed in the cultural upheaval unleashed a few years earlier by the first
wave of punk. The band is called And Also The Trees, and its members are Simon
and Justin Jones, together with Graham and Nicholas Havas. Justin and Simon
lived in a tiny hamlet called Morton Under Hill, home to fewer than twenty
people. It was there that And Also The Trees rehearsed and wrote their first
songs. The Havas brothers lived a few miles away, in Inkberrow.
The story goes that they recorded their first demos and, in 1980,
managed to get them into the hands of The Cure. The band not only invited them
to open several dates on their tour, but Lol Tolhurst also produced their debut
single, "Shantell," while Robert Smith and Mike Hedges produced their
first EP, From Under The Hill (1982). In 1984, Tolhurst went on to
produce their self-titled debut album, And Also The Trees. The
friendship between the two bands did the rest and, as so often happened in
those years, the record eventually reached the ears of John Peel, earning them
a BBC session later that same year.
The band has never stopped being active. In fact, the longest gap
between two studio albums was just five years, between Silver Soul
(1998) and Further from the Truth (2003).
Today, the only founding members who remain are the Jones brothers.
On February 27, they released their seventeenth studio album, The Devil's Door, issued on their own label, AATT.
Hello, Simon. Thank you very much for agreeing to answer these questions.
SHJ: Hello, Diego.
Although we’ll be talking about the new album The Devil’s Door, I’d like you to tell us a bit about the band’s early days. I’ve been reading the story you share on your website through photographs, but… could you tell us what life was like in Inkberrow for teenagers like yourselves? And what anecdote can you share from those early days?
SHJ: As teenagers we were bored, bored of being trapped in a village where there was nothing to do and nothing happened, but then again most teenagers are bored and discontent with where they are. Later what we found so boring was what we took and still take, great inspiration from. I should also say that boredom played a big role in what motivated us to form a band. None of us could play an instrument and no one encouraged us - we just loved music and because Punk Rock had shown us that you didn’t have to be trained musician to get up on stage and express yourself we decided to give it a go. I never in a hundred years expected that more than 45 years later I would be writing this and that music and lyric writing would still be the central thing my life.
A significant anecdote from those days which sounds like it’s a script from ‘AND ALSO THE TREES - THE MOVIE’ is the moment when there was an announcement on BBC radio one, on the Annie Nightingale show, saying “would a band called ‘and also the trees’ urgently contact Fiction Records as The Cure would like them to support them on one of the dates of their upcoming tour”. We learnt about this when a friend of ours, guessing where we would be, ran into The Old Bull pub in the village and told us. As you mentioned in the introduction - this happened because we sent them our first demo tape. At that point we had played just 3 other gigs, one in the village hall and another on a farm at a ‘young farmers’ barbecue. I was the oldest at 20, Justin and Nick were 16 and still at school. Anyway, of course we contacted Fiction records straight away and a few weeks later opened for ‘The Cure’ at Loughborough University. They liked us and asked if we’d like to tour with them the following year in 1981.
What do you most enjoy—and perhaps find surprising—today when listening back to the band’s early records? If you like, you can think of And Also The Trees within the musical context of those years.
SHJ: Pre record deal, very personally, I enjoy hearing my Midlands accent, which I deliberately lost as I thought it didn’t sound right in the context of the band… I enjoy also the general naivety and the sense that we are still learning to play our instruments. From the early records I enjoy hearing how tight we became, musically, for the first album and how well Lol Tolhurst produced it - and then I like the timelessness of ‘Virus Meadow’ - and remembering the shock I had at the time when I discovered I could write lyrics.
"And Also The Trees - The Tease The Tear"
The sound of AATT, especially in its beginnings, blends the harshness of early post-punk with an atmosphere quite different from what was common at the time. What were your main sources of inspiration?
SHJ: We quickly distanced ourselves from the bands we most liked in those times - Joy Division, The Bunnymen, The Banshees, Bauhaus… as we didn’t see the point in sounding like anyone else. We wanted our own sound and style. So we went back in time - we listened to film soundtracks and I got very into The Doors, Roxy Music Tom Waits and a lot of more obscure Psychedelic stuff, scratched the surface of the Jazz world and I started listening to my mothers classical records a lot. But now I’m just talking about me and what I listened to while I was working on lyrics and vocal parts - the more important question is what the other members of the band, Justin particularly, were listing to. Justin is the creative heart of the band and my main inspiration is his music. He was listening to a lot of the stuff that was coming out at the time like ‘The The’ and Mark Almond spring to mind…along with John Barry, Ennio Morricone, Bernard Herrmann and some 50’s surf guitarists.
But what set us apart in particular was drawing inspiration from our rural landscape and it’s history and not being too self conscious about not being ‘street’ fashionable and not being afraid of being a bit ‘arty’.
Drawing on your memory—which, from what I’ve read on the band’s website, seems to hold a wealth of very specific recollections—I’d like to go back to the beginning of your musical journey, even to the time when punk first exploded. What was Inkberrow like during those years when punk was emerging in London?
SHJ: I was the first in the village to buy a pair of ‘drainpipe jeans’ (narrow straight leg) and it felt, and was, an outrage - especially when I cut my hair short. I remember one night, this was before I could drive, a group of friends were going to a disco in a neighbouring village or town and they wouldn’t give me a lift unless I went home and changed out of my drainpipes and put on a pair of ‘bags’ or flares or whatever. They just didn’t want to be seen with me like that. I embarrassed them but also they thought I might attract trouble… and in that sense they were right. But that might not be what your asking?…. Inkberrow had two pubs, a village shop, a petrol station, a primary school, a post office and a village hall. A few times a year there would be ‘disco’s’ for the youngsters of the village. Justin, Nick and I would put our homemade punk clothes on and hassle the DJ to play some punk… The Buzzcocks, The Damned, The Clash, Generation X etc and when they did the dance floor would clear and we, along with two or three others, would pogo as the rest of the room watched on. We must have looked pretty ridiculous but it felt rebellious and gave us a great energy.
How did that sonic revolution reach your ears?
SHJ: My best mate at school and I were big fans of The Who. We wore The Who badges and followed them as if we were part of a tribe.
When he started listening to The Damned, The Sex Pistols and The Clash and going to punk gigs in Birmingham.
I said to him
“what’s happening? - are you a punk now then or what? And not a Who fan?”
And he said yes, he was a punk now and I saw it as a massive betrayal.
Anyway a month or so after I was in a record shop in Stratford and I shocked myself by picking up the album THE CLASH and buying it.
I walked up the street with it and it was like I was carrying a bomb.
I played the album and loved it and I thought - shit! does this mean I’m a punk rocker now?.
What do you remember about that discovery, both musically and in terms of attitude? Could you share any anecdote from those years?
SHJ: Being a punk gave me an identity. It was a village so people started calling me ‘Sid’ - (because of Sid Vicious). For a while all other music became boring and all I wanted was Punk. I could relate to the members of punk bands, a lot of them were my age - they weren’t like the Rock Gods I’d admired before. The only exception was Bowie, I stayed with Bowie… I hadn’t discovered Iggy Pop yet. Justin and Nick quickly got into those punk albums and making our own clothes too. Graham never really ‘got’ the original punk movement but became a full on skinhead when the ‘oi’ Punk scene and the Mod revival came around after punk had been absorbed into the mainstream.
During those formative years as a listener, which records do you remember playing over and over again?
SHJ: I played a lot of 7” singles… ‘New Rose’ by The Damned is what I’d consider to be the best Punk rock single but I hadn’t got into punk when it came out and singles went out of print very quickly back then and were deleted… becoming very valuable of course. I loved all the early Clash singles, but also those of Siouxsie and the banshees, The Sex Pistols, ATV, The Buzzcocks.
Like a raging fire, punk burned out quickly, though it left its mark on the present and will continue to shape the future. Then came post-punk, or new wave, which seemed to encompass everything new. Looking back now, is there a moment when you thought something like: “that’s when I realized punk was over and something had changed”?
SHJ: I don’t recall any specific event or moment. Punk, for me at least, was about shocking people with our appearance and non conformist attitude and musically it was about a kind of energy charged by youthful rebelion and technical naivety… the excitement of breaking away from the institutionalised, the old school and creating something new - something that was ours. That atmosphere and those circumstances can’t last long. Its was literally like a cultural explosion and if you weren’t there right then you missed it.
Which early post-punk album would you recommend to someone unfamiliar with the genre?
SHJ: Unknown Pleasures, by Joy Division, and Seventeen Seconds, by The Cure.
Which artists from the early days of what later came to be called post-punk would you rescue from your memory—artists you feel deserve greater recognition but were overlooked due to lack of exposure or media attention?
SHJ: I can’t think of any to be honest, there are bands from that period like ‘My bloody valentine’ and ‘Sonic Youth’ to name but two who people seem to rate very highly, that completely passed me by. Steven (Burrows) who joined on bass when Graham left was very knowledgable about what was contemporary but I lived I a kind of ‘and also the trees’ world bubble.
I just saw that you played three concerts with your old friends The Cure. It must have been a special experience to share the stage once again with one of the bands that supported you so strongly in your early days. Could you tell us what you remember about those first moments when they approached you, and share any anecdotes from those early encounters?
SHJ: The three of them had a very strong band charisma, they were humble and had a good sense of humour and watching them play night after night in 1981 was great - they were a fantastic band. What is really special is that we have both been creating and playing our music for all these years, under totally different circumstances but our paths continue to cross from time to time. I’m really happy about that.
How important was Robert’s support in those early years—and especially Lol’s?
SHJ: It was very important, I’m not sure we, as a band, would have managed to get through those difficult early years without their help and encouragement.
Looking across your entire discography, both with And Also The Trees and with November, which album do you feel is the most post-punk you’ve recorded?
SHJ: Our first album ‘and also the trees’ sounds like a post punk album to me but none of our others have that particular post punk feel to them… even though they fit into what has become a very broad category.
From your perspective, how do you see the music industry today? On one hand, there’s the positive aspect of being able to connect with musicians from all over the world; on the other, we are facing the growing difficulty—due to the spread of AI—of distinguishing music made by musicians from that generated by AI.
SHJ: There will always be people who will come from nowhere with interesting inimitable human ideas so I’m not bothered too much about that AI side things and anyway I can’t do anything about it. As for the music industry in general… I don’t think or care or know much about it.
When I think about AATT, it’s a band I haven’t found in most music history books—only in Lol’s book.
How do you feel about the recognition the band has received in recent years? Do you think that, like wine, music made with soul—as I feel AATT’s music is—eventually finds its recognition over time?
SHJ: We have been in some other books too hahaha…there are a few reasons why we are not more well known than we are - for a start we didn’t have a hit single. Then there is the fact we are difficult to categorise. Post-punk was the first category we were more or less comfortable to be in. There aren’t many books about bands that are hard to categorise or define. We are outsiders too in the sense that we are totally independent , releasing our own records and self managing. We could have a much bigger audience if we had better exposure… if people knew about us. Do we deserve a bigger audience? - I don’t know. We are a creative band, we have done well not to become predictable and repeat ourselves, we haven’t been distracted by the temptation of following fashions and I think we make music for good reasons. We’re not hung up about it.
Let’s talk about the new album. First of all, I’d like to know: how do you keep the flame alive to continue creating new music with the band?
SHJ: Justin writes music and gives it to me, to the rest of the band… and I have to be a part of it. There is no effort, no trying to keep the flame alive - the difficulty would be putting the flame out. I don’t know where we are going - never have known and that is part of it too… what next? I have to know. It is like an unquenchable thirst.
Since the pandemic, the band has been releasing material almost every year. Do you feel the band is currently in its strongest creative period—perhaps even experiencing a kind of rejuvenation?
SHJ: Possibly, but so much depends on Justin - without him there is no AATT. We are lucky in that we are only really driven by our creative instincts. Our curiosity. Having said that it is also very reassuring to know that there are people all over the world, even if in small numbers, who are with us in spirit.
When did the songs for The Devil’s Door begin to take shape?
SHJ: I think at the end of 2023. I was expecting Justin to have ideas more in line with ‘Mother-of-pearl Moon’ because it had been so well received and reviewed and we were so happy with how it came out, but they didn’t follow on and I was surprised. In fact I wasn’t that into the ideas at first but then they came together in a really pleasing way and now I’m of the opinion that it is at least as good as anything we’ve ever done. The reviews have been just as, if not more positive too.
You’ve already performed the new songs live—how do you feel they sit alongside the older material?
SHJ: They sit well. The live shows have worked well. I’m surprised that I can still sing songs I wrote the words a vocals for over 40 years ago without it feeling retrogressive or totally out of character. To me they are like visions or stories, paintings even, that I can effortlessly slip back into and the new songs become part of that world..
To close, and once again thanking you for this opportunity:
Could you tell us about your plans for 2026?
SHJ: Justin has written a number of new pieces of music, sketches if you like - and patiently waiting for the right moment to introduce them to the rest of the band. These ideas have come quite close to the end of ‘The devils door’ era for me - I need to have a moment for my mind to clear but I’ll be ready soon.
We will play in Europe in September and October. We also recorded some songs for an EP which will be out in the autumn. We’re also in talks about a short tour of latin American countries but that would be I 2027 if it materialises.
Thank you very much, Simon!
Thanks Diego.
Lets keep in touch.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario