{"id":36400,"date":"2021-10-12T15:56:33","date_gmt":"2021-10-12T13:56:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elgarajedefrank.es\/?p=36400"},"modified":"2024-02-01T20:53:40","modified_gmt":"2024-02-01T19:53:40","slug":"interview-gene-loves-jezebel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elgarajedefrank.es\/en\/interview-gene-loves-jezebel\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Gene Loves Jezebel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jay Aston\u2019s Gene Loves Jezebel, recorded some of Goth Rock cult classics but also became a very successful band during the 80s. After some well-known problems inside the formation, they are back. They are a reborn band as we could appreciate with their last album, Dance Underwater<\/em> from 2017 and their numerous gigs. We will have the opportunity of seeing them live at the Sinner\u2019s Day that will take place from the 30th of October to the 1st of November in Belgium.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"\u2014Why did you decide to change the name from Slav Aryan to Gene Loves Jezebel? Two of the tracks of your first single, Shaving My Neck<\/em> were written by your first band, right?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014We\u2019d just left Wales and I\u2019d got us a prestigious gig at the Institute of Contemporary Art. It was a new beginning for us and I wanted a fresh start in London. I wrote them both. They\u2019re both pretty much the same song. We finally perfected it and called it \u201cPunch Drunk\u201d and it was a B-Side to \u201cBruises.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014What were your first influences as a musician? The name of the band is a reference to Gene Vincent and you have said that you were into glam when you were a kid. Anything else?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014My biggest influences were the Beach Boys<\/strong>, Neil Young<\/strong> & a ton of great singers like Joni Mitchell and Steve Marriot.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Your first album, Promise<\/em> was the more Goth of all our works. How do you remember the goth scene of the 80s?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Not too much love shared between the bands. Very competitive and often hilarious. The fans were close to our own ages and would follow us everywhere and were big part of the adventure. The music press generally hated us all. Very tribal I guess you\u2019d say.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014How did the sound of GLJ evolve with the addition of James Stevenson in the Discover days?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014James brought a lot of musical ideas and I\u2019d say we probably became more confident as a band in every way. It\u2019s fair to say we became more mainstream, but he also added a lot new and more complexed textures to our body of work.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014A lot of your fans really like House of Dolls<\/em>. Instead your brother did not like it. What are your thoughts about that album so many years later?\"\"<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014We worked very hard on the album. My brother had little to do with it, yet he put his name on more of the songs than anyone else. Funny way of showing his distaste for the album, he performs so many of the songs live. He goes where the gold flows.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014What happened with Savage Records? Someone run with the money?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014I\u2019m not sure of the details, but I believe the owner\u2019s father pulled the plug.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014What can you please tell us of your first solo album, Unpopular Songs<\/em>?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014I write a lot of songs and James had started his label (Pink Gun Records). I\u2019d always loved doing my songs with acoustic guitars and he suggested I do a solo album. I let him pick the songs as I\u2019m just too close to my own work and couldn\u2019t possibly be objective. We recorded at our friend Emile Lobo\u2019s home studio in Battersea. Emile engineered the album and along with James, played lot of guitar on the album too. There\u2019s only one song with drums, which were played by Robert Adams. Craig Adams (no relation to Robert) plays bass. On reflection, I don\u2019t think we should\u2019ve added drums. It would\u2019ve been perfect as a 100% acoustic album.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Some of these songs were later used in VII. This album has a different sound compared with your previous records. Is it because the songs were from your solo career or were you interested in a different direction back then?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014We\u2019d slimmed down. Enough of the excesses of the 1980s. We needed to get away from the production values of that decade. Present the songs in a purer, uncluttered way. My solo work went by without much fuss and fanfare and pretty much zero interest from the media. This freed up the songs for the band to have a bash at.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014What can you tell us of your second album, Jezebel? Honestly, I could not find a lot of info.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014There were a lot of songs and recordings that I liked, that were just sitting around. A large chunk of them I\u2019d recorded in Augusta, Georgia and L.A. after the demise of Savage Records. I needed a break from all things GLJ<\/strong> and worked primarily with French guitarist Francois Perez (and keyboard player James Fairey in Georgia). Four of the songs were recorded by the late Stephen Stuart Short in Los Angeles, including \u201cVampyre\u201d (Who wants to go to Heaven), which we still often play live.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"\u2014Why didn\u2019t you release new material during these years before Dance Underwater<\/em>? Legal problems maybe?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014I\u2019d just had enough of everything.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014How would you convince an old fan of GLJ to listen to Dance Underwater<\/em>?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014I\u2019d hope they wouldn\u2019t need convincing and at the very least be very curious.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you say goodbye to someone you love\u201d should stir something. We often play it as the last song in our live set. Not many bands have ballads strong enough to close the show with. It\u2019s very moving.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014You said that the biggest difference on that album was Peter Rizzo\u2019s influence. How would you describe it?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Pete (\u2019Bugg\u201d) and I worked a lot together as \u2018Ugly Buggs.\u201d He had a lot of music and pain to express and developed massively as a songwriter and singer during our time recording and writing in York (where he lives and Ugly Buggs<\/strong> work from).<\/span><\/p>\n

He had a big input into the whole of Dance Underwater<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Who Wants to Go to Heaven?, from your first solo album was written for the movie Interview with the Vampire<\/em> (1994) right? But at the end Guns N\u2019 Roses cover of “Sympathy for the Devil” was chosen for the movie. Can you please tell us a bit more about this?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Anne Rice loved \u201cKiss of Life\u201d and they were making a movie. I\u2019d never written a song for anything before (although different songs have turned up in a few places in T.V. and film) and I felt inspired. I don\u2019t think it helped that we\u2019d left Geffen.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014In an interview you confessed that you lost your voice in the past and it took you two years to recover. Can you please tell us more about this?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Smoked 40 Marlboro cigarettes a day. Drank too much wine, shouted too much. I was very unhappy.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was in Manhattan and a Sinead O\u2019Connor<\/strong> song came on the radio and it was something I used to glide effortlessly through before. It was one of those \u201csort yourself out\u201d moments. My voice is what sets me apart and a gift. I went through a long process of learning to sing again. Quitting cigarettes was a major step (quitting alcohol was easy and a joy after that test). If you push your voice too hard, there\u2019s no \u201clet\u2019s try that again,\u201d you have to rest & wait for it to recover. It took a lot of discipline (not something I think I had in my larder).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Did you lose any important material during the Universal Studios fire?\"\"<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014I\u2019m not sure. I hope not. Heavenly Bodies<\/em>\u00a0would\u2019ve most likely been stored there. It\u2019s our best album, in my opinion. By some distance.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014What can you please tell us of the band called Ugly Buggs? It\u2019s composed of you and Peter Rizzo, right?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014It was something Peter and I planned to do after House of Dolls<\/em>. We\u2019d had enough of my brother and planned to split GLJ<\/strong>. My brother left, we carried on. Peter brought up a family and it was a lifetime before we actually got to work closely together. It\u2019s deliberately darker and more theatrical. We wear makeup and wigs when we play live (only two shows so far. Both fantastic though).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Jean-Marc Lederman was part of the band in the eighties. What do you remember of him? Have you followed his prolific career? I guess you are still in good relation with him as you collaborated in two of his albums?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014We\u2019re still great friends and he is the sole reason I started recording again. He got in contact and asked me to sing, \u201cMoonlight Mile,\u201d which happened to be a favourite song of mine. I woke up.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Also from that period of the band, there was Julianne Regan, who became famous later with All About Eve. Did you follow her career?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Absolutely, Julianne is fantastic. Such a pure voice and a great understanding of complexed harmony.<\/span><\/p>\n

She\u2019s also a wonderful human being that does give a damn. She has sung on a few with me. It\u2019s the original GLJ<\/strong> when Julianne, Jean-Marc and I record. I just noticed we all have the initial \u201cJ.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"\u2014How has the pandemic affected your life? Did you have a lot of gigs canceled? The band was part of The Mission tour canceled before Covid.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014We\u2019ll be resuming & finishing that tour with our good friends The Mission<\/strong> ASAP.<\/span><\/p>\n

We had to cancel several tours. 2022 looks promising, though.<\/span><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t expect to be marooned in the U.K. I\u2019m very good at isolation, but even I found it at times a very difficult and testing period. Thankfully, I have a guitar. Life saver. I loved the clean air and lack of crowds. It was an unexpected silver lining. We\u2019re re all back again, destroying the planet as manically as ever sadly.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Are we going to have a new Gene Loves Jezebel album in the future? What are the plans of the band for the rest of the year?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014We\u2019re doing Sinner\u2019s Day in November, of course, and I\u2019m playing a couple of solo shows in The Beautiful Lake District in November too.<\/span><\/p>\n

I just did my first four shows since lockdown eased. Two with Fischer Z<\/strong>, one with Spear of Destiny<\/strong> and one with Mark Burgess. It was surreal. I loved it so much.<\/span><\/p>\n

A new GLJ<\/strong> album is not out of the question. It just takes a little organising.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Can you finally tour in North America? I saw that you will play in the cruel World festival.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014We\u2019re really looking forward to those massive shows and\u00a0plan to tour around them. Hopefully, a big tour.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014What can we expect of the band\u2019s concert at Sinner\u2019s Day?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Something that\u2019ll blow you away. We\u2019re good.<\/span><\/p>\n