There are not many bands who can take the spirit, the adrenalin rush, and the sheer euphoria of 50s’ rock ‘n’ roll, mix it with the evangelical cries of Motor City heroes such as the MC5 and The Stooges and then somehow manage to bring it kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
That however, is exactly what The Jim Jones Revue manage to do.
As they kick off their UK tour at Manchester’s Ruby Lounge this week, MM caught up with Jim Jones himself while he took a brief break from the bands rehearsals for this tour.
Jim explained how the rehearsals are going so far.
“(They’re going) good, we’re working out a lot of numbers that we haven’t done live before, some b-sides and album tracks and some old stuff that we haven’t done for a couple of years,” he said.
“We’re just hoping to throw in a load of stuff so that everyone gets a fresh set when they come to the show.”
Jim also explained how he is looking forward to the tour: “We’ve had about a month away from the road since festival season and I can’t stand it. I’m climbing the walls! I like to be out there, we all do,” he said.
“People say to us ‘you guys, you play so much, how do you do it?’ and we say ‘How do you not do it?’”
“We’ve become conditioned to getting all of our energies together for that two hour period on stage and then winding down after that. That’s kind of how we live.”
Jim Sclavunos of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds produced their latest album The Savage Heart as well the band’s previous album Burning Your House Down. We asked Jim Jones what it was the band liked so much about Jim Sclavunos as a Producer.
“We trust him,” he said. “Most of the music we know, he knows, or he played on it! He played in Sonic Youth, he’s played with The Cramps and he’s inNickCaveand The Bad Seeds!”
On The Savage Heart’s lead single, Seven Times Around The Sun there is a backing vocal that sounds very much like Nick Cave. Could it be the man himself on the record?
Jim: “(laughs) You’ll never know! We’re sworn to secrecy!”
MM: “So that’s a ‘Yes’ then?”
Jim: “(Laughs again) We’re sworn to secrecy! In fact were sworn to secrecy on a number of people on there that you might know of!”
We then moved onto talking about the very beginnings of The Jim Jones Revue and the ethos of the band: “I wasn’t even trying to create a band,” Jim explained.
“I was in a place where I was between projects and something that had always been niggling at me was that there wasn’t anywhere I could go to a show and see a band playing Little Richard type music.
“So the first step in how this band formed was getting a bunch of guys together and see if we could get in a room and get anywhere near the energy of it…So we started off playing this Little Richard number Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey and we all looked at each other and said, ‘This Sounds really exciting’ and it just went from there.”
From there they signed a record deal, developed a ferocious live reputation, gained admirers in the shape of The New York Dolls, The John Spencer Blues Explosion, Jools Holland and Liam Gallagher, and have become regulars on the both BBC 6 Music and XFM.
Now, as they tour their third album, they are set to put together a string of irresistible live shows that manage to retain the visceral spirit of rock ‘n’ roll whilst still pushing it forward into the 21st Century.
Describing the band’s music as ‘positive, uplifting and spiritually intense,’ The Jim Jones Revue are a live experience that not to be missed.
The Jim Jones Revue begin their UK tour at The Ruby Lounge, Manchester on Wednesday October 9.
Picture courtesy of Josep M Marti, with thanks.
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