The Stooges, the Ramones, Einstürzende Neubauten, The Shangri-Las: an eclectic range of influences for sure, and one that inspired brothers Jim and William Reid as The Jesus and Mary Chain emerged from Lanarkshire, Scotland, to become one of the most influential bands of their era. By 1998, however, chaos had devolved into terminal conflict and the JAMC story was over. “At the time it was the old, ‘I’m never gonna do this again, no matter what’,” recalls Jim Reid. “And then as the years go by, you can’t really remember the reasons why you broke-up in the first place. Maybe we could’ve repaired the relationship back then, and we were too quick to end it.”
So what changed? “We started to – can you believe? – listen to each other a bit more,” he explains. “In the last couple of years, we’ve buried the hatchet to some degree, and thankfully not into each other. Most people who know us would say that we haven’t mellowed that much. I think it was to do with the fact, dare I say it, that wisdom comes with age. Let’s live and let live, and let’s take each other’s opinions into account. The thing that surprised both me and William was that there wasn’t much animosity in between us in the studio.”
Work on the album, subsequently titled Damage and Joy (a reference to the English translation of schadenfreude), began in September 2015, with producer Youth also contributing bass and diplomacy to proceedings during sessions in London, Dublin and Granada, Spain. It was a process, notes Jim nonchalantly, “that didn’t feel as weird as you might expect.”
News of the album broke to the world at large via Alan McGee – now again their manager – in November 2016 and the lead track ‘Amputation’ emerged just a few weeks later. Its waves of distorted guitar flow under Jim’s insouciant vocal delivery collide to create a hypnotic address to his feelings of “being edited out of the whole music business and wondering what had gone wrong. We didn’t seem to fit in anywhere and I felt like a rock ‘n’ roll amputation.”
Elsewhere, Damage and Joy expertly judges that precarious balancing act of needing to both grow and to remain true to the spirit that captured people’s imagination the first time around. William’s ‘All Things Must Pass’ is a refined re-energized version of the song that previously appeared on ‘Upside Down: The Best of The Jesus and Mary Chain’ in which tales of hedonistic excess simultaneously feel like both a cry for help and an extension of their sardonic black humor.
That’s a trait that emphasized in ‘Facing Up To The Facts’ with the couplet “I hate my brother and he hates me / That’s the way it’s supposed to be.” It’s also not a lyric that Jim considers to be at all remarkable. “At times we do hate each other, it’s been largely what’s fueled the Mary Chain. It would be just as correct to say that I love him too, but that doesn’t sound so good, does it?”
It’s easy to assume that McGee’s management of the Reids was effectively his training ahead of guiding the Gallaghers. “There are a lot of similarities, it’s quite spooky actually,” laughs Jim. “We certainly laid the groundwork for him in terms of having to deal with sibling rivalry within a band, and being brothers that wanted to kill other.”
Not that he’s so interested in tracing the impact of JAMC upon their many followers. “If you’ve listened to music for as long as I have, you find a cycle. You start off with Joy Division and if you stay tuned there’ll be some young band like them decades later. Rock ‘n’ roll is a borrowed art form. I’m sure when Mary Chain came along there were old guys calling us to the new Velvets or what have you. Personally I’d rather listen to my old Beatles, Joy Division and Velvet Underground records, and not bother with the bands that sound like them.”
Ultimately, the triumph of Damage and Joy is one in which its sonics transcend its story. “The interesting thing about this record is what comes out of the speakers. To make a good record is an achievement if you’re twenty-two, but to do it in your fifties, the way we are, I think is a minor miracle.”
Tickets available HERE
Tour Dates:
May 09 Palace Theatre St. Paul, MN
May 10 Riviera Theatre Chicago, IL
May 12 Massey Hall Toronto, Canada
May 14 Brooklyn Steel Brooklyn, NY
May 15 Union Transfer Philadelphia, PA
May 19 THE WILTERN THEATRE Los Angeles, CA
May 20 The Fox Theater Oakland, CA
May 22 The Crystal Ballroom Portland, OR
May 23 The Showbox SoDo Seattle, WA
May 24 Vogue Theatre Vancouver, Canada
