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Jesus Cleaver Interview

Hailing from the sunny country of Australia, The Jesus Cleaver is the brainchild of vocalist John P. Shea.  Their first album featured some of Australia’s best raw talent including [3] on bass and the vocal talents of Angie Draper and Tanya Quinlan.  July saw the release of the first part of The Jesus Cleaver’s latest studio album, “Life In Clouds”.  I got chance to catch up with John, and here is how it went.

WSR – Thank you so much for giving Wicked Spins Radio this interview, could I start by asking you to tell our readers a little about yourself?

John – Well, let’s just say that I spent a little too much of my youth looking more like Robert Smith than Robert Smith!  By the time I finished high school, I was well and truly attracted to the goth sub-culture, which was at the time at its high water mark in Brisbane.  I grew up in an urban area on the fringes of Brisbane and that was pretty isolating.  So basically I had to entertain myself quite a bit and I think that led to song writing, which led to an interest in the studio side of things.  Personality-wise, I tend to fall into the depressive camp, and in many ways that drives a substantial creative output.  In fact, I’m not sure I could stop if I wanted to.  I sound a bit like I’m possessed, but when it hits you, you’ve just got to stop whatever you’re doing and write things down.  The creative drive is certainly a unique source of energy in that regard.

WSR – What gave you the influence to combine electronic and classic notes in your music?

John – I guess we draw upon a number of styles and it really depends on what suits the particular song.  I’m a big fan of strings though, most songs have got some cello and violin parts in there.  I think that from a writing point of view, I almost always try and start an arrangement with some strings in there.  Be it a bass part or a lead part for the chorus.  The electronics covers almost everything else and we try and create the right juxtaposition between each sound and the vocals.  At the moment we don’t have the resources to pull in a live quartet, for example, but I wouldn’t mind getting “naked” in the acoustic sense if it was what the song demanded.

WSR – You recently made your first musical video for the single Mercy, what was the message you tried to convey visually in that video?

John – The lyrics for the song are about an overwhelming sense of loss, or rather being in a position that’s going to generate that response because you have no other alternative.  I think the visuals are about that moment after everything gets torn apart, about how you don’t want to let go.  It’s a difficult thing to portray visually but hopefully the allusions are there. Then eventually there is some sort of resignation to a new reality, a bit of a resurrection if you like.  I don’t think that we’ve succeeded in mastering the format yet, but I’m pretty pleased with the results for a first time effort.  It will be interesting to see what the reactions are going forward and whether or not people have any sort of emotional response to it.

WSR – How do you feel your music has evolved from A Private Encyclopaedia to Life In Clouds?

John – Putting the first album together was a big learning process.  I did all of the writing, engineering and production on the album, the majority of the instrumentation, and of course lead vocals.  I think the arrangement side of things is something that you slowly get better at as you make new discoveries on how things should or shouldn’t sit together to give the appropriate sense of emphasis when and as required during the song.  It’s amazing that something as simple as silence is in fact a really critical thing to any song – what you can put in between silence, what affect silence has in a groove and so on.

Similarly, mix down is an art in and of itself.  But I think that, overall, most areas seemed to have improved.  And the thing that I’m most proud of are the lyrics, which have really carved out their own sense of purpose.  The singing in “Life In Clouds” has a little more confidence to it, but I’m still approaching this in a real punk/DIY style rather than trying to achieve any sort of technical competence.  Our songs are pretty much a study in imperfection, but I like the rough edges and the organic feel that some of the songs have especially given the almost entirely digital womb that they’ve emerged from.

I’m not sure if it’s something that’s come across in the music, but “Life In Clouds” has its own sense of urgency to it.  We put an enormous amount of time into the debut album and probably took much longer to actually release it.  But [the first part of] “Life In Clouds” has, by comparison, been a pretty quick sprint to its release date.

WSR – Is there any musical direction that you are trying to currently explore that you haven’t before?

John – There’s always room to improve on the intensity of tracks, to bring in more on the performance side of things, but most of the time I think we’re going in quite a few directions at once!  Maybe there will be some convergence, but I suspect that there are still quite a few surprises in stall!

I’m keen to do more collaboration though, so that could definitely add a whole new dimension.  My control freak side is slowly being usurped by my desire to actually get tracks finished and released!

WSR – How have you been received in Australia by the press so far?

John – We’ve been totally ignored!  We don’t send any announcements to the mainstream media, but we do include the street press and the like.  Locally, I think we might be a little bit too cerebral – we don’t fit into the party band or rock stereotype!  There are a very small number of darkwave publications in Australia, but so far all of our coverage has come from overseas.  It’s always a thrill when you see your name in print, but at the end of the day we’re much more dependent on word of mouth.  And on that front I think that ever so slowly, our name is getting out there.  We’re really trying to connect with fans who are looking for something a little deeper, perhaps with a greater tolerance for the bizarre, but definitely something with substance.

WSR – Who would you say is your biggest musical influence?

John – By the time I developed a serious interest in music “Disintegration” from The Cure became my musical ground zero.  Extending back into their back-catalogue with the likes of “Pornography” and into the late 70’s and early 80’s with contemporaries like Joy Division, who are a huge, huge influence.  I can still remember the time I heard my first SWANS track on 4ZzZ FM (“I Am The Sun” from “The Great Annihilator”) and ever since I’ve been a massive Michael Gira fan.  I guess the whole John Peel view of the world, and labels like 4AD are where I’ve come from.

WSR – Being an underground alternative band, have you found it harder to get your music out there and if so how have you overcome this?

John – Continuing on the press side of things, we’re careful to concentrate our somewhat limited resources on the dark alternative outlets.  It’s been a very slow process of building up person-to-person contacts with people of influence, be they in the underground media, dark alternative DJs or some of the genre’s leading music magazines.  Even within the broader goth/darkwave media, most of the time we’re ignored.  But we’re not trying to build up a mass following.  We’d be quite content with a few really engaged fans here and there.  Social media is helping somewhat and we’re more active on Twitter, so I like the personal connection there.  It’s always a buzz when someone goes out of their way to tweet something encouraging.

WSR – Mercy is the first release from Life In Clouds to which this has been taken on by a few DJs, which club or place in this world are you most proud that Mercy has been played?

John – We’ve received playlist adds from DJs in places such as Brisbane, Sydney, New York, Seattle, and our music video for the track has also been picked up in France, Germany and the UK.  This Friday we’ve also got some rotation at a club in Mexico City.  So, each and every one of these is important, and we’re tremendously grateful for the support.  I’m not sure if we’ll ever be a club staple though as we’re not producing something that’s first and foremost a dance track.  But definitely the club side of things is a phenomenal experience when you get to hear our songs at that sort of volume!

WSR – What one thing is key to the creation of The Jesus Cleaver sound?

John – The songs themselves are lyric-driven, so the music is there really just to support the vocal delivery.  But sonically there is a wide range of emotions demanded by the various songs, so in a sense we’re trying to mirror what’s contained in the lyrics.  I guess that explains a lot of the diversity on “Life In Clouds”.

At the moment for certain types of songs, I’m trying to create a sense of “miasma” where you’re immersed in a thick atmosphere that envelops you dragging you in.  It’s not meant to be stifling, but it changes the way you can move whilst the song is playing.  The percussion has a lot to do with it, and this is usually melded with bass guitar, or cello, so the bottom end is usually very heavy.  The intent is to create the illusion that you’re rolling along at a particular, controlled velocity, whilst being subjected to that sense of power you get when the bottom end hits you right in the chest.  We’re also huge synth geeks so there’s a lot of vintage synth parts in there and drum synths too.  I have a bit of an obsession with drum synths…

On the guitar front we use electric guitar sparingly, although for the track “Empty” we got our friends from Blu Blak Truk to add some guitar atmospherics.  And what came back from the studio was a circuit-bent Fukushima-style meltdown, which surprisingly worked really well for that track.  So, as long as we can avoid obvious clichés there might be room for more guitar parts in upcoming releases.

WSR – What is the scene like in Australia at the moment?

John – For the goth scene, it ebbs and flows.  Every so often another promoter picks up the torch and runs a club for a while.  But I think that at the moment, a bit of momentum has begun to return and some of the big annual events are being well attended.  The whole social media thing really adds a new dimension though, and I think that in that sense the community has never been better connected than now.  Still, it takes a lot to get some people out of the woodwork – and I’m very guilty of this myself!

WSR – Besides yourself, is there any other Australian band you feel worth a mention?

John – Lately, I’ve been listening to No Anchor who are also from Brisbane.  These guys are a “power sludge” three-piece.  I really admire the brutal, heavy bass guitar sound that they’ve achieved.  Some of their songs are quite epic as well.

WSR – Thanks so much for giving Wicked Spins Radio this interview, is there anything you would like to add?

John – I read a great book recently on the history of the Brisbane music scene, it’s called “Pig City” by Andrew Stafford.  Definitely worth a read if you grew up in that era, or want to learn more about Brisbane’s musical heritage.

Thanks again and good luck with Life In Clouds.

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