“JON SPENCER BLUES EXPLOSION
Performances by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion have always been revelations. Sort of rock n’ roll crusades that roar into town save as many souls as possible, sincerely thank those that attend the experience and ask only that participants buy Hound Dog Taylor and obscure filthy arsed funk records. No one is expected to put any money in the buckets at a Blues Explosion show. The band’s showing on Recovery that fateful Saturday morning was something on a higher plateau again; a real honest to Rock God rock n’ roll band going apeshit at the TV cameras not for them and delivering a feverish testimonial of and for the spirit of their work. You almost expected a valet to come out and wrap a cloak around Spencer a la James Brown.
The Blues Explosion’s ripping new album, Acme brings that soul together with all the other components of their sound like never before. The result is major feet heat music that retains the band’s primal feels in a slightly more commercial format.
The whole band really felt like well, we’ve got to not just do something different not just do something new.” says Spencer. “We felt like we really better come up with something.” he laughs. “We’ve been playing together for 7 years or so and I think maybe we felt a little pressure to deliver a record that could compete with some more kind of mainstream stuff. I think certainly this is the most contemporary, the most modern sounding record that we’ve done.”
“I think we worked really hard on this record and we went into it with a bunch of really great songs. I think we’ve written some really great songs for this album. I think the record is different and new for the band not just in like the songwriting but also the tone of the album, the feeling of the album. It’s new as far as the subject matter, the kind of emotions or whatever that are there in the record too. It’s also very new for the band as far as the sound. A lot of that has to do with the different mixers and the producers that the Blues Explosion worked with on this record.” It seems there’s more of those producers and mixers on Acme than there are actual musicians. At a glance there’s Atari Teenage Riot’s Alec Empire, veteran producer, Jim Dickinson, the now famed Steve Albini, The Automator, Cypress Hill’s musical mainstay, T Ray and crazy funk and r and b man, Andre Williams directing the proceedings whenever he was around.
So why so much external input?
“To try and do something new. To make a different kind of record, to make a new kind of record. Also as I was saying before to step up to the plate as it were. We had to get serious with something for a little bit”. he laughs. But for all extra input there’s a line in the single, Talk About The Blues – the video for which features the delightful Winona Ryder that keeps everything in perspective.
“I say I play rock n’ roll. I don’t play no blues. I play rock n’ roll. The Blues Explosion is
rock n’ roll. We’re a rock n’ roll band. I’ve said that tons of times before but you’ve got to just keep saying things over and over. It’s a play on the (Mississippi) Fred McDowell line: 1 don’t play no rock n’ roll. But that song, Talk About The Blues and that line, I play rock n’ roll that is really and truly what I believe. The Blues Explosion is a rock n’ roll group and that’s really what it’s all about. There maybe many many different influences blues, rockabilly, soul, country, rap music. But the thing that’s driving it, the thing that’s behind it is rock n’ roll.”
“The song is kind of a reaction to or a reaction against a lot of the criticism that the Blues Explosion received in the last couple of years. People started attacking us saying that what we were doing was inauthentic. That we didn’t have the right to be playing music that was influenced by the blues and music that was influenced by soul. That was very upsetting for me Of course I took great offence.” he laughs quietly but seems to be quite serious.
I sort of got over it. I think that Talk About the Blues is actually if anything just a statement of intent. I think it took me a while, a year or something to kind of calm down enough to be able to just do that kind of song. There was a lot of stuff kind of brewing inside me I guess that that song itself was sparked by. One particular incident was where I had to do an interview with Rolling Stone magazine here in the United States for their blues issue. I just got all kind of nervous about just the idea of doing it. Then a few days later I wrote that song and just kind of improvised the lyrics in the studio.”
“It’s kind of weird. We just came back from Japan and people were saying like, this is your most blues record yet he chuckles. Then when we were in Europe people were saying, this is the blackest Blues Explosion album there is! I guess with any record you put it out and you wait and let other people tell you what you’ve done. I’ve always thought that the Blues Explosion were true to ourselves. We made music that was true to us as people. We’re white suburban punks and yeah we’re into some blues and funk and soul and rap music in addition to all this other kind of stuff. But I don’t think we’re trying to sound like we’re playing blues or trying to be a soul band. What we’re doing is unique to us and the spirit is rock n’ roll. With this record I don’t think that we’ll be getting the same amount of criticism because I think…I just think it’s too good!”
The new Jon Spencer Blues Explosion album ACME is out this week on Augogo.”
