T: You are not well known artist in Croatia, so please give me a brief history of how the band(s) started?
A: I guess it's a classic story…Me and Matthew Scott, my guitarist and songwriting partner were both born and living in a very working class town in Cardiff, Wales.
We were young and didn't like the look of what lay ahead for us. We had poor, dysfunctional families, thought our hometown stunk and wanted to get out.
We also had an enormous passion for music and the germs of some talent.
Put it all together and you end up with a pop group!
T: Why that name(s) - JACK & JACQUES?
A: I'm interested in what a name is. Do you grow into it? Does it affect your destiny?
I thought that by calling the band 'Jack', we would grow into something strong and classic like the name…I'm still waiting to see if it'll happen…..
T: What is the difference between JACK & JACQUES?
A: It's like two brothers. One is Academic and seemingly straightforward, the family favourite, the other chooses not to confront the world on it's own terms. He potters in his shed in secret, has few friends and brews his own beer, rolls his own cigarettes and consults a giant map of the world he has pinned to the shed wall..
T: When creating how do you know whether it will be a Jack song, Jacques song, or a poem that we can read on the net?
A: Only God can create! Remember that kids!
I approach the writing of all three with a similar instinct and the end result will usually tell me where it should go.
Either to the head of the family table, to the shed or the attic.
T: First two albums are characterised with usage of strings. On "The End of the Way It's Always Been" they have mostly been replaced with "loops and samples". Why this change?
A: We did use strings on 'The end..' but not as obviously. We never had a big budget for strings. As big as it ever got was for eight players, which we doubled by overdubbing …on the 'Jazz age'..
I was frustrated by this approach and wanted to use an Orchestra but by the time we came to make 'The end…' the budget was even smaller than that of the previous album. So, perhaps rather petulantly we decided to go in the opposite direction. I still wanted a symphonic sound in places on that album but had realised by then that you didn't have to use strings to get a symphony.
One voice and a nylon string guitar can sound as big as the world, y'know…
So, we used the opportunity raised by a lack of money to try new things and invite in surprises.
T: Don't you find it a bit unusual that your new album starts with two songs in which you do not perform? Where did this idea come from and does it have some meaning?
A: As I said I wanted to invite in surprises. In a way, the test of the words that I write and this goes for a song too, is if someone else can make it their own.
I also enjoyed directing other vocalists as like most pseuds I have frustrated and deep-seated ambitions to direct a film.
And finally, it also satisfied my perverse nature in having the first two Jack songs in years sung by anyone except 'Jack's singer'. My one regret is that I didn't coax Matthew or the postman into singing…
T: What is the connection between "A Bachelor in London" and "The Emperor of New London"?
A: Maybe the Emperor was once that Bachelor. They could be the same character.
London forces people to exaggerate certain aspects of their personality.
This was happening to me and although I haven't been a bachelor for years, I didn't want to end up running for Mayor.
So I got out…
T: Jacques EP "Faster Than Beauty" cover says that you are still looking for the final version of "Morning Light". Are you close to the answer?
A: Ahh…I found the final version of that song at my performance in the FNAC shop of Lille last summer.
That was the last time I'll play that song.
The boy that wrote it is no more.
T: How and why did you come to work with Momus, Kirk Lake or Dan Fante, the son of a writer John Fante?
A: All are people whose work I'd admired. Especially Momus. Kirk was more of a friend and Dan became so. All are unique characters working in 'the arts' and all are undervalued in a commercial sense-Two of my favourite things. That perverse streak, see.
T: You have worked with many record companies, from well known such as Too Pure and Setanta, to totally unknown Acuarela, Crepuscule, I Records, Elefant Records or Mistemacbari Records? Why so many changes?
A: I've perhaps always been to relaxed about such business decisions. I just take the money for whatever project at whatever time. Names, in this case, meant little to me.
It's interesting; when I first signed to 'Too Pure', my family asked me about it. Of course they were disappointed when I told them that the record company was 'Too Pure'-(My Grandmother thought they were called 'Too Poor'..hmm.)
They had never heard of them. So I asked who they had heard of. I think they knew of EMI and maybe Virgin.
Names of record companies have always meant little to me. Money is nothing but currency and currency is currency-a means to an end.
T: What is the situation with the Jack's third "lost album"?
A: It's just that; 'Lost in space and time' and rightfully so.
T: Your 10 favourite albums ever?
A: Off the top of my head:
Elvis Presley: Elvis in Memphis.
Eno: Another green world
Sylvian: Secrets of the Beehive
Dr calculus: Designer beatnik
Nico: Chelsea girl
Beatles: Sgt Pepper
Nina Simone: The two sides of
Bowie: Live
Scott Walker: Scott 3
Tom Waits: Alice
T: Your 10 favourite books ever?
A: Ted Hughes: Crow
Goldman: Elvis
Peter G: 'Careless Love'
Kundera: Slowness
Fante: brotherhood of the grape
Bukowski: Woman
Henry Miller: Quiet days in Clichy
Celine: Death on Credit
Warhol: A to B and back again
Architecural digest: Homes of the famous
T: Tell me something I would never guess about you?
A: I'm not an alcoholic
pedja // 04/10/2002
PS: touched by the hand of lana