ARTROCKER TV / Reverend and the Makers at V Festival

With channel 4 boasting an advert that promotes a glorified porn star, a press-play Dj and a list of churned-out reality stars to get everyone, “excited”. It’s not a shocking revelation that V festival tends to dive in, head first, to the commercial end of todays diluted pool of music.

Although V is over-populated with those who’d rather throw a pint than drink it, pick a press-play Dj over a group of Mancunian icons, or just spend their entire weekend in pop-up nightclubs. It does still boast an alternative line-up that caters to one's taste, that doesn’t take nicely to those of the David Guetta mold.

And here at Artrocker, we had the pleasure of interviewing one of those diamonds in the rough, Sheffield quintet Reverend and The Makers. Well, an attempt anyway.

As I arrived to interview the band, I felt my preparation had been quite successful; it even prompted band-member Laura McClure, to praise my organisational success. But I should have touched a tree, or practiced some superstitious ritual to break the jinx that had been bestowed upon me. Anyway the interview is continued below:

What’s your view on the music industry as it stands at the moment?
JM: Basically, the game’s fucked because they look at a thing called crowd source, which gives you stats of the age of your fan-base and if your fan-base is deemed to be within their target of 14-18, they play your record. But that’s not a fucking basis for getting your record played, loads of kids like Mr Blobby or Tulisa, the music’s rubbish, the creative culture of kids is just catered to knobeads who listen to generic shit. It’s like Noel said, nobody wanted Jimi Hendrix and nobody wanted the Sex Pistols, but they changed the world. Some fucker at Radio 1’s got to shift at some point, they’ve actually got to put someone in there who knows something about music, otherwise the governments going to have to revoke their license because the shit they’re playing is next to nowt.

The album is clearly quite satirical, on 'Bassline' for instance you focus on the issue with dance music, what’s your take on that?
JM: I love dance music right, but you’ve got a bunch of people making dance music who are so divorced from the root of what they do. Dance music originated in ecstasy culture and gay clubs, and that's just so far away from what it is. Dance music is meant for people who are drunk, it’s just awful, nobody of sound mind would say the last two years of mainstream music have been vintage years, it’s been dark years. And it’s a direct result of George Ergatoudis decision to ban all guitar music. Today for instance: the Twang, Inspiral Carpets, The Charlatans, Noel Gallagher, Stone Roses, we will all have a crowd. And whether you like these bands or not, people will like this music, they can’t kill guitar music, these songs are about people’s lives, songs that lyrically mean something to someone.

Everyone is just cashing in on a quick one really aren’t they?
LM: It’s all very short term, making a quick buck then fucking off. You know, we’re hopefully starting to prove that were here stay for a bit, we’ve been around for 7 or 8 years now.

JC: People have always been writing songs on guitars for years. People once said Piano was dead!

JM: People were saying that when the Beatles were around.

You have a lot of features on the mix-tape, what was the idea behind that, and how’d it all come about?
JM: Just folks we know, the reason we did the mix-tape was because, you know, the album was proper, so I wanted the mix-tape to be feature heavy. When you’ve got Hawley, Carl Barat and Howard Marks, I didn’t want it to be about me being like, oh look at all our famous friends. We tour with Noel and Chili Peppers, we’re mates and we love em and that, but we don’t want to prostitute them at the same time. Same as the Arctic Monkeys, who our friends back in Sheffield, Alex was on our first album, but there’s no ‘featuring Alex Tuner’, you don’t want it to be all about that.

How was it supporting the Red Hot Chili Peppers?
LM: Ahhh they was incredible, made us feel really welcome. And their set was incredible, Knebworth really went off.

JC: The reason I learnt the bass guitar was because of Flea, when I was 12,13, 14.

JM: Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik, that was a big album. I remember that being the big album at school.

LM: I certainly wouldn’t have called myself a fan. Me and John went to Africa with Flea on the Africa Express, the Damon Albarn thing, and I really like him as a guy, and what an amazing person, that he’s in one of the biggest bands in the world and he’s just super-safe with everyone.

JM: I called for him one day when was in Ethiopia, and he was like ‘come in man’, and no word of lie he was bouncing on his bed topless playing his bass, he’s just such a great guy. And another thing, he said our set was brilliant. It’s brilliant when you get good critical reviews and what not, but the barometer really is when people who you respect think you’re wicked, that’s what you want.

You’re doing the African Express in England also?
JM: Yeah, in September I’m off on a train with Damon and those fuckers, which should be a laugh. I’ve been doing that for about 5 years now, I will talk to anyone, I think they get me on saying, ‘get John on he will talk bollox to anyone’. Especially with the new additions, it can be quite stiff, but I just get fucking stuck in with everybody.

One last question, it consumed a nation for 2 weeks. How was the Olympics for yourselves, did you all jump on board?
LM: We were all loving it. But, I’ve got to say though, when it was all the purity stuff, I was thinking that if Britain mess all this up it’s going to be really embarrassing. Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony was brilliant.

JM: The whole Olympics were good, until the closing ceremony, which was a television disaster. It made the Brit awards presented by Sam Fox and Mick Fleetwood look credible.

Revered and The Makers new album, '@Reverend_Makers', is out now, and they’ll be on tour around the UK in October. Dates below:

11 Oct, 02 Academy Newcastle, Newcastle
12 Oct, Liquid Room, Edinburgh
13 Oct, 02 Academy Liverpool, Liverpool
14 Oct, HMV Ritz, Manchester
17 Oct, Rescue Rooms, Nottingham
18 Oct, University Union – Stylus, Leeds
19 Oct, Open Norwich, Norwich
20 Oct, 02 Academy Sheffield, Sheffield
21 Oct, 02 Academy Birmingham, Birmingham
24 Oct, Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth / Southsea
25 Oct, 02 Academy Bristol, Bristol
26 Oct, Shepherds Bush Empire, London