Sleaford Mods interview: Setting up a cheap printer

Image: Sleaford Mods 

No one's quite doing anything like Sleaford Mods right now: the Nottingham pairing firing off Jason Williamson's iron-hot vocal and Andrew Fearn's ear-worm instrumentals.

Raw to the core, Sleaford Mods reel in varied opinion. Jason states, "we obviously stand out like a sore thumb", probably something to do with their blunt edged demeanour and expletive drenched song library. 

Invariably British, it initially took a while for people to cotton on to the group outside of their native Nottingham. But now that they're everywhere, you still wouldn't get Mary Berry introducing The Great British Bake Off to a song titled 'Cunt Make It Up' would you?  

Whatever your perception, unless you're buying into their latest drop Key Markets (listen to 'Tarrantula Deadly Cargo' from it below), it's probably invalid. Sharp-witted and communicated on street-level, Jason's air tight vocal interlocks with Fearn's minimalist bass and drum beats to form their most acclaimed record to date.

It's Jason's often humoured and socially informed lyricism that adds the glint to the album. Verses like "Milliband got hit with the ugly stick" or "Idiots visit submerged villages in 200 pound wellies/spitting out fine cheese made by the tool from Blur" frequent Key Markets.

Album track 'Rupert Trousers' is hinged on Boris Johnson's brick wielding speech at the Convervative Party Conference last year. It's hard to keep a straight face, unless your vocal etiquette is factored on a swear box or you enjoy killing the odd fox on a weekend.

But that's not to say that Jason's constantly pent up with rage, it's just what Sleaford Mods do. After all, seven months ago he was still working as a Benefits Advisor and that comes across in his approachable and engaging manner of conversation. 

I ask Jason what he's up to, "Just pratting about usual shit, do you know what I mean? I'm at home and I've got a fucking printer to set up. Fucking printers man, they're fucking shit aren't they? Cheap printers really are fucking terrible." 

He makes a valid point, but more so a strikingly grounded one for a man who's just got back from commanding the mic at Bestival. Lend him a fucking hand will you, Ronson?    

What did you make of Bestival? 

It was orite, it was nice of him [Rob Da Bank] to invite us, but I don't know if it was the right kind of festival for us. I think i'm just being spoilt, because it was only three quarters full. We've been playing a couple of festivals and you just get spoilt, so when you get to a festival and the crowd's not as plentiful, it doesn't knock you, but just get a bit disappointed. 

Looking forward to the tour then? The thing is with festivals you get people passing-by looking in.

This is the thing with festivals. In one way it's good because it can bring you back down to earth you know? But in another way it's always better when it's your own gig I think.

Will you be playing any Smiths covers on the Manchester date, I seen your tweet the other day calling them a singles band? 

[Laughs] No not at all. I was listening to them and I thought na fuck it, it's like The Jam. They're only noted as being a singles band and people were having a go at me. I'm not saying they're shit. You know I thought Led Zep was a singles band.   

How was Glastonbury?   

It was orite it really done us wonders. They televised us and it went into the top five most viewed. You can't go wrong with that because you do need a bit of air time. With the content and nature of what we do, it's something not possible to go off mainstream tv. 

Do you find it surprising that there's not more bands doing a similar thing in our social climate?  

It's a bit surprising. There are a few things going off. I was listening to the Young Fathers yesterday and it was not my cup of tea but there's something going off there I suppose. You've got the Fat White Family trying to do their thing who say it in their own way. Generally speaking there's not a lot is there? It's weird. 

It's a lot to do with the fact that the younger generation don't know anything else apart from conservatism, and that kind of fucks with the general perception. When you're younger, you don't tend to bother about social issues. I wasn't when I was 24/25 but then again we were kind of in the bubble of Blairism, you know the Blairite and the New Labour thing?

Consumerism was in its golden age, so I was completely blinded by that. It's a tough one really, you know if you're middle class you're not going to be that affected by it and the working class resistance. The only thing I can see from the working class or the lower class is grime artists. 

What do you see going on with grime artists, the scene is getting a lot more exposure now isn't it?

They really are only talking about things you'd expect a working class band to talk about. There's a lot more exposure with them. It's going a little bit too glossy in some respects. I don't think its always been famed for its social critique in a lot of respects.

It's just as vulnerable as hip hop was to the trappings of fame and fortune. There's a lot of artists talking about bitches and money and there's also a lot of homophobia, transphobia. So it kind of awks me and angers me. But a lot of the parts of it are touching on the working class more than your fucking average white band. 

Do you think that the lack of bands discussing social issues is the reason you're often branded with the 'working class' tag when really you're just talking about what's true to you?

Yeah I think so, that's a valid point. It's really hard that is, people are like you're denying the fact that you're working class. I'm not denying anything, class never came into it. It was more of what we saw around us. But I think because there's a lack of that like you said in other bands, we obviously stand out like a sore thumb. 

You're playing at Banksy's Dismaland on Friday, a few people having been giving you stick for that haven't they?

Not giving us stick. A few people started have a snide on facebook about how Banky has sold out, that's just pathetic. What is he supposed to do? It's typical of people. You know I can understand it because they're seeing this bloke who's making a lot of money and sort of telling people how the world is. And people are getting wound up about it.

But what he's kind of expressing to people is what's right I think. It's a debate as to what he should do with his fucking money, but it's nothing to do with us at the end of the day. I think there's better people to pick on than Banksy.

Do you see similarities in Sleaford Mods and Banksy?

I don't know. I'm not sure, in a sense of you know having a similar outlook to the corruption in authority probably, but that's where it ends. 

Did you see Slaves get trolled into thinking they were playing. Did you have a part to play in that? 

Bit mean that wasn't it. No not at all, I mean would you expect me to admit it even if I did? Na, I think I said what I needed to say about it and I don't want to over egg it.

In a way you could probably say it was a bit pathetic anyway, you know what's the fucking point? It's only a band, it's not as if they're going into peoples houses and robbing them. So it's like one of them, innit? 

I've heard you're going to be playing some new material? 

I'm working on some new stuff yeah, Ideally I'd like to get some new stuff out in February, the rest of them will shout me down for that. If it's coming out, it's coming out, you know what I mean? 

What about the stuff with Leftfield [Head & Shoulders, above], who came up with the concept for the video? 

They came up with that so yeah, that's how they did it. They approached us or rather his agent did. "Do you like Leftfield?"  Yeah definitely, you know, I've got a lot of time for them.

Have you ever considered that kind of thing, going electronic? 

I don't know probably I'd like to. It just depends on what comes along you know what I mean. 

Where you ever into rave culture during the nineties? 

Yeah I cut my teeth in a club called Venus in Nottingham. It was sort of a house club, kind of a decadent house club in the early nineties. I was into that Italian house, stuff like that, but I never took it any further then got back into guitar music. 

Tell me about the documentary, Invisible Britain, you have coming out?

It should be orite, I looked at it the other day. I think it's good. There's a lot of coverage of individual cities we visited, the film crew went to film individual people on social problems. It's stuff about the cuts to benefits for mentally disabled people etc.

There's a bit about when you're a party to a murder. It was a bill the Tories brought back in, it was like 100 years old. If you witness a murder as well and you're with someone that committed that murder then you would be just as guilty. So there was a lot of prison sentences and court cases built around that.

We didn't want it to be a behind the scenes thing concentrating on us. We just wanted the coverage to be the tour and I thought social issues might be more interesting. 

Speaking of the Tories and social issues, what do you make of Jeremy Corbyn?

I suppose it remains to be seen, it's promising I suppose. It's a lot better than the other candidate. I'm not a labour party member I'm not a socialist, I don't think, but I'd veer towards that kind of thing If I had to in a political climate like ours.  

Catch Sleaford Mods on tour from Wednesday 23rd September in Manchester - All dates included here.