Jetplane Landing return with a genre-busting, funk-laden third album that will make a mockery of your expectations, blow your mind and shake your ass.

Words_Jonny Tiernan

Maverick. That’s pretty much the perfect word to describe Jetplane Landing. Never playing by anyone’s rules but their own, famously and fiercely DIY, the Anglo-Irish quartet are on the verge of releasing their third studio record and already they’ve went through more musical revolutions than most bands would ever dare to make.

Debut album ‘Zero For Conduct’, released in 2001, was a sublime yet rocky affair infused with the spirit and sound of American indie greats like Pavement and Dinosaur Jr. The first single was playlisted by Jo Wiley on Radio 1 and it became an underground smash. Not bad for an album recorded in a garage in Bognor Regis and released on their own record label, Smalltown America. Their 2004 sophomore effort ‘Once Like A Spark’ cranked everything up a notch – the volume, the touring schedule and their profile. The album fitted in perfectly with what was then a burgeoning UK hardcore scene. Relentless gigging plus support slots with the like of Biffy Clyro and Hundred Reasons saw JPL achieve a healthy level of critical acclaim plus a legion of devoted fans.

The move to a heavier, grittier sound seemed to have paid off, and if it had of been any other band they would surely have capitalised on the position they were in. Not Jetplane Landing though. Three years on, they have emerged with a funk concept album ‘Backlash Cop’ contrary to any expectations people held about the band. Here Jonny Tiernan sits down with JPL vocalist and Smalltown America head honcho Andrew Ferris to find out just how the band made the chameleonic transformation into the modfathers of funk.

What exactly is a ‘backlash cop’?
In one sense it’s a maverick, someone who is DIY. Jamie just came up with the idea “lets make a record called Backlash Cop” and everybody went “what?” and he said “and lets make it a funk record” and we all just said “Yeah alright, sounds good”. We didn’t actually discuss it. It just sounded good. Over time it became an adjective, ‘is it backlash enough?’ Or ‘is that what backlash would do?’ It’s a vehicle through which we could reinvent ourselves. It gave us an excuse to try things and experiment with a concept.

How would you describe the lyrical themes that run through the record? It’s reference-heavy.
This record is about life, really. The reason that there are lots of characters in the songs: Miles Davis, Tim Harrington, D. Boon [The Minutemen], Chuck D, James Brown, Sonia Sanchez – is that it’s a vehicle through which to talk about life and how people choose to live. It’s set in a historical context if you want to dig into it that way but it’s more about the fact that these people are backlash cops for a reason. Like D. Boon dedicating his entire life to art, that’s what he wanted to do. He just wanted to turn his life into art, which is really inspiring.

You mentioned before how this album could alienate your fans. Is there a danger of a JPL backlash?
We could have made another ‘Once Like A Spark’ and ramped the whole thing up to a bigger label. We could have toured differently and supported more and bigger bands. But that’s not what this band is about. This band is fundamentally about trying to find good ideas. We wanted to make a record we could play from start to finish so people could have a party at our gigs. Our live show evolved on the last tour to the point where we would break down our favourite riffs, just playing a song for maybe twelve minutes. So we decided to design drumbeats and guitar riffs truly built for that. When we started off we said ‘lets make a Parliament record played by Black Flag’. That was the premise. We can’t play like Parliament or The Meters, but we can play like Jetplane Landing with one eye on all of those bands. It came out good. Pretty funky for four white boys from Derry and London.

Continue to page 2