The Mystery Jets have been at the forefront of the indie scene for over a decade now. William Gadsby Peet talks to lead singer Blaine Harrison ahead of the band’s performance at Always the Sun festival in Guildford September 10-11
The Mystery Jets Always the Sun
L to R: Kapil Trivedi, William Rees, Blaine Harrison & Jack Flanagan
The origins of The Mystery Jets are as interesting and unique as the music they produce. Whilst the band has been one of the major driving forces behind the left field indie scene for over a decade now its roots actually go back even further than that; founders Blaine and William – inspired by their parents old Bowie and Pink Floyd records – have been making noise together for over two thirds of their lives.
“We started playing back in the good old 90s when myself and William were at school together.” Recalls Blaine. “We weren’t hugely in to sports so we got in to guitars and bands instead when we were 9 or 10.”
The Mystery Jets as a band started in 2003 on that most famous of musical Mecca’s, Eel Pie Island. The Island is in fact indirectly responsible for the group's name: originally called the Misery Jets in reference to an article in the Evening Standard about noise pollution from Heathrow’s flight path (which Eel Pie is under), Blaine misspelled the name whilst painting it on a drum skin and the resulting Mystery Jets stuck.
The original band was formed of three members: Blaine Harrison, William Reese and Henry Harrison (Blaine’s father). The trio used to practice in a boat shed that Henry had built on land which he bought after a fire burnt down a hippie commune that used to occupy the space.
By starting out on Eel Pie Island, Blaine and co joined a legendary musical alumni stretching back over 5 decades. The Eel Pie Hotel Club (which used to be run by Phil Collins’ mum and dad) in conjunction with the Crawdaddy Club opposite Richmond station can justifiably claim to be the birthplace of modern rock n roll.
These two venues were where bands like the Rolling Stones, The Who and Yardbirds (to name just a few) first started their careers, evolving rhythm and blues in to the big bold rock n roll we know today with all its wild guitar riffs, frenetic drumming and strutting frontmen.
The Mystery Jets originally started to make a name for themselves by throwing a series of parties on the island called the White Cross Revival, which in true rock n roll fashion were illegal and promoted mainly though word of mouth. These gigs proved a huge success with regular performances from young up-and-comers of the indie scene like Jamie T and Larrikin Love.
“We got sick of this idea of playing the well trodden indie circuit and asking all our friends to fork out to come see us play every other week. We kind of thought actually let’s put on all our favourite bands from the local area, which for us was Twickenham, Kingston and Wimbledon.”
“We just booked all of our friends’ bands to play and I guess in some way it was definitely inspired by the heritage that preceded us on the island. The history of that place is so rich you can feel it in the soil so you know it didn’t even take much imagination, we kind of thought we’re here so we’ve got to pay tribute to what’s come before us.”
The band used the hype generated from its White Cross nights (which were unfortunately closed down because the police just don’t care for good old fashioned rock n roll) as a springboard to launch a tour and start out life as the Mystery Jets proper.
“We booked our first tour the summer after we finished our A levels.“ Explains Blaine. “We organized the whole thing ourselves and basically haven’t stopped since. It has been this very continual process: making records, going on tour and then taking time out away from everything to write more music.”
Fortunately for the music world the tour was a great success in launching the band and a string of great albums have been the result of a career spanning a decade with regular appearances in the British charts. The band has certainly had its up and downs over the years with various band members coming and going until the group has settled down to its current quartet of Blaine, Will, Kapil Trivedi and new boy on bass Jack Flanagan.
Blaine’s dad stopped playing live music with them in 2007 although he is still very much a part of the band’s creative process.
“When we write songs a lot of the time we’ll meet up with Henry as he’s a kind of conduit for us in the sense that he provides a lot of the glue that we need lyrically.“
“Oftentimes I’ll come to him with a song and say this is how it goes and this is what I want to say and he’ll get out the old thesaurus or rhyming dictionary and we’ll go over it. He’s someone who has an encyclopedic knowledge of literary references, he acts as a go between for Will and myself and that’s how a lot of our songs get written.”
The latest album to go through this creative process is the beautifully celestial ‘Curve of the Earth’ which is a wonderful collection of ethereal indie rock and marks a movement away from the lighter poppy sound of the band’s early albums like Twenty One towards a more mature and textured prog rock psychedlia.
The concept of the album is poetically encapsulated in its video trailer which features a GoPro attached to a weather balloon that ends up quite literally showing you the curvature of the earth.
“We basically wanted a way of showing the very personal nature of the songs but then also the overview effect which is present in the artwork and I think the record as a body of songs is about having an overview of the world and the connections between people as apposed to sort of isolated individuals.”
“So that video was a really nice way of showing all of that in a simple way – having the camera at the start in close proximity to the band and then taking it up in to space really reflected that message.”
With a solid response from the music world to the Curve of the Earth, the Mystery Jets are also releasing an EP titled The Whole Earth with some bits and bobs left over from Curve of the Earth and other previous albums. The lead single of the EP ‘The World is Overtaking me’ is a particularly beautiful piece of hauntingly trippy progressive rock.
“The World is Overtaking me is an interesting one, it was on the track list for The Curve of the Earth up until the 11th hour but we decided we wanted to streamline the album and say more by sort of saying less so we took it off at the last minute.”
“We felt like it was a song that would work well on radio so when we decided to put it out we actually took a look at some of the other songs that were recorded in the album session and it just felt like these songs deserved to be heard now. We figured we’ve got these songs and they very much feel like part of the family of Curve of the Earth so why don’t we put them out with The World is Overtaking me and call it the Whole Earth EP?
“The thinking behind the title was twofold: firstly it was a reflection of the fact that we’ve shown people a little sliver of the earth with the album, and now we’re showing people the whole picture; this is everything that was written for the record.”
“At the same time the title is a nod to the Whole Earth Catalogue which was a book published in the late 60s that was like a yellow pages but for the hippy generation.”
“It was published out of San Fransisco by a guy called Stewart Brand and it was almost like the analogue internet, that’s what Steve Jobs called it and he kind of modeled Apple as a brand on The Whole Earth Catalogue.”
“Its full of information on really far out things like how to forage to survive in the wild or how to build a shelter in the desert, it was kind of like a survival guide for the late 60s. All of the cover art for it was this incredible photography and that very much inspired the artwork for Curve of the Earth and the EP being called the Whole Earth EP is kind of a nod to where we got the seed for the record. “
With the Mystery Jets clearly still going strong it certainly bodes well for their performance at Always the Sun. This is the inaugural year for the festival and it promises to be a jam packed 2 days with a great line up on the main stage including The Mystery Jets, Spring King, The Big Moon, Turin Brakes, The Dub Pistols and Hugh Cornwell (the original frontman for The Stranglers).
It’s not all about big name acts though as there will also be a buskers stage hosted by Lark Recordings as well as local talent stage supplied by Andertons and if that’s not enough to tempt you in to buying a ticket then there’s also a wide variety of activities aimed at all ages ranging from yoga and tai chi workshops to a vintage market and even a Great Guildford Bake Off.
Blaine's looking forward to the festival as an opportunity to showcase the latest
“We’re just going to put everything in to it, these Summer shows for us have been a real chance to kind of show off what the band is now, there’s a new energy and I’d definitely say that if you’ve seen us before expect something new. I think this summer of shows has been a real recapturing of fun from the old days plus you know Surrey is where we’re from, it’s our home turf so it’s something of a homecoming for us as well.”
To find out more about Always the Sun & book tickets visit alwaysthesunfestival.co.uk
Whenever I interview a musician I always like to finish by asking them for a proper rock n roll story, with the amount of time a band spends touring they’ve normally seen some outrageous things. Blaine was certainly no exception:
“The only one that comes to mind was a time when we were crossing the channel on a ferry and another notorious British rock band was on the same crossing as us. I believe it was their bass player that decided it’d be funny to climb up to the roof of the ferry in the dead of night actually up the chimney and relieve himself shall we say down the funnel.“
Safe to say the torch of Eel Pie Island’s rock n roll legacy is in safe hands!
If you fancy learning more about the awesome history of Eel Pie Island check out our piece from earlier in the year on one resident's fight to preserve its legacy
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