Photo by David Sillitoe
As a man in the second half of my life who still works a shit job, still takes a lot of crap from bosses with the IQ of soap scum and still doesn’t know what the fuck I’m doing with my life, the UK’s Sleaford Mods are nothing short of a dream band for me. It feels like the two grown men who make up the band – Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn – are two guys on my level; the type of fellas who know all too well the hollow feeling of a common life and the value of the warm can of Warka that comes at the end of a day of demoralizing, wage-earning existence. Not only that, but they have made some of the most important music of the past twenty years by fusing the desolate sound found on the early Wu Tang solo records with Williamson's vocal delivery, which is filled with enough pure bloody-eyed rage to make most punk rock old-timers make a boom-boom in their britches.Those of us in the tri-state area will get our first glimpse and earful of the Sleaford Mods in a live setting tomorrow, November 29, when they play The Wick in Bushwick. To celebrate this monumental event, I went back and forth with the band’s ranter, Jason Williamson, to talk about how upper crust types perceive the band, office work, and the other stuff that makes up the deep tapestry of the band's doings.First off, I just want to say how much the columns you’ve been writing for Vice meant to me. As an office shlub who writes on the side, I could totally relate to them. The funny thing is, I’ve talked to a few people who thought those columns demystified you guys. I guess they thought you were lower class yobs breaking rocks in a quarry or something, not guys who have to wear a shirt and tie every day.
Jason Williamson: Fuck me, what do people want? They can stick the stereotype up their arses. I'm not baring my bones just to please someone that's been reading too many rock bios. Sleaford Mods is dross. It's the frustration of repeated activity, activity you can't fucking stand. I ain't Axl Rose in Rolling Stone. I'm just your average blue collar worker, moaning. It did occur to me that by doing those articles I'd reveal the kitchen sink that is my plain life, so to speak, but I think that it's important, too because it smashes the myth of the perceived rock star, or punk rocker, or whatever these people think somebody like me is.I think the joke of the situation is that most of the people who criticized those columns are people who own their own artisanal businesses or work super cushy jobs: the kind of people that haven’t done a day of shitty work in their lives.
Yeah, they are normally the critics we receive over here too. Misery has no bias, it exists within anything. I don't need to be laying bricks or driving a taxi to be able to communicate that. Sleaford Mods frequently falls victim to the petty bourgeois and their interpretations of what an image should contain.Some people are so far up their own asses that they don’t realize working an office job surrounded by mindless ding-dongs is the closest we will get in this day and age to working in a factory, or something like that. Jobs like that don’t really exist anymore.
Yes, manual labour is all but a thing of yesteryear. I've done a lot of it—factories, warehouses etc.—but the call center is the new factory. The subject matter started hitting my songs around 2008, when I started to approach the lyrics in a more adult fashion. Before that, I wallowed in self-pity. In England, physical industry has been replaced by static administration. In a way, it's a lot worse. At least in the old days, you were throwing heavy boxes around all day; now you are slowly dying in a comfortable chair, smacking a keyboard, the irony being that the Escape button is always right under your nose.So is the primary reason for Sleaford Mods’ existence to vent about laboring in an office void?
To vent is the primary vehicle for Sleaford Mods, but although it covers the daily horror of work, it also covers many other areas. I find airports, aftershow meet'n'greets, alcohol, the lie of drugs, and the daily insular of "self" all just as interesting as subjects for songs, and the lists slowly grows. I've been doing SM for a long time, and the "work" influence is a small part. People forget that it's music too, that we are both musicians and the formation of music is also our goal.From what I can gather from other articles and interviews, you have an obvious disdain for people like Weller, the Gallaghers, etc. and it seems to stem from their success and perhaps their dismissal of where they come from once the money started rolling in. Am I on the right road with this?
These people have been big influences. From the bottom looking up, you get pissed off with the amount of crap stuff they release, and yet they still insist on dressing it in integrity. They are quite happy to pass it off to a loyal fan base, and that makes you angry. It's complacency, ruled by greed and a need to remain on the comfortable, leafy streets these riches have bought them.Longevity shouldn't be orchestrated by marketing and a promise that,"The new record goes back to the rawness of blah blah blah;" it should be based on relevant work. They ain't been relevant for years, and yet they still allow themselves to be marketed and portrayed in such a light. You just think, "Fuck me, everyone's bought."Do you think these people know what they’re turning out is crap? Do you think it’s the equivalent of a guy who has a decent job and holds onto it for thirty years, but does a half-assed job for the second half just because he can collect his pension when he retires?
Yes, I do a bit. I also think it's thanks to years of feverish adulation, too.So how do you think you and Andrew will avoid this trap? Do you see a long-term future with Sleaford Mods?
Long-term scares me because it has to have a point still. I'm no different to any of the people I've criticized in music or whatever, because I'm aware of the possible reality of turning into a cunt. The main reason most of my influences have turned to shit is because of the massive level of fame they have. It ruined ‘em all; sure, the fucking heating can come on whenever, but so what. Trappings are no substitute for creative output. Sleaford Mods won't reach that level because we are not commercially viable on a large scale. The masses don't like us, because we ain't tied in with the notion of nationalism, and that's important if you want to sell out stadiums. The people like being conned, and nationalism and "one" identity is the fucking top weapon for it. I don't mean to sound like a wanker when I say that, but a lot of people are not willing to think for themselves. They welcome this shit eagerly.Is not wanting to become a casualty of the music business the reason you guys still slug it out on the weekends and then go back to the grind on Monday?
I think the current ongoing display of gluttony by any one of the elitist role models dragged out to numb us has been more instrumental in putting me off monetary gain, to be honest. Don't get me wrong, I will take what I think is my rightful wage, and on top of that, I have a family and its future to contribute to, but I don't think having a million pounds is natural. It's a new phenomenon, where the idea of vast wealth is now a realistically achievable thing, but not everybody can have that, because then it wouldn't be fucking wealth would it? It would be a fucking doughnut. Any fucker can have a doughnut.Catch Sleaford Mods at Brooklyn's The Wick/The Well tomorrow night, 11/29.
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Jason Williamson: Fuck me, what do people want? They can stick the stereotype up their arses. I'm not baring my bones just to please someone that's been reading too many rock bios. Sleaford Mods is dross. It's the frustration of repeated activity, activity you can't fucking stand. I ain't Axl Rose in Rolling Stone. I'm just your average blue collar worker, moaning. It did occur to me that by doing those articles I'd reveal the kitchen sink that is my plain life, so to speak, but I think that it's important, too because it smashes the myth of the perceived rock star, or punk rocker, or whatever these people think somebody like me is.
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Yeah, they are normally the critics we receive over here too. Misery has no bias, it exists within anything. I don't need to be laying bricks or driving a taxi to be able to communicate that. Sleaford Mods frequently falls victim to the petty bourgeois and their interpretations of what an image should contain.Some people are so far up their own asses that they don’t realize working an office job surrounded by mindless ding-dongs is the closest we will get in this day and age to working in a factory, or something like that. Jobs like that don’t really exist anymore.
Yes, manual labour is all but a thing of yesteryear. I've done a lot of it—factories, warehouses etc.—but the call center is the new factory. The subject matter started hitting my songs around 2008, when I started to approach the lyrics in a more adult fashion. Before that, I wallowed in self-pity. In England, physical industry has been replaced by static administration. In a way, it's a lot worse. At least in the old days, you were throwing heavy boxes around all day; now you are slowly dying in a comfortable chair, smacking a keyboard, the irony being that the Escape button is always right under your nose.
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To vent is the primary vehicle for Sleaford Mods, but although it covers the daily horror of work, it also covers many other areas. I find airports, aftershow meet'n'greets, alcohol, the lie of drugs, and the daily insular of "self" all just as interesting as subjects for songs, and the lists slowly grows. I've been doing SM for a long time, and the "work" influence is a small part. People forget that it's music too, that we are both musicians and the formation of music is also our goal.From what I can gather from other articles and interviews, you have an obvious disdain for people like Weller, the Gallaghers, etc. and it seems to stem from their success and perhaps their dismissal of where they come from once the money started rolling in. Am I on the right road with this?
These people have been big influences. From the bottom looking up, you get pissed off with the amount of crap stuff they release, and yet they still insist on dressing it in integrity. They are quite happy to pass it off to a loyal fan base, and that makes you angry. It's complacency, ruled by greed and a need to remain on the comfortable, leafy streets these riches have bought them.Longevity shouldn't be orchestrated by marketing and a promise that,"The new record goes back to the rawness of blah blah blah;" it should be based on relevant work. They ain't been relevant for years, and yet they still allow themselves to be marketed and portrayed in such a light. You just think, "Fuck me, everyone's bought."Do you think these people know what they’re turning out is crap? Do you think it’s the equivalent of a guy who has a decent job and holds onto it for thirty years, but does a half-assed job for the second half just because he can collect his pension when he retires?
Yes, I do a bit. I also think it's thanks to years of feverish adulation, too.So how do you think you and Andrew will avoid this trap? Do you see a long-term future with Sleaford Mods?
Long-term scares me because it has to have a point still. I'm no different to any of the people I've criticized in music or whatever, because I'm aware of the possible reality of turning into a cunt. The main reason most of my influences have turned to shit is because of the massive level of fame they have. It ruined ‘em all; sure, the fucking heating can come on whenever, but so what. Trappings are no substitute for creative output. Sleaford Mods won't reach that level because we are not commercially viable on a large scale. The masses don't like us, because we ain't tied in with the notion of nationalism, and that's important if you want to sell out stadiums. The people like being conned, and nationalism and "one" identity is the fucking top weapon for it. I don't mean to sound like a wanker when I say that, but a lot of people are not willing to think for themselves. They welcome this shit eagerly.Is not wanting to become a casualty of the music business the reason you guys still slug it out on the weekends and then go back to the grind on Monday?
I think the current ongoing display of gluttony by any one of the elitist role models dragged out to numb us has been more instrumental in putting me off monetary gain, to be honest. Don't get me wrong, I will take what I think is my rightful wage, and on top of that, I have a family and its future to contribute to, but I don't think having a million pounds is natural. It's a new phenomenon, where the idea of vast wealth is now a realistically achievable thing, but not everybody can have that, because then it wouldn't be fucking wealth would it? It would be a fucking doughnut. Any fucker can have a doughnut.Catch Sleaford Mods at Brooklyn's The Wick/The Well tomorrow night, 11/29.