J: So, how have you guys been keeping busy musically and creatively during your isolation, is there anything you’ve been doing differently like reading any books or watching any interesting shows, or playing call of duty like 90% of the public is?
Connor: I haven’t really ha-ha, yeah I’ve been doing bits n bobs. Mainly playing call of duty
Ed: yeah me neither, got pretty far of Red Dead Redemption
J: Classic.
Connor: I think I’ve enjoyed it, it’s kind of like being when you’re a little kid again, I mean you have the responsibility to look after yourself, but I guess because most other people are in a similar situation you kind of don’t feel bad for maybe chilling a bit more if you know what I mean?
J: Yeah, I do know what you mean, there are so many more hours in the day, you kind of don’t realize until you compare it to when you’ve been busy working or if you’ve been busy on tour, so it’s a bit crazy.
Ed: We don’t really, actually well I don’t anyway, do band stuff on our own anyway
J: Do you just rehearse together?
Ed: Yea, well I haven’t really got any kind of musical equipment here, the only musical instrument I have here at the moment is the ukulele ha-ha
Connor: Ha-ha so that’s what you’ve been doing
Ed: I’m not gonna be writing the next Jaws hit any time soon like hahaha
Connor: You should, I’d love to hear that
J: That’s Great ha-ha. So what do you enjoy more? Being on tour and playing live or being in the studio and writing?
Alex: Tour for me
Connor: Ahhh Fifty fifty, I think it’s only, sorry Hud you go first
Alex: Nah, you know what Conn it’s all about you ha-ha, nah tour for me, I guess we don’t do that much time in the studio anyway except for like 2 weeks every 2 years so, that’s the only time we spend in it so it’s quite hard to compare the two..
Connor: Yeah that’s what I was gonna say
Alex: But I love tour, I’d love a tour right now, like if we were allowed to do a tour right now that’d be so fun
Connor: I remember when everything seemed to be going down really, when we were doing simplicity, hard to say the same for The Ceiling because I wasn’t there for half of it, but when we seemed to have a really good system and it was going down really well, when you get into that rhythm it’s really fun and I really enjoyed it. But it kind of depends on what frame of mind you’re in, and depending on what time of the year it is or whatever.
Ed: At the moment it’d really be good to be isolated with your band
Connor: Get an album done
Ed: But I think at the moment Live would be amazing, cause it’s just a massive doss, and a big holiday with your mates really
Connor: Well apart from the moments you want to kill each other ha-ha its so much fun
Ed: but you do that on holiday as well, its part of the package
J: Just get drunk and you love each other again?
Alex: I never have these moments Con, what moments are these? Do you have them on the quiet?
Connor: You’ve had a few
Alex: Ha-ha have I? Have we? Ha-ha
Connor: You’ve had one, when you knocked your pedalboard over
Alex: Ohhhh
J: Have you ever had any major blow ups?
Connor: You know what the three of us, probably have not had a proper argument, we’ve maybe had a few disagreements but we’ve never had a fight
Ed: We’ve had different opinions on things
J: So more of a debate than an argument?
Ed: Yeah
Connor: In the early years there was a few…but we can’t talk about that ha-ha
Ed: Yeah I don’t know, usually, the closest it gets to a full blown argument is if its after a gig or something and were tired, but we’ve also had a few to drink, obviously like Connor, and there’s a heavy debate about some stupid subject in the van or something..
Connor: Hahaha
Ed: about I don’t know whether aliens are real ha-ha well that’s the only time it gets heated, sometimes he gets a name calling, but I’m not going to say it now ha! But yeah that’s about it really and next thing you know its sound
J: That’s good! What have been your favorite moments as a band? Maybe a festival, maybe a special gig or just a special time personally maybe a milestone that you look back on as a huge part of your life
Connor: Literally a year ago this week, we did a tour that was like four or five gigs and it was all really massive gigs for us, So we did the Electric Ballroom in London, did The Ritz in Manchester and somewhere in Birmingham, But we had just released ‘The Ceiling’ an everything just felt great, the shows were pretty much sold out. The show at the Electric Ballroom for me, I just felt great, felt like we had a really good gig, felt like we had the right people in the crowd that needed to see what we just did. I just feel like for me that was a check.
J: It must be nice to get to that point, because bands can just go through such a long time of going through a slog and then, you get to this point where your playing these venues and it’s like wow ok this is a bit more real
Connor: It felt easy, it was almost as if it was a pleasure to do it and not that every gig isn’t like that but you do get to some points on certain tours or whatever where your like f**kinhell another night of this, or you get tired or sick of it. But everything since then, it’s just been like whoa love it
J: That’s Brilliant. Do you have any advice for any bands that are starting off as musicians or those that may be at the beginning of their journey in the music industry?
Ed: I would wait until the quarantine is over hahah
J: aha well yeah, that’s a good one
Connor: Oh that’s good advice
Ed: Well it doesn’t seem to do anything when you can’t rehearse so, I think from my perspective, and obviously with new bands coming out, what usually grabs my attention is that there’s not social media overkill. I’d rather it be straight to the point, this is what we sound like, here’s our first three shows if you want to come to them. It’s like right, ok, this is where I can listen to them, that’s where I can go and see them, not too over complicated you know.
J: Do you feel like social media has kind of complicated the whole sort of method or do you think it’s beneficial?
Ed: I think you as a band, as individuals choose how complicated you want to make it; I think sometimes they do over complicate it. In terms of me as someone looking for new music, I feel like at the moment this generation has got such a short attention span, and I’m guilty of it myself, so if your not good within the first chorus then that’s it
J: Exactly people want it all straight away
Connor: Yeah, pretty much and then there is the obvious be yourself, an don’t try and follow a trend and all that shit
Alex: You need to use social media as a tool right, like if you post a video of some sketchy mobile film of you at your first gig and go oh here’s my track. To put that on your social media, that stuffs going to kill you like straight away, in terms of putting the right stuff up
Connor: Yea you need to consider all of these things
J: Yeah it’s complicated;
Ok, so where do you see music in the future, do you think it will go more digital? Any predictions?
Alex: I think it will stay the same, I think popular music will still be the same popular music and it will have an under hub of one big band will break through and lasts for a bit like 1975 or something like that. I think it’s always stayed the same really it’s pretty much never changed really in like the last ten years it’s the same.
Connor: Yeah I think, before the Internet and before streaming there was almost a control on music, in terms of what labels signed and released. Now everything is available. If I wanted to do it, I could go on bandcamp, soundcloud anything and upload albums and albums and albums of songs, if I really wanted to.
J: Does that make you feel more pressure to release?
Connor: Not at our stage, because JAWS is established enough to get on with it when we want to, but if it were a newer band I feel like you’ve got to maybe.
J: Yeah, I’m asking because I’m a musician myself and I’m just also trying to gain as much information as possible as I always feel like it’s a bit beneficial
Connor: To be fair like, when you think of going back to the start of Jaws, when we started doing it a bit more serious and working with PR and stuff it was always like six weeks between each song, and I don’t know if that’s necessarily changed. I think if you were a new artist, that’s probably a good timeline to go with, you can build a lot of hype with it you know. As long as you consider your gigs and your releases to work with each other then it works.
J: So you’ve got three albums out now, I’ve been listening to The Ceiling quite a bit. What albums do you feel have inspired your three albums?
Connor: This is good because we’ve all just done that thing on instagram, the Bill Clinton challenge of our favourite records
Ed: I don’t know if any of my ones that I picked inspired the three JAWS albums, but I’ll tell you when we write songs, I don’t really think ‘ oh I ‘m gonna play something like that album’, I’d rather just play what I think will go best with whoevers riff. One drummer or one band that I kind of listen to and take advice from is The Police, Stewart Copeland, and one thing that stuck with me is don’t always go for the obvious choice in what to play. So for me, especially as a drummer it’s easy for me to go 1, 2, 3, 4 but if you spend a little more time on it and try doing something just a bit different, you can Pretty much find that on any police album. Same with Sabbath really, and can end up with some really unique sounding songs because of certain rhythms, that’s what I just think personally.
Alex: I listened to quite a bit of The Cure and a bit of Radiohead, later Radiohead albums
J: I was listening to “In Rainbows” this morning; it’s a great album one of my favorites
Alex: Yeah, that was one of my four
Connor: I think U2 are an underrated influence to us, I watched their super bowl performance from 2002 the other day, and they played “streets have no names”
J: That’s a great track!
Connor: It was a crazy atmosphere and I was just like, that’s what I try and rip off every single time I go on and I don’t, but like so subconsciously.
J: ‘The Joshua Tree’ is a great album, I did go out of my way to go and see U2 at Glastonbury as well, it was a few years ago and it was great.
Connor: It was great I watched that on Youtube
Alex: I went that year
Connor: Did you watch U2 that year?
Alex I saw a few songs but then I wanted to go and see crystal castles
Connor: Oh Yeah? Went to see the cooler band ha ha
J: Ha I was listening to the latest album today, The Ceiling, a track called Feel and that drum beat in the chorus is just so sick where it opens up in the chorus.
Ed: Those are Connor specials that he sends, he will write a whole song basically and send it on whatsapp and those were like the midi specials. I think he must have fell over on his keyboard ha-ha I was trying to replicate that kind of thing in the practice room, it was mad. My new favourite song to play at the moment is actually driving at night. It’s a good song to play, especially when the rest of the lads want to put it right at the start of the set when I haven’t even warmed up or anything, first song I’m knackered and absolutely ready to go to bed. There might be less of that on the next album ha!
J: Well it’s been great catching up with you guys, Thanks so much for taking the time to fit this in during isolation, appreciate it. Good luck for the future and hopefully see you guys play at some point soon.
Questions from Jony Alderton
