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Reverend And The Makers chat to I Like Music

ILM: No good at all. At least she's your missus and nobody else's and she's great on the keyboards too.

JON: She is yeah, bless her.

ILM: So you're playing a one-off hometown gig to launch new live concert venue Carling Academy Sheffield - you must be excited about that…?

JON: It's gonna be good, I can't wait because the Roxy was always a bit of a landmark in Sheffield, a notoriously terrible club and a really ugly 70s socialist experiment of making this complex that has failed and is falling down and stuff. Sheffield could do with a venue of the size really, because there's nothing similar. It's a privilege to be asked to open it.

I take the Sheffield thing quite seriously, because everyone else who's had any success in music, with the exception of Richard Hawley has left now, Alex (Arctic Monkeys) has just moved to London. I have an affection for Sheffield. It definitely informs what I do and the way I think and stuff. There's a certain cynicism in coming from Sheffield, because of the fact that we got a bit shat on in the 80s by Maggie Thatcher and it created this kind of sarcastic vent to lyrics, like Jarvis Cocker, so it definitely informs the lyrical thing.

ILM: You've played a few dates recently from Dublin and Belfast to Manchester … any amusing anecdotes or standout moments you can share?

JON: Yes, very much so. We played Dublin which just went off and we met all these people and ended up having this lock in this Irish pub. Then we played Belfast. We were just about to set off, and we get a knock on the van door, so we open it and this guy says,

"Hiya I'm so-and-so and I'm from Sinn Fein, would you like to come to Stormont to meet Gerry Adams tomorrow. It's like freedom fighter music your music. Gerry would like to meet you."

And I was like, What? That's mental. I'm 26 and grew up in the 80s and I just remember being a kid when they blacked him out on the news and stuff and they used to morph his voice. It's really weird now that he's heard our music and that he wanted to meet me… so I thought, 'man, that's pretty mad.'

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Related links:

1. Reverend And The Makers Jon McClure Blog
2. Reverend And The Makers Remixed Competition
3. Reverend And The Makers Open Carling Sheffield
4. Reverend And The Makers - The State Of Things