“That’s certainly how the record ended up, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the record that we set out to make in the first place,” says Spencer. “At some point, it became clear that these songs kept coming back to our home and that made the sequencing of this record a lot easier. When we recorded, we actually recorded and mixed more songs than we would need for an album. I found myself drawn to the songs that found themselves closer to the theme of life in New York City – it really made the record come together.”
Of course, the band’s link to NYC is inextricable – no matter where in the world they perform, Spencer is quick to remind the audience that what they’re hearing is “Comin’ straight out of New York City.” When queried on his relationship with New York – the city he’s lived in for over half his life – Spencer says the place is constantly evolving.
“The reasons that I moved to this city are gone, mostly,” he says. “I’ve seen a lot of landmarks, bands, musicians, dive bars – the whole deal, I’ve seen it all come and go. They still hold an important place in my heart, though – there’s a connection made in my memory that means it will never really go away. I think that I’ve changed just as much as this city, too. I arrived here in my 20s. The things I get up to now, the things that I’m involved with in New York… it’s all very different now that I’m an older man. This city has grown with me.”
It’s been more than a decade since Spencer and the Blues Explosion released Hot Gossip, the second single from their 2004 album Damage. Not only was it a dramatic stylistic shift – featuring a guest verse from Public Enemy’s Chuck D – it was also one of their most politically-charged works; a clear and targeted attack on then-president George W. Bush. It’s brought up here in the context of another Bush – Jeb – entering the political picture as the 2016 election looms. This opens a discussion on the political climate of the country – something that the vocalist is still greatly dissatisfied with.
“First off, I honestly don’t even think that Jeb Bush will make it past nominations at this point,” Spencer says. “The Presidential election is still a ways off – I think there’s a lot more things happening right now that are worth me getting pissed off about, both as a musician and a citizen. There was a shooting just recently in Carolina – how many times are we, as Americans, going to have to go through this? There’s so many things wrong with this. We don’t need guns. We certainly don’t need automatic weapons. We don’t need a consensus on flying the Confederate flag. It’s been a very hard year. This is something of great concern to me.”
This August the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion will head back our way to perform at Melbourne’s Supersense Festival. The band have been to Australia several times over the years, but perhaps their most infamous visit was in 1997, which included an appearance on ABC’s Saturday morning music program, Recovery.
“Australia is a place that has always been nice to us, and I think that is one of the days where it was the nicest,” Spencer says. I mean, you guys let us completely freak out on national television.”
BY DAVID JAMES YOUNG
