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SPS: What different managers have you had since 1980?
JPJ: I just had two. I had nobody for a while. I had Peter [Grant] for a while, but I didn’t see much of him, and he turned out to be in sort of a strange period at that time. So I got managed in the mid ’80s with Brian Eno’s management, which was Opal Entertainment. Then around the beginning of the ’90s, they kind of wound down, so I got Opium. …Great eccentrics and wonderful people in the English music scene.
SPS: What drew you to Discipline Global Mobile? That’s tough to say [to pronounce].
JPJ: It is, it is. I just really like the ethic. I kind of wondered whether I should go to a major [label] and just didn’t… was disheartened with the whole music scene, which was one of the reasons I really didn’t want to … "Where’s the singer? Where’s the singer?" And we were looking for an outlet really, and [manager] Richard [Chadwick] just said to me, "I just found this label, Discipline. It’s a strange one but strange ideas." And I read all about it, and I thought, "It’s a great one!" The artists have their own work? It’s indefensible that they don’t own their work? I liked it. And they had really good distribution to small key distributors who like the music, and all. And I thought, "This is the place for me!" OK, so you don’t get the big contract. There’s no price to pay working with … But you gotta do the work and you don’t get, you know, there’s no big advances. You have to do a lot of stuff yourself, but you do what you like. Make all the records you like. So I just like that style of approach for it. This is for me.
SPS: What influence has Robert Fripp had on you musically?
JPJ: Probably only his commitment, I suppose.
Two other portions of the interview not included in these 22 transcript segments include:
SPS: How about some of the stuff that you did, like with "Easy," with Scotty Moore and D.J. Fontana, that you recorded last year [in 2000].
JPJ: Oh, for the Sun Records thing.
SPS: Yeah. Whatever happened with that?
JPJ: Not a clue.
SPS: It’s just, you’re gonna be on, you’re gonna be on, [clap] you’re not on?
JPJ: Yeah. Yeah, and it was good too, but, you know…
SPS: "I Ain’t Got the Blues," that you recorded for The Thunderthief?
JPJ: I didn’t think it was good enough.
SPS: No? Might it come out?
JPJ: No. I don’t think. The song was good, but [I] didn’t like the performance as much. If it doesn’t get past me, it doesn’t get on the record. [laughing]
SPS: How about "Fanfare for the Millennium"? It came out on the Japanese edition of Zooma.
JPJ: That’s right, yes.
SPS: But we didn’t get it over here.
JPJ: Yeah, well… See, the Japanese thing is very strange because I think it’s to do… I think it’s the fact that if everything’s released at the same time everywhere, by the time it gets to Japan – because of their distribution or whatever, just the sheer distances – it arrives in Japan like weeks after it’s released everywhere else. So then everybody who orders it in Japan, it’s actually cheaper if you get the money for it, they buy the imports. In order to stop this, the Japanese record companies will not release it unless they get A.) either an extra track or B.) have it early. And what happened on The Thunderthief is that we had it set up… This particular record I both recorded and mixed, so I did everything, and I just ran past the deadline, and they’d done all the work on the promotion and everything in Japan. Of course it was gonna come up early anyway, and then I missed the deadline for that... So we said release it now or we’ll never hear from them again, because they simply won’t stop it short. That’s what happens. You know, when all the Christmas stuff comes ... then you get completely swamped. So I said, "Well, we know…" We couldn’t stop the Japan record, the Japanese release, because they’d done all the work. We couldn’t say, "Sorry, guys, stop and do it again." Now, if I were Prince or Michael Jackson, I could do it, but I’m not. [laughing] So what happened is…
SPS: But to me, you’re better than them.
JPJ: Thank you. So what happened is this got put forward until after Christmas, you know, in February, where in Japan it had been released already. [laughing] I guess you just have to live with it. But "Fanfare for the Millennium" I really liked! I thought it was a great piece.
SPS: Were there other ones that you recorded for Zooma that didn’t come out?
JPJ: No.
SPS: What made you want to include vocals on The Thunderthief, the album?
JPJ: Well, as you probably know, I’ve always said that I didn’t want a person on lead vocals, all of it. And I didn’t want to rewrite Zooma. I had this idea that instead of having the riffs as the melody, which was …, I thought I would have the riff and the melody on top. … Then I suddenly thought, "I’m missing…" I really wanted the sound of the voice. I even made the sound of the voice in "Grind" on Zooma, just sampled, because I like the sound of it. So I thought as if I was cheating myself, not using the voice. I still believed I didn’t want a guest singer because suddenly the singer … It’s like walking a dog. All of a sudden, he becomes the producer and I’d end up … So I thought, I can do it. [laughing] So in fact, Peter Blegvad came to me, the singer-songwriter who also did the artwork. And he also handed me lyrics that he hadn’t set to music. And he gave me two, one called "The Thunderthief" and one called "Ice Fishing at Night." And I put them to music and just tried to experiment to sing on them, and if I liked it, I’d put it on. And I thought it was OK. ... And I thought, "I’ve tried singing, now I’ll try lyric writing!" [laughs] So I tried it, and it was great fun! Got the word processor going, and "Ah, this isn’t so bad!" You look up, and you’ve written three verses. "Oh, OK, that’s all right!" ...
SPS: I was gonna say, "Nosumi Blues" – am I pronouncing that right, "No SUE me?"
JPJ: Yeah.
SPS: OK. What’s that title mean?
JPJ: It’s just a laugh, isn’t it? The idea came –
SPS: Don’t sue me?
JPJ: No! You can’t sue me! It’s… Apple had a sound. Do you know much about Apple computers?
SPS: Uh…
JPJ: Well, anyway, it’s a long story. I love these long, winding stories.
SPS: Go ahead.
JPJ: What actually happened was that Apple, when they first were called Apple, came up against the Beatles’ publishing company, and the Beatles said they could use the name Apple provided that they made no music at all. [laughing] OK, so, I mean… that’s kind of ridiculous. Apples don’t have MIDI, which is one of the most frustrating things to musicians.
SPS: That’s why!
JPJ: Yeah, I know. I said… [Screaming:] I cannot even begin to tell you, I cannot even come close, still I am up against the fact that Apple doesn’t have any proper MIDI drivers. And it just drives me mad that it wastes months of studio time sorting this out and that out, this isn’t compatible with that, that doesn’t work, this doesn’t work, time is running out, furious about that! So Apple came out with an alert, what it was was a simple [sings:] "Bonnnng." And it was only used as an alert, and they called it "Sosumi."
SPS: [Laughing] Yeah.
JPJ: S-O-S-U-M-I. And I just remembered it when I was looking for a title for the blues, and I said this isn’t really a blues. It’s come from nowhere except in the blues tradition. So I called it "Nosumi Blues." [Laughing] I don’t know how many people got it, but I didn’t care. I liked it. [Laughing]
SPS: I’d always wondered about that. Now how about "Shibuya Bop"?
JPJ: "Shibuya Bop." That’s much more prosaic. I just, I was walking around Shibuya [in Tokyo] on the last tour, and it just… I heard this techno track around the doorway, and I thought, "Geez, what was that?" And all these people around were just … the intensity of it, a really intense track… and so that’s where that came from. [laughing]
SPS: You did some stuff [in Spain] in about ’89-’91. What was that all about?
JPJ: It was a Catalon theatre group called La Fura Dels Baus, and basically they were debuting this strange, strange show. … It was all deeply conceptual. It was not like our chaos, but it has some similarities. But anyway, they had musicians along with the show, and they based the show on the music. They actually came in and made some fantastic flamenco music as well. And I produced the album. ...
SPS: And you coordinated a whole cultural expo show in Seville?
JPJ: Oh, yes, the Memory Palace, that was produced, but that was different.
SPS: That was the next year or two [1991 and 1992].
JPJ: Yeah.
SPS: It was a government-organized cultural affair.
JPJ: That’s right. We had four sets of composers. I had two Spanish sets of composers, an American set – Tom and Andy – and I did … for the English side, and I coordinated and produced the whole hour. We spent two months… And it was great! A huge quadraphonic system set up and … "Ah, yeah, we should mix like this." It’s a great sound! Imagine a sort of deep, lone, computer-generated … and songs [inaudible].
SPS: How’d you get that gig?
JPJ: That was through having worked with La Fura. ...
SPS: Your daughter, Jacinda Jones. You produced an album for her?
JPJ: Didn’t get it released. Well, it was at a time, one of those cyclical times when everyone gets dropped from their labels, and basically we couldn’t get any interested in it. But it was a good record.
SPS: Do you still have it?
JPJ: Yeah! We taped it. Then she got into production. Animation production. She’s a really good organizer, really good with people. She takes… she has a director and takes them round to festivals [laughing] and gets to work. She loves it.
SPS: Has she stopped singing?
JPJ: Yeah.
SPS: You should just release that as a box set though, something like that. All those Zeppelin box sets that have come out, nothing new. We should have a Jacinda Jones box set, the unreleased tracks.
JPJ: Really. [laughing]
SPS: In 1979, Melody Maker’s readers’ choice awards, you were there wearing a button on your lapel with the message, "Rock Against Journalism."
JPJ: Oh, right! I remember that button.
SPS: What’s that mean?
JPJ: Just what it says!
SPS: Is that something against me?
JPJ: No, well, you’re not a journalist, you said. [Laughs]
SPS: Not yet. So far.
JPJ: I was just joking. It was an affectation at the time. There was a great turn-out at the Melody Maker. That’s kind of what we… They all hated or seemed to hate us in the beginning. And I think they were kind of annoyed because our reputation really grew by word of mouth and people coming to the shows. And they kind of dismissed us earlier on. And by the time they caught up, we were big and famous, but they really hadn’t much to do with it. I can remember when we first came to America and read that ... Rolling Stone review. And we just couldn’t understand, what had we done to those guys? Because "This band’s hyped." Well, what do you mean "hyped"? In what way? Oh, you mean hyped by people like [pointing to Steve Sauer as a fan] you? Not the media. I mean, we [the band] didn’t do any hype. We just made an honest, good record, so we thought, and we were coming here to perform it. And they say, "Aw," this and that and this. …
I remember going to New York. I’m sitting with a friend having dinner. … And suddenly I hear this thing, "If you want get ripped off, go to Madison Square Garden tonight and go and see Led Slime." [Astonished:] What did he mean? "Get ripped off"? We did good shows! "Go see Led Slime. OK, if you want to call up…" And I thought, ah! I wanna call. It’s a talk show! Right, get me on the phone, quick! They said, "Hello?" I said, "Yeah, I want to talk about Led Slime." "OK. Who are you?" I said, "John Paul Jones." And they just went [makes a clicking noise]. [Laughs]
SPS: "Yeah, sure you are!" [Laughs]
JPJ: No, he knew.
SPS: Oh!
JPJ: He knew because he was a journalist. He knew who I was, and as soon as he heard, he went, "Oh, [click] OK. Next call." ’Cause I was gonna give him, "What the f*** are you talking about, Led Slime?" I mean, we were fiercely defensive of the band, because we knew we were good, we knew what would happen, and we wanted people … just … dissonance. … I was gonna call him out, but then, werrrrnt! Said I must confirm quick!
SPS: "Rock Against Journalism." Is there anyway I could get a pin?
JPJ: [Laughs] I’ve probably still got mine somewhere. I just saw it and said, "That’s really appropriate." So that’s how we viewed the press at the time. To be honest, it was a generalization. There were good people who appeared and wrote correct things. But the initial reaction just seemed to be so hostile. You read it and think, "You don’t mean us. Do they really mean us? It’s us!" People just spread venomous things. One of the bands that was in Bath. I remember reading that they were an honest band or "I saw cases and cases of new Fender guitars and amplifiers, they were hyped by the record and instrument industries," and everything, and I thought, "You assholes. Our one bloody Fender, which I bought new, my dad had guaranteed for it… And of course when people write stuff, it becomes fact, because nobody… I mean you wouldn’t… Why would I bother to write… "Well, won’t these guys ever improve, because…?" You know. But it just becomes fact. I mean, it’s, what the hell. Don’t get mixed up in it. [Laughs]
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