Interview: The Savage Jazz
Artist profile:
The Savage Jazz
The Savage Jazz will be releasing their debut album early next year, which makes now a perfect time to find out more about them, no?
Introduce yourselves, who are you and where do you come from?
Rich: We're The Savage Jazz!
Giles: We're from Guildford...
Rich: No you're not! We live in Guildford, you're from Winchester. But Winchester isn't really ghetto enough is it? You're from the slums of Winchester! Alex mate, where are you from my friend?
Alex: Erm... Aldershot.
Giles: Can we not just say Aldershot? Yeah, that's right, we're all from Aldershot.
Rich: What!! I'm from South East London I'll have you know!
You've recently released an EP entitled 'Recreation Road', is this a good taster of your soon-to-be-released album?
Giles: Nope.
Alex: No.
Rich: Not at all! Actually... that's not wholly fair.
Giles: Well, I produce our music as well as write a lot of it – and so for me, from the viewpoint of a producer, I can't over-emphasise how much more faithful our forthcoming album is going to be to our live sound. I’ve learnt a huge amount about production over the last few months and I feel that I'm at the level now where what we record is an accurate reflection of The Savage Jazz live performance.
Rich: Based on what we've recorded so far, I think that musically, the new album ropes in a far more honest range of our influences. We had those same influences back during the recording of 'Recreation Road', but we were a younger band, who were trying to put out a 5 track EP under a tight schedule, ready for touring and gigging. Those songs are still entirely credible, but now, having had the time and opportunity to develop those influences, the new album more obviously reflects our early ideas.
Tom: I can still see elements of 'Recreation Road' in The Savage Jazz today – we're still roughly the same genre – but there's a lot more going on in the band now, it's a fuller sound, and it's fair to say that we all think it is more honestly us.
How have you found the writing and recording process?
Rich: Erm... just let Giles do it. And then cut 25% of his hard work!
Giles: Fair play mate! No, seriously, I think that as a band we are now more on the same wavelength than when we recorded our earlier material and that makes writing and recording a lot more constructive.
Rich: Giles has become cooler, which certainly helps! I think that as a fairly new member of the band, Tom is already adding a new and interesting slant, both towards our new material, and in reworking earlier songs like Show Me. It’s still very Savage Jazz, but it’s keeping us extremely fresh and in terms of writing and recording it’s only going to enhance the new album.
Tom: I love recording nearly as much as sweaty gigs, but there is a spontaneity of ideas that is present in the studio that gets my creative juices flowing. I find you listen to every nuance of the song, and often get completely different ideas compared to say a live set or a rehearsal.
Rich: I used to love performing and got much less excited about recording, but I think one of the ways The Savage Jazz has got a lot better, is in our approach to recording. We’ve got our writing/performing side, and we now have our recording side. It’s the same music but we approach it in different ways. That’s exciting like hot porridge.
You've self funded a few of your own tours, are you fans of the DIY-ethic?
Giles: Yeah man, absolutely. Nothing compares to hard-work, and because this is what we love, it doesn't really feel like hard work. Our tours have financed themselves so far and, although we haven't made any real money yet, this is what we want to do and that makes touring genuinely incredible. We've mainly toured in the Summer, and to be honest, there's nothing I would rather be doing. In the Winter we just find ourselves saying: "Fuck, I wish we were on tour"! Through doing it ourselves we've learnt so much about this industry. If you compare our Summer tour of the South West this year to our 2005 tour, this time around, we had the same number of gigs, in half the amount of time, costing us a quarter of the money and we had twice as much fun.
Rich: I mean to call it a tour doesn't really sum up what it was, I mean in some ways it was like...
Alex: A camping holiday! (Much laughter)
Rich: Well I know what you mean, it was like band camp but... for The Savage Jazz. It wasn’t about a tour as in, what you'd consider a tour. It was about putting a bunch of gigs together, playing great shows to audiences that wanted to have a good time, in a part of the world that we wanted to be, travelling with all our equipment, and allowing that to sustain itself. The other thing about our tours, is that so far, it's been about more than just the band, it's been about a wider involvement, everyone who comes along and the Savage experience. Touring with The Savage Jazz is incredibly satisfying.
Giles: We want to play in a party town at at a party time. That is what we want to do, and playing somewhere like Newquay in July is what that is all about. When people think of us, we want them to think of good music and good times, and we try and put that into every gig. Take a song like 'Sign Your Name Here', which although angry on some levels, we also want it to be a full-on excuse to have a skank-up with your mates.
What makes a good live show?
Rich: Me. To begin with... me on drums. I'd say, that’s a good start!
Giles: You have to give reference to a good soundman, that can make a huge difference between a good gig and a great gig.
Tom: Be nice to your soundman. Shake his hand.
Giles: One of the strengths of our music is our musical instrumentation and the arrangements of our songs, we want to make interesting music that offers something different in every tune.
Rich: This is the thing, there are a lot of indie bands that are out now - and I love indie, there's nothing wrong with indie and I never slate another type of music – but you just have a lot of young bands that come out and say "we just want to make music that makes people feel good and excited". I think that when we started working together, that was definitely a thing, getting the crowd excited was important, and if you cold make it happen it was brilliant. Whereas I think that now it is even more than that. Some tracks make the crowd feel good, but we want every track to just make the crowd feel something and get involved in the gig, and it doesn't matter what emotion that is. We don't want to write a catalogue of songs that just make the crowd always want to dance the same dance. We always want people to be moving, but in different ways, to different kinds of rhythms. That's why bringing in world rhythms and ethnic beats is such a big part of The Savage Jazz. It's so good to see people dancing and enjoying gigs in ways they haven’t before. To see Emo kids one side of a room and indie kids the other, and watch both groups skanking it up to the max is pretty awesome! To have someone come up to you, who is from an utterly different background and chat to you, which in any other scenario would never happen is awesome. To be told that they loved the gig, and that your gig might broaden the range of music they listen to is pretty cool.
Giles: As far as individual influences go, Rich gives us a blend of heavy rock and the whole world thing, Alex brings the blues, Tom brings the straight up - almost Sublime influence, reggae/hip-hop etc - and then you’ve got me for all your cheesy pop. That’s pretty much it. These three guys make me look cool!
If you could play with any band who would it be and why?
Giles: I’d pretty much like to play with Bob Marley. That would be sick.
Alex: That would be pretty intimidating.
Giles: Oh yeah, just a tad! I would have to go on stage and say: “basically, we are shit compared to Bob, whose headlining, but hey, we’re here!”
Rich: The crowd would be mental.
Alex: Talking of crazy crowds, I think Rage Against The Machine would be a crazy crowd, not that our styles would put us on the same stage!
Rich: Playing a gig with System of a Down would be pretty phat, and would somehow work with The Savage Jazz.
Giles: Ok, that’s quite a few there, but finally, I think that a gig with either Gogol Bordello or Bedouin Soundclash would just be ridiculous. We would definitely have to get our Romanian side out for that stuff.
Where do you want to be this time next year?
Rich: I want to be a cleaner.
Alex: I want to work at Bird World. Or be in bed.
Rich: No seriously, living in London, playing epic amounts of music.
Giles: I see us, signed to a pretty driven independent record label. I want us to have an album that we are deeply proud of, be gigging a lot, working hard and in position to be able to keep doing this full time.
Rich: I want to be exposed as an artist, in a position where people can hear our music.
Do you have any New Years Resolutions?
Alex: To enter a New Year.
Giles: To clean the kitchen.
Tom: Quit smoking... Probably won't happen.
Rich: Try and squabble less with Giles.
Giles: Amen, I want to relearn how to love Rich!
Missy Campbell
The Savage Jazz Official Site
The Savage Jazz Myspace
Buy The Savage Jazz CDs | Buy The Savage Jazz mp3s | Buy The Savage Jazz Tickets | Buy The Savage Jazz Merch
The Savage Jazz will be releasing their debut album early next year, which makes now a perfect time to find out more about them, no?
Introduce yourselves, who are you and where do you come from?
Rich: We're The Savage Jazz!
Giles: We're from Guildford...
Rich: No you're not! We live in Guildford, you're from Winchester. But Winchester isn't really ghetto enough is it? You're from the slums of Winchester! Alex mate, where are you from my friend?
Alex: Erm... Aldershot.
Giles: Can we not just say Aldershot? Yeah, that's right, we're all from Aldershot.
Rich: What!! I'm from South East London I'll have you know!
You've recently released an EP entitled 'Recreation Road', is this a good taster of your soon-to-be-released album?
Giles: Nope.
Alex: No.
Rich: Not at all! Actually... that's not wholly fair.
Giles: Well, I produce our music as well as write a lot of it – and so for me, from the viewpoint of a producer, I can't over-emphasise how much more faithful our forthcoming album is going to be to our live sound. I’ve learnt a huge amount about production over the last few months and I feel that I'm at the level now where what we record is an accurate reflection of The Savage Jazz live performance.
Rich: Based on what we've recorded so far, I think that musically, the new album ropes in a far more honest range of our influences. We had those same influences back during the recording of 'Recreation Road', but we were a younger band, who were trying to put out a 5 track EP under a tight schedule, ready for touring and gigging. Those songs are still entirely credible, but now, having had the time and opportunity to develop those influences, the new album more obviously reflects our early ideas.
Tom: I can still see elements of 'Recreation Road' in The Savage Jazz today – we're still roughly the same genre – but there's a lot more going on in the band now, it's a fuller sound, and it's fair to say that we all think it is more honestly us.
How have you found the writing and recording process?
Rich: Erm... just let Giles do it. And then cut 25% of his hard work!
Giles: Fair play mate! No, seriously, I think that as a band we are now more on the same wavelength than when we recorded our earlier material and that makes writing and recording a lot more constructive.
Rich: Giles has become cooler, which certainly helps! I think that as a fairly new member of the band, Tom is already adding a new and interesting slant, both towards our new material, and in reworking earlier songs like Show Me. It’s still very Savage Jazz, but it’s keeping us extremely fresh and in terms of writing and recording it’s only going to enhance the new album.
Tom: I love recording nearly as much as sweaty gigs, but there is a spontaneity of ideas that is present in the studio that gets my creative juices flowing. I find you listen to every nuance of the song, and often get completely different ideas compared to say a live set or a rehearsal.
Rich: I used to love performing and got much less excited about recording, but I think one of the ways The Savage Jazz has got a lot better, is in our approach to recording. We’ve got our writing/performing side, and we now have our recording side. It’s the same music but we approach it in different ways. That’s exciting like hot porridge.
You've self funded a few of your own tours, are you fans of the DIY-ethic?
Giles: Yeah man, absolutely. Nothing compares to hard-work, and because this is what we love, it doesn't really feel like hard work. Our tours have financed themselves so far and, although we haven't made any real money yet, this is what we want to do and that makes touring genuinely incredible. We've mainly toured in the Summer, and to be honest, there's nothing I would rather be doing. In the Winter we just find ourselves saying: "Fuck, I wish we were on tour"! Through doing it ourselves we've learnt so much about this industry. If you compare our Summer tour of the South West this year to our 2005 tour, this time around, we had the same number of gigs, in half the amount of time, costing us a quarter of the money and we had twice as much fun.
Rich: I mean to call it a tour doesn't really sum up what it was, I mean in some ways it was like...
Alex: A camping holiday! (Much laughter)
Rich: Well I know what you mean, it was like band camp but... for The Savage Jazz. It wasn’t about a tour as in, what you'd consider a tour. It was about putting a bunch of gigs together, playing great shows to audiences that wanted to have a good time, in a part of the world that we wanted to be, travelling with all our equipment, and allowing that to sustain itself. The other thing about our tours, is that so far, it's been about more than just the band, it's been about a wider involvement, everyone who comes along and the Savage experience. Touring with The Savage Jazz is incredibly satisfying.
Giles: We want to play in a party town at at a party time. That is what we want to do, and playing somewhere like Newquay in July is what that is all about. When people think of us, we want them to think of good music and good times, and we try and put that into every gig. Take a song like 'Sign Your Name Here', which although angry on some levels, we also want it to be a full-on excuse to have a skank-up with your mates.
What makes a good live show?
Rich: Me. To begin with... me on drums. I'd say, that’s a good start!
Giles: You have to give reference to a good soundman, that can make a huge difference between a good gig and a great gig.
Tom: Be nice to your soundman. Shake his hand.
Giles: One of the strengths of our music is our musical instrumentation and the arrangements of our songs, we want to make interesting music that offers something different in every tune.
Rich: This is the thing, there are a lot of indie bands that are out now - and I love indie, there's nothing wrong with indie and I never slate another type of music – but you just have a lot of young bands that come out and say "we just want to make music that makes people feel good and excited". I think that when we started working together, that was definitely a thing, getting the crowd excited was important, and if you cold make it happen it was brilliant. Whereas I think that now it is even more than that. Some tracks make the crowd feel good, but we want every track to just make the crowd feel something and get involved in the gig, and it doesn't matter what emotion that is. We don't want to write a catalogue of songs that just make the crowd always want to dance the same dance. We always want people to be moving, but in different ways, to different kinds of rhythms. That's why bringing in world rhythms and ethnic beats is such a big part of The Savage Jazz. It's so good to see people dancing and enjoying gigs in ways they haven’t before. To see Emo kids one side of a room and indie kids the other, and watch both groups skanking it up to the max is pretty awesome! To have someone come up to you, who is from an utterly different background and chat to you, which in any other scenario would never happen is awesome. To be told that they loved the gig, and that your gig might broaden the range of music they listen to is pretty cool.
Giles: As far as individual influences go, Rich gives us a blend of heavy rock and the whole world thing, Alex brings the blues, Tom brings the straight up - almost Sublime influence, reggae/hip-hop etc - and then you’ve got me for all your cheesy pop. That’s pretty much it. These three guys make me look cool!
If you could play with any band who would it be and why?
Giles: I’d pretty much like to play with Bob Marley. That would be sick.
Alex: That would be pretty intimidating.
Giles: Oh yeah, just a tad! I would have to go on stage and say: “basically, we are shit compared to Bob, whose headlining, but hey, we’re here!”
Rich: The crowd would be mental.
Alex: Talking of crazy crowds, I think Rage Against The Machine would be a crazy crowd, not that our styles would put us on the same stage!
Rich: Playing a gig with System of a Down would be pretty phat, and would somehow work with The Savage Jazz.
Giles: Ok, that’s quite a few there, but finally, I think that a gig with either Gogol Bordello or Bedouin Soundclash would just be ridiculous. We would definitely have to get our Romanian side out for that stuff.
Where do you want to be this time next year?
Rich: I want to be a cleaner.
Alex: I want to work at Bird World. Or be in bed.
Rich: No seriously, living in London, playing epic amounts of music.
Giles: I see us, signed to a pretty driven independent record label. I want us to have an album that we are deeply proud of, be gigging a lot, working hard and in position to be able to keep doing this full time.
Rich: I want to be exposed as an artist, in a position where people can hear our music.
Do you have any New Years Resolutions?
Alex: To enter a New Year.
Giles: To clean the kitchen.
Tom: Quit smoking... Probably won't happen.
Rich: Try and squabble less with Giles.
Giles: Amen, I want to relearn how to love Rich!
Missy Campbell
The Savage Jazz Official Site
The Savage Jazz Myspace
Buy The Savage Jazz CDs | Buy The Savage Jazz mp3s | Buy The Savage Jazz Tickets | Buy The Savage Jazz Merch
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