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Interview
by SashaS
2-2-2002
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| Jamiroquai |
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Naturally Aspirated Funk
The fifth instalment of funk to "Attack your ass, your heart and your mind", according to Jay Kay
Jamiroquai's fifth album, 'A Funk Odyssey', appeared in the shadow of tabloids' frenzy over the split of Denise Van Outen, the genial former Big Breakfast TV presenter and a current star of the 'Chicago' musical on Broadway and the band's singer and leader, Jay Kay. That's long behind him but he remains renown for his habit of wearing weird hats, addiction to owning and driving fast cars and love for funk, its sublime pop-dancey variety with a generous dose of heart-stopping ballads to induce a tear or a flood. (And some public commotion of late...)
The Jamiroquai's ten years career can be summarised in sales of 16 million albums of music that has always gone to "Attack your ass, your heart and your mind," as Kay succinctly puts it. But, everybody wanted to know if the hit 'Little L' was about Denise and for a time Kay denied it and then changed his story. So, we went to ask the band's keyboardist, who also co-founded the band and is the main co-songwriter, Toby Smith about it.
"Definitely not because we wrote and recorded the album before they split up. The song is about another lady in his life, a liaison that lasted two years, and she was a nightmare girl... That relationship ended long before Denise and he got together. She (Denise) had some great fun but both agreed to end it. I know he speaks with her and get on well but are different inasmuch that Jay likes a bit of country lifestyle and she prefers the city scene. It certainly hurt their relationship but that's life."
Lasting daze
One thing is certain with Jamiroquai and that is the high quality of songs, their high-fuelled obsession with funk that contains a certain pop-element that makes it irresistible to a dance-floor devotee as well as to a casual listener. An obsession with a genre that's lasted for a decade and each, this is their fifth, album's sounds remains reassuringly recognizable?
"We tend to do our songs ourselves," Smith explains patiently, "and that might limit us to what we like and know. Our changes from album to album are much more subtle than Madonna or Robbie Williams who just pick on a producer to effect a complete change of musical direction. We've never been like that and how long it will last before we need to get an outside producer, I don't know. I think, with this album, it maybe the last time we can do that. Before having to get producers to make us sound as the market demands at any given moment to still continue selling records."
A statement like 'adopting to survive' sounds cold and a tad too calculated?
"I think most of the bands have to," Smith sounds matter-of-fact, "because whatever you do becomes common, over-familiar... Music is very cyclical and when I look at all other bands, be it The Rolling Stones, U2 or Depeche Mode, I can see they've done it; just listen to U2's last album and you can easily hear how they progressed and changed over the years. They have programmed drums and techno-tracks on their last couple of albums and you simply explore what is going on."
"Still, Jay will always sound the same because melody-wise he likes to express himself in a certain way; Jay loves chord-progression and that is not possible with too much programming..."
Trans Mission
Jamiroquai lot is a contradictory lot: on hand they are known as eco-warriors but Kay is a collector and racer. He would be fighting for animal rights but then race down the motorway at speeds that were approaching twice the legal limit. But, not of late - speeding that is, the car collection is still very impressive.
"Well, as much as he, and us, care about the issues," Smith argues, "and want to change them you still have to use them until something better is designed and functioning. An alternative to a 7-hour flight to New York is two weeks on an ocean-liner; have you got two weeks? I haven't... All the Greenpeace people fly to the places where they protest, they don't get on a boat... We all are hypocrites."
"The biggest problems on Earth are energy and transportation, right? If we develop systems that create energy for free and cold-fusion is much greater possibility than 10 years ago, Jay will be the first to switch."
We are on a collision course with self-destruction and if we don't do anything about it pretty quickly will be history quicker than anybody predicts. In meantime, let's enjoy the jig.
Tour dates (Beverely Knight) supporting:
22 February – SECC, Glasgow
23 February – Telewest Arena, Newcastle
25 February – NEC, Birmingham
26 February – MENA, Manchester
28 February – CIA, Cardiff
02 & 03 March – Wembley Arena, London
SashaS
2-2-2002
Jamiroquai album 'A Funk Odyssey' was released on 03 September 2001 by S2/Sony
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