John & Jehn: Interview

France has been busy cultivating a new music renaissance of uber cool proportions lately, and that’s a fact.  We have had the entertaining, yet filthy musings of The Teenagers, to the prolific activities of infamous French label Kitsuné who continue to swear allegiance to electronic music.  Oh and lets not forget the Parisian Koko Von Napoo, who with support from Metronomy’s Joe Mount have been spreading their indie wings to bring their continental infused sounds to the rest of Europe.  And not a Breton stripe or tilted beret in sight.

But perhaps somewhat overlooked up until now are boy girl couple John & Jehn whose dark romanticising and evocative musical delivery, subtly perfects the concept of chicness that even Coco Chanel herself would be proud of. A concept, which for them as purveyors is seemingly effortless.

Their romantic liaison led to the start of a different relationship altogether, taking them from their motherland to London out of creative curiosity and in search of a music scene they could relate to. And so since 2006, it’s within London they have established an almost ‘cultish’ following, who thrive on the obvious passion being played out through each song as it is juxtaposed against a subtle darkness punctuating the music and their aesthetic.

Yet despite this angsty emotional complexity, John & Jehn’s infatuation with each other and their willingness to emulate their influences through their music brings a softness to the sound that can at times be overlooked.  Ian Curtis and his dedication to literature and to poetry is a common thread influencing most of their back catalogue, without drawing on the misguided storytelling that surrounds his suicide.  Furthermore a recreation of retro 50’s and 60’s sounds adds a vintage charm and class to their newer material, adding further diversity and artistic layering.

This summer will yield the fruits of their sophomore record, set to reinforce the fact that this is solely a John & Jehn affair after their self imposed exile to rural France for the purposes of writing, recording and producing it.  And if the album sampler is set to dictate the tone of the entire LP a blend of epic proportions and evocative lyricising presides.  Some of the jagged post punk influences continue from their eponymous debut that exist amongst the retro incarnation and cinematic edge, while driving, sultry vocals and a multi-percussive nucleus dictate the tone of each track.  All of which makes it an exciting prospect to see how they will inevitably translate each painstaking element into the live environment.

Avant-garde and compelled by l’amore, John & Jehn are on the brink of embellishing their cult following into desired widespread acclaim via album numero deux and 4or The Record lined up with the other tastemakers to add our weight to this very real prospect.

4TR: John & Jehn, many of your songs are related to romance and love.  Is the majority of your work autobiographical and therefore based on you laying your relationship bare to other people?
John: Yes, especially with ‘Oh My Love’ our new single.  This song has been written recently and is about the way I saw our relationship at the very beginning.  It’s like an echo, something coming back from the recent past and the lyrics are very personal.  Its telling the story of how I kind of forced her to do this project and be part of my life and the chorus goes “oh my love, you are dead to the world”, which means now you are dead to everyone else other than me, so it’s a very obsessive possessive aspect.
Jehn: Yeah ‘Oh My Love’ is much more about the darker aspect.  The thing is it’s not really a conscious thing us putting our relationship out for people to see, we just write about who we are.

4TR: Do you ever worry that by doing that you are letting people know the personal elements of who you are together?
Jehn: No, because people will never know the real personal stuff.  But we like to play on both sides so it’s not a danger to us.

4TR: So is it more the case then that you appear to be giving a lot away but the reality is you’re not?
Jehn: Yes because we are only giving the story, not the reality.
John: We can’t talk about the way we live every day because it’s not really interesting anyway.  Our songs are just bits of a long story, and those bits can become another story or another reality so we are just choosing what we want to say out of that, but it’s all true.

4TR: Ok, so it’s autobiographical only to the extent in which you wish to portray it.
John: Exactly and of course it has to be interesting to us also.
Jehn: We just take one fact that we think is poetic or can have an image attached to it and make it a reality because we put that forward through the writing.

4TR: You mentioned the single ‘Oh My Love’, which expresses the darker aspects of your relationship, but I am sensing now that there is actually a more complex picture behind it’s writing?
John: Well you know that song really came from another song, which is ‘Love is the Drug’ by Roxy Music.  ‘Love Is The Drug’ starts with this percussion and I was obsessed with it and actually it demonstrates how we create songs perfectly.  We can fall in love with one song in particular and then put our own words on it, [laughing] so we are just thieves.  No I’m joking, but that song is a big homage to ‘Love is the Drug’ by Roxy Music.
Jehn: It is for you yeah, not for me.  Did you mean that lyrically it means something else and it’s not just about us? 
4TR: Yeah exactly.
Jehn: I’m glad you say that in some ways because if people can find another meaning in our songs then I’m really happy because that’s how it should be; people can find whatever meanings they want in music.  So if you are talking in a general way then this song talks about escaping with someone else, not just us escaping with each other.

4TR: You moved from France to London to pursue your musical aspirations.  How does the UK industry differ to back home in your opinion and why did London inspire you?
John: It’s a very different world, the industry world and the real world.  As a band we started in London because we wanted to be inspired by the gigs going on here because in France it’s a bit slow, you know everything happens like 2 years after the London scenes, so we needed to be in it to be inspired or disgusted [laughing].  But it was also about the way the myth is going down when you have the fantasy in your mind.  When we were in France we had the fantasy that London was the best part of the world to live and make music in, which is not completely true when the reality bangs into your head, but that’s how you learn isn’t it.

4TR: Does London still inspire you?
Jehn: We’ve been staying in France a lot recently where we are recording and its funny because every time you leave a place you’ve been in a long time and arrive in a new place, all you think about is the place you just left.  It’s like an echo in your head and you just kind of write about that.  So when we came back to stay in France to work we wrote about London.  I think that’s the good thing about moving, because then you have new inspiration from when you have been or where you were.
 
4TR: On the live circuit you must meet loads of other bands and people following similar lines as you.  What do you think of the music being made in the UK at the moment?
John: Yeah there is some very good things happening; we have played with wonderful bands like Archie Bronson Outfit and became very good friends with them, and with British Sea Power who are incredible people as human beings as well as a band, which is quite rare!
Jehn: But then in terms of new scenes and things like that, we’re not really into it.  I know there are loads of youth scenes and nights going on and I think its good that they do it to make an impact, but we are not really part of any scene anyway.

4TR: By going home to France to record your 2nd album, has it helped to evolve your sound?
John: Yes definitely. Its funny as Jehn said we wrote songs about London and England and we wrote the songs when we were in the countryside in France while having nothing to do with London life.  So it’s funny how it’s easier to write good stories with your souvenirs or even your consciousness.

4TR: There have been the inevitable comparisons to other bands but you have been very candid about your musical influences and how they have influenced your music so far.
Jehn: Yeah we never hide that at all.
4TR: I read that Joy Division and more specifically Ian Curtis has been a huge inspiration to you.
John: Oh yeah he is a deep inspiration.  Before John and Jehn I was a drummer so I didn’t really write any songs but suddenly when I was 19 or 20 I started to listen to Joy Division and I was very touched by the way he put words together and suddenly I wanted to do the same, lyrically.  In fact 2 elements of Joy Division were special to me, the lyrics and the basslines.  So I realised that you could build a song with just a good bassline and good lyrics, and now that’s the main skeleton of all our writing.  But I’m not interested in the folkloric vision of Joy Division or the depression and suicide.  I think he was a genius lyricist and that’s all that matters.  He was a poet, he was very into literature and he was a very hard worker on his art and I think we should make justice about that.

4TR: What do you think about people labeling you in particular as ‘dark’?
John: [Laughing] You know people compare us to Joy Division and say we are dark and gothic or that kind of shit, but it’s just about the way you express yourself and you can be very generous even if you say very dark things, so in the end it’s not actually dark.  I mean it is dark and depressive when it’s just inside and cold but that’s not the case with us.  We are warm and approachable; we talk a lot to people on stage.  For example you know the band Suicide? Alan Vega said ‘Suicide’ the name was the explanation for the celebration of life, not death, so it’s just the way you see things.  We see the dark thing as a way of expressing ourselves in a dramatic way but in a funny dramatic way, you know its not 100% serious what we are saying.  [Laughing] Like the lyric “you are dead to the world”, there’s humour to it, which is maybe not that obvious to anyone else. 

4TR: Along with the influences of specific bands parts of your sound stems from eras like the 50’s and 60’s; are you consciously trying to replicate that kind of sound?
John: Oh yeah on the new songs especially, trying to recreate things is something I am obsessed with.  I’m like a mad scientist, I like to dislocate things and take them apart.  I like to steal stuff and put it together with different things.
Jehn: But its not literally stealing, he means being inspired by things.
John: Yes but at the same time I think you have to take things how they are to maintain the traditional element of it that you loved in the first place.  That’s important so you are not pretending to create things out of nowhere, which is very pretentious.  I like to take things and show where I found it so I am not going to pretend otherwise that I thought of it first.   

4TR: Lets talk about your first album, which was split into 2 halves, one for each of you with your respective artwork.  Why did you do that, was it just a case of that typical relationship jam where you just couldn’t agree on things?
[Both laughing]
John: That’s a good explanation because we never could agree, but actually we’ve never answered that question before.
Jehn: It was first an idea of the guy who did the artwork, who is the tattooist of John and a very old friend.  He had this idea to make 2 portraits of us but when we tried to put them together it was better when there was only one.  Then the idea of having 2 different sides came and actually it was good for us to separate ourselves.  It’s a bit symbolic in some senses but it also meant we had a different object to offer people.

4TR: Are you going to continue that separation into the next album?
Jehn: No I think it will be very different.
John: It’s going very differently so far anyway, but its not finished.

4TR: What about the sound is that progressing and continuing the theme of ‘Oh My Love’, or are their similarities to the first album?
John: It’s not similar in sound at all, but we’re still working it out.  We are producing it ourselves and working in a home studio so its all our work.
Jehn: And you are right, I think ‘Oh My Love’ already shows that this is a different step for us.
John: We are very obsessed in the way that we have to evolve all the time, we don’t want to reply on something and want to improve ourselves as musicians and artists.  I would love us to do a completely different album each time, and we might get musicians on stage at some point, or we might try other stuff out, why not dancers or animals [laughing]

4TR: The artwork on ‘Oh My Love’ is beautiful and conveys the romantic nature of the song, yet again portrays the darker elements.  It’s black for a start…
Jehn: [laughing] It’s true it is, it’s kind of related to the first album because it’s the same guy doing the artwork and we like to put his drawings in black and white.  But that’s just the first single; we might have bright colours on the album.
John: It’s funny how I don’t see anything dark in that cover, its just birds and roses, and us……
Jehn: [laughing] and there’s skulls and its black.

4TR: Yet the romance is still very apparent.  To me it kind of represents the obsessive side of the story.
Jehn: Well it’s like representing a dream, and when you have a dream its not real life, its kind of deformed and I think that’s what the song is.

4TR: And how do you envisage bringing the record to the stage with just the 2 of you?
John: Well we have trouble right now, because we wrote all the songs and are playing every instrument on it, and so obviously the problem is how do we do it live.  We have to change the songs a bit to get them interesting just being played by the 2 of us, so at the end of the day there are some songs we cant play live with just the 2 of us.  We can’t play ‘Oh My Love’ live at the moment!

4TR: So are you thinking along the lines of stripping them down or introducing more musicians for the live environment?
John: Yeah exactly especially because we don’t want to be a karaoke band and play on backing tracks and stuff like that.  We try to get that simple way of just having the drum beats and some samples but not the whole fucking song with us singing over it and because we like to get busy on stage.  Again because we are control freaks about things, it’s hard to find the right musicians because we are used to working with just the 2 of us.

4TR: And finally, you have been working with Faculty Music Media (part of The University of Westminster), will that relationship be extending to the album?
Jehn: On the single yes we did, but we are working on it for the album.
John: [laughing] so someone please phone us.



Words: Francesca Strange

WATCH THE VIDEO FOR 'OH MY LOVE' HERE...

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