Jon Allen : Interview

While many music lovers are enveloped in the electro craze that is currently sweeping the music scene or going fanatical about the latest Paolo Nutini album, there is a whole group of artists who are going it alone, without the major label backing, and who are a lot less worried about pissing people off.

Meet Jon Allen, a musician who is not only extremely talented and writes beautiful songs about anything from heartbreak to a dead mans suit, but who is also wonderfully opinionated. His folk-rock sound has drawn comparisons to the likes of Rod Stewart and James Taylor and these accreditations are well deserved. His debut album ‘Dead Mans suit’ was released in June and since then he has found himself playing a string of festival dates as well as embarking on a European tour with Seal.

4ortherecord caught up with Jon recently at Splendour festival In Nottingham to discuss everything from song writing to creating his own label to what musicians really annoy him.

4or The Record: How did you get into music?
Jon Allen: My parent’s are music lovers and they have always had music playing, the funny thing is even though they were ‘baby-boomers’ they came from a different tradition where my dad listened to a lot of jazz and classical music, I think my mum and dad had about five pop albums between them, but music was always around. I can actually remember when I was really little I used to live in a village called Northington (near Winchester, Hampshire) and they had the radio playing on the school bus and I used to sing along to the songs, so that was kind of the beginning.

4TR: You started your own label called Monologue, why did you decided to go it alone?
JA: I had been waiting around for a few years for a major label to pluck me from obscurity and launch me on a global scale but it never happened, so I thought I better do it myself. People around me were also saying ‘for god sake Jon just make the album’ instead of waiting around for people to make it happen for me, so that is what I did. So, I set up a limited company and put the record out, I was then fortunate enough to get one of my tracks on the radio and then offered a distribution deal from Absolute, so then it ended up in the shops.

4TR: So you didn’t create your own label because you didn’t want to sign to a major label?
JA: Well, there is a little bit of truth in that story in the sense that they can be the poisoned chalice sometimes. Also with a label you really have to ask yourself what they are going to do that you can’t do yourself?, I’ve got a plugger, I have a press agent, I have a distribution agent, so you have to ask yourself a question, what are they going to do that we’re not doing? And sometimes it’s just they will take 50% or more, so there are good reasons why you shouldn’t sign to a major. You may not necessarily end up playing arenas but you are making a living and you are gigging, so I'm pretty happy with the route I have gone.

4TR: How would you describe your sound?
JA: I would say it harks back to the late 60s, early 70s, Bob Dylan, a bit of early Rod Stewart, also a bit of Beatles influences, a bit of James Taylor, it’s very much a singer-songwriter aesthetic.

4TR: Who are you listening to at the moment?
JA: My life has just become really boring; I actually haven’t been listening to a lot of music except Seal sound-checking, who I have just been on tour with. I mean I still listen to a lot of Dylan, I recently bought the Seasick Steve album and I have the Fleet Foxes record, so I am always latching onto stuff that has a bit of a retro thing going on.

4TR: Who or what influences your song writing?
JA: Dylan is an influence, but the inspiration comes from me and my life and whatever is going on, emotions are drifting through my transom.

4TR: What has been the proudest moment of your career so far:
JA: Playing on Jools Holland was pretty good, doing some big support slots with Mark Knofler was pretty special, going out in front of Wembley arena that was good, that gave me a real buzz. So that, apart from this interview of course.

4TR: Do you ever listen to a song and think you wish you had written it?
JA: Lots, ‘Stand by me’ that’s a pretty good song, you know it’s really simple but brilliant, I really wish I had written that.

4TR: Is there any type of music at the moment that you think is really bad or really annoys you?
JA:  Quite a lot of music annoys me; there really is little music I really like. I don’t know if it is to do with age or what but some music you just kind of think, god! I was listening to a programme on the radio about religious extremism and the fact they were saying that the best way to get them is when they are young, you know the younger they are the better and I feel like that with pop music. I feel like there is a whole group of young people that are very impressionable in terms of music, and it is forced down their throats. But then there always has been; I was listening to ‘Sound of the sixties’ on BBC Radio 2 the other day and it was a lot of crap, and  so I suppose there always has been and always will be.

4TR: Any particular artists you don’t like?
JA: I think Kate Nash is pretty pretentious, but then there is a lot of stuff that really doesn’t do it for me.

4TR: Your lyrics are quite simple and unpretentious, is it important to you that you write lyrics that are simple and easy for your audience to connect with?
JA: I don’t know, I am just trying to write songs that I connect with really. I find myself exercising certain logic sometimes when I write songs but I have written quite a lot of simple lyrics and stuff. I do find myself wanting to go a bit more abstract and doing some covers as well, but I don’t do anything specific, I just do what I want and what I want to hear.

4TR: Do you write autobiographically or do your draw from other inspirations?
JA: It’s all pretty much autobiographical but then a song like ‘Dead Mans suit’ is a fantastical thing and kind of a play on words. I think the great sort of failure in a lot of singer songwriters is that you become a bit self-obsessed and it becomes all about you, and all about love. I mean there is other stuff out there, there is other people and thats why I like people like Dylan as they write in the 3rd person or they write in a more abstract way about a different time. So, although a lot of my stuff is autobiographical I don’t like to be too self-indulgent or always about me.

4TR: Where do you hope to see yourself in a year’s time?
JA: I don’t know, maybe with another record out, you know, flogging the dream, just continuing, playing to more people and earning a living.

Words: Kevin Angel

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