DESPERATE JOURNALIST: INTERVIEW
Desperate Journalist are an experienced small band with a sophisticated sound and breathtaking live performances. Their gorgeous post-punk sound mixes guitar and drum elements of The Cure with vocals almost identical to All About Eve’s Julianne Regan. Listen to ‘Hollow’ to relive that early-80s alt-scene feeling.
Formed and based in North London, Desperate Journalist have gone on to release four albums, headline The 100 Club, sell out The Lexington and Scala and support the likes of The Slow Readers Club and Suede.
We got to speak to their bassist, Simon, about touring with Suede, their live album and their upcoming projects.
What’s the story behind your name?
”It comes from a song by The Cure called Desperate Journalist In Ongoing Meaningful Review Situation. It was a John Peel session version of 'Grinding Halt' instrumentally, with Robert Smith quoting a negative review they had from NME journalist Paul Morley.
Funnily enough, I spotted Paul Morley at a Pulp gig recently. I've no idea if he's aware of our band's existence, but I was so tempted to go up to him and say hello. Sometimes journalists tell us they find our name funny or relatable, I suspect he would have just been baffled.”
Who are your musical influences?
“Most of our shared influences come from 80s and 90s guitar bands. The Smiths’ influence was more pronounced at the start, plus The Cure, early REM, Echo & The Bunnymen, and Cocteau Twins. From the 90s there are people like Suede, Manic Street Preachers, Smashing Pumpkins, and Garbage.
We broadly agree on plenty but I'm into Ramones-y punk stuff, Rob likes that big, well-produced War on Drugs sound, Jo likes 'IDM' like Boards of Canada, and Caz likes Conor Oberst and Phoebe Bridgers.”
How do you write your songs?
“Rob has always been the starting point. Sometimes he comes up with a riff, sometimes a nearly-finished piece of music. Then we restructure and arrange it in the rehearsal studio together. Jo's melody and lyrics usually come last. Recently Rob and Jo have worked on demos together at home. Jo is more involved musically. The opening track on our last album was all her own. Me and Caz mostly try to play whatever serves the song best. It's worked for us so far!”
We’re big Suede fans (obviously). How was touring with them?
“This will probably go down as an all-time high, to be honest. We're all Suede fans and have been for years. I had posters ripped out of the NME as a teenager and played a few Suede cover gigs for fun. A couple of years ago they featured us on their Spotify playlist which was really cool. Caz, our drummer, insisted we put ourselves forward to support them so we found their agent's contact. We were pretty gobsmacked when the tour offer came in!
Touring with them was amazing, not only are they all nice people but it feels like they're at the top of their game right now. The latest album, Autofiction, mixed with their back catalogue of classics makes for a great set every night. Brett was very complimentary about us and on the last night of the tour they gifted us champagne and wrote us a lovely thank you note.”
Tell me about your new live album!
“After our fourth album 'Maximum Sorrow!' we knew it would be a while before we were ready to do another one. Fierce Panda suggested releasing some sort of Best Of compilation, but none of us really liked that idea. Our friend Tim from JT Soar suggested a live album. I thought it sounded much cooler. We wanted it to be a bit like an old-fashioned bootleg for our fanbase, so we just self-released it through Bandcamp.
It was slightly nerve-wracking on recording day. We played in a sweaty box room to 50 people, hoping no one made any terrible mistakes. But it turned out great.”
What's your favourite moment as a band so far?
“It's so hard to choose one favourite moment. We've been around for 10 years now and over the years there have been many highs. And a few lows. Our debut album launch was a really good night. It was the first time we sold out The Lexington. The room was buzzing and everyone was buying the LP. Then we topped it with the Grow Up launch at Scala in 2017. It was our biggest headline show. We went down a storm. And the next morning we jumped in the van to tour Germany.”
What do you have coming up that we should look out for?
“We've got a couple of things coming up. In October we are playing four headline dates in Bristol, Manchester, London and Birmingham. Then in December, we're back on tour with Suede in Eastbourne, Lincoln, Portsmouth and Wolverhampton which will be a nice way to finish the year.
In the meantime, we're writing demos which will hopefully see the light of day at some point next year...”
A huge thanks to Desperate Journalist for speaking to us! For live dates and tickets, visit their website. They were also kind enough to curate a playlist for us! Check it out…
