Just Jack interview: Susan Boyle, Elton John, Twitter...

Just Jack: “Who’s Susan Boyle? Was she the singer woman?”

Cheeky cockney hip-pop sparra Jack Allsopp is better known to you - unless you are his Mum - as Just Jack. He’s got a not-bad-at-all single called “Embers” out at the moment, and has just hopped on board the Road To V wagon to mentor the bands who won the fans’ vote, as they attempt to become the act to open this year’s V Festival.

Alex Pullin went along to chat to Just Jack sparra for My Chemical Toilet, and nattered with him about why he doesn’t think much of Twitter, why Elton John calls him “at totally random times” and whether he’d perform a duet with Susan Boyle.

Continue reading for proof that I am not a stinking dirty lying liar, won’t you?

Hello Just Jack. You’ve been a bit busy recently, haven’t you? You’ve got a massive tour coming up, the album, a single out.

The album’s not out yet, but the single “Embers” is out and top twenty.

Bravo. And now you’re mentoring these acts for Road To V. How are you going to juggle it all?

Um, I’m actually alright (pronounced “alwight”, natch), I’m not that busy at the moment. I’ve actually had time to go into my studio and make new music which is nice. I’m looking forward to mentoring people.

So if you could pick a celebrity mentor for yourself, who would it be?

I kind of did. Sort of. Well, at a later stage. I’d already brought out a record and I’d already done a lot of stuff, and I, er, discovered that Elton John was a fan. He helped me to get signed to his management company, and then I got signed to Mercury. He kind of told me the things to do and not to do.

Really? What has he told you not to do?

Well OK, he hasn’t really told me what not to do, but he told me to do as many live shows as I could because you need to in order to become any good at doing that sort of thing. We chat about lots of things; he’s interested in what I’m up to.

So do you phone up Elton of a Sunday for some advice?

Yeah, well he phones me actually, he’ll phone me up at totally random times and find out what’s been going on. If something good’s happened he’ll congratulate me and things like that. Yeah, he’s good.

So, you have a lot of online things going on, your MySpace page, your new Twitter account…

You know, I haven’t really looked at the Twitter thing. I’m in two minds about it to be honest. I kind of like, got my arm twisted to, erm, do it. But really I was surprised. “Just had a really good shit.” (laughs) But that’s what it’s going to come to, surely? You know what I mean like? “This brand of toilet paper really is good.”

So are you going to be teaching the acts you mentor to use the online space to their advantage?

I don’t know, I mean with the Twitter thing I don’t really know how I feel about it yet. I think it’s a little bit bizarre. The whole concept of it. But I should probably go and check it out properly.

So you’re not going to tell your acts to sign up then?

I suppose I might have to (laughs). It’s probably a good thing to do, like there is probably a lot of people who are interested in it and that, but I find it hard to understand.

Really, why?

People can just go on it and be like “this is a really shitty train journey” or something. It’s a little bit lame, isn’t it?

But you seem really keen on MySpace.

MySpace is cool. I mean I like doing videos that I think are genuinely funny or interesting to watch, and I’ll put it up there. But the difficulty is that when you’re doing things that seem quite good fun, the last thing you think about doing is twittering or filming it. It’s like saying “can you take that camera and just film some funny shit?” But when the funny shit is happening no one has a camera with them. It doesn’t really work like that, you know what I mean? It’s quite difficult to keep those things up, but I do try and make little videos and try to make them funny and cheeky.

Yes, we saw the one with the false teeth. Now, there is an argument about unsigned acts and whether it is even really necessary to have a contract these days if you are out there on the internet. What are your thoughts?

Errr…

Do you think it’s better to have a record deal?

It’s good to have a good manager, someone with experience who can help you out. Everything is changing really fast, like I haven’t even thought about the idea of people not having a record deal and just doing everything themselves. You can do that, but eventually when record labels come sniffing around, waving money, most people find that quite hard to deal with. But I suppose there will be more and more self-made people, who are just doing it on their own, like a cottage industry or whatever.

What about people like Susan Boyle?

Who’s Susan Boyle? (Gasps reverberate around room) Was she the singer woman? (PR person explains Susan Boyle to Mr. Jack)

So… Would you do a duet with Susan Boyle?

Of course, definitely. I’m just waiting for the phone call. (Laughter reverberates around room)

Part of The Road to V is a collaboration with the act…

We’re doing a gig together.

…so if you could choose any act to collaborate with, past or present, who would it be?

That’s difficult isn’t it? Past or present? Barry White.

Why Barry White?

Because Barry White is amazing. When you check out what he did before all the, like, ballad stuff, he did really amazing instrumental stuff. He was an amazing strings arranger and he’s brilliant. And, er, he’d obviously have a lot of female fans and that.

Finally, we wanted to ask you about the V festival.

Well I’ve not confirmed there yet (smiles). (asks PR person) Have I? Or maybe it is, I don’t know! Perhaps it’s a secret one.

How confusing it all is. So which is your favourite festival?

(Laughs) I love it, that’s so cheeky - “now let’s talk about V, but which one’s your favourite?” The V festival of course! Naturally. I actually played at a festival called Rock on the Seine which is in Paris, that was really cool. And I did one in Switzerland, I think, and it was like in a forest surrounded by mountains, that was really amazing. And we got to play for like an hour and ten minutes, which at a festival is pretty much unheard of. So that was really good. But obviously I’ve done a lot… We opened the main stage at V in 2007 which was pretty amazing. Um, Glastonbury is always good, but it can be really muddy…

So would you say unsigned acts should get themselves down to a festival to see how it’s done?

Yeah, definitely. Just play as many gigs as you can. When you first start doing gigs one of the biggest fears is that things will go wrong, and then when you do gigs things do go wrong. And you realise you can deal with, you know, keyboards breaking, mics not working, people shouting things.

Has that every happened to you?

Oh yeah, everything has happened to me. At some point or another.

Are you going to be nervous for your unsigned acts?

Probably yeah, it depends how well we get on. They might hate me and we might not get on.

You might be the one down the front shouting things at them.

Yeah, “’ere, you’re shit!” No, I won’t do that, after all we’ve already picked ‘em (That’s good to hear - Ed). But hopefully it’ll get to that stage where it’s as nervy for me as it is for them. Which is quite sweet I suppose.

THANK YOU JUST JACK GOODBYE.

Just Jack’s album All Night Cinema is released June 8th and is available for pre-order at Amazon.co.uk

Just Jack will perform with his chosen acts at The Great Escape Festival in Brighton on 14th May. Find out more about his chosen acts at the official Road To V site.

You can read more from interviewer Alex Pullin at her splendid blog, an’ all.

[image: Anne Helmond on Flickr]