The Jesus and Mary Chain – William and Jim Reid – have never been short of opinions, and they have kicked up the proverbial hornets’ nest with some comments about shoegazing and Eddie Van Halen.
The Reids were interviewed by Stereogum before an appearance at the New York festival Total Bummer and conversation soon got round to shoegaze, a word that was originally a UK music press-derived pejorative for the second generation of shy guitar effects-heavy indie bands of the early 1990s, but has been retrospectively used as a general term for any group operating even vaguely in that ballpark, including the Mary Chain.
"Shoegaze, I've got a problem with that just because it doesn't actually exist. 'Cause it was some clown at the NME made that up,” Jim Reid pointed out. “I suppose the bands that have now come under that umbrella – the likes of Lush and Ride and some would say the Mary Chain – the thing that you would say that would be similar and all those bands have in common is that they all felt kind of awkward onstage. And I guess that’s where the shoegaze thing came from.”
The brothers were children of punk and though they lacked technical ability (at least initially) more than made up for it with their groundbreaking use of feedback. “Not having a lot of equipment actually forces you to be more inventive,”said Jim.
“I can play guitar, but only just. It's kinda deliberate. I play guitar to the level that I need to play guitar. And sometimes knowing too much about making music gets in the way, and it ends up back to Eddie Van Halen again, do you know what I mean?”
At this point William chips in with: “I think guitar players should never learn scales. I think the worst guitar players in the world...like Eddie Van Halen - I can't stand Eddie Van Halen's guitar playing. I think he ruined rock guitar all through the '80s and '90s 'cause so many people copied him. And I just couldn't get any of that playin' as fast as you fuckin' can and crammin' as many notes in one second as you could. And I listen to Peter Hook's bass riffs, and I think that's a thousand times better than anything Eddie Van Halen could ever conjure up.”
They might not be partial to Van Halen, but the Reids are teaming up with another band of rock legends later this summer when they support the Hollywood Vampires on their UK tour. The Vampires consist of Alice Cooper and Aerosmith’s Joe Perry, as well as Johnny Depp. The Jesus and Mary Chain will be supporting them at Wembley Arena on August 12, before gigs in Glasgow, Manchester and Birmingham.
