Desperate Journalist - 2017 Interview
The London-based post-punk four-piece band, Desperate Journalist, first caught my attention when I heard "Hollow" on the radio and immediately crested a majestic wave of Proustian 80s/90s reminiscence. That's not to say they're a throwback band at all. They are obvious music connoisseurs, genuine rock & roll trainspotters, whose love of past generations of music informs, rather than shapes how they sound. They embody the notion that to understand and make the most of the present, you must have the past firmly in your bones.
Their recent album, "Grow Up" was released on March 24th, to substantial critical acclaim and was accompanied by a run of shows in the UK and Germany. They spoke to Contact Music prior to their recent gig at Bristol's superb independent venue, the Louisiana. Having established, much to their relief, that they needn't explain where they got their name (basically Robert Smith giving Paul Morley his stroppy comeuppance for a stinking review) and how they all met (friends of friends, then friends, then bandmates), they established that their talking prowess matches up to their musical mastery. They definitely came across as the kind of people with whom you could spend a very long, misspent and deleterious afternoon/evening in a pleasant hostelry.
Contact Music (CM): Jo - as the lyrical force of the band, what's it like, bearing your soul, gig after gig and album after album? And for the rest of the band, what's it like living in Jo's inner world?
Jo Bevan (JB): It's great, in that it is a kind of therapy. I've written songs that are incredibly personal, which I hope come across in a way that is enjoyable and useful to other people. Other people's songs that I really love use that transmission of pain and problems into something beautiful.
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