Dots: Right, how did your two paths cross?
Euros: Gosh, I first came across Norman ages and ages ago now in a London bar. He came over and gave me some Top Trumps, Dungeons and Dragons Top Trumps. No idea why. That was '95, then Gorky's toured with Teenage Fanclub in '97. Norman then joined Gorky's for a couple of gigs. Sorry, I'd better take this in case it's something vaguely urgent... Oh, it's Norman.
Norman's voice resounds from Euros' rather archaic mobile affirming that another 20 minutes has been successfully added to the meter.
Euros: So sorry, where were we? Oh right, yeah. We did a tour together called Mynci 2000 and we'd go from a five-piece to a seven-piece with an extra guitarist from time to time. A friend of ours was doing it but he couldn't do a couple of shows. My dream member would have been Norman, and surprisingly he actually agreed to do it. He sang and played guitar on an hour-plus show and we've been in touch periodically since then really...
Dashes: Probably the best place to start with all things relating to Jonny is the name... The whole project seems quite inconspicuous. It's not as Google-able as Gorky's Zygotic Mynci. How deliberate an attempt did you make to keep everything quite low-key?
Euros: I'm rather old-fashioned. To be honest, the whole idea of Googling is the last thing that comes to mind but I'm from a different generation. Because we're both from two different bands and we're not nineteen years old, we thought we had to be quite careful with the name, veering away from anything pretentious. But on the other hand, you don't want to call it Blake Childs, that sounds a bit old-codgery. I think the idea of it being named after one person when there's actually two of us works quite well really. Jonny comes from Norman's mate who had a site, an artist called Jo. He took Polaroids and one of them was that one that's now the album artwork, five bare-chested men spelling out JONNY.
Dots: Quite abstract a conception, you might say...
Euros: It is, but we thought that the image was so great that it deserved to have a band named after it, and that band might as well have been us... I think we were willing to go with that name just so that we could use that photo, enlighten the world somewhat.
Dashes: Having referred to Jonny as a project, some people are bound to consider it a side-project...
Euros: Well it's not a side-project really; I think side-project suggests a kind of half-heartedness and it really isn't that. We put a lot into it, beginning to end and when we recorded it, we were playing as a band. Last night at the Water Rats we played as a duo so I think it represents a fair few things all at the same time.
Dots: You've both tended to write in quite collaborative ways. Is that the method of constructing songs that's most comfortable, or perhaps inspiring for you?
Euros: I think it's interesting when you start to work with others. With Norman, we actually wrote quite a lot of our material together. I write quite a bit on my own and I enjoy doing that, but then other ideas emerge when I take my sketches to Norman who in turn comes up with ideas of his own so the idea of collaboration constantly throws up new concepts. Regarding the record, I came into the process with a few songs already in mind, but two thirds of it is myself and Norman coming up with instantaneous ideas and eventually ending up with an album.
Dashes: Given the way in which you record quite reclusively up in Scotland, do you feel that such a method adds pressures to the record and the recording process itself, having to come out on the other side with a more or less finished product?
Euros: Not really, no. It's not that we don't care, but I think we're confident in the idea that the basis of music is enjoyment, rather than an exercise in increasing your bank balance. When you were fifteen, the reason you started was predominantly to hang out with your mates, have a good time and have a laugh. With Jonny, the idea's exactly the same and I think and hope it'll always be like that, otherwise you're just making music like a bank manager.
Dots: James Dean Bradfield recently stated that he believed that was the way in which modern music is progressing. To what extent do you think contemporary music is dictated according to bank balances?
Euros: Oh, I think that's always been the case up to a certain point really, that's nothing new.
Enter an exasperated Norman Blake, he sprays shrapnel onto a sticky coffee table.
Norman: Absolutely, the easiest way to make money is to get training as a plumber for three years. We're only doing this 'cos we enjoy playing together...
Dashes: You're both seemingly quite enthusiastic over this one. Is this the most enjoyment you've drawn from music in a little old while, or predominantly a refreshing break from the "day jobs" as it were?
Norman: I'd probably say it's a bit of both actually... I suppose there's a broad spectrum of styles within what we've written for this record whereas with Euros' solo records and Teenage Fanclub records there are certain constraints and parameters within which we have to work and write. For example, there's a level of humour entangled in some of Euros' songs that you wouldn't find in Teenage Fanclub recordings, humour perhaps brought forward from Gorky's LPs as his solo records aren't really like that...
Euros: No, no, no...
Norman: But we both like writing songs, so it's nice that we've discovered a way to release them, to make them available...
Dots: As one of three songwriters in Teenage Fanclub, do you find collaborative songwriting particularly comfortable?
Norman: I'd say it's quite enjoyable doing that, and it's actually quite liberating because sometimes the difficult thing with songwriting is actually finishing the song off. You may have an idea, but then have next to none as to where to go from there but then when you're working with somebody else, suggestions are fairly welcomed as one of the hardest parts of songwriting is having an unabashed confidence I feel. I remember reading an interview with Paul McCartney a few years ago, talking about how when he was writing songs he had to leave the house and drive away somewhere, to achieve a sense of solitude, and that he was embarrassed about his songwriting and I just thought "Fucking McCartney does that!" You think of him as a supremely confident person. So maybe when you write with someone else it helps build your confidence as a songwriter. Certainly writing collaboratively helps, yes. Babble, babble, babble.
Dashes: Do you ever feel the need to stick a leg out if something doesn't work?
Euros: Never.
Norman: Well, you know, it always does!
Euros: I think especially with lyrics it's a bit like doing a crossword. You know when something doesn't fit. Maybe if we were writing lyrics for Marilyn Manson things would be different...
Norman: We had a few ideas we didn't run with and then just thought "Oh well, let's try something else" so you know when something's just not really going anywhere.
Dots: Was there ever a temptation to incorporate any Welsh lyrics?
Euros: Oh I'm not a very prolific writer in Welsh, I don't write much. I find it much easier to write in English, but also we sing together a lot of the time.
Norman: I'd have a go... The thing is I wouldn't have a clue what I was singing... You could tell me to sing something and it could be something else entirely different...
Euros: Or we could do the song, and you find out what it means after... Only after recording it on Welsh telly. "Scotland isn't as good as Wales."
Dashes: You mentioned the broad spectrum of sounds and ideas contained within the record. Is that the inherent result of your respective previous forays into songwriting?
Norman: I think it's because we're now working without any constraints whatsoever. Our approach was that anything goes really. Writing a song about bread probably isn't something most people would even consider.
Euros: That and Cave Dance set the template early on.
Norman: Yeah, we started out with the more outlandish songs, before then writing a few more conventional tracks. Cave Dance sounds a little like a brief history of music to me...
Dots: Returning to the name now that Norman's pitched up, it's perhaps not the most striking...
Norman: I don't think we really gave the name a second thought. Jonny the band, sounds ok really... As we get progressively more popular I guess that'll change and we'll slowly ascend up the Google chart... I think we're around 25 pages in at the moment!
Dashes: Presumably the band being composed of household names, in the most indie of households, will help such ascent...
Norman: Household objects more like... I'm sure it probably has helped and that there's a fair share of people out there interested in what both of us have done previously so yeah, it's certainly in our interest. We've had some play on BBC 6 Music which may have been harder to get, had we not had previous. Hopefully some of the people that have liked said previous might like this too. In a way, it's not a million miles away from what we tend to do: it's song-based, melodic with strong harmonies...
Euros: I think the test will be with the live shows. Having played London last night if there's only five or six people turning up next time that's probably not a particularly positive sign. But hopefully it's more than just a curiosity thing, capable of standing on its own two feet and not merely standing for the side-project of Norman Blake and Euros Childs.
A polyphonic ringtone again permeates the background babels of the Strongrooms. This time it's the turn of Norman's mum checking when he's back home...
Norman: The one person you've got to answer to.
Dots: Project/side-project/duo?
Euros: Project isn't very good actually...
Norman: No, I just think of Alan Parsons whenever I hear the word project... We've been together for a bit of time now and we still haven't come up with a definitive response to this one... It's a project then, yeah.
Dashes: Almost a relationship of sorts... Peaks, troughs, breaks...
Norman: No, it's all highs...
Euros: High fives.
Dots: UK tour February, looking beyond the horizons of early 2011, what does the future hold for Jonny the "project"?
Norman: Nothing really, I'm going back to Canada. I live there with my wife these days. Hopefully Euros will come over and we'll do some recording there just for the hell of it, but I don't think either of us are really any good at planning ahead...
Euros: I've got a couple of songs I might like to bring out at one point or another, but that's about as far as it goes...
Norman: There's talk of us taking the "project" to Japan and I tend to think that if people want to see you, you should generally go so we'll be sticking to this for a while yet...
Jonny, the duo's eponymous debut full LP sees the light of day this Monday, 31st January.
