Sunday, 5 May 2013

Interview with Jon Dow from Jettblack



Before the sleeze, glam rock fest from Crashdiet and Jettblack begun I caught up with Jon Dow from Jettblack. Here we spoke about their great accomplishments in 2012, Will’s lastest appearance in War Of The Worlds and who he would most like to have a pie and a pint with. Here is the transcript for the interview.  To listen to this interview on SoundCloud click here.

Charlotte:      Hi there I’m Charlotte Whittingham representing Voice.FM and Loud-Stuff.com. I am here at The Joiners my favourite venue in Southampton with Jon Dow from Jettblack. So Jon welcome back to Southampton, 2012 has been a great year for you! A new album, a successful album launch and a great headline tour, would you say you are storming onto the music scene?

Jon:                 I wouldn’t say storming but we have been trickling onto the scene for the past ten years. It’s definitely building. It’s been a good little run for us with decent turnouts, it’s nice to see people turn up, singing the words and wearing our shirts. So it’s getting there.

Charlotte:      Any big plans for 2013? You going to be bigger than last year?

Jon:                 Well I hope so; it’s going to be mainly releases including a mini album with all the songs from the old album that weren’t released before so there will be a physical release of those.   We also have some covers and a bit of new material. Then we’re playing a few festivals later this year, then we will be getting on with a new studio album that we will start working on in September.

Charlotte:      So tonight is the last of the tour, where were the best venues to play at?

Jon:                 London last night was amazing, easily the best place to play and one of the best gigs for a long time. Cardiff is always pumping; we had like three days on our own before playing with Crashdiet. They’ve all been really good so far but Cardiff is always really good fun so yeah Cardiff.

Charlotte:      I turned 21 last month; I was given a subscription to Kerrang! Magazine and there was a picture of Jettblack in the first issue I received.

Jon:                 Really? What recently?

Charlotte:      Yeah very recently. My birthday was last month so it must have been an April issue.

Jon:                 That’s alright then. What gig was it for?           
Charlotte:      I think it was at the start of your tour.

Jon:                 What October?

Charlotte:      No April.

Jon:                 Must have been the Glasgow show. They did a review about the gig.

Charlotte:      I think you maybe right, I should have bought my copy tonight, but if you could appear on the cover on any magazine what would it be? It doesn’t have to be a music one.

Jon:                 Fishing Global, something like that. I’m not really bothered, any publicity is great for the band. To be honest the magazines are good to us like Classic Rock, Kerrang! And Metal Hammer they all feature us so we aren’t doing too bad. I’m not really a big magazine reader. Times Magazine is always a good one, Forbes magazine.

Charlotte:      Remind me, what is Forbes magazine?

Jon:                 It’s financial, I think you have to be seriously rich and successful to be featured.

Charlotte:      Ah OK, so doing a random search on the Google box and you share a name with an interior design company based in Mexico.

Jon:                 That isn’t so strange; there are rappers and porn stars with the same name as us. He’s a good-looking bloke so whenever we look on Google news for press and it’s usually pictures of him [Jett Black] in compromising positions.

Charlotte:      The suggestions in the Google box came up with Jett Black interiors.

Jon:                 Maybe it’s our company and we don’t know it, we’re also getting into the jewellery trade soon. Jettblack Jewellers.

Charlotte:      If this interior design company came to you to design your house what would you have done? It can be beyond your wildest dreams.

Jon:                 I already live in my perfect dream house; it’s got nothing in it but a white bench and a lot of fruit ‘n’ fibre.

Charlotte:      Will recently starred in War Of Worlds tour.

Jon:                 Yes, it’s a shame he’s not here to talk about it so I can just slag him off [laughs]. But yeah it was really good, I didn’t actually go to the tour but I saw the cinema/DVD presentation of it and yeah it was really good. He did well, he was only on stage for four and a half minutes but it was his best performance I have seen.

Charlotte:      Would you say there was always a musical theatre bug inside him?

Jon:                 A lot of people were saying before he did [War Of The Worlds].  He’s got a theatrical take and he does have operatic tones in his voice. He’s got a decent vibrato so that’s always lends itself to theatre work but yeah he was perfect for the job.

Charlotte:      So if you can star in any musical what would it be?

Jon:                 I don’t know just the most paid one, not bothered. Something with Jason Donovan will be a bonus. I’ll tell you what I would love to star in Chicago as that has some fit birds I wouldn’t mind knocking about backstage with.

Charlotte:      So have you guys considered a Jettblack musical?

Jon:                 We’re kind of in tow for the idea, it goes along the lines of a Death Frequency night which takes inspiration from the Raining Rock video with the evil lord killing everyone. So we’re going to have a themed night for that on a university tour. We haven’t organised anything yet but we’ll see on costs and see what the logistics are.

Charlotte:      Just a few icebreaker questions, which iconic musician would you have a pie and a pint with?

Jon:                 Freddie Mercury.

Charlotte:      Great choice, great choice.

Jon:                 It will be a bit fruity, after ten pints you’ll have a good night.

Charlotte:      What’s your biggest pet peeve that makes you livid?

Jon:                 Genocide, that really makes me cross. But nothing really bothers me I’m really laidback and easy going.

Charlotte:      Which song means the most to you?

Jon:                 Relight My Fire by Take That, well the Take That Cover of Lulu’s Relight My Fire it really gets my blood flowing.

Charlotte:      Last but not least what can we expect from tonight’s show? Why should we be excited?

Jon:                 I’ve recently been on the tanning beds, that’s always something to get excited about and Tom is not wearing a bandanna, he’s going to be wearing some sort of top hat so what’s not to like. Matt’s got thicker eyeliner for the last night as a treat. We have also got a few songs that we haven’t played before live so we got Black Gold a bit of an epic one that should be good. Other than that it’s going to be a standard heavy rock show.

Charlotte:      Thanks very much Jon for doing this interview today.

Find Jon and Jettblack on Facebook, Twitter and their official website.

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