Jamie McDonald (South)
March 2002
New York

Lots of kids form bands in their teenage years but not many stick with it. Jamie McDonald, Joel Cadbury and Brett Shaw began playing together in their early teens and only a few years later have debuted with an album that demonstrates talent and craftsmanship of musicians who’ve been around much longer.

From Here On In was released on Mo’Wax after label founder (and U.N.K.L.E. mastermind) James Lavelle was impressed by South’s live performances and demos. The record features sixteen tracks that bounce all over the musical map but are joined by amazing instrumentation and a huge, lush depth of sound. Maybe that’s why South has so much appeal, which is spreading abroad like wildfire and quickly catching on in the States. Their music beautifully blends different genres – dance, ethereal, guitar rock, you name it – effectively breaking down all those barriers that tend to split fans and musicians into separate and distinct camps.

At the end of their first U.S. tour (alternating headlining duties with another acclaimed U.K. outfit, Elbow), vocalist/drummer/guitarist/keyboardist Jamie McDonald talked about where South have come from.

Your album really took me by surprise. I heard “Paint the Silence” first and thought it was really good but in retrospect – and this isn’t a knock or anything – it’s probably the most mainstream track on the record, I would say.

Yeah.

Because as soon as I heard the rest of the album I thought, this is out of control! But in a very, very good way.

(Laughing) Cool!

So, because the record covers so much ground and there’s so much going on in sixteen huge tracks, I need to ask, is there any one song you would consider typical South? Or is the whole point of South to cover as much ground and experiment as much as possible?

Well, I think between the three of us we’ve got quite extensive musical tastes. We listen to varied stuff and have done for the ten years that we’ve been a band, since we were like 14. I don’t think we consciously try and cover as much ground as possible but I just think that the way we work as a band is that we try different styles. We like funky drums and bass lines and stuff but we think the songs are really important as well and so all the experimentation comes after the songs.

If there’s one track you could say is typically South…I don’t know, but “All In For Nothing” is one of our favorites just because we think it’s a cool song. It’s got good sounds that we crafted on top of it and is sort of electronic-y, but the song is the center, the main focal point, and everything else just sort of sits on top.

You mentioned you’ve been doing this since you guys were 14 – what kind of parents do you have that they let you dedicate yourselves so fully to music at such a young age?

Um…pretty laid-back, I guess! (Laughs) I think all our parents have been pretty supportive. We started playing gigs when we were like 15 or 16, in pubs in London, and they’ve always just been there for us and making sure we give it our best shot.

That’s amazing!

Yeah – we all did that little bit of education then left school. In England, before you go on to university, you do your A-levels. We all did our A-levels and when we did that we consciously decided we’d give ourselves a couple of years to see where we could take it, and just in the two years we were out we got signed to Mo’Wax in England. So it was damn lucky.

Well, you obviously made the right decision. Why be a doctor when you can get a record deal, right?

I guess so! (Laughs)

When you started out playing those gigs when you were 15, what kind of music was coming out? Was it original stuff or covers?

At that time we were quite into the grunge thing, like Nirvana and the Smashing Pumpkins, stuff like that. At that point it was mainly sort of guitar-based and drums, some happy, some sad stuff. (Laughs) Quite different from where we are now.

When did you start to feel comfortable enough to really pursue your own material and your own style?

Right from the start – that’s when we started writing songs. Me and Joe were learning guitar with a friend of ours who was teaching us guitar once a week. And right from the start when we hooked up we were writing songs and recording them. (Laughs) We used to do a mean cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” at the same time – just to, you know, rock out at the end – but we always had our own songs.

And how did it come about that you guys all became multi-instrumentalists who switch off for almost every song? Now and throughout rock history in general bands have had really assigned roles – so what happened to you guys?

Um, what can I say? It’s just the way that we work as a band – we’ve just been curious about different instruments. Me and Joe were learning guitar first, but at the same time I was taking drum lessons with Brett. And Brett always had a guitar in his room so we’d be teaching him and he’d be teaching himself as well so now he’s a really accomplished guitarist as well. Then me and Joe tinkle on the keyboards…. That’s the way we go.

And when you guys are writing songs, putting them together in the studio and then performing them on the road, how do you juggle who’s going to do what – or is it even an issue at all?

We try and represent as best we can the way things happened on the record. So if I play drums on a track like in “All In For Nothing” then I play drums on it live. But we just try to keep our change-over times down because, you know, sometimes you’re tripping over leads and everybody’s got to swap instruments. (Laughs) But we’ve got it down pretty good – it works well.

You guys are each your own one-man show or something.

(Laughs) Yeah!

When you’re writing something are there arguments like, “No, I think my drumming idea could be better than the one you came up with”?

Uh…not really, no. I mean, if I’m playing drums it’s because Brett’s coming to the studio with a different part and Joel sat down on the keyboard or vice-versa. We can take the song further and it works well for us that we can all try our hand at anything, which just means that the song propels itself.

Going back to the album itself – which is the end product of all of this experimentation you guys have done – I’m wondering what was behind the choice to go up to sixteen tracks, and why did you decide to feature so many alternate versions or reprises?

I think we actually recorded something like twenty, twenty-one songs in the album sessions. And they were all just so good we just had a really hard choice deciding what should or what shouldn’t go on the album. (Laughs)

As for the reprises and interludes and stuff – we’re just interested in sounds and spacing stuff out. You know, something that’s pleasing to the ear doesn’t have to be a song – it can just be like 30 seconds of tripping out a little bit; it just helps to break up the songs.

Tell me about working with U.N.K.L.E. on scoring Sexy Beast and how that came about.

Well, that was right in the middle of the album sessions. We took two weeks out to do that and Jonathan Glazer had approached [James] Lavelle [U.N.K.L.E.] and they needed like seven or eight scores done in two weeks. Lavelle didn’t think we wanted to do it, and because we were already set up in his studio he thought he wouldn’t be able to do it on his own. But we could all really attack it – a combination, tag-team sort of force. It was just a fantastic experience to work like that and sculpt music around a film and fantastic performances by Ben Kingsley and Ray Winstone. And it didn’t come out like anything U.N.K.L.E. had done and it didn’t sound like South, but after we’d done it we took elements of what we learned in doing that and used it in the album after. It’s a fantastic way to work, very much like remixing in that you sort of have a blank canvas and you have a direction or an inkling of something, of where you should go, and you just get the opportunity to attack it with no restrictions and see how it comes out. Although Glazer was very much involved throughout and we talked to him and he’d come down and listen to stuff. It was just a pleasure to work on – hopefully we can do more work like that.

Good – so you’re looking to do more film stuff!

Yeah, we’d love to, man!

It seems like the essence of South – what with the three of you being so completely involved in everything that you do – is all about collaboration in the first place. And since film is a totally collaborative art, it suits you in a way.

Yeah, totally, man. It’s great and that film was so fantastic anyway, it was easy to come up with shit and go in directions. So yeah, bring on the film work! (Laughs)

What’s it like to be so young and be getting so much attention? Do you still feel comfortable enough to go back into the studio and tweak away for years and years until your next album comes out or do you feel the pressure now to keep producing more product?

Well, we have our own studio now set up in London, which is not far from where we all live. And the album came out March last year and was recorded nearly a year before that, so ever since then we’ve been demo-ing new material in our studio and probably have got enough for an album and a bit more at the moment. So we all really want to get back into the studio as soon as possible. It’s just while we’re out here promoting, finding the time – because I’m sure we’ll be back out in America in the next couple of months –

Yay! Don’t go back into the studio, just come back here and tour some more.

(Laughs) We’re really into America at the moment – we’ve had a fantastic time on this tour.

Oh, good. The Elbow guys haven’t bugged you too much?

Uh, no.

I’m just kidding. They’re really great guys, too.

Yeah, they’re a fantastic band and it’s been an absolute pleasure touring with them.

It was such a good pairing, the two of you together, switching off the headlining.

Yeah, it did work really well. Did you make it to the Troubadour when we were in L.A.?

Yeah, yeah, I was there and I wasn’t going to stick it out because the fire marshal showed up, stopped the show and kicked people. Then you guys went on pretty late.

Yeah, I know. It was pretty disappointing for us, really, to have that false start.

It was a really bummer situation, which is why you guys have to come back!

(Laughs) Well it was quite funny because that was the first gig of the tour, interrupted by the fire marshals, and the last gig of the tour was in Austin, Texas – we were playing a Spin party at South By Southwest and the fire marshal showed up around 3 a.m. to tell everyone to finish up. So there’s been a certain symmetry to the tour.

And that is that you cause trouble no matter where you go!

(Laughing) Yeah, but we had something good in the middle.