“And the MTV Award for the Best Use of a Leaf Blower in a Music Video goes to... Jagged Baptist Club!”

That not being an actual MTV VMA category – boo! – the Los Angeles alt. rockers don’t have a silver astronaut adorning their mantelpiece, but they deserve it for the promo clip accompanying last year’s ‘Bull On A Chain’ single.

Equal parts Iggy Pop, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Hives and LCD Soundsystem, you’ll be able to hear it and other songs from their Physical Surveillance stunner on May 25 in The Star Bar, the new Baggott Street venue that’s being booked by Hot Press’ old pal The Mighty Stef.

As for that high velocity air-propelled video of theirs…

“What I didn’t anticipate – but with the air being shoved back makes total sense – is that it’s almost impossible to breath when you’ve got a leaf blower pointed at your face,” lead singer Blake Stokes (no relation) explains. “We shot it in our drummer’s backyard when it was crazy cold and pissing with rain. We also added some goo, which was a bunch of ranch dressing with food colouring in it, and some glitter which I dodged but the other guys said hurt like hell. We’re always having these crazy ideas for videos and then having to ratchet it down because they’re too dangerous.”

Released last November by Nice Swan Records, who’ve also at various times had English Teacher, SPRINTS and Chalk on their roster, Physical Surveillance was recorded in Joshua Tree, California with At The Drive-In, Mars Volta and Bloc Party man Alex Newport producing.

“Alex had done a record with a friend of ours in Los Angeles,” Blake resumes, “so we hit him up with a demo thinking, ‘He’s probably off working with some other legends’ but after a bit of back and forth he said ‘Yes’ and we became the first band to record in his new studio in the Yucca Valley, which is just a couple of miles from the town of Joshua Tree and close to where they do Coachella . The last coat of paint was literally drying as we arrived.

“He has some amazing guitars there and said, ‘Do you want to try one?’ Russell picked out this Telecaster and Alex was like, ‘Oh, yeah, Bloc Party used that on Octopus.’ We worked from noon to nine and then it was story time with Alex telling us all this amazing shit. We weren’t there to sound like Gram Parsons, U2 or Queens Of The Stone Age, but there’s something special about Joshua Tree which I’m sure manifests itself in some way on Physical Surveillance.”

Jagged Baptist Club’s hectic 2024 touring schedule included a run of West Coast shows with the aforementioned SPRINTS.

“We did Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles with them last March, which was great,” Blake enthuses. “It’s always nice to spend time with people who are as nice and fun and easy to get on with as Karla and the guys. It was a challenge, though, because they’re so fucking good! Talking to the guys after the first night in Seattle I was like, ‘We did a great show but, you know, we’ve gotta keep this shit up!’

They set the bar really high.

“We also got to play in one of my favourite L.A. venues, the Moroccan Lounge, with English Teacher who were also really sweet and friendly and unassuming. It was all super-chilled and then they fucking blew the roof off the place! They’re a really special band who are just going to get bigger and bigger.”

Blake is, it turns out, a bit of an Anglophile.

“A bit?” he says. “I’m obsessed! Depeche Mode are one of my alltime favourite bands, as are Joy Division and New Order. I saw Peter Hook a few weeks ago and the version of ‘Substance’ he did – oh my god! When we were in Manchester, I went to the Salford Boys Cub and kept hoping I’d bump into Bez and Shaun Ryder. I’m like that everywhere we go.”
If you see a psychedelic-ly attired gentleman draped round the Phil Lynott statue next month, it’ll likely be Blake!

• Jagged Baptist Club’s Physical Surveillance is out now on Nice Swan. Catch them on May 25 in the Star Bar, Dublin.