Sleaford Mods" "You've people feeling like they're not being seen and that cooks up this ultra-aggression"

Three years on from UK Grim, their cracking state of the nation album, Sleaford Mods deliver proto-dystopian banger The Demise Of Planet X – and man, do we need a penetrating philippic from SM right about now. In a culture crudely cast in distraction, faux-emotional balm and grievance churned into identity, Sleaford Mods deny release, uplift and belonging; insisting instead on irritation and unresolved anger to soothe the soul.

Where much contemporary culture prefers comfort to truth, reassuring us that our feelings are justified, Sleaford Mods expose how those feelings are produced, looped and internalised by systems that lurk in the shadows. And where many other outfits aestheticise working-class life or mobilise resentment, SM do not; rather, they document its texture – boredom, humiliation and complicity, sure. But also belonging, camaraderie and resourcefulness.

So, it’s a rare privilege to chat with one half of these crucial chroniclers,  vocalist and lyricist Jason Williamson.

“This collective trauma has almost seized us to the point where it feels like the end has already come,” he says of Planet X’s themes. “And what we’ve got coming out of that is more of the same. It feels like we deplete, then we go back to the source again and repeat the process. It just feels as if we’re going on and on like that, whilst parts of the world are crumbling, even more so than before.”

On the album’s third single, ‘Bad Santa’, Jason gleefully spits, “I watch reels like hamsters love wheels” – which succinctly captures the nonsense behaviour we’re all going on with on our damn phones. The track then evolves into a castigation of the false benevolence shovelled out by the self-appointed high priests of alpha male culture.

“People have already resigned themselves to the fact that they are captive,” Jason explains. “Through not only social media, but the things that they believe. We are all aware of the fact that largely we can’t change things. And so, this feverish assault on each other, particularly people with similar political beliefs, has become the order of the day.

“I did some of these songs on acoustic guitar and sent them to Andrew (Fearn, the other half of SM) to reinterpret. With ‘Bad Santa’, he kept that melancholy, acoustic vibe in there, and we added stuff on top.

"It’s a sad song, it’s not this angry assault on the patriarchy, on men in general. I suffer with misogyny as much as the next person. So, this isn’t me getting on my high horse, it’s trying to talk about it in a more rounded sense.”

It’s a decade-plus since Sleaford Mod’s pioneering Divide And Exit album yowled at Cameron’s Britain. Ten years on, I wonder is the UK less furious, more exhausted?

“Exhausted, fatigued,” Jason confirms. “You’ve got this hangover from Covid, of people feeling like they’re not being seen, and that their opinions are paramount. That combined cooks up this ultra-aggression in some people. There’s not a lot of love going about, even though some of these people responsible are claiming that love is the only thing they feel for their fellow human beings.

“I find it extremely annoying, frustrating even. But yeah, for the most part, people are beaten, whether it’s economically or politically – it’s as if we’ve got five or six screens in front of us that we’re constantly watching. We’re not supposed to take this much data in.”

Since Cameron, Britain has experienced May, Johnson, Truss and Sunak in the hot seat of Prime Minister. Now it’s the turn of Labour's Keir Starmer. There’s a multitude to process, but the Mods have come fully loaded on this album, with an incredibly talented posse that includes Aldous Harding, soul singer Liam Bailey, grime MC Snowy and Life Without Buildings frontwoman Sue Tompkins.

Elsewhere, screen powerhouse Gwendoline Christie and the mighty Big Special feature on second single ‘The Good Life’, with its ear-worm of a chorus.

“I couldn’t do that fucking chorus by myself,” Jason grins. “So both Joe and Callum from Big Special did vocals on ‘The Good Life’, which is a song about slagging bands off being fine.”

Big Special

Taking the mick out of fellow bands is something of a Williamson pursuit. Viewed in some quarters nowadays as foul play, there was a time, not so long ago, when such passion was de rigueur amongst music fans and commentators.

“It’s got to be done,” Jason affirms. “I won’t stop, some bands really do offend me. At the same time, you can obsess about it, but why? I did a lot of therapy about why I got wound up so much about bands; it would be one certain band every two years. It was just stupid.

“What the fuck was that? You bring it back to children and not being seen. I can’t solely blame it all on that, but there is part of that which adds to it. In ‘The Good Life’, Gwendoline Christie is my internal voice where I’m in pain, it’s driving me fucking mad. And the lads from Big Special are talking about the fact that while all this is going on, I’m relatively happy – I’ve got a good life.

“What I’ve realised is all of these things can run in conjunction with each other. I can hate bands. I can be aware of hating bands, and I can be enjoying my life.”

The accompanying video to ‘The Good Life’ from Ben Wheatley is totally boss, and so too is legendary director Andrea Arnold’s video for most recent single ‘No Touch’.

“I’m completely indebted to Andrea for agreeing to do the video,” Jason says, “because she didn’t have to – she never normally does music videos. I’m so happy with it.”

SILVER LINING

I suggest that Arnold’s most recent film Bird is one of the most tender, radical depictions of working-class life in recent British cinema, and note parallels in the work of Sleaford Mods.

“Humour is our silver lining, really,” Jason explains. “It helps balance what we’re saying. I’m not going to get too serious. I think that’s pretentious; you just end up looking like you’re up your arse.”
The early media buzz about Planet X is that it offers a more nuanced sonic palette from Sleaford Mods. But across the band’s discography, Andrew Fearn has always produced a vast array of sounds – so this record is that not much of a sonic leap, is it?

“No, I don’t think so,” Jason attests. “There are some songs that are a little bit away from what we normally do. ‘Bad Santa’, ‘Elitist G.O.A.T’ and ‘Flood The Zone’ almost sound like full bands. But apart from that, no. This is the beauty with Andrew Fearn; he’s a big fan of atmospheric sounds, of soundscapes. His solo project, EXTNDDNTWRK, is a massive example of that. So yes, you’re always getting different angles with him.”

Aye, Fearn is a one-man orchestra, Exhibit A being ‘Double Diamond’ jumpstarting like Dexys’ ‘Burn It Down’, before loafing into a funky garage slouch.

“It was an old Sleaford Mods song I did pre-Andrew,” Jason explains. “I took the inspiration from the Jeff Beck Group – I sampled their song ‘Morning Dew’. So, we reinterpreted that with what Andrew does with his beats – I thought the song really set up the idea of The Demise Of Planet X.”

SMOKING AND DRINKING

That it does. The doggerel of it is a wonder; its interpretation buried deep. Similarly, ‘Don Draper’ has you stretching for thesaurus and slang index.

“It’s typical of a Sleaford Mods rap song,” Jason laughs, “where there’s loads of different subjects going off. ‘Don Draper’, the title, I just wanted to call it that, it’s got no relation to the song. I was really into Mad Men; I had a bit of a man crush on him. He just reminds me of all the people I grew up with.

“Not in the sense of what they do – I grew up with working class people in trades and whatever – but it just reminded me of that, because everyone’s smoking and drinking. The song itself is about people still relying on cheap tricks to try and advertise themselves, to try and paint this picture of integrity about themselves.”

A splendid glossolalia it is, with modern references mixed with the more archaic – Billy Smart, Barry Sheene, Jimmy Ruffin, Tarka the Otter and GNR. I suggest Napoleon’s theory – that to understand a man, look what was happening in the world when he was 20.

“That’s a very good quote actually,” Jason says. “At the minute it feels, in some respects, as if we’re trying to wring the last bits out of the 20th century. It feels as if the world is headed towards a collision – what kind of collision, I don’t know. I was speaking to Ben Wheatley about it the other day. His film, A Field In England, talks about when England was at the cusp of the Enlightenment period. Society was reset. It kind of feels like that at the minute in this country.”

The aforementioned ‘Flood The Zone’ rips the arse out of MAGA and hollers the refrain, “The Pied Piper can’t handle this.”

“We now get to the point,” Jason explains, “where people are starting to question the people they’ve been following. You can clearly see it with MAGA. Alright, they are fucking wreaking havoc, but Jesus Christ, it’s so fragile. You’ve got a President that is, for want of a better word, insane.

“And everybody around him is completely working towards whatever their personal interests are. Which again is just causing things to be even more fragile. So, yeah, that’s what that lyric tries to convey.”

With Labour’s current drift to the centre, I wonder about the continuing dilution of British socialism.

“I think socialism was existing in mechanisms, in unions,” Jason explains. “Socialism existed in the NHS and in the benefit system in this country, and in compassion, but neoliberalism has slowly stamped that out. Margaret Thatcher was completely powerful; it was something I don’t think anybody had seen up until that time.

“In the sense she completely changed the country, which people are trying to do all over the world now. The only person that’s managed to do that is Thatcher in this country, and I think for worse in a lot of respects. It not only cut off whole communities, as regards the mining industry, but also boxed people into themselves – this idea of individualism. All we have now as a way of hope is centrism. There needs to be some kind of alleviation from this chaos, from this populist nightmare.

REALISTIC PROSPECT

“And centrism is the only thing for that; you can’t have socialism with such an extreme right. You need a centre angle with it, because the extreme left, it just doesn’t work. The far left now just exist online, in this sort of romantic tale about heroism, about belief, about outstaging each other, about arguing about this, that and the fucking other. So, I see centrism as the only realistic prospect to the populist right.”

Are you optimistic or pessimistic, Jason? If we spoke in another three years, where do you think we’ll be?

“I don’t know,” he admits. “It’s hard work, isn’t it? I can’t see the mob changing anything – the mob are just going to argue with themselves. It will be down to governments. It will be down to people in politics to try and get these fucking idiots out and regain some kind of reason in office. The public will largely just shuffle along as we’ve always done.

“As much as people like to think they are making a change, personally I don’t think we are. When it comes to world politics, the only way we can make change is in ourselves. I hate that fucking phrase ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’, but Jesus Christ it’s fucking right. You need to have a little bit of self-respect and restraint, and stop haemorrhaging this panic and anger.

“I think we are all hypocrites – we all go back on what we say every hour. This is the way society is at the minute. To try and connect, and be some kind of beacon in your own community, is probably more effective. Try and give something, you know what I mean?”

• The Demise Of Planet X is out now. Sleaford Mods play 3Olympia, Dublin (February 19); the Limelight, Belfast (20); and Cyprus Avenue, Cork (21).