The Life Of Whiley

It’s official: Jo Wiley is the hardest woman in rock ‘n’ roll to get through to on the phone.

After three days of busy signals, BT message boxes and strange static noises I finally get hold of the 46 year-old on her way home from recording the latest installment in her new Sky Arts music series.
“I’m so sorry – it’s just been mad these past few days – well, past few months –putting the show together,” she apologises. “No matter how much advance planning you do, there’s always somebody pulling out at the last minute or a guest becoming available that you’ve done no research on. It’s going really well though.”
That it is. Airing every Friday at 10pm, The Jo Whiley Music Show is based on the revolutionary premise of – get this – asking musicians questions and not editing the answers down to vacuous sound bites á la MbleedingTV.
“It is pretty revolutionary these days,” laughs the mother of four. “There was a period on (BBC) Radio One where you couldn’t go longer than four minutes in an interview without playing a record in case the listeners got bored – as you say, we were just getting tiny sound bites, which is such a waste of the good guests that, being the national music station, we always got.
“It’s so exciting to be part of something where we’re actually discussing music instead of just showing back-to-back videos or just having performances. I love hearing people’s opinions and stories.”
It’s not only the quality but also the combination of guests, which make The Jo Whiley Music Show such essential viewing.
“It’s great when you’ve got three people on the sofa with you who won’t shut up!” she laughs. “Noel Gallagher, Julian Lennon and Ricky Wilson were like that; so were Nicky Wire, Professor Green and Will Young who was incredibly candid for an X Factor-y sort of person and we’ve just done a brilliant show with Jake Shears, Suggs from Madness and Ms. Dynamite. You had Jake telling this story about first discovering Massive Attack in a very dark and sordid place while Suggs sat there enthralled, his jaw hitting the floor. Then we discovered that Suggs had judged a talent show, which Ms. Dynamite won when she was only 14. None of us knew this, it was just a happy accident of having them both on the show.”
There are some notable exceptions – eg. Example, Calvin Harris, Jessie J and Katy B – but generally emerging acts are far more guarded about what they say to journalists than they used to be – often for good reason. Admit, for instance, to having a penchant for the old Colombian marching powder and you won’t be able to 1) Get a bank loan, 2) Take out life assurance or 3) Get a visa from those nice Homeland Security people to enter America.
“There are definitely some new artists who’ve been media-trained to within an inch of their lives. I can understand them not wanting to admit to taking cocaine, but have an opinion on something. People like Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake are always incredibly frustrating to talk to because you know you’re not going to get anything except, ‘My new album is this/my new single is that.’
“On a TV show people are a lot more open to sharing experiences – possibly because they’re older and have been through the mill and aren’t scared of anything anymore. Jake and Suggs were both incredibly indiscreet, which is exactly what you want.”
Talking of indiscreet, it wasn’t just eyebrows that were raised in February 2009 when appearing on Jo’s then BBC Radio One show, Bono called Chris Martin “a wanker” and “a cretin.”
“It was the first thing I did after having my daughter, so I was still in that bizarre baby kind of muddle you’re in, and the show was live and high pressure,” she recalls. “I was kind of surprised by the choice of language, yes, but I’m pretty sure Bono was joking because him and Chris Martin are good mates. Or were up ‘til then!”
Jo has been happily married to record company executive Steve Morton since 1991, but if they hadn’t of met would she ever have considered getting hitched to a musician?
“God no!” she says sounding genuinely horrified at the thought. “It must be an absolute nightmare trying to keep a relationship going with somebody who’s in a band. If you’ve got children and they’re away on tour, it’d be horrible for both them and you having to do twice the amount of parenting. I think I’ll stick with the husband I’ve got, thanks!”
There were accusations of both ageism and sexism from media commentators in 2009 when Jo was shifted from youthful BBC Radio One to the, well, rather less youthful BBC Radio Two. Did she feel she was being put out to pasture?
“First of all, they didn’t get rid of me, I chose to move because of the type of show I wanted to be presenting. Secondly, Annie Nightingale is still broadcasting away on Radio One aged, gosh, 69 I think so they’re really not ageist. That said, Radio One is a youth station and as part of its evolvement you have to employ new DJs all the time. Otherwise it’d be a very staid and boring place.”
One of the recurring themes in Whiley’s excellent My World In Motion autobiography is her love and respect for John Peel.
“John looked out for me all the time and gave me such sage-like advice,” she concludes, “He also used me to infiltrate the daytime playlist with records he loved, but were considered a bit too leftfield for Radio One. I remember coming in one day to find he’d surrepticiously slipped a copy of the first White Stripes record onto my desk. I’ve never known a man so totally in love with music. There’ve been many highlights in my career, but none better than working with John Peel.”

The Jo Whiley Music Show can be seen every Friday at 10pm on Sky Arts, with regular repeats during the week.