How did you begin to write and play music?

I’m told that my first instrument was a Tin Toy drum at about the age of 3. Must have been pretty easy on the nerves of my parents…..Then I recall friend’s houses with pianos in them-still quite a common piece of furniture to have in the early seventies. Typically, I remember being more interested in being able to get a noise by bashing the keys from underneath and from striking the strings with knives and toys... rather than by the more traditional method…yes I was into John Cage even as a 4 year old!

A brief flirtation with the ‘triangle’followed. I was..5. I still have same instrument, in my study. I unsurped a boy called Gareth Wilcox from the school band while he was ill. I was so funky on the triangle they couldn’t even look at him when he came back..that kid’s name was shit…
Then in school when I was about 10, the class was given a ‘pitch test’ and those who passed were chosen to play Violin. I kept this up for about a year but I was a lazy student. By my early teens I had worked out how to use two tape recorders so that I could overdub ‘instruments’. A lot of knives and forks, buckets and glass were involved; the music wasn’t at all melodic.

This ‘progressed’ to using toy keyboards and an acoustic guitar that I had no idea how to tune or play chords on, again it was used more as a percussion instrument.
Then friends joined in, some who were more musical and this allowed me to put words to their noises..I began writing poems at about 13..

By 14 I could write and sing a song myself that I could take to a bunch of’musicians’ and we would play the song live, as a band.
I became mad on drums for a while and concentrated on playing these, practicing for hours by playing along to records, in particular ‘Gentlemen take poloroids’ by Japan. I still know all the drums on this album by heart.
It wasn’t until I was about 16-17 that I learnt how to play chords on a guitar and from then on my songs became more traditional sounding .

I taught myself to play chords on a keyboard when I was in my early twenties and today I write mostly on either a guitar or piano.
I would like to get back to making songs from bashing water filled milk bottles and saucepans though..Just for a bit.

What are you musical backgrounds and references? Have your welsh roots some influences?

My musical background is described in my first answer..References..umm..Really and truly, only pop music, initially.
But the wondrous thing about Pop music is that it’s able to incorporate, very successfully, aspects of other genres; jazz, classical etc in fact you could say that this characteristic is both the origin and the crux of pop music.

As for my nationality, maybe me being technically Welsh has had some effect, subconsciously. In that as a consequence of feeling alienated from my given nationality, I’ve always felt an outsider, just generally…. I mean it was never an issue growing up in my family. I mean no one spoke Welsh or referred to it, at all. I was raised with no sense of patriotic pride or history.
I was quite surprised to find that I was Welsh, when I understood what this meant to other people, especially in the last few years when it seems to me that the sense of Welsh identity and nationality etc has increased, greatly.

But truly, I’ve never felt that I belong any one place in particular. I feel at home/lost pretty much anywhere and everywhere.
My feeling about this varies..

What is the place of the music in your life (Your work of course but also the other music’s)? What kind of music do you listen?

My relationship with music seems to change…I cannot listen to music in isolation anymore, ie Late at night with headphones. It’s not enough, which is a shame. I just can’t relax sufficiently to surrender to it. As a consequence my relationship with it isn’t as intense as it used to be…..I mean, when I was 13 I had three Lp’s (Duran duran’s ‘Rio’, ‘beatles ‘Sgt pepper’ and a Motown compilation with big wheels on the cover…) and I lived inside those grooves..

But Music is hugely important to me still, and has found other ways to get to me. I love listening to music while traveling for instance, on a train or in the car. One of my favourite things is cooking to music. I need music, but I’m often not able to be as receptive to it as I’d like to be..

What do I listen to..?
I’ll give anything a go, at least once.
I’ll tell you what i’m listening to of late: Sammy davis Jnr…he has an album that was a soundtrack to a Tv show he did in ’74 called ‘Sammy’. Fantastic. Great Songs and he always had a brilliant drummer., also because it’s from a Tv show, it’s not really ‘produced’ as such, just recorded but because they used Orchestra’s as a matter of course then and because it’s a Live TV show and not a concert..it has a wonderful unique sound to it. If you read about him, it adds a dimension to the listening of him-sometimes, with many singers, the reverse is true.

I love the singles by ‘Girls aloud’, really cool songs/production and we just bought their album yesterday…………..although compaered to these songs the rest seem like filler.
My main discovery recently though has been Miles Davis.
Getting into his music is like discovering a new continent.

You write stories, novels, lyrics, and also play. Are you also a painter because the cover of your new album is one of your paints ? You have painting . You have an restless career. Why do you have so many projects as well as your work as a solo artist? How do you find the time for all?

I don’t do as much as I should. I’m lazy. I enjoy reading more than writing…
I have stories in my head and I am yet to write them..lazy..
I can’t say I’m a painter although I have a bash occasionally. I’ve always sketched..maybe doodled is a more accurate description, actually..

And I decided to make a concentrated effort at painting when I moved to the countryside. I think I arrogantly assumed that I would be able to do something, you know, that without huge effort I could make a passable piece of ‘Art’ that could stand up and hold it’s own.
But, I was shocked to find that my paintings were really awful. I mean; dull. Not even so bad that they were interesting, just banal. I persevered but have ended up with a lot of unfinished pieces that end up in the cat tray…..That’s not my painting on the ‘Roses’ Ep, it’s a photograph that I treated to look like a canvas.
I did actually paint the cover of ‘White Jazz’ although I never admitted that to anyone at the time. I recall that I said it was nephew..ho ho...

Anything I do other than music is usually from a source of frustration with music. I’ve never been able to record and release as much music as I wanted, or when I wanted. In some respects it gets harder and harder. I feel sometimes that I dabble too much and that I should really concentrate on just one thing at a time.
I suppose I’m often exhausted from dealing with the business aspects of music and of making money.
It’s a bit like having a great idea for a song, picking up the guitar, finding that it’s horribly out of tune and then, after spending 20 minutes tuning it, you don’t feel like playing it.
As for time, it sometimes seems as if life is too long..

You also do readings at Borders .What is your interest for this kind of worK?

I don’t have any particular interest in this kind of work. It was the first time I was asked to do this and I did it for the experience. I’ve been asked since, but having had the experience, I found that the only motivation I could come up with in order to do it again was if I got paid enough.
No one has been able to afford me, so far.
I liked what Philip Larkin said when he was asked why he didn’t do reading: Because: ‘I should hate to have to pretend to be me’

Someones named you the indie enigma. Who is really Anthony Reynolds ?

I’m probably the least qualified person you could ask. Whatever that means.

What is your writing process? How do you make the sorting between songs for Jack and Jacques?

It was simple. Jack was the result of collaboration between myself and one other person: Matthew Scott.
Jacques was a collaboration between myself and anyone else; including myself AND Matthew scott.

Where do you find inspiration ? What is the part of the other arts in your life and in your inspiration ?

Why do some people feel the need to write songs and others don’t…? Has this ever been clarified? Something to do with a wound..
For whatever reason that this is so, I’ve long felt the need to speak up about what I see and feel as happening generally and then filtering that through my own experience and personality-maybe my ego.
So my inspiration comes from this, initially and it may be tainted by the works of others and how impressed I am by them. These works include the usual; films, paintings, poems etc

Someone said that ‘happiness writes white’ and by that, meant that artists only work from discontent. But I don’t know that that’s so. I’m as eager to share a happy experience as a sad one. I suppose it comes down to sharing an extreme experience that can’t be shared in every day language, a need for reportage of something that’s experienced on the extremes of feeling and being.
And I’m naturally inspired by pioneers in this field, people who have done things in film and music after being told that ‘this can’t be done’ and I don’t necessarily mean in terms of a shocking, visceral development.
Some people are radical by doing the same thing truly for decades or by doing hardly anything at all.
I’m inspired by people who are brave enough to be themselves, ultimately, whatever the surrounding trend and circumstance.

How do you choose the arrangements for your songs? We can see now that you use samplers and more electronic.

I’ve found that if a songs is ‘good’ enough in itself, you have the opportunity and luxury of arranging it almost anyway you like, without it’s losing it’s power. This is why so many ‘classic’ songs eg, the Beatles stuff, are covered in so many styles; Reggae, samba etc
Other songs are more perverse and these usually dictate a particular arrangement.
Then there are budgetary concerns.

A song may cry out for a woodwind arrangement, but there is no money available for this and so you have to substitute this for another type of instrumentation. Samplers can be tempting in this respect and often surpass the original idea, often by accident…

The important thing is not to lose sight of the song.

You have rather a very singular and special voice. Do you write especially for your voice?

I do usually, if only because I mostly write on feel and instinct but I occasionally write with other singers in mind.
Usually women (for instance, I wrote ‘Three O’clock in the morning’ for Shara Nelson and ‘I don’t know why I want you’ for Marianne Faithfull), although I have been writing a song lately that I had to imagine Sammy davis Jnr singing…
It’s an interesting exercise, if nothing else.

What do you think about the comparisons with David Bowie, Marc Almond, The Tindersticks or Scott Walker ?

I must admit, it’s been wearying of late, to read the same names brought up in reviews etc

I know that our music does not receive much airplay etc and that I’ve never toured extensively…(Although it’s often felt like it)..so maybe journalists have to put these names in as an easy reference point for the reader, who in general is ignorant of our stuff.
I can certainly hear David Bowie in the vocals now and then..which is a bit shameful at this stage..
I’ve strived to find my own voice these last few years, to strip away any mannerisims and stylistic techniques etc as best I could. Perhaps I haven’t succeeded.

The Scott walker thing…it’s true my mother was and is a huge fan of his-this coloured the sound of my childhood-and I too became bewitched by his stuff in my late teens and early twenties although certainly not to the exclusion of other music.
When I started singing in public quite regularly, I certainly did approach it in different ways..and I remember that I had a go at that ‘Big voice’ type of thing but I soon realized that this would get in the way of the song, the words, the melody. This of course, doesn’t mean that a ‘big type’ of singing isn’t appropriate at times…the chorus to ‘Nico’s children’ springs to mind, where I always felt that I had to surf on top of a huge and wonderful wave of sound without actually going beneath that musical wave..

But it would be ridiculous on say, ‘Lolita Elle’ or ‘Cowgirl’s and gringo’s’..
No matter what my influences and inspirations truly are or what I perceive them to be, writers and the like will often use the laziest point of comparison. I do see why someone would liken my music to the tindersticks, for the odd song…but not as a whole.
I think it’s an unfair comparison really..but then what is ‘fair’..?

One comparison that particularly bugs me is Nick cave.. I do think he’s quite a poor singer actually, and gets away with a lot just because of his deficiencies….he is able, through lack of skill, to create an illusion of sincerity in his delivery…which I find a shame particularly because I think he’s written some truly great songs. And his character stands in the way of these, through that voice.. And yet, on the last Jack press release, for the last album, before it went out, I remember approving it and one line said ;’formed from a shared musical love of Japan, Velvet Underground and Charles Aznavour’..which is absoloutely true, a fact..well matthew never liked Japan, but….
I subsequently read a review where it quoted the above and replaced Aznavour with Nick cave..
I assume this was because the writer wasn’t familiar with Aznavour-one of my all time favourite writers and singers-I especially love him singing in English-and thebwriter changed the facts to what he thought he and the readers would want..

My sincerest influences, like Aznavour, rarely get mentioned; David Sylvian, Eno, Tom jones, Sinatra, Nina Simone, Cohen, Jacke Thackray,..

What do you think about the diktats of the musical reviews because their opinions can have returns in terms of selling?

I’ve no idea what sells music, be it reviews or even singles…other than adverts. When a song is used as a soundtrack to Adverts-that sells music- of that I’m sure..but..reviews..I’ve had very good and very bad reviews in my time, it’s hardly affected sales.
Fantastic reviews across the board of an album will make me curious to a degree but I rarely go out and buy a new release anyway…
There’s so much great stuff released in the last 100 years that I’m working through, that I often feel that this week’s releases can wait.
If they are right, they will find me.

Do you think that one of the reasons for little sells is that your kind of music isn't fashionable?

Perhaps so. Or perhaps it doesn’t get radio play because it isn’t fashionable and thus very few people hear it.
Lot’s of ‘unfashionable’ music does still sell, without radio play and without MTV rotation, but that music usually was fashionable/successful at one point in time.
Of course, the stuff I do has always been..beyond…fashion.

You thought Jack was the perfect name - strong and sensitive at the same time. But why do you choose the same name for your two formations? To have two musical projects with a similar name isn't a way to sow the confusion?

The Jacques project was a monstrous personal perversity and indulgence and thus the name suits it perfectly.
You’re quite right, it was confusing and I knew this. It was a nightmare in France…trying to explain between ‘jack’ and ‘Jacques’...but as I say, I’m a pervert..a masochist..
I would have preferred to have put the best of all material into Jack but Matthew, following the first album, insisted that we co-write everything.
To be fair, this is what Jack was about-a collaboration between he and I- but sometimes I would come up with a better song on my own at a particular time..a better song than Scott/Reynolds had come up with..but because Matthew wanted his input, no matter what, the occasional lesser song-our song-would come out on a Jack album. I deferred to this because I thought the chemistry between Matthew and me was special, in terms of writing –I would never have written ‘Nico’s children’ or ‘I didn’t tmean it Marie’ on my own in a million years-and to be fair, he couldn’t complete a song without my input, even though I could without his, so I felt I could afford to give this much.
So this left me with a lot of spare songs-especially considering that Matthew and I really stopped writing together-I mean together in a room as we always had- with any regularity in 1997-
As a consequence, I wrote a lot of songs alone-songs that I believed more than worthy of release. …Choosing the name ‘Jacques’ was a reflection of the perverse situation I suddenly found myself in.
On the other hand, I really do think ‘Jack’ is a great name for a band and I’m amazed that it was never used as such before….I couldn’t quite believe that I’d come up with such a great and original name…so I wanted to stay as close to this as possible….

What are the differences between them? Can we tell about the ebullience and verve of Jack and the introspection of Jacques? Are Jack and Jacques like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde?

I wouldn’t say it was as extreme as all that.It may have been easier for me if it had..
Really, Jacques had a tiny budget by comparison-and a tiny budget can be liberating in some respects- but in some cases the songs were thrown to an early death…especially on the first Jacques album…
If you listen to a lot of the Jack b-sides, they could easily be Jacques album tracks..looking back, Jacques records were more about the experience of making them rather than the finished result. Jack was totally the opposite.
Jacques records were a joy to make and the resulting document is rather poor, sonically.
Jack records were very painful to make and the result is impressive…they stand up more successfully with time, especially by comparison.
Although if you do go back and listen..everything was mastered so quietly then, compared to now.
I also feel that I indulged my humour more on the Jacques stuff..It was maybe around this time that my enjoyment of life started to creep into my work..y’know..it was important that I had fun as well as making records…I used to be rather puritanical before this. I couldn’t even watch a movie until 1999-before then I felt guilty because I thought it too self indulgent.

How did you meet Matthew Scott and decide to form Jack? How did you choose the new coterie of band members to support you?

I was aware of Matthew as a guitarist in another Cardiff group during the late 80’s/early 90’s: A group called Charlie brown.
Go here for a brief history:
http://www.geocities.com/siadwell2/Meltwater2.htm
I always wanted a great guitarist as a foil..and I’ve had two so far, the other being a guy called Glyn kerry groves. I suppose I was inspired by Marr and Morrissey in that respect..
How did we chose the last group of musicians to work as Jack do you mean? For our last record and tour?
Well, I had worked with the drummer, Paul cook on some Jacques gigs. He was recommended by a bassist that I had also worked with; Bryan Mills. I loved both their styles, especially Paul’s. Still do. I hope we can work together again on my solo album. It was so refreshing to work with an inspiring drummer after years of working with a mediocre drummer, ie the guy that played in Jack-…which is yet another story.
The other guys fell into place…Simon and Julian, guitar and keyboards respectively, seemed to come as a unit. Very versatile chaps, with lovely natures. They brought along Joe on bass..solid in all ways. The violinist was a name passed on by a Viola (jon), guy I worked with on the ‘To stars’ album. Fiona fit in perfectly, again a lovely personality and a resourceful confident yet subtle player…Just perfect..
I’m always amused and honored to be working with and directing proper musicians, having started out banging on pots and pans as I did.
That last incarnation of Jack was my favourite..playing live… thay made playing live a rare pleasure for me..

Don't you think that in Jack and Jacques there is always the voice, the pose and the attitude of the same man?

Of course, they are both me..it’s inevitable and perverse, as I said earlier. But it’s no pose.

Once, at the question “which historical figure do you most identify with?” You answered: “None, I'm a unique development in human history”. In the biologic fact, it's true but in the psychoanalytic way, everybody wants to be someone else and have several facets like Jack and Jacques. What do you think about?

I’ve always wanted to realize myself-whoever that is and whatever that means.
There’s a Jungian concept called ‘individuation’, which describes the process of integrating the various aspects of one’s personality to become a whole person.
I’d like a bit of that please, as I often feel that there are forces within me working against me.

And in another one, for “What or who is the greatest love of your life?” You answered “Life itself”. Can you explain a little because it looks very hedonist and your songs are sometimes very dark?

Life is stepping on glass as much as it is rolling in grass. Or smoking it..
Or blowing said glass.
When I step on an upturned drawing pin or have toothache, I am aware of something in me that’s still glad, happy to be.
If I lost this -and I don’t know where it comes from anyway- I think I’d be in trouble and would enter the world of the ‘depressed’.
A love of life can include feeling sad and angry about it.
It’s all good.

And in another one,” If you were to die, and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?” You answered : “My son's daughter”. Can you develop a little bit ?

I believe in the idea that we can’t die, that there is no other place called heaven or hell, these places waiting behind a curtain. I don’t believe That if our bodies are destroyed we immediately enter another, different state of being or even nothingness.
I think Life is energy, constantly recycled and on going. Death seems to me to be a cop out.I think the idea that any idiot can attain the secret of creation just by falling off a stairs is ridiculous.
There is no other world..this is it and we can’t get off the wheel although we can progress within the wheel.
This is why I don’t think suicide is an option unless you really were in unbearable pain of some sort.
You’ll have to work through your problems some time, even if you come back as a tiger or a tree.

Do ou think that your music is your media to communicate your own an soulfull ideas?

Yes.

Did you enjoy gig? You have told that gig it's like showering in public, very exhibitionist but it is one of the postulats for musical career. Have you always the same feeling?

As I said earlier, I much enjoyed that last bunch of shows, mostly because of the musicians on stage with me.
The trouble is, or the problem I had with gigs…you don’t just emerge from a bubble onto the stage. There’s an enormous amount of bullshit and hassle to go through before you approach the microphone stand and this was especially true on the last gigs because Jack had lost any kind of support system, as far as roadies, soundmen, crew, managers and agents went.
Then there’s travel. Distance is not distance, it depends how you cover it and this of course is governed by money.
Ideally, it would be like in ‘Star Trek’, where you beam from your home onto stage and back again.
Then there’s the things you do to get over the exhaustion and hassle.
You can drink and this is a kind of lubricant, allowing you, so it seems, to glide through the chaos. But then you end up drunk, sometimes a sloppy drunk, so you take cocaine to level you out. If you take too much, you become paranoid and nervy, tense and weird, unsociable and wired.
So you drink some more but it’s not enough, so maybe a valium, just to mellow you out…
If after all this, you can get into the songs and if the sound on stage is good and the audience are there to hear the songs…it can be a really special and unique experience, like no other.
But for me, it’s rare.

In what country have you the greatest success? And in which one the best feedback ?

There’s no one country where we’ve had unqualified success…or should I say, no country..
we have pockets of appreciation here and there. It’s hard for me to tell.
The records have never sold in any great amount,. I think the first was the most successful, to date … they are usually so expensive to make and to then promote and tour.
It’s truly hard for me to know other than say….France and Spain seemed to be more appreciative than others because I’ve done more interviews and shows there than other places….having said that, I can literally spend a 12 hour day doing nothing but interviews and then someone from that country will later say; ‘Im you’re biggest fan and I didn’t even know that you had a new record out..why don’t you promote it!!”
America seems to be becoming more interested in my stuff than ever before…
I’m mystified as to why we never made it to Japan..but it’s not something I brood over at breakfast..
If I think of it in those terms, I see myself, career wise, at the top rung of the lowest ladder.
But I rarely think or feel in those terms.

Il you are a little bit pessimist what are your personal survival techniques? Because what reason do you wake up the morning?

I know this is a common question but I wonder how many and how often people consider it in actuality? The majority, in their lifetimes, go from school to work and in a way never question why they do; not in any profound sense. In this manner they never have to question what they will do once they throw back the sheets and swing out of bed….Routine see..
Because of the choices I made at a very early age, it’s a question I’m faced with what sometimes seems like an overwhelming regularity. I mean, especially of late, since moving to the relative solitude of the countryside, I’ve no social distractions here unless I have visitors so I truly have every day to fill as I please. In this way I am actually responsible for my life on a day to day basis-which was my choice and it’s often a struggle. I’m still working it out. Dylan Thomas said it was good for writers to have ‘regular’ jobs in addition to their ‘Vocation’, as ‘you can only write for two hours a day at most and then what are you good for’?

Well…obviously, old DT drank and I’ve tried this too and it works occasionally. Sometimes a bottle of something can be the focus of the day, a kind of lighthouse to gravitate toward although I’ve found it’s better if it comes after 3 pm and not before, else feelings of self-loathing abound and nothing gets done..…You know, not even the basics…
Sometimes, as long as I get a line or a few words down, the day will be worth it. Bear in mind it can take a while to get to those lines. That’s not a bad impetus-to throw back the duvet-knowing that you could write as good or better song than has ever been written.
I’ve rarely been so depressed that I couldn’t get out of bed although I did try it once…I was exhausted. Generally…and totally.. It was around the time I’d decided that Jack should end..this realization, along with a lot of other stuff…business problems..wiped me out..I couldn’t go forward or back, it seemed..
So, we put a TV in the bedroom and tuned into CNN and I stayed there for three months.

This was the first three months of 2003. I was going through some rough business troubles, was waiting for a phone call to say ‘yay’ or ‘nay’, I had no money and my girlfriend had lost her job.
I’d read about people going to bed for months, even years and was perversely impressed by this…there seemed something almost heroic about it..
So I did. I drank supermarket brand scotch and my girlfriend brought me food on a tray. I read comics and eat crisps and biscuits….
The cats and my Girlfriend would join me early evening and I’d take a sleeping pill and drift off watching re-runs of ‘The Monkees’..
I had two pairs of Pyjamas-a morning pair and an evening pair. I would change Pyjamas after my daily afternoon Bath and then get back into bed.
That was as far as I ventured from January to March, when the money I needed cleared in my account.
Looking back, I’d recommend it! Everyone should try it once in their lives.
It also results in a Mighty beard.

But really, I’m a simple sort and what gets me out of bed in the morning is knowing that I can have a good cup of coffee, made the way I like it; strong with a bit of whitener-no real milk or cream…
Just this simple act can get to you to the next stage.
And who knows what the postman will bring…?

What do you want to mean telling about to be with a clear-eyed view of the world or to be aware of who are and where you are?. Is it important for you this idea and fact to be alive in the moment?

A few years ago, a French girl, who had just begun to know me, observed that ‘In order to avoid suffering you suffer twice as much’….I hardly had to think about it to know that she was right.
It’s a problem that has it’s root in aspects of my upbringing, that’s left me with a fear of just ‘being’ in the here and now…I’m always flitting between what I’ve done and what I want to do. I suspect that I’m missing out on a lot of what’s being offered by living in this state…I’m trying hard to relax..VERY HARD..
Good old Jean Cocteau had it down in the title of that book of his: ‘The difficulty of being’.

What is the importance of drinking and drugs in your life? Alcohol has a big place in your songs and in your life and you have told:”I like the option of drinking without it having to be a necessity and I used to drink for nerves”. Is drinking a way to find inspiration, an exciting drug like for many artists, and also something calming?

Booze is so multi faceted in it’s applications. Part of the appeal.
I use is at as a self medication, as mentioned in some of my previous answers in this interview…it’s a social lubricant..an escape..a discovery..it compliments food..drugs..I’ve very rarely used drugs alone, almost always with alcohol…..
I’ve wondered weather a lot of artists drink as a compensation for the realative dullness of reality that follows writing or recording or performing…There’s no high like writing, really and it’s hard for washing up or watching Tv to compensate with that…
You can get to the position where drink is drinking you, so to speak and this is a oneway street that I’ve only rarely found myself on..
Habit is usually always negative in all it’s forms and must be fought against..
‘I fought against the bottle, but I had to do it drunk’..(L.Cohen)

What ideals are you striving for?

To become and stay awake.

Your dandy look is an esthetic choice or something deep-felter, a way of life?

Oh boy..It’s a long time since I felt confident enough in my physical appearance to dress it up to any extreme…although others may and have disagreed. I love the glamouros anonymity of a well cut suit still..and… To be honest where does this idea of me being a ‘dandy’ come from?
Perhaps from the 3 weeks I wore a cravatte in 1995…
I don’t think I’ve deserved that label for some time, sadly…..

Why are you interested by the Bukowskian world?

I like Bukowski for many reasons…I am attracted to those who are ‘super sensitive’ and sadly, don’t meet enough in my ‘real’ life..
I feel Bukowski was a very sensitive person in a very insensitive environment..I’m interested and moved by the way he dealt with it and the work that resulted.
I also empathise with his prediciment the misunderstandings surrounding him…the same applies in my feelings for Hunter S Thompson……there is an idea that these guys do nothing but drink and raise hell..in which case, where does their work come from?
I dig this duality..
Plus, I just plain enjoy Bukowski’s writing, the rythmns etc

Why the subject of suicide is a theme, which abound in your songs?

Suicide is a fantasy based on being something that’s unattainable…in this case.
As I don’t believe in death..as previously stated..the idea of being able to ‘start again’at any given time is hugely attractive and impossible.
Getting drunk is a good way of committing suicide.
The next morning you awake and sart afresh..
But…a drunk should NEVER apologise..

Why?
Because if you’re that ashamed of who you are when drunk, then don’t drink.
Be a man for God’s sake..

You have a very big admiration for Scott Walker. Can you tell a little about your meeting and your work with him?

The Scott Walker I fell in Love with as a teeneager, died around 1975. People are allowed many different lives within one lifetime.
I still admire his tenacity…his balls..I loved ‘Tilt’ but..it’s not the Scott I had a crush on.
His music will forever remain a part of my childhood’s landscape…
I’ve never worked with Scott. I realized this would be a bad idea after making ‘How to make Love’. It’s wrong for me to work with someone because I want to hang out with them..
There was a slim chance of meeting him, around 1995. I kind of bottled out and in a way am glad.
It gets easier to avoid meeting your heroes the older you get..

When you release « How to make love » with Momus, you speak about a trilogy. What about this project today?

I was young and star blind then. I would find stars in the dust of butcher’s shops and rub them into my eyes..
I was wearing glitter as an armour..
Each step took me further from Home..

You like John Fante and you have worked with his son. Is it a coincidence?

Of course not.

Your deal with the label Acuarela is a signal of a new beginning?

The end of an old beginning.

Is it true that they give you money to do what Too Pure refuse for building a studio? And why Too pure didn't have enough faith to do that?

Les disques du crepuscule gave Matthew and I money to record an album and allowed us to spend it any way we liked in that regard. And we did build a studio; ‘The Bunker’, a nasty place is the extremes of North London.
. It was supposed to become our base and then a commercial concern –a way of funding further projects and our lives. But Matthew fucked it up.
This fuck up became One of the reasons that gave me the freedom to move from London.
As to why Too pure didn’t believe in this method…I don’t know. One idea is that they couldn’t go further with us and this was a good excuse..?

Why are you interesting by having your own studio?

I do have my own studio here at the farm although it’s realatively crude and untested.
Why?
I think the idea of a group is something I’ve grown out of. And being in a group lends itself to using big commercial studios although even this is less true today thatn it ever was…
I’ve come to such a point where I’ve dealt with so many lies and such bullshit from even trusted collegues..anything that helps me become self reliant is desirable

Acuarela is better than Setanta?

Or as bad as?
Everything is the same, in differing ways.

Why the two last Jacques’ records is EP with five tracks?

Because I had more than a singles worth but not enough for an album. Money. Also, that perverse thing again, I guess.

Are there some relationship between “Romantic” and “Roses for ashes”?

The bulk of both are from the same time, recording wise. So they share a frame of mind.
It’s all me.
It’s been a while since I’ve been in the position where I had the luxury to really apply a consummate concept to one work. The last few years have been more about survival. And these ep’s, the tracks on compilations etc have been arrows at the moon in a way.
My next major work won’t be so.

Today, what do you think about your career? Are you happy? Do you wish more success?

No. I still don’t feel my work has reached it’s full audience or even come close.
I’ll never be ‘happy’ . I never expected such but it’s tiring…the daily knowledge that the bulk of my work exists in a vacuum…
I can only trust that life knows that everything is perfect at any given time, even if I struggle to grasp this idea.
Hard to believe in tragedy when you don’t believe in death.
My day to day life is wonderful. I don’t have to ‘work’, I live with loved ones in a beautiful isolated home.
But it’s never enough…and it’s beyond me to be able to give up.

What is in the future for Jack and for Jacques? And for Anthony Reynolds the writer?

There is no future for Jacques or Jack. Maybe compilations of the past work.
For Anthony Reynolds, everything and anything is possible..and permissible.

If you had to sum up your music in three words, which ones would you choose?

I would not.

Some more words ? some whishes ?

This type of question usually results in a plea or an appeal, doesn’t it.
So. Here we are: ‘If you insist on eating fish and or meat-take the responsibility to Kill it yourself or stop eating it’.