The Sheffield Scenester

With Easter approaching and a good weekend full of music, there’s one event that stands out as being a bit special and that is the three day ‘Windle Weekender’, three gigs at three pubs from Saturday through to Bank Holiday Monday. Always in the mood for a chat Jon agreed to meet us down at 2Fly studios, where he is in the middle of recording his second album, to expand on this and talk about how life as a father is beginning to affect his career…… joining Jon was backing singer Polly Perkins and bass player Andy………

Scenester: You’ve picked these three venues for various personal reasons, if you could talk us through them one by one, where they are and why you chose them?

Jon: Originally they were going to be our favouritist of our favouritist’s, but obviously that proved difficult to get all our favourite pubs in on one weekend so we went with…….The Nottingham House at Broomhill, which is the first one, because a really good friend of ours, Richie, runs it. The second one is The Pavilion Sports Bar on Worksop Road, which is the one that Dan really wanted to do, it’s just down the road from where he lives. Then the third one is The Broadfield on Abbeydale Road, a place where me and Andy have spent quite a few drunken nights watching bands which is not far from where I live. There were ones that we couldn’t do cos it wasn’t feasible, what with ticket sales and having to have security and things which makes it a bit more difficult. Some were like….”well I’m not sure we can have 250 people in here…”, to which we responded I wouldn’t worry too much about that, it’s only a Jon Windle gig, there won’t be 250 people coming………LOL. One holds 65, one holds 150 and the other holds 250 but they should do well………
Polly: The tour was really good fun and we all really enjoyed it, especially for Jon, it was really exciting getting back to his fans again, but because we’re away from home, we got straight back on the bus and came back so we couldn’t really connect with the fans. We couldn’t really have that intermit time afterwards and get to chat, and relax and have a drink with them, in a way it was frustrating because that part of it, after the gig, is when you get to have a really good time with the fans, as well as meet up with loads of interesting people. So doing these gigs in Sheffield means that Jon and the rest of us will actually be able to do that!
Jon: Yeah, after the Broadfield gig we’re having a BBQ and everything cos that’s an earlier gig, it’s early evening around five or six, there are bands on from about half two, then we’re on and then it’s a BBQ. So it’ll be a good time with fans and friends which is what I missed towards the end of LMT, not being able to do that as much. I mean I’ve said that to you before, it got hard to do the things that we wanted to do in LMT, so much stuff was out of our hands whereas now it’s all in my hands so……. Well it’s not all in my hands…cos I wouldn’t be able to do it with out the people are around me now…..
Polly: You’ve got control now in a way that you wouldn’t of had before……

Scenester: Yours is the final word then?

Jon: Yeah, providing Polly and Emily don’t say any different……LOL
Polly: I think that is what is different…it’s the style of your gigs….that they are an event, it’s not just a gig, there’s a whole thing that goes with it. People get to see each other again, not just see the band because they’ve made connections with people from other cities and they only get to see them at Jon’s gigs. That’s one of the things I’ve noticed, that there is a real camaraderie between them which is something I think is quite different that you don’t necessarily get with other bands.
Jon: The joy I bring to peoples hearts!

Scenester: We noticed that when you played your first gig at The Plug back in October, we ran into quite a few friends from our days of following LMT……

Jon: The thing is, with the first album, we didn’t use any promo, we didn’t take any PR, we didn’t try and get any radio play or try and release a single, we just wanted to get it out to the LMT fan base and see if there was any real interest in me doing anything. It did really, really well….so it was alright to get gigging again and get recording a second album which’ll have a full budget behind it. So really it’s gone better than I thought, cos I could see us playing to dead gigs to be honest, Manchester was brilliant, even had a stage invasion…
Polly: I’ve never seen anything like that, just loads of people jumping up on the stage, and it wasn’t just LMT fans…
Jon: But yeah, three gigs on the trot, should be good…
Polly: I’m holding out for the BBQ, it’s all about the BBQ for me….
Jon: We’ll play the last set really quick…….LOL

Scenester: You’re in the middle of recording the second album at the minute, how’s that going for you?

Jon: It’s going really well at the minute, this album is like a story from one song to the next. In LMT we had lots of little stories and on my first album we had lots of little stories, so this time I wanted to do a style of music that I’ve always liked, that got me into music in the first place. This time it’s like a collection of stories or songs that make up a…….
Polly: ……a narrative, there’s definitely a narrative running through them all.

Scenester: Was this an intentional decision or did you think ‘wait a minute, we could link this with that and….’ ?

Jon: Yeah it was intentional, clever really, it didn’t start off like that….but we thought it would be a good idea, then after the first two or three songs we figured ‘Yeah maybe we could!’ We thought we could bring these characters out, I mean in LMT there were always characters rearing their head, like Boothy and Marie, whereas this time we thought lets make some of these people come to life and become part of peoples lives!
Polly: Part of a Windle-Wonderland!

Scenester: And does it all end in one neatly wrapped happy ending?

Jon: Or does it end in suicide? You’ll have to wait and see! I don’t really want to give away the ending, maybe all the albums will have a different ending or maybe we could make one like those books you used to read…. “If you should jump out the aeroplane without your parachute opening – go to page 69 – or if not go to page 51!” …..I’ll go to page 69, it sounds more exciting!
Andy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, that was the first one I had, I’ve still got that home somewhere….
Polly: I think you should talk about the impact of being a dad, because my impression is that this material is much more mature, kind of a fuller life story that’s more real. The emotions in it are very real aren’t they, it’s not pretty, some of it’s quite dark!
Jon: Yeah cos at some point you have to grow up a bit don’t you, I mean before I never thought about consequences and things to do with stuff I’d say or lyrics I’d put in songs. Now I think, well when he’s sixteen, I don’t want him going to school and people saying “God , your dad’s a right t*sser isn’t he?” So I think you want to be the best you can be at something don’t you?
Polly: There’s definitely a sense in the lyrics of consequence, and that actions have impact……
Jon: ……Yeah, I’m not just saying it but it is the best thing or best collection of songs I’ve ever done. Dave (Sanderson) and Alan (Smythe) are just fantastic as well, in terms of production and ideas. With the first album there wasn’t a direction to it because it was written with different people in mind, but this one has definitely got an identity plus I get to do things I couldn’t do before with Polly and Emily…….LOL, cos they bring something different to the table. Working with them bringing separate harmonies together, they make the characters come alive, whereas in LMT we could only talk about people, you know, she did this and he did that…….
Polly: Whereas now you can have a female voice saying “I did this…..”

Scenester: So do you sing one specific character while Emily and Polly do others?

Jon: Well Polly has like a character almost going through it, Emily has a character going through as well, Andy’s got a character and then I’m doing all the song, I’m kinda narrating the songs. We can then bring in characters and then there’s the backing vocals were we just get to be nobody…… But it’s going to be good, really, really good!

Unfortunately Jon had to get back to recording at this point….so I took the opportunity to grab a few pictures of him setting up in the studio and watched from the comfort of the couch while he played one track. So weather permitting it should be a good weekend, I would personally recommend the BBQ at Broadfield, but at the time of going to press this date has been sold out. Still if you want to catch Jon and his band there are still tickets for the Saturday and Sunday nights at The Nottingham House and The Pavilion Sports Bar. So thanks to Jon, Polly and Andy for talking to us and thanks to Alan Smythe and Dave Sanderson for the use of 2Fly studios.