Joe Jackson

25:28Justin Richmond:Yeah. Yeah. And you feel like you must feel then like your taste has evolved quite a bit from... Yeah. I mean, it does get harder to be as prolific as I was, for instance, back in the 80s, where I seem to be constantly recording new albums and touring. And from my point of view now, the quality of it is uneven. You know, I've made at least three albums too many, I think. Which ones would not make the cut if you were now deciding? You know why I don't want to say? because sometimes someone will say to me, oh, this album of yours, it's my favorite album. I love it. What am I going to say? No, you're wrong.

26:09You know, if someone likes it, then great. But just for me, because I'm entitled to an opinion about it too. Yeah. Right? And some of the albums are better than others, just for my own taste. But I don't want to spoil anyone else's enjoyment of any of it.

26:28Justin Richmond:What about musically, like stepping out once you get to there, you're really stretching out musically? Yeah, that album in general, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was just sort of, it was really kind of starting a new chapter where I feel like I was being more myself and not so much influenced by what was going on around me at the time. and like I said it was bringing in a lot of those influences which I thought were more New York influences of jazz and Latin music rather than rock and roll and even leaving out guitars I still meet people who say there were no guitars on night and day really and I say well did you hear any no one seemed to notice which is funny this idea of it's all keyboards and percussion and uh and like i said i i didn't think anyone was gonna like it i thought it would be a really hard sell and uh i was gonna do it anyway but definitely stretching out musically because i was capable of that you know i mean on the first couple of hours it was a case of deliberately simplifying it which a lot of people were doing at the time you know it felt like the thing to do at the time like even if you were you could be a very good musician but you'd play really simple deliberately right you know i mean my band was a pretty damn good band you know but it was just keep it really really simple and i just stopped even thinking about that that was that likely a reaction to the prog rock that was popular and all that you know sort of being tired of it people being sort of probably tired of the frips of the world oh yeah going back yeah to the beginnings of punk and all that yeah it was yeah and at the time i i thought it was all great fun i didn't take it seriously at all it just uh punk bands just made me laugh so i i thought it was great really i i had a i once had a beer with joe strummer from the clash who was a great guy and uh we we talked about how um how critics especially are lacking and they they lack the humor gene you know he was saying how that when they were writing songs for the clash him and mick jones they would be cracking each other up because they would as we say in england taking the piss you know mocking and making fun of and then uh the reviews would come out excruciating social political anger and protest and all this and they'd be laughing even more and it's like yes exactly i felt exactly the same way it was amazing how seriously it was or taken.

29:11Justin Richmond:Yeah, and people, critics thought you were taking yourself seriously a lot often, right? Right, yeah. Well, they have no sense of humor. That's been my observation over the years. Yeah. It's the one thing that they miss consistently. Yeah. As you know, they take everything at face value and take it very seriously. It's funny. Would you read reviews then or no? Back then I would, yeah, nowadays I don't, I avoid them. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. because that can just drive you crazy. Yeah. If you pay too much attention to any of that stuff, you'd end up not being able to create anything. Yeah. We'll be back with more from Joe Jackson.

29:55Justin Richmond:My kids' favorite place in the entire world to be is New York City. They want to go any chance they get, even if it means just accompanying me on a two-night business trip. And this time they want to go to Central Park because we missed it last time. And they can't wait to have the bagels. They're like real New Yorkers. They love the bagels. I love the pizza. It's crazy. Now, if you're planning any upcoming trips, do you ever think about how your home will just be sitting empty while you're gone? Why not consider listing your space on Airbnb? You could be giving travelers like me a place to land while they visit somewhere new and earn some extra cash at the same time.

30:26Justin Richmond:And with your co-host network, you don't even need to stress the little details while you're enjoying your own trip. You can hire a local co-host to handle everything, like creating your listing, managing reservations, guest communication, on-site support, and even styling your space. So while you're making your own memories, your home can be helping another family make theirs. Find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host. Small businesses are the pulse of every community. They bring people together, create opportunities, and drive growth. With a widespread presence in communities across the country, Chase for Business supports small business owners at a local level.

31:03Justin Richmond:That makes it possible for you to connect, learn from each other, and grow together. There's a real commitment to seeing small businesses succeed. The Chaser Business team has knowledge and expertise that span a wide range of financial areas. They can help you make more informed decisions as you navigate the complexities of running your business. They'll help your business grow with individual guidance and convenient digital tools all in one place. With that guidance and your determination, you can take your business farther and help build a brighter future for your company. Learn more at chase.com slash business.

31:40Justin Richmond:Chase for business. Make more of what's yours. The Chase mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply. JPMorgan Chase Bank, any member FDIC. Copyright 2026, JPMorgan Chase and Company. The future won't wait and neither should you. That's why American Public University offers master's programs designed for momentum, affordable, high quality, and flexible, so you keep moving forward. With career-relevant programs in business, healthcare, education, IT, and more, you can gain skills you can use right away and the confidence to power your next move. American Public University, made for what's next.

32:24Learn more at apu.apus.edu.

32:29Justin Richmond:you i always found it funny like you know critics like just the um as if new wave wasn't bad enough a term it's like and then critics moved on to some point like you know like sophistopop like scritty-politty and you okay and and uh who else would fit in uh i think they threw in um who's the band that made that uh Steve Steve McQueen was the uh prefab sprout yeah yeah and they were great I mean that album was amazing yeah but then you know they're calling it Sophista Pop it's like how terrible you know it's like I'll take it it's a terrible name yeah of course it is I guess I should bring up at this point that Sonny Rollins just died yes no is he 96 or something?

33:21It was 95, 96. Yeah. He got, he got. He hadn't played for quite a while. Yeah. He was still playing at 80. He's still touring. Yeah. I saw him, again, going back to the days when I was first living in New York in the 80s, I saw Sonny Rollins perform a couple of times. And I was absolutely blown away. He hadn't been insane back then, right? You know, I mean, one of the shows I saw he did was one of the most powerful performances I've ever seen, you know, by a jazz musician, certainly. Wow. My hair was standing on end, you know. He was really special. Wow. Do you know, where was it? Do you remember?

33:55Yeah, it was The Bottom Line, which was a great venue. It was long gone, unfortunately.

34:01Justin Richmond:Was that, because I know you also, you were inspired for Body and Soul by his volume two record. Yeah, but that wasn't, it was just, you know, we were trying to think of a cover concept and we thought we'd try something with that classic blue note look, a sort of homage to that, which other people have done since then. Maybe they had done before then, but if so, I wasn't aware of it. But it was more just the look of it. It wasn't just the fact that I was a fan of Sonny Rollins. It's still an amazing album cover. Yeah, I like it. A few years later, Rolling Stone published a little thing with they put the Sonny Rollins album and mine side by side.

34:46They busted me. Apparently I ripped it off and they're now revealing to the world this terrible ripoff that I did.

34:56Justin Richmond:Me, play something from the new album. Any particular song you like off the album? Do you have a favorite? No. I would never. Even if I did, I wouldn't tell you. No, I'm always reluctant to pick favorites. I feel like that's not my job. If I didn't really like every track, I wouldn't put it out. That's how I feel about it. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to play this. Made God Laugh. Is it?

35:42So now he'll walk down But that's not it So listen to what the wise man said Another day, another song It's not easy to see where you could be wrong You make God laugh when you told him your plans Come on, you know it's true And you make God laugh when you made your demands more for you.

36:27Justin Richmond:I love the, I love the, it's a great song and you sound great on it. It's also a great performance by your bass player, by Graham. Oh, yeah. Well, he's always great. Graham May - I mean, that sounds amazing on it. I want to ask you about him, but yeah, what was the genesis of that song? It was a quote that I read somewhere, and I can't remember who it was, but they said, if you want to make the gods laugh, tell them your plans. And I thought that was really interesting. The more I thought about it, the more I thought it was a happy thought. because um you know we all need to figure out that we can't control everything and the sooner you realize that the better because it makes life less stressful and generally you know nicer if you can do that it's funny because yeah there's been a couple of people interpret it as a sad song and i don't think it is at all um but that was the origin of it actually after i'd written the song and and by the way no song is all about the lyrics it's just that that's what we all end up talking about you know but um having written a song i decided to try and find out where i'd heard this quote and turns out woody allen said something very similar but he got it from an old yiddish proverb which i'm not going to try to say in but it goes uh man plans and god laughs you know so it's been around for a while this idea are you Are you always aware of the sort of the meta text of a set of lyrics that you write?

38:06Meta text? Hmm, do I have meta texts? I'm not sure. There's always layers to it. I find it very difficult to... I mean, I don't want to write songs that are didactic, telling you what to think you know this is that what it is and and like i said songs are 70 music anyway yeah i think you know for me anyway i mean i think there's a tradition of of songwriting that's different that's more about storytelling is more about lyrics it's more of a folk tradition that's not really what i do and i think for the most part it's the music that really moves people and the words kind of tag along afterwards and uh and sometimes they're you know worth thinking about um i mean i certainly try to write the best lyrics i can but uh it's uh i'm really primarily a music guy yeah i think people listen for different things some people

39:11Justin Richmond:are lyric people that's right you know some people are i tend not to be yeah i don't either I kind of take in the whole thing, you know? Yeah. And if the lyrics are particularly interesting, they'll draw me in at some point. And bad lyrics can probably ruin an otherwise good song, I'd imagine, right? No, on the contrary. This is one of the reasons I think music is more important than lyrics, because there's a lot of songs I really like that if I really think about the lyrics, they're pretty stupid. They don't even make sense or anything. Not to mention the fact that there's a lot of music I really love where the words are in, language that I have no idea about.

39:49Justin Richmond:Well, that's often why I like music in another language. Yeah, I mean, sometimes it's a good thing. Removes any sort of critical value. Yeah, I mean, the lyrics might be terrible. I might be listening to some music from Serbia, you know, it was the worst lyrics ever. I would never know. I'm just enjoying it. And sometimes, like, you know, like Joe and then would sing in, you know, like such an accented, in such an attitude. Sometimes I would make out every other word. That's the thing I could never understand about Shane McGowan, because he wrote great lyrics. And when he sang, you couldn't understand a word.

40:19Yeah.

40:21Justin Richmond:Amazing. I know. I know. I didn't know he was even revered as a songwriter until he passed away, and then all of a sudden it became... Yeah, he was a really talented songwriter. He was revered. But it was... I mean, I envied him in a way, because I saw the Pogues Live once, and I think he sang on about three songs. And he would say, thank you very much. and everyone would cheer like yeah good old drunk shambolic shane not making any sense we love it you know i thought oh that's a good gig did you ever um did you ever get to know him or no no no did you get did you ever get to know many peers or like as as in terms of uh beyond you know you mentioned having a yeah i mean i met quite a few people uh andy partridge is a bit of a bit of a friend of xtc yeah someone that i think have a lot in common with yeah someone no one ever compares me to musically very different no i think we've a lot in common really yeah okay yeah um and uh yeah judge drummer was was a great guy i was really sad when he died i can't believe he's actually not with us still yeah but uh i can't see you know it's i don't hang out with a whole bunch of my peers i'm not friends with these people i mean i don't mean that in a dismissive way it's just not the way it's turned out what do you find yourself listening to primarily these days um all kinds of stuff i'm really all over the map a lot of jazz a lot of latin music still um listening to a lot of music from colombia which i think is some really interesting music coming out of colombia um i got into early jazz in recent years so listening to people like earl hines sydney beche jay roll morton late 20s early 30s jazz i really love and late 50s early 60s jazz the two eras that i really love but um i mean i i don't hear a lot of interesting stuff in the pop rock the anglo-american pop rock world yeah i don't think it's that great i mean there's some things from outside of the anglo-american sphere you know yeah some interesting music from i mean like stromai from belgium i think is really cool wow yeah you know um there's a band from berlin called zed i really like you know um rosalia from spain is really interesting so there's some some some you know original things break through here and there i don't know there was the band the band was zed sorry what was the band from berlin you said zed okay i don't know zed but the other two um stroma and rosalie i mean they're they're really um i don't want to say avant-garde but they they do things outside of what right their contemporaries necessarily are interested in their their their sort of vocabulary as musicians seems extra you know extraordinary perhaps um so that must be what draws you to that right yeah yeah it feels very different right it's not just something that you can easily put a label on and file it.

43:29It's this and it's for these people. That's a more interesting area, but it's harder to pin it down.

43:41Justin Richmond:In just a minute, we'll be back with more from Joe Jackson.

43:47Justin Richmond:Small businesses are the pulse of every community. They bring people together, create opportunities, and drive growth. With a widespread presence in communities across the country, Chase for Business supports small business owners at a local level. That makes it possible for you to connect, learn from each other, and grow together. There's a real commitment to seeing small businesses succeed. The Chase for Business team has knowledge and expertise that span a wide range of financial areas. They can help you make more informed decisions as you navigate the complexities of running your business.

44:19Justin Richmond:They'll help your business grow with individual guidance and convenient digital tools all in one place. With that guidance and your determination, you can take your business farther and help build a brighter future for your company. Learn more at chase.com slash business. Chase for business. Make more of what's yours. The Chase mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply. JPMorgan Chase Bank. Any member FDIC. Copyright 2026, JPMorgan Chase and Company. I just got back from an amazing family vacation in Northern California. It was the perfect reset for our busy lives.

45:00Justin Richmond:Now, if you're planning any upcoming trips, you could be listing your space on Airbnb. It's a smart, practical way to make use of your place while you're away and earn some extra cash at the same time. And with the co-host network, you could hire a local co-host to handle everything like managing reservations, guest communication, and even styling your space. Find a co-host at airbnb.com slash host. The future won't wait, and neither should you. That's why American Public University offers master's programs designed for momentum, affordable, high quality, and flexible, so you keep moving forward.

45:36With career-relevant programs in business, healthcare, education, IT, and more, you can gain skills you can use right away and the confidence to power your next move. American Public University, made for what's next. Learn more at apu.apus.edu. It's funny that early on, there was this sort of keep it simple philosophy.

46:03Justin Richmond:Yeah. You eventually ditch it. And then it really is. So it feels like, you know, in a weird way, that's probably what you heard in the prog rock when you were young, that you enjoyed, even though you don't like it now, the presentation of it maybe but the yeah well this goes back to when i was you know 15 or something like this and i because it's because i had a classical training you know so i learned to read music when i was 11 and it's no big deal you know um so i think that i kind of maybe there was a couple of years there where i turned my nose up at pop music and but then i started to get interested in it again and the things that interested me were the things that I thought were musically more sophisticated.

46:47Yeah. But then after a while, there were things like people like David Bowie, you know, that would have brought me back more towards pop music.

46:56Justin Richmond:Because it blended a bit of the sophistication of... Yeah. And I also started to think, well, you know, I don't want to be stuck up about anything. I mean, all kinds of music can have something good about them. So I think that's been my attitude ever since. Yeah. Do you keep up with your sort of classical training? Is that a muscle that you've continued to... I think it's just kind of part of the arsenal of something. I was just in there. Do you practice a lot? I play quite a lot, so I guess it's all practicing in a way. I mean, I don't practice scales and stuff like that for hours like I did when I was a teenager.

47:38Justin Richmond:And will you pick up a piece you haven't played and just try to get through it occasionally yeah when's the last time you did that so that's kind of cool well not recently to be honest i mean technically i was pretty much better at 18 than i am now yeah but um in terms of being able to uh improvise and be creative at the keyboard i was not very good then i think i'm still getting better at that you so you you weren't early on you weren't good at improvising? I mean, I tried, you know, but I think I've gotten better. I think I'm still learning. I think my playing's still getting better. Yeah. Yeah.

48:20Justin Richmond:It must have been great then, being around guys like Herb Albert and Jerry Moss. I guess Quincy Jones would have been at A &M at that time. Or at least had to put out a bunch of records on him. I mean, I wasn't hanging out with these people, but I mean, I was aware that I was with a fairly cool record label, you know, and other acts that I liked. I liked Squeeze quite a lot. And some of the things that were really interesting I picked up on A &M, like they had Yellow Magic Orchestra from Japan. Sweet. I remember picking up a couple of their records from the A &M offices and really enjoyed them.

48:53Justin Richmond:I didn't know they were on A &M. That's an insane band. Yeah. How did you find your guys? How did you find your band? Well, they were local guys. the bass player and drummer Graham Mabee and Dave Houghton were local guys that I mean Graham I met when I was 18 or something so we were playing in different kinds of bands together and Dave Houghton was um playing with you know other people I knew and you know so we all grew up in the same area around Portsmouth on the south coast of England um but by the time I made my first album I was living in london and gary the guitarist was a londoner was someone that i met then so uh yeah it was just a kind of pretty organic kind of thing it's pretty wild that those guys were just around and i mean they're because they're really great players yeah did they have ambition did they have their own things going on what were their no what were they at when you kind of were they were they what were their ambitions just uh i don't know what actually you'd have to ask them, I suppose.

49:58Just doing gigs, whatever gigs they could get, and doing part-time jobs and scraping by.

50:05Justin Richmond:And how do you typically work with them? In what way? Dave's still around often, right? Not always, but I mean... Well, he hasn't wanted to tour for quite a long time. Yeah, he kind of was... I mean, the reason I broke up my first band was because he didn't want to tour anymore. Is that what happened? Yeah. and rather than just replace him and carry on i thought well maybe it's time for a break yeah take some time off and rethink um but he came back on board later and we we did a couple more albums and tours together and then he kind of dropped out again okay so i've had a sort of uh procession of drummers some great ones actually uh so doug yole who's i'm working with now i've been working together for about 10 years how does it work when you bring something to your band how do you work with them how do you work out usually I'll make a demo of some sort and say listen to this and kind of get familiar with it learn the chord changes learn the parts in some cases there'll be things that that really suit them and sound great and other times it doesn't really work and we have to negotiate so it's kind of like well that doesn't seem to work for you what can you do that's along the same lines and uh so it becomes collaborative to a certain extent um but i have the final say because someone has to and it should be the guy whose name's on the record yeah so um people have asked me is your band of democracy and it's not it's a dictatorship actually but it's uh it's what they call a benign dictatorship where the dictator's not a bad guy a benign dictation sir can we please change this can I change this part it's not suiting me I mean so you you have the demo it's pretty fleshed out yeah and they mostly learn it how you presented it yeah but there's always some things that change along the way yeah and I quite enjoy that that process because I do want people to feel like they're involved in it and they're not just you know like session guys or something yeah yeah yeah yeah and I'm very particular about picking the people who are i like their personality both as people and as players yeah you know and trying to find ways to especially in live situation i was trying to find ways to make everyone in the band shine you know give each player a share of the spotlight yeah that's one of the really fun things about playing live i think yeah the bass parts those they're not that fleshed out are they are they as fleshed out some of them are yeah wow some of them are but there's yeah there's this bass lines part of the song as i conceived it you know so so i you know some of the bass lines are what i've written some of them are graham doing something along the lines that i ask him to do because i know him well enough that he's generally going to come up with something i like yeah uh so and if i don't like it i'll tell him that that's my prerogative but uh yeah it's it's hard to uh explain it because the question comes up quite a lot you know how much say do the musicians have in the creation of their own parts and it's it's not like black and white it's just kind of somewhere in the middle yeah how much does a song come to you when when uh fully formed how much do you kind of hear the full thing quite a lot a lot of the time yeah yeah i don't know why but i i don't think in terms of well i have this few chords and what do i do now you know i tend to sort of hear whole a whole kind of sound world in my head if you like it's hard to describe without sounding a bit kind of pretentious let's play um maybe i'm not sorry if you like whatever you like okay

54:15hello cruel world I'm not going away so I might as well have my say

54:27for all the dance That I never gave And for every damn whale That I failed to save

54:40For every little fad I didn't chase And every little fool Who just didn't like my face I know that you like it I know that you want it I know that you need it Leave it alone because I'm not gonna say it I'm not sorry, I'm not sorry at all I'm not sorry, I'm not sorry at all

55:25For every cause that I didn't support 1080 law that I broke Saying what I thought

55:37For every California dude Who had the nerve to observe I had an attitude

55:44Justin Richmond:I feel seen

55:49For every flag I didn't choose to fly And all the crocodile tears I refused to cry

56:02I know that you like it I know that you want it I know that you like it I know that you like it No, it's funny because I haven't actually listened to that for a while and because we've been, we're, what is it, 12 shows into our tour now and we're playing this song live and it sounds different How's it changed? well things just just sound different you know um yeah it's funny yeah i hear it now and i think well the bass sounds different the drums sound different the balance between the guitar and keyboard sounds different but in a way that's we're not we're not really changed the song you know but yeah it's funny it's just hard to explain it just takes on a different life

56:52Justin Richmond:live i think does it feel good to hear it the original way yeah i think it sounds pretty good yeah yeah but uh i think we're doing some little different things to it now yeah yeah interesting is that kind of is that worth investigating for you ever that why the way a song changes live uh i don't know it it just sort of evolves i mean one thing i do find is that very often uh things get better as a tour goes on and you you think okay i wish we could record the album now and i actually did that once on an album called fool for a few years ago that's what we actually did um finally um we did a one month tour where we played all the new songs and then uh the idea was wherever we finished up assuming it was somewhere where there was a studio you know the day after the last show we would go in the studio and record the album it turned out to be Boise, Idaho, which I loved because everyone was saying, what the hell are you doing recording an album there?

57:55It's actually not a bad place. And we did the album in a week. Wow. Did some of the vocals later in New York and mixed it in New York. But that was great. But it's logistically so hard to do that. So this album was quite different because we actually, I did some demos for it that turned out really well. and we ended up using a lot of the demo tracks on it, including some of the lead vocals, which I didn't expect. You know, I thought I was going to have to do them all over again. But I was listening to them and thinking, wait a minute, I don't know how to do this any better, so we might as well keep it.

58:31So it saves some time. I don't like to spend a lot of time in the studio anyway. Always or just because you've done it so long? Just generally, no, I don't. So some of the lead vocals on there are from? Yeah, the demo vocals. That's amazing. I mean, but, you know, I couldn't figure out a way to do them any better. That's great, though.

58:50Justin Richmond:A lot of times I hear, you know, people down the line put out a demo of a song. Yeah. And you'll hear it and be like, wow, the demo's actually better than the, you know, but I think it's maybe hard to believe that for some people. Yeah, that's right. You know. But it's very interesting of what happens sometimes if you don't have much time and you've got to just get it done. Yeah. and uh and not be too fussy and you're telling yourself well it's only a demo anyway and i guess that in that process you're kind of relaxed in a way but at the same time you're not you're not wasting any time so you kind of whether you realize it or not you're actually zeroing in on what's important yeah which you can lose sight of if you've been too long in the studio which a lot of people do um so i think it's quite an interesting lesson in there somewhere yeah um that song i'm not sorry it's musically pretty cool um yeah did it but it's cool because it's because there's an aggressiveness to it but then there's you know the sort of like latin harmonic thing going on and usually those two things aren't yeah aren't melded together well that's that's even in your music those things because some there's songs that are of yours that feel acerbic and have like a more of a that kind of a aggressive feel and then there's songs that are of course have had latin grooves but it it's it feels rare that they'll those two things kind of converge okay you know well that's an interesting uh angle um i think uh maybe because it's it's actually quite humorous you know i mean it strikes some people as being angry but it's it's really more humorous.

1:00:36There's a bit of a kind of defiant attitude in it. There's a very defiant attitude on there. And it's a bit of a kind of anti-cancel culture sort of idea. You know, I quite like the idea of just saying, you know what, I'm not sorry. Whatever it is, if you've had some problem with me, I'm not sorry. And there's a line in the song that goes, don't apologize to someone who just wants to make you their bitch you know it's like the last thing you should do is apologize so that that's uh that's the message but it's i i think done in a rather humorous way rather than an angry way there's one song on the album i'm i'm not going to say it's my favorite but i'm particularly proud of in certain ways it's called end of the pier and the idea that i had for the song uh i got to a point where i thought it's over ambitious i don't think I could pull this off and I more or less I mean I might be exaggerating a bit but like shut myself in a room for a week and you know with with a rhyming dictionary and a thesaurus and just worked on it and reworks it and reworks it until I thought wait a minute yeah it works I did pull it off wow um so I uh you know if you want to know you haven't asked but if you want to know my favorite lyricists are there are people like ira gershwin um uh johnny mercer lawrence hart cole porter you know all those guys just just the the the the brilliance of the word play and i just love that you know and the wit um i love uh so i like the idea of being a craftsman when it comes to you know crafting the words yeah of the song even though i'm saying that they're not as important as the music ultimately i don't think they are it's the music that still is what

1:02:38Justin Richmond:moves you i think well it's interesting though but those guys like johnny mercer and that like they are you know there's a lot of clever wordplay but they're but they're fairly earnest songwriters you know yeah but they also can be very witty and um yeah you know very funny which i think is really lacking in a lot of a lot of songwriting yeah can we talk about the duke ellington album that you did yeah yeah what made you what brought can you that was about uh it was 2012 i think yes i think it was you did a duke album yeah um and it's pretty cool yeah i'm really proud of it and it actually is a joe jackson album you know i i mean i i did the arrangements i was the producer i did the keyboard playing and programming i did some of the vocals um the only thing i didn't do was write the original source material yeah you know right yeah so it was now i think i had for a long time because i'm a huge fan of ellington and and he is one of the reasons he's inspiring to me is because of the way that he constantly reworked his own material different versions of his own songs yeah which i've always done it's one of the things that keeps things interesting you know touring after so many years even the classic to take the a train it's like there's yeah there's many versions yeah many versions of everything yeah and uh for a long time i'd had ideas about well you could do this ellington tune with this kind of arrangement or whatever and I can't remember at what point I said you know I want to try and do a whole project of this and uh then I started to make some rules for myself because this one of the things you have to do to create anything is to set limits you can't be limitless you know it doesn't work um so one of my rules was no horns because I mean I want to pay tribute to Ellington not compete yeah with 18 right so there's no horns and uh none of the songs have a traditional swing rhythm right you know so they're all different grooves and different kinds of sounds was that a struggle explaining to the rhythm session that you're gonna play some new tunes and not swing no which is crazy to say yeah yeah but um but that was the whole idea and and sometimes if you give yourself the guidelines that's actually inspiring it's not limiting you know it opens up possibilities and it you know seems contradictory but it doesn't close down possibilities yeah and um so i found myself thinking well what are the directions could we take this i mean caravan for instance um is sung by susan dehim who's a singer from iran and um she did the translation of the lyrics into farsi so uh you know i thought that was such a cool idea i mean no one had done that but it seemed to me in a way an obvious thing to do and again perdido um had this idea of it having a kind of brazilian groove and there was a band from holland who i really like called zuko 103 with a brazilian singer lilian vera who also did the translation into portuguese of the lyrics you know so so it was like let's just try just doing all kinds of different things with ellington that haven't been done before yeah and different kinds of grooves using electric guitar and electric violin and and just you're getting away from the horns and uh i think it turned out great i'm very very proud of the album actually yeah i'm sure a lot of people didn't quite know what to make of it but there you go i think that's fine it kind of reminded there was a like mingus at some point put out an album where he was he did like a lot of his sort of more well-known tunes but there was like you know with with a band that was oh not really fit not not fit but not what you would think you know it was like there was like uh i think i think it was in the mid-70s and there was like a bit of a shredder of a guitar player doing like pork pie you know give my pork pie hat and things and it's like I don't know that.

1:06:46Justin Richmond:Yeah, it kind of defamed the songs. I'm sure critically defamed the songs, but it's kind of interesting. It lets you hear jazz in this kind of interesting modern context. And putting Caravan back into a Middle Eastern sort of context is interesting too, because that's obviously the inspiration for the melody and things. Has it driven you crazy? I mean, I feel like for a lot of years, just a lot of decades you've you've been ducking into jazz yeah and making like really great records based around jazz tunes or jazz arrangements and like it doesn't stick in the sense of when people think joe jackson they don't necessarily think jazz they think no i'm not a jazz musician i'm a jazz fan and i can fake it a bit i can play decent jazz piano but i'm not going to go up against the people who devote their whole lives to playing jazz piano you know what I mean so yeah I'm a jazz fan and I like bringing in different influences and seeing what you can fit with which pieces of the jigsaw you can fit to which other pieces I think that's kind of what I do I can't really stay in a very specific genre and it's not a decision you know it's just the way it comes out so the way it comes out comes from who you are and you know so i'm just someone who's had very very broad uh musical experience and and interest and so what interests me is is finding ways to put these different things together in a way that works yeah that's uh yeah i mean that probably sums it up as good as anything it's it feels like a uh it feels like a good summation of most of your work you know yeah i mean it's it's almost it's kind of like being a collagist rather than a portrait painter or a landscape pounds painter or something like that maybe yeah so you're 12 dates and do an 80 date tour roughly 12 dates and an 80 date tour i think if yeah if you put the north american tour european tour together it's about 80 shows yeah i think we're about 12 shows in at this point yes that feels daunting uh if i thought about it it probably would i try not to think about it i mean it sounds cheesy but on the road it's just you have to just concentrate on today yeah but you just think about today i don't think about the gigs we already did or what we're doing tomorrow it's just really concentrate on today and uh and it's going great and it's we're at the that kind of magic point of the tour where we got over some of the initial nerves and and glitches and so on and we're really enjoying it and it's just getting better that's amazing yeah do you what makes a good show for you like do you feel like is it uh how do you what makes a good show for you versus a bad show well i think it goes without saying that it would be a show where i feel like i performed well and the band performed well and we didn't screw everything up but beyond that it's just something you can't define it's magic It really is magic.

1:09:58It's something that happens between the band and the audience and everyone. And some nights, it's just magic. I can't explain it any better than that. And that's why it's great. Do you have to think about the audience in terms of set list? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I try to be as objective as I possibly can. how will this come across to someone sitting in the 20th row I'm always thinking like that

1:10:32Justin Richmond:that's amazing I'm excited to come out tomorrow to see you guys great yeah it should be good that's a good venue I've played a couple of times before so it should be good quite a different attitude on I'm not sorry than on Battleground. Oh, God, yeah. That's one of those songs I'd rather forget. Okay, was it earnest at the time? Or was it honest at the time, I should say? No, I guess it was. But that was, well, you dragged it out of me. That was one of the albums that I don't think is one of my best, was Beat Crazy. Because the first two albums are basically the same album, you know, really. the beat crazy was kind of like trying to mix it up and do something a bit different but without really quite knowing where it was going so it's a bit of a confused album I think it's got some interesting ideas on it some good bits but I don't think it worked very well and I think that was probably another reason why when Dave the drummer wanted to leave that I decided to kind of just break out the band and rethink rather than just kind of carry on you realized it wasn't gonna that was broken it wasn't gonna get better in that form yeah at least at that point i mean yeah we we got back together again 20 years later or whatever it was to do the volume four album which was actually the best album we've made as a band i think it's a good album you know it's a good yeah i mean it's just it could you can't compete with nostalgia that's the thing i mean a lot of people said well it's good but it's not as good as look sharp though well they don't want it to be as good in a way well it's hard, like you say it's hard it's just too many memories built up you can't compete with that but I mean as an album of songs and the band was playing much better I think it's a good album alright well hold on, we'll play I guess Do Do Do Are They Fabulous People?

1:12:40Justin Richmond:no let's do this let's go for this one

1:12:59We'll be right back.

1:13:12I'm not everyone When I look in the mirror It's getting ever clearer The best thing is to laugh This is the place I'm stuck with I wish you lots of luck with Your iPhone photograph

1:13:32Okay, I think again, written cheekily. Yeah, I mean, that's a really silly song. Yeah. it actually came to me in a dream doesn't that sound like the pretentious artiste I woke up one morning and I had stuck in my head and I thought what the hell is that that's really dopey it stuck with me and I thought maybe it's a really silly song and what the hell is it and then I thought Do Re Mi oh I wonder if I could do a Do Re Mi song that's different to but use different rhymes and, you know, meanings to Do, a deer, a female deer, right? So it's a Do, Re, Mi song. And it was just have fun with the words, with the wordplay, and just do something really, really silly.

1:14:21And it's funny, a friend of mine listened to it, and he said, this sounds like it could be a kid's song written for kids. That never occurred to me. I don't have kids. And I thought, that's an interesting thought. And I thought about it, and I could not have written this song when I was, you know, back when I was in my 20s, because I was too serious. Like so many young people, you know, you take yourself way too seriously when you're in your 20s. So I had to, you know, all this time had to go by for me to be able to write a kid's song, which is kind of interesting.

1:14:51Justin Richmond:It's great. And some of the best kid's songs aren't necessarily written. Yeah. You know, for kids. It's not like, you know, I don't think there's like a great kid's songwriter, you know, per se. Yeah, actually, I'd never really thought about it. but so it's like randy newman might be one of the more successful ones of modern times but it's like it's not like he's specifically ever thought of himself as i'm gonna write songs for kids you know he just um yeah it's funny i mean i thought it had a place on the album that there was a place on the office something just really completely silly and yeah you know just humorous and it doesn't it doesn't mean anything really it's just wordplay the having fun with words and uh yeah Yeah.

1:15:32Justin Richmond:Although I sense that there must, there's probably something like, you know, like there's some dissatisfaction with. Yeah, there's a sort of self-deprecating thing about it. I was trying to think of all the different meanings of these sounds, do, re, mi, far, you know. Yeah. It's just fun to write. It's fun to play with. Like me, me, me, when I look in the mirror, you know, oh my God. so it's like uh making fun of myself in a lot of ways and just uh just having a bit of fun so it balances some of the more serious moments on the album although i do think it's generally a pretty upbeat album yeah do you do you feel like uh do you ever do you ever that's maybe a bad way of phrasing it but do you ever wish your band had been more of a band in terms of not having your name on it um no i wish to be really really glad that it wasn't that okay yeah because uh i don't get stuck with that um uh you know well i like so and so but i liked x the band you know better right they can't they can't throw that at me because it's always just been i always felt like no i'm just going to take responsibility for myself it's not going to be a band name and then then I have to, what, change it or try to live it down or whatever.

1:16:50So I think that was the right decision in the first place.

1:16:53Justin Richmond:Yeah, yeah. I'm happy to hear it, man. And thanks for all the music over the years. Thanks. Even the ones you don't like. Yeah. Be Crazy is a good album. It's all right. It's a good album. It's all right, yeah. It's a good album. It's got some good ideas on it, I think. It does. I mean, I quite like the title track. Yeah. That's kind of fun. Yeah. we thought about reviving it for this tour but somehow I haven't done it we may do, who knows if you can add that or Oh Well Oh Well is another one, yeah I've made my mark well great, nice to meet you man thank you yeah, cheers in the episode description you'll find a link to a playlist of some of our favorite songs from Joe Jackson be sure to check out youtube.com slash broken record podcast to see all of our interviews And be sure to follow us on Instagram at The Broken Record Pod.

1:17:45Justin Richmond:Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Pollan. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad-free listening for$4.99 a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcast subscriptions. And if you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app. Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richmond.

1:18:17The future won't wait, and neither should you. That's why American Public University offers master's programs designed for momentum, affordable, high quality, and flexible, so you keep moving forward. With career-relevant programs in business, healthcare, education, IT, and more, you can gain skills you can use right away and the confidence to power your next move. American Public University, made for what's next. Learn more at apu.apus.edu. And now, another appliance triumph from our friends at Grand Appliance. I want to eat healthier, but get frustrated when produce spoils before I can eat it.

1:19:01So I went to Grand Appliance looking for a fridge that would help. They recommended a Frigidaire Gallery French door with crispers that block dry air and excess moisture to extend the life of fresh food. And wow, it really works. No more wasted food in my house. Expert appliance recommendations for the win. Shop GrandAppliance.com. Hey, it's Jacob Goldstein from Business History. In our new series, American Genius, we tell the stories of three great writers who changed the way business works in America. Our first episode is about Benjamin Franklin, who, among many other things, was a best-selling business writer.

1:19:38Take a listen. He's writing this much later in his life, consciously creating this image of himself. And I do want to emphasize how unusual this model is at the time, this self-made man myth, because you don't want to be self-made. It's low class to be self-made. You know, this idea that we have today is the opposite. Right. And it comes from Franklin. Today, there is the derisive term nepo-baiting. Well, exactly right. And these days, if you are a billionaire, you had better have a Benjamin Franklin story about starting in a garage, coming up with the idea from nothing. And here is Benjamin Franklin inventing it right before our eyes.

1:20:21This has been brought to you by Odoo. To listen to more of our American Genius series, listen to business history. New episodes release every Wednesday on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.