834. - Jarvis Cocker

22 Aug 2025 · 1 h 13 min · 30 chapters

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In short

How Long Gone episode featuring Jarvis Cocker (Pulp) plus hosts’ travel/luxury-hotel talk, food/voice habits, and pop-culture tangents.

Guest background

Jarvis Cocker, Sheffield singer/frontman of Pulp. Discusses touring in America, Pulp’s long-awaited return/unthinkable reunion-era album, and his memoir-writing process. He also describes cooking basics (white bread crust toasted with butter and Marmite; dishes like beef burgundy, coco van, vegetarian moussaka, and a baked-beans “chili con carne” style).

Key claims

Dairy/phlegm affects singing clarity, so he avoids milk/cheese for voice health. Yorkshire pudding requires maximum oven heat and patience—opening the oven makes it fall. He writes songs as a substitute for keeping a diary, using objects from a loft to trigger memories for his memoir. He says he can’t fully retire because songwriting is how he processes life.

Notable examples

Emergency hotel-room “summit” to help his voice during a Mexico City show; using “Throat Coat,” licorice “vocal sounds,” and “Entertainer’s Secret” spray (with a tiny alcohol claim). Farmer’s Market (LA) song inspiration: imagining an encounter that changes someone’s life; he met his wife at a wedding where he was best man with a PowerPoint speech.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

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Hotel Experience at Nine Orchie

1:29 to 2:26

Discussion about the unique experience at the Nine Orchie hotel.

“Put on one of those football shows I like.”

Cultural Commentary on Buffalo Bills

2:27 to 6:26

Lighthearted banter about the Buffalo Bills and their culture.

Key Card Preferences and Hotel Luxuries

6:27 to 10:39

Debate over hotel key card options and their implications.

“Would you judge a burrito shack for offering both black and pinto bean options?”

Introduction to Jarvis Cocker

10:40 to 11:32

Introducing the guest, Jarvis Cocker, and discussing his legacy.

“Well, we do have a guest today, and this has been a long time coming.”

Introduction to Jarvis Cocker

13:42 to 14:54

Introducing the guest, Jarvis Cocker, and discussing his legacy.

“And the best part is I can search for them based on cost, skillset, availability, client reviews.”

Biscuit Talk and Gluten-Free Journeys

15:30 to 17:30

Discussion about biscuits, gluten-free diets, and personal tastes.

“Do biscuits really give you that much of a boost?”

Cooking Skills and Yorkshire Puddings

17:30 to 19:29

Jarvis shares his cooking skills and the secret to making Yorkshire puddings.

“The trick to making a Yorkshire pudding is really patience.”

The Impact of Dairy on Vocal Health

19:30 to 20:56

Exploration of how dairy affects vocal cords and personal voice care.

“I mean, they, they, they often say the, the, the most important ingredient in a sandwich is air.”

Emergency Vocal Solutions

20:56 to 23:07

Jarvis recounts a time he had to manage his voice during a performance.

“I wondered what was wrong with my voice, but that explains a lot now.”

Unique Vocal Care Products

23:07 to 24:55

Discussion of vocal care products and their quirky names.

“I've been told by a few people though that that's a secret hack for sober singers because it does have just a tiny bit of alcohol in it.”
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Reimagining Biscuits for America

24:55 to 26:31

Exploring the differences in biscuit culture between the UK and the US.

Song Inspiration from Farmers Markets

26:31 to 28:00

Jarvis discusses the inspiration behind a song about a farmers market encounter.

“And I went there with my now wife, that was my girlfriend at the time, and my son, but my son from my first marriage.”

Memorable Encounters and Relationships

28:00 to 29:10

The discussion revolves around memorable encounters and relationships, including a wedding story.

“So there was a shop that sold that kind of stuff.”

Best Man Speech Stories

29:10 to 30:30

The hosts share insights and anecdotes related to best man speeches and their impact.

Performing at Weddings

30:30 to 33:10

The conversation shifts to experiences of performing at weddings and the challenges of being a musician.

“Their daughter got married, and in the best man speech, he basically incriminated the groom into some kind of stealing something and hiding in the loft of the house to avoid the police.”

The Evolution of Music Style

33:10 to 35:00

The hosts discuss the evolution of musical styles and the challenges of adapting to changes in music.

“I admire those people and I wish that I could sing like them, I'm kind of stuck with my voice, which is expressive, shall we say.”

Memory Triggers and Writing

35:00 to 37:30

Exploration of how objects can trigger memories and influence the writing process.

“And it's the way that I try and work out what I'm doing in my life.”

Preparing for a Second Memoir

37:30 to 39:13

The conversation turns to the preparation for a second memoir and the urgency of revisiting past experiences.

“Because I do think that if you haven't kept a diary, you've got to have something to trigger that stuff.”

Reflections on Writing and Life Changes

42:19 to 45:04

Jarvis Cocker discusses writing, moving houses, and living in Paris.

“I've been to Paris countless times in my life, and I don't really get it.”

Country Living and Pet Antics

45:04 to 48:22

Exploring the joys of country life and raising a dog.

“Just one small part of the planet Earth.”

Literary Discoveries and Late Readings

48:22 to 50:58

Cocker shares insights on reading classics and personal growth.

“Because you're just such a fan of the program?”

Touring and Fashion Influences

50:58 to 56:00

Discussing touring experiences and unique fashion choices.

“Now, do you have your own bus in these situations?”

The Rave Experience

56:00 to 58:34

Learn about the unique atmosphere and excitement of raves in the late 80s and early 90s.

Rave Culture vs. Club Scene

58:34 to 1:00:46

Explore the contrast between the underground rave scene and mainstream clubs.

“to war i don't know if this was the last one i went to but there was you know the police didn't Like raves, they were illegal.”

Live Music and Collective Experiences

1:00:46 to 1:04:30

Understand the importance of live music and shared experiences in today's society.

“I went on Saturday because we had played in Sheffield on Friday night and a friend of mine said, oh, I can get you into Oasis tomorrow.”

Songwriting Through Performance

1:04:30 to 1:10:02

Discover how performing live influences the songwriting process for musicians.

“A rehearsal is a completely different thing.”

Influence of Sheffield and Class Struggles

1:10:02 to 1:14:30

Explore the significance of class dynamics in the UK through the lens of Jarvis Cocker's experiences.

“Play songs live, learn about them, and also write lyrics before you go in the studio.”

Gratitude and Musical Legacy

1:14:30 to 1:14:46

A heartfelt conversation about the impact of Pulp's music on personal experiences and community.

Spontaneity in Performance

1:14:46 to 1:15:14

Jarvis Cocker discusses the importance of being spontaneous during live performances.

“all right thanks a lot all right later hi i don't usually make any notes before we play because i think you should always be spontaneous on stage you know what i mean You know what I mean?”

Positive Mindset and Achieving Dreams

1:15:14 to 1:16:16

A motivational message about believing in oneself and pursuing dreams.

“But because I was sat in the tent today and I was thinking about things, I did actually write a few things down.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

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0:47how long gone coming back at you it's a overcast thursday here in money making manhattan them jeans coming to us from his room at the beautiful nine orchard located in uh dime square yeah as

1:01Jason Stewart:as friend of the show rostam called it quote unquote nine orchie wow i haven't heard nine orchie and i think that's going to take off once this and also it was the numeral nine not n-i-n-e just very clear that's very nice that's so nine orchie is like I mean yeah like how do you make it gayer oh that's how got it um yeah the swan room isn't enough I had a lovely complimentary breakfast in the swan room I gotta say I'm happy as a pig and shit at nine orchie you know it feels as if you've just dropped a perfect little storybook home and to right on the corner of a stinky little fish market as soon as you walk out guy trying to sell me game boy on the sidewalk as you walk outside the fantasy ends but that's the point of a hotel it's meant to create a safe space for fantasy yeah and then and then i guess if you live here then it's the opposite the inside of your house is hell and then the outside world is the fantasy oh no it's all hell it's all hell unless you're okay got it unless unless you're you know unless you're you have serious i'm mr bright side over here trying to look for the bright side but damn you shut me down mr bright so i was watching there's a there's a new uh season of one of those football shows I like on HBO and the Buffalo Bills are the featured team.

2:19Jason Stewart:God, you sound like your dad right now. Put on one of those football shows I like. I didn't know Buffalo Bills' official song was Mr. Brightside. I'm sure a lot of our listeners. Really? Yeah, that's what they walk out to. Wow. Yeah, I know. I would say that has to be the widest swing in terms of the spectrum of gayest song to least gay city and team i feel like the buffalo bills fans i know not to stereotype an entire team but it does they're not super down with gay stuff for up there right and in northern i don't know anything about buffalo i imagine unless unless it's like the hudson cougars or something is different but that's dildo throwing i imagine that they're probably i don't think people consider the killers to be what you're saying that they are but it's not acdc i'm not saying that the killers themselves are making fucking donna summer songs i'm saying that song particularly is is leaning on the scale of of light in the cleats compared to you know the buffalo bills it's a red white and blue team you know it's they're they're not they're not winning games because of their brains it's because of their heart and they're you know this is the old stereotype that i'm basing they have they have the quarterback they have the quarterback is the guy who married hayley steinfeld and he's about as interesting as a fucking wet piece of paper it's crazy it's crazy how much camera time this guy gets and then he's like he's super into science so he'll rattle off these facts that like his fucking wide receiver who's got like got like playboy cardi on his beats is like yeah bro hit hit me when i do the yeah he's got his uh his iphone on that or his his apple watch that's not turned on because it's accessories and then the quarterbacks like did you know the human head weighs eight pounds it's it's literally like that it's literally like that but i guess he's good so you know whatever it takes you know if a quarterback or a footballer of any kind american or british if they happen to be able to speak even at a mid-level it's it's icing on the cake but we don't expect much from them don't get me started on lewis hamilton um but yeah we uh we're getting ready he's different bro he's artistic night one night one of two with new balance tonight over at the one hotel in brooklyn a place i've never visited it before i'm sure you haven't either put your ones up put your ones up i have not i have not been there but i'm sure it's a great place i've heard it's really nice i mean those hotels are usually not that's the first place i saw the key card that was um balsa wood where they hide the technology inside of it if you remember yeah i remember correctly that scandal that scandal so I remember that's going to, how can we forget?

4:59Jason Stewart:I actually, I had one recently, like in the last month, and I remember ripping the chip out of it and just putting it in my wallet. Oh, wow. Because the wooden ones are bulky, you know what I mean? They are bulky. I mean, the hotel key card, unfortunately, is best in a thin plastic, almost like a lesser credit card. All of these iterations, or the old school, like here's your key to your suite that's on a giant key chain, so you have to give it to us when you leave. all of that is too much. I know the classic key card isn't sexy, but it's the best delivery system, I think. Okay, well, I'm glad you brought this up.

5:36Jason Stewart:Fun topic, very How Long Gone specific, but here at the Nine Orchie, they give you both. They give you the tasseled, thick, heavy key with the little leather dongle scanner on it or a standard slim key card that slides easily into the Bottega holder. That seems stupid to me, but I mean. Why do we have options? I don't want options. I want one key that opens my room. I don't need options. I know, but you're saying there's two options. I like this one. I don't like this one. Obviously, some people like one. Some people like the other. This is the first hotel I've been at where they say, why not have both, bitch?

6:15Jason Stewart:Figure it out with your shorty. It's really stupid. But to me, that's the epitome of luxury. And that's why this four-star hotel should be a 4.7. That is not. I mean, I get why they do that, of course, but I just think it's, I mean, if you're the kind of, I guess it does then allow you to judge a person based on which one they choose, which I guess I do like that. Would you judge a burrito shack for offering both black and pinto bean options? That's not comparable at all. I see no difference. I see no difference. It's a good try. It's a good try. But I think that the, well, which one are you using then?

6:50Jason Stewart:I'm using the slim guy, but I like to know that big boy is there. That chunk of balsa wood is there in case. And it kind of resembles, you know, when I think it looks like a hockey puck, actually, but it's made out of some type of tile epoxy. It's a terrazzo hockey puck. Wow. What a fucking slide. Of course. Of course. Boy, you look like a terrazzo hockey puck. But yeah, I'm going to be editing this podcast right after this and these banging Devin Ohas speakers. let my nuts hang blasting myself with the voice of you yeah that's great hit those frequencies again those$10 ,000 speakers that's what they're best used for is hearing human voices not music a 37 kilobyte mp3 that sounds worse than the Soulja Boy ringtone damn okay so before we get to our guest it looks like Lil Nas X was roaming in LA Street at 4am, Zac Efron style, and was later hospitalized for a possible OD.

7:51What? I didn't know this. I just saw this five minutes ago from Academics, my source, of course.

7:57Jason Stewart:Okay, so prayers up for X. Academics, listen to his caption. Pray for Lil Nas X. Bray was just trying to find the Old Town Road rainbow emoji. Hollywood is hell of a dot dot dot dot. What the fuck? You had to do it. That's why Academics is corny he's like oh this this guy almost died time to reference his hit song old town road and say he was looking for some dick you cannot look was he was he looking for uh skid row trade maybe i don't know if he plays in those waters but you know i i don't want to joke uh and and make no make make light of this subject you know like whenever when it happened to efron i think he just went went down there and like he just got hit with a two-piece and got back in the escalate and went home yeah it's like like damn that was a bad idea i shouldn't have done that that was not a good idea my trt can't save me down here on skid row made a couple of phone calls and it was all good but i mean to go down there and we're we're going downtown at 4 a.m there's no other reason than to get drugs right i mean going downtown unless he has a sinister sexual desires which i don't believe no he might have been going to i mean i bet this i bet the soho warehouse gym opens at 4 30 so maybe he was just trying to kind of get in there before the rush and Maru knows his order down there so he can just kind of grab his matcha and head on over to the gym.

9:22Jason Stewart:It wasn't a late night. It was an early morning is what you were saying. He was going to do Griffith after. He's like, what do you mean you guys aren't open yet? He started to it. I had to go to the gym at a weird time yesterday at like 3 p.m. And I ran into this professional runner I know named Tom Black. Great name. and I was kind of like, oh, bro, you're here at the fucked up hours, and he was kind of like, yeah, yeah, I usually do my miles in the morning and then come here in the afternoon to do my weightlifting, and I was like, oh, yeah, okay, got it, yeah, yeah, sure, so this is your second workout and my first.

9:59I just want to be very clear about that.

10:00Jason Stewart:Doing my miles in the morning is a really good way to sun your little ass, isn't it? He really put me in my place, and it felt good, honestly. At least he's a professional. I'll hear it from him. I won't hear it from an amateur. And when you have the cojones to say something like that, he could have just run two miles and it would count. Exactly. I don't know. But the way he said it, one could only assume it was at least double digits. Exactly. I'm not going to question what he did because he's in much better shape than I am. So I'm just going to assume it was double digits. I'm just going to give him the benefit of the doubt.

10:37You're right. Letting your nuts hang at Equinox. Story of my life. Well, we do have a guest today, and this has been a long time coming. Jarvis Cocker is a, obviously, legend. Sheffield's own, the singer and frontman of Pulp, a band that Jason and I have listened to since we were in high school. And they did The Unthinkable, which is reunite and put out a good album after 20 years, which is unheard of. but they're also, they're coming to, they're touring in America, I think starting in September. And they're hitting, they're hitting several cities actually. So yeah.

11:17Jason Stewart:And I've heard that they're still, they're still out there. They still put on a great show. They're still playing all the parts live the way it should be done. God bless. But yeah, let's give him a jingle. Excited to talk to a national royalty. This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Squarespace. Jason, if I'm not mistaken, we're both on the computer right now. One reason we're able to dominate in the web space is because we've used a platform like Squarespace for years to make sure our shit is right and tight. Yeah, Chris, a bad website will kill your brand and a great website that's fun to use, unique and intuitive.

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14:20Jason Stewart:But Chris, I know how to do stuff. I'm handy. But then, you know, as you get older, time is money, money is time, certain projects, you know, The gate needs a new coat of black paint. It's been hot or whatever. I could do it, but it's starting to look pretty nice to go on TaskRabbit, pay a professional to come over and do it. The cleanup's going to be done. The disposal of the shit's going to be done. It's exactly what you want. And quite frankly, it's worth the money. Never hang another TV as long as you live. Just call TaskRabbit. When life happens, your to-do list grows. Get ahead of it now and get$15 off your first task at TaskRabbit.com on the TaskRabbit app using promo code HOWLONG.

14:57Taskers book out fast, especially for same-day tasks, so book trusted home help today. That's$15 off your first task using promo code HOWLONG with the TaskRabbit app or at TaskRabbit.com. All right, Jarvis, what's going on? Thank you for joining us on How Long Gone Today. I apologize if I'm a bit slow because I've been doing a few interviews today. So yeah, my brain may be slightly slow. Not as much petrol in the tank, perhaps. Well, I didn't start a biscuit. Okay. So hopefully that's going to start having an effect on me soon. Just a regular biscuit. Do biscuits really give you that much of a boost?

15:35They can do. These ones are kind of like a sourdough digestive biscuit. They're quite crunchy. They're quite a thing. Okay, I know what you mean.

15:46Jason Stewart:Have you gone on the journey that many people I know have gone on, which is you sort of give up regular bread, You dip your toe into gluten-free for a little bit. Maybe the missus gets you into it. And then you have an awakening with our friend Sourdough, where we should kind of land on. What do you think? Yeah, well, it's kind of like a halfway house, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. It is. The methadone clinic. Yeah. Yeah, there's commonalities here. Yeah. No, I suppose I do have white bread, sliced white bread sometimes. and weirdly enough that feels like a treat you know like you're indulging yourself up doing something i guess because it reminds you of being a kid uh yeah yeah and it was not a treat necessarily when we were kids but as an adult i really do look at it as a a guilty pleasure with a good bit of butter on there yeah yeah yeah if you're having white bread javis what are you topping that with some marmalade are we talking sandwich building no i i would generally take the crust I like the crust of a white loaf.

16:55And then I would toast that. And then I would have butter on it. And then not marmalade, but marmite. Oh, wow. Wow. Do people have that in America? I don't know. Like a yeast extract. Yeah, we do. It's controversial. It's a polarizing flavor. Okay. All right. So that kind of... And then I like the fact that you've got the softness on one side and then the crust makes it a bit harder. there and that's a real indulgence i enjoy that wow that's okay that's a very specific way of preparing i didn't know you were how serious are you in the kitchen oh yeah i'm not gourmand i'm not great i'm not i i can cook about five dishes i think okay i think that's what they say like every man should be able to do you know just have specialties i think yeah yeah i can do coco van i can do beef burgundy and they're both from my time of living in in france i can do i used to make a very unhealthy uh macaroni cheese but i've kind of gone off that as i've got older um i can do one vegetarian dish which was like a vegetarian moussaka that was from a linda mccartney's book and then i could make kind of weird i used to cook this for my son when he was younger i like a kind of almost like chili con carne but using baked beans rather than kidney beans so uh kind of dangerous kind of dangerous but i come i've got a comfort food um well comfortable when you have eaten it not comfortable for other people yeah sure so it's like a

18:39Jason Stewart:british chili i guess british chili in so many ways yeah yeah a lazy chili i suppose yeah so no uh no yorkshire pudding though for you i can do yeah i i'm glad you brought that up because i'm from yorkshire and yeah i i am able to make a reasonable yorkshire pudding now i mean not like um sometimes you get them in restaurants they're gigantic i don't know how they do that but But yeah, I get them to rise. The trick to making a Yorkshire pudding is really patience. You just have to get the oven up to its maximum heat, put them in, and then just have confidence they will rise. If you open to look, then they will just fall flat as a pancake straightaway.

19:26So you just got to believe that it's going to work. That's a real metaphor for life. True.

19:31Jason Stewart:Yeah. I mean, they, they, they often say the, the, the most important ingredient in a sandwich is air. Yeah. You could say the same thing for, for a pud. Yeah, that's right. I often do. And you often do. So you, so I know that you, you, uh, you came out with the memoir a few years ago and was that the first run of like podcast press that you had done? Yeah, it was actually. Yeah. I mean, I did, do you know, there's a guy called Adam Buxton. and he does podcasts. He's quite popular. I'd heard of him because he used to have a radio show. But then I ended up on one that was actually quite similar to this because we talked about food all the time.

20:13We had to talk about favorite restaurants and favorite foods, and for some reason at that time, everything that I mentioned involved cheese. All the foods I came up with involved cheese, which that's that's the thing of the past now because um i don't have any dairy products now because uh it's not good for your voice if you sing it oh yes yes i did i didn't i okay so you so it's it's a voice related it's not that you heard yourself on this podcast talking about cheese passionately for an hour and realized maybe you should pump the brakes maybe a combination of those two things yeah okay sure what do we what do we think cheese does to the vocal cords because i have heard this before but what is the what is the issue that it causes dairy dairy creates a lot of phlegm in the body i'll let jarvis explain that okay exactly yeah so so so milk and cheese just yeah they make you a bit phlegmy and you just can't you make your voice not as clear yeah and

21:16Jason Stewart:when we were when we were all younger men we could chug all the milk and and cheese that we'd like and still sing like a bird, but now when you're older, you don't process that dairy so well. No, that's it. All of us, not just you. Yeah. I wondered what was wrong with my voice, but that explains a lot now. I have to go back to the drawing board on this next time. So if your voice isn't feeling well and there's thousands of people out there, how good does the steroid shot feel before you hit the stage if you need it? I've never had a steroid shot. I have to get the other people in the band who can sing to help me.

21:51We had... Okay, so you go old school. You just have people use the microphones on stage more. Yeah. Well, it happened. We were playing last year. We played in Mexico. And I don't know whether I'd had a picture for virus or whatever, but my voice went really bad and I couldn't hit notes and stuff like that. So we had like an emergency summit where we met in my hotel room. and we played back like the live versions of songs and I sang along and just said, look, I can't hit that note, I can't hit that note and they just very kindly helped me and I guess it was perceptible. I'm not saying it was like completely professional and you couldn't tell and you thought I could sing fine but luckily anyway, I don't know if it's, you know, Mexico City is very high.

22:48I don't know if it's something to do with the altitude or something like that, but it really, my voice went quite weird, and I'm glad to say that it's come back to normal now. What other care do you do? Do you just drink a lot of tea? Do you have any weird concoctions that you've discovered over the years that keep you, you know, humming? Yeah, there are these licorice-flavored sweets called vocal sounds. um okay and they sounds like a pedal yeah yeah it does sound like a pedal anyway you you you're allowed to suck as many of those as you want during a day and that kind of uh is good for your voice and then there's also a tea that's called throat coat throat coat i'm familiar i'm familiar with and yeah and that great name yeah and then there's also stuff you can spray into your throw and now what that's got a good name it's got well it's got very entertainer's secret entertainer's secret but the secret is out now because we've told everybody about it but that's i know we're giving it away we're giving it away for free that's got very good packaging because it's like it's like a jacket and a bow tie on the gym it's a little yeah it's a little suit yeah it's

24:00Jason Stewart:a little it's a nice little like something frank sinatra should spritz on before he goes out in Atlantic City perhaps. Exactly. I've been told by a few people though that that's a secret hack for sober singers because it does have just a tiny bit of alcohol in it. Oh right. To help. The sour dough. Yeah. Exactly. Just a taste. Just a little taste. Well it sounds like we have three great products with three great names and it was great hearing you of all people sort of make a meal out of the pronunciation of them. I feel like there's room in the market for one more a fourth vocal i don't know a suppository or some type of a ivy drip it could be an under the tongue situation maybe okay we'll workshop it but this could be a good you know kind of revenue stream as the you know as the ship begins to sail off into retirement you know okay yeah i think it's i think you should be looking at business opportunities because you can't perform forever and i know you know that that's the name of the product you can't perform forever new but with us you can yeah if you need any if you need any business help just know that we're here for you okay well maybe it's a special biscuit you know we started off talking about biscuits but maybe there's some kind of biscuit as it goes down you throw it somehow stimulates your vocal cords okay do you okay do you think is there a biscuit flavor out there that you've been dreaming of that you're just not seeing produced you're not seeing it at tesco alcohol no no um i don't actually have i i like blander kind of flavors i suppose i i like do you are you familiar with water biscuits yes oh yeah yeah yeah so i i used to like those a lot they they kind of taste of nothing roasted cardboard yeah but they're very crunchy the texture of the soup can be quite dangerous actually if you bite into it you can cut yourself if you're not careful so yeah something like that a kind of water biscuit maybe would be I'm interested in pursuing this for sure because I don't think those get enough shine over here in New York City I think people are overlooking this they need more of a presence stateside yeah because biscuits to us especially I'm from the south a biscuit is a fluffy kind of slathered and butter fat boy breakfast all right so so and and they are delicious and beloved but I think there could be some reframing that would help us all and our waistlines okay great let's do it okay um on the same theme of food Jarvis on the on the new record which which we do enjoy there's a song on there called farmer's market which yeah i i believe seems to be about picking up chicks at the farmer's market which is about as cool of a topic as you can get could you kind of elaborate on that a little bit more if that's what it's actually about this is hitting close to home for jason specifically so i think he's feeling seen yeah all right okay well that's it's the specific farmer's market It's one in LA.

27:11I think it's on Fairfax. Oh. And I went there with my now wife, that was my girlfriend at the time, and my son, but my son from my first marriage. And we ate some Mexican food. My son bought some very hot chili sauce to take home and frighten his school friends with. And I bought some postcards of those cars. I think they're designed by, is he called Barris or something? You know those kind of like funny, kind of like Hot Wheels cars, but they were real cars, you know, like kind of made in the kind of 60s and 70s, very kind of like drag racer cars, but with big pink bubbles for you to sit inside to drive it and stuff like that.

27:59I've always been. So there was a shop that sold that kind of stuff. I think that has now closed down and is online. But I don't know. I really like that place. I didn't start a relationship there, but I wrote some words that mentioned that. I imagined an encounter between a guy kind of having been to the market and then he sees a woman and he likes her, but then he's just putting his groceries in the back of the car and then he thinks, hold on, why don't I go and talk to her? And he does. and that puts his life in a completely different, on a different track. So a similar thing happened to me with meeting my wife, but I didn't meet her in a farmer's market.

28:48I met her at a wedding, actually. I was the best man at a wedding and I met her there.

28:54Jason Stewart:That's a pretty classic tale, actually. And also of all the people to be a best man at the wedding, I feel like you really fulfilled those duties. Well, yeah. In a fantastic way. whose wedding was it jarvis it was it was uh steve mackie who was a told space player but unfortunately is no longer with us but um but it's the only time that i've been a best man and uh i i was thinking that because i was i guess i was 40 41 42 so i thought i'm you know everybody's married who's gonna get married and most of them are getting divorced now so that's it i'm never gonna be a best man and then out of nowhere i got asked to do it so i was very i was very uh happy to be asked did you write the speech or did you freestyle yeah i wrote it i did a kind of powerpoint oh wow so we did a presentation there were visual elements yeah yeah i i i i had i managed to get some photographs and i i i kind of told his life story in a in a slight gently disparaging way of course uh with a sweet spot showing slides and and talking about stuff and um yeah there was there was laughter and tears a visual element i've never seen a visual element implemented for a best man speech but i'm i'm inspired uh yeah well it's i i i mean really a powerpoint is just a glorified slideshow and um i it's true it is yeah it was a good way of showing some slightly embarrassing pictures of him, but not making him too embarrassed.

30:29I mean, I've seen the worst best man speech I ever witnessed was a relative of mine. Their daughter got married, and in the best man speech, he basically incriminated the groom into some kind of stealing something and hiding in the loft of the house to avoid the police. and you know all the all the kind of uh older people they're kind of uh you know the atmosphere turned very cold at that point people wonder whether they should call the police and get arrested do you think that the your your relative was under the influence of alcohol or is this just a natural occurrence no i mean no i mean the the best man definitely was under the influence of alcohol and that was why he kind of made this terrible speech uh yeah i don't know that the marriage didn't last that long it was kind of kind of doomed from that particular moment it's a bad omen have you have you performed at weddings yeah once a really long time ago um i didn't really know the people who were getting married but i me and a friend were on holiday and in France and we went to, we got a kind of invitation to a wedding and the kind of thing at the wedding was everybody who was there had to go and perform something which was quite good actually because it was a good way of getting to know people and there was a guitar there so I played a song.

32:01One of your own or a cover song? Yeah, I'm terrible, I mean I know I said I know how to cook five different dishes and I probably know how to play three other people's songs. That was really why I started writing my own songs. I always wanted to be in a band. And when I finally managed to persuade some people to come round to my mother's house on a Friday night to rehearse, because we were all so musically inept, we just had to try and write our own songs because we couldn't work out the chords to anybody else's. apart from stepping stone by the monkeys because that's just

32:46it's only four chords that was quite easy great song i haven't thought about that in a long time no it's a good song yeah yeah i that's one retirement thing i won't be able to do i won't be able to be a wedding singer you can't i mean i think it's look at this point i think it's acceptable for you to focus on your own on your own music i think it's okay okay yeah i don't i

33:05Jason Stewart:want you to be a wedding singer but i i would say that this newest album has taken a direction in a little bit of a of a lounge lizard territory would you agree or or be offended by that um well i don't know which are there any songs in particular you think are going in that direction good question i mean i guess just as you as as you know the band has progressed and and everyone's gotten older oftentimes you know song you know tempos will slow down a little bit more and things will get a little more groovy maybe yeah um i don't know maybe maybe tina yeah you know it has a little different feel to it i suppose so yeah

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34:02I haven't really got the voice to be as Frank Sinatra or as Scott Walker or anybody like that. I admire those people and I wish that I could sing like them, I'm kind of stuck with my voice, which is expressive, shall we say. It's expressive.

34:20Jason Stewart:It is. But I think you have a crooner sense in you, just in your own style. Okay. Well, maybe I should try. You croon. You're encouraging me now. So maybe I could try and work more on that. Get out there and croon. Don't be afraid. I mean, I don't know if you're one of those guys. Some people are addicted to being on stage and performing. and some people, you know, it's okay and they can hang up the hat whenever it's time. Where do you think you stand in there? I've attempted to retire quite a few times. And... You have? Yeah, and I've never managed it because writing songs is the only thing I can do, really.

35:05And it's the way that I try and work out what I'm doing in my life. And also, it's the only way that I kind of remember what I have been doing in my life. You know, I've never kept a diary or anything. So songs are the only thing that will remind me of, you know, I'll listen to a song from 1988, and I'll remember what I was doing in that year, much more than if I try and just sit down and remember what I was doing. I'm shocked to hear that you've never kept a diary. That's interesting. but I did it did it make writing a book more difficult or do you think you were able to kind of get back there mentally when you needed to well I was really lucky actually with that that so the book was all based on stuff that was in a loft of the house and and the thing is so I when I moved down to London to go to college I brought lots of stuff with me I didn't really know why but it made me feel more kind of protected or something i don't know and i used to carry it from place to place because i was living in squats when i first arrived in london so you would stay somewhere and then a bailiff would come and say you've got to move out of this house and you'd have to pick it all up and move somewhere else so i moved this stuff around from place to place eventually pulled kind of sold some records and i bought a house and i put it all in the loft of this house then I split up with the woman that I was living with so I left the house because it was too depressing but all the stuff was still in the loft and some friends lived there for 20 years whilst I was in Paris and I used to kind of think why have I you know I I moved this stuff around it seemed like it was important to me at some time in my life I should look at it one day and And eventually I did look at it.

36:57And that was the thing that acted a bit like a diary because it was such a mess inside this loft where it all was. I would just pick an object up and look at it and think, why have I held on to this for 20 years? And then as I looked at it, I would remember where it had come from. And it would trigger memories. until I looked at object, I would never have remembered that thing again. No, it was an ingenious way to write a book like that. Because I do think that if you haven't kept a diary, you've got to have something to trigger that stuff. Yeah. I mean, I found a photograph of a mug in a car engine.

37:43Well, wedged in between some cables in a car engine. And I thought, what is that? And then suddenly I remembered that I had actually taken a guy who ran a garage to court because I'd taken my car to be repaired. And then it broke down about a day after. And I opened the hood of the car. And there was this cup. There was this tea mug wedged in the engine. So I just went back and said, what the fuck are you doing here? So you've kind of messed my car up. So, so, but I didn't remember that. I don't know how I, I mean, I actually went to court and represented myself in court and, and, and, and one, but I had no memory of this happening.

38:31So it's weird, you know, it's weird with the mind, the things that stick in it and the things that don't.

38:35Jason Stewart:Yeah. I'm glad that that one was unearthed because that's one of those memories that you'd want to remember because it has a good, happy ending. You fought the law and, and you won. Yeah. Well, you didn't fight the law, but you fought a bad boy. Yeah, I punched the air when I remembered that. A little celebration never hurt anybody. What is your... And instead of writing a song about it, you threw it in a box and here we go. Well, do you have enough stuff in this box to write memoir number two? Is there enough of a fever out there to get more chapters from you? How much shit is left are we going to just do based on suits?

39:13this episode of how long gone is brought to you by quince jason as you know but some of our listeners might not quince specializes in everyday staples that work harder like their ultra soft organic cotton teas and premium mongolian cashmere sweaters i i like my navy blue v-neck uh cashmere sweater i wear it all the time it's a little hot right now but it's a go-to uh it's versatile timeless and it transitions seamlessly from a casual work day to a big dinner out yeah and

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40:15Get free shipping and 365-day returns now available in Canada. Let's go. And the UK, mate. Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash howlong. You've heard us talk about BetterHelp for a long-ass time, but I don't know that we've ever actually talked about how much people love the service when they actually use it. You can go check it out for yourself. You don't have to believe me and Bozo here. You can go to betterhelp.com slash reviews, and you can read all the amazing reviews in real time. They're updated every day with hundreds of people saying how much they love BetterHelp and how helpful it's been to them.

40:47Jason Stewart:They're going to be great reviews and you could see like, oh, this person recommended this therapist for this one specific thing and that's what I'm interested in as well. Let the reviews help you find who you need to look for and with over 6 million people, having already used the BetterHelp app globally, you know, this consistent feedback from real users makes it easy to see why so many people continue to use BetterHelp. See the reviews, see what stands out, and see if BetterHelp is right for you. Visit BetterHelp.com slash HowLong. That's BetterHelp.com slash HowLong. This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Squarespace.

41:21Jason, if I'm not mistaken, we're both on the computer right now. One reason we're able to dominate in the web space is because we've used a platform like Squarespace for years to make sure our shit is right and tight.

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42:06Get on there now. Go to squarespace.com slash how long for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use offer code how long to save 10 % off your first purchase of a website or a domain. Have fun online. Use Squarespace. no i you know what i kind of discovered that device to write in that book and i thought that would be it but i only got up to the book ends um not wanting to do a spoiler for anybody who hasn't read it but it ends in the year 1985 i think and and uh before i'd moved to london before pulp had become known at all i have got other objects left and i am it's kind of becoming fairly urgent now if i want to write part two i'd better i'd better start it because that house is is has to be sold before the end of the year so i'm working against the deadline now why does the why are you selling the house is it just time to unload or are you is it an emotional release uh part of both really i mean um i i could say it was kind of like i bought that house and never really lived in it um and at the moment my son is kind of living there a bit but i don't want him to get too comfortable so uh no i have to keep his ass on his toe well i mean living in Paris for 20 years is quite a long time.

43:37Did you ever... I've been to Paris countless times in my life, and I don't really get it. I don't enjoy it the way some people do. Did you learn to love it, or were you there for love? Well, I ended up there because I got married, and my son went to school there. I didn't like... When I was first there, attempting to socialize was difficult. it's it's uh because in england you know the way you kind of meet people is you go to a pub you get really drunk and you kind of just kind of talk to people because you're drunk and then if you keep going to that pub you they become your friends and alcoholics maybe but um in in in paris you know people have dinner parties and things like that and they don't really go to, there are bars but you don't really socialise in that way, so I found it difficult to make friends there and stuff like that, but over the years then, I don't know, something weird happened after I'd been there for I don't know, 14 or 15 years suddenly I started to see what was good about it and weirdly, now that I don't live there anymore, like my son was living in my old flat there but now he's moved to london and i got rid of the flat and now i find myself i have actual dreams about paris quite a lot because it's weird when you've got you've got a kind of city mapped out in your mind but you're not there anymore it's like it's like uh part of you is missing or something it's a strange feeling well when you go back do you slide into it or or do have you not really been back unless you have to well we passed through it just the other day we were on our way to play concert in san malo which is on the coast and we we got a euro star and then we got in a van so i was you know i drove through it and it was quite a weird feeling to you know to recognize it but not realize you weren't part of it anymore no i get that i get that but i mean london is home i'm sure it feels better to be back yeah london's all right i mean my main my main revolution in my life has been that i've spent quite a lot of time in the countryside recently i'm becoming a bit of a kind of farmer giles kind of guy what do you what are you what are you doing out there walking around yeah i'm trying to learn the names of trees the only ones the only ones I really recognize at the moment are the obvious ones like an oak because I recognize the leaves of an oak tree I was brought up in Sheffield a very urban place but surrounding Sheffield is countryside and it's quite good being in the countryside it puts you in your place you look at a landscape that probably hasn't changed for thousands of years and you just realize that human life is not that big a deal.

46:44It gives you the perspective.

46:45Jason Stewart:Yeah. Just one small part of the planet Earth. Well, are you friends with our friend Plum Sykes? Do you know her? No, I don't. She's also a country liver, but we hung out at her house in the Cotswolds last summer. She was like a Vogue editor for a long time in the fashion world. But I wanted to ask you, as a country living person, how many hours can you leave a roast chicken out of the icebox for over there in the country probably all day yeah all day huh well as long as it's not in a heat wave or something if it's in the shade yeah i'd say all day i mean if you're leaving it out in broad sunlight then i'd say probably four hours okay do you have any and do you have any animals to speak of or is this just merely grass?

47:36No, no, no livestock, no. I mean, we've got a dog. Okay, that doesn't count. I was hoping for some livestock.

47:44Jason Stewart:Does the dog know how to catch the ducks after you shoot them? No, he doesn't. He watches sheep dogs and I can see that he's quite jealous of how they round up sheep. So maybe he could become the first Chihuahua sheepdog, you know, that would be like that could be my claim That would be revelatory, that would be big Yeah, that could be my claim to fame What's the Chihuahua's name? It's called Tony Tony, okay, that sounds like you named your dog after your Coke dealer in the 90s, but I like it It's actually named after Tony Soprano Because you're just such a fan of the program? Well, yeah, because it was a lockdown purchase Yes, the dog.

48:30And we watched all the Sopranos during the lockdown, and that helped a lot. And I enjoyed it a lot. So Tony became the obvious name. And he fulfills, he kind of lives up to the name. Oh, does he? He has a similar attitude, the way he views the world.

48:49Jason Stewart:Yeah, kind of. How much more reading do you get done in the country versus in the city? Probably, yeah, probably read a little bit more in the country. Okay. But not that much more. It's harder to get books in the countryside, so I have to kind of carry them around. I mean, that's something that I do on tour as well, and my bag weighs a lot because, especially, like, you know, we're coming to America, so we'll be there for three weeks, so I'll probably end up bringing maybe eight or nine books. Wow. One or two of them might be hardbacks, so that is quite a lot to carry around. Yeah, that does add some kilos to the Czech bag.

49:29I just read, I'm a bit late to, I just read On the Road by Jack Kerouac whilst we were on the road. And I really liked it. So I think I'll probably try and read some more by him whilst I'm in America. Yeah, that seems like a good idea. Wow, okay. So you just, why do you think you put that off for so long? Because that's a book that most fellas, you know, that's like high school. Yeah. A rite of passage. when you tackle that one if you have a cool teacher yeah if you have a cool teacher yeah well i think i think um i had a kind of slightly immature attitude when i was younger like i thought that i didn't want to read all the books that everybody else was reading i wanted to discover new ones and stuff so i kind of tried to do that and then as you get older you realize that books are well known are well known for a reason because they're good so uh so i i'd been bought on the road a couple of times for my birthday and so far and just never really felt like reading it and then I just suddenly thought you know what, I'm going to read that and I really enjoyed it it's quite strange to read it I'm 61 now so yeah, like you say, it's more of a book that you read when you're younger to give you an idea about a different way of living your life if you want to live it that way and it was very influential in its time but yeah Yeah, I really enjoyed it, so I think I will try and read more of them.

50:58Now, do you have your own bus in these situations? So you've got the back lounge set up Jarvis style? I've got a bit of a, I try to avoid tour buses. You fly. Well, it's just when, the first time I came to America, it was when Paul supported Blur. Blur did a tour in 1994. And we had to travel on a bus and we had to share it with the crew as well. And we had to sleep on it, you know, because we didn't have much of a budget for it. So that was just like a kind of very traumatizing experience. It's just like the way that people turn feral very quickly on those buses. And you just spend two days traveling across the desert.

51:48and then he's supposed to sleep in this kind of coffin-like alcove, and I hated it. So we definitely don't have a tour bus as in a bus that we live on. We will travel by bus because some of the dates are quite near. So being on a bus for two hours is okay. That's all right. That's just like... Sure, you can handle that. It's the overnight stuff that puts you on edge. Yeah, yeah. I think that's reasonable. I mean, it is a terrible way to live and travel, but I thought it was sort of unavoidable at a certain point, but you've earned the right to figure out a new way for yourself. Thank you. I appreciate you saying that.

52:31Yeah, I'm sure everybody appreciates that about you. I'm sure everybody appreciates that about you.

52:36Jason Stewart:When I was talking about Tina earlier, but I was realizing when I was listening to that song, are there any other songs where you, I guess they're kind of named after women or you're calling out to a woman's name like Deborah or Tina? Is this a theme where there's more songs that I can't think of right now? Yeah, I mean, that's what I realized with that song. I realized that maybe I had what could even, I guess, could be considered an issue with that because you mentioned Deborah from Disco 2000, but there's also a pulp song called Sylvia. there was a pulp b there was a pulp b side called paula there was a solo single that i did called angela uh and now it's tina so i've obviously got a thing about women's names that that end in a i don't know why but are all these women real so i think well deborah yeah deborah definitely was real that that song is pretty true it's about a girl i was born in the same hospital as her and went to the same school as her.

53:46Sylvia was a girl who looked a bit like Sylvia Plath, so that wasn't her real name. Paula was a girl from Hull who used to follow Pulp around a bit. Angela was I don't know if that was her name at all, it was just somebody I saw in Australia once. And Tina was real. Tina was real and Tina was a woman in Sheffield who I thought I would try and talk to once but then just as I was walking over to her she started talking to another guy and so I gave up but then I kind of used to bump into her occasionally and developed a bit of an obsession with her which ended up being the inspiration for that song which is really the guy who sings that song is kind of a jerk I suppose It's fun to create these characters isn't it?

54:40yeah um but yeah i i i enjoy singing that song actually yeah it's it's a great one i did want to talk about clothes a little bit um okay just because i you know i feel like that is something that you are passionate about and i i have you have you been working with someone to make these suits and these jackets for years or do you kind of spread the love around uh yeah well all my clothes used to be second hand yeah you know i that started from really in the aftermath of punk rock happening um where i didn't want to wear flares anymore so i just started going to jumble sales which i guess they're like a bit like yard sales but but they would be in like a church and you would get clothes very cheaply and um i kind of developed i don't know a look from doing that then I graduated to charity shops and did that for quite a long time then actual vintage clothing shops but then in recent years I have had things make I guess because now the clothes I'm interested in are like 50 years old so you would never see them in a charity shop you know so there's a tailor in Paris and the shop is called husbands oh yeah i'm familiar with i'm familiar with that's that's really up your street look wise yeah so so most of my clothes are made by them like all the clothes i wear on stage now are made by them oh that's great i didn't i didn't realize that i didn't know that that i mean he makes suits that i really like but i don't think would work on my frame um but i'm glad that you found him because i feel like you are the right frame yeah he's a good guy i feel like he has good taste in music yeah yes he has got good taste

56:39Jason Stewart:um do you remember the last i know you used to probably go to raves back in the day yeah in the 80s and 90s do you remember the last rave you went to well i mean that's a long time ago because you know raves the thing that i liked about raves was um a lot of the fun was just finding them in the first place you know it was like it was just after i'd arrived in london so 1988 the first one we went to was we bought a ticket and and there was a coach that left from soho square and uh we were on this coach and as as we got near to the party everybody started smiling and laughing so they almost like had a knee on the in the coach and were getting in the mood but we just thought wow these people are in a good mood and um you know that that first that first encounter with the rave was such an amazing revelation to me because having been brought up in Sheffield and you know I'd gone to nightclubs from quite an early age there was always a an edge of violence in nightclubs in Sheffield people would like guys would try and get off with girls and if they couldn't get off with girls they'd just beat somebody up just for something to do so it was always a bit like it was it was fun but you had to be careful and and what i liked about raves was as soon as you got in there you know there was like a a big ferris wheel in the background and all these lasers going off and everybody was just in a really good mood nobody was really drinking alcohol and getting wasted and people just dancing all night and it was it was like what i dreamt a nightclub would be like and so i really remember that first uh experience because i just thought wow this is the future and the future is going to be great and then you know we i i kind of got a bit disillusioned with it i suppose i one rave to war i don't know if this was the last one i went to but there was you know the police didn't Like raves, they were illegal.

58:48They were settled without people knowing it. And it became a kind of cat and mouse thing that would happen that people would... If you could get everybody to the rave before the police knew where it was, then they probably wouldn't be able to stop it happening. But the police started getting wise to the fact that people were using mobile phones because it was in the very early days of mobile phones and they would track things. So there was one night when we kept going to places and then the police had got there first. So they said, all right, OK, we've moved it to. And then they give you another map reference.

59:25I mean, we're just driving around, driving around, driving around all that. And we finally got to this party and they'd had to set the sound system up in a escape tunnel underneath the M25 motorway. So it was just a concrete channel. and with speakers at one end and i don't know i just got this feeling in mind i i remember dancing and then i was walking down the tunnel and i felt like i was moving back in time and i got to the end of the tunnel and there were people kind of sat in the grass and i thought they were like cavemen and it was all like uh it was all a bit weird and and i'm sure you were you were sober for all this too right no um i wasn't got it got it got it uh yeah and and um yeah when he's dancing in an escape tunnel that's supposed to be for badgers and deer to stop getting run over on a motor i just saw yes and then then you know then places like that like the ministry of sound opened and clubs that played rave music but once it was indoors and it was just another club uh it died for me and i i just it was it was the kind of renegade aspect of it that that was exciting right right right has to have a little danger what is the what is your like these days how often are you going to see a band play a friend or someone you want to see or is it pretty much like unless you're touching the stage i'm not going to kind of get out of bed uh no no i i i mean i lost the last show i went to see was oasis at wembley stadium we went to we went to jason and i but We went on Sunday.

1:01:11We were there on Sunday. I went on Saturday because we had played in Sheffield on Friday night and a friend of mine said, oh, I can get you into Oasis tomorrow. Straight after the concert, we traveled down to London and went. I don't know what you thought, but that was quite an amazing experience, I have to say. the atmosphere of it was yeah that was everybody singing the songs it was it was a really unusual uh atmosphere uh i agree i mean i i said that that many happy people in one place is sort of unheard of yeah but but you're right singing every word to every song uh is a very rare occurrence because usually bands you know they like to play some new stuff that nobody cares about yeah and that that's gonna that's gonna limit the singing yeah yeah yeah it was great i i loved it it was it was a quite a good experience so i was i was i found

1:02:13Jason Stewart:myself surprised that so many people like the same amount of people were singing along to the richard ashcroft songs as well i was really happy for him yeah yeah and i feel like it's given his career like a big second life yeah i mean that was a perfect i mean him doing bittersweet symphony just before they come on just gets everybody up to a pitch of excitement you know So, yeah, it was good because I when I saw that he was going to be Richard Ashcroft and cast and I saw God, this is going to be a real kind of 90s nostalgia exercise. But it worked. You know, I was I was I was really impressed with that.

1:02:49How do you feel about the nostalgia of things and how it's all coming back? And I mean, I'm sure you benefit from it in some ways, but it sounds like you're turned off by it as a whole. Well, no, I mean, it's funny, actually, because, you know, Britpop, which is a word that I don't like, but I think the reason that it didn't really work back in the 90s was because it was really enthralled to the 60s. You know, it was thinking that it could make the 60s happen again. And that was doomed to failure because you can't make the past come back to life. But it was a time when people were bothered about music, and I think that's why those Oasis concerts have worked, because everybody was aware of them, and everybody knows the words to those songs.

1:03:40You might be surprised that you know all the words to those songs. So it's a collective experience, and that was the main thing that I took away from it, was that what's happened since the 90s is that most of the rest of society has become less about collective experiences you know you you look at a lot of things on your own on a screen on your phone or on your ipad or on your computer and so a lot of entertainment has become just you or maybe you'll text somebody but to be stood there with like 70 000 people all in the same frame of mind is an amazing feeling you know that's why I think live music is still a valid thing because it's something that only happens when you're there with an audience.

1:04:32Otherwise, you're just rehearsing. A rehearsal is a completely different thing. You're playing the same songs, but when you're playing it and there are people there, how they react to it alters what you do. And it's not something that you can completely quantify and say how it works or why it works but it does work when you when you guys are playing what what is the are there more young people there than you you thought there would be or you are you surprised at the demographics that are coming to a pulp show in 2025 oh yeah well i mean yeah what we played last last autumn and and that was something that i was really i noticed straight away because you you look out into the audience and you see people and i'm thinking well why are you here because you weren't even born when we were last here.

1:05:20Why are you here? I've always been curious about that. I always wonder about, I've always wanted to know what brings people together, you know, because that's the exciting thing about a concert. You know, you get people coming from all over the place and they all gather in this one room and it's the only time ever that they'll all be in that room together and they're watching something. and you make something happen between you and the audience. And like I said, I love that. It's what makes songs come back to life when you play them to people and you get a reaction back from them. Then it's not, it isn't a nostalgic thing because it's something happening right then in that moment.

1:06:09No, that's a good way to look at it. I've never thought of it that way as far as the nostalgia portion of it. But, I mean, we talked about this in the intro a little bit, but you're one of the few bands that reunited and put out an album that was good. And I want to just say congratulations because that is a feat that not many people accomplish.

1:06:31Jason Stewart:Well, thanks. Many dare. It is. It's just a funny, most of the time, you're dreading that from a band that you love. you're like please god do not put out new music i would just want to see you play you know i just want to see you play i want to have that experience yeah who what other bands have i guess like when new order got back together and put out that record whatever 20 years ago that one i was like oh thank god it's good you know it happens every once in a while it's just a rare it's i mean but i think that the the touring of it all has gotten so much more popular that that it's it's bringing bands back to the studio i think because they they just see that the audience is still there but the results just aren't very good in my yeah my listening experience you could tell when they're doing it for the money and whether or not yeah i guess so i mean that was yeah that i mean it's as simple as that that's true the way that the record came about was really from playing and and there was one song the song that's on the record called him of the north that was a song that i'd written for a play that had come out in 2019 and i i gave that song to the guy who was doing the string arrangements for the live shows we were doing and he worked out an arrangement so then we would just play that sound check which just made sound checks a bit more interesting because we were playing something we weren't familiar with and then we just thought okay well well, why don't we just try and play it?

1:08:03And I think, you know, that's how you are when you first start for a band. You know, you write songs and you think, okay, could we play this for people? And then it's exciting to see what people make of it. And, you know, luckily the night when we played it in Sheffield, no one threw anything at us on stage or walked away to the bar. So then I just thought, okay, well, let's see how far we get with that. Let's keep writing songs. if nothing else it'll give us other things to play live and eventually we had enough songs that were good that we thought okay we'll make a record but I'm glad that we played them live first because until you play a song in front of an audience you don't really learn whether it's good or not as soon as you play it to an audience you can tell whether they're into it or not and also you can tell which bits of the song work and which bits you still have to do some work on.

1:09:01Jason Stewart:It seems very similar to the way a comedian would work out a routine, trying it out in front of the crowd and then when it's finally done. But usually it's the other way around with bands. You write the record at someone's house in Malibu and then three years later you're playing them for the first time and you hope everyone likes it. But I'm glad that you guys sort of reverse engineer it. Yeah, well, I mean... Because then you end up with more good songs. Yeah, I think so, because we have done that in the past, and you have this horrible moment where you play it, you've recorded it, and you play it, and you realize, oh, I'm singing that bit too low.

1:09:42As soon as you're singing it to an audience, you just realize really fundamental things about a song. And if you've already recorded it, it's too late to put it right. So, yeah, that's my... If this was a workshop we were doing, that would be my advice to young musicians. Play songs live, learn about them, and also write lyrics before you go in the studio. There's two things I'll learn. That seems like good advice. We talked about song titles earlier, but since I first saw and heard Sorted for Ease and Whiz, I thought that was one of the greatest song titles of all time. and it really just still grabs me to this day.

1:10:26And I just want to thank you for that. I want to thank you for that. All right, well, we should really be thanking a girl whose name I can't remember because she gave me that title because I was in a club that's just shut down actually in Sheffield called The Lead Mill. And I was talking to this girl and she said that she'd been to the famous Stone Roses concert at Spike Island. and I said oh what was that like and she said well all I can remember is that there were these scally guys walking around and they were just going everybody started for these and whiz, everybody started for these and whiz and that phrase kind of stuck in my mind and we were trying to finish different classes at the time trying to just write songs because we'd released Common People with only one of the songs written and we had to make some shit we had to yeah so so that became the chorus of that song yeah so unknown girl in sheffield thank you thank you and i also think that and and jason and i come to london a lot and we both really like it we spent a lot of time there and i think that the the class stuff that comes up so much i i think i learned at least uh from a top-down view of that from pulp in a lot of ways like what that stuff was and kind of what it meant and how and not realizing how important it was to sort of the fabric of british society which is what i've come to understand yeah it's a weird thing the class system in in the uk uh i suppose if you know you you're brought up with it so it's it's uh and and you know that was the whole idea of of the different class record because I always felt a bit ambivalent to it all because you know I was born in Sheffield that's a pretty working class place but I was scared of working class people like miners because they would just beat you up if you were wearing strange clothes and stuff like that so I could kind of think oh yeah theoretically I'm on your side but please stop kicking me in the face and then Sheffield's also quite a big student town so you would get more middle class people coming there and that was kind of good because you could go to their parties and drink their drink for nothing on the weekend but I just got this feeling that there had to be another class you had to kind of try and escape from these weird bands that you had I didn't want to belong to a particular demographic group So that was a whole kind of idea behind that.

1:13:12But it still does. As you say, you must have been aware that if you come to London, it's still alive and kicking. Yeah, it's just it's very it's I think there's also just in America being upwardly mobile and striving to be rich and successful is sort of what we reward. Yeah. In many ways. And I think that's a very big difference. It doesn't it feels like in London or in the UK that you're kind of supposed to stay where you're at. It's not as rewarded to be a striver. No, you're right.

1:13:45Jason Stewart:I was just going to say, despite all of that, growing up in California, I was able to piece together what all of that meant. I was able to create my own version of common people where I lived. Our version of renting a flat above the shop, we can figure out and make that our own. Yeah, sure. Yeah, sure. It was really fun, you know, growing up and bopping around to your songs when I was, you know, like Chris said, when we were teenagers. It really made music fun, and we still play your music all the time. I'm going to DJ a party tonight, and I'm sure I'll play one or two Pulp songs. So thank you for everything you've done and taking the time to chat with us.

1:14:29Yeah, thank you for your service. All right. maybe come and see us if you if you're around yeah we'll try yeah if we're in if we're in town we'll definitely try to come to one of the shows i would love to i missed the last i missed the last round but yeah thanks again we appreciate it all right and uh hopefully we see you soon all right thanks a lot all right later hi i don't usually make any notes before we play because i think you should always be spontaneous on stage you know what i mean You know what I mean? I think you should come on and be in the moment. And you know, we come on here and you're there and we do our thing and we see what you make of it.

1:15:07And then it comes back to us and it's something that happens, right? Which is what I believe in. But because I was sat in the tent today and I was thinking about things, I did actually write a few things down. So let's see if I've missed any of the mail. Carrots, potatoes, peat... Oh no, that's my shopping list now.

1:15:39Alright, I've said most things, the only thing is... You can't buy feelings, you can't buy anything worth having. Also, the other thing is... If you want something to happen enough, then it actually will happen. Okay.

1:15:55And I believe that. In fact, that's why we're stood on this stage today, after 15 years. Because we wanted to try for it. You know what I mean?

1:16:11So, if a Lank you get like me can do it, and us lot, yeah? You can do it too. Alright?

1:16:20So, on that positive note, this is the last song we can't play anymore after this. This is... Carmen P. Hope.

1:16:40She came from me, she had her best but not her age. She stood sculpturing to Martin's cards That's what I Call her I

1:16:55She told me that I'd have to slow down I sent a piece to a rumor Come, come, come She said, fine And then in 30 seconds time She said, I want to look like common people I want to do whatever common people do I want to sleep with common people I want to sleep with common people like you Well, what else could I do? I sit down, I see what I can do

1:17:35Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax and let go of whatever you're carrying today Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-CONTACTS. Oh my gosh, they're so fast. And breathe. Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste. Visit 1-800-CONTACTS.com today to save on your first order. 1-800-CONTACTS.

From the publisher

Jarvis Cocker is the singer of Pulp, one of our favorite bands of all time. Their newest record, More, is out now. We chat about hotel keys, Lil Nas X's new video, marmite sandwiches, vocal care, digestive biscuits, the one time he gave a best man speech, how he wrote his memoir, its less easy to make friends in Paris, songs named after women, how many books he brings on tour, his early rave days, Oasis at Wembley, and why he prefers performing new songs to a crowd before recording them.

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