Interview: Mystery Jets

Mystery Jets are one of the wealth of great bands coming to this year’s City Sound Project festival. Website Editor Max Beckett interviewed them to find out more about the band, and what we can expect from their live performance.

We are loving ‘Curve of The Earth’. How has your recording process changed throughout your career? Did you change it up much for the new album?

The recording process was very different to any other Mystery Jets album, as we decided to produce it ourselves alongside our friend and producer/engineer Matthew Twaites. I guess the difference between this and any other record was ‘time frames’; when we started we had no deadline and there was a unified feeling in the band that we weren’t going to stop until we all thought it was the best that it could be.

Using three words, how would you describe ‘Curve of the Earth’ as a record?

Scale, Ghosts, Reflection.

What does a Mystery Jets live show usually contain these days?

We would like to think a Mystery Jets live show is now better than ever. Expect to find it full of songs, both old and new, showing off our favourite parts of the last 10 years. It’s been so much fun placing ‘Curve of the Earth’ songs into the set, we are thoroughly enjoying people hearing them in the room with us

How excited are you to be playing in Canterbury? Has anyone in the band visited before? If so, what did you think?

We are totally excited to be playing in Canterbury! Blaine did a lot of writing for the album in a beach shack in Whitstable, so he would quite often venture into Canterbury to enjoy the treats, sweets, and cinema seats that it had to offer. I also lived there for around a year, it really is a beautiful place and full of culture for all the vultures.

Who would you say are your biggest influences in your work?

A lot of the influences for this record didn’t necessarily come from other musicians. Actually, tell a lie, when in the studio we drew a lot of influence from other peoples’ recording techniques (drum sounds, microphones, etc.), but mainly a lot of our references for this album came from books and film, an interesting place to turn your lyric writing head to.

If you could add another band member to your band dead or alive who would it be?

I would like to add Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra, purely because the man might just be the best all-round musician that has even lived. Blaine and I are complete Lynne-heads, constantly trying to figure out how the man can make three choruses work in a song.

What question is your least favourite question to be asked in an interview?

Who are you dating?

CSP has a lot of heritage venues around our historic city – what’s the oldest/most interesting venue you’ve ever played at?

I would say our favourite venue of heritage would have to be Somerset House. It was a big moment for us as we had just released our album ‘Serotonin’, and the first time we unveiled the new songs was in that beautiful building. Plus Noel Gallagher was in the crowd! What not to like!

What are three reasons why you should be crowned the Archbishop of Banterbury?

I have great hair, I wash at least twice a week, and Kate Moss once pierced my ear.

Canterbury is a walled city. What’s your favourite wall?

Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’

Canterbury has lots of restaurants, If you could be a kitchen utensil, what would you be and why?

If I could be a kitchen utensil I think I would probably be a nutri-bullet, mainly because I enjoy being close to vitamins.

Canterbury is in the Garden of England, do you like gardening?

I can’t say I have ever gardened but if you fancy taking us out when we arrive I’d love to plant some veg with you!

If you want to see Mystery Jets and some of the other great bands playing at this year’s City Sound Project, buy your tickets now from their website.