{"id":162618,"date":"2025-06-06T09:45:16","date_gmt":"2025-06-06T09:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/162618\/"},"modified":"2025-06-06T09:45:16","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T09:45:16","slug":"this-is-like-going-back-to-when-you-start-a-band","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/162618\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThis is like going back to when you start a band\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

When NME meets Jarvis Cocker<\/a>, Pulp<\/a> are in the middle of back-to-back BBC specials and the final rehearsals for their UK arena tour. The flurry of activity is all to celebrate one thing \u2013 the Sheffield band\u2019s grand return with \u2018More<\/a>\u2019, their first album in 24 years. How does it feel to once again be caught up in \u2018Pulpmania\u2019?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s overstating it a bit!\u201d the frontman laughs. \u201cIt\u2019s nice. When you make a record, it\u2019s like you\u2019ve expressed something personal. That feels good, but then it gets turned into a record and something that hopefully people like and it becomes part of their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Woven tightly into the emotional DNA of so many indie-lovers, let alone pop culture, Pulp\u2019s music reigns eternal on the indie disco dancefloor to this day \u2013 still a soundtrack to those acrylic afternoons and the fumbles and tumbles of mis-shapes.<\/p>\n

\"Pulp,Pulp, 2025. Credit: Tom Jackson<\/p>\n

When they split after 2001\u2019s skyward seventh album \u2018We Love Life\u2019 (no drama, things just fizzled to a standstill), reunion tours in the subsequent decades proved a delight. But aside from the one-off single \u2018After You\u2019 in 2013, a full record from the former reluctant Britpop champs seemed like too much of an ask.<\/p>\n

And then: more. A new song slipped into the set. \u201cIt was good to have something to work on while we were on tour in soundchecks, but then, when you actually play it to people who have never heard it before, you get a feeling of whether they like it or not. That changes your attitude. We all enjoyed doing it, and that introduced the idea of, \u2018Well, if we can do one song, why don\u2019t we try and do some more then?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

More newbies were debuted on the road to the fervour of fans, adding to the momentum. Sadly, a further compulsion came after the death of beloved bassist Steve Mackey<\/a> in 2023. \u201cIt was a big blow to lose him,\u201d shares Cocker. \u201cOn an obvious level, him passing away makes you consider your own mortality and what you want to do with your life. That was a bit of a spur to create things because we were still in a position where we could do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

NME: When did you realise you were making Pulp\u2019s comeback album?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jarvis Cocker:<\/strong> \u201cAt the back of my mind, I thought that it could be good to do a record, but I didn\u2019t want to scare everybody off by saying that because the last two Pulp albums took a very long time \u2013 mostly due to my prevarication. I didn\u2019t want everybody to get stressed out thinking that they were going to lose two years of their lives to make a record. I decided to be grown up and write the words first and things like that, which sped the whole process up a bit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was kind of like going back to the early days of being in the band when we didn\u2019t have a record deal or anything like that. There was no reason to make this album in that there was nobody asking us to, but we just thought, \u2018We\u2019ve got some songs here that are good, so why don\u2019t we record them?\u2019<\/p>\n

What was the chemistry like in the room, to be back in a creative space with these people after so long?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as we tried it, it was surprisingly easy. When you play music with other people, you build up a weird and intimate relationship, but you\u2019re not really saying owt to each other. You become an organism with no one really in control of it. That\u2019s a nice feeling. You produce something that you wouldn\u2019t be capable of doing on your own.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a line in \u2018Spike Island\u2019 \u2013 \u201cI was born to perform, it\u2019s a calling\u201d. You really seemed to be living that on the last tour..\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt took me a long time to come round to thinking that again. I famously didn\u2019t enjoy it when we got popular in the late \u201890s because we seemed to lose control of what we were doing. It became a business situation. In the end, I haven\u2019t really got that big a skillset! Shouting, pointing and jumping around on stage are it. Being on stage is something that gives me a lot of pleasure. There\u2019s no barrier between you and the people who listen to you. It takes me somewhere I can\u2019t access in everyday life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do you feel that Pulp is a band you can grow into?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, yes. That\u2019s the thing I\u2019m pleased with on this record \u2013 you can tell it\u2019s made by people, shall we say, of a certain age. It\u2019s still about the same things we\u2019ve always written songs about, but it\u2019s just looking at them a bit differently from a different time of life.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are lots of downsides of getting older, but one of the good things is that you can learn who you are and can maybe stop worrying about that kind of stuff or trying to project an image of what you\u2019d like to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018My Sex\u2019 is a standout on \u2018More\u2019. What would you say that song tells us about your relationship to sexuality, as opposed to something you might have written 30 years ago?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just me realising that a lot of my attitude towards sexuality has been formed by listening to women talk about it. As a heterosexual male trying to get into the relationship game, it was a weird feeling to be trying to learn how to be a man, but always with a woman\u2019s idea about what you were doing in your mind. It was quite confusing, actually!\u201d<\/p>\n

So you\u2019ve never felt \u2018macho\u2019?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe \u2018macho\u2019 thing mystifies me, I suppose. People can probably realise that I\u2019m not really a macho man and I don\u2019t think that at this age I\u2019ll ever really become one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do you ever go to the gym?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I do. I went this morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do you lift or just do cardio?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cMore like pilates, to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Pulp,Pulp, 2025. Credit: Tom Jackson<\/p>\n

What do you think it is about Pulp that seems to regenerate a young audience?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt might be because I was obsessed with pop music from a really young age, and I tried to learn about the world from it. The time I started to write my own songs was around the same time I started trying to have my own relationships. I realised that a love affair was nothing like a love song. I felt like I\u2019d been duped a bit by the way that love had been presented to me in pop songs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat gave me the blueprint for what I was going to try and do in Pulp as the lyric writer: to write words to love songs, but more to how I thought it was. It\u2019s stayed the same. Maybe that\u2019s why younger people listen to Pulp songs: because I was an adolescent when I came up with that concept. I still look for meaning in music. Some people say it\u2019s just entertainment, but for me it\u2019s always been more than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a bit of a Britpop renaissance summer with yourselves, Oasis<\/a>, Supergrass<\/a>, Suede<\/a> and more doing the rounds. Why do you think there\u2019s a hunger for that time?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always hated that word. I would never willingly associate myself with it. It was an exciting time before they came with that definition of indie bands starting to make waves on the mainstream scene. It felt like a revolution could happen. If people are feeling like that again \u2013 that they can make their own thing and it can be taken notice of \u2013 then that would be great. If that kind of attitude is coming back, then I would be very excited about it, just not the \u2018BP\u2019 word \u2013 it\u2019s a terrible word.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Will we see you at any Oasis reunion shows?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIf I can get on the guestlist, I would love to see what they do!\u201d<\/p>\n

Now that we\u2019ve had \u2018More\u2019, will there be more? Could we get another new Pulp album now you\u2019re back in the saddle?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe. We tried to not have a concept for this record or think, \u2018This is it, this is our last gas\u2019. I used to think that a lot. I had this weird thing that when an album was mixed and finished where I\u2019d think, \u2018Oh, I can die now and it would be OK\u2019. That\u2019s a terrible way to think about your life, really. I didn\u2019t feel that with this record. On the sleeve inside it says, \u2018This is the best that we can do\u2019. That\u2019s all you can do at any point of your life. Hopefully not in another 24 years, but maybe in a couple of years, there will be something else to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pulp\u2019s \u2018More\u2019 is out now via Rough Trade. They kick off a UK arena tour at Glasgow\u2019s Hydro OVO on Saturday June 7. Visit here<\/a> for tickets and more information.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When NME meets Jarvis Cocker, Pulp are in the middle of back-to-back BBC specials and the final rehearsals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[480,77,481,269,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-162618","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-britpop","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-indie","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114635782573329268","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}