Jason Pierce of Spiritualized
Jason Pierce of Spiritualized
Jason Pierce offhandedly might have given the best description of the music he makes, “It has the ghosts of the music I love.”
Pierce arrived in America last week, as a new prime minister was put in place back in Great Britain. Nonplussed, his focus is on the music of his band Spiritualized, who play Milwaukee on Tuesday. “We left all that behind,” he says.
The band is touring the current album Everything Was Beautiful. Pierce, aka J Spaceman, has helmed Spiritualized since 1992’s album Lazer Guided Melodies and before that he was part of Spacemen 3. Pierce’s work with that band set a template that he has continued to refine blending rock, folk, psychedelia, Gospel and hints of free jazz.
While the albums are aural experiences unto themselves, live performances are immersive events that pump the sound of the band through a stereo PA, coupled with an equally impressive light show. Rooms like Turner or the Eagles Club—venues the group has played previously—could be challenging. But Pierce doesn’t think so.
“It’s what we do. We carry good people with us. Some of the first tours we did in America we came up against mono PAs … archaic sound systems,” he recalls, “We just made them sound great, because that’s what we do.”
Attention to Detail
Pierce’s attention to detail has long been his calling card. The albums retain a magical human element while getting the best performances and mixes.
Onstage and in the studio, Pierce knows what it takes. “Making live music is what interests us,” he says noting how other acts may rely on backing tracks. “I’m more interested in people finding the music—it is not just delivered. (This) is not new to us—Charlie Mingus was doing it, The Stooges were doing it, The Velvet Underground were certainly doing it. There is something about being given the opportunity to find something more …”
An element of timelessness envelopes Spiritualized’s music. “It takes time, I guess. When I make a record, I’m not interested in saying ‘This is what we sounded last Thursday, that will do.’ If you are given enough time, you can achieve anything. That happens every time we make a record.”
It's all about tiny little details, he says referencing David Bowie’s original mix of the Stooges Raw Power. The mix wasn’t technically “right” but it was perfect. “It’s in the mess of it, it’s in the junk and all the stuff that gets in the way that makes excitement in music. And it takes time to find that, there are no rules to follow. It’s more random—and you build on that.”
Pierce’s idea is that rock and roll is built on a shaky foundation. “The cornerstone is Robert Johnson selling his soul to the devil. Which is about as shaky a cornerstone as you can get. Navigating that carries great emotion.”
“Always Together With You” by Spiritualized
Each Night is Different
Volume is also part to the equation, Pierce says. He missed that during lockdown. He recalls seeing a performance of dancer Michael Clark that was loud, the “fight or flight volume” that becomes visceral.
That Spiritualized is different every show is satisfying to Pierce. The group is not playing the songs by rote or adding the same samples a band had on a record. Each night is unique, never going through the motions. “I don’t what it would be like to do that, to be honest with you,” he says. “We are here to try and make the best of what we can do.”
If it were about playing the notes in the right order, every cover band in the world would be the most amazing experience.
“It’s not about that,” he says. “It’s about something intangible, something that’s always slightly out of reach, always something that you have to keep searching to find. It’s why most musicians hang onto their demos. This quality that is hard to capture.”
Pierce mixed Everything Was Beautiful twice. His patience off. The symphonic sound and running order of the songs were given great thought. The final version ended up being beyond expectations that initial mixes suggested. “You can let it go at any time. I’ve me at a lot of people in music who live with little regrets, ‘I wish I’d held out for what I wanted …’ But I feel like you can do that. You can follow your own sense of how good it can be.” There are no rules, he says, it is often as much about the errors you make that point the way “Once I get locked into making a record it becomes the single most important thing … not in a particularly healthy way.”
Pierce’s logical answer was he’d hate to be on a desert island with just one album. The most recent music he’d listened to was the obscure American R&B singer and songwriter Jimmy Holiday, he also mentioned Garnet Mimms.
Spiritualized is at Turner Hall Ballroom, 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 13.
