Blowin' Steam: Mr Jukes, Barney Artist Interviewed
"Oh it’s like First Dates!"
After announcing a (as it turns out, *shorter than expected*) hiatus with his band *Bombay Bicycle Club* in 2016, frontman *Jack Steadman *went on to seek new pastures. Now performing under the alias *Mr Jukes*, his new project blends funk, R&B and jazz in a manner that saw his 2017 debut ‘God First’ become one of the year’s most beloved releases.
However, his long-awaited 2021 offering ‘The Locket’ is a collaboration with East London rap maestro Barney Artist, whose aptitude for fusing 90’s hip-hop with slick, authentic bars has made him the perfect partner for the production wiz. The result? A soulful record that encompasses joy, friendship and the beauty of two worlds colliding.
Clash writer *Becca Fergus *chats to the duo about their new collaboration...
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*How did you both meet and how did you decide to work together?*
*MJ:* I was a big fan of Barney’s. I came across his music on Spotify and asked him to do a quick verse on one of my songs and he came to the studio. The music part of it was only about 20 minutes and the rest of it we just clicked and hung out and became really good friends. For the next few years we didn’t even make much music.
*B: *It’s like a really weird romcom.
*MJ: *Who would play me? I think Bruce Willis.
*B:* I see that! And for me... I’m gonna be Colin Farrell. But anyway, I was working in retail folding jeans and I got a call from his old A&R saying there’s a guy called Jack Steadman who wants to work with you and he’s part of a band called Bombay Bicycle Club. I didn’t know what that was but then I checked the views and I was like ‘I’m going to that session, baby!’
*How did you find blending your musical styles together?*
*B: *One of the main things that connected us was our love of similar sounds in terms of the 90’s golden era like A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, J Dilla. The first beat he played me was 'Blowin’ Steam', which is the first single from our album, and words came immediately.
*Do you have a different approach to each project?*
*MJ: *Compared to other people I’ve worked with, I can be totally honest with Barney and vice versa. When we first met, we just started taking the piss out of each other and it instantly broke down those barriers, and we realised we can laugh at ourselves and no criticism can break us, which when you’re in a creative environment is incredible.
*B: *Trusting the other person and being a fan of the other person too so when it comes to working together, you know it’s the best songs you can possibly make. He’s worked in a band before and I never have. We’re kinda like Ant and Dec.
*Where did you source inspiration for the album?*
*B:* We made the majority of the album in lockdown, so subconsciously we were making music that we needed. It was dark times, quite depressing, and we formed a social bubble to make music. I think why the album is positive and hopeful and gospel-inspired is because of the time it was made.
*MJ:* The album was written and recorded at the same time, like our average day would be about half an hour of putting the song down then we’d go to the pub down the road, or go on a walk or see a film.
*B: *Honestly I loved the working day! I was like ‘oh so this is how you be a musician!’
*You’ve worked with the likes of Kofi Stone and Lex Amor on the album, where they planned collaborations or did they come about as the album took shape? *
*B: *Since it was such a personal album and a personal feeling, everybody who worked on the album, from Kofi to Lex to our DJ Chux to sax to artwork, it was all done by people that we know and are friends with, which was really important to us. When you’re making something like ‘The Locket’, and the whole message of ‘The Locket’ is keeping memories close and filling it with dear things, it really added to the experience to be able to do that.
*Did you experiment with new instruments on the album?*
*MJ:* I’ve never made a record with an MC so there was a lot to learn in how to layer a beat and that’s where Barney really helped me out. It’s a different kind of work flow.
*B: *One thing that’s important for people to know is that as much as I’m focussing on lyrics and Jack’s focussing on production, there’s a lot of crossover and I would send my lyrics over and it would be like a teacher marking coursework where he’d get out a whiteboard marker and be like ‘let’s take this word out’ or ‘let’s put this one in’. I think Jack is a genius and his ability to songwrite is something I’ve learned so much about and have taken away from him. It’s like the best work experience possible!
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*Individual favourite song?*
*B:* Favourite as in regardless, or for a show, or listening to the most?
*MJ: *Stop making this complicated! What’s your favourite one!
*B: *Right now it might be….
*MJ: *Mine’s 'Blowin’ Steam'. It was the first one we did and you know when a song happens so quickly and effortlessly, it’s the sign of a timeless track; we just used instinct and were spontaneous with it.
*B: *I think mine’s got to be 'Vibrate', for the other reason that it was the last one we made and it had no samples in it.
*MJ: *We ran out of money!
*B: *That one was really fun as a MC because there’s a song by A Tribe Called Quest called ‘Check The Rhime’ and one of the lyrics is ‘industry rule number four thousand and eighty, record company people are shady’ and I always found it interesting the idea of putting a message in a single and people don’t even realise. With ‘Vibrate’, I feel like we did that well, as the lyrics are about record companies and things like that.
*MJ: *You had a great way of putting it, you were like ‘putting the medicine in the sweets’.
*B: *I didn’t create that saying!
*MJ: *What! Did you steal that!
*B:* It’s Shakespeare.
*Are you planning on touring the album and do you plan to work together again?*
*B:* Oh it’s like First Dates! Yes I will be working with him again, we’ve been making music already and what’s great with the duo is that it’s a really cool outlet for us to do music that we might not necessarily do in our solo projects. With my solo stuff I wanna go a bit more dark and experimental, whereas with Jack and Bombay it’s very different, so we plan to continue and return to put music out in that vein.
We’ve got some in-store shows and then a proper tour in November too, so be sure to come down!
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'The Locket' is out now.
Words: *Becca Fergus*
Photography: *Josh Shinner*
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