Featured Artist: The Jaw

15776892_1558817124133856_6771060144568495133_o

A long time ago in an email inbox not that far away… we received an enticing and inventive invite to join The Jaw on their guerilla gig tour of London to promote the release of their upcoming EP. Needless to say the offer was one we couldn’t possibly turn down and so we turned up and tuned in as they embarked on a swaggering strut around various London locations playing songs at locations that thematically matched up. It was a riotous and rowdy ride with security guards, the public and possibly a policeman or two left confused by the legality of it all. The Jaw specialise in kung fu kicking their way out of the box, they are raw, juicy and lip lickingly passionate.

The EP itself ‘Something For The Weakened‘ is like the band fierce, fiery and feisty. Only four tracks long, it perfectly displays what it is that The Jaw do and why that is absolutely something you should be digging on. It opens with ‘I Think I’ll Fall In Love With Myself‘ a sexy sonic assault of a track which gently sucks on your earlobe before jamming its wriggling tongue deep into your ear canal. Beginning dissonantly like the crackling of white static on an idling TV screen it then slowly engorges itself with a building soundscape before uncoiling majestically. The interplay between the male and female voices dance beautifully across this deviant bed of music. It’s sordid, it’s saucy and we love it. Track 2 ‘The Day I Found A Human Hand‘ is perhaps the finest example of of the witty narrative and lyricism the band are capable of. It’s dark, it’s wicked, it’s twisted, it’s fucking beautiful. It’s Tim Burton meeting J G Ballard on acid and it’s magnificent. Next up is ‘Pope Francis (Is On The Cover Of The Rolling Stone)‘ which towers over the EP with monster riffery and staggering bravado. You can taste the ink dripping from the pen of this piece and it’s another fine example of the intellect and poetry behind the band. What lets the track stand so tall though is the chugging punky heart of it, the drums and bass swagger nude to the front of the stage with their middle fingers up ready to party. The EP ends with ‘Queen Of The Algorithms’ which happens to be the closest The Jaw come to flirting with a classifiable genre or structure. It’s a poppy little ditty but injected with enough sci-fi and robo-funk to keep it far away from being boring.

We managed to get The Jaw to sit still for long enough to answer some of our hard hitting and hardly hilarious questions so you can get a further taste of the band’s style, charisma and personality, here’s what they have to say for themselves.

Welcome yourselves to the Yack/Jaw interview, sounds like it’ll be a bit of a gag doesn’t it? Anyway, introduce your fine selves. Who are you, what are you and what do you want from life?

Don John: Guitarist, lead shouter and tallest side of The Jaw love/hate triangle, best jokes, sweatiest sandwiches and I pull off a pink leotard the best of all of us (see the new video). My duty is a lifelong endeavour to fight against the current wave of bland as fuck prozac-music that’s out at the moment… and to do whatever the girls tell me to do.

Mae-Anne Roberts: Bassist, vocalist and shortest side of the right angled jaw triangle. I want to keep the flow going in life. Music is everywhere and it fills all our lives with thought provoking beauty, my duty as a musician is to uphold that responsibility.

Molly Molina: Drummer and vocalist. blah blah blah blah.

You are a fairly passionate bunch, like a pack of sharks it seems you have to keep moving constantly. Where do you get the drive from? Is one of you in particular poking and pushing the rest of you out the door?

Mae-Anne: Yes, we are all very passionate! Like a giant three brained shark, one of us rests while another leads. We all have our strengths and thankfully we are a diverse trio which means not too many diva moments.

Don: Having said that Molly has more than once threatened me non too jokingly with the end of a broken drumstick.

The EP as any good EP should deploys a nice variety of sounds that the band are capable of making with hands and mouthboxes, but the world loves a label so label yourselves and fit in a box guys! What do you do?

Mae-Anne: Find us in a dishevelled cardboard box labelled nu-wave punk/lyrically obsessed wit pop and other assorted flavours.

Molly: You know the one.

Don: Well you think you do…

How old are you? Not your actual ages, that’s boring and completely irrelevant, but what is the band age? How long you been at this?

Molly: We are due our 1st birthday in May 2017.

Don: What present you getting us?

Go on then we’ll throw you a nice generic run of the mill question, who are your major influence’s and why?

Mae-Anne: influences for me are Queens of the Stone Age for their relentless driving bass lines, and Karen O for being a babe and badass on stage.

Don: Attila the Stockbroker for his relentless driving poetic rant lines, Melt Banana for their stupidly raucous guitars and my girlfriend for showing me how to apply guy liner properly.

Molly: Bjork because she’s incredible and fearless and crazy and doesn’t care what anyone thinks.

Hot tips for our readers, what’s a film, a book and an album they should absolutely check out?

Don: The Bible According to Spike Milligan. I always knew religion was funny but Spike clarified it all. “And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night and so passed his GCSE“.

Mae-anne: Boys Music Clothes by Viv Albertine is a super read about a life in music and a hyper-charged time in history.

Molly: Seeing as they both chose books I’m recommending Nocturnal Animals as the most recent good film I’ve seen and well, as for an album, let’s go for our brilliant friends Vienna Ditto‘s album Circle – self described as voodoo sci-fi blues.

Don: The best bloody voodoo sci-fi blues around! Nigel from Vienna Ditto is also one of the nicest men on the planet.

Let’s dig some dirt and grab some goss then. Point fingers, whose got the nastiest bad habit?

Mae-Anne: Don’s favourite chicken and marmite slightly sweaty sandwiches, 3 hours into a car journey. Real Yack.

Don: Real Yum. I’m just making the most of Marmite til Brexit realły hits. But on the subject of Yack, Mae has been know to stink out the rehearsal room after them vegan snacks of hers hasn’t she Molly?… she ain’t all roses!

Molly: hahaha you guys, you’re both gross… I’m the only clean one here… ahem…

But it’s all love right? What do you most love about each other?

Mae-Anne: We love each others energy! Whether we rehearse together, chill out together or help each other through personal crisis’ (there has been at least 4 so far!) We are on the same wavelength. We always have great energy and that is the focus of our music making.

Don: Speak for yourself Mae. I like Molly’s pussy the most. Yeah. It is called Ewok, and she featured in our new video and was extremely well behaved, better than I was. Hi Ewok!

Molly: Don, you’re disgusting… my love for you is diminishing with every pussy joke! I kind of feel like we’ve become super close in a very small amount of time which is really lovely – I suppose that’s what comes of rehearsing in a fungus infested room – solidarity.

Your guerilla gigs were honestly such a wicked little idea, lot of brainwork went into that. But what’s the weirdest gig you’ve ever played? In location or in atmosphere.

Don: Thanks! It was a feat of medium proportions and maximum thrill for all of us!

Mae Anne: Weirdest gig was probably Coventry Uni, which was outside. We were like background music to the freshers milling around and some elders of the community in the cathedral came and complained. Apparently the bass frequencies were shaking the building during prayers! It was a laugh/don’t laugh moment.

Don: Yeah it was great timing in the set as well as I got to dedicate our song ‘Pope Francis (is on the cover of the Rolling Stone)‘ to them, about the end times of Christianity. It was a deeply (ir)religious moment.

Molly: As strange as that was, it will never top the weirdest gig moment of my career when a lady on a trapeze pulled a string of pearls out of her vagina during a set I was playing…

Don: Yeah, that’s a real pussy joke!

Time for the hard hitting questions. Picture the scene, you’re walking home down a dark alley and suddenly Hulk Hogan appears and demands your purse. What do you do?

Mae-Anne: Drawing on years of practice – whip out my best tekken move, use a nearby umbrella to pole jump onto his shoulders and then a nearby building. We then re-group, calling on band mates and posse for aid. Send him back to MTV land, Sin City style.  Boom shaka laka.

Don: But not before I have a moment to chip in with the Jerry Springer moment and say “hey hulk, you won millions in that law suit for those ‘illegally’ streamed sex tapes you featured in, you don’t need any more money, stop trying to rob innocent skint musicians”.

Molly: Before I finally chip in with the Oprah moment ” Yeah and I’ve seen one of those vids Hulk and your wanger ain’t impressive, in fact Ewok is bigger than you.”

Don: Oprah would never say that Molly….

Mae-Anne: Yeah, I’m sure Oprah never watches porn.

Okay so it’s that time, where can we next see you playing? What have you got to plug at the moment?

Don: Show your faces and ears April 21st 2017 at Paper Dress Vintage in Hackney, London.

Mae-Anne: We’ll be playing tunes from our EP and maybe a new song or two.

Molly: In the meantime fill up your jaws with some videos ‘ The Jaw Guerilla Gigs’ and ‘The Jaw Presents…’ via our facebook page.

Don: God we’re fucking contemporary…

There you have it Yack fans. The Jaw in a nutshell… a sweaty, sexy, lycra clad nutshell. If you fancy giving the EP a listen yourselves you can do so on SpotifyBe sure to like this travelling band of weirdo’s via their facebook page and as always stay tuned as Yack bring you the best in new music and strange strangers in the future. Love, peace and rock’n’roll folks.

If you’re London based and free on April 21st you cannot be excused for not attending what is sure to be a cracking little gig and you can find further details here.

Words by Matt Miles.

Website | + posts

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.