After several years lost in the wilderness of indie obscurity, Jack are beginning to achieve the recognition and success they richly deserve. Near the conclusion of a national tour supporting the Bluetones, Caleb Rudd, spoke to 5/7ths of the band about the good the bad and the beautiful.

Scene 1: Opening Shot - Flashback.

Jack were formed by Jacques Brel obsessed singer-songwriter Anthony Reynolds and guitarist Matthew Scott in Cardiff Wales who, after relocating to London and getting a band together proper, were signed to Too Pure records (an off-shoot of Beggars Banquet, and previously home to the likes of Stereolab and PJ Harvey, currently home to Hefner and Laika) after their first London gig in March 1995. A year later their debut album Pioneer Soundtracks was hailed as a masterpiece, drawing comparisons to contemporaries such as The Tindersticks, Nick Cave and the Divine Comedy, although in interviews Reynolds was more likely to namecheck eccentric cult heroes like Charles Bukowski, Scott Walker and Serge Gainsbourg. Tours followed, including supporting Suede and playing at the Melody Maker stage at Reading, before Jack seemed to disappear, swallowed up by poor sales, record company conflicts and a disinterested music press. Then in June this year Jack played a modestly publicised, yet sold out, night at the Players Lane theatre in Charing cross. To all those present it categorically announced that Jack were well and truly back. The Lolita EP followed, before their second long player, The Jazz Age, emerged. Bolder, more assured and accessible than its predecessor, it weaves a similarly rich orchestral-pop tapestry, populated with stories of the beautiful and the damned, the drunk and the doomed, the loved and the loveless. Produced by Darren Allison it featured the songwriting duo of Reynolds and Scott with the four core members - rhythm guitarist Richard Adderly, bassist Colin Williams, drummer Patrick Pulzer and keyboard player George Wright - plus strings and arrangements by Ruth Gottlieb and Audrey Morse, who in turn conducted several others. The album is epic in every sense of the word and should be the album of your year, if not your life. Scene 2: Cut to present day. Deep inside the bowels of the Kentish Town Forum, Jack are squeezed into a tiny dressing room evidently not designed for the eight or nine people present. An hour later most of these people will take to the stage, before them a sea of sceptical Bluetones fans, and confidently display far more emotion and passion than the headlining act will achieve. Present and accounted for are Richard, Patrick (Paddy), Ruth, George and, drinking whiskey, Mr. Reynolds himself. Missing are Matthew who has gone to the Bull and Gate and Colin who flits in and out of the meagre room. Starting with the obvious, I ask Anthony how did the support with the Bluetones come about. He replies in a soft, smooth Welsh via London accent which could certainly serve him well in talking book work if Jack ever comes to an end. "I met Mark (Morris, Bluetones singer) at a party. I was just talking to this chap, I was quite out of it, and he was just really pleasant and then he asked me if we wanted to tour with them." "I didn't know who he was," he adds innocently. "They also namechecked us in an interview as well, for the inspiration for their last album," notes George. The pairing doesn't seem as strange as it should, but how are the Bluetones kiddies taking to Jack? "It's gone really well, despite what Beggars Banquet thought may've happened. They believed The Bluetones were too much of a pop group and didn't see the cross over, which is bollocks!" says Paddy indignantly. Reynolds agrees, "It's been the most responsive audience we've ever played to, outside our own." "They're pop fans. Anyone who thinks that you can't like The Bluetones and Jack, or being a l5 year old girl means you can only like one sort of music is, I think, a total dick," a risible George adds. Anthony again, "They wanted us to tour with the Tindersticks which was a massively innovative idea..." "...Seeing they never tour this country..." Ruth, the quiet one, pipes, "...And when they do they have supports like classical orchestra, or a guy with a fucking talking dog or something!" George spits out. Erm okay. So you think it has been a good thing to surprise people with doing a tour with a non Jack "genre" band? Paddy quickly responds, "We don't see it as being that surprising...". "...It's not like we're a gala jangle band or something," Richard laughs. Certainly The Jazz Age, more so than Pioneer Soundtracks, has got some glorious upbeat moments - such as the catchy, self depreciating Cinematic ("and it's so chic to be poor/and we should speak French more"), the Suffagette City sounding punch of Pablo ("That's a fucking likely story/Orpheous won't watch Jackanory"), and the raucous, boozy sexcapades of Steamin' ("and I feel like I'm gonna be sick/unless you get over here and give us a kiss/Oh, make it tongues an' all/but most of all make it double quick"). Paddy concurs, "That's how we feel. There's a kind of journalistic image to us which is pretty irrelevant to us as people or even as a band." Ah yes, Jack vs the music press. Jack you may've noticed - or more likely, won't have noticed - have a low coverage in the majority of the music and entertainment media. While the reviews have on the whole been glowing, the only magazine to give them decent column inches has been Uncut who interviewed Anthony and awarded the Jazz Age album of the month (in October). So what, exactly, is everyone else's problem? "It's interesting. A lot of the reviews refer to us as middle class fakers. They seem to find it hard to imagine that people do drink and read books," Anthony says, glaring. George adds, "We're quite obviously not the next big thing, and curiously enough that's their sales pitch - their editorial is pitched at finding that. Which sometimes does work, but more often than not ends up with Shed Seven. So we're not fitting in with their views - not particularly cantankerously, not particularly wilfully - but we can't really influence it short of giving them lot's of money and coke," he considers that for a moment before finishing, "And I don't think that would work either." "I think it's papers who don't necessarily have an axe to grind come to it with a different attitude. Like the Guardian thought we were great but the NME and Melody Maker..." Paddy trails off. What about overseas press? "The press we do abroad is quadruple what we do here, for some reason. We just got a bunch of press cuttings today and we're on the same page as Steps in Sweden. So it's a very different attitude over there," Anthony replies. Do the UK press think of you as being too serious and pretentious? George responds, "If they think of us at all, it's that we sit around with fucking ruffs on, sitting at big tables talking about Derrida". "Which we do," deadpans Anthony, "but not with ruffs." But Jack do include numerous literary and art references in their songs, and by crikey even include a, ahem, suggested reading list in the Jazz Age's liner notes. Maybe the press think you're too literate for the average pop fan? "I don't think it's that. I think some people get very defensive that if you try to do anything other than read comics they see it as some kind of cultural one-up-manship. But it isn't that at all," Paddy replies. Eloquently, Anthony describes it best, "There's nothing like some working class tramp walking out of the ghettos with a decent book in his hand or some kind of skill to terrify a middle class journalist. There really isn't."

Review: The Jazz Age You know those dreams where you wake up at some ungodly hour and you can't remember what you were dreaming about, but you still have the over-riding sense of emotional baggage dragged up into consciousness? And it lingers into morning and you go to work or school hazy and feeling slightly lost? Jack experience this every single day or at least masterfully convince us that they do. 'The Jazz Age' is the 'difficult second album' from Jack and along much the same lines as the blazingly good first album, 'Pioneer Soundtracks', it's not copping much attention. Fuck knows why, as 'The Jazz Age' is class all the way, from the gorgeous string sections to the pop tidal waves they send crashing across the sound barrier. As with the previous album, Jack prove that their strength lies within the dark, sometimes sad, albeit tortured moments with lead singer Anthony making the skin shiver with his sighs and crooning and his gorgeous voice soaring steller-like. 'Nico's Children' is the blueprint for all future love/hate songs - a quiet starter drawn out by the powerful crashing of the chorus into beautiful misery. Jack lighten the mood consistently with a series of finely crafted pop songs - the bounce and rebound of 'Pablo' followed by the light hearted 'My World Versus Your World', unfortunately containing the shallowest lyrics on the album. The pleasant surprise is the way Jack has given a more rocky edge to this album, not quite an Oasis reincarnation, but more the pomp and splendour of a rock opera. Think violins, a stage bathed in blue light with strobe effects and yowling guitars, handclaps and a rousing vocal. You now have 'Steamin'' and 'Love and Death in the Afternoon', two of the heavier tracks on the album. Elsewhere is a mixture of sounds and images - 'Lolita Elle', a song that brings to mind summer nights and travels across America's trashy hick towns; 'Cinematic', the name dropping paean to film directors and the alter-reality that film creates and the glorious 'Half Cut, Wholly Yours' (Morrissey is probably kicking himself that he didn't write a song with such a brilliant title), complete with strings, real pianos and the vocal Anthony does best - the velvety, lazy and contemplative smoky tone that does for the baritone what the singer of Geneva does for soprano. The lyrics are still a mixture of mourning, confusion and lost love, sung with convincing honesty and feeling, the music highlighting their triumph. It's a task achieved by only some. Jack have excelled themselves, yet again, and the waiting game has begun. How long until they are revealed as one of the best bands in Britain and plastered on the NME with a banner emblazoned across their chests announcing they are the saving grace of Brit music? Who knows? Do we really want to give up Jack to the masses? The right answer would be, no, but when their time comes and they are propelled in the stratosphere, stand back or join in, but watch that proverbial mud fly. - Taylor Glasby

Go to Part II of our Interview where Jack speak about record sales, live performances, Anthonys love of drink, Anthony's offshoot - Jacques and the future for Jack.