McClure of Mongrel and Reverend and the Makers leads the way for change in music and society
By Carla Callaghan
MONGREL and Reverend and the Makers frontman Jon McClure says its time for change in Britain and its Mongrel’s music that’s going to lead the revolution.
Their music is a mix of hip hop and indie, they want to make noise, these guys are out to teach you a lesson and won’t stop until they are heard – this is 2009’s music revolutionaries, Mongrel.
Speaking before their sold-out gig at King Tuts, Jon and rapper Kareem Dennis (Lowkey) from Poisonous Poets discuss how they hope their politicised music is going to provoke change in the UK.
Mongrel, who formed in 2008 are made up of Jon, Kareem, Drew MacConnell from the Babyshambles, Matt Helders and Andy Nicholson from Arctic Monkeys.
These guys are a busy lot having just released their astounding debut album Better than Heavy and also with the launch of a radical new project, Instigate Debate.
The premise of Instigate Debate is for young people to get involved in what’s happening in the UK by interviewing and filming a celebrity, uploading the piece to www.instigatedebate.com and if they are deemed to have the best question and answer, some of the UK’s top artists will come round and play a gig in their very own living room.
Jon says: “Our music is both lyrically adventurous and sonically adventurous because you don’t hear many records that sound like that these days because people, ultimately, are trying to all sound like some pr**ks from Hoxton.
“We’re not some art school band, we are band making true rebel music at a time when it’s needed most, we are the brave ones really.”
Kareem says: “The way its presented to the media is Arctic Monkeys, Reverend and the Makers, Babyshambles - forget all that its new music regardless of any label attached to it because that’s not why your hearing about it, your hearing about it because its good and your not going to like it because of the names attached to it.”
Immensely passionate about free speech and angry about the apparent apathy among people in this generation, Jon says: “You have to make a stark choice in these times – the past had Lennon, Marley, Strummer, Ali and we have been denied our rebels in this generation because of everyone you can really mention. Pass me the NME and I’ll list you every f***ing artist that’s complicit within it.”
He continues: “Complicit within everything to the point if an alien landed on earth and was to ascertain from our records in the 21st century what had happened in the world, they wouldn’t have a clue because we are being hoodwinked by some f***ing pirates in London who think they can tell everyone else what they should be listening to.”
Kareem says: “It’s because we want the music to reach as many people as possible but at the same time the rules to which other people use to dictate their career by does not really apply to Mongrel because of the nature of the beast that is Mongrel.”
Angry at the government, Jon feels policies are unfair and bias towards certain nationalities and classes, he says: “They want to tell you about socially mobility that you can do anything, well you can’t, your Scottish (that’s me), your Asian (Kareem) and I’m f**king working class and Northern, so we are all f**ked.
“F**k that, we are going to take the power back and I think the people are ready for it.”
Kareem says: “Music transcends all boundaries
“You have to realise what we do as a band is very grass roots and Jon did that by choice because it appeals to him inside. You will not get any gratification doing it the other way because the other way is ultimately empty and shallow.
“That’s what we are trying to show people, at the end of the day it’s about the substance not the image.”
He adds: “What we are trying to do is make caring and giving a f**k about the world cool as a pose to making it not cool, which is what they have done.”
