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A Conversation with Joe Jackson (continued)
PM: Well then, moving away from Volume 4, how do you feel now about your earlier albums with this band? I just listened to Beat Crazy recently. I know that was, at the time, your first under-appreciated record, but I've grown quite fond of it. How about you?
JJ: I think it's okay, I like half of it. It doesn't quite work for me. Of the first three albums that we did as a band, I think I'm the Man is probably my favorite, actually.
PM: Are you happy about how some of your older albums have been re-mastered recently with bonus tracks [long unavailable B-sides and previously unreleased tracks] added to them? Your first two albums, Look Sharp! and I'm the Man, were reissued like that several months ago, and a two-disc Night and Day (Deluxe Edition) is imminent. Have you been involved with these reissues, and is that, in turn, bringing closer to reality the reissue of some of the others that some fans have been waiting for, like Beat Crazy, [1989's] Blaze of Glory...?
JJ: And several others. [The reissues of Jackson's three most commercially successful albums don't] really have any bearing on that situation--those others are still out of print. I don't think there are any plans to re-release them. And I have not been able get anywhere at all with Universal [Music Enterprises, which controls Jackson's A&M catalog].
The re-releases of the first two albums, I had nothing to do with whatsoever, and I'd have really preferred them not to put those extra tracks on them. You know why? Because [chuckles] I didn't think they were good enough to go on the albums in the first place! Record companies always want [to add] extra tracks [when they reissue old albums]. And in my case, I put all the good stuff on the album, and that's what it's supposed to be. And if there are extra tracks, they're more or less rejects--things that I probably shouldn't have let them have at all. So there's that.
The Night and Day package that's coming, I was somewhat involved in, because they were proposing to put all kinds of awful crap on there, like live stuff that wasn't even mixed! And I was able to propose some other things to them that they could use. So, actually, it's gonna be quite a good package, because it has things like my demos that I did for the album, with me playing everything. And it has live stuff from the live album [Live 1980-86] that's out of print, and it has the songs from Mike's Murder, which is also out of print.
PM: I'm particularly happy about that because, as you've talked about before, the way the Mike's Murder movie turned out, it kind of threw your songs away. It would be nice if, in a new context, people had another chance to discover them, because some of them are really nice.
JJ: Yeah. I don't know when [the Night and Day (Deluxe Edition)] is coming out. It was supposed to come out last year in August or something, and they totally screwed it up! And now it's coming out more or less on top of my new album, which, again, thanks a lot, Universal! [Author's note: it's now tentatively scheduled for release in June.]
PM: Are there any artists that have emerged in the last few years whose work you particularly like? I know that Ben Folds, for example, is a big fan of yours...
JJ: Yeah!
PM: You work in so many realms in music, I wonder if today's "modern rock" is of any interest to you at all?
JJ: Not really. I mean, I like good songwriters. And most of the people around that I really like are people that have been around for a while, like Neil Finn [formerly of Crowded House and Split Enz, now a solo artist] or Andy Partridge [of XTC]. Although, there are some younger ones--I like Ron Sexmith and Rufus Wainwright. I also like a lot of electronic music, a lot of British drum 'n' bass stuff, things like that, which is not about songwriting at all.
PM: By the way, are you contemplating writing another book at some point? You're first memoir, A Cure for Gravity, took readers up to the formation the original band and early days of your career as a recording artist. But so much has happened since then that's interesting artistically, and, I imagine, in terms of your personal ups and downs.
JJ: Yeah, but that's nowhere near as compelling to write about! If I write another book, it would have to be from some completely different angle that I haven't thought of yet. It might not even be about music.
PM: Is there going to be another North American leg of this current reunion tour?
JJ: Yeah, we're coming back this summer to play some more shows.
PM: Is your mind open at all to the idea of at least occasionally reuniting this band again in the years ahead, thanks to the good experience you're currently having?
JJ: [slightly exasperated laugh] I don't know. This is intended to be a one-off. So, that's really all I can say. It's dangerous to say anything too--I mean, I've said stupid things before, like, in 1994, I said I would never tour again. [laughs] So, I have to be careful what I say! All I can say is, it's meant to be a one-off. Probably is a one-off.
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