“I don’t have a smartphone… it’s like putting a funfair in a library”
Reading Today talks to Johnny Borrell ahead of Jealous Nostril’s rescheduled gig at The Face Bar on Monday, October 2.
JOHNNY Borrell has been a player in British music for more than two decades.
As such, it’s no surprise that he is moving into a new era– not breaking with the past, but creating new avenues of expression and performance.
While he has headed up indie rock outfit Razorlight, Johnny is also fronting a new supergroup of sorts with Ellis D and the Mystery Jets’ Jack Flanagan in Jealous Nostril, which is coming to Reading’s Face Bar as part of a new tour.
“We always say it’s like a heavy art-rock band,” he explains.
“I don’t always know what that means, so people tend to just ask if it sounds like Razorlight… to us, I think it just rocks a bit harder.”
“I enjoy being on stage and playing music more than anything– even when I moved into world music and jazz in the last decade, I did it then, it’s what I’ve always done.”
People sometimes assume that a performer moving from an established band to a new project is trying to shake-off old associations.
However Razorlight are fresh from new material in 2022 and a subsequent UK tour earlier this year.
“So we are doing better than ever there, I’m not doing it in lieu of that band, we’re just doing this as well.
“Like all of these things, it wasn’t really planned– I was supposed to play a kind of electronic set at a festival last year
“But realised I didn’t want to just sit in front of a bloody computer for ten hours, so I phoned by Ellis and Jack and asked them to come in and see if we could play these songs.
“It sounded great, and that first session ended up producing Phase 6.”
Phase 6 would be Jealous Nostril’s debut single, released back in September last year, which bears all the hallmarks of musicians still gripped by a lust for life and compelled to perform.
“I think it’s because I tried to retire in my 30s– I had a moment where I was sick of touring an needed a break.
“But Ellis and I agreed that it was best that I remain on stage, and it’s a lot easier than being anywhere else.
“I think I’ve always felt like that since I was a kid, like I was in the right place– it just involves a lot of waiting around.”
As an outlet, Johnny says that his approach to performing and writing music comes from a place of sincere expression, often.
“I try to be 100% honest with everyone around me in my life 100% of the time, and that engenders enough conflict.
“But that means you’ve got about a thousand things to write about forever.”
Despite the conflict, Johnny says that being a rock musician isn’t quite as rowdy and unruly a life as it might once have been.
“We used to go mental– now backstage people are just sat around quietly looking at their phones, and that’s totally depressing, in one way, but the band likes to just hang, which is easy with such a good bunch of guys.”
His disdain for the tendency to stare into “rectangles,” has extended to his own phone.
“I don’t have a smartphone– and what am I missing?
“I’m on the internet, and I find it just as addictive as everyone else, so if I had it with me constantly, I’d never get any life done.”
He says his “top tips” for extracting oneself from the constant call of connection is to go back to wires.
“I don’t even have wifi, so I have plug-in broadband, meaning I have to physically go over to the computer.
“That really helps because it’s so addictive– and life is great when you don’t have to look at all the stories and all the posts.
“When someone gets their phone out to show me something, part of me dies.”
However the dark arts of social media are a language musicians have to speak in 2023.
“People talk about it being hard, but I don’t think it’s as deep as that– just take your shirt off and get your t*ts out and it’ll get the likes.
“But there’s not much of an art to it, from what I’ve seen, but I don’t want to be the old dude standing by the cement mixer on the building site telling people they’re doing it wrong.”
He’s not alone in eschewing the very latest that technology has to offer, as nostalgia for the 90s comes around and the aesthetics of the period become in vogue again.
“As someone who was a teen in the 90s, it rocked– but we can never go back, however much I’d love it.
“But it is also amazing that we have access to all music ever made, access to all these tools for making music.
“The problem is that there’s ten other things flashing up, and they’re all adverts- it’s like having a funfair in the library.
“Everything is there, but it’s also trying to distract you from engaging with it.”
And so for Johnny live music is something that he feels technology is still far from replicating.
“So it’s more vital than ever– there’s problems with that, of course, and so many bands play along to backing tracks that they’ve chucked together on a computer.
“I’d walk out. Our shows could be anything, because it’s live– we’ll write a setlist out and probably not even stick to it, but the way we play them will be however feels right in that room.
“Music is a dance, so it has got to pick up on what’s in the aether, and in people’s hearts.
“I’m passionate about that, so I’m happy to be the old dude on that– I’ll be a card-carrying member and rally for imperfection.”
He cites one of his earliest smash hits, America: “It’s a demo; there’s no click track, three or four mistakes in just a guitar line… there’s holes in it.
“Press record, press stop when you’re done, and close the door on the way out.
“We still love Iggy Pop, the Stones, because of their flaws, not despite them.”
As for Jealous Nostril, what does the future hold?
“We’re getting up to having about thirteen or fourteen songs, which we’re thinking about maybe releasing, but I just want to hit the road.
“Playing live is worth 1,000 rehearsals, so we’re just breaking the band for the moment.
“We love playing, we love the energy that people create in the room– you talk the talk, and walk the walk.
“No click track, three dudes on stage sounding huge– if that’s something you wanna see, come and see us.”
Jealous Nostril is performing at The Face Bar in Reading on Monday, October 2.
More information and access to tickets are available via: whatsonreading.com
