Jehnny Beth talks politics, performance, and new material: “A record for the sad and horny”
“This is just noise” was my mother’s reaction to hearing Savages’ ‘TIWYG’ on the radio back in 2015, and therein began my appreciation for the group and its fearless leader, Jehnny Beth.
Art, if it’s any good, has the unique ability to instil profound emotions in an audience and, for me, Savages were the means by which I exerted all my teenage angst and anger at the crumbling world around me. Although that masterful post-punk outfit has long since parted ways, and I have long since escaped the confines of my teenage existence, Jehnny Beth has remained a constant source of musical inspiration and energetic exertion.
Tirelessly moving forward into ambitious new areas of artistic expression, like a punk rock shark, Beth has immersed herself in a vast array of projects in recent years, from her incredible collaboration with Bobby Gillespie on Utopian Ashes to continuing the public service of her television show Echoes, which showcased a plethora of new beloved acts for the very first time. All of that considered, the songwriter’s latest project, You Heartbreaker, You, is among her most ambitious and, perhaps as a result, her most enchanting.
From the moment that the opener, ‘Broken Rib’ kicks in, the record is unrelenting in its energy or abrasion, with Beth’s distinctive vocal style embracing multiple new climbs as the tracklisting marches on. Crucially, though, the new album is awash with the unique, raw power of live performance.
“I guess the stage is still the place where I found most of my musical inspiration,” the songwriter admitted to me over a mid-afternoon video call ahead of the album’s release.
Appearing on my screen, still relatively jetlagged from a recent journey back from filming in Brazil, Beth reflected on just how crucial her many trips around the gig venues of this world have been in inspiring her sound. “I think I’m one of those performers who, even when they were playing in an empty room, in a small club, I still gave it my all, like as if I was in a stadium,” she shared, musing, “I just think that a packed room is what gets rid of all stage fright for me. If people are there, then it’s half of the job done.”
Beth has certainly earned her stripes when it comes to gigging. Even outside of her own headline shows, the songwriter has been out there as a support act for countless different outfits over the years, and it is those diverse experiences on stages of all different sizes which seem to have influenced the outlook of You Heartbreaker, You.
“I’ve been touring a lot, did a lot of support shows,” Beth recalled, looking far less tired than somebody who has just done multiple support tours, recorded an album, and flown back from Brazil has any right to appear. “I was really grateful for that, because it was, one, really fun, and two, enabled me to go out with my mates,” she beamed.
“We toured with Idles in the UK, Depeche Mode in Europe, and Queens [of the Stone Age], Viagra Boys in America, and it was a lot of fun,” she continued.
“That’s how I get the music going, you know, by playing live, by being out there in the world, by listening to people seeing other bands play. I think that’s how music flows.”
Jehnny Beth
In addition to the inspiration provided by that extensive address book of musical mates, the sensibilities of the new album owe a lot to the continued collaborations of her partner in crime, Johnny Hostile. “I really wanted a singular vision for the record. Like to have no distraction, being very focused, and for the record to have its unity sound-wise,” she said, adding, “I knew that Johnny was the best person to do that, because he has this capacity of concentration that is very rare in people in general.”
Having worked with Hostile since way back in the mid-2000s, before carving out their Pop Noire empire, the pair are intimately familiar with each other’s sound and sensibility. Still, though, the duo are capable of some surprises.
“I knew he was a great guitarist, but I didn’t know he was such a riff machine,” Beth laughed, noting, “He started making all these amazing chord progressions, really heavy and like when hardcore meets shoegaze, and I felt that was really what I wanted to do, you know,” before adding perhaps the greatest promo line, “It’s like a record for the sad and horny.”
“I think this record was very much about me and Johnny believing in ourselves,” she continued, before name-dropping the musical brothers whose presence has been unavoidable in recent months.
“What we call amongst ourselves, ‘the Oasis trick’. Because I think those brothers are like the kings of self-belief, you know. I think having them back is even more, you know, we have an immediate fix of that at the minute,” explaining, “I just feel like, if you don’t believe in it, who else is gonna do it?”
Unlike Oasis, though, Beth is not in the business of nostalgia. You Heartbreaker, You sees the performer break new ground in terms of her vocal ability and inherent sound, adding to her seemingly ever-expanding repertoire. “I definitely feel that my best work is the next,” she shared, summarising the forward-looking approach which has kept Beth on top of the alternative scene for over a decade.
“We really wanted the record to be very dynamic. I think vocally, I wanted to expand the techniques, because I knew there were things, specific things I had in mind, that I couldn’t really do vocally, and that really intrigued me, and gave me a challenge,” she elaborated. Despite her self-effacing claims in our interview that she hadn’t exactly mastered the more hardcore, scream-centric style of vocals attempted on the record, you wouldn’t know from listening.
Aside from the inspiration of live performances and the self-belief of embracing new directions, another core pillar of You Heartbreaker, You is its defiance. Although Beth isn’t as overtly political in her lyricism as some of her contemporaries, there is no escaping just how influenced this record is by the horror and injustice of the world in which it has been created.
“I keep on top of the news every day,” Beth confirmed, “I am hyper-conscious of what’s going on. I listen to the news every morning. I read about it. I talk with people about it, like anyone, I think it’s hard to look away, to what’s going on in the world right now.”
Seemingly, the injustice and oppression witnessed in the news on a daily basis play a role in Beth’s artistic output. “I don’t know if it’s inspiring,” she questioned, “I think it raises questions and definitely transpires in some of the lyrics, in my own way, although I’m not as direct as some artists are, which is okay,” adding poignantly, “I think you can’t force these things. You have to be really honest and do what you feel like, and for the music to stay, to be honest and to be what it is.”
But in this troubled world, where genocide rages on in Gaza and Sudan, among others, and fascism seems to be increasing inescapable across vast swathes of the planet, what is the role of artists? “When I grew up, I was really educated by bands like Rage Against the Machine, or even Nina Simone, you know, about civil rights,” Beth shared, “but also, in times of heartbreak or in times of loss, I was happy to turn to Nick Drake or to PJ Harvey.”
Those two sides, of overtly political resistance and escapism, are essential to the output of You Heartbreaker, You. We have already seen a multitude of artists, from Paul Weller to Kneecap, The Menstrual Cramps, Primal Scream, Brian Eno and The Mary Wallopers, to name just a few, using their platform to highlight the prevailing issue of the ongoing genocide in Palestine, and Beth’s new record certainly seems to follow suit in its resistance.
“Art doesn’t have to talk about politics to be political, to change the world,” the songwriter declared, “Artists are here to open us, to make us feel more in touch with others and connected and empathetic. That’s what art does, that’s what a live show does, that’s what brings us together.”
In that sense, of unification and resistance, You Heartbreaker, You is among the most important releases of the year thus far. Not only does it reflect the development and endless innovation of Jehnny Beth as an artist and songwriter, but its infectiously abrasive energy captures the zeitgeist of how many of us are feeling in these increasingly dystopian times.
So, even if it is “just noise”, as my mother would claim, it is the noise of artistic resistance and atavistic energy. Just as every great rock record should be.
