Apr 03 2008 6:02 pm,
Profile: Mystery Jets
Words: Harriet Gibsone
The Fly stands outside a faux-American diner in the middle of Shoreditch, awaiting the arrival of two unidentified Mystery Jets. Picking out a member of a real band in this particularly pretentious corner of
East London is like trying to spot the legitimate female in the Pussycat Dolls, but singer Blaine Harrison arrives just in time to save us from waving at more confused scenesters.
Blaine, equipped with packs of cigarettes and Strepsils, his face adorned with the faint lines of penned-on whiskers, is all squat party sophistication. As he heads to the toilet to wash off the whisker-remnants we’ve just pointed out, guitarist Kai Fish arrives, a fresh-faced and an energised contrast to
Blaine’s weary state. “I can’t be bothered to get pissed anyway,” states Kai. “I don’t like going out, I just save it all up for the tour.” It must be one hell of a tour to merit a 21-year-old’s alcohol abstinence, but, as anyone who’s seen Mystery Jets will attest, their shows are always just a few steps away from carnival-esque piss-ups.
Back in 2006, Mystery Jets appeared amongst a host of watered-down indie-pop imitators, armed with tonnes of harmonies, buckets of charisma and, err,
Blaine's dad. From their base at Twickenham's
Eel
Pie
Island, they made an album of eccentric, shambolic anthems, spawning the short-lived Thamesbeat scene in the process, with them at its pioneers.
When The Fly first mentions
Eel
Pie
Island, it is met with a nostalgic smile from Kai as if he’s just been reminded of an old friend.
Blaine, meanwhile, is a little sterner. “We were very pigeon holed on that island, cos we had so many stories from there, and towards the end it got more attention than the music did,” he insists. “It felt like people were more interested in the stories behind our band than the music. When we made the new album we stripped away the things that became gimmicks.”
Having left Eel Pie (unwillingly, it must be said – they were forced to leave the island due to ‘volume’ issues), and with
Blaine’s dad Henry deciding to take more of a backseat, they’ve made a flawless second album aided by Erol Alkan’s magic touch. So how did they manage to lasso in one of the most sought after men in music?
“We used to go to the club night Trash every week and one time I chatted to him and brought him a CD - he didn’t even listen to it, he just put it straight on,”
Blaine says. “It starts with a minute long a cappella and he was fucking playing it and all these kids around me didn’t know what to make of it, and I was like ‘Yes, this is our song!’. So we knew he had some kind of interest in us.”
As well as Erol and acclaimed mixer of Arcade Fire’s ‘Neon Bible’, Nick Launey (who The Fly accidentally pronounce ‘Laundry’), the band also roped in Fly favourite Laura Marling to feature on their single ‘Young Love’. “She’s one of the only girl singers around in
London who isn’t a loud mouth”, says
Blaine. “She hates being associated with all the… I don’t know what you call them, minstrels. I like Amy Winehouse, I like some Adele songs, but they’re always in the fucking tabloids!”
The pair’s conversation swoops from jovial tales of kidnapping festival mascots to Neil Diamond’s haikus about ‘huge erections’ to all very grown up concepts of success. “Every record we make has got to be a bit different,” says
Blaine, “but I mean we’re not going to go to
India and learn the sitar...” Kai sharply cuts him off to reveal that in fact he thinks they will. “But I do have a premonition,” he continues, “that we might go to
New York and live there - maybe make a record that’s like a Woody Allen film!”
“Everyone forgets that it takes time for the best treatment, what the best way is to make a song. Everyone expects a song done; bang, up on MySpace the next day and that’s what the band sound like - like it’s all sussed out,” Kai concludes.
It may take time, but with age on their side, two enchanting albums already under their belts, and their biggest dilemma being whether or not to learn the sitar, success for Mystery Jets is a definite bet.
‘21’ is released on 679 Recordings on March 24th.
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