Jerskin Fendrix
Jerskin Fendrix has been making music slowly but surely over the past years, continuing to eke out projects in solo spaces as he protects his craft. Our mutual love of Joanna Newsom bound us into the music and we spoke of the ‘human experience’ in numbers, hard grown-ups, loving live albums in the car and extremely protracted Cohen covers.
Hey ! So good to hear you. Where are you right now ?
I’m in my studio in Dalston. It’s part of a bunch of postbox-sized studios that form quite a big space, there’s a nice sense of community here. Right now, I’m doing a lot of work by myself but I do get people in here to collaborate occasionally. In terms of the stuff I make personally, I am (for the time being) very precious about it. I love to see big bands working with this kind of hive mind mentally; it seems a really lovely, human experience, but it would be such a stretch for me to let other people into what I’m doing at the moment.
I feel you, when you’ve been working so personally on a project for so long, the concept of another person putting their fingers into it feels quite problematic. You used to play with the boys from Famous [another band at Untitled], though ?
I still work with Famous a great deal, partly on recordings and production. I’m very close with all of them and I think the biggest thing that we give each other isn’t physically appearing on stage or in each other’s recordings but it’s more in the thinking and discussing we do together. That’s the thing I have always treasured the most and continue to do so. The main thing was that Jack [Famous frontman] and I essentially fulfil the same role, it wasn’t entirely necessary for me to be a part of the band for him to realise his artistic vision.
So, working alone, you are already surrounded by artists as friends that you respect and can share you work or WIP with because of these tight relationships you have formed.
It’s such a difficult thing to find out when sharing projects with friends; you know, you really learn quite quickly what kind of person they are and whether they’ll be more or less positive than necessary. Of course, no one is going to care about it as much as you do, so that’s another thing I’ve learnt. From experience, even if someone completely cares about you and adores you and your art, they’re not even going to come close to caring as much or listening as intently as you do. It’s a big mental discipline as a solo artist to allow yourself the creative freedom desired while simultaneously becoming the most ruthless self-editor. I see it so often with people who aren’t creating the best art that they could; it isn’t because their work isn’t good or that they lack potential, it’s because they lack this really intense mental discipline that has to be evolved.
photography @lukenugentphotography
Do you think that you believe yourself ?
I think I can…I don’t always. I recognise when I’m not making the right decision. The frustrating thing is that this can often come after I’ve been banging my head against something for a month and then I’ll take a step back and realise that I’ve not been following the philosophies and disciplines that I hold myself to. If you’re working with someone else, this part of the process usually happens a lot more quickly. It all sounds so easy, but I think it really requires an attuned mental clarity.
I know that your writing process takes quite a long time, perhaps because you are the one who has the first and final say?
I can be a bit of a perfectionist, that’s definitely part of it. The biggest benefit I find with a slow process is that the editing somehow is done for you…if you put something aside for a year and come back to it, you can pretty quickly tell if it’s shit or not. The longer I spend on something, the easier the editing process comes.
Yeah, of course. Life can handle a huge part of that process. We’re speaking today really because it’s coming to the one year anniversary of your debut album, Winterreise. It can be quite hard to look at work once it’s put out into the world, so I’m wondering how you feel about it now ?
It’s difficult. I’m sure you’ve had similar experiences when working on something that’s entirely yours for such a long time. There were years of my life when, in my downtime, or when on a train walking to meet someone, the thought process would go straight to the music. I would be unpicking; thinking “does the sequencing work? should this go there?” I was constantly spending time with that body of work, and I remember specifically the day the entire album was finishing, after going to tweak a couple of final masters, and I was still in that very knotty headspace. After it was all done, I walked home from the studio as the sun was setting and it just felt really, unexpectedly heavy. Since then, I have found it really difficult to listen to it. I’ve had to, a couple of times, against my will but I find it very heavy and I’ve listened to it very little to this day.
Really? And I expect, also, because you released it last April, that you won’t have been able to play live, either. So you also won’t have had that experience of hearing yourself back with this record.
No, I haven’t. I generally hate performing live, no matter what the setting is. It didn’t matter to me that I wasn’t able to tour the album. I’m potentially the luckiest musician of the last year. So many people I know have been so gutted without this live progression, but I’ve just been happy to sit in a room, messing around with junk and have no one bother me for a year. I just find the process of playing live so much less interesting than making an album.
Is this because of your self-described ‘monastic’ upbringing ? I have all of these visuals of you in giant spaces, alone, occupying the stillness.
I think it’s mostly to do with growing up in the middle of nowhere. I had a lot of friends also interested in music but there were no live gigs or concerts, really. The way we experienced music was mostly sitting in a field or someones garden on a shitty speaker. The kids growing up in cities seemed to have this real connection and primordial belief in the concert as an impactful experience. For me, music is more like a book than performance.
So they exist in separate spaces, the performance and the creation or ingestion?
I think so. There are bands that I really like, I love their albums but then I’ll see them live and not be so impressed. That’s never altered my opinion of the band. I don’t love the album any less, you know? In that sense, they can’t be that connected.
This is very true. I’ve seen Bob Dylan, for example, heaps of times, each time is different, many of those times it’s a disaster, but I’m going to go home and listen to the records. Or, even the live recording of that same gig.
I love live albums, the sound quality and the roughness of the processing. I’d so much rather turn up to the gig after it’s finished as someone hands me a CD of the performance so I can listen to it on the way home. I also find concerts definitely can have some kind of religious aspect. Especially if it’s particularly quiet or intense. There’s no talking or communicating, or shouldn’t be. When you’re listening to an album at home, there’s the space to talk about it, discuss it, rewind it.
I’ve definitely experienced the silence held at certain concerts. I remember going to see Steve Recih’s 18 Musicians and sitting, trying to be so quiet but probably crying for the entire thing. I couldn’t handle it, there was something in the choreography of the music that was such theatre.
A concert has so many more strings to pull. The emotion is always there, and when you have that one moment when something happens on stage and it reaches right into you, it’s incredible. It can be so powerful. I’ve also had that listening to albums as well, I don’t think it is unique to the concert experience.
I wanted to ask you about Joanna Newsom, as you’ve mentioned her a lot in the past, and hearing her name always warms me as it’s somehow one I don’t hear so often. I’ve loved her music for quite a few years and she is so prolific yet remains unknown in her fame almost.
It’s astounding to me that she is not spoken about or heard more often. I know she is well-known in her own right, but you really don’t hear her spoken about often. She’s arguably the best living writer. She’s writing better poetry than any living poet, I really can’t think of any other songwriter doing that. There’s nothing better than the marriage of her slightly odd voice combined with this pretty transcendental poetry, it’s unexpected and a little uncomfortable, which is why some people don’t like it. If you had a perfect, operatic voice singing her lyrics it would suddenly become so gaudy and terrible.
There’s a humanity in it, you know, with the imperfection. Her voice is so much an instrument in the most profound sense. Much like with Dylan, as well.
It’s vital to the music. I can’t think of a successful cover of either, to be honest.
It’s so precarious. I’m reminded of these covers of Robbie Basho, do you know him? These covers just destroyed the sentiment entirely. He was a Western folk musician, mostly played a 12-string and had this incredibly haunting voice. He was covered by a bunch of really flat-sounding women and it still pisses me off.
This is the life cycle of music. You know, when you hear another shit cover of Bon Iver or Cohen, you gotta be happy at the fact they’re getting a shit tonne of royalties from it. If someone made a really bait cover of one of my songs, it would bank roll me forever.
Have you made any covers?
I have considered it. Very early on, there was a brief period of me doing Jerskin Fendrix where I did have a full band. We did a very slow cover of ‘Is This What You Wanted’ by Leonard Cohen, which I rather liked. Since then, I also did a cover of ‘Love Only Hurts Without You’ by Billy Ocean, also much slower and more scream-y.
I really want to hear the Cohen cover, it’s one of my favourite of his songs.
It’s from my favourite Leonard Cohen album, New Skin for the Old Ceremony. It’s the magnum opus
I asked my friend the other day their favourite Cohen album and he said ‘easy, it’s The Essential Leonard Cohen’.
That’s so fucking good. I grew up so used to Best Of albums. The concept of an actual album came to me so much later than it should have. There is an untapped mine in Best Of albums. I want an Essential album.
I wanted to talk to you about venues, as they grow so many artists and bands, and this is really on my mind lately as I just found out that Rye Wax [in Peckham] is closing. So sad.
I’ve played a couple of gigs there before. I also love the record shop there. That’s very sad.
So many places have had to because of this situation. There’s a lot of spots on the circuit in South London that are really struggling, but I know that The Windmill [in Brixton] for example has managed to keep afloat. It’s a point that binds a lot of these bands that move together. Alex [at Untitled] and I were speaking about this kind of mob mentality of bands moving around line-ups together, and it really made me think of how much of this music is grown at The Windmill.
It’s very incestuous. I’ve played a few venues, some of which I love. But I’ve never found anywhere that is as close to my heart as The Windmill. They were lucky, because a few of the bands they looked after in the early stages have made quite a big impact; Black Midi; Black Country, New Road; Jockstrap. Everyone really tried to contribute as much as they could. It’s such an extraordinary place. If something’s good, they’ll let you play, regardless of how well known or popular you are. There are so few venues like that. There was another place, in New York, called Silent Barn that closed just before the pandemic. I saw a few gigs there, and it felt like The Windmill. The spirit always runs a lot longer than the music with these spaces, it’s contained in the place.
Can you feel a vibe with the music scene in London at the moment?
It feels good! When I first came to London, it felt like it was just nearing the end of a slump, I almost went elsewhere because I wanted to feel more excited. I spoke to veterans of the scene and they said there’s a three to four year tidal cycle. There’s something electric about it now, there are some really, really good musicians who have blown up in the last year or so. Right now, London seems very fertile.
So much of this is connected with Untitled [London label] as well it seems.
It’s such a great label. There are so many good artists on it. Alex [label founder] has never chosen an artist because of hype, it’s all slow game and it pays off. Deathcrash, TAAHLIAH, Famous, none of this is a flash in the pan and you can see them growing in a very robust way. It’s like a very slow, but unstoppable train.
I love the live music scene in London, I grew up with and inside of it. And it’s something that I really miss living here [in Berlin] but I have been speaking to Alex a lot and we are hoping to create some kind of London-Berlin corridor to link the spaces together musically.
That would be wonderful, I’ve only been to Berlin a handful of times but it seems to have lost some of its sense of humour. It’s a shame because, in the 80s, Berlin was the place to be for literally any band.
I know, I have a sensation and a hope for the live music here after this corona shit. I think there are a lot of people in this city who have been sitting in bedrooms and basements, writing and learning instruments or sitting atop a piano and it sounding good somehow. I look forward to this transference of both music scenes.
For sure, I think they can inform each other so beautifully. I would love to see Berlin open up even more to what is musically acceptable.
Before we go, I want to ask about your next projects.
I have been working very hard on some things but they won’t be ready for a while, of course. But it’s not going to come quickly! It could be another year. So, go and enjoy Winterreise extremely slowly because you have a long wait ahead of you for the next release.
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