'A lot of women got in touch saying they were crying': Bobby Gillespie dissects his new record
Bobby Gillespie and Jehnny Beth have collaborated on Utopian Ashes. Picture: Sam Christmas
Bobby Gillespie’s black shoulder-length hair sits comfortably on the collar of a blue open-necked shirt, there’s a stillness in his considered Scottish burr delivered during our Zoom chat. In contrast, with a short black crop is French musician and actress Jehnny Beth, who exudes the kind of warmth that is more often found during a face to face interview.
A new collection of duets by the pair appear on Utopian Ashes, a long-player of original songs they have been working on together and apart in Paris and London since 2017. The album was announced alongside a single and promo video for the Remember We Were Lovers tune during the winter lockdown. It reminded many that a popular song still has the power to stop you in your tracks, with Gillespie receiving a strong reaction from fans, friends and one of his musical heroes.
“A lot of women got in touch saying they were crying and that it really affected them in their heart,” he says. “I thought we’ve done a good job here, we’ve written music that is affecting people emotionally. Iggy Pop also said some beautiful things about it on his radio show which meant a lot.”
In front of an array of bookshelves in his North London home the Primal Scream singer explains: “It’s one of the best things I’ve been ever been involved with, co-written or sang on. I knew it had the potential to be a big song, a special song from the get-go and I’m very proud of it. I worked hard on the lyrics for the verses, I would work for months to get a single line right like ‘We’re martyrs in a marriage/In a war we’re gonna lose'. I tried different lines, it didn’t come easy.”
The song embodies some familiar elements of the band he co-founded almost forty years ago in his home city of Glasgow. Most apparent are traces of come-down ballads such as Damaged, from Screamadelica, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, but as Gillespie suggests there is an “emotional brutality” that separates this from previous efforts.
Jehnny Beth, front-woman of Savages, concurs: “When Bobby started writing I knew this was some of the best work he had ever done, this kind of deeply affecting, personal writing. I was glad this was what he wanted to do, it was inspiring because he was inspired and that’s what’s great about collaboration. I want to say he was possessed, but maybe that’s not the right word.”
For the creation of the album, the pair mustered their forces, with Gillespie inviting three of his Primal Scream bandmates, while Beth brought in her long-term partner and musical collaborator Johnny Hostile on bass.
“Bar the Rolling Stones no other band can play with this kind of feel,” suggests Gillespie of his band.
In this rekindling of the Auld Alliance Gillespie has joined forces with a poetic voice that complements his more direct lyrical style. “I had lyrics before Bobby came up with the theme,” says Beth, “initially I was going on instinct, the lyrics I’d written were from the chorus of Remember We Were Lovers which were inspired by a Rilke poem and the idea of looking at someone else and commenting how you think they are doing from their body position.”
Gillespie’s concern of a couple in trouble but not finished provided a “grown-up” concept for the overall work. “It’s a statement record, no-one else is making music like this,” he adds.
It’s five years since Primal Scream’s last long-player Chaosmosis in 2016. While known for the pioneering and experimental work on the likes of Screamadelica, Vanishing Point and XTRMNTR Gillespie admits there are none of the “electronic" or “pile-driving” full-throttle sounds fans might expect.
After considering some electronic soundscapes, the songs were stripped back to just an acoustic guitar and began life sounding like a “Neil Young dirge”. The finished effort is far from lo-fi with its lush orchestration and affecting Stax style horn section. Even still, one of Gillespie’s former band-mates thought it was a lockdown record.
Messages of support were sent to the singer from Mani, the Scream’s former bass player (also of the Stone Roses), and Irish musician Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine) who also enjoyed a stint in the band. “Kevin said, ‘it’s amazing you got to make this in lockdown’; I didn’t have the heart to tell him it was finished before and we planned to release it in 2020.”
The album sounds like it could have been recorded in 1971, making it a good fit for Jack White’s Third Man Records.
At home, Gillespie is known to sing We’re Gonna Hold On by George Jones and Tammy Wynette with his wife, the fashion stylist Katy England. Ballads such as this as well as Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris’s country torch-songs, provided a notable template for the work. The lyrics are less about societal decay and political revulsion in favour of a more confessional approach.
“I put myself in some dangerous situations, suffered black dog years of degradation,” says Gillespie at the start of the visceral spoken word intro to You Can Trust Me Now, before the song morphs into a galloping country-soul ballad which finds Beth harmonising with Gillespie and trading verses.
“Backing vocals is something I’ve always paid attention to,” says the Savages singer of the track, before Gillespie adds: “That’s how I learned to sing, listening to Mick Jones on Clash records.
“The part I sing in the first verse, the guy is kind of admitting his failings and transgressions. It’s about a person asking for readmittance to the human race because they have put themselves out on the parameter and out in the woods. They are coming back towards the campfire, they are asking for forgiveness really... and another chance. To ask for another chance is mutually beneficial; that’s the basis of civilisation, empathy.”
As Primal Scream prepare to start playing festivals over the summer (their first gigs since 2019) Gillespie and Beth are planning to take Utopian Ashes on the road later this year.
“If it wasn’t for this time we would have toured it,” says Gillespie. “We always said we would work towards some live gigs which will hopefully happen in November because I am dying to play this live. If we can get out of this lockdown thing it’ll be magic, there will be some really great moments.”
- Utopian Ashes is released on July 2
