In an age when guitar music is dominated, as ever, by scruffy lads, thank heavens for the odd band who does things differently.
Of those, none stand out more than The Long Blondes and their lead singer Kate Jackson.
Unsurprisingly, the outfit came together with a definite concept in mind, although this wasn’t inspired in the usual way.
“We had more of an idea what we didn’t want to be,” says Jackson. “We were sick of going out in Sheffield and seeing all these terrible bands with no ambition. We knew that we wanted to write good pop songs but also have a bit of mystique, like Roxy Music, Blondie and Pulp – bands that we were into. We wanted to create that bit of distance between the band and the audience.”
Not that they had an awful lot of musical experience.
“Dorian could play a bit of guitar but the rest of us had never played before. Reenie inherited a bass and we chose Screech to be the drummer because we thought he looked like one.”
How was the first rehearsal, a disappointment maybe?
“No, because we were just doing it for fun. It wasn’t like we had a five year plan. The first rehearsal was a lot of vodka and a couple of tentative songs. Then we got offered our very first gig and that gave us a time limit of two months to write a set of songs, which put pressure on us to come up with something half decent. It’s gone on from there – we’ve always had that work ethic.”
The band have adopted a cautious approach when it comes to releasing records, putting out a series of limited-edition singles.
“Each seven inch is really precious to us, a microcosm of where we were in terms of our songwriting and sound. That’s how bands should be, they shouldn’t just come out of nowhere and suddenly be all over the media, it should be a gradual process. People say that we’re all hype but they haven’t been listening or going to gigs, we played everywhere.”
This approach led to them living a double life, caught between their music and earning a living.
“It was totally about driving down to London after work, playing in a dirty, shitty club and then driving back and getting up for work the next day.”
What suffered the most?
“Probably the job," she laughs. " We all spent our days doing stuff for the band on the internet.”
A year later and the day jobs have gone, replaced by a deal with Rough Trade (a spiritual home if ever there was one) and a fine debut in the shape of Someone To Drive You Home. Keeping the rough and ready edge of their early recordings, it’s most noticeable for the maturity of the lyrics, often dealing in intriguing stories and vignettes.
“It’s important to have lyrics with a depth to them, something that not many other bands are doing right now. Again it goes back to the groups that we admire, they had songs that you could go out and dance to but you could also listen to them in your bedroom and it would actually mean something to you.”
Despite the fact that Kate comes across as the listeners’ big sister on many of the tracks, dispensing straightforward advice, the words are split between her and the distinctly male Dorian, something she loves.
“It’s good having a female voice, to have a woman talking to other women. A song that I wrote like ‘Seperated By Motorways’ would be me talking about female friendship. The songs that Dorian writes are full of characters and it’s great for me to take on these different kinds of women, as opposed to me just singing from my own personal point of view. It’s quite an old fashioned approach, like the '60s girl groups, but that’s fine. We’re an old fashioned kind of band”.