About this Event

Bleach Blood

plus Special Guests



http://www.theboileroom.net/listings/events/9-mar-15-bleach-blood-the-boileroom/



"I'm not interested in obeying the rules any scene or the boundaries of any musical genre, all that stuff has made guitar music, in particular boring, predictable, safe. I come from the Punk scene and while its something that is close to my heart, it’s all become stagnant. Every band looks the same and sound the same, that’s not what Punk Rock is to me. It should be forward thinking, pushing itself all the time creatively. The un-ashamed buzzsaw pop love songs from bands like XTC and The Buzzcocks, to the way LCD Soundsystem bought pulsating disco synths to the forefront. That’s what I strive to create with Bleach Blood... Something unique".



With the release of debut album All Sides of a Circle on the horizon, Bleach Blood’s modus operandi has never been clearer: the London five-piece, led by Jamie Jazz, strive to incorporate the kinetic energy of dance music with the passion of Jazz’s punk-rock songwriting. But while the band’s unique punk-electrorock hybrid may have the vigour, venom and drive of a band clear in their convictions, the path ahead wasn’t always so straightforward.



Every King’s reign comes to an end, and The King Blues, Jazz’s former band, were certainly no exception. Formed with song-writing partner Jonathan ‘Itch’ Fox in 2005, the band’s idiosyncratic, politicised pop-punk earned them a skyrocketing reputation – the three-piece quickly signed to the legendary Island Records and found widespread acclaim. But seemingly no sooner had they hit their stride that Jazz departed the band, disillusioned by strained internal dynamics and increasingly meandering political motivations. Soon after, the remainder of The King Blues split for good.



“Things were pretty desperate,” admits Jazz. “I’d fallen into a lot of bad habits and things were really starting to bottom out.” The King was dead; long live the King. But Jazz wasn’t looking sulk over the ashes of his defunct band, nor to spend the rest of his days desperately revering his brief foray with life as a musician – sights were set firmly on the future.



Jazz relocated to the ‘warehouse community’ at London’s Manor Park, a decaying industrial wonderland towards the east of the city. “My living quarters were essentially a concrete coffin with a bed in it,” Jazz reminisces. “I had an old mattress, a desk that was already in the room, my guitar and a laptop.” Austere, sure, but Jazz’s new surroundings also afforded new horizons, new cultural encounters. The songwriter

began frequenting warehouse parties, immersing himself in a world of white label records that landed anywhere between “good, bad or indifferent.”



The creative impulse was soon revived, but if he were to embark on any real, new musical endeavour, he’d need partners-in-crime. He didn’t have to look very far. Jazz quickly discovered that Paul Mullen (Yourcodenameis:milo; The Automatic; Young Legionnaire; Losers) was a close neighbour, living no more than “five minutes away.” It didn’t take long for the pair to become friends, and for Jazz to enlist Mullen as a

songwriting partner. Soon after, a chance encounter with drummer Paul ‘Invisible Frank’ Lane in a warehouse room not dissimilar to Jazz’s own made for a very easy recruitment process indeed. After a few

lineup tweaks, Jamie settled on a touring band consisting of Frank, Tom Aylott, Luke Godwin and Julia Webb. Bleach Blood was born.



A handful of singles and an EP, The Young Heartbreaker’s Club, quickly followed, and the band hit the road, becoming an ever-more closely-knit and refined musical collective. The fire was lit; the stage was set. A fulllength

LP had to follow. Jazz, inspired by the eclectic mix of music to which he had been exposed at those warehouse parties, and keen to revisit the spirit of innovation and originality which had inspired the early days of The King Blues, was set on flexing his songwriting muscles, and finding a sound that was uniquely Bleach Blood’s own. That key element he was looking turned out to be dance music: “I was listening to the new electro movement, the new house movement; I started to get into all of that. It was something fresh, something new.”



The band’s debut, All Sides of a Circle (Transmission Recordings) represents this inclusive approach perfectly. No musical idiom is expelled from within the circle – the disparate components blend together to create

something distinctly its own. “I’m just so pleased with this album,” says Jazz. “I’ve done a lot of growing up in the past year, a hell of a lot. I’ve realised what is important, and what’s not. And for me, this band is the most important thing in my life.”



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