Jason Pierce interview: ‘I think it’s my last record’

The Spiritualized frontman shares with Shaun Curran why he wants his next album to be his last – and how he turned down millions to reform Spacemen 3

All work, no play: Jason Pierce, the frontman of Spiritualized, is working on his new record to be released next year

I meet Jason Pierce, the frontman and sole permanent member of the band Spiritualized, in a hotel bar in East London. Deciding it’s too noisy, we relocate across the street. He’s in good natured form, softly spoken and humorous, although he gives the impression he hasn’t seen much daylight recently.

“I’ve not spoken to anybody for three weeks,” he chuckles. In the past, that would have almost certainly been a result of narcotic intake – Spacemen 3, the band he formed with college mate Pete Kember in Rugby in 1982, lived by the mantra “taking drugs to make music to take drugs to”. Rather, he’s “going stir crazy” as he works 12 hour days on his new record. He finds it hard to switch off – “I don’t have a TV, it rots your brain” so “these shows have come at a good time, it’s nice to have something else to think about”.

Pierce (aka J Spaceman) is presenting the 1997’s album, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, backed by a 15-piece orchestra and a gospel choir at London’s Barbican Centre this week. He did likewise, spectacularly, in 2009 but what convinced Pierce to revisit the album he acknowledges “has a lot of history” before next year’s 20th anniversary, was that it would clash with the release of Spiritualized’s new album, also out next year.

Spiritualized present a performance of their seminal album 'Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space' at the Barbican, backed a 15-piece orchestra and a gospel choir

Of all the albums in Pierce’s catalogue – from his first band, Spacemen 3, through his 25 years as pilot of Spiritualized’s space rock voyage – 1997’s Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space remains his masterpiece. As last orders were being called on the Britpop party, the third Spiritualized album, a 70-minute sonic odyssey, was orbiting its own sphere, honing all of Pierce’s lifelong obsessions: rock n roll, blues, gospel, white noise, free jazz and lavish orchestration. The songs were ambitious, beautiful and brutal paeans to love, loss, drugs and redemption. NME named it album of the year, ahead of Radiohead’s OK Computer.

Pierce speaks affectionately about Ladies and Gentlemen, but humbly, too. “It didn’t travel the way it did just because of my work.” Other factors – level of promotion, “people taking enormous amounts of ecstasy and wanting something to chill out to the next morning” – helped it up the charts. He’s also wary of the reputation the album gave him as a grand visionary.

“I’ll destroy that for you now,” he says smiling. “I question people who say they have the finished product in their head and all they have to do is put it down and record it. It’s believable if it’s Stravinsky or Mahler, because they had the proof on a piece of paper. But a lot of popular music is not about that. I threw ideas around the studio. It’s not a precise record. But a lot of people are too easily satisfied. Or they aren’t allowed to say ‘is this good enough? Is this where I want to stop this?’ You can always try to make something better.” He smiles ruefully. “You can also ruin it that way too.”

Pierce wrote the 1997 album, 'Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space' distraught after his girlfriend, then Spiritualized keyboardist, Kate Radley left him to marry The Verve singer Richard Ashcroft

“If there was an idea behind it,” he continues, “it’s that it wasn’t just a collection of songs, that it read like a symphony, with a coda, epilogue, recurring themes”. Lyrically, it was awash with religious imagery, drug references (“there’s a hole in my arm where all the money goes”) and desolate heartbreak (“all I want in life's a little bit of love to take the pain away”).

The latter two subjects have helped enshrine the album in rock n roll legend. “Yeah, people like stories” he says dryly. The shorthand tale is that Pierce wrote the album deep in heroin addiction and distraught after his girlfriend (then Spiritualized keyboardist) Kate Radley left him to marry The Verve singer Richard Ashcroft. Notoriously prickly about these issues in the past – in one infamous interview he seriously protested the lyric “love in the middle of the afternoon/just me, my spike in my arm and my spoon” wasn’t about heroin – he can now smile, albeit knowingly, at the myths attached to the songs.

“The whole cornerstone of the rock n roll building is Robert Johnson selling his soul to the devil. And I’m like come on, give me a break. But it doesn’t matter, it’s show business. Who cares? But you can’t sell just stories. It’s the music that stands. At the time I just thought saying it’s about a specific event was almost like an insult. Really? This great thing I’ve been working on for a year and half you’re going to lay it down as a simple ‘woe is me’ kind of world?”

Pierce turned down £2m to help reform Spacemen 3

As far as Radley is concerned, Pierce has always insisted tracks like “Cool Waves” and his most devastating composition “Broken Heart”, the sound of somebody’s life falling through the floor, were written before the split. “I mean, the idea I could even score a load of songs real quick like that,” he points out. But surely the heartbreak that was suddenly real bled into the songs, heightening their emotion? There’s a long pause.

“I want to say quite literally yes,” he resolves, “but not with any forethought. Whatever the experience, getting knocked down by a bus, losing your hearing, or anything in between, will do that. But I didn’t think ‘oh now I’ve got turn this album specifically about any given singular event’.”

I tell him that I have turned to the album after break ups.

“And what was that like?”

It helped.

“Well yeah, people say it’s got them through so many hard times – and that’s everything to do with music for me. It’s like Patsy Cline. Take something very normal and small and local and turn it into something that’s universal. That’s the goal, and it’s slightly out of reach. That’s why it’s exciting. If it was easily attainable it wouldn’t have the same type of thrill.”

NME named ‘Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space’ album of the year, ahead of Radiohead’s 'OK Computer'

Pierce has continued to strive for his rock n roll Valhalla. Four albums followed including Ladies and Gentlemen: the grandiose Let it Come Down (2001) was the biggest selling and the back-to-basics Amazing Grace (2003) was, in my opinion, the best. Understandably, he’s preoccupied with his forthcoming record, which he says is “the equal if not a lot better than Ladies and Gentlemen”. He also casually suggests it’s to be his swansong. “I’m a lot older now and in a weird way I think it’s my last record.”

I ask if that is for health reasons – pneumonia nearly killed him in 2005, while he created 2012’s Sweet Heart Sweet Light during treatment for hepatitis C – but he assures me not. “Why, do I look bad?” he laughs. The reason is artistic. “I’ve already covered so much ground and already done a load of ideas. There’s no point doing something unless it’s better than that. It’s mentally and physically such a taxing and demanding year or so, and there’s no point doing it unless it’s really something else. I’ve never bowed to pressure and done anything I’d considered a bad move artistically. And I won’t start for anybody.”

That includes a refusal to reform Spacemen 3, despite huge financial incentives. Pierce reveals he’s recently turned down a £2m offer to play a series of shows. He clocks my open mouthed reaction. “Amazing, isn’t it?” He must have been tempted? “No, because it’s not about that.” That’s an awful lot of money, I stress. “Oh it’s a ton of money. But I think it’s too important for that, I really do. It’s been my life’s work to wave my small flag to show how important rock n roll is. You can buy those records if you want to hear the music. The argument that gets thrown at me is people didn’t see it first time. But there’s a whole history of mankind and I wasn’t there for most of it.” He puffs his cheeks out and smiles. “Maybe I’m just stupid. I certainly need the money. Who doesn’t need that? Who couldn’t give half of it away if they did have it?”

Therein lays the difference in motivation for the Ladies and Gentlemen celebrations. In looking back, Pierce is forging his way forward. “I know my Ladies and Gentlemen show is hugely better than anything we did 20 years ago, something of worth. Somebody said it’s like God is on feedback behind the curtain. And it really does feel like something is coming through the roof. So I’m doing these shows to remind everyone involved we’re at our best when we reach too far and we’re overly ambitious. It’s a good reminder for next year.”

Spiritualized perform Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space with a 15-piece orchestra and gospel choir at London’s Barbican Centre on 7 and 8 November