The Irrepressibles are a band dedicated not only to creating wonderful, inclusive music, but also to furthering the cause of LGBT people across the globe, from the UK to Russia.
With the release of their ‘Nude: Landscapes’ EP this week and current UK tour, we caught up with lead singer Jamie McDermott to find out more about their unique and admirable story…
Tell us a little about yourself and The Irrepressibles
I’m a writer, singer, composer and The Irrepressibles is meant to be a musical project without barriers in terms of genre, high art and low art. I just love pop music and feel that pop music should be culturally political and to speak out and be the force of change. We’ve been formed now for twelve years, roundabouts.
How did the band come about?
I didn’t want to change myself or change my accent or try and become something to be accepted by the middle classes, but I wanted to do something that wasn’t just a band with bass and guitar so I started The Irrepressibles. We worked with orchestral instruments and I couldn’t write for them, like scores, but I would sing the parts and create the music, and that’s how the first album ‘Mirror, Mirror’, came about.
What can we expect with the ‘Nude: Landscapes’ tour?
We’re performing in small churches with real pianos, violins and cellos, octave-pedals and loop-pedals, expanding something that’s really minimal. There’s an ‘Always on My Mind’ cover I did an arrangement for with just voice and pedal, expanding into a sense of time and place and the memories of that person and the times you had. We’re using fragrances and sound effects to create a sense of emotive connection. This project, for me, is about quantifying and emotionally connecting a wider audience to gay love, and help a greater understanding of what’s beautiful about that love.
Are you trying for greater integration of gay and straight communities through art?
Absolutely. Often people say ‘oh, there’s more to you than being gay.’ But there is as much an aesthetic of feeling a uniqueness of gay expression as there is black expression; a history of fight and difference, we are all different and we’re different within the gay community as well. That complexity and that difference within the gay community needs to be expressed. I feel it’s very important that artists are strong and forward with their sexuality because young people in particular need to feel like it’s actually pretty cool to be gay. I would love there to be a time when people are like: ‘Oh, I’d love to be like that, that’s the coolest thing ever, I wish I was gay.’
And this is all represented in the new EP?
With Nude, the main record, it was about telling this gay story honestly. We made a series of videos: ‘New World’ about gay bullying and finding emancipation; ‘Arrow’ about the struggle of sexuality and finding acceptance; and ‘Two Men in Love’ about long-term love with somebody and the album itself was in some places dark, slightly nu-wave baroque, and in some places very orchestral. With these three EPs we’re basically splitting it into three worlds, so the first record ‘Nude: Landscapes’ is a minimal symphonic sound with reworks of album songs and new tracks.
Sounds amazing. Have you ever encountered difficulty from the music industry for your outspokenness of gay issues?
Yeah, I have, but I wouldn’t go into that.
I saw that even Google and YouTube restricted the age on your videos?
It’s dark because when I made the videos for ‘New World’ and ‘Two Men in Love’ and ‘Arrow’, there are kids that need to see the beauty of being gay and might be gay themselves. For it to be restricted to be over eighteen to watch it when there’s nothing sexually explicit in it is dark. What you’re doing is actively making a choice inflicting suffering on these young kids by them not seeing their culture.
This ties in with the Russian debate, doesn’t it?
We actually played in front of 5,000 people at a free festival in Moscow and showed the video to ‘Arrow’ at the end. There’s video footage of the reaction, some people are looking shocked in disbelief, but I went to see the crowd after the concert and there was lots of positivity from both gay and straight people. It’s so sad though, to have met those people and the resistance, and to think of their experience now, and it’s just one meeting, because I don’t think we’ll get into the country again after what we did.
• The Irrepressibles current UK tour dates are:
Wednesday 23 October Scarborough, Library Concert Hall
• Thursday 24 October Sheffield, St Andrew’s
• Friday 25 October Leeds, Leeds College of Music, Recital Room
• Sunday 27 October Edinburgh, St Augustine’s
• Tuesday 29 October London, St George’s Bloomsbury
• To read an extended version of this interview and see videos of the band, check out the QX blog: • qxmagazine.kinsta.cloud/blog/the-irrepressibles/
• The ‘Nude: Landscapes EP’ is out now and you can read our track-by-track review on p.42
