Izzy Reeve
I’m a London-based music photographer and occasional writer and I love documenting gigs and people enjoying them. Having just moved back to London from Scotland, where I first started shooting concerts, I’m looking forward to exploring what the scene down south has to offer with CLUNK! From new acts to festivals, I love what clunk champions and I can’t wait to get started.
Ahead of the release of their new album, we chat to Sleaford Mods frontman Jason Williamson on his new collaborations, techniques and worldviews
Sleaford Mods’ frontman and lyricist Jason Williamson is preparing for the release of the band’s thirteenth studio album, ‘The Demise of Planet X.‘ We sat down and had a chat on a crisp and sunny Friday to find out how he’s feeling about the new record. We also delved into his feelings towards the current punk scene, what music he has on repeat and how he’s changed his approach to social media for good.
Hello Jason, it’s lovely to meet you. How are you feeling about the upcoming release of ‘The Demise of Planet X‘ in January?
Good so far. I’m really happy with the album but that’s kind of not enough, is it? It’s like you could be happy with it and then life takes over again. The process of the album took six months – that was quite stressful. When it was finished, I felt this alleviation and this release from it. Then I could disconnect and enjoy it as a consumer, just listening to it.
It must be hard to be in that position after putting so much effort and time into the project. When you disconnect, is it cathartic?
It’s cathartic and then life takes over again and it’s almost as if that’s the album completely done. After that, you’ve got the promotional rollout. It’s good and you need to do it, but it’s always strange. The older you get, the more you hate being presented with your ego. I love talking about the project but it’s weird constantly talking about yourself.
I guess you’re also hearing everyone’s interpretations of your songs, is that interesting to hear?
It’s always interesting to hear how people see it. I also don’t like talking about myself all the time, but at the same time I do. Eventually, I start thinking that I don’t deserve this because I end up analysing stuff so much.
On the other end of the album rollout, you’ve got a U.K. tour coming up in February. How do you feel about touring, is it an affirming reminder of why you made the music?
You can’t hide from live music, you know. It’s the ultimate challenge. This is it and if you do a good job, no one can argue with that. I don’t care if you say you hate it and think it’s crap – you’re lying. I think it’s the purest way to present the music, even if things go wrong. If you don’t sing stuff very well (shout stuff in my case) or the energy’s off, or it’s lackluster; all of that adds to it in a weird way and it becomes its own moment in time.
As you’re going to be performing songs from the upcoming album, what’s your personal favourite from ‘The Demise of Planet X‘
‘The Good Life’ and ‘Elitest G.O.A.T.’, both of those have got great people on them, Aldous Harding for ‘Elitest G.O.A.T.’ and Gwendoline Christie and Big Special for ‘The Good Life’.
All of the album is going into the set and I wouldn’t do that unless I thought all of the tracks on it were really good. I’m the one that usually does the setlist, so I’ll throw it out to everyone to see if they like it. I’m a big fan of all of them, all are great, but I would say those two and ‘No Touch’ with Sue Tomkins are highlights.
Touching on your track with Gwendoline Christie and Big Special, I loved the music video that you had going alongside the track. How was it recording that? Gwendoline goes full throttle and it’s pretty epic.
The thing is, all of them, along with the person that was directing it, Ben Wheatley, know what they’re doing. So you turn up, get the outline of the video from Ben and Andy Stark, they show you around the place and then you’re off. Gwendoline turns up, Big Special turns up and we all just jump into it. It was only one take, so we went through it about 15 times before making a properly engaging video.
You’ve got some incredible features on the album, your biggest range of influences and genres yet, from Aldous Harding’s folkiness to Nottingham’s soulful Liam Bailey and grime artist MC Snowy. How was it to work with them? Was it an organic process getting these collaborators on board or did you set out to incorporate those sounds for the record?
They popped up at the right time. There’s a bit in ‘Elitest G.O.A.T.’ that I tried and it was okay, it just wasn’t smooth. I envisaged this kind of almost Stereolab-esque vocal. I thought Aldous would be great for it. I sort of said, do you fancy doing this? She went, “Yeah. I’m actually over in April.” I was like, “Brilliant.” We went to Invada Studios in Bristol and recorded it in a day. Perfect timing.
Did you plan on branching out and then seeing how it all melded together in the final record?
The idea was to do something bigger, something that was more challenging. I don’t think you want to be challenged because being challenged is hard work and nobody wants hard work. Everyone just wants it easy, really, if they’re honest with themselves.
But, if you want to make something better, then obviously that becomes difficult. I just wanted it to be good, interesting and different from the last. I wanted to talk about the many things that have appeared on the landscape since we last released a record.
It was just a constant work in progress and I think that’s why there’s so many collaborations on the record. I thought, “I can’t bridge this bit in the song, but I know somebody that can.” Before, I was hesitant to ask too many people, but with this one we went all out. Just said “fuck it”, you know.
I’m constantly conscious that to do twelve tracks of just me and Andrew now wouldn’t be enough. I wouldn’t be satisfied with that. So the collaborations from 2020 and 2021 onwards have steered it elsewhere. I don’t know where it’s going to go next, probably the same. Who knows.
How has the recording and writing process with you and Andrew been this time around?
Really interesting and challenging. We did 16 songs back in January and five of them made the record, but at that time it didn’t feel like we’d done anything good and I panicked. I was throwing Andrew more ideas, crudely recorded on voice note via acoustic guitar asking him if he could do anything with it. I know he’ll just come up with something really interesting, with that trust from years of working together.
We did a lot of this stuff in the studio as well. He created from scratch the ideas I’d sent him, because he normally engineers as well as produces. This time I just said to lay off the engineering and let someone else do it. That freed us both up and created more space to think about producing further. He’s a multi-instrumentalist, really, a dab hand at bass, piano and guitar and I’ll come in with a bit of ropey keyboard, guitar and bass as well. It was a really creative process.
What do you think about an increased popularity of post-punk and punk artists, like the immense rise of Amyl and The Sniffers, from Fontaines D.C. to Shame and Lambrini Girls? What are you listening to at the minute?
A lot of it’s not necessarily music for me. I find it interesting to read about them and look at them and see what kind of aesthetic they’ve got. I don’t often go back to it, not out of spite or being grumpy. I’m listening to old stuff, like Kyuss, early Queens of the Stone Age, Slowburn, which was an offshoot of Kyuss. Me and Andrew, we love what we like. We’ve been tagged with this post punk thing, but we’re not massively educated in any of it. I just like what I like. I listen to David Gray one minute, next minute Motown. Then I listen to Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac, Roy Harper. Mostly old stuff.
I don’t mind Getdown Services. Initially it was like, “what the fuck’s this”? It’s kind of our blueprint. I read a bit where he said this early stuff was made with massive mental health issues in their bedroom, which strikes a chord. They look like they’ve been through the mill a bit and I can see where that’s coming from.
What I’ve learned from the past, I used to just say music I didn’t like was shit. Now I’ve realised I don’t actually think it’s shit, and I don’t have to be such a cynical bastard. With artists such as Lambrini Girls, what I see with all of these up and coming artists is they look like they’re getting somewhere. More so than listening to the music, I enjoy seeing how they navigate the industry and what they turn into.
I’m finding the current vitality of fan interactions and fan engagement on social media really interesting to navigate and you touch on your feelings in the single ‘Megaton’. How do you feel about this direction of the industry?
You’ve just got to be careful with it haven’t you? You can’t be consumed by it. I spent years on Twitter raging at everyone – I’ve come out of that now knowing it was the wrong way to go. I’ve learned a lot from it, so nowadays I try not to pop off at people and I try to be more creative with social media.
I’ve created a whole thing with my own personal Instagram, to the point where I’m more interested in that than the band’s page. It’s personal – the band page acts as a portal then anyone that hangs around there can come through to either mine or Andrew’s page, or both. Saying that, I’m still keeping an eye on it.
Social media used to consume me, to the point that I would become aggressive and angry, with most of my day spent thinking about falling out with these people. With what’s gone into ‘Megaton’ and ‘The Good Life’, it shows that the two things can run simultaneously. I can be who I’m sitting here now as and the person in the songs. Things aren’t binary all the time and there’s nothing fucking wrong with that.
‘The Demise of Planet X’ is out on 16 January 2026 via Rough Trade Records.
Listen to the singles here:
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