Touring is a lot tamer now .. and we like it that way

Jesus and Mary Chain frontman Jim on getting used to singing sober as band return to headline festival

TOURING is a whole different ball game for The Jesus and Mary Chain these days.

More than 30 years after the Scottish rockers first exploded on to the music scene, they’re back on the road again.

After the release of their acclaimed seventh studio album Damage and Joy in March– their first in over a decade – brothers Jim and William Reid are relishing their new start.

But it’s a much more mellow affair and that’s how they like it.

Frontman Jim Reid said: “It’s definitely a lot tamer now and I enjoy gigs a lot more.

“We don’t do these harsh and brutal on the road tours any more. We do short bursts and then we go home for a while and I like it that way.”

They have dates around Europe and the UK until the end of October, including a headline set at next month’s Electric Fields – the exciting new kid on the block of Scotland’s festival scene, set in the grounds of Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfriesshire.

As a result, Mary Chain fans are being treated to new material from their idols.

But if they’re expecting anything like the wild performances of the early days after their much-lauded debut album Psychocandy in 1985, they might be disappointed.

Famed for the raucous spirit of their gigs back when they were in their 20s, the Mary Chain have come a long way.

The melodies, the energy and the raw emotion of East Kilbride’s finest remains but that’s about all that does.

The rest of the group live in America and Jim spends his downtime these days with his wife and two children in rural Devon.

He said: “I don’t miss all that. We were young guys having a laugh back then.

“The idea of getting on stage and singing was always terrifying to me so the way to deal with it was to get absolutely off my t***.

“Things tend to disintegrate if people are not in control of themselves. And that’s what happened. It made mental gigs, made headlines and then it got out of control.

“A lot of the time I could barely stand, let alone play, which led to some backlash from fans, and violence.

“If we’d been a professional rock and roll outfit, we’d have tried to win them over. But we weren’t. We’d get absolutely f***** up, insult everybody and have a giggle afterwards.”

Jim, 55, added: “I like where I am now, I like the slow pace of life, it suits me in my twilight years.”

Long before the tiresome sibling rivalry of the Gallagher brothers, Jim’s famously rocky relationship with big brother William would often result in public bust-ups.

Their first gig was marred by a fight during the soundcheck due to an issue over the feedback coming from William’s amp.

The group called it quits in 1999, reformed in 2007, then went their separate ways to work on other projects and take time out.

William took on the stage name Lazycame and Jim formed Freeheat. But the pull of the original group, if not the strength of brotherly love, would prove too strong. Jim admitted: “The Mary Chain is where I belong.”

Not a group to do anything by halves, the Mary Chain returned in 2007 at the star-studded Coachella Festival in California, backed on a version of 1985 hit Just Like Honey by Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson. The song was used at the end of her acclaimed film Lost in Translation.

The gig was a game-changer and had a profound impact on painfully shy Jim.

Having faced a battle against the booze for much of his professional life, partly due to stage nerves, he finally faced his demons in front of thousands of people.

Jim said: “It was the first time I’d been sober for a gig and, my God, it was scary.

“I remember walking out at the start and seeing thousands of people there and Scarlett Johansson and I thought to myself, ‘Why not just make a run for it now?’

“I didn’t think I could do it without a drink