Reverend resigns

Frontman John McClure to quit the music biz after a second album

19 August 2008 - The Reverend And The Makers’ frontman plans to release the follow-up to their UK top 5 debut, The State Of Things, and then pack it all in.

McClure exclusively told 6 Music: "I don't want anything to do with this industry, it absolutely stinks."

The new album will be called The French Kiss In The Chaos, due for release in 2009.

The singer would then like to retire and become a “pedal taxi driver.”

Watch John McClure announce his retirement to the BBC.

It will all end in January

Their single, Heavyweight Champion of the World, received huge, mainstream pop success, reaching the UK top 10.

The band have also done a number of festival performances this summer, including Summer Sundae, V Festival, Ibiza Rocks and are set to play Get Loaded this coming weekend (24 August).

McClure’s other project, Mongrel, with former Arctic Monkeys’ bassist Andy Nicholson and Babyshambles’ guitarist Drew McConnell – is a mix of dub and hip-hop with an Iraqi rapper.

When asked if he feels apprehensive with the crossover between pop and alternative music, he dropped the bombshell: “It’s probably commercial suicide perhaps what I’m doing, but I’m gonna retire in January anyway.”

He says he finds the music industry a cynical world: "It's all done for profit and not for any degree of musical feeling or sentiment. Unfortunately, the press distort things to such a degree that you've not got a hope of knowing what the truth is, so it's not something that I want to participate in or fuel anymore.”

As to whether he actually intends on bowing out of the music industry completely, he responded: "Absolutely brother. It makes me tired and it makes me feel ill and I don't want anything more to do with it."

And the retirement wheels are already in motion as the singer says he’s sacked his management and plans to finish early next year.

"I'm gonna go out having told the truth and with my head held high and having stood for something,” the outspoken singer explained. “I feel like a sore thumb in a piranha pool in this industry. I don't like the way it's all run by rich men in their 50’s who went to private school. It's not something I want to be part of.”

"It makes me tired and it makes me feel ill and I don't want anything more to do with it."
John McClure

Record desires

McClure, who was once in a band with Arctic Monkeys’ man Alex Turner, also spoke about some of his contemporaries, saying: "You get these bands who have a few hits, say like the Pigeon Detectives, who come out with another album trying to do the same thing again.

"I'm going to make a record that's truly artistic, which is the Reverend and the Makers album, that's artistically interesting, then I'm going to retire and become a pedal taxi driver."

And the frontman concluded by describing his feelings towards his last offering: “It’s the best album that I could ever imagine in 2008, or 2009 which it will be by the time it comes out, but it sounds like everything that’s going on right now. I feel very, very proud of it - it’s a beautiful thing.”
 
See Reverend And The Makers play a session in 6 Music's hub.

Georgie Rogers