McClure is back

The Reverend  has two releases on the way

02 January 2009 - Last year Jon McClure announced he’d had enough and was retiring, but it seems he’s changed his mind and is busier then ever.

Reverend and The Makers are due to release their second album in April, and they're currently working on it in the studio.

He also has his new side-project Mongrel’s debut record coming out in the next month, before they hit the road for a 12 date jaunt.

He told 6 Music how the retirement idea seemed the best option at the time:

"It kind of permeated far and wide, although I'm not. At the time I was feeling disillusioned with the music industry, 'cos it is tough, man. It is inevitably controlled by the rich privileged white men whose taste in music is very conservative and it’s very hard to progress."

"I was feeling disillusioned with the music industry, 'cos it is tough man."
Jon McClure

It hasn’t completely stamped out his frustration with the way the music industry works though, and "The Reverend"  reckons there are still plenty of grey areas, which he would like to change:

"Because of the money involved in music now, anything that's kind of rebellious or slightly different just doesn't make it. It stagnates the culture really. We end up just repeating the last thing that was successful rather than pushing forward. Amy Winehouse was successful, then you get like 7 Amy Winehouses."

He hopes his new side-project, Mongrel, will push the musical boundaries, and their debut album, Better Than Heavy, comes out next month.

Jon says he’s sees a future with the group which features former Arctic Monkeys bassist Andy Nicholson, Babyshambles’ Drew McConnell, Joe Moskow and rapper Lowkey. He told 6 Music they already have another record in the pipeline:

"The Mongrel thing is just going to roll and roll, we've got plans to go and do a second record out in Venezuela with Hugo Chavez. Their culture's kind of exploded and Chavez has put a lot of his wealth into restoring the indigenous culture and stuff. "

"We're going to do a kind of Buena Vista Social Club style thing out there with some of their drummers, and hip hop people and horn sections and stuff. It should be fun man. Venezuela is like the new Jamaica, or Brazil, or Cuba, it's kicking off."

Jo Youle