28
“The spirit will always be there with me. I did 25 years of prodding thermometers into pallets of chicken. I’ve done my time”
the time, an apology on Twitter put the noshow down to ‘old demons’.
you’re 25, 45, makes no difference. They still make you feel like shit.
Williamson was, and is, unyieldingly remorseful. “It was a pinnacle gig, that one in London. Stewart Lee turned up, it was just a bit weird,” he says. “A bit out of the ordinary. And I got a bit excited and got fucked up and just carried on getting fucked up and felt really bad about it, and still do. It wasn’t on, it was not on, and it dawned on me – it’s not happening.”
“Without meaning to sound like a wanker,” emphasises Williamson, “this is a business. It’s my livelihood. I’m not gonna fuck it up.”
The band’s multiplying status has added a weight of perspective to his shoulders. On the day we meet he’s already been for a run around the city, a session of acupuncture, and invested in some herbal tea. He’s off the booze and the substances. A few days previously he’d been forced to cancel a gig in Skegness, one of a number of appearances in towns off the beaten track of the accepted gig circuit. “There’s just so many dates,” he says. “If my voice goes we’re fucked. If I break down we’re fucked. I could keep on like this for three years but after that – forget it. The idea is to keep making music. I love a drink, and I miss it, but this is my job.” Both Williamson and Fearn have home lives to consider, too: Williamson married with a daughter, Fearn settled down with his partner. “I ain’t 25. This is my fucking job. Drugs have always been the same: if
--Five hours later, Sleaford Mods plough through an almost unbearably intense Tied Up In Nottz. Williamson stalks the stage, his shoulders rotating like a panther. Fearn stands behind his sticker-mottled laptop, beaming. As the song finishes, the vocalist marches off the stage and into the crowd. I’m stood near the front. As he bounds past, I see the navy polo shirt he’d worn for the shoot earlier that day is several shades darker with sweat. I cautiously, unwisely, grab him by the arm. He looks at me at first confused, then with a flicker of recognition. “Why d’you do it, Jason?” I ask. It’s a wonder he’s ever done anything else. He sneers. “There’s fuck all else for me to do, is there?” I let him go. Key Markets is released 17 July via Harbinger Sound. Sleaford Mods appear at Bestival, Isle Of Wight, 10-13 September
THE WORDS OF SLEAFORD MODS “£3.50 for a mega breakfast including toast and a cup of tea. I always go in with a suit jacket on ‘cause if I ask for extra toast, she doesn’t charge me. She must think I’m quite posh. Hardly” - Teachers Faces Porn Charges, 2007 --“What you having an EP launch for, useless prick. I’ve done three albums in eight months, I don’t fucking brag about it” - The Mod That Fell To Earth, 2009
Issue 53 | crackmagazine.net
“Sonic Youth fan? MBV? / If you like feedback that much get a job at the council” - 14 Day Court, 2013 --“Weetabix, England, fucking Shredded Wheat, Kellogg’s cunts” - Tied Up In Nottz, 2014 --“You’re trapped / Me too / Alienation / No one’s bothered” - No One’s Bothered, 2015