Mystery Jets get inspired by the environment on new, fifth album

In the new, October issue of DIY (out Friday 2nd October), Mystery Jets invite us into their studio for the recording of their fifth album.

“I found out about this book through a speech that Steve Jobs made,” begins frontman Blaine Harrison. What exactly this book has to do with the new Mystery Jets album is a reasonable question to ask. Turns out, it became something of an inspiration for the band’s fifth effort. “He was talking about how you should never lose the sense of innocence about you. The example he gave was a phrase, ‘Stay hungry, stay foolish’. It was written in the pages of this book; another from this catalogue. That expression was coined by a guy called Stewart Brand.

“For us,” Blaine reveals, sat on a leather sofa in his North London flat, “when we started the record it basically provided the springboard for a lot of the themes that we’ve gone on to explore. [Stewart Brand] was there at the dawn of the environmental movement and he’s sort of seen as one of the founding fathers of sustainable living. He’s a scientist really, and I wrote to him and he became a bit of a guiding spirit. We established a dialogue with him on what the album’s about and how we want to carry his vision forward, really.”

The record itself stands as “a big melting pot of all of our influences” with the likes of Pink Floyd and King Crimson both getting a namecheck. It’s also given them a chance to redefine what they love about being in Mystery Jets. “For us, we’ve been through quite a lot in the last couple of years and there have been certain realisations that come with being in a band that has been playing together for two decades,” concludes Will. “There’s been a lot of growing up that’s happened in the last couple of years, and a lot of us just doing it for ourselves and setting up the studio, and having to fight our own corners. Not worry about disappearing for a couple of years, not worry about whether we’re still popular or not, and just getting on with it and facing up to reality. I think these songs have that feeling about them.

Photo: Emma Swann. Read the full interview in the October issue of DIY, out Friday 2nd October. Pre-order a copy below.