As songwriter and frontman to British instrumental-archival Public Service Broadcasting, J. Willgoose, Esq. talks Alex Dewing through the songs that have soundtracked his life.
“When I’m writing, I’m picturing the kind of venues I’m hoping to play with it really”.
This is the sense of adventure in exploring the environment of one's music from Public Service Broadcasting’s indefatigable frontman J. Willgoose, Esq., that has propelled the band to the highest echelons of electronica and acclaim.
Few artists have mastered the art of merging archival narrative with emotional storytelling quite like Public Service Broadcasting. Following the release of Night Flight (The Last Flight Remixes) last month, London is set to be the latest habitat for Willgoose, Esq.’s music, housing not just their sounds but two sold-out audiences at The Barbican, before heading out on tour across Europe and North America - their first jaunt around the Western Hemisphere in nearly a decade.
Featuring remixes from seven different artists, Night Flight is a celebration of both the band and its frontman’s undeniable expertise. The record pulls together contributions from across the electronic spectrum, from alt-J’s Gus Unger-Hamilton to Willgoose’s own alternate guise, Late Night Final, and serves as a reminder of how adventurous their projects can be.
This, of course, is not news to any PSB fan, who’s journeyed with them across the tensions of the space race to the resilience of Welsh mining communities, and even the highs and lows of Amelia Earhart's final flight in 1937.
This grasp on music’s environment is easily tracked through Willgoose Esq.’s self-education: “There’s that David Byrne book How Music Works, and one of the first chapters is about how music is written for the space it’s going into.”
His consideration of music, and how it should inhabit a space literally, as well as emotionally, musically and narratively, is impressively comprehensive and yet so natural. He shares tidbits of information and memories of his own experiences with the ease of someone who’s spent years musing upon them.
“That’s why choral music is long, low notes that reverberate and ring out,” he continues. “A lot of West African, or African rhythmic and percussive music, was written for small circles of people, so it’s very intricate, but it’s not designed to be played to thousands.”
It’s this attention to the demands of different musical contexts that sets Willgoose, Esq.’s work with Public Service Broadcasting apart. Ever ambitious and continually reaching for new heights (no pun intended), with no sense of entitlement or ego, there is only a genuine love of the craft. And it’s infectious.
“When I was writing Bright Magic and thinking about the lights and sound, I was thinking, “Brixton Academy, BAM! Have some of that,” he laughs. It’s this blend of musical intellect and instinct that pours over our conversation when discussing his Nine Songs selections.
Moving between frantic rock, layered hip-hop, and infectious calypso, the ‘why’ of his approach to music with such careful attention becomes more and more evident: it’s a restless curiosity. It explains a lot about the meticulous mind behind one of Britain’s most inventive bands.
“Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” by Eurythmics
J. WILLGOOSE, ESQ: I've been asked in the past for early influences a lot, and I've always forgotten to talk about Eurythmics. I think they're one of my Mum's favourites, so we heard them a lot in the car. We heard “There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart)”, we heard… what's the one with the Stevie Wonder harmonica solo?
I'm not so good on titles of tracks from nearly 40 years ago, but we had a lot of Eurythmics. We had their record We Too Are One, I remember listening to that, it probably wasn't their finest.
I've never really spoken about them before, but in terms of the sound world that they're in, the attention that they pay to all the tiny details. Obviously, her voice is incredible, the production on it, that real kind of oomph you get from the sub bass on “Sweet Dreams”.
It's an amazing track. It still stands up today. It's possibly a bit overplayed, so it's one of those songs you kind of get used to hearing. But I think if you can just sit down with it, put your experience to one side and try to listen to it as if you've never heard it before, you'd be like, “Bloody hell, that's amazing.” Because it is.
BEST FIT: It is. It’s eerie and hypnotic. I think that's why it gets into so many films and TV shows, which feels in line with the music that you're making.
Yes, it's quite sparse though. I think that's something you can't say about our stuff a lot in the past, which has, probably, been one of the weaknesses of it. It tends to be a bit kitchen sink, whereas I think Eurythmics are confident enough with that song to let it just be driven by the few elements that are in it. It's even stronger because of that. That kind of confidence of production and arrangement really comes across in it.
“Bring It On Down” by Oasis
I've spoken before a few times about Oasis lighting the touch paper from Definitely Maybe onwards. From sitting in the back of the car with family and listening to cassettes and what have you, I was kind of on cruise control and never really… You know, I loved music, but it didn't grab me as “this is now the most important single thing in your life’, until Oasis came along.
My brother bought Definitely Maybe. He really loved “Live Forever” and “Slide Away,” and I remember hearing the opening bars of “Bring It On Down” and being like, “Wow, that is exciting”. That was like a little switch being flipped in my brain, “I need to do that. I need to get a guitar. I need to learn how to play. I need to learn how to play the drums. I need to be in a band. I need to do everything. Music is now the number one thing in my life.”
If I had to pin it on any one particular track, or one moment, I think it would be listening to that for the first time. It's a real head-turner for me, and I still think it's one of their best tracks. I don't think they ever play it. I never saw them play it.
They did a lot of Definitely Maybe stuff and “Columbia” and “Slide Away”, but I don't think they ever did “Bring It On Down”, which is a shame, because it's wonderful. Are they doing it on the a new run? I haven't seen any sets from the new run, but I'm guessing they're not doing it.
How many times have you seen them live?
They were my first ever gig. Earl's Court, it must have been ’95, supported by the Bootleg Beatles. We were sitting there, watching the support and two rows behind us, there's a bit of a kerfuffle, a bit of commotion. We turned round, and Liam and Bonehead were sat two rows behind us.
This is my first ever gig, and obviously we plucked up the courage to go and say, “Thank you, Mr. Gallagher. Thank you, Mr. Bonehead,” and shake their hands. They were really kind and gracious about it, just like, “Yeah, nice one, sound.” It was pretty mind blowing as a 14- or 13-year-old. I saw them there, saw them at Knebworth. I was at the second day of Knebworth, so that was pretty mind expanding again for a teenager.
I saw them a couple more times at festivals over the years. I caught them for Be Here Now which was just like, “This is insane”. For me, those first two records and the first couple of gigs were incendiary, I would say, to my little undeveloped brain.
So that's what inspired you to pick up the guitar?
Well, Noel was on the cover of NME saying, “I'm the reason you play guitar.” I was like, “Yes, you are, you cheeky….” He's never been short of confidence, has he?
But he's absolutely right. He inspired a whole generation of kids. Most of us probably went a bit beyond the offerings of those first two records, because they're easy to play, easy to learn. Then you go on to try to play Jonny Greenwood or James Dean Bradfield or something, and you realise, “Oh, it's not that easy”.
“Street Spirit (Fade Out)” by Radiohead
Given Radiohead’s cinematic, narrative style, I wasn't too surprised to see them on your list.
I was trying to chart my memories of getting into music and different kinds of music. My cousin had The Bends. I remember she played it to us, and I was like, “I don't really like it”. It didn't really sit with me. I didn't like his voice. Something about it put me off a bit, maybe because she was also playing loads of Pearl Jam and stuff and I just wasn't into that at all. I was kind of putting it in the same bracket.
But then they released “Street Spirit” as a single and it's just unquestionably beautiful. The melody on the guitar alone, let alone where he then takes it. And I thought, actually, “There's probably something in this.”
So that was my first real taste of Radiohead. Then, getting hold of The Bends and realising, ‘Actually, no, this is incredible,’ and then trying to learn that record, having learned how to play Definitely Maybe and What’s the Story. It's a lot harder. It's a lot harder, especially Jonny's stuff.
But some of the textures that Ed's starting to do at that stage of the band is really hard to get your head around when all you've got is a cheap phaser or something. But the songwriting has never really changed. The songwriting has always been excellent, I think they've got richer and more interesting as time's gone on, certainly up to In Rainbows. For me, it was the next stage of my development, really. I see it as a kind of battering ram of noise, like Oasis were in the early days.
When you look back now, do you see any inspiration that you take from Radiohead in your own work?
I'm always taking stuff from them. I mean, they've been fairly open about where they've tried to take stuff from, you know? They were trying to sound like DJ Shadow for OK Computer, and they failed, and they ended up sounding like Radiohead making OK Computer, which is absolutely fine. Better than fine.
I'm always taking little bits from them. I'm writing the next record at the moment, and I started learning “Jigsaw Falling into Place” on guitar, it's in a slightly weird tuning, one I haven't used before. I learn how to play that and all of a sudden, I've got two new songs in that tuning. It's because of that influence. They have a slightly different way of doing things.
I'm also getting ready for the Barbican show, and looking at “Towards the Dawn”, the whole middle section of that is pure “Bodysnatchers”. Pure “Bodysnatchers”. I think I put it in 7/8 to make it a bit different, but there's a similar drone running through everything. It’s just their way of having right-angle turns within songs is really inspiring, and I'm always borrowing stuff from them in one way or another.
“Faster” by Manic Street Preachers
If I had to pick one album that had the biggest influence on my life, full stop, it would be The Holy Bible by the Manics. I remember getting into the Manics just after Radiohead and Oasis. “A Design for Life" came on the radio, and I was like, “Wow, what's that? Imagine having written a song like that?”
And then “Kevin Carter” comes off the back of that and you’re just like, “Wow, these guys are incredible”. I didn't really know anything about them, other than Everything Must Go. I saw them at Brixton, it must have been ’96, maybe ’97 at a push, and they were playing all these other songs I hadn't heard, like “La Tristesse Durera" or “From Despair to Where”. I knew “Motorcycle Emptiness”, but not much else.
So it was a journey back through their catalogue, discovering Richey and everything he'd been up to in the band. I remember getting The Holy Bible and coming home with it from Our Price or Virgin, and putting it on and being, “My God, I don't like this. This sounds scary”. But then it wormed its way in.
It's such a claustrophobic record, aggressive and ferocious, but still quite fragile in a lot of ways, certainly lyrically. I listened to nothing else for about six months. I could pick any track off that record, but “Faster” is so ferocious. It’s absolutely inspiring. They were, and still are in many ways, a brave band. They’re really inspiring to listen to.
I always like how the Manics mix raw emotion with very biting, political anger. Did that inform how you tackle subjects in your own work at all?
I think you start to see that coming in with Every Valley. Choosing to record it in South Wales was probably influenced by the Manics, having loved them for years, and then being lucky to go on and play with them. We toured with them a bit and asked James to sing on a song as well, which he did.
It’s definitely a political record, but it's not beating anyone over the head. It leaves room for people to find their way through it. We deliberately left off the bigger personalities of the time, to strip it back to being about community and the decimation of that community. We probably wouldn't have made that record without the Manics.
“The Rat” by The Walkmen
Following on from “Faster”, with “The Rat,” is this a trend in where your music goes? It seems to be getting louder.
Ha! Maybe. I remember hearing this, I was in America at the time, I heard it on the radio, and they didn't say what it was. So I just wrote down, “I used to go out, I would know everyone that I saw. Now I go out alone, if I go out at all”. I put it in my wallet, I carried it around for about five months thinking, “What is that song?”
There wasn't Shazam back then. Then it was The Stills, who were this Canadian band, who when I was living in Holloway, were playing at The Garage down the road. Someone asked if I wanted to go, The Walkmen were supporting, and I somehow manage to twig that they were the ones who’d done “The Rat.” I went along to that gig, and The Walkmen absolutely blew me away. The Stills were kind of meh.
That song has so much energy and excitement, the power behind those words, something everyone can identify with. I could certainly identify with it, that yearning that’s there amongst the high energy. It sounds out of control, like they can't quite tame it themselves. The drums are deliberately all over the place, the guitars are played right on the edge of being too fast for all down strokes.
If you look at that song and “Go”, you can see where some definite things crossed over, hopefully in homage rather than rip-off. “The Rat” would have been a big song for me anyway, but in terms of the impact it’s had on my life, feeding into “Go,” what that’s done for us as a band. There’s another life-changing moment, hearing that song.
Yes, relentless. It's a great one I’d not actually heard before.
Have you not? Everyone should know it. They split up after “Heaven” in the early 2010s, then came back a year or two ago. My mate and I went to see them. The noise in that room when they played "The Rat?" Crikey O’Rielly. It’s just people losing control. I started crying and I was like, “Oh, God.” Then I looked at my mate, and he was crying too. So it was nice, it opens the floodgates in all sorts of ways.
“Building Steam with a Grain of Salt” by DJ Shadow
There are two alternate strands of history, because this was obviously a much earlier record than “The Rat” and I remember that coming out when I was at school, maybe 15 or 16, and a lot of the cooler kids were listening to that.
I think my brother had it as well. I don't remember being that taken with it at the time, because I was more focused on guitars and stuff, but I knew about it. Then I started to get much more into that world of things. With DJ Shadow, and Jurassic 5 as well. The Beastie Boys were a big pathway into all that, with “Intergalactic,” which I nearly chose for this as well.
It was the richness of sound and the quality of his ear on that record Endtroducing, the depth of these samples that he's chosen give to the music that I don't think it’d have otherwise, if you didn't have these little snippets kind of colouring it. Oh, huge inspirations. Huge inspirations.
I remember he supported Radiohead at Wembley Arena. I remember being a bit non-fussed, non-plussed, or maybe un-fussed about it, partly because he was DJing from the front of house. So, you’re just like, “What are you doing mate?” I was not really on board until much later, and then it really just kind of twigged.
That first record is just a pure work of art, really. It's a lifetime's worth of love of music distilled into one amazing record. It can't be bettered.
“Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair” by Nina Simone
I was trying to think of songs that really stopped me in my tracks and gave me a different kind of understanding, or approach to music along the way. I remember hearing this on the radio too, I think it was on the Charles Hazlewood show, probably around 2006 or seven.
Having come to it via an appreciation of Radiohead, and they were borrowing a lot from all kinds of music from that era, like Mingus and Nina Simone and all sorts of stuff like that. So, I've kind of had the pre-programming to accept it, if you know what I mean.
Then it’s her beautiful piano playing for one, but her voice as well. When it hit me, I was like, “Oh my god, this is extraordinary.” Music felt a lot more segmented back then. When I was at school, you either liked guitar music, or you liked hip-hop, or you liked metal, and there wasn't that much crossover. I think nowadays it's probably a bit less tribal.
I definitely grew up without a real appreciation of historically black music, without a real understanding of it. This was one of many gates opening up to that in my head; Nina Simone, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder especially, and his approach to social commentary with something like “Living for the City”.
So, it was another kind of door. What’s the Aldous Huxley book? Doors of Perception or something like that? It was another door of perception opening up, and really enriching my life. It was really enriching my musical life, but generally my life.
Was it the first Nina Simone song you’d heard?
I'd heard bits. She'd been on loads of adverts. Stuff you pick up along the way, stuff that's kind of part of the furniture, musically, and it's kind of in the background. You never really pay attention to it. But then you start noticing this thing has been there all along, and you're like, “This is extraordinary.” This was just one of those moments.
“London is the Place for Me” by Lord Kitchener
I really enjoyed how infectiously joyous this song is.
I think it's come to a bit more prominence since there's that wonderful Calypso band in Paddington, or it might be Paddington 2, who sing it, but I'd heard it before then via this compilation series by Honest Jon’s Records. They put together these fantastic series of records called London is the Place for Me, and it's all kind of Calypso.
I found that by a long journey into Caribbean music, really. When there was the big Pias warehouse fire in 2011, independent music lost a whole load of stock. It was disastrous, so lots of people were like, “If you can afford to buy a record, buy any of these labels because they're in big trouble”. And I picked up Invasion Of The Mysteron Killer Sounds, which is kind of like, I don't know what to call it, sort of electronic Caribbean music? But I absolutely loved it. It was a totally random purchase, and I probably bought it because the cover looked cool.
From there, I journeyed backwards through time through Caribbean music and through Honest Jon's actually. It really is an important West London shop with all their rich history with that kind of world, and I found these records: London is the Place for Me. It turns out that Calypso is one of my absolute favorite forms of music. It's so joyous and so infectious.
They're singing about all sorts of workaday things, like London, or how busy the Piccadilly line is, or they give an individual commentary over historic Test matches between the West Indies pasting England. It's a really unpretentious, musically dexterous, interesting and very talented form of music. It's a nice one to put on if you're feeling happy, or if you want to feel happy.
Yes, I put it on and thought, “This is wonderful”, and it has such a strong cultural story at the same time.
Yes, and it's definitely telling a story of the first generation coming over, things like the Windrush. That then carries its own melancholy and disgraceful echoes through history in terms of how they were subsequently treated by some people. But that kind of intermediate, intermingling of cultures is a wonderful thing to celebrate, I think.
Honest Jon's did an amazing thing with that series, and it’s definitely highly recommended. I think they're still in print. They should always be in print, as far as I’m concerned.
“It Beats 4 U” by My Morning Jacket
Thinking again in terms of who are the bands that have had the biggest influence on me, I remember a mate of a mate giving me Z by My Morning Jacket in 2005 and saying, “Here, you’ll like this.” And I’m such a stubborn bugger, when somebody passes something, saying, “You’ll like this”, I'm like… [shrugs and lets out an exaggerated sigh].
So I don't think I listened to it, I think I put it on my MP3 player and just carried it round. Then one day I had all the songs on it on shuffle and their song off the record came on. I had no idea what it was or who it was by. I was like, “What's this? This is great”. And it turns out it was off the record by My Morning Jacket.
That started the whole journey of discovery of that record for me and seeing them live. There are very few bands, other than the Flaming Lips possibly, who've had such a big impact on me in terms of the power of a live band really going full tilt, and the joy that can spread.
That song means a lot to me. That song makes me very emotional. It's a beautiful, beautiful track. It led me to a lifelong love of their band. They might release a record I'm not that keen on, but I don't really care. I just love them absolutely. Love them unquestionably. It's, what do you call it? Not unrequited… It's kind of like the love you'd have for a child, you know? Unconditional - that's what I mean. Unconditional love. They can do what they want. And you know, I've borrowed a lot of stuff from them as well. A lot of stuff.
You mentioned them being an amazing live band, and quite a lot of the songs we've spoken about today have been people you've seen live as well. How important is that experience for you?
I don't think there's been a band I genuinely love who I haven't seen live. You get the record, sit with it for a bit, like it, and then there's something about seeing a band play that record that makes it all real and crystallizes it. It gives you a better sense of who the people are and what they're trying to achieve with it. With My Morning Jacket, they just took it to a whole other level.
One of the things I like about that record Z in particular, is that it's a bit more restrained than some of their previous ones, which can get a bit jam-bandy at times, a bit unwieldy. They had John Leckie for Z, and I think he was just like, “No, you can do that live. Keep that bit for live. But on the record, we’re going to be tight. We’re not going to be self-indulgent.”
That kind of discipline, keeping a record well-structured and tight, not making it self-indulgent, but leaving room for things to take it up a notch live, was a big part of my musical education in terms of how we approach what we do.
Sign up to Best Fit's Substack for regular dispatches from the world of pop culture