Jack’s Got a PlanA Profile
Deep in the heart of the East Midlands three musicians decided to pull together all their experience and their wide ranging influences to create the single entity known as Jack’s Got a Plan. Forming over several years ago, this Progressive Indie band consists of Matt Hanlon, Dave Johnson, and Pete Bogue.
“….we’d always played in cover bands, sometimes coming together, but then we decided that we were fed up of covering other peoples songs and found we had a creative itch to scratch, and just seemed to gravitate towards each other….” Dave
In short order this newly formed three piece hit the rehearsal rooms and began to blend together their own styles and influences to create something brand new.
“….we try not to pigeon hole our sound, and we all have varying influences, like Pete is eighties electro, while Matt is more, like a rocker, metal type stuff, while I’m more Ska, Funk, that’s my kind of influences….” Dave
Before too long they began working on original material and had begun to mine the back catalogue of songs that they had accumulated collectively.
“….Matt has always been a prolific songwriter and has a little black book full of songs that he would perform acoustically, and so we would take them and try them out in different styles….I remember one song, that was one of mine, it started as quite a somber song….but then one day in the practice room we tried putting a straight Punk drum beat behind it, and it was suddenly transformed into a great raw Punk song….” Dave
Eventually, in 2019, the band released their first EP, Heartache in the Making. This four track offering would debut the bands efforts to push the boundaries with their own influences and their own style. Off the back of the release they were featured on the BBC Introducing show.
“….we were lucky enough to have one of the songs picked up by BBC Introducing, but I recon collectively we’re the oldest average age band to be featured on the show….” Dave
“….and the creakiest….” Pete
The band were performing live at this point, but not finding it to easy to book gigs. However, unlike most bands that would have found this a make or break state of affairs, Jack’s Got a Plan have their own approach to live shows.
“….we were doing, say twenty or thirty gigs a year….but for us, live shows were more a chance to hone our musical ability and gel as a band, our main focus is on producing things in the studio….” Dave“….I just think it becomes too much about the performance, like the stretched arms, windmills, and thats not what we’re really about….” Matt
So, armed with even more original music, curtesy of the unstoppable writing machine of Pete Bogue, early this year the band hit the studio and began working on their follow up to their EP.
“….we worked with a great producer, Itch, from Sound Post Studios in Nottingham….so we went in and started laying down things for our new album, we’d got most of the instrument parts down and were meant to be heading in to dub the final vocal tracks, and then the lockdown hit….” Dave
Unfortunately, like a lot of musicians across the world, the bands creative streak was halted by the spread of the Coronavirus. All recording and performing put onhold, the three musketeers of music took shelter in their homes, but rather than weather out the storm quietly, they decided to keep the momentum going, from home.
“….we managed to cobble some tech together and we’d got our instruments, so we thought we would have a go at recording….its been a steep learning curve, going through the process of recording a single track, then sending it all over the East Midlands, and then attempting to produce it onZoom….but we managed to get two tracks so far that we are happy with….” Dave
“…It was our intention in the beginning to simply record the songs so we could use them as a guide when we got back into the studio, but then it kind of evolved, we had no intention of releasing anything to be honest….” Pete
During these DIY recording sessions the band have found more ways to push their creativity and expand their sound, beyond what you would normally hear from a three piece rock band.
“….we kind of all found scope to sort of try something different, experiment with our own sounds and see what worked and what didn’t….Pete would go nuts with the MIDI Keyboard, producing stuff we’d never had been able to perform live without a few extra members….I even got hold of an electric kit before the lockdown fully kicked in and I’m considering using it when we perform live again, just because of the different sounds I can get, and the freedom that brings….” Dave
“….It didn’t always come out well though, it is a long process….but we do get to examine things in more detail, and something I might have thought might work, I’d record it but then adding it to the others it didn’t quite fit, so again, it pushed us creatively….” Matt
So armed with the determination to create and the patients of saints, Jack’s Got a Plan are once again proof that music never stops, even during a crisis. One thing is clear. These three troubadours are intent on pushing their own sound forwards, while at the same time, having as much fun as possible while doing it. So now we can safely say Jack definitely has a plan.
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