We Were Promised Jetpacks: mums, library fines and Dr Dre

We Were Promised Jetpacks

I’ve totally taken We Were Promised Jetpacks to my heart – ever since back in February when they played The Borderline, they’ve carved a little path in my left ventricle. And now I’m at 2009’s halfway mark, I can safely say that These Four Walls is my favourite debut LP of the past six months; it’s an album so exciting that the only way in is to listen and listen to it until you’re essentially inside it. The melodies give me the impression they’re alive and on fire and the lyrics have this enormous, irreparable vigour. And yes, I’m using first person here because it’s my love for the band that counts. I’m not speaking on behalf of anyone else, ‘Jetpacks can do that well enough for themselves.

Comprising Adam (vocals), Michael (guitar), Sean (bass) and Lackie (drums), they’re balanced, entirely enthralled by the lives they’re leading and extremely lovely to boot. They share a love of Dr Dre’s 2001, Wetherspoon’s pubs, early Kings of Leon and Biffy Clyro. Though entirely without realising it, they have produced an album all of their own.

Having formed in Glasgow at school many years ago, the four-piece have all just graduated (apart from the band’s drummer, who’s been working for the past year), and can hardly believe they’re a few months away from a coast-to-coast US tour with Fat Cat compatriots (and nigh-on idols) The Twilight Sad and Frightened Rabbit: “It’s a scary thought,” offers drummer Lackie. “We knew it was planned but didn’t know it was gonnae happen – we found out in the last couple of weeks.” It’s all part of the fact that We Were Promised Jetpacks somehow fail to realise their own power. I tell them how diverse I find their album, the fact that ‘This Is My House This Is My Home’ is an entirely distinct offering from ‘Quiet Little Voices’, and bassist Sean’s instinctive reaction is an honest, immediate “really?”.

“All our songs are old to us,” he continues. “When we wrote them we never thought we’d be making an album with them and going on tour with them to America – they’re all made for live performance.” He’s amiably almost on the defensive, Lackie subtly continuing on this understated theme as he tells me about the band’s plans for the next album (making sure he touches wood before carrying on): “We’ve got more experience but we won’t be different, we’ll be writing in the same way – all of our songs have gone through the same process.”

So from a bunch of friends playing together at school to a tour de force full of rollicking melodies, how did it get to this? “If it wasn’t for Frightened Rabbit, we wouldn’t have been signed.” And Sean’s right; We Were Promised Jetpacks were picked up by Fat Cat after MG favourites Frightened Rabbit put them in their top friends on their MySpace.  But are they best friends, these two bands and The Twilight Sad? There’s a keenness to lump them in with some sort of faux-Glasgow scene… “We’re not that close,” says Lackie. “We know Frightened Rabbit a bit more ‘cause we went on tour with them. These bands were our favourite bands in the world before we got signed so it takes a while to get past that.”

Signing to Fat Cat while getting to the tail-end of their degrees would’ve been a tad challenging for most but oh no, the three still-studying members of ‘Jetpacks took it in their stride. Lackie was studying Film and Media with German and Sean a degree in Mathematics; Adam earned his dues in Politics, and Michael, much to Sean and Lackie’s confusion, studied Electronics with Music (“we’re not sure what it means!”). And as much as a record deal signals ‘WIN!!!’, Lackie hasn’t got his degree results yet because he hasn’t paid his library fines! “It’s been a busy few months with the end of our degrees, but now we’ve got to see how long we can drag it out for.” And so the modesty continues…

All of that considered, These Four Walls has been out for almost a month now. Broadly speaking, it’s been received to a sea of praise. But how do ‘Jetpacks deal with reviews? “It’s good when they’re hilariously bad and they try and slate you,” says Sean, before being interrupted by an excitable Lackie: ”My mum’s got Google Alerts set up! Every time a new one comes up, she’ll phone me – and then there’ll be silence for ages while she’s trying to find it, you can hear clicking and stuff, and then she reads it word-for-word. She knew we were going to America before I did. “You’re playing a festival in Colorado,” she said.” Bless.

The transition between schoolfriends-in-a-band and band-as-job-headlining-a-festival-in-your-hometown (namely Hinterland) came pretty sharpish for We Were Promised Jetpacks. At that particular show at Glasgow’s fairly sizeable ABC2, I became concerned that singer Adam was going to do his voicebox some injury, and in a parallel existence, the rest of the band to their hands. “I was overwhelmed by that gig, we all were,” said Sean. “People were singing the words, it was so busy – it was great.”

How long have These Four Walls’ songs been loitering, I ponder… “‘Quiet Little Voices’ was written three or four years ago now – since we found out we were getting to record an album we’ve only written about two songs.” Lackie is bashful on revealing this snippet, for sure. “We wrote ‘This Is Our House This Is Our Home’ when recording; the album; we just stayed up late one night in a farmhouse and played ‘til late ‘cause no-one was around”. But don’t be fooled, the songs mean a lot to the band even though they’ve been lurking for a number of years now.

And this marked honesty transfers to the stage. At the band’s album launch in Glasgow ( when they played the wondrous King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut), ‘Jetpacks were forced to debut one of their new songs without really planning to. Sean tells me more: “We’d come off stage and people were shouting for another so we didn’t have anything else to play so we thought we might as well. It’s a bit louder than our other songs but more of the same.”

And on this note, ‘Jetpacks have neatly summed themselves up; they have no idea just how much variation their sound comprises, and probably no idea why everyone loves them so. With the development we’ve seen in the past few months, it’s easily conceivable that their compatriots could end up in the estuary if they carry on growing at this rate…