A: Back With A Prang!
When British rockers A announced their return with a brand new album PRANG after a long hiatus, 21 years in fact, fans rejoiced at the band coming back with a new collection of the high energy and uplifting music. With the summer fast approaching, we had the pleasure of catching up with A vocalist Jason Perry to talk about PRANG and the return of A.
We begin with Jason telling us how excited he is to be back with new A music and how this returned manifested itself. “The album came about, really just from having barbecues to get us all back together and hang out. At one of those barbecues, we had a little band set up and Mark, our guitarist, played this opening riff to a song we called Grange Hill at the time because it sounded like the Grange Hill theme, and within two hours, I’d grabbed some microphones and we’d written and recorded the whole song in two hours in a little rehearsal room, not even in the studio. That’s the first song of the album, Hello Sunshine, exactly as you hear it!”
Jason continued by discussing the DIY approach that A took and how they seized the moment after such a long hiatus. “I just thought, right, we can do it now. We’ve just written and recorded a song in two hours. We could make an album, and we wouldn’t go into any recording studios and would do it all DIY. It took 22 years to get to that moment, and then it was easy after that!”
The band found that they had recaptured some magic when making the album as Jason tells us. “When we met, it was like we’re still back in the Hi-Fi Serious/Monkey Kong days. It always feels like that. We don’t really take the business side of it seriously. We never have, we just always have fun together, and we love hanging out and love making music.”
Jason is also looking forward to taking the songs from PRANG onto the stage before more extensive live shows next year. “We’ve not got too many live shows over the summer, so next year is when we’re going to do lots of touring. But we’ve got Slam Dunk coming up, so hopefully the sun will be out!”
With the talk of the summer, Jason reminisced about his favourite ever summer with A. “I think the summer recording Hi-Fi Serious. We were in Belgium recording that, the weather was amazing, it was really hot, and we just did a lot of sunbathing and chilling out and barbecues, so that was good but we used to love all doing summer festivals!”
With A having been a mainstay at summer festivals, Jason then tells about his favourites. “Always Reading, when Reading used to be completely different to what is now. I think we did Reading six times. There’s a couple in Germany. I always loved Hurricane and Southside. Many of the European ones are just brilliant, they’re always like mini adventures. I love the whole thing. We used to call it that kind of afterglow feeling when you come off and you can have a few beers and then have dinners together with the crew. It’s always a happy place, because everybody does a good show at a festival. They always seem like the best gigs ever.”
With that song and their debut single Five In The Morning evoking summer memories. Jason exclaims that it is crazy that so much time has passed since then. “It’s crazy. It doesn’t seem that long ago? Life is quick and it’s frightening. But when we get together, it just feels like we were together last week. It’s just the same humour and the same things that make us laugh and get us excited!”
A fans can also rejoice with the fact that new material from the band won’t take as long as it has with PRANG. “We’re just throwing ideas and riffs around. Mark’s made a bunch of stuff. He’s really terrific. He just plays the guitar every day, and he’s a genius. He’s already sending me stuff and we’re going to try and kind of capitalise on the way this has gone because it’s been so well received, and get some more music out in the next couple of years.”
With A back and having been in the music game for so long, Jason finishes this great chat off explaining just how grateful he is to still be making music with A and connecting with people who have grown up with the band’s music. “It’s amazing, because I didn’t think we’d get the chance again. We meet people again at some of the shows that we’ve been doing. Everyone who comes up to us now has got a story, which is really lovely. It’s amazing, and it’s exactly how it should be. We’re there for some special moments in life, and you can still see it in the crowd when you’re playing. You see people’s faces and how much it means to them, and we’re just really lucky. I found my appreciation for music again and what it’s done for me, because it’s caused some hard moments as well. But, it’s like a love affair, there’s ups and downs and ins and outs, and by the end of the day, everything seems to revolve around music for us, and pizza.”
On that note, we can’t finish off without asking Jason what his pizza of choice is. “Proper pizza. Just Margarita with a little bit of salami!”
PRANG is out now via Cooking Vinyl. View this interview, alongside dozens of other killer bands, in glorious print magazine fashion in DS130 here.
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