Do you remember the first time you saw Ian Curtis perform? I do. I was 14, glued to the screen as he swayed the microphone from one hand to the other like it was burning, a molten object he couldn’t hold onto for long. The kinetic energy radiating from my computer screen caught me off guard. At that age, “performance” meant sequins, backflips, and pop stars spinning in perfect choreography. But there he was, stripping the idea down to something raw, somber, and inexplicably magnetic.
Famous’ music evokes a similar jolt of electricity. Jack Merrett’s stage presence and his almost combative relationship with the microphone might nudge the Curtis comparison to the surface, sure. But it’s the band’s vivid darkness, their knack for making chaos feel deliberate, and, paradoxically, hopeful, that that drew me in, not just to the band, but to the conversation you’re about to read.
It’s a tough job to surprise listeners nowadays. Not just the niche music snobs but the "regular" listener too. With more music out there than ever, the abundance of options often feels like having none at all. If you’ve got about four seconds to make an impression, my first four seconds with Famous was like a perfect date. The guitar riff on Party Album’s opener, Boxing Day, is disarmingly attention-commanding, wrapped in a nostalgia so thick it almost feels familiar. It might trick you into thinking you've heard it before, until the vocals kick in. Merrett starts the album with a line that’s part singing, part talking: “It’s so much better now / It was only drugs and you / And now it’s just you.” His voice asserts itself, and feels confrontational. Not in its essence or its relation to lyrics but in the way it invites you to partake in something so deeply personal.
The album unfolds like a performance piece, not one of pretense, artifice, or borrowed masks, but one that embodies lived experience, a collection of deep, accumulated ruminations. Party Album feels like a dance between love’s ideal, time’s inevitable passage, and the reckoning that only experience can bring. It is intensely personal, something that cannot be mimicked, nor crafted through mimicry.
I met Jack Merrett at a dimly-lit bar, the kind where you have to shout to be heard, one of my favorites, naturally. We sat down and talked about religion, love, films, and England. Oh, and we talked about the album, too.
The album feels like a natural evolution of your previous work yet it marks a decisive statement on its own where your sound feels more expansive. What happened between The Valley and Party Album?
There was a smaller central group when we made The Valley. Afterwards, we brought in a broad network of friends and collaborators to create something in a disjointed and chaotic way, which was a lot of fun. I think part of the reason why this record sounds more ambitious is because Party Album was made with a consistent group of people in one studio, working within a fairly concentrated period of time. The ambition was to create something more high fidelity.
Your vocals are striking in their rawness and it’s almost confrontational in their honesty. Was that a conscious decision or do you see it as simply allowing the songs to dictate their form?
That’s a good question. I don’t think of my self as a good singer, in a factual sense at least. I don’t have a good tune. I start from a position where I accept it. I think to myself that I can construct a performance with what I have going. In that sense, it’s never natural. It’s always constructed from a place of me not being happy with how I sounds if I just “sang.” I have to perform it and find a different angle to make it sound more interesting.
That’s the beauty of Famous, to me at least. Nothing is executed in a cliché way. Even when it comes to the expression of love. It’s the album’s overarching theme, in its beauty, chaos and its ugliness. Yet you talk about it in a very interesting manner. Is love, for you, a means to understand the disorder, or is it the source of that disorder itself?
The idea of love runs consistently throughout the album, an impractical ideal toward which everything is angled. It’s reached for, but never quite found or fully known. I don’t see it as a disorder; to me, that’s simply the reality of life. There’s a choice, a willingness, in how we choose to see evidence of love.
I feel like even when you talk about love it goes beyond that. It almost feels as if it’s a sacred place, instead of a tangible thing.
For sure. I think it comes from a religious understanding. It’s a revelatory and redemptive experience.
Talking about religion, you studied theology. What drew you to it in the first place?
My background is in philosophy, so it started with thinking about sources of values and meaning. I found the question, “How do you connect experiences to values?” to be a difficult one. As a result, I became drawn to religion, the idea of choosing to attach significance to things and cultivating a state of being where belief and meaning can emerge. It’s become an important part of how I see the world, I suppose.
It’s interesting to hear that, because even though your album might not feel “spiritual” at first, listening to it definitely had that effect on me. I think that’s part of why I keep referring to your album as a green neon exit sign at the end of the tunnel. There’s hope and meaning woven into it.
I come from a secular background, so my interest in religion doesn’t stem from my family. I’m quite sensitive to how discussions about religion often get shut down, particularly in the UK, where they can quickly become alienated. I want to approach these conversations in a way that doesn’t feel like I’m telling people how to think. I’m more interested in the possibilities that religion opens up.
The concept of time looms on the record. There’s a sense of waiting. How did your relationship with time shape the way these songs were written and recorded?
The contrast between being historical and ahistorical, out of time and being present in time, runs through religion. I guess I picked up that manner of speaking in my expressions of romantic love. Some aspects of love feel like you’re present in the moment, while others feel like you’re pushing toward something completely out of the moment, hanging in history.
It’s not surprising to hear say that as you referenced Licorice Pizza in The Destroyer and the video for What Are You Doing for the Rest of Your Life? share an emotional vocabulary with the film and how you seem to see love: love as something fractured, messy, and deeply personal. Does films effect you? Not in terms of how you do music but how you approach it?
There are certain movies that have effected me a lot. I particularly love Ingmar Bergman and John Ford, Westerns, Hitchcock..
Sorry to cut you off, are you very sad about the passing of David Lynch?
Yeah ! Wild at Heart was actually the main inspiration for our music video 'What Are You Doing for the Rest of Your Life.' Perhaps it’s lazy of me, but I can only invest so passionately in so many art forms, and movies have never been a priority.
I mean you can’t have time for everything.
Exactly, I love movies but I don’t unfortunately make enough time for them.
The opening of Warm Spring brings to mind How Soon Is Now? Not only musically but lyrically too. Was that echo deliberate, or do these kinds of resonances emerge organically in your process?
Not organically really, but even if I want to recreate something it comes off wrong so it turns into a song of its own which sounds different. Fundamentally, I try to be ambitious but I’m a music lover before anything else, with not very interesting taste.
What are your favorite bands?
You know, bands like The Beatles.
They are classic for a reason though. They’re really good. That’s why everybody likes them.
I think everything is a love letter to that, I guess. To the music I loved when I was a kid. Lou Reed, David Bowie… There isn’t much more to it in a way.
Your production feels cinematic and orchestral. Is this a reflection of the emotions you’re working with, or is it a way to reshape how people experience your music?
No, it’s not big because of my things are important. It’s not really about me.
So you’re not trying to mimic the emotional scale of your experiences?
No! No waaay! I would hate that. I hate the idea that my emotions are the most important thing. I view it as a regrettable reality that my emotions have an apparent importance to me.
Why does that concept bother you?
There isn’t anything particularly important about me in the grand scheme of things. The whole attempt to universalize it lies in the fact that I’m an insignificant person and I have these vivid experiences. It would be marvelous if I could sketch the pattern of the universe and have a good peak at the bigger reality that lies behind it.
Does the ambition to be understood motivate you?
I have an ambivalent relationship with that but I don’t have any expectations. I would like to resonate with people, sure. I’m also doing it in a weird way where it may not be that understandable I guess.
Do you see music as being a therapeutic experience?
I’ve been making music since I was ten so it’s a lot of different things for me. It’s therapy, it’s a habit, it’s a goal.
From the Union Jack on the album cover to songs like Leaving Tottenham, there’s a recurring sense of “Britishness” in your work. Do you see this as integral to your music’s identity, or is it more of a playful backdrop or a critique?
It’s mostly funny to me, but there is a vaguely serious thought behind it. I somehow have a romantic idea of it, not about what it actually is, but about what it can be. It comes from being British and being a romantic person. I’m also very proud of the music in Britain. In a time when people use symbols of nations to advocate politics it’s important for Britishness to mean something else for those who don’t share that perspective. It’s not a political idea, but I think it’s good to express a vision of Britishness that’s weirder, more mystical, and more alternative, instead of something to be ashamed of or romanticized in a nationalistic way. In a way, it’s inviting people to have their own relationship with it.
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