1. Jason and the Argosnaughts - Hardcore Punk At Its Finest.
It’s pretty late at night and Jason is raring to go. Like most members of hardcore
punk bands, he rarely sleeps before two in the morning. Being the lead singer of
the foursome, which is Jason and the Argosnaughts, Jason Kelly talks about his
time over the past six months with the band.
‘It’s been really hectic compared to what I had with my old band.’ He muses, ‘It’s
been fun though, so I won’t complain!’ Having wrote sixteen short songs and
recording ten to tape, it’s needless to say as a band they aren’t slowing down any
time soon.
Yorkshire born and bred, all but one grew up together in a very catholic high
school. When talking about when they first met, Jason remarks again how he
tries not to take life too seriously sometimes.
‘I met Ramsden the bass guitarist on the first day of high school. We were told to
make friends by turning round and introducing ourselves with the sentence “Hi
my name is… and I like…” And Ramsden came out with “Hi I’m Thomas and I like
art.” Yet I’ve never seen him do any art…’ Poulter, the drummer was also at the
same school and naturally matched their kookiness and peculiar qualities.
‘I met Antony the lead guitarist at an all-night skate event; he was a mutual
friend with the guy who introduced me to punk, and we were both chasing
different people trying to cover them in ketchup in retribution.’ Following this
outright bizarre meeting, they kept bumping into each other with their common
ground of skating always being the reason why.
Inspired by the sound of old school punk bands like Black Flag, Dead Kennedys
and Minor Threat, there’s the element of anger and built up aggression behind
the brutal lyrics that comes out in their heavy shows. Describing the music as ‘in
your face and loud and protesting’.
Yet as a group they give of this entire eighties vibe, with the DIY style ethic.
Heavily influenced by the scene at the time, Jason gives his thanks to the era ‘I
gotta give props to SST and Dischord records part in shaping that in the eighties.’
When it came to their second ever show; it almost got cancelled, because of a
guitarist who couldn’t quite handle his drink. ‘Myles got really drunk in a
Dewsbury club. The poor guy ended up lost miles away from home, walked past
his house into a field and then slept under a tree in the rain with a skateboard as
his pillow’. Then when they finally found Myles, Jason remarks how unhappy
staff were: ‘We broke two mic cables , a mic, two guitar strings and a kids dad got
pissed at me for “baptising” his son with beer on the floor.’
Pondering over religion, suspicious government revelations and an entire world
full of poverty, Jason and the band clearly want to challenge authority and it
comes across in the mishaps of their live shows. ‘I’m very outspoken against
religion, I blame it on the catholic school I went to partly, I just hate the whole
thing. People should be good people because they want to be, not out of fear’.
‘I love making music that sounds good. I chose to write songs because it was a
platform for me to shoot my mouth off.’ Making his point heard is one of Jason’s
main qualities. Everything he writes he writes for a reason. This seems to be
what surrounds himself with; the motion of getting a reaction out of the
audience.

2. Ironically you wouldn’t expect someone from a punk band to like Wrecking Ball
by Miley Cryus but Jason is a huge fan. ‘It seemed like a big fuck you to all the
previous affiliation with Disney and stood out as a I’m going to do what I wanna
do.’ This whole vibe is unusually close to what Jason and The Argosnaughts stand
for, yet he doesn’t think she’s all that if you scratch the surface a little bit deeper.
‘On the whole rebellious thing, it’s kinda like it’s there to give kids in their early
teens the impression they can still get away with buying into a load of crap music
and class as rebels.’
Regarding stage play, it’s not always fun and games. In fact it seems like ninety
per-cent of the time, they are a danger to themselves. As he recalls over his short
time with the band, he remembers some of his favourite literal foot in mouth
situations. ‘I managed to take a knee to the face falling over and ended up in
hospital with a guy pulling my front teeth out of the wrong part of my jaw bone.
To this day one of them is the wrong colour!’ Causing himself to completely
reconfigure his face for a period of time meant that they had to slow the pace
down. Yet all Jason can think of is when he can eat a sandwich pain free again.
There was one Halloween show to top anything you could imagine. The front
man tells me about Antony deciding to wear a hollowed out pumpkin as a
helmet. ‘I decided during a breakdown I’d jump off and kick it off his head.’
Needless to say this completely backfired as Jason laughs, ‘the amp fell over and
the owner kicked off about it. So I just battered the helmet with the mic and
floored Antony.’ Yet the band kept playing like nothing was wrong, with half the
band on the floor with some bones getting truly destroyed. ‘My knee got trashed
under his leg and the mic stopped working for the next song. The guy who
provided it wasn’t too happy and neither was the pub owner, his pub was now
splattered with pumpkin.’
When it comes to his special tracks on the album, Jason goes for ‘Modern Day
Gentleman.’ Primarily he says it’s because he’s a big fan of the macho man
attitude. Yet when it comes to solely the musical aspects he goes for ‘Worthless.’
He mentions ‘Poulters drumming on the intro and bridge parts is great. When I
first heard him do it I remember I got so excited over it and every time I hear the
song, it takes me back to that feeling.’
With every new band, comes an uncertain future that could be filled with failure
or success. Jason and the Argosnaughts have an overall… optimistic outlook on
life; with Jason seeing himself in a wheelchair in five years’ time. It might not be
what you consider, a dream aspiration, but with all his satirical humour, he gets a
little bit more serious. ‘I’d like to say we’d still be going and ideally, I’d personally
like to be constantly touring around, skating and playing shows whenever
possible.’ He doesn’t think they’ll be stopping for breath for long before getting
back into the game.
If you thought punk was dead, Jason and the Argosnaughts are a modern revival
of everything that this decade lacks: Power, Assertiveness and Intelligence.
They’re playing Leeds on the 28th February at Temple of Doom and plan on
playing a lot of shows in Bradford, Leeds and Wakefield over the summer. So if
you’re new to the punk scene this might be the band you’re looking for.