2. CONTENTS
CONCEPT
DESIGN
CONTACT
WORDS
Lauren Vevers and Tom Nicholson
Tom Nicholson
Tom Nicholson
amagazineactually@gmail.com
JOY ATLAS
HOW TO NOT BE SHIT AT MUSIC
JOE McELDERRY
PULL UP TO THE JUMPER BABY
PALE KIDS
Helpful posters for the creatively confused
What to do with your sweater ‘in da club’
Dead sound pop punk lads
Electro popsters with decent map knowledge
His favourite Metro stop and other tidbits
6
8
16
20
24POP PSYCH
30 Getting inside musicians’ heads
3. 4 5
SWEATER THE DEVIL YOU KNOWGoing out can be fraught with dangers and awkwardness - we all live
under the sword of Damocles that is the threat of assault by House of
Pain’s ‘Jump Around’ - but the trickiest to navigate is how to wear a
jumper to the club. Here, we consider the options available to the
fashion-conscious clubber who doesn’t want to die of exposure
The original, and, for many, still
the undisputed champ of off-duty
jumper-slinging chic. On the
down side, that ‘many’ is largely
made up of children and middle-
aged ramblers. It does rather put
one in a primary school mindset;
celebrating the drop in Four Tet’s
‘Opus’ remix with a knee slide
and a bottle of Panda Pop isn’t
really the done thing around
Warehouse Project these days.
More’s the pity.
This one’s slightly more perplex-
ing, since the asymmetrical
styling means that the body of
the jumper will tend to flap about
collecting beer stains and the
odd splash of mud. However,
it’s tres a la mode for patrons of
house nights de nos jours. It’s
a wavey mid-point between the
waistband and the Brideshead,
as if Sebastian and Charles were
on a mad one at Leeds festival
after their GCSEs.
Photographer: Holly Douglas
Jumper: Primark
Bins: Newcastle City Council
There’s the threat of danger-
ous overheating with this one,
depending on how you’re fuelling
yourself. There is, though, a cer-
tain Hepburn-esque elan to this
styling; it’s a a kind of 90 percent
polyester homage to Hollywood’s
Golden Age, though whether
you’ll be able to communicate
that to the paramedic who’s
attaching the rehydration drip to
your arm is debatable.
Formerly a solid-gold pointer that
one was in the presence of either
a polo fan or an unapologetic shit,
the Brideshead Revisited has
since been reclaimed from the
dustbin of fashion history (which,
if you’re interested in visiting,
is sited at Henley) and is now
equally appropriate for an evening
at Cosmic as an afternoon at Har-
rods. Which is to say wildly inap-
propriate, but it happens anyway.
Already gaining momentum
around the gabber and electro
jazz circuit, the Thigh Torniquet
heralds a bold new dawn for an
artistic scene which looked to be
running out of steam: suddenly,
jumper-wearers are liberated
from the mental tyranny of think-
ing only in terms of torso-based
jumper-wrangling. Mind you
don’t tie it too tight and acciden-
tally give yourself an embolism
though.
THE CLASSIC
WAISTBAND TIE
THE BRIDEHEAD
REVISITED
THE THIGH
TORNIQUET
THE MOTHER
TERESA
THE CASHMERE
BANDOLIER
The Mother
Teresa is
a kind of
90 percent
polyester
homage to
Hollywood’s
Golden Age
4. BEING A
MUSICIAN
CAN BE
SUPRISINGLY
HARD.
Every day comes with a new set of
important questions to be answered:
should you wear a new hat today? Does
your new single need a giddy-up bassline?
Could you fit another guitar solo in?
While these questions all have fairly
simple answers (yes; yes; definitely not,
and while you’re at it please remove the
one that’s already in there), there will
be times when you’ll come unstuck and
try to do something silly. So, to help out,
we’ve made some posters you can stick
up in the studio/rehearsal rooms/garage
and refer to in order to avoid making any
poor choices in the future. You’re very
welcome.
8. THE
PALE
KIDS
ARE
ALREET
Poppy, punky types Pale Kids are
basically dead sound as well as
knowing one end of a tune from
the other, so we went and had
a chat with them before they
did a gig down The Little Rooms
in Ouseburn the other day after
they’d come back from grabbing
some cans at the shop
David: Do we have to shout
into that [the dictaphone]?
You don’t have to. It’s
remarkably sensitive.
David: HELLOOO, MA-
CHINE. IT’S GONNA BE
FINE WORKING WITH YER.
The influences question is
boring, but is there anyone
who you’ve thought, “We
are definitely not going to
be anything like them”?
Joe: Just bros, generally.
Matt and Luke Goss?
J: I don’t understand that
reference.
Andrew: You’re too young.
I guess like… what bands
are boring? [Pop punk bros]
Narwhals?
D: Are we opening up the
beef?
Kate: I think more than
specific bands, we distance
ourselves from that kind of
attitude; that really mascu-
line, lad culture.
Are Coors Light your first
choice of tinnies?
A: They didn’t have much
in the shop. I do like them
though.
What colour would you say
happiness was?
K: Blue for me.
J: The same colour as the
bottom of a can of Coors.
D: The colour that it goes
when it’s Damme cold.
A: Yeah, when the activation
thing comes on.
D: I’d say pink or black.
Is that just a gut reaction?
A: There’s no reason, Tom.
Who’s your favourite one-
off Simpsons character?
[Deep groans followed by
thoughtful silence.]
A: Grimey. [There follows
much indecipherable mum-
bling from all.]
No love for Roy?
A: Give me Frank Grimes
any day. I don’t want to start
talking about the Simpsons
because I’ll never stop. I
have to put that part of my
life to bed now.
How do you feel about
those fancy Greggs Mo-
ment shops? Are they the
end of culture?
K: I think it’s BULLSHIT.
J: I don’t give a fuck. As long
as I can get a Belgian bun,
I’ll be happy.
D: I’m still sore about [Dur-
ham-based pastry-slingers]
Peter’s closing because
Greggs moved in on its
territory. [Suddenly con-
scious of the tedium of the
conversation] It’s like trying
to squeeze crack out of a
stone, isn’t it?
Tell me about the best
pair of shoes you’ve ever
owned.
D: I can show you them.
Point that thing at them.
[We wafted the dictaphone
15
9. in David’s shoes’ direction and picked up a faint hum of
greatness.]
K: The best pair of shoes I ever owned was when I was a
kid and I had school ones from Clark’s that had a secret
compartment in.
D: That’s where she kept her knives.
A: On my first day of secondary school I’d broke my toe.
I used to be an avid swimmer. I’m still a strong swimmer,
but I don’t go as much. I’m landlocked. I smashed my
foot off the side of the pool, so on my first day of school,
I had to wear me dad’s shoes. Then I got lost on the way
to assembly and I just cried through the hallways. In my
dad’s shoes.
K: Did everyone take the piss out of you?
A: Oh yeah.
D: And that was the best pair of shoes he’s ever owned.
A: That was just a story about me and shoes.
J: I had a pair of New Balance but I’ve snapped the laces.
It’s called the Footbed, and it’s just the comfiest shoe. But
I can’t find the same ones.
You could just buy new laces.
J: Oh yeah that’s a good idea. They’ve got holes in too,
the laces were just the…
A: …The straw that broke the camel’s back. The lace that
broke the shoe’s back.
So, you’ve committed some kind of crime. Theft of
diamonds, let’s say. Nothing violent.
K: It’s about the money, really.
Yeah, you’re doing it mostly as a kind of mental chal-
lenge to see if you could do it. Anyway, what is your
immediate plan in the aftermath? What do you do to
evade capture?
K: I would literally go underground.
D: To the sewers?
K: Yeah, until the storm blew over. Then I’d re-emerge in
like, five years, and cash in the diamonds.
D: With all your teeth replaced with diamonds.
K: That’s how I’d keep them. I’d have no money, I’d just
live in a sewer and me teeth would be diamonds.
D: Sometimes it’s nice to just have nice things.
A: Whether you’re in the sewers or not. Is it a Bonnie and
Clyde situation, or are you on your own?
I’m assuming unless you’re a superthief you’ll need
back-up. Even George Clooney needed ten other
people.
A: We don’t need ten other people. I think we could com-
mit a crime quite well.
D: I’d join the police and start working my own case.
That’s what Martin Lawrence did in that film. Blue some-
thing? It’s really good, you should watch that.
K: Andrew would cash in his diamonds and drink himself
to death. Joe would take refuge in an embassy or some-
thing and become famous but they’d never get you. And
1716
10. we’ve got no idea what you’d do.
D: I’d probably dob youse all in.
K: You’d become a cop and start
working the case to get all our
diamonds off us – except the ones
that are my teeth – and then you’d
take off and we’d never see you
again. You’d be like that couple
from New Zealand – the bank
mistakenly put millions in their
bank account, and one day they
just disappeared.
D: Like canoe man.
A: There was a guy who went on
a plane in the 70s and held the
plane up…
D: Mr T?
A: This does sound like I’m
bullshitting but I’m not. I read the
Wikipedia article at work the other
day. The plane landed, he got the
money, took off again…
D: And parachuted out again.
You’ve told us this before.
A: I’ve been talking about precious
little else. Like, five years later
they found some of the money in
a stream or something. They’ve
never found him or the money, but
they found a shack near where
they think he landed and in it was
a pamphlet about how to open
the back doors of an aeroplane.
[This is almost certainly complete
bollocks.]
Would you say that’s your
favourite Wikipedia page?
A: Maybe. I do read it a lot.
D: My favourite’s the Iron Maiden
Wikipedia page. There’s a lot of in-
formation there. We used to play a
game at school where you’d start
on a random page and had to get
back to Iron Maiden, without using
countries because that’s too easy.
We used to do that with Hitler. It
was much easier.
J: My favourite is Taman Shud.
It was this case in Australia. The
guy is, like, poisoned and nobody
knows who he is, and in his pocket
he’s got written the word ‘Taman’.
He was sat against a wall and
nobody realised he was dead.
And there’s loads of things where
someone keeps visiting his grave
and it’s like, “Who are you?”
D: “Here, this lad’s been sat out
in the sun for ages, but he keeps
getting paler and paler.”
Have you stumbled across the
Dancing Plague of 1518?
D: The one that happened in
Toronto? And every danced so
much they overheated? And they
thought it was spider bites? And
that’s why tarantulas are called
tarantulas? Because it happened
in Toronto?
A: THAT’S my favourite Wikipedia
page.
They tried to snap people out
of it by playing music to them.
Didn’t work, just made them
dance more.
J: Is that St Vitus’ Dance?
I thought that was a herb. Maybe
that’s St John’s Wort. Anyway.
Favourite herb?
A: I don’t have a favourite herb.
K: I like dill.
D: [Having consulted his phone
for info on the Dancing Plague of
1518] Ignore everything I said, I
was talking bollocks. Same basic
symptoms, it seems. Carry on. I
mean, it’s either Google this or kill
everyone in this room.
K: Kill us all, please.
Can you remember what the
first tune you learned to play on
an instrument was?
K: ‘Conspiracy of One’ by The
Offspring, on drums.
J: My Grandad taught me ‘Mr
Tambourine Man’ on guitar.
D: It was probably a Nirvana song,
on the bass probably. I didn’t own
a bass when I started playing
bass.
It sounds like you were press-
ganged.
D: Oh no, I was begging for it.
Where do you want to go on
holiday?
J: Slovakia, to see me uncle. He’s
a teacher.
D: [Andrew]’s happy where he is.
A: In the rut I’ve dug.
You could go to Redcar or
something.
A: I’m not going to Redcar. YOU
can go to Redcar if you want.
D: I want to go to Mongolia. All-
inclusive. Not gonna happen.
Do you reckon we’ve yet hit
critical mass with the amount
of burger joints in Newcastle
city centre, or will it just keep
increasing exponentially?
J: I don’t care, because I live in
Durham.
A: There’s your answer.
D: We will not comment on any-
thing that isn’t specifically about
Durham.
K: If I can’t get a good vegan Big
Mac, I’m not bothered.
A: I don’t know if we’ve got any-
thing left to offer.
D: We need some quickfire ones.
Right. Radio 2 or Radio 4?
K: Radio 4.
D: 2.
A: 2.
J: 4. When do you ever listen to
Radio 4?
K: Every day.
J: She listens to Pat Benatar.
[There follows indecipherable
mumblings about this and that.]
K: …oh don’t get us started on
Minions.
A: They’re just so funny!
K: I know, I love them.
I’ve never met anyone mentally
stable who like Minions.
A: Aye well, you still haven’t.
J: They’re just so funny.
A, K and D: [Together] THEY ARE.
A: They’re just so funny though!
Have you ever looked at one?
K: Have you seen Despicable Me?
Most of my interaction with Min-
ions comes from memes shared
by middle-aged people.
D: They’re just so funny, do you
not think?
A: They are! They’re so funny!
1918
My favourite’
Wikipedia page is
Iron Maiden’s.
There’s a lot of
information there.
We used to play
a game at school
where you’d start
on a random page
and had to get
back to Iron
Maiden, without
using countries
because that’s too
easy.
11. A question and answer
session in seven parts
O
utside of a moderately-stuffed
World HQ, Joy Atlas drummer
Ged Robinson is appraising
his new band’s first proper
gig. His mood is hovering
somewhere between ‘anxious
but elated’ and ‘there’s a drum
kit waiting to be deconstructed
which I just cannot be bothered with’.
Comprised of singer and scene stalwart Beccy
Owen, Ian Talbot Paterson (nipple-high jazzy
bass), Adam Kent (keyboards), plus our Ged,
Joy Atlas trade in a kind of clipped, laconically-
grooved which has already drawn giddy notices
from Steve Lamacq and Tom Robinson, plus a
general thumbs-up from 6Music’s round table
for their first single, ‘Dismount’. They premiered
another at WHQ which was introduced as Adam’s
tribute to Van Halen, but which also owed a deep
debt to the theme tune from the second-tier mid-
80s helicopter-based drama series Airwolf, and
which sounded to our ears like a single in waiting.
However, to answer the question everyone’s
been asking - ‘How much joy do Joy Atlas take
in the actual atlas?’ - we thought we’d test Ged’s
geographical knowledge and try to get the mea-
sure of this bearded, paradiddling map savant. >>
TN
JOY
ATLAS
SHRUGGED
2120
12. Wikipedia says: “Known as Peruvian Coast Spanish,
Lima’s Spanish is characterized by the lack of strong
intonations as found in many other regions of the
Spanish-speaking world. It is heavily influenced by
the historical Spanish spoken in Castile. Limean
Castillian is also characterized by the lack of voseo, a
trait present in the dialects of many other Latin Ameri-
can countries.”
What is the best phrase you’ve picked up in an-
other language?
Aw man, that’s reeeeally hard... me and my girlfriend
have been watching The Bridge recently, so I’ve loved
minimal Scandinavian language. So I guess it’d be
something like ‘tak’ or ‘ja’. ‘Tak’ is thank you and ‘oh’ is
yes in Danish. I like the minimalism.
Wikipedia says: “In 2012,
Travel+Leisure named New Orleans
the #2 “America’s Dirtiest City”, down
from a #1 “Dirtiest” status of the previ-
ous year. The magazine surveyed both
national readership and local residents,
from a list of prominent cities having the
most visible illegal littering, dumping
and other related environmental crime
conditions.”
How clean is your house?
Well, I currently don’t have a house,
actually - we moved out today and we
don’t have anywhere to move to so
we’re essentially homeless, but before
that it was immensely clean. MY girl-
friend has beaten into me some good
habits. I like it being neat and that.
Which beats are the best beats: clean
beats or dirty beats?
It depends what you’re talking about.
If it’s bass, it’s much better dirty and
scuzzy and synthy. At the top end, the
glitchier stuff, I love that being clean. So
a mix of the two, I would say.
A bit cleaner for Joy Atlas though.
Yeah, Joy Atlas is very clean - very
clean music in a way, I guess. I like
the precision of it, we try and make it
minimal in some ways.
Wikipedia says: “During the Anglo-Boer War
(1899–1902), 5,000 Boer prisoners of war
were housed on five islands of Bermuda.”
What was the last thing you were trapped
in?
Erm... well I can’t remember the last thing
I was trapped in, but I can remember the
last thing I was nearly trapped in. Does that
count?
Yeah go on.
This has quite a boring beginning but a
terrifying ending. We were moving loads
of stuff into storage recently. I don’t know if
you’ve ever been in one of those industrial
storage units, but they’re completely ter-
rifying. It’s kind of like a soulless version of
The Shining, endless corridors and airtight
containers. They have fob access to get in
and out, so if you leave your keys on the
other side of these glass doors then you
actually can’t escape. You have to ring this
special number and it takes hours for the
guy to come and get you and it costs, like,
£150 to get out. I thought I’d lost my keys in
there but thankfully I found them.
Well THANK GOD.
Wikipedia says: “The most famous local food is
Pyongyang naengmyeon, or also called mul naeng-
myeon or just simply naengmyeon. Naengmyeon
consists of thin and chewy buckwheat noodles in a
cold meat-broth with dongchimi (watery kimchi) and
topped with a slice of sweet Korean pear. Pyongyang
locals sometimes enjoyed it as a haejangguk, which
is any type of food eaten as a hangover-cure, usually
a warm soup.”
What’s your go-to hangover cure?
My hangover cure is straight out of a 1970s cop
show - just a ‘sleep it off’ kind of crack. I know a guy
who used to have melon preprepared in the fridge.
Looks like food, but ultimately it’s just water. Having
that, cold, that was class, but I think for me it’s just as
much sleep as possible in a horrible, stinking pit.
Wikipedia says: “In 1520, during
Poland’s Golden Age, the most
famous church bell in Poland, named
Zygmunt after Sigismund I of Poland,
was cast by Hans Behem. It is the
largest of the five bells hanging in
Wawl Cathedral in Krakow.”
When was the last time you had
cause to call someone a bell-end?
Have to be careful what I say here...
I can tell you some, but not on the
record. I might have to pass. A few
people recently, but no-one I could
publicly shame.
Until recently, Adelaide was the home of the Australian Museum of Child-
hood. What was the stupidest thing you did as a child?
I once Bic’d my entire head, shaved it with a razor. I don’t think I fully under-
stood how short it would be when I started it off. I say I was a child, I was, like,
15. I Bic’d the sides, and then my sister was going out with a boy called Gary
at the time, who was a hairdresser, and my mam was like, “Get Gary to blend
it in”. How do you blend hair into skin? I had quite long hair as well. Bless him,
he tried to blend it in. It, obviously, looked shit. There was nothing he could
do, so me mam decided - me mam’s a doctor - that a good thing for me to do,
to go to school as a 15 year old boy, was to put a big plaster on it. I
got called ‘nicotine patch’ for like three months. It was tremendously
humiliating.
Baseball is apparently a really big deal in Tokyo, with the city being the home
of two teams, despite baseball being like a shit version of cricket. What was the
last cultural phenomenon which made you feel like you’d lost touch with the
youth of today?
I think Wii. You know that game, Wii? Actually, I’ve got a better one: Minecraft. I don’t
understand why kids like the shit graphics on Minecraft. It’s kind of like the worst old-
school Amstrad graphics.
Maybe it’s a ‘borrowed nostalgia’ thing.
But kids don’t understand it, they’re not old enough to be nostalgic. I do feel complete-
ly like an old man, do not get it.
TOKYO
PYONGYANG
NEW ORLEANS
KRAKOW
LIMA
BERMUDA
Wikipedia says: “In the wake of the 1970s
Nigerian oil boom, Lagos experienced a
population explosion, untamed economic
growth, and unmitigated rural migration.
This caused the outlying towns and settle-
ments to develop rapidly, thus forming the
Greater Lagos metropolis seen today.”
If Joy Atlas were in charge of a farm
outside Lagos, what roles would you
each fulfil?
I think Adam would be the general farm
administrator. He’s very organised, he’s
very good on spreadsheets. He really
knows his shit on the spreadsheets. Ian,
he’d definitely make the fences and that
- he’s really good at DIY and did up his
entire house. He’s going to make an
eco-house, completely self-sufficient. He’s
quite a hippy at heart really. I’d definitely
look after the animals. I absolutely love
animals. Beccy would be our farm’s PR
woman or something. She’ll probably hate
me for saying that but she’s friendly, good
at making friends with people.
LAGOS
22 23ADELAIDE
Basically we got Ged to have a punt at guessing where these seven
cities were on a map, and it turns out that despite apparently passing
most of his youth being challenged to name countries which border
Iran by his siblings, he wasn’t quite as sharp as you might think.
13. JOE HARD
OR JOE
HOMELegend has it that Alexander
the Great wept salty tears
when he saw the breadth of his
kingdom, for he realised there
were no more worlds for him to
conquer. The parallels between
him and South Shields’ favourite
son are uncanny, as we found
out when we spoke to the only
man alive who has won both X
Factor and The Jump
14. Hello, can I interview Joe
McElderry please?
Yes, hello. Joe speaking.
Hello Joe. Can you describe
the scene around you please?
Where are you?
I’m in my house. It’s quite mod-
ern, homely.
How’ve you made it homely?
Was it homely before you
moved in?
Well I travel around a lot in my
job, so no matter where I go I take
little comforts, candles, things like
that.
If you were making a dressing
room feel homely, what would
you need?
Good lighting. Dressing rooms
usually have really bright, sterile
lights, so good lighting, lamps,
candles, things that smell nice,
smells that you’re used to.
There’s nothing worse than an
unexpected smell.
Exactly.
What does your house smell
of?
I don’t know actually. It doesn’t
smell horrible, that’s the main
thing.
Maybe you’re just used to the
smell of your house. It’s not
a surprising smell anymore.
Could you tell me about your
favourite mug?
I have a mug that I bought from
Las Vegas, a huge, oversized
coffee cup, a black coffee cup,
and I use that all the time. You get
three cups of tea in one cup.
Do you not have to neck it be-
fore the tea goes all lukewarm
and horrible?
Well I like me coffee just warm,
I don’t like it boiling hot. So it’s a
good balance.
Would you rather have a finger
for a tongue or tongues for fin-
gers?
[A very, very long pause] Finger
for a tongue. You wouldn’t really
be able to do anything if you had
tongues for fingers.
Although, they do say that the
tongue is the strongest muscle
in the body, because it’s not
tethered at both ends, so it’s
got to be ultra-strong to wobble
about like it does.
Really?
I definitely did hear that once.
[Firmly] Well I’d rather have a fin-
ger for a tongue.
What colour is happiness?
I think it’s bright colours, a mix-
ture of colours. I would say yellow,
maybe like an orange-y colour,
and a little bit of bright green.
It sounds like morning, in a
field.
Yes. Or beach colours, blues, yel-
lows.
If you owned a pub, what would
you name it?
Maybe ‘Joey’s’. Or just something
as simple as ‘The Pub’. “I’m going
to The Pub.”
“Which pub?” “THE PUB.”
“Right, I’ll see you there.” It’d make
people talk about it, everyone’d be
repeating the name.
It’d become its own marketing
campaign. What’s your favou-
rite Metro station?
I used to go on the Metro from
Chichester every day. I’d stand
there every morning in the freezing
cold… so maybe Chi? There was
always something about Monu-
ment as well when you used to
go shopping, I always used to find
that quite cool as a kid.
Is there anything architecturally
interesting about Chichester
station?
No. There’s a very confusing
roundabout nearby though. It’s
very hard to pull out of the junction.
That’s not really architectural, but
it’s confusing.
I was just looking at your Twit-
ter feed before and your default
setting seems to be to use two
exclamation marks when you’re
excited.
I use exclamation marks all the
time, even on things that aren’t re-
ally that exciting. I think it just adds
another dimension to whatever
you’re saying. I also think some-
times when you use exclamation
marks, people think you’re angry,
so if I use them all the time then
people will know that I’m not an-
gry.
But then they might stop notic-
ing them if you’re using them all
the time.
That’s fine. I don’t really do them
for anyone else, I just enjoy putting
them on me sentences.
Well as long as you’re happy,
Joe. Would you ever be tempted
to go to three?
Three might mean I’m a bit an-
noyed. If it gets to six or seven,
you’re really in trouble. Do not
cross. Don’t even reply, actually.
26 27
15. 28 29
I’ve done a lot of charity bike rides
over, like, 300 miles, so I think I
passed it in another way.
You got a cycling proficiency test
certificate from the University of
Life. That’s the highest honour
that can be bestowed in the cy-
cling proficiency test world.
[A slightly tense silence.]
Have you ever been lost on a
moor?
Probably, yes. I come from a fam-
ily who are well into the outdoors
and go on adventures and stuff.
I’ve been lost on a skiing mountain
before, which was quite full-on. I’m
not frightened of adventures. Have
you ever been skiing before?
I’ve been to Runcorn dry ski
slope twice.
Little bit different to that. When you
go up to the top of the mountain,
certain bits are above the cloud lev-
el, so what happens is sometimes
the clouds close in and it’s like be-
ing in fog, you can’t even see your
hand in front of your face. Some-
times it comes out of nowhere. It
happened to us once in Austria and
we were lost for about three hours.
Obviously everything around you is
white, you have no sense of direc-
tion. It’s very scary.
When it comes to kitchen bins,
do you use the pedal or swing
variety?
We just have a lifty-open bin. Two,
to be precise. One for waste, one
for recycling.
Top work. The polar bears thank
you. Can you think of a nice
poem about Newcastle?
Don’t even go there. How many
hats do you own and how many
do you think is the optimum?
I have about four or five caps that
I wear for rehearsals if my hair’s
a mess, then I have a few winter
hats, because I go skiing quite a
lot. Some funky hats, some really
cool bobble hats. I’m not really a
trilby wearer.
It’s a certain type of person
who wears a trilby. It puts me
on guard if I see someone in a
trilby.
Yeah, don’t trust anyone who
wears a trilby. [Maniacal laughter]
I’ll get into trouble for saying that.
That was a joke.
Do you have any notable ances-
tors?
I don’t think so, no.
Oh well. I suppose you’re mak-
ing family history then.
Yeah, I’ve done some things that’ll
be recognised for a few years,
bu-
You won The Jump! How many
people can say that they’ve
done that?
Yeah, I suppose so, but I doubt
I’m making family history. Maybe
I’m making history between me
friends and family, but it won’t go
down in history.
Well it is literally history, in that
it did happen.
True, true, but if someone was
reading this and I said I’d gone
down in family history they’d be
like, ‘How arrogant is he?’.
Pointless or The Chase?
I’ve been a part of Pointless,
so I’ll say Pointless.
How was your Pointless experi-
ence?
Absolutely horrendous. Not be-
cause it’s a bad show but because
I was horrendous at it.
If you were a condiment, what
condiment would you be?
Maybe salt. Everybody uses salt.
Or maybe… I like mustard. I use
a lot of mustard. I’m going to say
salt, vinegar or mustard.
The salt is a staple really, which
is often unfairly overlooked.
Everybody needs salt.
Did you ever pass your cycling
proficiency test as a kid?
No, I didn’t even
do it actual-
ly. I can
ride,
‘Blaydon Races’?
I mean, can you think of a Joe
McElderry original? People
might clock on if I just print the
entirety of ‘Blaydon Races’.
Erm. Oh God. Not really. I’m good
at writing songs but it takes a
while. Just print ‘Blaydon Races’,
change a few words.
Which member of the cast of
Dirty Dancing do you most
identify with?
This is really bad – I’ve sang a
song out of Dirty Dancing, I’ve re-
corded a song out of Dirty Danc-
ing but I’ve actually never seen
the film. It’s terrible, isn’t it?
That is terrible. What about
Grease?
I’d probably be Doody, he’s quite
silly and goofy. I’d like to be Danny
Zuko, though I’m not like him. I
played Danny in a school pro-
duction of Grease when I was a
chubby little teenager. I didn’t re-
ally match the description.
It’s all about how Danny carries
himself though. What was the
last substance you accidentally
put your hand in?
I was doing a training session this
morning and I accidentally put me
hand in mud.
I’ll be honest with you, this train-
ing session malarkey sounds
absolutely awful.
I actually really enjoyed it. I’m a bit
of an exercise freak. Sometimes
you get wet, sometimes you get a
bit of mud on you, but you’ve got
to plough through it.
When was the last time you
said aloud “That is absolutely
disgusting”?
I say it about many things. Some-
times people’s behaviour. I went
for a meal recently and it was a
very horrible meal, so after I fin-
ished I said that. It wasn’t disgust-
ing, it just wasn’t very nice. I just
said it for effect.
Could you describe yourself in
the style of a lonely hearts ad?
Male, 23, fun, likes to have a good
time, very sociable. Would like to
meet somebody who is… normal.
Seems to be very rare these days
[cackles]. Someone normal and
nice.
Okay, close your eyes, Joe.
Mm-hmm.
Are they shut?
Yep.
Go to your happy place. Are you
there Joe?
Yep.
Describe the scene around
you.
I’m on a boiling hot beach some-
where where the water is like
see-through turquoise, and the
water would be not big waves
but just trickling along the shore.
And there would be a table with a
laptop and some WiFi and a nice
alcoholic cocktail.
Oooh, lovely. Thanks Joe!
Pleasure, thank you for your time.
Probably the most random inter-
view I’ve ever had, but they were
questions I really had to think
about.
16. POP PSYCH
Each issue, we ask a pop group
to do something stupid then
read too much into it. This time:
Pale Kids draw some horses
ANDREW
DAVID
JOEA weedy, anae-
mic, frowning
example, possibly
already en route
to the glue fac-
tory. Reflective
of dminished
self-esteem (the
need to label his
horse ‘horse’ sug-
gests a lack of
confidence in his
skills) and a fear
of the future. Also
appears to be a
unicorn.
A bold, chunky
interpretation shows
his desperation to
make an impact in
all situations. The
trunk-like tail func-
tions as a tripod,
showing his need
for stability and pos-
sibly also laziness.
The trousers on the
hind legs are a bit
confusing. No ideas
there.
This was variously described as
being “like an evil moomin” and
“like one of those dogs with the
weird faces”. The only conclu-
sion to be drawn is that this is
the product of a diseased mind.
KATEMildly embarrassed
to be seen with the
rest of the group.
Draw your own
conclusions.
