Music and Whisky Interview: Jackie Leven

The conversation combines the announcement of “Lovers at the Gun Club” with Leven's musical preferences and his ideas about drinking whisky. Leven lists his musical partners to date and singles out Johnny Dowd. For the new album he gives 18 August 2008 as the release date. Afterwards he wants to travel through Europe for several months; the overseas tours mentioned for the following year are intentions at the time of the interview.

As his favourite singer he names Chet Baker, as a particularly admired songwriter Judee Sill; for cleaning he listens to Roland Kirk. His later appreciation of Patsy Cline serves him as an example of how age and circumstances change listening. For him, music and whisky can equally trigger a brief moment of inner harmony.

Leven says his father wrote a whisky book and took him to distilleries as a teenager. Linkwood and Mortlach are particularly important to him, but he now often prefers simple blends in ordinary bars. His answers are directed against status consumption and over-refined connoisseur language. He links places, drinks and music into small scenes; the provocative judgements and comic stories belong to the tone of the interview and are not factual quality assessments.