Jackie Leven Interview (Ross McGibbon has a pint with the big man)

Long conversation, conducted in December 2008 before a concert at the pub The Roscoe in Leeds and published eight months later. Leven says he is not getting anywhere in Britain, while in Germany things are going well. He lives from music, with outliers such as a royalty cheque for £10,000 because the Doll by Doll song “Soon New Life” became the radio song for births in South America (self-report). The publisher prevents him from re-recording old Doll by Doll songs. He describes Cooking Vinyl as a former “scavenging label” that has become a real label. Sir Vincent Lone sells better in Britain than Jackie Leven; Vince albums are cheaply produced “diffusion Jackie albums”, whereas Scandinavia and Germany expect high production values. Further topics: his sound engineer David Lynch, weaker songs on records, Lovers At The Gun Club as the end point of a sound, politics (Leven calls himself a socialist, brought up in the “communist” mining districts of Fife, Young Communists), songs about broken men as healing, 100 to 120 concerts a year, Scottish identity, Wetherspoon pubs as gathering places for lonely exiled Scots, poetry, the philosopher Charlie Martin, listening habits (Roland Kirk, Stephen Isserlis, Vaughan Williams) and a planned song “I Love Chet Baker When He Sings”.