Jon Langford and The Bright Shiners

From the Mekons to folk punk

On the face of it, Jon Langford has come a long way since starting out with Leeds-based post punk minimalists The Mekons, but there’s a common thread between his late 70s musical identity and his wonderful new folk album ‘Where It Really Starts’.

Recording now as Jon Langford and the Bright Shiners, he’s tapped into a similar vein of simple, direct communication, albeit with a rather more melodic sheen, aided by the harmonies of Alice Spencer, along with musical comrades Tamineh Gueramy (fiddle) and all round musical genius John Szymanksy.

This, Langford insists, is very much a band endeavour, and he jokes, “if you surround yourself with people who are more talented than you, it helps.”

To me, their sound lies somewhere between the sweet pop intelligence of Beautiful South and last year’s indie folk collab between Robert Lloyd and Janet Bean Beveridge.

Langford gently reminds me that he wrote a track for the latter album, and lobs in a reference to country music too, another point of connection with his old band.

“We loved country music with The Mekons,” he says. “We just started hearing these songs that spoke directly about real life.

“Most people thought country music was schlock - boring ‘old people’ music. We got totally sucked up by Hank Williams, Jimmy Rogers, and that classic Honky Tonk stuff that really spoke directly to a community, which we thought Punk was trying to do.

“In a lot of ways, Punk was a kind of escapist music with all that yelling about anarchy and ‘smash into system.’

“We were always trying to write politically with a small p about our lives. And one thing I've learned is, if a song can do anything - it doesn't necessarily bring down a government or change anyone's minds - but it could strike up a conversation where a bit of common ground can be achieved.”

One of the tracks which best exemplifies what he’s talking about is “Discarded’ where Langford explains he “was trying to compare a breakup with the closure of British Steel in Newport in 1976.”

He chuckles at the apparent absurdity of the conceit. “It’s an industrial relations break up song”.

Langford has successfully existed on the margins of the music biz for 40 years, making albums under a variety of guises.

The sense of continuity with punk lies with his sensibility.

Recalling those heady days of the mid-to-late 70s he says, “ I wasn't going to be in a band. I was meant to be a painter and I went to art school in Leeds in 1976.

“I thought I was going to be like Van Gogh painting pictures. Then the Pistols and Clash turned up in Leeds and everybody threw away their paint brushes and said ‘let's start a band’.

“The Gang of Four were our mates and they were a real band. We just used to sneak into their rehearsal room to practice.”

Langford is being unduly modest. Tracks like ‘Where Were You’ and ‘Never Been In A Riot’ were ferocious, uncompromising post punk anthems.

But that was then; and this is now, and with tracks like the brilliant ‘Seahouses’, he’s writing a remarkable new chapter in a storied career,

‘Where It Really Starts’ by Jon Langford and the Bright Shiners is available now on Bandcamp.

They play at the Rock n Roll Brewhouse in Birmingham on May 14.

Listen to the full interview below where John reveals whether he really was kicked out of Sisters of Mercy for refusing to wear black.