Mystery Jets interview at Offset Festival

Mystery Jets have had an amazing whirlwind few years with chart topping hits and unforgettable anthems such as 'The Girl Next Door' and more recently, 'Dreaming of Another World'. eFestivals caught up with lead singer Blaine, and guitarist Will at Offset Festival in Hainault Forest, London.

How has the festival season been this year? I know it's been pretty busy with the likes of Glastonbury, and Reading and Leeds amongst others?
Will: It's been great. I feel like we're seeing the same people everywhere. Like here today, I feel like I've seen everyone before.
Blaine: ...Or like versions of everyone.
Will: Yeah, It's just been so cool- so much fun.

What's been your best festival experience this year?
Blaine: Reading was special for us. We've played it before but not on the main stage there. We've played main stages before too but never at Reading. They booked us before a lot of the other festivals too, which was nice. A lot of people think Reading is just for rock, and I mean RAWK! as in R A W K. But they came and approached us so it was really cool.
Will: We played in the middle of the day too, which can sometimes be hard but a good crowd turned up. Glastonbury was spectacular too. We were only playing in some little dusty tent somewhere but the whole Glasto experience this year was magical. I mean Glastonbury is always amazing but there was just something special in the air this year.

I know! Everyone's saying that. It was my favourite thing that I've experienced ever.
Will: Yeah, exactly! High-five!
(eFests hi-fives Will)
Blaine: Wow, fave experience ever. That's impressive!

Blaine's dad Henry has had a massive part to play with the Jets. Is he still actively involved with you guys?
Blaine: Yeah, he's here tonight...
Will: He comes for the women and the booze.
Blaine: Yep, he's here for the ladies and the wild life.
Will: He basically comes for a good time.
Blaine: Yeah, I'm not sure how I should feel about that!.. People always ask where my dad is and if he's still part of it, and it's sad because he is a really big part of us and where we are today – it all came from him.

You guys come from Eel Pie Island. For someone who's never been, sell it to me.
Blaine: Well it's in Twickenham, which is actually a great place for music. A lot of people forget that The Who and a lot of other great bands originated in West London and Eel Pie Island has been really good to us – we used it to get our band out there and it's a big part of where we are today.

You hosted illegal parties in your younger days. Tell us a bit more about that.
Will: We basically used to do it wherever we could – we started out with these caravans and it would be all soggy with underage 15 year olds smoking their first fag and drinking their first beers.
Blaine: Then we used to have a line-up of about 8 or 10 bands on the bill to play our parties.
Will: Then Henry built this garage we could all practise in and we realised that we could actually take what we were doing somewhere. We could take something that we enjoyed to the next level.

Kapil was the last to join the band. Did you make him work to gain his status?
Blaine: Yeah, we made Kaps go through an initiation period.
Will: He went through all sorts – we made him swim through shit in the Thames...
Blaine: He had to smoke a full pack of fags in 10 minutes... and we made him play Santeria by Sublime over and over...
Will: Pete was on holiday so we had him on the phone listening in.

Wow. Pretty hardcore initiation then?
Will: Yeah, but we all went through similar stuff.

What does the future hold for The Mystery Jets?
Will: It would be great to play at Wembley one day of course but if we could just carry on doing this... I mean the last few years have been incredible for us – every year in the last 5 has just got better for us so the commercial side of wanting to be successful comes second. Just being able to do what we're doing at the moment and having fun is first and it's great.

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