Spottiswoode crosses genres, mixes moods with new CD & concerts
This month, Spottiswoode & His Enemies celebrate the release of their fifth CD, "Wild Goosechase Expedition," by playing different sets every Sunday at 9:00 p.m. at The Living Room, 154 Ludlow Street, in New York. "Wild Goosechase Expedition" marks the band’s first release since a double-release in 2008, which was their tenth anniversary.
Frontman Spottiswoode (born Jonathan Spottiswoode) writes all the songs and, with his six-piece band, performs genre-crossing rock ’n’ roll that moves from jazz to r&b to folk and even cabaret-style music.
Born of an English clergyman and American opera singer and teacher, Spottiswoode grew up in London but moved stateside to attend college in Washington, DC (where he met most of the band), before moving to New York in 1997. The band’s first album was released a year later.
Gay audiences may be familiar with the bridge-building musician from two songs: "That’s What I Like," which has not only become a popular video with a theatrical flair, but became a regular part of lesbian lounge singer Wendy Caplan’s repertoire; and "Chelsea Boys," a moving musical ode to the beauty of boys frolicking in the snow. A few members of The Enemies are also openly gay.
EDGE spoke with Spottiswoode about his career and the current residency.
13 years together
EDGE: It’s been three years since your last album, but here you are, still together after thirteen years.
Spottiswoode:: For our 10th anniversary, we put out two records and I was exhausted after that. I’m approaching my life a little differently now. I told the band a few years ago that we’re like the Rolling Stones now-at least in our own mind; we don’t have to play together every week to prove we’re a band. Last year we did a musical. I don’t know what will happen at the end of October.
EDGE: It sounds like with your clergyman father and opera-singing mother that you have this marriage of art and morality, in the best possible way, that comes through the music.
Spottiswoode: Exactly, it’s right there. That’s well put. It’s the tension.
EDGE: Being both a Londoner and an American, how do you see the world? How does that tension play itself out?
Spottiswoode: There’s a word I recently heard called a mis-matchup, which I believe is somebody who always sees the other side of something. I feel I have a sort of multiple perspectives; it’s kind of the essence of what I do but it’s also sometimes a big problem for me. There is always a tension as to whether it’s something I should fight or something I should accept. I don’t know how a Londoner sees the world. Of course, I was growing up in a post-imperialist country in the ’70s so I’m influenced by that. I think we were disillusioned at that time and patriotism wasn’t exactly trendy in the ’70s. [Laughs] Samuel Johnson said, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." I have both contempt and envy for it, and that applies to most things in life!
Story continues on following page.
Watch Spottiswoode & His Enemies perform "All in the Past" on WNYC’s Soundcheck:
