In the depths of the Islington Academy, lies ‪Jamie Lenman‬’s dressing room, very minimalist and relaxed. Sat in a pristine three piece suit the man himself speaks eloquently and freely about all topics put before him, delving into everything from his new solo album, the tour and throwing it all the way back to the Reuben days. It’s evident that the man himself is a no nonsense talker.

‘London’s always a bit tense cause it’s so many people, London’s usually the biggest show, your family come down and the industry all come down so it’s all a bit like being on show, instead of doing a show. That’ll all be fine when I get on stage, I still do get a little bit tense, I just wanna put on a good show. I think it comes from having a guitar that looks like it’s going to fall apart if I touch it. Maybe I should invest in more solid gear but it wouldn’t sound the same! But that’s what’s exciting, like who knows what’ll happen on stage, I could fall apart into pieces.’

When asked how the tour is going, Lenman lights up with enthusiasm gushing that ‘This is up there with the best tours I’ve done & I’ve done a f**kin’ lot of tours, not many as a solo act but it’s already my favourite, otherwise we’re going back in time like 20 years but I’m having fun, let’s say that.’ Fun is a very apt adjective for Lenman’s demeanour. It’s hard to imagine how you couldn’t have fun in the same room as the man. The magnetic personality, the infectious smile and THAT suit (we’ll get to that later).

‪Jamie Lenman was originally a member of one of Britain’s most underrated bands. Reuben were a cult underground band that blended metal with post-hardcore and alternative rock, creating a sound that many a band are aping now. The first mention of Reuben comes when it’s put to Jamie whether he finds it easier to write a setlist as a solo artist or as part of a band. Through a giant smile and a laugh he says that he’d forgotten about the arguing, and that he and the band never wrote setlists back in the old days. ‘We’d just say, like cause we all knew all the songs on tap, we’d gauge it as it went, and I’d say ‘How about this one?’ and they’d reply with ‘yeah alright’. To be fair, there might’ve been a bit of manipulation on my part but at the time if I’m sweaty and desperate they’re not gonna argue about what to play next so maybe that’s a tactic I employed!’‬

When speaking about his setlist choices now, the arguing is now between himself and his personal skill. Though he plays on stage as part of a two piece with his drummer Dan, he states ‘in a band there’s a lot more shielding cause it’s all of you’ & ‘even though Dan is playing half the music on stage, he’s not taking any of the attention or pressure if there is pressure’. He goes on to say that being a solo act is more rewarding and ‘not just because I get all the attention on me’ with that giant smile and laugh again.

Lenman’s first solo album ‘Muscle Memory’ was released in 2013, a double album half containing songs more akin to Reuben whilst the other holding more jazz and folk music. Before ‘Muscle Memory’ was released, Lenman worked as an illustrator for The Guardian and Doctor Who after the end of Reuben. It took 5 years after Reuben finished before ‘Muscle Memory’ was released, with a four year gap between ‘Muscle Memory’ and ‘Devolver’… ‘And from the outside it does look like I went to a monastery and just prayed for four years and came back with this record! What really happened, there was maybe a year or half a year this time around of break before the wheels started turning. In both cases, I had to start at the beginning to assemble a team, assemble the songs, Muscle Memory took a long time to write as a double album. We only did it in the evenings as a hobby project, whereas with Devolver what took up the time was to assemble the team, because I wanted to get a manager, I ended up with two managers. We demoed some tracks, met with management travelling to and from London on the train is time consuming for meetings. Then we had managers, we had to find a label, that took a lot of time, we spoke to a lot of labels. This industry just takes time, everyone is busy at different times and then eventually, when we had everyone locked in, we finished the album which was half recorded in demo form. We then took the long route with the preorder campaign, which took up a lot of the year, and I know it makes it seem like ‘oh wow he goes and hibernates for 4 years’.’

Unique describes ‪Jamie Lenman‬ to a tee. From the dapper three piece suit, to the self-deprecating humour, everything about the man is unique. There’re no cliché rockstar qualities around him, and constantly offering tea or water, he’s very much the host. Making sure that people are getting their money’s worth is paramount to him as well, praising his unique (there’s that word again) pre-order campaign, which offered different rewards the earlier the album was ordered.

‘That was Big Scary Monsters idea. That was one of the main reasons why we signed with them because when we talked to them, they were so in to it and had so many ideas like the preorder campaign, I had never crowdfunded anything or involved the audience before the record was out and I really liked the premise, and this is gonna come back to bite me in ten years if I ever do a Pledge, but I have a problem with monetising things. I couldn’t put a price on it myself, I have a hard time saying, ‘give me £50 for a CD and a piece of paper’. Even though I know it would have value to someone like it would to me if it was someone I admired or whose music I like. What I liked, instead of having tiers of payment, it was you pay the same price earlier, you get more and that really chimed with me. It makes perfect sense, like get in quick if you want more, but even if you are late you still get good stuff. It wasn’t that the good sh*t was at the start of the campaign, and if you were late you didn’t get good stuff! On the whole I think people were happy with it, it was a resounding success but that all goes back to Big Scary Monsters.’

‘Devolver’ mixes metal, rock and pop, blends it together and creates an original sound. Whilst the influence of Reuben can be seen in parts in the current music scene, no one else is doing what ‘Devolver’ sounds like. Lead single ‘Mississippi’, the industrial sounding beats mix with one of the biggest choruses of 2017, goes up next to a dark pop song like ‘Hardbeat’. ‘It came from a mumbly ‪4am‬ demo. You can tell when in the day I recorded the initial demos by the sound. If it’s got big shouty vocals, it was probably in the afternoon, whereas the quiet ones would’ve been in the middle of the night, which would’ve meant recording in the study quietly. I knew I wanted it to evolve and take off. Having said that, I thought it would make a great opener for the tour, so I had to work out a way to play it live, and I never intended to do it live ever, and I think it works well.’

Lyrics are a high point of ‘Devolver’, with some intricate metaphors and incredible wordplays, showing off that Lenman is a modern day genius. ‘Hell in a Fast Car’ is such an example ‘Rock & Roll is all about the fresh and new, why would you do something someone else did?’ Lenman expands upon that point, saying that he wasn’t taking aim at the current music scene, and it was more a shot at himself to be better and find more interesting music in the current scene. I’m not bothered about old artists coming back and reforming or people that have been going for forty years playing the same old rubbish… well it’s not all rubbish but even if it’s good, if they’re just doing album after album that sounds the same I just think ‘what’re you doing it for?’ Using Black Peaks as an example he continues ‘When I met Black Peaks, they were so kind to me and said ‘oh you’re a big influence on us, your music with Reuben.’ I saw them do a Christmas show with Guy from Reuben and I said to him ‘Look, those guys have killed us’. They take what we did with Reuben and they listened to it, it nourished them and informs their musical sensibility… And then they create something new, they put that on stage and it just makes us look like idiots. If you put Reuben and Black Peaks on stage, they’d blow us away. Obviously, because what Reuben were doing is by today’s standards tired and old, and it was back then. What Black Peaks are doing now is razor sharp and fresh, and it’s Rock & Roll’s job to make the previous generation look ridiculous. That’s what punk did, punk was so f**kin’ fed up of writing songs about hobbits and water nymphs and crap, which was fresh and interesting at a time, but when you’ve got rubbish bags, piled into mountains in the streets, it doesn’t seem very relatable. Punk just went ‘f**k off’ and it made them look ridiculous and that’s the job of new music, to make your heroes look ridiculous. Black Peaks job is to make me look defunct and stupid and they did it really well. I’m really happy about it.

Whilst 2017 saw the return of Lenman to the live scene, it also saw his debut festival that he curated and put on. Lenmania took place over the course of one day and took in two venues, The Dome & the Boston Music Rooms in Tufnell Park. Showcasing some of the best new bands in the country, as well as two sets from the man himself, Lenman isn’t in a hurry to do it again. ‘It was incredibly stressful! It was all on me, as much as this show is, it’s still my face on the poster and that one didn’t have any of my feats. It was an indoor festival, it’s completely different to putting on a single show, it was a lot of work. To get all the bands right and on the day, a lot of it fell down to me even though I had my team who had been working really hard on it as well, I couldn’t really go and watch many of these great bands because I had to have photos taken and what not all day. It was very stressful but it was a great success, it’s over now so thank f**k. Not in a hurry, but never say never! People started talking about the next one before the first one had even happened and I was in absolute turmoil. It happened in the same week as a radio session and my birthday! But when you say ‘never say never’, people think that means yes but it doesn’t.’

‘This is what I wear round the clock, do people genuinely think that I wear normal clothes at home and this at the shows, that would be insane!’ he laughs when asked about his stage attire, which turns out to be his all the time attire. ‘none of these things that you see are conscious choices, that I thought ‘that would be f**kin’ great, a f**kin’ cyberpunk victorian’. I’ve always liked history, I’m a keen student of history and I admire certain aspects of the Victorians, not all of them obviously, hideous empire b**tards. I admired how the men and the women looked and I think it’s mostly because I used be quite scruffy as a kid. If you wear clothes like this, then you look like a gentleman, you feel like a gentleman and if I dress like a gentleman, I’ll become a gentleman, but there’s no sign of that happening yet!’

The conversation turns to the rest of the year to which Lenman has no concrete plans aside from his upcoming tour in Europe with ‪Arcane Roots‬, festivals and then meetings, meetings and more meetings. ‘The second half of the year has some options floating around, probably some new music at some point, a single or an EP or something, provided Big Scary Monsters are still interested, and I’m sure they are, I hope they are!’ When asked about another UK live tour he replies simply; ‘that’ll be for meetings after this tour has wound down and Punktastic will be the first to know.’

That night, ‪Jamie Lenman‬ took to the stage and showed so much hunger and belief on stage that he is doing the best he can. Transferring his fun and relaxed nature to the stage and giving the audience a glimpse into his personality, he controls the stage. Throwing in a few Reuben tracks and a variety for his solo material, ‪Jamie Lenman‬ is on a hot streak and looks set to continue that through to the end of 2018.