Eight years after their last studio album, Jadis have returned with More Questions Than Answers. Prog caught up with bandleader Gary Chandler to find out about what might just be their career-best recording, and why – despite a lifetime of challenges – he has no plans to give up.
As time passes, a handful of progressive artists scale the dizzy heights of significant album sales and extensive international tours, performing sell-out shows in decent-sized, reasonably salubrious venues and making a comfortable living.
But that’s not the experience of the majority of prog acts, many of whom are active for a few years before calling it quits, hopefully with their creative ambitions satisfied to varying degrees – albeit usually to the detriment of their bank balances. Somewhere between those two extremes, there are the stalwarts who plug away decade after decade, never giving up, always doggedly persevering.
Only eight years short of racking up half a century as a going concern, Jadis epitomise this last category. Gary Chandler, the band’s lead vocalist-guitarist and sole ever-present, is candid about the band’s journey. “I suppose the folly and naïvety of my younger self believed that if you put enough effort and time into something, you will at some point reap the rewards,” he says. “I was very, very wrong!”
But the fact that Jadis still exist in 2024, and have made arguably the strongest album of their career, is evidence that Chandler’s determination and perseverance has ultimately paid off. “We had the Dick Whittington attitude of putting our belongings and instruments in a bag and going to London – in a bright yellow Bedford CF van,” he recalls.
“It seemed to take forever to just get a basic foothold. Whenever adversity came our way, I would always look on the positive side of how we could keep things ticking over; even despite the many line-up changes and moving to different parts of the city.”
He says a line from Monty Python’s Black Knight sketch, “Tis but a scratch!” often came to mind; but he adds: “Had I been told back in the 80s that it was going to be such a long haul, and that we would be beset with problems year after year, I still think I would have carried on regardless.”
That said, Jadis have taken some breaks from the prog-rock fray over the years’ indeed, More Questions Than Answers is their first studio album since 2016’s No Fear Of Looking Down. After a few shows to promote that release, Chandler admits he was in no hurry to get back to recording.
I was surprised how enthusiastic all three of them were… I thought, ‘I’m not going to be the weak link here’
“At the time I thought I’d come up with enough stuff – and also I had to look at doing some other things to make money,” he says. “I didn’t mind putting music on the back burner and not picking up a guitar for a while. I’ve been playing and trying to keep a band together since I was 16; that’s around 45 years. It was actually good to have a break from it all.”
He moved house from Southampton to a village near Stonehenge. “That took more of my time and focus; there were four years where I really didn’t play music.” Then the pandemic from further prolonged his absence from the studio – but it was bassist Andy Marlow who was the catalyst for what would become More Questions Than Answers.
“Andy was sending me some really good ideas,” Chandler says. “I usually do a lot of the writing myself. Sometimes people send you an idea and you’re not that bothered about it, but he came up with some strong ideas. He said, ‘See what you think of these; pick a few bars or a minute or a middle eight or whatever.’ He wasn’t precious about it. He was coming up with stuff I’d never thought of, then I started adding bits to what he’d put down. So it was a really nice hybrid.”
The process reminded him of Jadis’ celebrated 1992 album More Than Meets The Eye, as well as his early collaborations with keyboardist Martin Orford. “That hadn’t happened since me and Martin started writing together.” And with Chandler and Marlow making progress, “Martin was coming up with ideas as well. I started to get more enthused about it again.”
The band – completed by drummer Steve Christey – met up in the middle of last year. “I was surprised by how enthusiastic all three of them were,” Chandler says. “I was thinking, ‘Bloody hell, I’m not going to be the weak link here and not run with this!’”
I’m ready to let others have a go at using their ideas. I don’t have to be some kind of musical dictator
Having departed IQ in 2007 and released a valedictory solo album, The Old Road, the following year, received wisdom was that Orford had retired from music. But he’s become an integral part of Jadis. “If Martin is in an environment where the people all get on and it’s an easier situation, he’s happy to be involved,” Chandler says diplomatically.
“He’s put so much into this album and done some really good stuff. We all treat him decently and we respect him. I don’t think he’s always had that with some of the people he’s worked with. I think sometimes the relationships weren’t that great; whereas myself, Martin, Steve and Andy are really good friends – we’ve known each other for years.” (Chandler and Orford met in 1979 while queuing up for Steve Hackett tickets in Southampton.)
Despite having dominated the writing and been Jadis’ driving force in the past, Chandler is adamant that he was relaxed about ceding significant control to his bandmates for More Questions Than Answers. “At the age I am now, I’m ready to let others have a go at using their ideas. I don’t have to be some kind of musical dictator.
“If other members of the band have good ideas, I’m happy to go with them. For albums like Photoplay [2006], See Right Through You [2012] and No Fear Of Looking Down [2016], I was coming up with most of the stuff – probably because I got into using Pro Tools. I was quite excited about Pro Tools and wrote loads at home.”
He regards More Questions Than Answers as having been broadly a four-way split in terms of input. “I’d say it’s the most equal album we’ve done in a long time.” Marlow proved the driving force in terms of engineering, producing and mixing the album.
The first time I heard Steve Hackett playing those lilting notes on Ripples, I was spellbound
All of which leads to asking: if someone has never heard a note of Jadis’ music, how would Chandler describe it? “We’re more interested in melody, feel and dynamics than how fast we can play,” he replies. “I can’t play that fast on guitar, but I don’t feel like I need to. I leave that to people who shred their way up and down a Stratocaster.
“I’m more interested in playing one note and bending it and using the tremolo arm on something than how many notes I can fit into a couple of bars.”
The band find themselves very much at the accessible end of the progressive rock spectrum, and are among the genre’s most obviously melodic bands. “The greats are still there for me: Camel, 70s Genesis, Hackett and stuff like that. I’ll still listen to Genesis; and when I do I’m always blown away by it. That’s what started me off.
“I’m almost beholden to it because I remember the first time I heard Steve Hackett playing those lilting guitar notes on Ripples [from 1976’s A Trick Of The Tail]. I was spellbound from that moment. It seemed great to me, together with the yellow cover and the brown writing. Whenever I see that album I think, ‘That’s the start of my interest.’”
It’s perhaps no great surprise when Chandler also references Toto and Kiwi rockers Crowded House. “I don’t listen to lots of what people would call the newer progressive bands,” he says – but he doesn’t mean it dismissively.
He’s equally frank about the contrast between More Questions Than Answers and relatively recent Jadis studio albums: “My strong point is coming up with guitar leads, and that is still quite a major part of the band’s sound.
I think people will find things in us that they don’t find in other progressive bands
“But with this album the difference is that there’s a lot more keyboards, including synth solos, Hammond organ sounds and Mellotrons. That didn’t happen to the same degree on the last three albums.”
With a significant body of work behind them, it seems unlikely at this stage in their career that Jadis are going to become much better known. But Chandler seems content with his musical lot in life. “For some people, we’re not progressive enough, but I think people will find things in us that they don’t find in other progressive bands.
“We’ve got our own sound – obviously that’s not a very popular sound, otherwise we’d be a lot more successful than we are! But I would never tailor our sound just because something is fashionable. We just do what we want to do, put the music out there and hope some people are going to like it.”
