Idles frontman Joe Talbot has shared some more details on his upcoming supergroup with Jamie T and Willie J Healey, describing it as “an odd trio”.
News of the potential collaboration first surfaced in an NME interview last year, when Talbot and Jamie spoke about going to see Florence + The Machine play at the O2, with Healey supporting.
While they were watching on, Talbot turned to Jamie and asked if he wanted to start a soul band with him.
And now, Talbot has fleshed out the details a little more, during an interview on the Midnight Chats podcast, which you can hear in full here.
When asked by host Greg Cochrane if the soul record from the three of them is still on the cards, Talbot replied, “Yeah, Willie and I have met up and started writing stuff.”
“Obviously, we hang out every week when we’re both in town [Bristol], ride our bikes together and do other things. But we’re busy.”
Recommended
“I want to call the project Perros Perdidos – which means “Lost Dogs”. I don’t think they know that yet. I was like, that’s a sick name. Then all our merch could be like lost dog posters. Sick, right?”
“Yeah, so we’ve got ideas. I was at Jamie’s house quite a while ago now and we were talking about sampling and sampling this tune I love, and he just fucking got it up on YouTube, chucked it on his sample pad and I was like, ‘this has got to happen now’.”
“I think because we’re all very different versions of the same beast. We’re very different people all three of us,” he continued. “We’re an odd trio, but we have the same intention. And we have a lot of love, and we all connect with soul music. I think it would just be a great project to do – even just for ourselves, if it doesn’t come out. But yeah, it excites me that idea, but then a lot of musical ideas excite me at the moment.”
In the NME interview from June 2023, Talbot first discussed the inception of the idea of forming the group.
“I’m going to make this public because I went round Jamie’s house and he must have played me about 60 tracks of his thousands and thousands of hours of music he’s created with people,” Talbot said. “If I make it public in an NME interview, we have to fucking make it and we have to fucking release it or you’re just going to be playing it back to me in 10 years and I’ll think, ‘Whatever happened to our soul band?!’”
The band released their fifth album ‘Tangk’ last month (February 16). In a four-star review, NME said the project was “the most open-hearted we’ve ever seen them”, adding: “The ambitious and mature fifth album has its hand on its heart and feet on the dancefloor, as the Bristol band prove that they’re so much more than punk.”
Idles are also set to tour in the UK, Ireland, Europe and North America throughout 2024, having kicked off the stint in Belgium last month. Visit here for any remaining UK/Ireland tickets and here for US tickets.