by Jonathan Main
The list of novels written by pop stars is not a very long one and the list of good novels written by pop stars very much shorter. For every Nick Cave or Willy Vlautin (Richmond Fontaine) I give you Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden with his rubbish sub-Tom Sharp romps, or even Bob Dylan, with, um, Tarantula, possibly one of the best selling un-read novels of all time. So it is a pleasure to be able to say that Storage Stories the novel written by Jim Bob, lead singer and songwriter with former 1990s pop chart stalwarts (and it has to be said, South London’s finest) Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine – 14 top 40 singles, 7 albums, including a number 1 and 800 live gigs in a memorable career that Jim has described with modesty, as less of a rollercoaster and more of a 1980’s sporty hatchback – comfortably makes it on to the later list, being as it is, very good indeed.
I meet him as he walks towards me past the stout gaze of Joseph Paxton and we make our way towards the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre. It is the early morning of the May Day Bank Holiday, it is, we agree, bloody cold. We have decided at my suggestion to go swimming. It is one of those ideas – an interview in a swimming pool – that appears to be a stroke of blinding genius when you first think of it and then, when later you are walking down the cold steps to the entrance of the pool, with a man who, in a time before Skype, once flew to the States on Concorde to be interviewed, to be borderline madness. Possibly it helps that we are both in a benign mood due to Crystal Palace Football Club drawing with Sheffield Wednesday the previous afternoon and therefore surviving relegation to Division 1. Whatever, Jim had mentioned that he liked to go swimming; I like to go swimming too. Jim hadn’t been to the Palace pool for years, not since he was a lad, and so I had decided that he needed to be re-introduced to the old rocker in the park, admittedly more Pink Floyd than Terrorvision, but now finally getting the refurbishment that it fully deserves – a comeback tour, if you will – and undoubtedly one of the very best ways to start your day in the whole of London. I can never pay a visit to the pool without thinking how lucky we are to have this building so close at hand and am nothing less than bewildered that there are people who would willingly sign up to see it raised to the ground. More room to exercise the dog, I suppose. Although, admittedly, Jim Bob does liken the circuitous route we take to the pool and the handing over of the ticket to the lifeguard, as somewhat akin to Eastern Europe in the 1980s, or else, that we are extras in a Mafia movie.
Storage Stories is, as Jim describes it, a fictional autobiographical novel (but then aren’t they all?) that naturally features a once-successful pop star, who, in need of a job, takes one at a small, independently owned storage facility called 2001 a Storage Space Odyssey. Jim Bob, I hardly need to add, has never had to work in a storage facility, small and independent, or otherwise.
The book opens with our once-successful pop star being interviewed over the telephone by a music magazine, the journalist promising that this will not be another of those piss-taking where are they now pieces, but a serious look at life after fame. Of course when the article is published 12 weeks later, the piss-take is exactly what it is. Jim smiles ruefully when I ask him if, by any chance, this is one of the autobiographical bits?
Leaving the changing rooms post-swim – both of us, I suspect, still mildly distracted by thoughts of Darren Ambrose’s 63rd minute cracker for the Eagles at Hillsborough – Jim tells me about the last time that this happened to him. It was Q magazine, and it was the third such ‘interview’ in the last year. His last three solo albums have been exemplary examples of British story-pop – think Ray Davies (who come to think of it also had a stab at writing fiction); concept albums that sing about their own little universe, be it a town in the grip of crime, suffering drunken lazy superheroes, Goffam (stand out track The Man Behind The Counter of The Science Fiction Superstore), or a school attempting to climb the Ofsted league table with the help of its orchestra in School (stand out track the glorious Mrs F******g MacMurphy – she teaches Food Technology). In addition, another album A Humpty Dumpty Thing comes with a 12000 word mini-novel about a man in the future charged with having to write an 80,000 word novel or face a jail term.
It is a short hop, then, to his book Storage Stories populated by characters such as Gunter and Anne, proprietors of the most Miserable Sweet Shop in the World, Gary The Bubblewrap Boy, and Carl and his (read behind the sofa through your fingers) interest in self-surgery, each related with the trademark wit and wordplay familiar from old Carter hits.
We walk back up the hill from the pool to the Triangle briefly discussing the royalties a musician might expect from online downloading and the popular Spotify service. I mention Lady Gaga’s £187 from over a million plays of Pokerface, and Jim laughs, exactly, he says, it’s a very long list with a very tiny number at the bottom. He Twittered recently that on receiving his last statement he couldn’t decide whether to buy a yacht or a racehorse.
I ask him if he has enjoyed his swim and he tells me that it was good to get back in the water. I don’t think he was humouring me. We shake hands and he wanders off down Gipsy Hill towards the railway station and an afternoon interview on 6 Music, briefly musing as to whether the interviewer, Andrew Collins, will object to the smell of chlorine.
Jim Bob will be reading from Storage Stories, signing copies and singing a song or two at the Bookseller Crow on Friday 4 June at 7pm.
Other Jim Bob tour dates here
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