The Jesus And Mary Chain

East Kilbride

Jim and William Reid grew up in East Kilbride and quit their jobs in 1980. In 1983 their father lost his factory job and gave them 300 pounds from his redundancy pay, which they spent on a Portastudio. On it they made demos of the songs that became their first singles, Upside Down and Never Understand. Neither brother wanted to sing, so they tossed a coin and Jim lost. When they first heard The Velvet Underground & Nico, Jim said, their jaws hit the floor.

Bobby Gillespie, later of Primal Scream, passed their demo tape to Alan McGee. After a London gig in June 1984 McGee signed them to Creation Records on a one-off deal and became their manager. Upside Down came out that November with Douglas Hart on bass, and in February 1985 it topped the UK Indie Chart. Gillespie by then had replaced the first drummer, Murray Dalglish. The band moved on to Blanco y Negro, a WEA subsidiary set up by Rough Trade founder Geoff Travis. Never Understand reached 47 in the UK, and Just Like Honey reached 45.

Psychocandy

The brothers had planned their first album for years. Jim said they wanted Shangri-Las pop with the production values of Einstürzende Neubauten, as if the Shangri-Las were backed by a noise band. After sessions with outside producers went nowhere, they worked with the engineer John Loder at Southern Studios in north London, who set up the desk and left them to it. Psychocandy took six weeks and cost 17,000 pounds.

It joined the guitar noise of the Stooges and the Velvet Underground to the pop melodies of the Beach Boys, the Shangri-Las and Phil Spector. It was released on 18 November 1985 and reached 31 on the UK albums chart. NME placed it second among the albums of 1985. Pitchfork wrote in 2006 that the lessons of the Reids' records account for a good 75 percent of the shoegazer scene that followed. Some Candy Talking followed in July 1986 and reached 13, the last release Gillespie appeared on.

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Jim Reid on the title Psychocandy, 2014

Darklands and Automatic

The band parted with McGee in September 1986, and Geoff Travis took over management. Darklands, released on 31 August 1987, was recorded almost entirely by the Reids themselves, with a drum machine in place of live drums. It reached 5 in the UK, the highest of their albums at that point. Its title track, Darklands, was sung by William, and its first single, April Skies, reached 8.

Automatic followed on 9 October 1989, with the drum machine and synthesised bass in front. It drew mixed reviews at the time, though Pitchfork argued in 2006 that calling it the dud was wrong, and its Blues from a Gun was the band's biggest American single to that point. Hart left in 1991.

The nineties and after

In 1991 the brothers bought a studio at Elephant & Castle in south London and named it the Drugstore. Reverence reached 10 in 1992, and Honey's Dead reached 14 and was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize. Stoned & Dethroned in 1994 added guests Shane MacGowan and Hope Sandoval, and Sometimes Always reached 96 on the Billboard Hot 100. They left Blanco y Negro for Munki in 1998, on Sub Pop in the US and Creation in the UK, and the band split in 1999.

They reunited at Coachella on 27 April 2007, where Scarlett Johansson joined them for Just Like Honey, the song that ends Lost in Translation. In 2015 they began playing Psychocandy in full for its thirtieth anniversary. Damage and Joy, produced by Youth, appeared on 24 March 2017, and Glasgow Eyes on 22 March 2024 gave them their first UK top ten album since 1988. Asked that year about Psychocandy, Jim Reid said it was almost forty years old and still made sense to him.