Sleaford Mods

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Biography

As the UK slumped and
staggered from austerity into Brexit, it was Nottingham duo Sleaford Mods who
piled their pent-up contempt into an unfiltered soundtrack of DIY, club beats
and raging punk poetry, and seemed to best capture the mood of blue-collar Britain.
Front man Jason Williamson had been unsuccessfully plugging away in nondescript
guitar bands and short-lived electro-rock projects since the 1990s and had
grown increasingly depressed by economic and political climate around him.
Williamson said that there came a point when he finally stopped listening to
1970s rock bands and instead was just hearing tabloid headlines and began
turning them into furious, rhythmic rants. The creative breakthrough came on a
track called “Teacher Faces Porn Charges” created with producer Simon
Parfrement under the name That's Sh*t, Try Harder, before Williamson adopted
the Sleaford Mods name. He released early albums Sleaford Mods and The
Mekon in 2007, before spotting Andrew Fearn DJ-ing at a bar in Nottingham
in 2009, and took a liking to his grimy, post-rave, drum and bass tracks. Fearn
was also in his late-30s and had been making music for years without breaking
through, band his lo-fi beats became the perfect back-drop for Williamson's
unhinged, streams of consciousness. Parfrement left the group after the album W*nk
in 2012. Williamson was still working as a benefits advisor for Nottingham City
Council at the time, but the pair steadily built a loyal following both locally
and in Germany, and came to wider attention in 2014 when critics took notice of
single “Tied Up in Nottz” and their album Divide and Exit was
championed by Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth and Anton Newcombe of Brian Jonestown
Massacre. They went on to tour with The Specials and appeared on tracks by The
Prodigy and Leftfield, before Key Markets in 2015 and English Tapas
in 2017 featured high on albums of the years lists and marked their ascent to
becoming one of Britain's great cult bands. Often described as a mix between
John Cooper Clarke and John Lydon, Williamson also cites Wu-Tang Clan, Photek
and The Streets as big influences, and he released books of short stories and
picked fights with much of the UK's indie rock scene, before the band returned
in 2019 with new album Eton Alive, the group’s first album to crack the
top 10. 2021 saw the release of Spare Ribs.