August 22 - a week before my 19th birthday, I embarked on a new adventure: an interview over Zoom with the band Keylock. I was uncertain of how effective it would be with the varying degrees of Wi-Fi connections and time zones, so I chose to interview only half the band - singer and Reverend Jonnie Hodson, guitarist Aaron Keylock, and organ/keys player Thom Carter because I was not certain if Zoom would be able to handle a full band interview at the time (which I later found out was possible).
The interview started with a few hiccups mostly because I had not used Zoom since graduating a few months before, but the actual interview itself went quite smoothly.
Aaron and Jonnie joined the call. We just started chatting. I wish I had caught this moment on camera in particular: I had a faux fur coat and for more my amusement than anything, I told the guys that I was going to go grab it since the coat was on the other side of the room. Aaron and Jonnie said, “Oh, I’ll grab mine, too!”
I came back with my coat on to an empty screen - as the guys had left to grab their fashion. Jonnie was the first to return and I was grinning like an idiot: “I thought you guys were bullshitting about the fur!” He laughed and told me he couldn’t find his fur coat so he put on another jacket. Aaron returned with a snazzy jacket that had fur around the collar. We were waiting for Thom to show up so we all chatted about god knows what, again just hanging out. I cannot remember what we were talking about but it must have been something interesting enough because when Thom joined the call, we kept the conversation going.
As soon as Thom joined, Aaron and Jonnie started teasing him about his attire: he was wearing shorts and one of the guys said, “Thom, are you naked?”
Thom laughed and said he was going to change into some denim. Aaron said something like, “Alright guys, let’s go put on our denim!” And we all scattered off to dress-up again.
Finally now that we were in our home fashion of denim, the interview was about to start - only Thom had connection problems and his connection dipped. Aaron and Jonnie decided that we ought to start the interview anyway since we had already spent 20 minutes or so just chatting, much to my surprise.
I shifted from devout fan/friend into interview mode: “Alright, the first question is a bit of a fun one: If you could wish for anything right now, what would you wish for?”
Jonnie said, “I don’t know, more wishes?”
I laughed.
Aaron perked up and said, “For Thom to be back in the video!”
Jonnie said, “Is your wish about to become true?”
We waited, because due to either magic or just in sheer coincidence, Thom rejoined the call. Jonnie exclaimed, “Did you wish for something else, you idiot!” to our laughter.
As for his own wish, Jonnie said, “I don’t know, I feel like I would wish for something quite deep and profound. It depends how long I had, really.” He settled temporarily on the answer of, “A big place for a lot of animals.”
My first thought was of a zoo, but Aaron corrected me that it would be more of a ranch in Jonnie’s case, rather than a ‘Joe Exotic zoo.’
Jonnie circled back and changed his wish from 1. More wishes 2. A zoo - sorry, ranch - and settled on 3. More money.
We finally acknowledged Thom’s presence. Due to his temporary disconnect, he had been unaware of this whole wish business so we quickly informed him that he had to make a wish of some sort. Aaron told him he had been his wish, which coincidentally Thom had rejoined at the right time.
Thom’s wish was “a life without bureaucratic papers” since he hated filling it out and he said that if he could send it to Jonnie or Aaron, he would.
Jonnie said he would do it for a fiver, which would have fulfilled both of their wishes - an acknowledgement that amused us all.
Thom asked me what my wish would be. I was a bit taken aback since in my mind I would simply ask the questions and the guys would answer them. I exclaimed, “I didn’t know I was going to be answering stuff!” The guys laughed.
I stalled before deciding: “I don’t know . . .just for this whole pandemic to be over” (which is hopefully not still wishful thinking these two months past!). Jonnie agreed as it would be a return to normal, and Thom said it was the most sensible wish.
We slowly got a little more serious and past the wishful thinking. It had been coming up on a year since their debut single of ‘Coming Home’ was released and five months since their most recent single of “Shine on Me.” I was curious as to how the reaction to the two singles had been.
In the case of ‘Coming Home,’ Jonnie said, “It was good since it was kind of like an under-the-radar thing. It was the first thing that we released. I think that when we announced we were a band, people automatically wanted something to listen to so I think we could have satisfied those people very quickly by giving them ‘Coming Home.’ I say very quickly to satisfy those people in seven-and-a-half minutes - but it didn’t get much radio play anywhere. It kind of got people to come to the Keylock camp.”
For ‘Shine on Me,’ Jonnie said, “It got a much bigger response than I was expecting anyway - you know, it got onto the Planet Rock playlist and Classic Rock Magazine did a social media feature on it. It kind of elevated us to a place that I thought would take us longer to get to.”
Aaron gave his thoughts: “I think it’s funny as well because when you’re writing the songs, you’re not really thinking about releases or any kind of opinions or anything. You’re kind of just doing what sounds good in the room with those people. Even when you’re recording it, you’ve got more selfish motives as to why you’re doing it. So when you put the song out and send it to friends and get nice things said about it, it’s kind of like the bonus or the payback for the work and the sweat and the late nights of doing it.”
“Yeah, it’s very nice to get a warm response,” Thom agreed. “Just people enjoying it and listening to it.”
The band’s first gig was in January 2019. I have previously written about that time under the title The Keylock Camden Incense Incident - The First (Official) Gig. As the title evokes the assumption, it was quite a start for the band...
The band had decided to go incognito in the week leading up to the show, playing nightly at small venues around the UK. They had to test the waters before they took the dive, as Jonnie detailed:
“I suggested that it was probably a good idea to not go on stage with a sold-out Camden Assembly and have that be the first time we ever played live together, so I went and booked a bunch of small club gigs that I knew would pay us okay and we could get out and do it. When it came to picking a set list for the Camden Assembly show, we would have an idea as to what worked and which songs flowed nicely together.”
When Keylock’s battered gig van pulled up on the curb with smoke creeping out from behind the doors to unload on a cold January morning last year at the Camden Assembly, the band was not out of place. As Thom described it, the guys had “spent a couple of days in a flume of incense and god knows what else that was coming out of numerous burners twelve hours a day. Jonnie had been tending to the ‘vibe’, keeping sticks of incense lit all around the van, which had slide windows that barely opened a crack.” These pollutants would lead to him getting sick and having to be carried out of the van to his keys.
However, their travels in “an egg box on wheels,” as Aaron put it would lead to a successful debut gig for the band despite the incense misbehavior.
I must have been wearing an astounded expression upon hearing this tale because Thom assured: “It was a lot of fun, though, a lot of fun.”
“I think the first [show] was incredible,” Jonnie mused, “because from the time when me and Aaron started writing songs to being on stage in front of a couple hundred people, it was less than a year. And some of those songs were less than three months old - stuff like ‘Bright Eyes,’ we must have written in November or December - and then we were playing them live in January.”
Upon reflecting on the early days of the band, Aaron said, “It’s funny looking back ‘cause I think you’re always looking forward. Every gig before you look at what to improve on. Your next gig is always your best gig so it’s hard to look back at a show. It is what it is - a capture of the time.”
Jonnie looped back to agree that, “It was fun. Because we had worked so intensely hard on getting this thing together when it came out, it was full of piss and vinegar and energy.”
“And testosterone!” Aaron added, laughing.
Thom agreed with this sentiment: “It was a really good time. You don’t really know someone until you’ve spent a week in a van with them. The friendships in the band as well as the musical relationships made for a really valuable time. It was a really good start despite the incense.”
The thought must have hit Jonnie in some frenzy, perhaps as a recollection of what had happened after the show, as he blurted out, “Wasn’t that the first time you’d ever eaten a Big Mac as well?” he asked Thom.
Aaron said, “No, he’d had a fish burger before.”
“I had had a fish burger,” Thom confirmed.
“Your second one at McDonald’s,” Aaron laughed.
I sat there listening to the lads talk about McDonald's of all things which was beginning to spark an amusing anecdote.
“I think Jonnie introduced me to it, yeah,” said Thom. “For the handsome seven pounds out of a machine. It was an experience.”
Aaron agreed with laughter that the launch show had certainly been an experience. Thom told me that was the one line I needed to put here so here it is - it wasn’t positive or negative but an experience.
“What happens in Leeds stays in Leeds,” Aaron concluded as for the early days of the band.
I was still caught on the fish sandwich from a machine and it was funny as a simple thing had confused me slightly - “When you say machine, do you mean like a vending machine?”
Thom said, “I don’t know if they have them in America but in countries like Holland, there are like Coke vending machines but it’s full of sandwiches. When I was there with another band, one of the guys was ordering like seven sandwiches out of it and eating them.” He laughed. “I’d never seen anything like it. But at English service stations, the only thing you can do is pull off the motorway and buy fuel and some Gregg’s bakery type pastries. To add to the whole serve-yourself thing, you don’t even have to go to the counter anymore. You just prod it into a screen and then they give it to you in the end. I’m sure they’re doing that in America as well.”
Aaron asked me, “You know like those touch screen ordering at McDonald's? Those kind of machines, not like a vending machine anyway.”
“It’s not like the kitchen’s in the machine,” Thom said to Aaron’s and my amusement. He tried to explain it a bit more but Aaron interrupted:
“You were basically describing a vending machine.”
I laughed and said, “I wasn’t sure what you guys were talking about because I live in a freaking small town. We don’t even have the touch screen at the soda fountains.”
“Consider that a good thing,” Thom said. “You get an actual human being cooking your things.”
“More people in jobs, less machines,” Jonnie agreed.
“Yes, please,” Thom said. “I like my train conductors, my bus conductors. Somebody to talk to.”
“I know you do,” Aaron joked.
“What was that, Aaron?”
We got a little bit more off the main course as this had gotten me thinking. “So obviously they do safety tests,” I said, “but what if a train drove itself? I don’t know if I would trust that. What if it backfired and just you know . . . ?” Ran off the tracks? Collapsed?
Jonnie said he wouldn’t trust a robot to drive a car. Thom agreed that it would not be possible with driving in the mountains since one “can’t stop most apps from crashing. How are you going to stop a car from crashing? For a while anyway, it’ll work in the end, I’m sure.”
“You don’t want to be the crash test dummy then, no?” Jonnie joked.
“No,” Thom said. “I don’t know if it’s because we’re in the new century but it’s like they want you to be the idiot that tests everything. All this incomplete stuff from music software to potentially some sort of mad vaccine. Don’t expect me to be the guy who goes up there and says Yeah, I’ll take that first. It doesn’t make sense.”
Aaron started laughing at that. “Love it!”
“That used to be a job as well, being a tester. Now it’s just unfinished business that companies dump on you and then they finish it on your dime. Could be better.”
After this diverge into McDonald's and technology, we were having trouble remembering what the question and subject had originally been. Laughter filled the air as we regained our focus. I was still laughing when I asked, “So Winter's End was the last gig you guys played before . . . You know . . . What was that like?”
I thought it would be interesting to hear how their launch gig compared with their most recent gig - a slot at the Winters End Festival this March (which remains their last show before the pandemic!).
Jonnie said, “It was amazing, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was a nice big stage, the lighting was great. The sound was pretty good. There was a nice big audience there to listen to us. Plus,” he added, “it was Planet Rock’s festival and Planet Rock had been playing us so everyone kind of knew ‘Shine on Me’ already.
“And I was looking at the audience and everyone’s singing along and I go, Oh shit. But it was good. All the other bands as well - like Cormac Neeson, I’m a big fan of him. His band, man, they were killer.”
“His guitarist, especially, was so good,” Thom agreed. As for other acts who played at the festival, he said, “There were the remains of The Sweet - they were fucking epic. They were really good.”
“It was all the fun,” Jonnie said, furthering the acknowledgment that musicians are fans, too. “If you wanted to go out and have a singing-and-dancing on a Saturday night, man, I can’t think of many better bands you could have seen. That was a lot of fun.”
“There was a very friendly crowd as well,” Thom added. “I was really, really glad we did that show. We could just wander around on a day like that. It’s nice when they don’t want us just out back. It was really nice just to be able to walk around and watch everyone else’s playing. It was good.”
“I think as well with festivals like that where you can catch up with other bands you’ve met along the road, I think that’s like the one chance you get to see people,” Aaron said.
“It’s like the gallery wall of freaks all in one place,” Jonnie added.
“As well with that, having friends in bands we meet and friends in the same industry, having Thom back over from Spain, obviously we had Ese [Okorodudu] and Sheena [Ross] with us - it was kind of like a nice celebration, really, with music involved,” Aaron mused. “I actually got used to hearing them [Ese and Sheena] just singing randomly walking down the street. It became normal for me.” He laughed.
Winter’s End Festival was the band’s last show before the pandemic. After remains uncertain:
“I’m not sure if you guys will know the answer to this since the world is so uncertain at the moment,” I began, “but what’s next for you guys as a band?”
“Greatest hits and farewell tour, I think,” Jonnie joked. “I think the next thing that is probably going to happen is to put some new music out. I think I’ve said this in the past before, when asked, ‘When’s it out?’ I say, ‘I don’t know.’ I don’t mean it’s going to be an immediate thing, like it’s going to happen tomorrow morning. I mean that’s the next thing that will be significantly happening for Keylock, we think. We don’t know, we don’t know! That’s the thing with the restrictions and moving about, you know. . . My expectation would be in the studio and recording something.”
“Somethings,” Aaron added.
“Somethings,” Jonnie agreed.
“The cool thing is that before all this lockdown started,” Thom said, “we’d worked on building up on as many songs as we could for management because we wanted to have a lot of songs to pick from. I think it helps during this time because it whittles down and, whether you still hear them in your head or not, it means that when it comes for us to record the stuff, we’ve got actions [to take]. The next step is to make some decent demos, relisten to those songs, and find a way to meet and actually record - if we have to do it over the wires or over the Internet, we can try it that way.
“It’s a shame to not be able to play gigs, that’s the real bummer about everybody’s bands, big and small at the moment. It’s just they’re not gigging, they’re not touring. It’s just such a waste. You get all that work done, and then that’s it. All the stuff that you’ve done, you don’t know how to get it out.”
“It’s funny,” Aaron added, “we went up for dinner the other night with Flare Voyant [another London-based band]. I said to them that it’s kind of like the first time in every musician’s career where they’re not playing gigs or planning gigs or having gigs in their diaries. I think it’s just a weird feeling. I mean it’s nice as well because when are we going to have this chance again to have time to let these songs breathe and plan for next year and setting up coming in for a fresh and good next year. There’s kind of nothing we can do but make plans.”
“Why not use the time to write,” Thom said.
“And now we’ve kind of got the infrastructure,” Jonnie said, “to shoot for the stars and we’ve got Neil, who is an excellent booking agent. We’ve got good management and got all of these good things in place and this stage to make sure next year is a good year and we haven’t had that yet. Although it’s a good thing, it’s also a bad thing in the sense that now we have all that, I want to use it instantly. Like I’ll see something pop up and I’ll bring it to management and say, Oh, wouldn’t it be cool this? And they keep going, Well, Jonnie, it’s not going to happen this year, it’s gonna be next year. And I want to do stuff, I want to get out there. You’ve got to have patience.”
“You are known for being patient,” Aaron joked.
“Musicians are notoriously patient people.”
“Patient, in other words, lazy right?” Aaron snickered.
“Do you have any last remarks?” I asked.
“It was good while it lasted,” Thom said. “It’s dark now. Any famous last words, Aaron?”
“Oh, god,” Aaron laughed.
“It was him!” Thom said to our laughter.
Aaron asked Jonnie if he had any last regards which were, “Be beautiful to each other.”
“That’s good, that’s meaningful,” Aaron said.
“Thanks, man. That’s my wish as well,” Jonnie said, “for people to start being more beautiful to each other.”
It goes to show that even in such times as the current world, there are still new opportunities and adventures. In the time since this interview, Keylock has recorded some demos. The release date for future music and shows is still unknown but will hopefully be more than just wishful thinking. I am grateful that I had this opportunity to interview a few members of the band and even had the opportunity to interview the full band only a month later in September where more words of wisdom and amusement occurred much to our delight.