Jon McClure

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Jon McClure

Background information
Birth name	Jon McClure
Genre(s)	Indie rock
Occupation(s)	Musician
Instrument(s)	vocals
Label(s)	Wall of Sound
Associated acts	Reverend and The Makers Mongrel

Jon McClure, known as the Reverend, is lead singer and frontman of Reverend and the Makers and ex-vocalist of 1984 and Judan Suki. He claims that that the name "Reverend" became his moniker because "I'm a big mouth and always running on at people".^[1]

Jon McClure was born in Grenoside in 1982, and grew up there with his parents and brother Chris. He studied history and politics at the University of Sheffield, where he met many musical friends and colleagues, although he has known Ed Cosens since childhood and in Notre Dame High School, Sheffield. He then dropped out of university to become a poet^[2], and began blogging on the internet. A close friendship developed with Alex Turner lead singer of Arctic Monkeys, with both helping form the band Judan Suki.^[3] He cites his key influences as being Bob Marley, Oasis and John Cooper Clarke.^[4] One of his favourite books is Nineteen Eighty-Four, a novel by George Orwell and inspiration for the name of his former band 1984.^[5]

He shared a flat with frontman of Arctic Monkeys, Alex Turner.^[6]

1 Previous projects
- 1.1 Judan Suki
- 1.2 1984
2 Television appearances
3 References

[edit] Previous projects

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[edit] Judan Suki

McClure's first band was Judan Suki, which featured Ed Cosens and Laura Manuel from the Makers. The name Judan Suki, is Japanese meaning 'being kicked in the weak spot' which McClure believed related directly to the music. Judan Suki was nothing more than a laugh and an experiment by McClure. During its life, Judan Suki had approximately 20 members throughout their time including Alex Turner and Matt Helders who later went on to form Arctic Monkeys with some friends from their school. In 2004 the band downsized from eight members, to five. The band including McClure, Ed Cosens as well as Karl Kelly on bass and Matt Holt, with Laura Manuel still on backing vocals. It was at this time that Judan Suki were playing for decent sized record companies, although he felt that the band were not good enough to be signed, a sentiment he kept to Reverend and The Makers as his perfectionist attitude forced songs from the album to be re-recorded delaying the bands releases. Judan Suki became well known within Sheffield and headlined venues such as the Boardwalk in 2002. The band were notable for their cover of "Brothers on the Slide" by Cymande although a studio version was never recorded by the band. However the song did feature on a recent mixtape compiled by McClure.

[edit] 1984

McClure's second band was 1984, the band were named after the novel by George Orwell, which McClure recalls, during an interview with the NME in August 2006 as one of the only books he's ever heard of when put on the spot about his favourite, he was too embarrassed to say 'The Dandy', which he later admits in a feature about the Sheffield uprising in "Sandman Magazine" in October 2006. Again, Ed Cosens stuck with Jon, and co-wrote many of 1984's songs as well as all of Reverend and the Makers. The band also included Judan Suki bassist Karl Kelly and drummer David "Chalky" White. The band shared a short life from 2004 to 2005 and McClure's strong views against the Iraq War meant that many of Jon's lyrics, vocals and outlook had an angrier edge to them. There are clear links and continuations with the lyrics and ideas of 1984 to those of Reverend and the Makers and 'God Is In The TV' which is one of the b-sides on the forth-coming single, was originally a 1984 song. 1984 came to an end when McClure decided he was ready to start getting "serious" as he did not want to be "just another guitar band" or part of a Yorkshire Music Scene which NME catogorised the band shortly before the band split in 2005.

The lyric "dancing to electro-pop like a robot from 1984" from the Arctic Monkeys song "I bet you look good on the dance floor", is a reference to John's band, 1984.^{[citation needed]} Maintaining Alex Turner's close link with McClure, who provided much of Turner's inspiration in his early songwriting days.^[7]