Kat Cole, Jamie Lenman (Reuben) Interview

Jamie Lenman (Reuben) Interview

This was a submission by me for Brighton based music and popular culture website Blaggg (currently under revamp).

Blaggg catches up with singer, songwriter and illustrator Jamie Lenman of fantastic altenative rock band Reuben fame to investigate what he is up to now that the band is in the state of infinite hiatus…

KAT: It is likely that the majority of Blaggg readers recognise you for your success as part of Reuben as opposed to your illustration endeavours. Where might Blaggg readers have come across your work before?

LENMAN: Well, the chances are that if they have seen my illustration work, even on the Reuben stuff, they won’t have known it was me, as I used to work under the name “Baxter” so as not to get things confused between the music and the illustration. I used to do a cartoon called ‘Rockbot’ for Rocksound Magazine, so they might have seen that and I’ve been doing the Doctor Who Magazine cartoon for a while now, so there’s a chance they’ll have seen that too. Also, if any of your readers are aged between 5 and 11 (BLAGGG: Unlikely!) and go on a lot of edu-tainment websites as part of their school curriculum, they’ll have seen me there too, as that’s mostly what I do in my day-job.

KAT: Do you have preferred methods and materials for creating a piece? Do you have a particular routine which you follow when crafting a piece?

LENMAN: Well, I almost always start by getting together a lot of visual evidence from the internet, pictures of the things I’m trying to draw. Even simple stuff like an apple, you think you know what an apple looks like well enough to draw it out of your head, but as soon as you’ve done that you see an actual apple and realise you got it all wrong. It’s best to just swallow your pride and have a picture handy .After that it’s just sketchy-sketchy with a nice soft pencil on paper. I almost never screw things up and start again, I tend to just draw over and draw over until it is right. Then when it’s right, it’s into the computer and onto the graphics programmes to tart it up. Nice.

KAT: What has been your favourite composition to date and what would your dream illustration job entail?
LENMAN: If you mean composition as in ‘deciding where things go visually’ then it’s definitely the centrepiece for the band’s second album, ‘Very Fast Very Dangerous’ with all the cars and trucks and that everywhere, and they all bleed into each other and I’m very pleased with how that worked. It was a nightmare though! If you mean ‘composition’ as in favourite song I’ve written, then that’s another story (that is “A Short History of Nearly Everything”). As for my dream illustration job, well, I’d dearly love to illustrate a kid’s book, ideally one about ‘fun facts’ etc, with a little black and white funny gag drawing every few pages. Brilliant. I’ve done similar things but not enough print work really. And I’d love to draw a graphic novel, being a huge fan of them.

KAT: What illustration projects are you currently working on?

LENMAN: Well I’m still doing the Doctor Who cartoon every month, as well as a few bits for a magazine all about the cartoonists of Doctor Who (the honour!) and then at my day job I’m working on an online game about electricians, trying to encourage kids to think about learning a trade. It sounds boring, but we’ve made it fun. And it looks good. I’m also working on an animation about the same subject, which is very exciting. Both of these things involve various techniques I haven’t used too much before, so that’s good.

KAT:

Does illustration and design incite equal or greater passion than your love of music? Is there a personal preference between the two arts for you?

LENMAN:

Well I was drawing long before I was playing and singing, so it’s really my first love, and the one I feel most comfortable with, but obviously, illustration and design is less intense – you don’t get a crowd of thousands of people dancing and cheering at a brilliant drawing you’ve just done. But at the same time there’s a lot less pressure with design – you can take your time, you’re much more hidden, so they both have their advantages. I’m sorry, that’s a boring answer. At this time in my life, I prefer design. But it may switch back.

KAT: Numerous Blaggg readers have requested that I interrogate you regarding Reuben – can you reveal any details on a possible return? Or should we all just keep holding our breaths?

LENMAN: I don’t think it’s a good idea to hold your breaths. I think if fans of the band see it as we see it – that those years and those records were great, and anything else that may come along is a bonus - then that’d be best. If it happens, brilliant, if it doesn’t, then I’d hope that it’s a fairly well rounded package. All my favourite bands did three or four albums and then fucked off before it got boring – we always said we wanted to do that. But then, I’ve been overjoyed when some of these bands pop back after a while, so we’ll see. Not for a while though. There’s no plan for it to happen.

SEE: http://www.jamielenman.com and
www.myspace.com/wordsfromreuben

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