Why A Run In With Death Calls For A Final Spiritualized Album

In 2005, Jason Pierce nearly died. Felled by double-pneumonia, his lungs filled with fluid, and his heart stopped beating twice. His kids were brought in to say a final visit. His girlfriend was offered grief counselling. Sales for Spiritualized's back catalogue went up. But, then, he survived. He suspected that having had a near death experienced, he'd be different. Over a decade on, he admits he's not.

"At the time, the expectation was maybe that I'd come back a better, changed, choose-the-adjective-you-see-fit man," says Pierce. "But, I came back as very much the same person as I was before."

His last two Spiritualized LPs are touched by struggles with mortality: 2008's Songs In A&E full of hospital imagery, 2012's Sweet Heart Sweet Light made during a period where Pierce was undergoing chemotherapy, for his liver. Having come face-to-face with death, it's not surprising that Pierce says the forthcoming, eighth album for Spiritualized will be, likely, the band's last.

"Every record, to me, feels like I'm running out of time. Like, I've gotta finish this quick, because there ain't going to be many more," says Pierce. "They get harder to make. And, the reason I said this might be the last one, is that I don't see me doing this when I'm 60... I set out three years ago, and I said it might be the final record that I'm ever involved in. I wanted to make something that was worthy of being made, and being made by someone my age. It's a strange quirk that rock'n'roll is essentially a young person's game. It's rare that people are allowed to undertaking making an album at my age. It feels like an amazing gift to be allowed to make a rock'n'roll record in my 50s. I don't think that should be undertaken lightly."

Pierce calls the yet-to-be-titled LP a "big record": one full of all the orchestral grandeur and rock'n'roll excess that Spiritualized are known for. The recent 20-year anniversary of Spiritualized's magnum opus, Ladies And Gentleman We Are Floating In Space, has met a run of shows performing that album live; and Pierce cites that record's match of careful orchestration and freeform noise - and "the power of singing those songs live" - as influencing his new record.

"It's taken a lot out of me," Pierce says, of the years spent making the LP. When asked what's been so difficult, he laughs. "Where do you want to even start?" While there's nuts-and-bolts he can talk of, it's all a matter of ambition, ultimately. Not just in constructing a 70-minute hymnal to the power of rock'n'roll, but making sure the LP is worth it. Aspirations of greatness make for quite a burden of dreams.

"I don't think making an album should ever be taken lightly," Pierce offers. "So many people just knock a record out to get back on the road, to get back touring. I want to make something that joins the dots, that connects back to the magic of making music."

"There's so much beautiful music out there already. So, to contribute to that, it's gotta be worthwhile, it's gotta be able to stand its ground, it's gotta say something more. I don't want to sound too pretentious about it. But, if you're not making something that says everything that should've been said, then what are you making?"

"When there are people out there - like Patsy Cline and Sam Cooke - that've made something more worthwhile, more worthy [than you ever could], then it's hard to try and work out where to slot within all of that. But, I don't think it's a bad thing to try and live up to. There's nothing wrong with putting that pressure on yourself."

It's rare to hear a musician speak of their place in the pantheon but it's in keeping with Pierce's love of music; his belief in rock'n'roll as religion. "Rock'n'roll is a primitive form of music, and there's a real power that comes from that. But that primitivism doesn't mean that it can't also be amazing," Pierce proselytises. "There's a thread, there's an evolution in rock'n'roll. The beautiful thing about rock'n'roll is that it gets things wrong. When we were kids, we listened to all the American bands that desperately wanted to sound like The Rolling Stones, but when they did, it all got fucked up, and it just came out sounding massively wrong. That's the way rock'n'roll keeps growing, the way it keeps going forward.

"It's hard to listen to [Spiritualized's 1995 LP] Pure Phase, from nothing, and understand that music. But, if you hear it through The Stooges, MC5, Sun Ra, John Coltrane, then it makes sense. There's a thread running through it. If you listen to music like that, then Spiritualized makes sense."