It’s No Conspiracy: The Jack Rubies are Back!
Catching up with the reunited Britpop vets
The Jack Rubies occupied a unique position in England’s transition from post-punk to Britpop.
Formed in East London in the late ‘80s, they signed with TVT Records in the U.S., released two outstanding albums (Fascinatin’ Vacation, a compilation of early British singles, and See the Money In My Smile) and found a fit with a sound that veered from edgy insurgence to a more inventive sound akin to The Pastels, The Mighty Lemon Drops, The Wedding Present and others of that era. The band — which consisted of guitarist and lead vocalist Ian Wright, guitarist and backing vocalist SD Ineson, bassist Steve Brockway, percussionist Lawrence Giltnane, and drummer Peter Maxted — quickly became a familiar presence at any number of popular London haunts while winning kudos from the press in the process as part of the storied C86 crowd.
“In the UK, when we started, the prevailing atmosphere of Thatcherite authoritarianism ironically played to our advantage,” Wright relates. “That’s when the government created incentives to encourage young, unemployed people to start their own ventures, instead of claiming social security or the dole. It was called the Enterprise Allowance Scheme, and successful applicants could set up as a small business doing any number of activities, and receive a small weekly allowance. Many bands, writers, artists etcetera took advantage of this, including The Jack Rubies. I’m sure it was not what the government intended — they were mostly focused on getting people back to work in a very depressed job market — but all manner of artistic endeavors flourished in this time, almost as a retort to the conservative politics of the day. We squatted in an empty house, our office was the phone box on the corner, and we dedicated all our time and energy to the band.”
A series of UK tours supporting the likes of The Blow Monkeys, Katrina and the Waves and the Triffids brought continued kudos, until changing tastes and fashionable fads led the band to disband and some of the members to disperse to North Carolina and New York City, seemingly dooming their earlier efforts to oblivion and obscurity forever.
“See The Money In My Smile failed to meet the expectations of TVT, resulting in a kind of stand-off where we were kept in limbo for many months,” Wright explains. “We were neither released from the label nor given any concrete plan or resources to move forward. The eventual consequence was that we were not able to meet the minimum conditions — i.e., release of new material — for our publishing agreement with Warner-Chappell, who reluctantly dropped us. SD officially left the band. The remaining members continued on, but gradually the project ground to a halt, regretfully but amicably. Music had become dominated by grunge on the one hand, and the acid house rave scene in the UK on the other. We felt like surplus to requirements.”
What’s more, as Wright recalls, timing was certainly a factor. “We had been critically applauded in the UK in the late ’80s, and again in the States with the first album, Fascinatin’ Vacation in particular,” he continues. “The stage was set for us to build off that in 1990/91 in the U.S., but trends changed massively at that moment and the label wasn’t supportive. I thought the quality of the material, the chemistry of the members and our great live shows all justified a bigger impact, so in many ways, it did feel like the carpet was pulled from under us before we had done all we set out to do.”
It’s not that they hadn’t tried. In fact, during their tenure, the band morphed into various side projects that aimed to continue the momentum. “By the mid ’90s, SD had relocated to North Carolina, and formed the Milagro Saints, an Americana-influenced outfit that he led until a few years ago. Steve Brockway and I returned to New York City and performed under various names for a few years, until I basically ‘retired.’ Steve joined The Ton-Ups. The other members — Peter “Max” Maxted and Lawrence Giltnane — remained in the UK and remained active in various musical projects.”
Ironically enough, it was the restless stir caused by the pandemic that ignited the idea of regrouping, even though it had been more than 30 years since all the Rubies last worked together.
“The band members had all been in touch, though sometimes very sporadically, throughout the years and remained friends,” Wright says. “Five or six years ago, with our discography long out of print and almost no presence on social media, a quiet campaign to archive the band’s legacy was initiated, but there was no thought of reforming. As this progressed, and the members were in more frequent contact, the topic of working together again sometimes surfaced. It was with the advent of the pandemic lockdown that we decided to explore the potential, with the proviso that no one outside the band was ever going to hear anything unless we were all absolutely satisfied with the results. Reactions ranged from enthusiastic to skeptical, and finally delight when the secret sauce kicked in.”
Still, Wright insists that the results that led to that “secret sauce” were almost inevitable. “There seems to be an undeniable chemistry between the five of us that has not changed,” he suggests. “We’re all the same people — more life-weathered sure — but we never fell out and we all have a rich shared history that informs this new adventure. Sometimes it feels like this was all fated to happen in the way it has, although little did we know what was in the cards back then!”
That’s not to say they didn’t have their doubts. “Of course, and I was most certainly in the skeptic camp, initially,” Wright admits. “But the slow process of relearning guitar, lyric writing and songcraft was incredibly affirming. I realized how much I had deprived myself of the pleasure of creating words and music, and now I feel at the top of my game. Amazingly, my voice has barely changed, and in some ways, I believe the decades long-lay off is part of the reason I’m firing now. In a parallel universe, we might have kept going, until burning out and hating each other, with eight lousy albums in the dumper!”
Wright also insists that age and/or maturity have had very little effect on the band in their present incarnation. “Personally, I feel exactly the same,” he says. “Okay, my knees ache a bit, but I’m still the same rebellious, hopefully charming fella I was then! I’m not sure any of us are ready to grow old gracefully just yet.”
Now, with a new album, suitably titled Clocks Are Out Of Time, the band is back, newly signed to Big Stir Records and with the original line-up intact. The album follows on the heels of its first single, “Poltergeist,” a darker and demonstrative song that calls out the greed, darkness and divide that’s inflicted the world for the past several years.
That said, Wright maintains there was no real message meant by the music. “Not intentionally anyway,” Wright declares. “This was the very first song I attempted to compose, after we agreed to see if there was any reason to work together again. I had not played guitar, or even thought about songwriting in 20 years. The others had been more active, but as the main writer, it was do or die time. Post pandemic and 21st century woes were the natural subject matter, and as I gradually found my way, it became clear that the new songs loosely shared this common theme. ‘Hark’ and ‘Hidey Hole’ in particular, are very much reflections on the band waking up from a cryogenic, decades-long nap.”
Indeed, the same sense of melodic mayhem, tension and tenacity pervades songs such as the aforementioned “Hark” and “Hidden Hole,” as well as “Heaven Shook Me,” “Shark Attack,” “Angeline Soul,” “Corrupted,” and, for that matter, practically every entry on the album. Certain songs could be considered anthem-like, closing entry “I’ll Give You More” being one in particular.
So too, the irony is often unmistakeable, as when Wright sings somewhat sardonically on the track titled “Terrible Crime,” “I thought it was funny when you suggested we do the deed on the dance floor at the Ritz.”
Wright went on to say that the material on the new album was mostly written since Thanksgiving 2021, when it was agreed that the Rubies would attempt to share some new material. “There were a few older unfinished, bare bones musical ideas that were used as starting points in some cases,” Wright remembers. “And one particular song, ‘Heaven Shook Me’, was a vintage track never used, that was updated and reworked.”
On the other hand, he adds that there was very little leftover from their earlier era — “some alt versions, and a few unfinished things,” he says.
VIDEO: The Jack Rubies “Hark”
Of course, in any discussion about the Jack Rubies, the conversation naturally goes back to the idea behind their handle.
“Ha,” Wright laughs. “The true story is that while in the process of trying to come up with a cool name, myself and other members were engaged in a game of Trivial Pursuit in our shared band house in London. This is back in the mid ’80s, and the question posed was ‘Who was the perpetrator of the first live TV assassination?,’ the answer being Jack Ruby, who we were only vaguely aware of really. Yet it appealed to our twisted sense of humor, and looked even better when pluralized to ‘Rubies’ like gems, rather than ‘Rubys.’”
He also admitted that the name summoned no small hint of controversy, especially considering the fact that it name-checked the individual who shot President Kennedy’s presumed assassin and became the source of so much conspiracy fodder.
“Little did we know at that point that the name could be seen as a bit loaded — no pun intended — in the States, as it was never particularly a talking point in the UK,” Wright adds. “We had a couple of fake origin stories up our sleeves too — a ‘Jack Ruby’ is actually the name of an English fruit tart and has nothing to do with JFK at all. Then there was the more elaborate fantasy that we had been cast as a fictitious band in an underground movie called The President’s Brain is Missing, which was never completed, but nevertheless we had continued on as a real band. That one did the rounds in press releases and interviews pretty frequently. So, no premeditated mischief was intended. We just liked the sound of it!”
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