Walking the line between comedy and tragedy: Last Bus catches up with Jean Penne

Jean Penne is the master of lyrical bathos. His first single, Chicken Katsu Curry, takes a common issue: ‘I love working in the city / I don’t mind the commute / I save a lot of money’ then, just as we think we might be about to get hit by another Gen Z homily on gentrification and housing crisis doom, he descends into the ridiculously banal: ‘I have more money to spend on transition lens glasses and donations to Wikipedia’. This is, after all, a man who ‘met his girl at the Bureau de Change’.

Photo credit: Mollie Gallagher

The deep monotone and distinct directness of Penne's narration, cutting through the jangling, sometimes catchy, tracks made with his musical collaborator, Michael Chip, renders statements like ‘none of the seahorses will make eye contact with me’ disarmingly earnest. Jean Penne is redolent of that boy at the back of your class with a fastidious attention to detail (‘he is wearing a crisp white shirt, and a broad, teal tie’ is one of his first observations when he is hit by a car in ‘Simon, Virgo’), whose socially awkward honesty makes him both scintillatingly brilliant and torturously bullied.

The Diddler, Jean Penne’s new EP, takes his deadpan, antisocial character to new, menacing dimensions. Exchanging the more upbeat rhythms of ‘Chicken Katsu Curry’ for eerie, atmospheric backing tracks in the two new releases, ‘The Diddler’ and ‘Simon, Virgo’, Jean Penne balances comedy with the sinister in these shocking and entertaining parables of social etiquette.

MW: Hi Jean. Do I pronounce that like the French, “Jean”?

JP: Hi mum. Yes, Jean like the French and Penne like the Italians.

Is that where you’re from?

I get asked that a lot because of my accent. My mother is Italian, and my father French. But I am from The Future.

Wow. That must mean you were one of the few who knew coronavirus was coming, where did you choose to be during this time?

I had returned home to my mother’s Pomodoro farm in early February to help with the pomodoro harvest. The vines where aching under the weight of healthy ripe pomodoro ready to be picked; it is heavy work for a knotted wrinkle like my mother. We were deep in the harvest (up to my knees in succulent pomodoro) when the virus hit so I have been stranded here.

What lockdown habits or rituals have been keeping you sane during lockdown, apart from pomodoro picking and mass debating?

Seances and games of darts.

As expected. The two tracks on your new EP, The Diddler, make a move away from the catchy beats of your single Chicken Katsu Curry, and have slightly eerie rather than melodical or rhythmic backing tracks; does Michael (Chip) make the creative decisions on this once he hears your lyrics, or is this Jean Penne telling his audience to think more than dance?

Firstly, I’d like to thank you for referring to me in the third person; I appreciate that.

‘Katsu’ was a rip-roaring adventure through a man’s life while ‘Simon, Virgo’ and ‘The Diddler’ are more parables of a kind. Michael and I work together intimately on the sounds: I tell him that I want something that sounds like decay and suspicion and Michael, he knows exactly what to do.

That’s a creative harmony most only dream of. Most of your tracks address the problem of bullying; is this an issue close to your heart?

For many people bullying is an essential part of their identity, it’s a form of self-expression, it appears to be a physical way of actualising one’s own power but really, it’s a tool used to sublimate embarrassment. It’s a rich creamy subject to spread onto music.

Photo credit: @saltinmyshoes

In terms of subject matter, Jean Penne has come a long way from the more light-hearted Bureau de Change. Your mixture of deadpan comical and sinister have gradually erred more towards the latter than the former; what is the difference in effect that your subjects stir in your audience?

Awe, mostly, and feelings of erotic shame. Catholic guilt.

All of it is trying to walk a line of comedy and tragedy. Not tragedy in a grand sense but inner tragedies that take place in people’s minds. Sometimes people get quite upset about some of the songs: a man tried to fight me after a show once because he felt we were attacking the French and his dad was French and had recently passed away. Samuel Huxley from the Five Bells protected me with 6 words: ‘This Man Is Not A Racist’.

Thank Dieu for Samuel. The Five Bells was Jean Penne’s most famous venue and haunt, but you recently went on tour with the band KEG, making a departure from your regular audiences and fans around New Cross ends, how was taking Jean Penne far and wide?

Honestly, I was truly humbled by the generosity of the locals. They live a primitive kind of existence. But they love so openly. I was truly flattered to see so many people come out during harvest season, I would have loved to spend longer mucking around with them all and the horses, but I had to return to my financials and business ideas.

What is Jean Penne’s vision for his creative/business future?

We have been thinking about this a lot lately. And we have decided we will not sign to any record label. Unless we are asked.

There are so many amazing and exciting indie labels out there sometimes it’s hard to pick which label not to sign to. 4AD, Speedy, Council etc they have all not offered us a record deal so, honestly, I just feel at this time that we can’t in good faith sign to any of them.

That’s a profound creative decision; I bet your fans are grateful that you haven’t sold out.

We truly are one of the last bands who are willing to stand up to the suits and say, ‘no way, I’m not gonna sit on your shelf like a fuckin' ceramic horse.’

‘... Unless you are willing to make us an offer.’

One of your loyal fans has submitted a question: “Hi Jean, love the EP. If you were asked to contribute to a celebrity quarantine cookery book, what would be your signature recipe?”

It would probably be a recipe for a good relationship: Make sure your partner thinks that they are not good enough for you. Add a pinch of suspicion about where you are going at night. Allow to simmer until they lash out. Then use their ‘random’ lash out as means to emotionally guilt trip them.

Now that’s spicy!

“Thanks JP, can’t wait to get the missus to rustle this up” – Fan, 43, Nunhead.

You recently published a book called Bloke, what were you exploring there and what made you move from an audio to literary medium?

The stories in that book are an expansion of the rest of my work. Going onto the page allowed complete freedom because I didn’t have to try make the narratives work as songs or work on stage. They’re probably some of my darkest stuff but people can handle it a lot more when it’s their voice reading it off the page rather than hearing it shouted at a pub. Essentially the book is three stories about men and the way they construct imaginary realities in order to not have to worry about ever being wrong.

Bloke also examines gender roles. Do you think being wrong is a common masculine anxiety?

NO. WHY WOULD YOU EVEN ASK THAT.

Sorry, you’ve never been wrong so you wouldn’t know.

Thank you. I’m interested in subtext, that’s what gives me a hard on; the subtext to a lot of men’s behaviour is a fear of being wrong which is really the fear of embarrassment or to have to accept yourself as flawed. It’s men who tend to get violent about that insecurity; there’s a lot of that in the book.

Yes, it’s a valuable exploration of that. Finally, if you were to die of coronavirus on Monday, what would you like the legacy of Jean Penne to be?

I’d like to be remembered first and foremost as a good kisser.

And when people talk about me it will go like this: ‘Do you remember that John Pen Guy?’

‘Oh yeah he’s a great kisser.’

The Diddler EP Artwork by Athen Brady

‘The Diddler’ was released on the 27th April and is available on all streaming platforms.

Follow Jean Penne on instagram here.