Jack Peñate
The English rocker’s frothy mood proves infectious

Courtesy of Beggars Japan

Two attempts at a telephone interview later (the first falls victim to laryngitis, the second is a no-show), I’m finally sitting down with Jack Peñate at his record company’s office in Aoyama. It’s the day after the London native’s first gig in Japan, a single show at cozy Astro Hall in Harajuku packed with young Japanese UK rock aficionados, press and industry folk.

Rushing in with his minders from an appointment in Roppongi, the 22-year-old Peñate (he’s one-eighth Spanish) says, despite the brevity of his career, the trip here had been in the works for a while. “We sent 40 copies of the first single to Japan, and they were gone in a day. It’s a small amount, but it shows that people were there on that day to get it and there’s some interest, so we’ve been prepared to come out for quite a bit.”

Since Peñate’s joyous single “Torn on the Platform” topped the UK indie charts, the compact former classics student has been lofting along, gracing the cover of rock bible NME and playing the legendary Glastonbury and Reading music festivals. At Astro Hall, Peñate proves himself a dynamo, manhandling his Fender Telecaster with lawn-mower arms and dancing his signature goofy dance. Accompanied by a basic rhythm section, his unadorned, unprocessed songs reject post-rock aesthetics, relying on the strength of the lyrics, sincerity of the sentiments, and tried-and-tested rockabilly and ska rhythms to propel them along.

After years of penning “really bad Oasis-sounding things” in his parents’ south London home in Blackheath (corpses were buried there during the Black Death), Peñate rejected darkness and brooding for sweetness and light. “I decided I was really up for making people joyous. I find it wonderful to make people happy, even though joy is the least cool emotion there is. Everyone loves torture and pain more than they do joy, but I didn’t really want to do that. And it’s hard to get that right as well. There aren’t many Kurt Cobains. There’s only one, and I love him, but I didn’t want to be that type. If you are pained, OK, but I didn’t feel I was, so why lie about it?”

Amid the outsized poses and attitudes of the UK music scene, Peñate stands out for his lack of swagger. This, it turns out, may have been a reaction to the shenanigans of his Blackheath peers. “One song [off Matinee], ‘Run for Your Life,’ is about mugging,” he says. “I knew kids whose parents were doctors and they would go out and mug people. It pissed me off so much. Because it was never about the money; it was about power. They’d want a quid off you. I never retaliated because I didn’t want to involve myself. I never felt I needed to be a tough guy. I don’t see the point in it. With the song I wanted to make the point that violence is continuous, a constant in life, so just live with it as much as you possibly can, but don’t feel too bad about it.”

Yet unlike fellow English comers Reverend and the Makers, politics aren’t a strong current in Peñate’s music. Rather, it’s the simple things in life. “I worry about politics in music,” he says. “I think it’s a very hard thing to do and not be preachy. It can be great, but for me personally, I’m not eloquent enough to be able to speak about it in any other way than what I know. Politics occur everywhere, so I suppose I speak politically in ways that are about living. I try to speak about how it is to live well, but not about whether you should support the Conservatives or not.”

While predictions are dangerous, one suspects not only that Peñate will be back to Japan before long at a larger venue, but that he’ll be around a lot longer than many of the latest shaggy young things streaming in on the magic pop carpet ride connecting London to Tokyo. And even if he does return to the coffeehouse circuit, Peñate will always have his Reading memories. “I’d almost lost my voice to laryngitis, and we had to cut the show in half,” he says, waxing nostalgic. “But the kids started to sing along with every single word, and it was mad. A tear actually came out of my eye. When that happens, it’s very special. You know they’ve really listened and understood what you have to say.”

Matinee is available on XL/Beggars Japan.

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