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In April 2006, Reverend and The Makers were support to the Arctic Monkeys on their sold out UK tour, exposing the band to larger audiences and bigger venues. This was followed by their own first UK tour in May and June, selling out dates in Shoreditch, London and The Plug in home-town Sheffield on the final night. A second tour followed in October 2006, showing great progression as a band. The sound was much tighter and far more advanced than on their previous tour.

I bet! As you say, you’ve got that Radio 2 attention but you’re also tuning into the sounds of younger pop, which is creating another great platform for you. Your albums have always seemed like a vessel for whatever’s keeping you up at night or fuelling your fire. What is that this time round? It was almost a sign of the times though wasn’t it, all that late-noughties indie rivalry. These days it’s cooler to be kind. McClure was in the media spotlight for his personal views in July 2009, after an interview in which he commented on Jade Goody's death earlier in the year; "it's sad she died and it's good more girls are getting smear tests but let's not forget she was a talentless racist". [9] He has also been in the media recently speaking out about the UK's involvement in the Iraq War, requesting that fellow musicians, particularly the Arctic Monkeys, his contemporaries from Sheffield, focus on real issues and to "not write songs about girls at bus stops any more like me and Monkeys used to do, let's start talking about what's happening man as otherwise you know where we gonna go, we're going down the toilet aren't we?". [10] Like their pals, Arctic Monkeys, Reverend And The Makers are another Sheffield sensation whose rise was precipitated by word-of-mouth wonder and MP3 demo sharing, leading to the band – a vehicle for 25-year-old manic street preacher and local hero Jon McClure – selling out a 1,000-capacity hometown venue long before they’d signed a deal. McClure, an agreeably unhinged frontman and nifty wordsmith, spins colourful tales of humdrum living in his South Yorkshire accent. His ear for detail and provocative delivery recall veteran Manchester punk-poet John Cooper Clarke, who, it turns out, is McClure’s mentor.

In 2008, Reverend and The Makers set a date for their first release and undertook a UK tour, including several festivals over the summer period including Glastonbury Festival, Carling Weekend, T in the Park and T4 on the Beach as well as supporting the Red Hot Chili Peppers at Hampden Park, Glasgow. In January 2008, Reverend and The Makers toured Australia. [4] Reverend Soundsystem is a side project made up of Jon (The Reverend) McClure, Marcus 'Matic Mouth' Smith, Laura McClure and Jimmy Welsh (Ocelot). It’s a feisty uplifting record set to send perplexed skinny tied kids into ferocious swing across the country. The Reverend, Jon McClure, has waited for the correct moment amongst a busy local scene to unleash this menace of a debut album- binding his time as the Arctic Monkeys phenomena settled down. I played two songs last summer at a couple of fezzies, ‘Heatwave’ and then the next single, ‘Problems’, that’s coming out at the end of this month. I’ve been doing this for twenty years now and I’ve never had that reaction – people singing it straight away and messaging me, “When’s that ‘Problems’ song coming out?” To get that reaction is such a buzz, it really is. Of all the swagger lifting the peak of noughties UK indie, no one carried it better, louder, or more publicly than Reverend and the Makers’ Jon McClure.

The band released their sixth album on 22 September 2017, which debuted at Number 11 on the UK Albums Chart, their best performing album since their 2007 debut.

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On 9 October 2015 the band released their fifth studio album, their third on the Cooking Vinyl record label. You mentioned some of the clichés you’ve been associated with, and you have been known for speaking your mind over the years, particularly about some of your peers. The Johnny Borrell one in The Guardiancomes to mind. Are you still as cutthroat and damning these days?