G. P.: Your work ranges from pop-songlike to experimental, from lullabies to nightmares, is there a unifying Piano Magic factor beyond your own involvement?

G.J.: Well, I think there's a thread in the shape of me that runs through the whole procession of records that we've released over the past three years. Every song is either autobiographical or biographical - the characters never more than one person removed from me. Piano Magic is essentially me emptying my head and my heart out onto the recording format. People are buying bits of me and taking them home. I'm all over the world. Thousands of unique travelling experiences that I have absolutely no recollection of.

G.P.: How important are dreams or dreaming to you and your work?

G.J.: Daydreaming more than dreaming. I idealize and romanticize the most basic of scenarios from heartbreak to making a sandwich. It's always been the case. Before I was in this band, I wrote a book of dream experience-like short stories, kinda like Barry Yourgrau's Man Jumps Out Of An Aeroplane. You read that? It's full of one-page dream sequences like : a man climbs inside a cow for a bet and decides to stay there. Or : a farmer who has a herd of giggling girls that produce fresh fruit from between their legs.....

G.P.: Do you believe in ghosts?

G.J.: Sure. I was a ghost-hunter when I was about 10/11 years old, totally obsessed with ghosts, UFO's, dinosaurs like all kids of that age but me and a few friends used to push it that little bit further than the other kids and visit stately homes known to be haunted, at night, in thunderstorms. I've been kinda busy with other stuff since then but I like to stay open to all possibilities.

G.P.: Would you relate an experience involving dreams or ghosts?

G.J.: One night, I was staying at a friend's house in a small town in the middle of England ('The Midlands,' as it's called). We'd been recording late in his studio on the ground floor and drinking too much to carry on so eventually he said I could stay over in one of the upstairs room (he, himself, slept in a bedroom adjoining the studio). So, I carried myself, drunk and tired to bed and pretty much passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow. Around 4am, still dark, I was awoken by my friend's cat outside the room, squealing like crazy. I'm thinking, "What the fuck is going on?" so I get my weary body out of bed and go take a look. The cat is on the stairs but shuts up when I look over the banister at it and whisper, "What's wrong?" At this point, I'm not spooked out, just really tired. The cat calmly runs off downstairs. I go back to bed and again, fall asleep straight away.

It must've been only a few minutes later when I'm awoken again but this time not by the cat but my someone playing very beautiful acoustic guitar - an old tune, not played in what you'd call the contemporary folk style, not like the Nick Drake stuff the students were fond of trying to emulate at the time. I sat up and listened to the music for a while and thought it really beautiful. The next morning, at breakfast, I remember the cat thing and tell my friend all about it. He tells me that the house is said to be haunted but the cat is deaf and hears noises inside it's head anyway. Then I tell him that I was surprised he could raise himself from his drunken stupor at 4am and play guitar. He tells me he doesn't know what I'm talking about. So I tell him about the guitar and how sweet it sounded and knowing that there was no-one else in the house that night, we start to get spooked. Here's the crunch - the guitar I heard was an acoustic guitar but when I tell my friend this detail, he tells me that there isn't one in the house! Then he remembers that there is - upstairs in the bedroom next to the one I was sleeping in but I won't believe it when I see it. He watches me as I cautiously go up to the room he's talking about and there I see it - mounted on the wall, decoratively, is an old acoustic guitar....with no strings.....

G.P.: Tell me something about magic.

G.J.: I think the closest I've ever come to anything I could possibly describe as a magical experience would be taking Ecstacy with a girl I was deeply in love with and just sitting there, inches away from her face, time dismissed, basking in the absolute celestial, heavenly glow of LOVE. I'm an irresponsible hippy but in the absence of Merlin.....

G.P.: Childhood heroes, or inspirations?

G.J.: My dad was buying little cowboy outfits for me when I was 3 years old and spy kits when I was 6 years old. He was heavy on James Bond and Westerns. My first memory was of me at 3 years old, dressed as cowboy, shooting the 80 year old woman next door with my little grey plastic Colt 45. In return for her death, she gave me an apple. My notion of give and take has been fucked up ever since.

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