# 3
J A S O N J U L E S
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How would you define your subcultural influence?
I’ve always figured myself as a bit of an outsider. I went
to clubs and organised clubs; I liked the idea of seeing
these things start up, but when they became mainstream or
commercial I didn’t really want to be involved. In hindsight
most people would say I dressed ‘Ivy’, but that was before
anyone really knew what it was called.
That idea of outsidership seems fundamental. Do you
think it has an effect on these movements when they
move into the mainstream? Is it evolution or something
different?
It becomes something entirely different because people
buy into something they don’t really understand at a very
cheap price, often because it’s what everyone else is doing.
The originators do it because it’s what nobody’s doing – they’re
the ones taking a risk, making a claim about their identity,
separating themselves from, as Barnzley would say, the mass.
That comes with risks and criticisms, a sense of alienation.
The first time I entered Soho I was 14 and it was the most
amazing thing ever. I left East London as a weirdo, arrived on
the Central Line at Tottenham Court Road, and felt at home.
I was surrounded by a million other weirdos, and it affirmed
my sense of what was possible; that you didn’t have to suffer
for your interest or passion. But the mass, the people who
buy into a culture later, they’re often the ones who caused the
suffering. They don’t really understand the process at all –
and nor should they, because they aren’t, by nature, outsiders.
So when an underground culture moves into the
mainstream, what kind of an effect do you think that has?
When I was a kid I used to be really angry at that, and
not because I didn’t understand or like the process; because
I was surrounded by musicians with an enormous amount
of talent - who once their scene exploded they’d be the ones
left behind. Someone with less talent, credibility, passion
and definitely less originality would benefit rather than the
people who started it. But that’s just the way it works.
What I eventually realised is it’s not about a creative
culture. There’s a line between authenticity and what people
want from you. I tried to get a cover story on an artist once,
and was told he was too retro; too obscure; too niche. So I said,
“Well, you’ve got Oasis on the cover? How are they relevant?
They’re pillaging the 60s.” There was nothing relevant about
them at all in terms of contemporary music. And they said,
“It’s not about the music; they’re brothers, they get drunk and
have lots of fights.” So it’s different from culture, and if you
get upset about it you’re missing the point. It’s about creating
a personality and making it bigger than the music, which is
basically a backdrop. What people buy into is everything else.
You’ve talked before about working in the 90s club scene
until it became a thing, then leaving because you weren’t
there for that. Is having the option to leave important?
For me it is. I find myself ‘retiring’ from stuff all the time
because it changes. It’s no longer interesting. In the early 80s
Soho became a kind of wasteland, deep in recession, clubs
and venues were empty during the week. And then, there was
us. We were pocket communities, DJs, sound systems, scenes,
crews – all coming together from all parts of London, with
no prescribed idea of what we were doing. As this extended
community necessarily grows, it gets noticed by people,
and reaches those it didn’t before, who didn’t really get it.
I remember Chris Sullivan once saying something like The
Wag changed to when you couldn’t tell a regular from a non-
regular – when you couldn’t tell ‘Us’ from ‘Them’ – that was
it. The Wag was important and influential because it was
anti-fashion, a creative, but non-trend movement. When the
people that I, and others like me, managed to avoid by going
to Soho start going to clubs like The Wag, that to me becomes
a totally different thing.
The Watchmen Agency is often cited as one of the first
companies to actively bring fashion and music together,
one leveraging the other. I’d like to hear your thoughts
on that.
Most agencies at the time didn’t seen to grasp the intrinsic
connection between music and fashion – and certainly
weren’t as closely linked to emerging trends as we were, so
we leveraged that and worked with a mix of brands that other
agencies wouldn’t have considered possible back then.
So we wrote and did marketing and events for i-D and The
Wire Magazine. We consulted for Levi’s and Wrangler as well
as Sony Records and Island as Acid Jazz. We produced short
films for the BBC, wrote about cinema and sport for The Times
and created fashion stories for The Face magazine. We were
lucky enough to work with some really forward thinking
people at the time, but there were loads of brands out there
that really didn’t understand. They’d entertain us, bring us
in, ask us what we were doing, but in a sense they were just
ticking the boxes — “having The Watchmen in” — but not
really knowing what to do with us.
So, in the age of the internet, how do subcultures move
forward? Are they still relevant in an age where things
pop up and disappear in a matter of months?
I don’t know, what do you think?
I think it’s becoming increasingly hard for a subculture
to manifest in the way we imagine. I think we’re seeing a
recession of culture, of creativity. People are struggling to
find a way to make those things happen still. There’s a real
conflict. My generation is coming to terms with the fact
that our revolution was a digital revolution, so it’s never
going to be as tangible as the ones before.
You’re talking about a revolution that involves ‘feeling’.
Those tools of subculture — clothes, music, clubs — exist
because we had access to them. There wasn’t any other reason.
So, if the digital platform isn’t giving you revolution, or a
means of expression that you can feel, what is there? Although
people argue that subcultures are less and less evident these
days because of the immediate exposure they receive online,
it’s obvious that tribalism — be it that Black Panther party or
the cop watchers in the States or the emerging left and right
wing movements in Europe — is anything but in decline.
Fulfilling that tribal urge to be part of something distinct
and different is not increasingly realised through visceral
activities – like running or skate boarding – or on the other
side of the spectrum something like football hooliganism.
This summer, to me, is the summer of protest. There’s going
to be a protest march pretty much every weekend somewhere
in the city. People are going to make statements, feel part of
something and hope that they’re having an impact. Like the
subcultures of the past, they’ll see things that people outside
of their circle don’t see. The nature of emerging subcultures
may change as the tools are no longer as primary as they
once were, but the need to impact on one’s environment and
physically, creatively express one’s self will never disappear.
orn and raised in East London, Jason Jules started out as a key player in London’s burgeoning 90s club scene
alongside the likes of Norman Jay and Jazzie B of Africa Centre and the Funki Dreds movement. After leaving
the music scene, Jules and two friends launched The Watchmen Agency, doing PR and marketing for the likes of
Levi’s, Wrangler, and Jay Kay of Jamiroquai. Nowadays Jules continues to pioneer at the intersections of music, fashion
and culture, and writes regularly at his blog, Garmsville.
B
“There’s a line between
authenticity and what people
want from you.”
WO R D S BY G R E G K F O L E Y - F C K N Y H . C OM | @ F U C K I N Y E H
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