Sherrif Chatman
Jim Bob: The Sharp Tongue That Defined a Generation
By Fred Spanner
“I’ve never met Morrissey, but I love his music and I loved The Smiths. Les spoke to him once and asked if he’d do a support slot for us. He told us to “Fuck off.” I think he was just being funny.”
Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine (Carter USM) carved out a reputation for sharp, satirical lyrics alongside a furious blend of punk energy, pop hooks, and pounding drum machines. With four top ten albums, including The Love Album, which hit no.1 in 1992, along with twelve top-forty singles, and countless appearances on Top Of The Pops, they gained legendary status.
At the heart of it all was Jim Bob: the storyteller, agitator, and frontman. His biting wordplay captured the frustrations and absurdities of modern life. Beyond his Carter years, Jim Bob has built an enduring career as a solo artist and author, continuing to showcase his wit, social commentary, and knack for finding poetry in everyday chaos.
Jim Bob, the unstoppable writing machine, has now delivered not just one, but two albums on the same day, and some (including Loaded) are saying it’s some of his finest work.
So tell us about those heady Carter days. It looked like one big party.
Most of the time, we had a lot of fun, but I think some of the best times were before we were well-known. That’s when everything was new, and we were gradually becoming more successful. We’d get in the indie charts, then we’d get in the real charts, that sort of thing. After The Love Album got to No.1, it became a lot more business-like. There were more marketing meetings.
Were you confident at the time that it would get to the top of the charts?
There was a feeling at the time that it could happen, which in a way made it less fun. When 101 Damnations went high up in the indie charts, we weren’t expecting it, so that was exciting. More so than when the record company is saying, “Well, if we release it this week, we won’t have to compete with Michael Jackson.”
The sets you had on Top Of The Pops were incredible. You were on top of a burnt-out car for Rubbish, and you even had a fire going when you did The Impossible Dream. That must have felt great.
I think Fruitbat enjoyed it more than me, as I had to sing live. I always thought it was a bit unfair that only the singer got to perform live. Les would have a few drinks beforehand, while I sat around getting nervous. I just didn’t want ot mess up the show by getting everything wrong.
You could ask the crew for things, and they really enjoyed the challenge. The car and the fire were good examples. It wasn’t a real fire, but I can’t remember how they did it. The way I remember it was that there were a lot of guys in brown coats hovering around, enjoying doing something a bit different to just setting up microphones.
One of the highlights for me was watching Fruitbat rugby-tackle Philip Schofield to the ground at the Smash Hits awards. Was it pre-planned?
It had been a long day, and I think Schofield’s introductions were well-scripted. I think the sarcasm started to get to Fruitbat a bit. We had an agreement that they wouldn’t fade down the music too obviously, but they did, and that put him in a bad mood. I should add that he was also incredibly drunk, too. I didn’t even see it happen until I watched it on video the next day.
Then we got told all of this misinformation, like a child had been injured by a flying microphone, and we were going to be escorted out of the building; all this stuff that wasn’t true. I left to get away from it all, but Les stayed and didn’t understand why they wouldn’t let him back on for the big get-together at the end of the show.
It did look fairly violent, though. It didn’t look like he was doing it for a laugh.
Is it a good or bad thing to meet your heroes?
I think most of the time it’s a good thing. I’ve met people I admire mostly just to say hello to, and I’m too overawed by their presence to say too much to them. I’ve met David Bowie, Elvis Costello, and Paul Weller briefly, but I’m not sure they knew who I was. They probably just thought I was just another needy fella.
We went to Spain to film a video with Ian Dury once. It was in the desert, in the middle of nowhere. He was funny and witty, but very short-tempered. Although I did feel obliged to stay up drinking with him all night, even though I couldn’t keep up with him. I was so hungover shooting hose videos.
I’ve never met Morrissey, but I love his music and I loved The Smiths. Les spoke to him once and asked if he’d do a surprise guest slot for us. He told us to “Fuck off.” I think he was just being funny. I still listen to him even though I’m not comfortable with some of his views. But it’s not like Gary Glitter, where you can’t separate the music and the person.
I had a debate with a friend many years ago about the lyrics to Sheriff Fatman. Please tell me. What’s a ‘Granny farmer’?
I think I’d seen a documentary about it where some guy in America was setting up homes for the elderly and just getting as many people in there as he could. They called it ‘the farming of grannies’.
Whether it’s a new book or a song, the words seem to keep on coming. Do you ever sleep?
It doesn’t really feel that prolific or compressed. I think if I wrote them constantly, it would be a nightmare for my manager, too, who thinks I do too much anyway.
Like releasing two albums in one day?
Yeah, I’d already written Automatic, and I had a meeting with my manager about how to sell a physical album when everyone else has Spotify. For some reason, I ended up talking about doing a second album, which would have a different sound, but at the time, I didn’t know what it would be. We ended up recording both albums at the same time.
Who’s Danny From Nowhere?
I’ve written a few songs about the same subject, but it’s all about a wasted childhood. It’s a kid who’s twelve years old, but his life is pretty much over already, after being dragged into gangs and stuff. It’s about having no chance from the moment you’re born..
Victoria Knits The Wars. Please explain.
I’d seen a lot of these knitted characters on top of post boxes- probably because of my granddaughter- and I wondered what it might be like if there was one depicting a war. After I’d written it, I discovered that there was someone who did that for Remembrance Day. So it does exist in a way, though I doubt any ot them depict the troubles of Belfast and all that.
On your Stick album, A Song By Me seems to have you scrolling through social media.
Yeah, it’s stuff that appears that I like to look at. And stuff that I don’t like to look at (cause they like to show you that, too, don’t they?) I got the inspiration from opening a TikTok account and then realising it’s pretty awful. It shows me people fighting, shoplifting, and crashing cars, mainly.
I was in Dorset recently, and looking up car parks. I found one that had 450 reviews. It was mainly people saying, “Great place to park.”
I was interested to read that you still get nervous before you play. Even when you did a recent session with Steve Lamacq.
Yeah, it wasn’t Lamacq himself, it’s the playing live thing, getting the new songs right. If I’ve got an interview to do, I’ll spend the whole day thinking about it. Even this one. I was always very jealous of Fruitbat. He was very casual about the whole thing.
Did I spot you at the Parklife album launch party many years ago?
Yes, I was there with Fruitbat. There’s a picture that exists somewhere of me and Damon that night, but it looks like my head’s been superimposed for some reason. We did go to some great parties back then. The Pet Shop Boys’ ones were the best. They were quite over-the-top events. Not Elton John level, but still wild.
Any chance of some Carter events next year?
I think with the Oasis thing being so big, we have to wait till that quietens down a bit. There will probably be a Jim Bob tour, but no one’s officially asked for Carter…yet.
Automatic and Stick are out now.