Pulp are to debut “four or five” new songs at the CARLING WEEKEND FESTIVALS at READING and LEEDS this weekend (August 25-28), with lead singer JARVIS COCKER telling nme.com the band would be giving a “very human performance”.
He joked that the band have been “just arsing about” since the release of their last record ‘This Is Hardcore’ in March 1998, but added that they had actually finished their new album, and that he just had one more track to write lyrics for.
Of Reading and Leeds he said: “I am quite looking forward to it. You see your London mates in Reading and people from up North in Leeds so they’ll both be alright. I think we’re all a bit nervous though ‘cos we haven’t played for quite a while and also ’cause we’re going to be playing some new songs and stuff and until you’ve tested them out with people, you don’t know how they’re going to go. But, you know, that makes it quite interesting.”
He continued: “In some ways it’s slightly daunting because we’ve been away for a bit, but I quite like the fact that people don’t know exactly what to expect from it. It makes it quite exciting for us and hopefully it’ll make it exciting for the audience as well. If you become too familiar with stuff, you’d be there yawning. Whatever else happens, I can guarantee – hopefully – that people will not yawn. They might be screaming and whatever, but they won’t be yawning. I’m just trying to whet people’s appetite. People who have followed us to any extent and like us will know that we’ll always try and do something different and they expect that. It just makes it more interesting for everyone if you’re kept on your toes.”
Cocker also said that the album would be out before the end of the year and that it would be “lighter in tone” than ‘This Is Hardcore’. “It couldn’t really have got much heavier,” he joked.
For the full, exclusive Jarvis Cocker interview, see this week’s NME, out today (August 22) in London and nationwide from tomorrow (23).