Brighton rockers Creeping Jean are back with bona fide banger “The Rattle”. Putting their signature modern twist on the vintage 60s and 70s sound, the new single doesn’t creep but positively swaggers, thanks to an alarmingly catchy guitar riff prevalent throughout. Having already had airplay on BBC Radio 6 Music’s breakfast show, we caught up with front man Oliver Tooze ahead of the accompanying AI video dropping this Friday.

For the uninitiated, please describe the definitive Creeping Jean sound?
The sound of Creeping Jean is very much a vintage sound of the 60s and 70s with a modern production and modern twist. Using vintage equipment live and in the recording process for us is key.

What inspired the band name?
There’s a Dave Davies (of The Kinks) solo song called “Creeping Jean” – we loved the track and loved the title.

Tell us about new single “The Rattle”: what was the inspiration – and we’ll need to know more about that riff…
“The Rattle” has been brewing for a while, maybe three months or so. It’s been tweaked a lot so we could land the perfect upbeat riff designed to hit you as it should. We used keys with plugging to come through the amp to land that spacey guitar sound.

The accompanying AI video looks cool – how did that come about?
Tom in the band has a friend based in France who’s massively creative with AI and creates a lot of music videos, so we thought he’d be a good shout — and it’s something different for us.

As creatives, how do you feel about AI? Scared it’s coming to take your job orrrr…?
In terms of sync and publishing with AI that is scary, yes. But as for creating imagery, videos and creating AI worlds — I think that’s exciting!

If you had to chose a decade to time travel back to: 60s or 70s and why?
This would be an argument between us all, I’d say! Me, Tom and Kirk would pick the 60s and Rod and Josh would say the 70s, just because our favourite acts land in those decades – but both would be amazing, no doubt!

As we hurtle towards the end of 2023, what tracks do you think will end up in your Spotify Wrapped?
Thin Lizzy, Led Zeppelin, Michael Kiwanuka, to name a few.

What do you hope to manifest for the band next year?
Next year will be exciting. We have festivals booked in and album two is ready to be released into the world!

Finally, where can folk see you play live?
We’re ending the year with a show on 13th December in London at The Old Blue Last!

Listen to ‘The Rattle’ on all the usual streaming services here and follow Creeping Jean on Instagram here.

Photo: @nkfp_
Words: @talliwall