Mr Jason also does stuff under the name "Mr Jason", funnily enough, and "The Covert Stylist", and he used to be in bands such as The Secret Hairdresser, Animal Planet (with younger sister Tash) and in the distant past, Freeboy.
Iain "The Lowery" Lowery also plays in bands such as The Lost Levels, I Am Error, and his own Lowery (which also features Cath), and used to be in The Secret Hairdresser with Jason in the early Noughties.
Cath Evans plays in loads of bands, covering lots of different genres (acoustic, experimental, funk, samba etc), including Rebelski (NOT Rebel MC!), The Doves keyboard player, who was signed to Twisted Nerve Records, which is Badly Drawn Boy's label.
Gemma Cullingford was bassist in left-field arty quirk-rock band Kaito for 8 years. They toured the world numerous times, and were signed to Blast First in the UK, and someone else in the USA. They were an inspiration to literally dozens of Norwich bands, half of whom wouldn't exist without Kaito's influence. (that is my opinion; me being Mr Jason, and Gemma doesn't know I've written this).
PERSONAL HISTORY:
Me (Jason), Iain, Cath and Gemma have gigged together in the same or different bands many times over the years, with Kaito and The Secret Hairdresser having invited each other over to play in their respective hometowns of Norwich and Cambridge a bunch of times.
DEETS HISTORY:
I recorded the debut Deets LP "A Night In With..." by myself (with help from my little sister Tash) as an emergency radio session (for a weekly show that I do called "Live @ Old School Studios"), after 4 bands had cancelled their sessions in the same week. I didn't have any bands left to ask, and had to send the radio show to the radio station that night; somehow..
WHAT TO DO!
So I decided that I had to somehow do a whole 40 minute radio session by myself that night! It ocurred to me that it might not even be physically possible, so I got out my calculator, and worked out if there would be enough time for me to play all the drum tracks, bass, guitars, keyboards, vocals, harmonies, and to mix, all 12 songs in one night. It turned out that there WOULD be enough time..
But only if I did only ONE TAKE of each track!!
With that pressure in mind, I went via the Off License on my walk to the studio, and picked up 12 beers, to help me keep me calm on this epic journey..
I walked into the studo at 6:30pm, and set up a few microphones on the drumkit, checked that they were recording, and then proceeded with this pattern:
1. run into the live-room and play through a whole song on drums, whilst trying to imagine in my head a whole band playing.
2. run back out the room, down the corridor, and into the control room. Press "STOP" and check that it recorded.
3. run back into the live-room and repeat, until all 12 drumtracks were done.
Whilst recording the drums for "I'm Leaving" I nearly fell off the drumstool whilst trying to drag the hihat stand nearer to me, as I was playing the song's drum intro at the time, haha! There wasn't time to keep re-starting songs, so I carried on, and this stumble made it onto the LP.
I then repeated the above 3 steps with each instrument until all the songs were finished. One track wasn't completed due to lack of time (Forget Love/Quit Soul), but at 5:30am I walked out of the studio with 11 songs, recorded and mixed, on a CD.
My sister Tasha had arrived during the recording, and helped by pressing "RECORD" for me for a few songs, and I got her to sing backing vocals on some tracks, and lead vocals on "He's A Killer", all of which she did a sterling job, and it helped speed things along, especially when I was getting very tired and confused by about 2-3am. It turns out that I'd accidentally repeated verse one of "What's The Point", and was very confused as to why all the verses wouldn't fit. So I had to unfortunately cut the best verse, which rhymes "squeaking like a beautiful mouse" with "a traffic cone in your house". Classic stuff I think you'll agree.
WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT?
Well, up until now The Deets has only been a "live" band 3-4 times, primarily doing one-off hastily rehearsed sets at my Birthday Parties in 2007 & 2008. I then moved to Norwich in June 2008, and hand-picked who I'd love to have in a fantasy lineup of The Deets, as I'd been asked to gig these Deets songs numerous times.
Iain was the obvious choice for other guitarist and vocals (and keys), as he helps me out each week on my Planet Beet Radio Show, and we've been meaning to be in a band together again at some point, after working well together in The Secret Hairdresser years ago.
Cath had played drums in Iain's band "Lowery", and I'd been asking him about her, as she sounded interesting, as we needed someone that could play brilliantly, and sing well at the same time, and she can do that. We were at a party/gig that was being held in our friend Johnson's house, where a load of acoustic sets were being played by various bands in Johnson's living room, for a TV series on Channel 4.
After the "gig" was finished, us lot (well, Iain's band The Lost Levels mainly) were playing 80s cover songs in the sitting room, and Cath was playing on this TINY childrens toy drum set, that you play with sticks that are smaller than pencils. Just from seeing her play that with style, and having spoken to her earlier, I was convinced that she was the perfect drummer for The Deets. I emailed her the next day, and the next week Iain, Cath and I had a band practice together at my studio, Old School Studios. Iain played bass, which he enjoyed, but the plan was to end up with both Iain and I on guitars.
Months before this I'd made a list of possible bass players in my mind, and that list only had one name on it, which was Gemma from Kaito. I didn't even know where she was living, or if she was making music anymore (as Kaito had split up about a year ago), and had no way of contacting her. Also, I assumed that she wouldn't want to do it, as I always viewed her band Kaito very highly, and felt at the time that my band The Secret Hairdresser never ended up quite gelling like it could have. Whereas Kaito had a solid lineup, and although I'd seen them do some rough gigs, I'd also seen them do gigs where they were absolutely incredible.
I remember once putting them on in about 2000 at City Stop in Cambridge, which is the bar/lounge at Cambridge City Football Club. Me and my friend Peter Popstar (from "UM", who was hosting the night for me) were standing at the bar, and halfway through Kaito's set we both looked at each other and agreed that we should both just give up music there and then, as we'd never be as good as Kaito were that night.
So anyway, Cath, Iain & I had really enjoyed our first two practices, and although Iain was enjoying playing bass, we were both itching for him to get back onto guitar, and to get ourselves a REAL bassist.
I asked Iain who he thought should play bass, and he said "what about Gemma from Kaito?", hehe. So I did some trawling, and tracked Gemma down, and asked her in an email that evening if she'd be in The Deets.
The next morning I got a reply, and the first sentence in it was "WOW! I'm honoured!". That was a good start, and the first practice felt like a real BAND, and we all enjoyed it, and were excited at how good we sounded together immediately. Also, Gemma and I both noticed that we all dress similarly, and look like a gang. Not "a hoodie-wearing gang" Gemma pointed out, and I agreed.. Though Iain does wear Hoodies onstage (with the hood UP) with I Am Error.
So that's the story so far, and we will be doing a few very low-key gigs before the end of 2008.
We are doing this purely for fun, and because we like each other as people, as well as musically of course. We aren't interested in doing loads of shitty gigs, and we aren't trying to get signed or make a career out of this. At least, that's how we feel right now anyway.
Saying that, Gemma has just got some expensive designer glasses, Cath seems to have a new haircut every week, I shaved my beard off the other day, and Iain keeps his designer stubble/beard in check regularly; so maybe we WILL turn into an IMAGE band, haha!!
That won't happen. Rest assured.
Mr Jason, from The Deets
