If you’re familiar with The Jesus and Mary Chain, you will most likely compare them to another U.K.-based, brother-led band whose sibling rivalry eventually led to breakup. Of course, I’m referring to Oasis, who recently announced a 2025 reunion 16 years after Liam and Noel went their separate ways.
While The Jesus and Mary Chain was never as commercially successful as Oasis, brothers William and Jim Reid, who are currently on tour themselves, are not shy about how badly they wanted fame. In their new memoir, Never Understood: The Jesus and Mary Chain Jim writes, “We wanted to be big stars and we didn’t care who knew it, and the hostility this brought down on our heads was very real,” as he describes what he considers “a fundamental divide” between their disdain for what Indie music represented in early-1980s U.K.; underachievers, in his words, “who aimed low.”
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Never Understood is cleverly written from both brothers’ perspectives, each reflecting intimately on their poor Protestant upbringing in East Kilbride, Scotland, and how listening to ‘60s garage rock and pop in their shared bedroom forged a bond between them, one strong enough for them to form a band, their only escape from poverty in their eyes. The book chronicles the rise and fall of The Jesus and Mary Chain, its fraught relationship with Alan McGee’s indie label Creation and afterward, Warner Brothers, as well as Jim’s struggle with alcohol to overcome extreme shyness and William’s drug addiction. It’s an entertaining and honest read in which the brothers often tease each other, providing their own insights into success, creativity, and even that famous 1986 Belgian interview.
For someone like me, who discovered The Jesus and Mary Chain through my friendship with a die-hard fan four years before the band broke up, who liked them for songs such as “Sometimes Always” and “Just Like Honey” but was never smitten with them the way others were, it made me appreciate the band’s place in music history and its influence on shoegaze, grunge, and Britpop. By the end, I felt like I knew Jim and William quite well, and it brought a smile to my face knowing that they have, for the most part, gotten past their differences. Never Understood is about the legacy of The Jesus and Mary Chain to be sure; but it’s also a story about the delicate relationship between siblings, and realizing the crucial role they play in our lives, even if at times, it can be difficult to admit.
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