Feature: Interview - Gorillaz member Jesse Hackett talks to Dan Carrier about Weekend Arts College (WAC) and rock'n'roll

Published: 21 April, 2011
by DAN CARRIER

IT has to be the number one dream gig: Glastonbury’s Pyramid stage at around 10 o’clock on a Friday night.

No self-respecting rock’n’roller could fail to go weak at the knees at the prospect.

For keyboard player Jesse Hackett, making thousands of Glasto-goers dance into a summer night was another step in a musical career that started as a boy at an open evening at Acland Burghley School, and was helped along by sessions at the now-threatened Weekend Arts College (WAC), based at the Interchange Studios at Hampstead Town Hall.

Jesse, now in his 30s, is a product of the college, which was told earlier this month that government funding provided through the Arts Council had been cut to nothing – putting at risk the three-decade legacy of a Camden charity that has helped countless numbers of young people realise their potential.

Jesse, who plays the keyboard in former Blur frontman Damon Albarn’s band Gorillaz, has recently helped launch a new CD that champions Kenyan music. It is part of a project he has been involved in to provide a platform for the massive diversity of music coming from the continent.

None of this, he says, would have been possible without the dedicated help of the tutors at WAC.

“It was exceptionally important for me,” he recalls. “I would go there on Sundays for a jazz session with the trumpeter Ian Carr. I found it so inspiring. I was given the opportunity to learn from genuinely creative people. I’d never miss a session. It is very hard to fully appreciate the service WAC has provided over the years – it is hard to adequately quantify it. 

“WAC becomes a way of life, and you find that so many of the people who went there later return to offer their skills. 

“It is terrible the arts funding is being slashed, and that music sessions are being targeted. It provided me with so much and should be protected. It is more than just about helping create professionals – everyone, no matter what level of talent or skill they have, benefits from WAC. This is about inclusion, about creating a society where arts are not sidelined but are an integral part of helping people fulfil personal goals.”

The WAC graduate has toured the world with Gorillaz, and recalls: “One gig we did was in Damascus, Syria – they gave us a stage in a citadel in the centre of the capital. 

“Thousands showed up to watch us – and it was very refreshing seeing women wearing burkas, bopping away. No pop group had ever done a concert there.”  

He has also appeared with the likes of Bobby Womack, Snoop Dogg, and Mick Jones and Paul Simonon from The Clash.

All thanks to WAC and Burghley, he says.

“I walked into the music department on an open day and saw a teacher called Kevin Osbourne, who also worked at WAC, teaching how to play James Brown’s ‘Funky Dancer’. I was blown away.”

He is still playing with musicians he met at school: alongside his brother Louis, Tom Skinner, Sam Lewis and Chris Morphitis in the band Elmore Judd. He has also worked for another Burghley old-timer, the rapper Miss Dynamite. 

Now he is channelling his passion to create opportunities for African musicians to bring their talents to a wider audience. He started this work on trips to Mali and Congo with a project called Africa Express, alongside De La Soul, Massive Attack, Martha Wainwright and Norman Cook.

Then, in 2009, he was contacted by another former Burghley pupil, Hetty Hughes, and her colleague Aaron Abraham. They had established a project called the Art of Protest, taking people to Nairobi to jam with Kenyan musicians. 

“There was no specific agenda other than to exchange ideas and enjoy the results,” he says.

The end result is a CD by the Owiny Sigoma band, featuring Jesse, his friends and Kenyan musicians – and which would never have come about, he says, without those teenage sessions in an old town hall in Haverstock Hill.

• Jesse and Otis Marchbank present a weekly radio show on Weirdos Unite radio every Monday from 4-6pm, and alternate Fridays from 2-4pm.
• Elmore Judd appear on Honest Jon’s label.honestjons.com
• Owiny Sigoma band’s CD is available on Brownswood Records