Why 'Reverend' Jon McClure can't be satisfied

"It's the best ever record. That's not bravado – that's the facts. It's called The State of Things, and that's what it is." It's an assertive statement from a musician yet to release his debut album, but "Reverend" Jon McClure and his band The Makers have already been enjoying considerable success over the past seven weeks as their indie electro-funk single "Heavyweight Champion of the World" surfs between positions eight and 12 in the charts.

We meet at London's Scala, where the intense 25-year-old is about to play to 1,000 fans, and, in his broad Sheffield accent, the 6ft 5in McClure says: "It's still weird, but it's brilliant. I love it."

His parents' pride was sealed when he made the front page of his local newspaper. "To my mum and her working-class pride, that was it. She bought about 8,000 copies."

For McClure, a former Sheffield University history and politics student, it represents freedom from the expected path in life and "the slow death of ambition that comes to 99 per cent of people".

It is a far cry from the jobs he once had at a factory and a call centre. "I used to work with people who were so talented, but didn't have the means or the bottle to do it, to chase their dreams." He wrote the song "Machine" about his job at the factory as a reminder to others that they "can get off this conveyor belt".

First and foremost, McClure is a poet. He began by blogging on the internet, and says that if he weren't making music, this would remain the platform for his poetry. He shared this ability to write lyrics with his friend, Arctic Monkeys' Alex Turner, whom he met on a bus in town six years ago. Their instant connection prompted them to form the band Judan Suki.

When McClure later went on to form 1984, inspired by the Orwell novel, and Turner formed the Arctic Monkeys, McClure started supporting the latter by writing "guerrilla things" that backed the message they were trying to get across. McClure shies away from suggestions that his lyrics greatly influenced Turner when he formed his band. "I feel embarrassed – maybe I had a 25 per cent influence. If he said that, then that's a really nice thing." Their relationship, McClure says affectionately, is like that of a big and little brother.

When Arctic Monkeys mania kicked off, McClure was faced with generous offers from record labels for him to make a record that sounded like theirs. He is shady as to the origins of the biggest offer of £200,000. He says that it came from "somebody who now runs a label that masquerades as an independent when it's actually funded by Sony. But anyway," he checks himself, clearing his throat, "I had about four chances to release our record. Because they know I'm a bit of a words guy, they said: 'Oh, you can make a record like that.'

"When they said to make this record, I was on the dole, I was skint. I was saying, 'even if you offer me five million, I'm still not going to make your album for you.' And they didn't like it." Finally, he signed to Wall of Sound after a chance meeting with the indie's owner Mark Jones. "I want to make the best record in the world ever on my terms when I'm ready, and I have. I've made it."

His conviction, he insists, is grounded in the fact that the music is both sonically and lyrically fresh in comparison with today's indie pop music. You could be fooled by their debut single into labelling Reverend and the Makers an indie electro funk band, but, as McClure explains, the first five tracks on the album could not be farther apart, as funk, drum'*'bass and dub songs sit side by side.

"One song on my album doesn't sound anything like another. That's the reality of life. It's called The State of Things and we live in the world of the quick fix." He explains how the album mirrors our modern-day need for instant gratification and novelty. "Attention span deficit – everybody's got it. They want that instant thing. Bang bang bang. It's not just me singing, it's different voices and I wanted it to accurately reflect society and that's why lyrically I'm not afraid to shy away from subjects these others won't dare to tackle."

The music side was a development of his lyrics. McClure would go along to Club 60 in Sheffield where he would practise his lyrics and rhymes for the musicians jamming there. "Then it came to me that I could probably write songs. I was never that musical, but I thought I can do it – by force of will you can do things if you really want to. And it's developed from there, really."

While he hails Bob Marley a "true genius", lyrical artists he claims as major sources of inspiration include John Cooper Clarke, the Salford performance poet who first gained fame in the thriving punk movement of the late 1970s and performed with The Fall, and with whom he duetted on the poem Last Resort. "He's a bit of a hero of mine. We've got a mutual friend who sent him some of my stuff and he just loved it."

You only have to bring up the subject of the flooding in Sheffield to get a glimpse of the politically and socially conscious heart from which McClure speaks. "There's only so many times they can put the traffic lights back up on the Wicker. Before long, we need to look beyond the Wicker and beyond the M1. Perhaps ask why George Bush refused to sign the Kyoto agreement, why the Chinese and Indian governments are industrialising pollutants at a rate of knots, why our government fights wars for more oil to put in more cars so as to pollute more skies rather than hunt out alternatives."

Having an Iraqi girlfriend in 2003 brought the suffering of the war closer to him, inspiring many of his lyrics. He recalls: "I went to a really dark place. I didn't want to be a part of this world. I worked in a village called Grenoside, which was predominantly misogynistic and racist. I was thinking, 'I can't do this any more'." He displays his anger towards violence against women in his album's title song: "What of the woman who stands by her fella/ Despite the bruises brought on by the Stella."

It is these kinds of political and social statements that McClure feels are lacking from modern pop music. "People like Joe Strummer, Bob Marley, and all these radical people – where are they now? Within popular music in the most turbulent times in living history, where are the radical rebels now? Nobody's got anything to say because they're all too scared of alienating their demographic or the Radio 1 or Radio 2 listenership.

"I aim to mean something to someone, and all these bands don't mean anything. And I want people to listen to my records because, while I'm not after fame or money, I want to get across what I'm trying to say to people. Pop music is very subversive and a very effective way of doing that. And I want to get on the radio, but not for the same reasons they do. They want to be rock stars and rich and famous. I started out as a poet and a writer, then I decided music was a really effective tool.

"Having a record label only helps you to reach people. That's the only reason I'd ever have a record label. At least you can make some people think, and if not they can go and listen to some pop music."

Reverend and the Makers are touring the UK to 27 July (www.iamreverend.com); the album 'The State of Things' will be released in September on Wall of Sound

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