Words: JO LAWFORD
Images: JENNY HARDCORE

When I was thinking of what to write this month I wanted to do an interview which was different to the norm and would also give an insight to a different side of the bands we know and love, more of a backstage kind of thing.  This is when I spotted Jenny Hardcore who is totally perfect for the job.

Jenny is a photographer from London who has had the pleasure of snapping some of the music industries top talent. Her career has taken her all over the UK and Europe snapping bands since 2005 and her success has also lead to her exhibiting at the Tom-Tom Gallery in Covent Garden.

I would describe Jenny’s photographic style as hard, urban and gritty with sometimes disturbing undertones. Her photography is visually exciting and descriptive and can make something very dull look mysterious and enticing. Her style has enabled her to shoot many famous names such as The Who, Dirty Pretty Things, The Dandy Warhols, The Cribs, Babyshambles, Jamie T, Lupen Crook and The Murderbirds and Florence and the Machine. Miss Hardcore was also responsible for snapping the Charlatans tour photo-diaries and assisting with sleeve art for their album ‘You Cross My Path’.

Jenny has had work published in some of the industries top music mags such as NME, Artrocker magazine, Time Out, Guardian Guide and of course The Gig Guide. Her work has also featured in a book by James Bradshaw titled ‘Punk; a directory of modern subversive culture’.

Now I would say that’s a pretty impressive CV so far however I am sure Miss Hardcore has plenty more up her sleeve. Read on to find out what makes Jenny tick and life on tour in amongst sweaty socks and plentiful beer cans…

 

As I said that I would find out what makes you tick I suppose that’s a good place to start, so what makes Miss Hardcore tick? And that does include trolley rage in supermarkets.
     “I guess lots of things inspire me to take photos, I’ve always had a very vivid imagination, not always for the better, but I certainly seem to remember things in images far better than words or numbers. I went back to my parents home a few years ago and found my mum had kept all my cameras from when I was little and my dad had kept all the photos – mainly of cats and dogs – but it was reassuring to remember that photography has pretty much always been part of my life and I’m very glad it still is today…I don’t think I’ve ever committed trolley rage – I’m more of a silent anger person I think.”

Describe yourself in three words.
     “I am me.”

So where did the Hardcore part of your name come from?
    “There were a lot of stories and rumours around this a few years ago, mostly started by myself! But the honest answer is that it was a nick-name from when I was younger that stuck and when I started taking photos at gigs the people doing the guest list always remembered it so it proved kind of useful.”

Your working life sounds pretty glamourous (without the sweaty socks of course) but is it?
    “No definitely not, I was talking to our plumber (who’s also an artist and DJ) the other day about this and he was saying it is strange that a lot of celebrities and musicians are publicly presented with glamourous lives getting great hotel rooms, tour buses and free booze and food at gigs and on tour but when the job finishes few people live lives any different to the rest of us. I think he’s right and while I am so grateful for all the stories and adventures I have had they all end sometime and quickly become bizarre but cherished memories.”

How would you describe your photographic style?
    “That’s kinda difficult; I think I take photos of how I see things. A friend of mine once commented that she found it surprising looking at my live photos when she had been stood next to me at the same gig and the final image looked nothing like how she remembered – I think this is a good thing. I’m sure everyone has been to a tiny gig in their local pub and seen some guy with a guitar who should clearly be singing to 3000 not 30 people and I would like to think that I could visually communicate the iconography of that individual without anyone who sees the image being able to hear what he is playing.”

You started working in an office I believe, what made you dump the rat race for a more creative life?
    “I actually started my working life in music shops – nothing fancy just the bog-standard hmv, virgin and our price – but after university I fell for the premise that we all had to get jobs and well paid jobs at that (if only to pay back student loans) which as any university leaver knows is a myth. I worked in television for 5 years – this would be the office job I think you are speaking of but I never quite accepted it. I have a lot of respect for people who do 9-5 jobs and work hard to look after the things that are important to them but I just never quite learned how to do that. Whilst working on the Frank Skinner show I met someone who inadvertently reminded me what it was like to love music and feel part of something exciting so I dusted off (literally) my old 35mm camera from university and started going to gigs and taking photos again…it didn’t take long to drop the day-job, get part-time work in a pub and remember how to live frugally, I don’t regret it at all even if my loan is now twice as much as it was when I left university!”

You have snapped some pretty impressive names in the past, how did the opportunities come about?
    “I am very lucky in this sense, a lot of people have gone out of their way to help me with certain shoots and passes to gigs etc and I am very grateful to everyone who has given me these opportunities. During the year and a half that I worked with The Charlatans they supported The Who and played at Alan McGee’s TV show/club night with The Dandy Warhols. The Cribs played at XFM winter wonderland with them, where I also had the honour of briefly meeting Peter Hook from Joy Division/New Order. Jamie T and Florence & The Machine both started out playing in pubs in North London I know well and various people helped me with press passes at the time. I’m hoping to do some more work with Peter Doherty soon as I know a guy who is making a documentary about him which could be interesting as it should be more of a  creative project and an interesting person to photograph bearing in mind how well documented his life has already been previously.”

What have been the highlights of your career so far?
    “I rarely get star-struck but often get nervous and most of my highlights are riddled with nerves as much as excitement. Photographing The Who at Wembley was pretty amazing, I grew up listening to The Who and my mum even saw them on Eel Pie Island when they were called The High Numbers in 1964 so to be stood a few meters away from Pete Townshend doing ‘the windmill’ was pretty amazing.
Also the shoot with Shane MacGowan was a definite highlight, the guy is a living legend and I didn’t know him very well when we did this shoot but he was great to work with, very professional and easy going – I hope to do something else with him this year.
The 2 week tour of Europe with The Charlatans is probably still my ultimate highlight if only because I never dreamed that I could be bombing round the continent in a 12 bunk bus with some of the greatest people as company. It was a very surreal experience as you are cut off from most of the outside world and only see venues and hotels and the inside of the bus, by the time it came to an end I had become quite institutionalised and the whole concept of getting off the bus for the last time was scary as hell, that said I now know how to ask for tobacco in about 5 languages which is pretty useful!”

Got any gossip about the bands you’ve snapped? We promise not to any mention names.
    “Half of the job is discretion ”

I am going to ask that dreaded question that everyone hates in job interviews, where do you see yourself in 5 years?
    “5 years seems a long way off, especially when I think of the 5 that have just been! I would like to start putting more time and effort into my personal projects, I am very interested in experimenting with older cameras, I have a Kodak box brownie from 1914 which I am learning to use and various other art projects too. I will keep doing music photography (I don’t think I could stop) but want to get more involved in studio work this year, I find it easier to be creative in a controlled environment and can let my imagination run riot a bit more…I recently had a band called The Arcadian Kicks wrapped up in bondage tape in a studio in Birmingham!”

Who are your musical influences?
    “This may sound bad but I think I take more influence from movies and books than I do music. I have been a horror fan for some time and enjoy imagery that unsettles the viewer, I enjoy deconstructing it and working out how it has been done and why it makes you feel a certain way.  Lyrically there are a few artists who inspire me like Lupen Crook, Tom Waits, The Horrors, Florence & The Machine’s early recordings ‘Girl With One Eye’ and ‘My Best Dress’ inspired me to sketch out an idea for a portrait of her in a taxidermist shop near my old house in Holloway…sadly I never got to arrange the shoot but would still love to if the opportunity ever arose – I definitely have a fairy-tale/fantasy leaning visually but it’s always been lyrics more than music that inspires me when it comes to bands.”

If you weren’t a photographer what would be your dream job?
    “Domestic house cat.”

If you could shoot someone (alive or dead) who would it be and where?
    “Tom Waits– in a disused mental asylum. I recently found loads of online communities of photographers who break into disused buildings like ballrooms, hospitals and old army air bases to document the remaining ruins, the images are stunning. They all share stories about which entrances are covered by security and at what time you can break into which window, I love that kind of rebellious creativity, its fairly harmless as long as the building is stable and the photographers have respect for it and there has always been something exciting about photos of things you were not supposed to see especially if there is visual reference to objects that served a certain purpose like hospital beds and wheelchairs, it makes the image eerie and unsettling.”

Got any favourite local bands?
    “In London there are a few bands I am excited by at the moment, 2 girls called ‘This is Laura’ who play accordion, violin, harp and various other bits and bobs often accompanied by a cellist and/or drummer – they play very haunting 40’s inspired music I strongly recommend checking them out, I also like Rum Shebeen and a French gypsy folk band called Sanjoro a lot.”

What do you think of the Kent music scene?
    “To be honest I have never lived in Kent nor stayed there more than a night or two so I really don’t know very much about it. I remember a few years ago it seemed like one great band after another were coming out of it and a friend and I used to say there was something in the water that seemed to make everyone really talented musicians.”

If you lived your life by a philosophy what would it be?
    “I try to live a moral life but do think we are faced with more and more contradicting information and images. I almost never read tabloids but recently read an article that truly horrified me and it made me think about the easy access we have nowadays to tragedy and violence – you tube, tabloids, anti-smoking images all of which I think do far from scare us into submission and more often de-sensitise us and make us laugh. Some things should be horrific and unpleasant to the vast majority of the general public and the more we get used to true life gore the less we will care when we see/get caught up in it. So I have recently decided to bin any tabloid I find left behind on the bus or tube simply as a drop in the ocean of limiting the consumption of such information and imagery. I suppose this is a kind of anti-philosophy but one I would like to live by.”

What’s your favourite vegetable?
    “Mushroom? My dad goes mushrooming in autumn and when I was little I used to go with him, we found all sorts of delicious edible mushrooms (and a few not so edible!) and used to make a fire in the woods and fry them up on an old hubcap and eat them with bread.”

If you had to go in to the Big Brother house and only allowed one luxury item, what would it be?  (You can take animals but no people). 
    “Our beautiful kitten The Noodle….who is currently trying to get me to play fetch with him!”

Who’s your favourite band?
    “Lupen Crook & the Murderbirds are still the only band I have met or seen to sincerely give me hope for contemporary, original and truly unique music in my life-time. As mentioned previously one of the main things I love about music is the sense of unity people experience being part of something exciting and new. For the past few years the band have been working with a sub-name of The Crooked Family which actively encouraged people with creative minds to get involved artistically, photographically and musically. I personally feel that a lot of time is spent polishing unique acts and separating them from the audience to be held up as ‘celebrity’ and something to be admired for status rather than talent or originality. Some of the greatest and most legendary bands and musicians have been awkward or troubled…The Ramones, Jeff Buckley, The Stones and more recently Jamie T, I feel we are sadly lacking in such honest and forthright musicians who are not afraid to present themselves as who they are ‘warts and all’ as it were. Lupen Crook and The Murderbirds often write lyrics and music that deal with all the dirty and unpleasant often uncomfortable elements of life and have the character, creativity and talent to match such raw and often disturbing truths.”

Jeremy Kyle or Trisha?
    “Jeremy but only for 5 mins or I start to worry about the en masse self-destruction of humanity.”

Tea or coffee?
    “Coffee every day, Irish in winter mmmmm.”

Cats or dogs?
    “I adore and admire both but cats have the edge for me, they just make a lot of sense.”

If you could be someone else and live their life who would you be?
    “I don’t think I’ve ever envied a person enough to want their life, I see people I would like to look like or have the talent of or people who pay for cabs in the rain (I envy them a little) but I still believe everyone worries just as much as the next – it’s the dual curse and blessing of free thought, so again if I could live another life I think I would surrender free thought and be a house cat.”

What’s playing on your stereo at the minute?
    “Jamie T, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, 6 Nation State, Kate Bush, Florence.” 

Tags: 6 Nation State, Alan McGee, Artrocker, Babyshambles, Big Brother, Dirty Pretty Things, Florence and the Machine, Girl With One Eye, Guardian Guide, HMV, James Bradshaw, Jamie T, Jeff Buckley, Jenny Hardcore, Jeremy Kyle, Jo Lawford, Joy Division, Kate Bush, Lupen Crook, Lupen Crook and the Murderbirds, My Best Dress, New Order, NME, Our Price, Pete Doherty, Pete Townsend, Peter Hook, Punk; a directory of modern subversive culture, Rum Shebeen, Sanjoro, Shane MacGowan, The Arcadian Kicks, The Charlatans, The Cribs, The Crooked Family, The Dandy Warhols, The Gig Guide, The High Numbers, The Horrors, The Ramones, The Stones, The Who, This Is Laura, Time Out, Tom Waits, Tom-Tom Gallery (Covent Garden), Trisha, Virgin, Wembley, XFM, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, You Cross My Path

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