In the nineties, when Britpop ruled the world, indie rockers Pulp beat Oasis to the coveted 1996 Mercury Music Prize. Now a 90 minute film – Pulp: What Do You Do For An Encore? – released tomorrow, documents their rise from the working class streets of Sheffield to Top of the Pops fame.
And, 48 years after the band was formed by schoolboys Jarvis Cocker, then 15, and Peter Dalton, then 14, their controversial frontman reveals he could never have done it without American soul singer Barry White. Jarvis discovered the Walrus of Love singer after falling from a third floor balcony in 1985, when his attempt to woo a girl with his impression of Spider-Man failed miserably.
He says: “I went to a girl’s flat in Sheffield and tried to impress her by going out onto her window ledge and re-entering her living room by the next window. She begged me not to go ahead with my plan. Five minutes later, I was hanging from the ledge, realising I had seriously over estimated my physical capabilities.”
Crashing to the ground, Jarvis was rushed to hospital, where he remained for two months with a fractured pelvis and injuries to his leg, hip, arm and wrist. There, the unlikely heartthrob’s popstar dream was born, as he listened to Barry’s hits, like Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe.
He recalls: “I listened to Barry White in hospital. Only now did I fall deeply in love with his music. He made it all seem effortless. It inspired me to make my music look easy. A magic formula was brewing – Barry, plus Euro disco, plus gritty northern realism, equals epic jazz.”
Jarvis, now 63, narrates his life story in the new documentary, which tells how Pulp burst onto the Britpop scene with their smash hit Common People. Released from their fifth album, Different Class, in May 1995, the song about wealthy people’s romanticism of poverty reached Number 2 in the UK charts, becoming the band’s signature track.
But Jarvis had wanted to be a star since becoming transfixed by his parents’ telly, growing up in Sheffield. He says: “When I was younger, most of my ideas about the world came from watching TV. I was shortsighted, but this was not diagnosed until I started school, as I could not see the blackboard. To me, the real world was out of focus, but the television world, if you sat close enough to the set, was pin sharp.
“I loved space and Star Trek. I became convinced I would spend my adult life in outer space. I had an obsession with TV, as it was the only thing I could see in focus. On TV, there was space and dinosaurs and I thought, ‘I’d rather be there please.’”
In pursuit of stardom, Jarvis wrote a mission statement while at comprehensive school in Sheffield – a master plan to reach the top with the band he’d formed with some classmates. He says: “When I was 15, I wrote in my exercise book ideas of being in a band. It is my Dead Sea Scroll. I wrote down how I would buy clothes at jumble sales and wear them. But, at the same time, I longed to blend into the background and not draw attention to myself. was also embarrassed by my name. I remember telling people my name was John, just to avoid saying Jarvis in public.”
The singer’s late mum Christine, who died on January 1, 2024 – the day after Pulp’s Hogmanay concert in Edinburgh – features in the film. Of her son’s name, she says: “With a name like Cocker we could not call him Everard. When he worked at the fish market in Sheffield, the traders did him the power of good, as they stopped him from being all airy fairy. He spent half his life in his bedroom writing music.”
The film tells how Jarvis’s innate sense of “ordinariness” helped him and his band finally get noticed in 1994, with their fourth album, His ‘n’ Hers. A year later, when their fifth album, Different Class, put them on the top of the pop pedestal, Pulp headlined the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury.
Yet, Jarvis admits he found fame uncomfortable. He played in charity football matches with the likes of Liam Gallagher, Blur’s Damon Albarn and Robbie Williams – also appearing on early morning BBC1 kids’ TV shows like Live and Kicking.
He says: “Having your dreams come true is not something you can really prepare for. You suddenly find yourself in a new world. I thought if I accepted all the invitations to go on TV I would be allowed to live there permanently. No responsibilities. It didn’t happen. I was an avid viewer of Top of the Pops. When Pulp got to perform, I insisted on miming. For me, pop had nothing to do with reality. A very dangerous belief. The idea of being famous was a fantasy. We made it when I was 32 and that is when I thought I would be invited into TV land. It didn’t happen, so I was really disappointed. I had a tantrum. I am over it now. I am now a mature, well balanced person.”
Jarvis saw his band’s fortunes change in 2002, when they left Island Records to go in a new musical direction. He now realises the musical landscape for Pulp changed the year before, after Britpop reached its natural end. And he feels when the September 11 terror attacks on the Twin Towers in New York changed the world forever.
He says: “In 1995 we had scaled mount pop. But trouble was coming. We released our album We Love Life just after the Twin Towers came down. We were all suddenly living in a different world. I moved to Paris with my wife and newly born child. On the way to the ferry, my guitar fell off the roof rack of the car and was run over by an articulated lorry and was completely destroyed. I took that as a sign. When I got to Paris, I could not understand the programmes on TV, so I stopped watching. “
After a 10 year hiatus, which he describes as “a hibernation” Jarvis says: “Pulp woke up to play 20 odd more shows. Then it was over and it seemed for good.”
Then, in 2023, they started touring again. Last year, the band played to 40,000 people over two nights at the O2 in London. They released their eighth studio album, More, last summer – their first since We Love Life in 2001. Married to creative consultant Kim Sion, and with a son, Albert, from his previous marriage, Jarvis is glad Pulp enjoyed the best of times on stage, when fans didn’t capture every moment on their phones.
Jarvis, who splits his time between London and Paris, fondly remembers life being less complicated, saying: “Remember on planes they just used to show one film and you would go to the toilet and see the same thing? It was very nice. Now it is just a mess. That is what the world is like, it is all a bit of a jumble.” Speaking about playing live, he adds: “The audience makes it happen. You can do it on your own. It is called collective effervescence. When you play live, you try to communicate.”
While he’s optimistic about new music and future gigs, Jarvis admits he doesn’t have a plan for the future. He says: “I don’t know where Pulp go next, which is fine by me. People ask why do we keep going? I think the question you should really ask is, ‘why wouldn’t we?’”
*Pulp: What Do You Do For An Encore? streams on MUBI from Friday, Sep 25.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: mirror.co.uk
