The Wild Rover

Jackie Leven has been around the block a few times. A recording artist for more than thirty years, he has released almost as many albums, worked under a variety of guises and dabbled in numerous styles of music. At the beginning of the 70s he was working as a traditional folk artist under the pseudonym John St. Clair. By the end of the decade he had formed the seminal punk band Doll by Doll and was preaching hate for the state rather than reflecting on the beauty of nature. These days he performs under his own name, with his music a testament to his troubled past.

Something of a cult hero, Leven thrives on a gritty determination to live life on his terms. A real modern day troubadour, Leven has spent his entire adult life traveling, performing and enjoying the craic along the way.

When I speak to him, Leven is returning home from a short tour in Europe. An articulate and engaging interviewee, he comes across as a jovial fellow, not at all like the brooding character you might imagine him to be from listening to his music. He happily talks about his forthcoming new album, Lovers at the Gun Club, a record he describes as having taken “ten years to think about and three weeks to make,” and his new-found contentment with life. “I don't know whats happened to me, but in the last couple of records I've just got very relaxed, where as before that, like most musicians, you are very aware of the seriousness of getting the bloody record right. I've kind of abandoned that now.” It is hard to imagine him ever relaxing. “I dunno what it is, I think its just you get much more focused as you get older, and I'm certainly getting older.”

Leven was born in Kirkcaldy, Fife in 1950, but raised in nearby Leslie. The son of a Geordie Romany mother and an Irish Cockney father, the Levens were definite outsiders in such a close-knit community. “We were sort of considered odd. Leslie in the 50s was a tough old town. It was a mill town, and that was the industry you were expected to enter once you left school.” Even at a young age, Leven knew this wasn't the life for him. “When I was at school, The Rotary Club of Scotland had an essay competition that everyone from every school could enter. It was about what you were going to do when you grew up. I think I was about 14 at the time, and I said in no uncertain terms that I wasn't going to get a job, I was just going to wander the world and play music. And that's exactly what happened.”

His love of roots music was inspired by his mother. “I lived in an unusual household in that my mum was very into Black American blues, people like Son House. From a young age, when I was about twelve, we would listen to these really heavy-duty records. All the kids in our street were listening to Elvis Presley just as he was starting his really dumb shit, and then folk would come round our house and hear this really serious music.” Leven laughs at the memory. “My dad used to come home from work, and my Mum would be playing these Blues records and he would say 'Why is it every time I come home there's black men shouting in our house?' It took me a long time to appreciate it, and realise how unique it was at the time.”

Leven now lives near Southampton, but relishes any opportunity to return to his native Scotland. He seems especially glad to be playing a gig during the height of the Edinburgh festival, although perhaps typically, its not the shows that excite him. “What I like about the festival is just walking the streets, and seeing the insanity of it all, its great fun. Especially sometimes in the very early morning when you see people coming back all shattered from stuff and pigeons and rats fighting over abandoned fish suppers. Its the incidental stuff that amuses me.”

Leven has kept up his bloody-minded persistence in a notoriously nasty industry for almost four decades. He has kept his creative inspiration burning whilst many of his contemporaries have long since thrown in the towel. He credits this to one particular episode in his childhood. “I was the first schoolboy in Scotland to be busted for having drugs at school,” he recalls with relish. “I was returned to my school and the Headmaster said, 'I don't want this kid to come back and mix with other pupils,' so they stuck me in the school library. The librarian was a nice old woman who took an interest in me, and sent an awful lot of good books and poetry my way. I think it saved my life. The images I was taught really resonated with me and stayed with me my entire life. So I have to thank the wonderful Scottish education system.” And with that, he's gone, off to play another gig somewhere. A wild rover if ever there was one.

Jackie Leven plays Cabaret Voltaire on Friday, August 8th. Tickets £10

http://www.jackieleven.co.uk