The Beat Surrender

A month or so ago i’d never heard of a guy called Leon Jean Marie. Then a five track sampler dropped through my door to give me a taster of his forthcoming album. I was hooked immediately on his soul, jazz, funk infusions and i’m pretty sure you will be when you’ve heard his single Bed Of Nails which is out 31st March (digital) / 7th April (physical).

I was given the chance to ask him a few questions recently, which was too good an opportunity to turn down, read on to find out about him working with mark Ronson, touring with Amy Winehouse and The Roots and how he’s still yet to convince his parents totally that a music career can pay the mortgage and give you a nice pension!

You started out life in a band called Syndicate, who were a bit like the band Damaged, when that didn’t work out it must have been hard selling a career in the music industry to your parents who I understand didn’t what you to pursue your musical ambitions?

Very hard indeed! That was probably the lowest point of my life, there was just constant arguments which led to me basically being booted out, sleeping rough and doing things I shouldn’t. My way back to a focused path was coming to a compromise with my parents, and started to work towards becoming a mix engineer.

I’m presuming their early scepticism is now ebbing away slightly now they can see you making real progress?

Definitely, but my family are so down to earth, all they really want to see is stability in my life. My father especially still is a little sceptical, but I think that’s a good thing, it keeps me on my toes.

I’ve been listening to the 5 track sampler for your album and the first thing that strikes me is how unbelievably varied it is, is the rest of the album the same in that you mix things up so much?

Yeah, the whole record is diverse. I didn’t deliberately set out to make the record this way, it just happened, which is cool, because my main objective creating this record was for it to be totally natural.

It’s sometimes hard to make a really cohesive album when you have so many ideas and different sounds floating around, the indication from these tracks though are that you’ve pulled it off, was it easy reining in your ideas with an album in mind?

It was very easy simply because I didn’t think about it too much, either with great producer(s), writer(s) or by myself, we just had fun and tried to make brilliant songs.

Working with people like Mark Ronson, Bloodshy and The Rural must have been an amazing experience, especially with you being a relative newcomer?

As well as being amazing, it was such a privilege. I really do consider myself as a newcomer, and it was just so cool to watch and learn off these great people.

Mark Ronson is obviously riding the crest of a massive wave at the moment, what do you feel you learnt from working with him on your single?

Working with Mark Ronson, I learnt how to use my ears, while in the creating process. It’s quite hard to explain, but he really tunes in to his instincts and listens, rather than just diving in, getting carried away, and at the end it’s not that great.

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