“Man, I’ve had it up to here – trashed my hopes and fed my fears ,” spits Jake Bugg on ‘Instant Satisfaction’’ – the polemic centre-piece that gives its name to the Nottingham troubadour’s fiery and engaged sixth album: ‘A Modern Day Distraction’. “And if it was up to me, I’d wish away all the greed – how much do we really need?” As Bugg puts it, it’s a punchy state-of-the-nation lament for the most in-need, looking for anything to lift them out of the pummeling trudge of the everyday.
“We’re taught as young children that we’re supposed to be equal, then you grow up and realise we’re not,” says Bugg. “People choose not to point the finger where it should be pointed. Instead, they go for the easier target. That’s unjust to me. In Britain, you get punched in the face and go, ‘Ah, that’s the way it is’. You’re supposed to suck it up and get on with life. ‘It could be worse’, they say.” Refusing to bury his own head in the sand, Bugg’s back with a return to his roots on the shamelessly rock-driven ‘A Modern Day Distraction’ – a record that turns up the noise while shining a light on the injustice he’s seen dealt to the family and friends he grew up with. The album took surprising inspiration from Green Day’s 2004 pop-punk opus ‘American Idiot’ in how it magnified ordinary frustrations into the extraordinary.
“It might have seemed ridiculous when Billie Joe Armstrong wrote it, but he told the truth and people believed him,” recalls Bugg. “I watched that Milton Keynes live film [‘Bullet In A Bible’] recently and I realised: they were honest, showed humility and it became massive for a reason.” With his songs born out of a similar “frustration of societal inequality”, Bugg found that a time had come when he just couldn’t look away.
“People might say ‘What do you know?’ or ‘Just stick to music’. I’ve got a bit of money, but we all know the people this affects. I was just writing it because it was the way I felt. It pisses me off – especially in a country like ours where we have the means and funds to take care of the people suffering the most, but we choose not to. “You can’t go through life giving yourself an easy ride and ignoring it. The task is not to come across as preachy and condescending – which is very easily done. That’s why I’m writing about other people’s stories and through other people’s eyes.”
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