“Don’t get me wrong, I had some mega times pissed. You don’t get the kind of stories I’ve harvested through drinking milk. But there’s an element of self-destruction there.” – Jack Horner
Jack Horner, one half of the explosive psych-punk-rap duo The Dirt, has done plenty of living – and has plenty to say about it. He is bursting at the seams to right wrongs, expose the evils of the western world and champion the working class hero.
Chatting over a cuppa at the Emmaus cafe in Mossley, Jack’s conversation is every bit as urgent, engaging and enthralling as his on-stage performances. You get the feeling Jack is in a hurry. And no wonder. As musical projects go, The Dirt have started late.
Having spent 10 years in the army, and the best part of the next 20 weaving his way through an assortment of office jobs, Jack hit a crossroads.
Jack: “It all started to unravel, to be honest. I started to binge drink and I was in a few toxic relationships. At one point, I woke up in a police station. I’d gone through a period of disassociation syndrome and, looking back, I’d had a few blackouts. I needed help. I went down to the local medical centre and just started crying.”
As well as using cognitive behaviour therapy, Jack took on board another piece of crucial advice – to get out and explore the nearby hills of East Lancashire.
Jack: “Within two or three months of walking, it all made sense as to why I was anxious, why I was getting depressed. I started writing and ranting to myself. I would record it on my phone and then create what I call puzzles. I was putting it into verse form and getting the beat with my foot. They all came out in four-bar beats.”
Jack began to test out his material at open mic nights and spoken word events like Speak and Speakeasy in Manchester. The reaction was overwhelmingly positive. Jack created his poet persona Leon The Pig Farmer and pretty soon Leon was getting bookings.
Jack: “My first proper gig was Blackthorn Festival. Then I got a gig supporting the band Average Sex [on Tim Burgess’ O Genesis label] and realised I had to stop reading from a book. It had to become more of a performance.”
Alongside all this, in 2018, Jack met his future wife – and co-founder of The Dirt – Sachiko. Their paths crossed coming out of a gig at Castlefield Bowl, having seen Reverend & The Makers and Shed 7. They went for a pint and agreed to meet up in London the following weekend for a Hyde Park double-header – Roger Waters one night, followed by The Cure the next.
The relationship was initially a long-distance one. Sachiko was spending chunks of time back in her native Japan, where she also played in a shoegaze band heavily influenced by the likes of Spacemen 3, Telescopes and Ride.
Once settled in the UK, Jack saw an opportunity to integrate Sachiko’s soundscape atmospherics with the most aggressive, fiery elements of his spoken word repertoire. They ramped up the sonic arsenal to suit – sample pads for percussion, loop boards, pedals. But they resisted the urge to expand the line-up.
Jack: “We want to keep that stripped back, organic rawness. The grittiness, the rough surface edges, that’s how we are, it’s how society is. You can go through many filters and that’s your Tiktok and Instagram world, where people want a pure vision. We’re against all that.”
Jack and Sachiko fuse east and west. He is, by his own admission “very northern English, very brash, very straightforward and simple, impulsive.” By contrast, Sachiko is polite, reserved; the steadying influence.
“Without getting too emotional. I needed that in my life. I was chaotic, like this balloon floating off into the air and I needed grounding.”
Their melting point is a shared passion for socialism, individuality and the DIY ethos.
Jack: “The late 70s, early 80s, that’s when the moulds were cracked. You could be a skinhead, a punk, you could be into ska, into dub, into reggae, new wave, new romantics, anything. Look at the satirical comedy scene, which came from Oxford and Cambridge. Monty Python. Ben Elton. Intellectual comedy came into the mainstream.
“Music was the same. Look at race. There were Asian elements, a lot more black and Caribbean elements. Sexuality was getting explored more. There was the political landscape. Thatcherism. There was riots and power-cuts. People were getting angry. Everybody had a platform. Everybody had something to say. It just exploded.”
It’s no coincidence that the era that inspired Jack so greatly also spawned a number of politicised, ‘serious’ lyricists. Among his early record purchases were Pink Floyd, Dead Kennedys, The Smiths and Killing Joke.
You could draw parallels here to other pivotal moments in our cultural history: the early 90s, for example, when rave, in large part a reaction to authoritarian politics and commercialisation, fizzed and gyrated alongside grunge and lo-fi. And perhaps another eruption is brewing right now. The ingredients are most certainly there for a global revolt and we can reasonably assume that it’ll first find expression through music culture.
Jack: “I said I’d never become a political poet. I wanted to be more light-hearted and bring joy to this world, rather than the demons in my head. But then we had Brexit and then Covid and I thought ‘no, I’ve actually got a place here’. I grew up in a single-parent family, working class, on a council estate. And it suits The Dirt. It fits that vibe.”
Jack and Sachiko have a new album of blood-pumping, effects-drenched, social angst ready to go later this year. It’s a follow-up to their 2023 debut album Agitator. The nine tracks were recorded at Fuzzface studios in Fairlie, Ayrshire, with producer Jason Shaw. The song titles alone give you a strong indication of the menace you can expect – Truth Extinction, Endgame, Bed Of Nails, Crash Test…
Jack: “A lot of them are very anti-capitalist, about how we’re losing this cooperative community environment. Greed and self-centred growth have taken over. We don’t think about our neighbours. We’re more involved with image than we are with homage to other people.”
The Dirt are all about taking a stand, having a voice. Jack wears his heart on his sleeve and is every inch his past – a working class, socially-conscious, vibrant, sharp, funny northern bloke. Loud and proud. He was born in Yorkshire and now lives in Lancashire. His formative years are inevitably tied to the political and social struggles of those regions, which come through vividly in his belief system today.
Jack: “I think people are still proud of where they live. When I come across to the Calder Valley, to Todmorden, Hebden Bridge and Halifax, people are very proud of those areas. Mancunians are very proud of their heritage and their musical past. And look at Liverpool. East Lancs has got its own stuff too.
So there’s regionalism, but there’s also a northernistic value as well. That still exists. We’ve lost pits, we’ve lost mill towns, but there is still dialect, there is still language, there’s still a difference, there’s still tribalism, whether it be through clothing, through music tastes, through folk music.
We should shout about our working class ethics. There’s a stigma to a flag, there’s a stigma to a rose, but it’s something to be proud of. It’s about what this part of the country has produced and created, and how we’ve stood up to oppressors.”
Jack Horner. Still standing. Ranting. Caring. Go see The Dirt. We need them and their like – now more than ever.
Follow The Dirt – @thed1rt
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