Sleaford Mods started 2026 with the release of their latest album, The Demise of Planet X, and off the back of that, the UK leg of a worldwide tour. The album has been described as “the duo’s most varied and expressive musical approach so far…offering a universal cry of anger and a release of energy that pushes against the encroaching cultural darkness”.
The passion that fuels the music is palpable when I meet with vocalist and lyricist Jason over Zoom, ahead of the band’s performance at Oxford’s O2 Academy at the end of February, so I start our conversation on a positive note…
What have you enjoyed most about creating the new album?
Getting it done, really. And listening back to it. All of [the tracks] sound quite complete – not that the other albums didn't, but, for some reason, the songs on this one sound more accomplished in my opinion.
Why do you think that is?
I don't know… there's a bit more of a commercial feel to them. They feel more accessible, and, in some respects, a bit more traditional. Yet, we haven't managed to lose any of what we normally do.
Was completing it a straightforward process?
Flood the Zone took a while to get right. In some respects, I still don't know if it is. No Touch… to a certain degree all of them were quite challenging in their own way.
I was under constant worry that The Good Life wasn't going to work. I asked Joe and Cal from Big Special to do the chorus, but my verses weren't very good and left it flat. Joe put a rap after the second chorus, which I thought was great, but then after a while, it was like it needs something else, another level. I didn't know what that was going to be. Eventually, I was talking to Gwendolyn Christie, and she expressed interest in collaborating on a song, so I asked her to jump on it.
At the end of January [2025] we did about 20 odd demos and we walked out the studio with 16 tracks. Five of those made the album eventually, but after that week-long session I was convinced we hadn't done anything and started to panic. I think what was becoming increasingly clear to me was we needed something to spike the album: those sonics on Flood the Zone and Elitist G.O.A.T, Bad Santa and to some degree, The Good Life, act as tent poles and they hold the album up and give it a different sonic platter.
You've worked more with other people recently; does that allow the band to take things in a different direction?
This time around we were using guests as instruments. With Elitist G.O.A.T, I couldn't sing that – I tried. I wrote it with me in mind, but it just didn't work out.
It was like, I want to do this, but I can't. It would be great if I could because that would not only give it another dimension, but we wouldn't have to think about getting anyone else in. As soon as we recorded it and we listened back to my vocal on it I knew that Aldous Harding would be perfect, so I asked her.
They [all] act more as strands of DNA, where bits were missing and something needs to be put in to form a perfect pattern. That's how we started seeing guests for this album.
So you’re the conductor, and they are all your orchestra?
Yeah. It’s opened it up even more, you know? It might be even more elaborate next time, but in our own way. We're a little bit like an Asda version of Gorillaz.
Where does ego come into it?
Oh, ego’s all over it. It needs to be perfect in my head and in Andrew's head. It's mapped out: we know this person can sing on this and they're a professional. They'll come in and they'll do it. It won't take long, and that'll be that.
I think what you probably meant was, is it a problem with other people's egos in the studio? It's not, because I put it to them that it's already written [but] there are bits on the new album from Snowy, and little bits from Liam Bailey and Sue Tompkins.
How will it work at the live shows if they’re not there?
Well, they won't be there, which is even more interesting. It's kind of like the space will be awkward: it could either fall on its face, or it could be great. But with [experience of] gigging the last two albums with guests, it’s [a case of] finding things to fill in their bits which is what I love about performance.
How do you hold onto your authenticity when you – as a band – move to a more celebrated or visible place in the music scene?
It f*cked with me a while when we first started. You know? I mean, yeah, I wear an expensive watch, I drive an expensive car, and I live in a middle-class area just outside in Nottingham, but it doesn't f*ck with me anymore. My only concern is thinking for myself, being honest and trying to make albums interesting.
As regards our fan base, most people are just decent and as long as you're doing good stuff your fan base is happy. People aren't stupid, so if you're going to release a load of dog shit, you're going to start getting resented by fan base.
I’ve got to ask, was it a conscious effort to sing in your own accent?
Well, I've got a bit of a southern twang, I've got a Midlands twang, and then I've got a little bit of Northern. When I started doing the rant thing, it was out of wanting to rap, and to be able to communicate lots of words, because I felt confined by verse, chorus, verse, chorus. It just seemed too constricting.
I think it was also listening to other people constantly talking at each other. I love the way people use their own language: people's accents, their jargon, street slang. I loved all of that, and I suppose all that went into the origins of Sleaford Mods.
But also, you've got sex it up a bit, haven't you? There's got to be a bit of a theatrics to it. A little bit of show business in there.
All the rage and the other emotions you express in your music, do they stay with you, or do they disappear once you’ve articulated them?
Most of the issues around anger, the attacks on other musicians or politicians or whoever, the unintelligence and bitterness and envy that exists in the songs that we do is there forever. Those emotions they might centre on different subjects, but they don't change. So when you go out to perform these things, it's a case of dropping in the relevant emotion. I mean, if you p*ssed off, it powers you. I'm constantly p*ssed off. There are a lot of disagreeable people in the world.
How come you are Sleaford Mods? Why not Rockers?
I don't know, really. I can't see any difference between the first Small Faces album and Guns N’ Roses Live at the Ritz in 1988. There's absolutely no difference: everything is completely tailored perfectly and to me, they're all the same.
I guess mod was and still is, to a certain degree, the basis of how I conduct myself in the sense of obsessive detail and trying to be a cut above the rest. Mod is a central platform that I stand on, but mod, punk and rocker, they're all the same if they're done right.
Finally, what can we expect from Sleaford Mods at the O2 in Oxford?
It'll be the new album mixed in with loads of other stuff. I'm trying to bring up stuff we haven't played for a while to circulate the songs. There are eight albums now and three or four EPs.
Obviously there are songs in there that people want to hear, so we'll be doing those as per usual, because I hate going to gigs where people just play new material for f*cking ever. It's just boring.
Sleaford Mods will be performing at the O2 Academy in Oxford on 26 February 2026
