Beans on Toast is Back Out on The Road, Against the War and railing about the Three Stooges as his tour comes to Hampshire | Interview

These 14 albums (there were two in 2020 – he had time on his hands...) have covered everything from folky fare to country, a bit of electronica, some hip-hop, but are always unmistakably in the wry voice of Jay McAllister, the singer-songwriter behind the name.

​However, last December there was a bit of a change. The Fascinating Adventures of Little Bee was an album of songs aimed at children to tie in with a series of books of the same name.

The character of Little Bee was created by Jaime and Lily Adamsfield who long-term Beans fans will already be familiar with – they were the subject of the song Jamie and Lilly on his 2017 album Cushty.

Their friendship began when both halves of the couple had emailed him independently – and unknowing of their partner’s exact same request – to ask Jay to dedicate his song I’m Home When You Hold Me to the other when he played their hometown gig in Brighton. He did – and it turned out they were in the front row. They met after the gig, he wrote the song about them and they’ve remained in touch ever since.

‘The story just kind of continues with them,’ says Jay. ‘I wrote the song about them and they became very dear friends off the back of that. I see them whenever I'm in Brighton and we go to festivals together, they still come to a lot of gigs.

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‘They created the character of Little Bee – Lily is an art teacher, she's an artist. When I was down in Brighton they showed me this character and said, it's a gift, we've created this character kind of based on your daughter and your wife and your attitude to life, but we don't know what to do with this character now... we wondered if you've got any ideas?

‘So I said, “I've got loads of ideas!” I've got a five-year-old, so I'm obsessed with children's books at the moment – (Gruffalo creator) Julia Donaldson is like Bob Dylan in our house.

‘I suggested doing some kids' books. I wrote the words and then the three of us sat down and storyboarded it – they went and did the illustrations, I went and recorded the music, and bish bash bosh, we've got a collection of children's songs and books!’

Keeping it clean

To promote the project, things were a little different to the average Beans on Toast tour.

‘It's a completely different world – it's weekends and daytimes. My daughter was part of the stage show as well, so it was gigging and parenting at the same time, which is interesting...

‘That was a cool project, but it was only ever going to be for a handful of shows.’

For someone who has plenty of older songs extolling the joys of letting loose with drink and recreational drugs, as well as a well-placed swear-word, how much did he have to watch himself when playing for a somewhat younger audience?

‘I'm a lot better at that than I was,’ he laughs. ‘I censor myself in front of my kid, but I quite often get booked now for things like Camp Bestival or the odd family-friendly festival and they want me to play, but part of the booking is that you can't swear and you can't promote the use of recreational drugs, which is fair enough! I know when to keep my mouth shut and when not to.’

Back Out on The Road

Now though he is itching to get back to more grown-up fare, and is currently on a 30-date UK tour. When we speak, he’s just about to check into a hotel on a rare day off.

‘People keep on saying it must be hard work, but to be honest, it really doesn't feel like hard work – I have it pretty easy. It's solo shows so I can rock up, play, there's just two of us travelling – it's great!

‘This tour is me drawing a line under being a children's entertainer and coming back to Beans on Toast,’ he says. ‘The kids' book was a great project. I concentrated on that and got it done, but it didn't stop me writing normal Beans on Toast songs about the world at large, which are more for an adult audience.

‘I've got a load of songs stacking up – plus a few which had a bit of a shelf-life, like I wrote a song about Liz Truss, for example,’ he chuckles, ‘and before I even played it to anyone, she was already out of office.’

He’s already released two singles this year, Back Out On The Road, an ode to touring life and independent venues, and the self-explanatory protest song, Against the War. All proceeds from the latter go to the Campaign For Nuclear Disarmament (CND). A third single, The Three Stooges was released today (Friday, March 10) too, which is about King Charles, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss and the World Economic Forum.

‘That was just a case of me having some songs – the world seems to speed up so much now – it was just getting some music out for this tour, and then those songs will sit on the album that comes out this December.

‘It's quite a nice freedom because this year I'm just going to be recording and releasing music which will then be collected and put out on the album. There'll be slow releases throughout the year.’

For this tour, Jay has gone back to basics, and is touring solo.

‘Usually this time of year when I'm touring it would be off the back of the album, so I'd be touring with the musicians I made it with, but what with doing the kids' album this year, I wanted to do an adult tour.

‘They're kind of big shows for me to be doing solo, it's a nice long set – I've really been enjoying it. I've learned a bunch of old songs, and for once in my life I've written a setlist, and it's been a real joy being up there by myself – core Beans on Toast, y'know? And it's been going down really well.

‘I still do play solo a lot, but doing a bigger tour I'd generally have someone with me on stage. I like to mix it up all the time.’

While Jay has frequently tackled difficult and political subjects, Against The War is his first out-and-out protest song. It’s about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

‘I'm sure as with many people, it was at the forefront of my mind, and when things are at the forefront of my mind, I write a song about it.

‘I wouldn't say it was the easiest song to write – it's about the tone. I didn't want it to feel like a gimmick. But I've always sung about peace, and I've got songs about various wars and awful things. It's an age-old folk tradition, singing protest songs. It's a song for peace and it feels like there's not many people advocating for peace at the moment, which is a shame.’

And it seems work on the next album is already barrelling along.

‘It's mostly written. I'm back in recording again in May. I'm playing a bunch of songs that are yet to be recorded on this tour, including a song I wrote literally the day before I left to go on tour, which is only a verse-and-a-half. I promised myself I wouldn't play it, and every night, I end up playing it, so there's some pretty fresh stuff being aired, which is nice.’

As anyone who has seen Beans on Toast live can tell you, half-finished songs so new they don’t even have a name yet will often appear in the set. ‘I've never been one to wait until something's released to play it live – as soon as it's ready, it gets an airing!’

Ever the optimist

His last ‘proper’ album, 2021’s Survival of The Friendliest was a deliberately positive reaction to all of the negativity swirling around at the time. Jay wanted to put something optimistic into the world.

Has he held on to the optimism as he works on 2023’s release?

He laughs as he reflects on the question.

‘All of my songs, I like to thank have a hopeful slant and air of optimism about them because that's genuinely how I feel. On that album, I channeled that side of me, and the way the world was when, there was no point in moaning about everything. After everything we'd been through as humanity, I didn't want to do everything apart from celebrate. That was the mindset I approached that album with. But the songs I'm writing now, it's certainly a lot more about cold, hard facts, and the type of government we have, the cost of living crisis and all that. There's some of the sadder, angrier songs than there was on Survival, but there's also songs about my family and love songs.

A couple of years ago Jay moved form his native Essex to the north Kent coast. Since then he has got involved with a cause many around here will sympathise with – campaigning against Southern Water releasing sewage into the sea.

When told that campaigners held a ‘protestival’ on Southsea beach for the same reason, he cheers: ‘Protestival – that's amazing! That needs to be popularised – I can't believe I've never heard that name before!’

Last year he released a single Swimming In It, to back his local campaign group, SOS Whitstable.

‘I'm there whenever they need me. They're slowly making waves, forgive the pun. It always feels with these things like nothing is happening and sewage is still going in to the sea, but the public are much more aware than they perhaps were a year ago.

‘It's quite a unifying political subject – pouring sewage into rivers and the sea. No one thinks it's a good idea unless they're making money from it, basically. In these divided times we live in, the more things everyone can get behind, like important environmental campaigns, it's extremely powerful. I do whatever I can to help that crew.’

Beans on Toast is at The Loft in Southampton on Thursday, March 16, supported by Jack Francis. Doors 7pm. Tickets £18.15. Go to beansontoastmusic.com/live-shows.