2024 JUNIPERS INTERVIEW with MICHAEL BJORN in SHINDIG MAGAZINE..

Fittingly for a late 60s inspired record, the new JUNIPERS album is an unplanned love child. Joe Wiltshire and Robyn Gibson tell Michael Björn how one thing led to another.

To the delight of sunny psychedelic pop lovers, after eight years The Junipers are back with Imaginary Friends. It started when Robyn was recording the Portable Radio’s sophomore album. “We managed to persuade Joe to play bass,” says Robyn. “So that got me and Joe kind of doing bits over in Leicester.” 

Their first idea was to re-record the Junipers’ debut album Cut Your Key since they did not have ownership of the original. However, when a reissue deal was struck with the original label, attention instead turned to new material. “We had about four new songs,” says Joe who is the songwriter of the pair. “I showed them to Portable Radio, thinking perhaps we could do it with them.”

But accidental momentum took over and the songs just kept on coming. “The sessions were just so easy,” says Robyn. “We’d pop over to the Juniper studio for two or three hours, once or twice a week, and come out with maybe one and a half songs recorded.”

Soon the two had taped almost an album’s worth - but decided to also include ‘My Imaginary Friend’ — the last group recording made in late 2017 just before their guitarist Peter Gough got ill and the band activity petered out. “I wanted to do our own ‘Martha My Dear’. There’s an Emitt Rhodes track, ‘She's Such A Beauty’, and I wanted something like that,” explains Joe. “But we've not got a dog, so we made one up, like a Rutles thing!” 

With some parts recorded by the full lineup, the music feels like a direct continuation from previous album, Red Bouquet Fair. “It's good that it doesn't stick out,” says Robyn. “Nobody seems to have noticed the change in line-up.”

And judging from the sheer quality on display, great tunes seem to have been piling up over the inactive years, all in their signature warm and friendly style. “It's like a summer haze that's shimmering in and out,” says Robyn. ”Its nice to make something that makes you smile,” adds Joe. “Some songs are probably a bit saccharine, but as you build them, you try and steer it away from that a bit.” But while the production indeed layers psychedelic sounds and playful overdubs here and there, such effects are used sparingly in order avoid sugar coating.

“We just did it for fun,” concludes Robyn. “But we ended up with the fourth Junipers album!”

Joe and Robyn. Shed music.