Pulp speak out on the loss of Steve Mackey and the chances of them playing Glastonbury 2025

Pulp have spoken out on the loss of bassist Steve Mackey and their chances of playing Glastonbury this year.

• READ MORE: Pulp’s Mark Webber on his photo book and the band’s new songs: “It’s somewhere between mature and frothy pop music”

The band are due to release their upcoming album ‘More’, their first record in almost 24 years on June 6.

Speaking to Lauren Laverne on BBC 6 Music, frontman Jarvis Cocker and guitarist Mark Webber joined opened up about ‘More’, which is dedicated to their late former bassist. The musician passed away aged 56 on March 2, 2023; though no cause of death was given, Mackey’s wife, stylist Katie Grand, revealed he had been in hospital in recent months.

Cocker told Laverne recording without Mackey was “weird at first”, but that there were “two songs on the record which date from when Steve was around”, which made him feel part of the project.

“It was not the nicest thing,” the singer continued. “But people who you’re close to, you never forget them, and you can do things to remember them by.”

Meanwhile, Cocker also spoke about their chances of playing Glastonbury this year. The band have had a storied history with the festival, stepping in to replace The Stone Roses as headliners after guitarist John Squire shattered his collarbone.

The gig cemented Pulp as a seminal band; their fifth studio album ‘Different Class’ would become a four times platinum record upon its release four months after the gig, and NME would go on to rank it their best album ever. The band also played a surprise set on the Park Stage at the festival in 2011.

Though Cocker acknowledged that “Glastonbury has a very important place in our heart,” Pulp had “no plans” to play this year.

Speaking further about ‘More’, Cocker said it was recorded over three weeks in 2024 with producer James Ford.

Cocker said there are “no over-riding themes, except feelings, maybe, which sounds very wafty and not very precise”.

“We [recorded] it quite quickly, and we were trying to not think about it too much, because that’s what kind of made the last couple of Pulp albums a bit of a pain,” he said before adding: “It was mainly my fault because I’d never got the lyrics together, so I was always changing them and messing around.

“This time, they were all written before we went into the studio, and I realised it was a lot less stressful.”

Check out the ‘More’ tracklist below:

The ‘More’ tracklist is:

1. ‘Spike Island’
2. ‘Tina’
3. ‘Grown Ups’
4. ‘Slow Jam’
5. ‘Farmers Market’
6. ‘My Sex’
7. ‘Got To Have Love’
8. ‘Background Noise’
9. ‘Partial Eclipse’
10. ‘A Hymn Of The North’
11. ‘A Sunset’

In other news, Neil Young, Sam Fender, Pulp, RAYE and more will lead the stacked line-up for Montreux Jazz Festival 2025.

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