Reverend and the Makers release Samaritans charity single: 'You don't have to be on your own at Christmas'

Jon McClure, charismatic singer with Sheffield indie stalwarts Reverend and the Makers, will be spending time on Christmas Day singing his songs on video calls to people spending the festive season alone. He has done this for 10 years.

“I’m mostly of the George Michael school of things,” he says. “I just do things and don’t make a song and dance about them.”

But this year, McClure and his band are also donating the proceeds from surprisingly soulful and upbeat new single Late Night Phone Call to the Samaritans. And he wants to tell Big Issue why.

“People are struggling,” says McClure. “And we are all just trying to do what we can. That extends to Big Issue and Samaritans – I’ve been out selling the Big Issue a bunch of times. And we are doing this single in conjunction with Samaritans because there are people in the community who are having such a hard time at the moment.

“And it’s tough at Christmas. People being on their own at Christmas, and not by choice, is something that has always really bothered me.”

Jon McClure was a vital part of the Sheffield music community in the early 2000s. When Reverend and the Makers released their debut The State Of Things in 2007, his former flatmate Alex Turner’s band Arctic Monkeys had established Sheffield as the centre of the indie universe.  It went straight into the top 10.

Since then, McClure has continued to produce smart, soulful songs across seven albums. An eighth album, and the band’s biggest headline gig to date in their home city, is set to follow next year.

Big Issue: Tell us about your Christmas plans, Jon…

Jon McClure: So, for the last 10 years I’ve been putting an hour or two aside to call people – with their consent – who are struggling or on their own every Christmas Day. It’s just to try to cheer them up by playing a song and bringing a bit of Christmas joy. But also to let people know that you don’t have to be on your own. You can call people. I’ve been touched a lot by suicide, and people close to me, and so it’s trying to just do something to help people.

There are a lot of people really struggling, economically. The last few years have been so tough. I’ve seen the homeless numbers increasing. And there’s a bunch of social problems in Sheffield. The high street has been decimated. A lot of people are on the ropes.

What reaction do you get?

I got one message from someone about what it had meant to them and it left me in bits. But I’m not trying to be Bob Geldof or anything like that, I just want to put a smile on people’s faces. So I put a message out saying, “If people know someone who is struggling, with their consent, just let me know and I’ll call them up on Christmas Day”. I choose that hour or two when everyone’s had their Christmas dinner and is lying around watching TV. I take myself off to Zoom a few people and sing them a song.

I’ve been in a bad place myself a few times. And sometimes you’ve got to step out of your own head and help people a bit. It costs me, what? An hour or two. And I’m putting a Samaritans link at the end of our video, so it’s pretty low effort. But it might mean a lot to someone.

Where did the new song Late Night Phone Call come from – it feels like a new direction for you?

I never used to write love songs. I used to live with Alex [Turner] from Arctic Monkeys, in the house next door to where I live now. And there was us and a few other bands – Bromhead Jackets, Milburn, The Long Blondes – who were all very much in that Sheffield Pulp tradition of third-person writing. Like, they’re over there, we’re doing this, and this guy over here is doing that, right? I would never talk about my own feelings in songs.

But the truth is that I’m a serial monogamist. I’m in love with my wife. She was in the band from the start and we fell in love after a year or two and have been together ever since. We’ve been married for years, and I absolutely adore her. So I’m thinking, I talk politics, psychedelics, social realism, but I never really talk about myself and my own feelings.

So, what changed? Why now?

As I get older, I’ve started to be less self-conscious. Now I can write a straight-up love song. I can do the conveyance of that emotion. It can be scary. The world we come from, especially up north, it’s not cool to do that. But I’m like, come on, I’m 43 now, this is who I am. I went to the pub, had a few pints and rang my missus up on the way home to say, ‘I love you’. It’s quite an everyman, really.

The smooth, soulful, lyrically smart Late Night Phone Call is not your typical Christmas song?

I think I’m ready for my Elvis in Vegas period – I could do a residency. I used to go to Chapel St Leonards and Jane McDonald was the resident singer. So I think if I was ever to do a residency it’d be there or Skegness. That’s our Vegas…

How are you enjoying your music at the moment?

About five years ago, I changed the way I work and enjoyed some success with the new sound that developed. Which I would loosely call soul music. I started recording a new album earlier this year but it’s been delayed. My dad died while I was making it. I’ve had a weird year.

And I’m in the process of fixing the record. But this one track I just loved. It’s the one we got most right. It’s odd because it’s not got a chorus and doesn’t mention Christmas. But it felt like a Christmas song. And when I was writing it with my friend Danny, the idea for the video came to me fully formed.

Talk us through it – because it’s quite the extravaganza…

The video’s mental. We’ve got my friend Jonathan Butterell, who did that movie Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. And he brought his mate, Shiv [Rabheru] who is the lead choreographer on Hamilton, and we did this crazy video. I’m in a pub to start and it’s a Christmas party, and I’m on the phone to my wife.

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It’s based on a true story, right? Then I walk home and when I get outside the house, I’ve woken her up. And in the street, there is like a Busby Berkeley song and dance number. Dancing elves, Santa Claus, we had a guy with a snow machine. It’s really funny. Totally over the top left. I’m on my knees, singing her the song. We got gospel singers, the works. The council closed off the street in Hillsborough for us.

It sounds like a proper community effort…

It really was. Sheffield is very much like that. We all want each other to win. And we are living in an age where maybe you don’t need to go to London anymore. You can stay in Sheffield. You can do it all here. So that community thing is very important. We’re doing a big 20-year anniversary gig in a big park in Sheffield next year. It’s like our biggest gig to date. And that’s the same – it’s all the people we love from the local area.

And again, like you said, that community thing is so important. I realised that when my dad passed away – I had so many people there for me, supporting me and loving me and all that. So I feel very lucky. I’ve got a bunch of people here – Nick Banks from Pulp, who’s in video and who’s at the top of the road, he’s like my big brother advising me. I’ve got Richard Hawley. Then there’s a bunch of younger musicians, Harriet Rose, Sam Scherdel and I try and help them. Community is the word.

What are you hoping to achieve with the charity single and the Christmas Day private gigs?

What my hope is with Samaritans and what I’m doing with my Zoom gigs – just like Big Issue, it is if you’re at rock bottom and have given up on humanity, you’ll just be reminded that you’re not on your own. Sometimes, when I have a negative view of humanity, somebody will come along and do something beautiful and kind. And it’ll remind me that, actually, people are all right. There is kindness and goodness in most people.

And sometimes we lose track of that. When the world feels like it’s against you and everything’s going tits up and wrong or your job is shit or your family situation is not good, or you’ve lost somebody close to you, it’s very easy to view the world in negative terms. And view humanity in negative terms. Deep down, most people are probably all right, you know?

Late Night Phone Call by Reverend & the Makers is out now. The band will play their biggest headline show to date at Rock N Roll Circus at Don Valley Bowl, Sheffield, on 30 August 2025.

To help Samaritans volunteers continue providing a listening ear to anyone struggling, you can support them here

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