He's from Yorkshire, so he's not really on the class system. Jasper has an interesting relationship with reality, and this certainly colors his songwriting.

In Jasper de Zoet, he saw a songwriter, vocalist - if you could somehow cross Nick Drake with Jimi Hendrix with a big generous dollop of Syd Barrett. In Dean Moss he saw an East End boy, the other end of the social scale, an R&B, pub rock background kind of musician. Something as poignant as Sandy Denny, say, from Fairport Convention. He saw Elf Holloway, a woman from the folk scene. But yet, just while that window was open, things came in which germinated and contained the seeds of the future.' Sure, it was naive, sure after 18 months, two years, a more jaded reality reexerted itself. Pop got separated from rock in this time, and just a year when a critical mass of people began to believe that if only they wished it badly enough and wanted it, then society could be recalibrated and rebooted. The music - 1967 was an astonishing year. Mitchell - born just after the band Utopia Avenue would have been around - says it was the music that drew him to that era, and 'the particular dark magic that was in the air at that time and place. Hah! No you don't, because Utopia Avenue is the title of David Mitchell's new novel about the rise of a psychedelic Sixties band that never was. Their great hits - 'Abandon Hope,' 'Smithereens,' 'Mona Lisa Sings the Blues' - propelled Utopia Avenue from seedy Soho clubs to Top of the Pops, and then America in the enchanted times of bell bottoms, the Beatles, drugs, sex, and street protests. Griff on the drums - who didn't love gruff Griff? And of course, the peerless Jasper de Zoet, shredding, I mean shredding the guitar. Remember Utopia Avenue? Elf, their keyboardist and singer - a voice from the clouds.

Book utopia avenue