Pulp reunion came about as a chance for Jarvis Cocker to ‘headline’ again, says Mark Webber

A reunion for legendary Sheffield rock band Pulp was a chance for Jarvis Cocker to headline again, guitarist Mark Webber has claimed.

Though Cocker has enjoyed a successful solo career, Pulp’s long-serving guitarist and historian has suggested that the 2023 reunion tour and subsequent album were a chance for the 62-year-old frontman to enjoy the top billing once again. Webber, speaking to The Ultimate Record Collector Guide, said that the band reunited not just because of the financial incentive to do so, but because they had the chance to do a series of shows on a “high level” compared to what Cocker had been doing with his solo career and band, Jarv Is.

Webber said: “We’re not getting any younger, it was a lot of money, but it wasn’t about the money so much as the opportunity to do a really good show on a high level. [Jarvis had] had his solo records and he had Jarv Is and they’d toured, but were maybe playing 1,500-people venues or something.

“He saw that this was a chance to headline and do big stuff again and was I interested? Of course I was. The first time when he came up in 2011, I wasn’t sure because I’d completely gotten away from music and still had loads of bad memories. But this time around I was into it.”

Webber, speaking to Cult Following back in July 2025, said he did not believe the band would ever get back together after their successful reunion tour performances in 2011 and 2012. The guitarist, who released the book I’m With Pulp, Are You? to rave reviews, said: “I was going through boxes in the spare room, and I came across all this Pulp stuff, which I hadn’t looked at for years, because obviously the group hadn’t been active for a while.

“I started to go through it, and it had been so long that I was discovering things that I’d forgotten I had, photos that I wasn’t sure where they were taken or what was going on. It just seemed kind of interesting. At this point, there was no suggestion that we would get back together again. I mean, I thought Pulp was finished at that point.

“I rediscovered all this stuff and then through a mutual friend, the publisher at Hat and Beard got in touch with me because he was thinking of doing a book about Pulp. But he wanted to do a book about the Different Class album.” The reunion was not just a chance for Cocker to get back into the spotlight, but marked a deadline for Webber’s Pulp history book.

He explained: “I guess it was 2022 when we first started talking about getting back together and playing. That, on the one hand, held me up a bit more. But on the other hand, it gave me a deadline to aim for because it seemed like there would be interest in the group, and maybe that would be a good time to publish it.

“I didn’t think we would get back together. The few times when I had seen Jarvis [Cocker], and it had come up in a conversation, he didn’t seem interested. I thought it wasn’t going to happen. But then he came around to the idea. I think everyone was into the idea. At first, the commitment was just for those fourteen or so UK shows in 2023. We thought that would be it. But then, obviously, once word gets out, people all over want you to go and play in different countries.  

“We didn’t want to agree to doing any more until we played a few shows and got the vibe. But it was kind of amazing, the response. That encouraged us to do more, and then some new songs started to appear. And then it was, ‘Well, shall we make a record?’ We were more hesitant about committing to that.”