Hi there
How are you?
Yes, fine, fine. Good.
Where you at?
I'm in my studio.
Is that in London?
It is in London, yeah.
Can you run down a little background for me? A little of how you got
into music, got into singing?
I've always been playing music certainly since an early age; there's
just always been pianos in my house. So I started playing the piano
early on and just experimenting at the keyboard really early on, I
started getting lessons at five really. So there's always been a
relationship with music there. It didn't really occur to me that I could
sing, and certainly not in front of a band, until probably about the
late '80s and '90. I actually played keyboards in a band long before I
ever sang. So I sort of got into music playing pianos and keyboards and
being a bit musical and it was an area I wanted to experiment in.
And I was aware of the fact that I could sing, but I never explored it
really and I was terribly shy as well. I remember the first time I
recorded any vocals, it was backing vocals for a friend and I was just
helping out, and I remember finding it really really stressful. It
almost went a bit against my nature in a way to sing, I kind of fought a
bit with my shyness to make that happen. That was about 1989 the first
time I sang in a studio.
What was it that got you over the shyness? Was it just experience, or
was there someone who helped you?
It really was the case of just keeping on doing it to take the edge off
of it. And I really hated the thing about singing where you have to be
in another room as well to record, I find that really difficult because
you're in a room, in the studio I sang in you didn't have a window into
the other rooms, so you're in this room and alone with headphones and no
sound except for when they press play, and then the song comes and then
stop and then it's like stop, and there's no feedback. And what you
don't realize is that they're sitting in the other room going, 'Yeah,
yeah, that was okay. Blah blah blah.' But you're standing there going,
'Was I terrible?'
But it's just helpful doing it. And now I've got to the stage that I can
go into a room and sing in front of a bunch of people and I don't think
about it at all. It not like I regress to that stage of unsure ness or
whatever. So it's a good kind of lesson in a way for me, and for anyone
else who is interested listening, that you can actually get over that
kind of shyness and sort of challenge it.
That's great. When did you get your first keyboard?
When?
You said you were in a band beforehand. Did you get into it by going
out to clubs and hearing music, and think 'Wow, I want to do something
like that and buy a keyboard', or?
Yeah, well I was pretty lucky because there was always bits of musical
equipment in our house. At one point there was a drum kit, and there was
always a guitar and a piano.
Was that from your parents?
Yeah, my mom is a musician, so it was just like part of the furniture. I
do realize that was fortunate, I can read score and things like that,
that to sit down and learn that now I don't know if I'd have the
discipline, but it's like a language you can sort of learn when you're
young. So I feel quite fortunate about that.
And then, I was a student for a while, and I didn't have a piano. There
was a piano in our flat, but not in my room. And one of the flat mates
sold it, and it didn't belong to them, and I was really upset about
that. It was my only access to a keyboard as a student. So yeah, early
early on I always had a keyboard, and then I went for a period of time
without one. To be honest as a student I was… dead broke, it was hard
there was no keyboard.
Then I got a part time job when I was a student in the west end of
Glasgow, and I met up with a guy and we became friends and talked about
music. He had made music in the past, and we had talked about doing some
things together. And then he knew a guy who engineered in a studio that
he part owned, so what we used to do is catch the last bus at night and
go in at midnight when it was dead time at the studio, and then just
work until the morning and go home really tired and have to do a day. So
that's how it all started. And education that I never really got a
graduation from but, that's how it started.
Well it seems like it's been a wild ride since then.
Yeah, yeah. It's been really interesting. I mean, I put out an album
with One Dove and was really really proud of that and have brilliant
memories about that whole experience, and learned so so much. Then we
started writing another album then that just didn't get picked up by the
company and then we got released from Ideal, and then you know, we kind
of lost some of the innocence and magic from that whole synergy and I
realized that was probably the time to go solo, if I was going to go
solo, because I had been in that band for six years and we had struggled
to put out an album and it hadn't happened so it just felt natural
breaking apart from that.
It's all been really great actually, because I've always made music I've
been proud of and I've always been able to continue. But if there's been
anything that's been difficult it's that I've never found quite the
right situation, I just think that the music industry has gone in the
direction of very pop in the last decade again. Or for the first time
has gone as pop. And if you're making any music that is sort of left
field, or marginal in any way, artistically speaking not selling out and
doing that pop thing, there are very few artists that can convince a
company to champion them if they are making that music. That's not to
say that there isn't music on the charts that is genuinely artistically
good and quality, and made for all the right reasons. There just seems
to be a lack of funding for that kind of music, and I think if anything
that's made this journey more interesting. Seeing how that affects so
many musicians.
When you say pop, what kind of music is pop culture over in England
right now?
What is it? Well, at the moment it seems to be pretty manufactured, a
lot of it, and a lot of it is pretty safe and quite formulaic. And I
think I'd like to see more pop music where the performers or the
musicians are kind of connected to the studio in some way, because I
think there is a kind of passion that goes with somebody really feeling
what they are saying that is kind of lost in a lot of manufactured pop.
I think kids are kind of starved of that, I'd like to see more of that.
Yeah, unfortunately we've been inundated with it over here with the
studio produced bands in our pop culture I guess. Yeah, it is a pretty
disgusting turn in the music situation.
I know. I know. Yeah. It seems to be, and this is the scary thing, it
seems to be the people have kind of a shrewd business acumen at
dictating what art is going to be. And that to me is really scary.
Because art shouldn't be dictated by business. You know what I mean?
Yeah, absolutely. I found that most people who have good business skills
don't know anything about art, and most people who have an appreciation
for art have few business skills.
That seems to be the way. It does seem to be that way.
So what's next for you? Are you going to do a tour?
Yeah, definitely. I'm coming over next month to support Saint Etienne
acoustically. I'm going to do an acoustic set. Which works really really
well actually, there's something very intimate about it that works well.
I'm really looking forward to it. So I'm coming over to L.A. first and
then we're going to New York.
So the album has been released in England?
It has, yes.
How has the reception been to it?
Yeah, it was very very critically acclaimed, it got really really
brilliant reviews which is always nice. It's done, it's kind of been a
slow burner, it's done enough that I'm happy with it.
Have you gotten good support from your label?
Yeah, I've done quite a lot of touring which is really important. I did
quite a few shows in Europe, and quite a few shows around the U.K. as
well. So yeah, I did a lot more than I did the last record, so I was
really pleased about that.
What do you think you'd be doing if you weren't a musician?
That's a good question, because I think if I'd never turned to take the
step to make music a professional choice I'd probably have completed my
degree in bio-chemistry which I left in the second year, and I may be
doing bio-chemistry. But, I've never not had that creative need, and
whether it was painting or writing, so I'm sure I'd be trying to do
something like write a novel or something else. I'm sure I'd be trying
to something creative. I'm sure I wouldn't have been satisfied with just
chemistry.
Do you do anything like painting or any other arts?
I studied art in school, up until the highest exam you can do. And I did
higher the next year, so yeah, I did quite a lot of painting, and
ceramics, and other forms of art.
Do you go out to museums and galleries when you're out on tour?
Right, well, that's the thing about touring, you don't get a lot of time
because you're normally doing a lot of regional press so you watch your
band go off a lot and you're like, 'Have a nice day!' So probably not as
much as I'd like to. But also in London, I've seen a lot of what there
is to show here, but even still in London I spend so much time working I
could definitely see more. But then there's so much here to see I think
you always feel like that.
And you have your own studio now?
Yeah.
That must be great, did you build it yourself? Is it in your own
house?
No, it's right around the corner and I'm renting a space that belongs to
another musician friend of mine. So it's kind of amongst musicians here.
There's something about leaving the house and going to write that makes
it more focused. It feels purer, the work that you do. I had my studio
in my house before, for a long time actually when I first moved to
London. And I always felt that there was a blurring of the boundaries of
when I was working and when I was not working and just trying to relax.
When it's just in the other room I find it quite hard to leave it, and
at the same time I find it hard to fully immerse in it. So it's quite
good to be able to come here.
It's great that you were able to find that split.
Yeah.
That's awesome. So what do you do on your off time in London?
I try and spend some close time with my friends. I always feel like I
could see more of. Just do things like that. Or try to go to the gym or
do something that's good for me. Just try to use my time to touch base
with the people I care about. Or take in something that's not music. And
spend as little time traveling as possible, because you spend two hours
a day traveling in London if you're not careful. It seems somebody is
coming at night and making the roads narrower. I don't think they're
doing it, but it definitely feels like their doing it. ::laughs::
What's the biggest lesson you think you've learned being in the music
industry?
Hmm. Probably that it's not quite as much about music as you'd like it
to be. There are so many other factors. There's a lot of politics, and
of coarse it's a business you know. And for some people it's about
making sums add up and things like that. So I suppose you kind of go
into it naively thinking, "Wow, I'm creating music." So if I've learned
anything I've learned that it's just not about all that, there's so much
more to it and you have to negotiate so much more than a studio to be
able to survive in it.
But then I guess that's like anything where there is money involved,
there's always that kind of negotiating involved.
Does it ever put pressure on your creativity?
Um. I think it can if you let it. I seem to go the other way. If
somebody is trying to make me conform I seem to want to bail. So I'm not
that kind of person that if I have a team of people above my desk going,
"Where's the single?" Then I tend to want to the kind of rhyming no
music for airports kind of vibe. Or some thing. You know. I remember I
was on a label years ago and I heard through the grapevine that I was
not to dye my hair from blonde, so I dyed it bright red. Get lost!
You're not telling me what color I can keep my hair. So I don't know. I
think it depends on the artists but.
So I suppose if you let it. I think if you're the type of person that
all you do is people please and write for other people, you end up with
a record you're not proud of. You won't gain respect of the people
you're trying to kiss the butts of and at the end of the day you might
not even be lucky with that music anyways. So I think the main thing is
to make something you're proud of and if you believe that it's quality
and creative it's likely someone else will. You know what I mean? You
communicate what you want to communicate if you stick to your guns.
What's inspiring you to write music these days?
More and more sort of external stuff I think. I think the first songs I
wrote were all sort of self searching, and now I'm more writing a
narrative about someone I see on the street or something else. You know
what I mean? Like telling a story about something I'm experiencing in
life instead of trying to work out what's in your soul or your heart or…
More social situations than inner-personal?
Yeah, well, both. Like opening that whole, broadening the spectrum to
include that kind of material to draw from. And that's like experiences
and labels and all those sort of things that cast up feelings and things
that you know if you have to shift anything in your situation. I mean
I've written about all sorts of things that have affected me over the
last year. Not always from imagination, mainly from life experiences.
But sometimes a little more imagination like narratives, I'm filling in
the blanks from what I'm seeing and I color it with something kind of
fictional as well.
Are there any artists that you been listening to lately, or from over
there?
Yeah, I like the new Beck album. Oh yeah, and I also really liked Mazzy
Star, and in the early nineties a friend of mine had a 12" of Opal, pre-Mazzy
Star work. And it's really cool, it's beautiful music! I got a copy of
the 12" of this song called "Fell From the Sun" that I absolutely adored
in the nineties, and through the passage of time I lost the copy of it
that I had and it's really rare, it's hard to find and I managed to get
a cassette copy of the actual album of Opal's early recordings which has
got a song on it that is really nostalgic for me 'cause it reminds me of
being in Glasgow and listening to it obsessively. So I got that recently
and I really like that. And then, yeah yeah, I've been listening to the
Katherine Williams new album, which is interesting too so yeah, just
lots of different bits and pieces.
What was one of your favorite places or moments?
Things like, and this might not be exciting, but things like seeing the
New York skyline for the first time.
That is, that is exciting.
Yeah, that kind of thing. Just traveling, seeing other cultures, and
really inhaling life. You know, I think, there's something about
traveling that in life if you never manage to get out of where you are
all you see is a tiny little speck on the map but it's about raising the
magnifying glass to take in the detail of other places. So I guess just
traveling, and that's probably the best thing.
And I suppose it's to play to certain crowds or in certain venues, like
playing the Whiskey for the first time and things like that, and you
suddenly realize you're going to get a chance to join some sort of
institution of these musicians that have played there or whatever.
Things like that are a buzz, there's no doubt. You get a sense of the
history there.
Becoming a little part of it yourself.
And just, it's a privilege I suppose, to be able to get up on a stage
like that that certain people sat on. Yeah, it is, it is I suppose. It
is definitely.
