Speaker 1: Good evening to all of you. Midnight Chats were Wolves.
Speaker 1: It's been a little while, hasn't it. Stue here with
Speaker 1: a little bit of an update on the podcast, something
Speaker 1: that's a bit of a bonus and something that I
Speaker 1: hope will will intrigue you with something else that I'm
Speaker 1: doing right now. Midnight Chats is still on hold for
Speaker 1: the time being. No sign of it coming back just yet,
Speaker 1: but it's not the end of the world because there's
Speaker 1: so many episodes of it that I'm sure there's ones
Speaker 1: that you've missed, for better or worse, so please do
Speaker 1: keep listening to those, and whenever we have more information
Speaker 1: on bringing back Midnight Chats as it was, I'll let
Speaker 1: you know here on this feed. But there is a
Speaker 1: new podcast that I've been making simply called the Loud
Speaker 1: and Quiet Podcast, and I wanted to share one episode
Speaker 1: of it here in the hope that you like it
Speaker 1: and then you give it a follow wherever you're listening
Speaker 1: to this. By just putting in the Loud and Quiet
Speaker 1: Podcast and giving that show a follow, it's not a
Speaker 1: million miles away from Midnight Chats. It's often a conversation
Speaker 1: with a musical artist, this one that I'm about to
Speaker 1: play you is with Patrick Wolf. It's part one. Part
Speaker 1: two is also out today, but I won't drop that
Speaker 1: here in the Midnight Chats Feed. We're going to keep
Speaker 1: this the Midnight Chats Feed, but if you want to
Speaker 1: listen to part one you can do that here. But
Speaker 1: Part two and Part one and some other stuff is
Speaker 1: on the Loud and Quiet podcast Feed. Please do check
Speaker 1: it out. You can subscribe, as I say, wherever you're
Speaker 1: listening to this on Spotify or Apple or wherever you're listening
Speaker 1: to your podcasts, or you can also subscribe to it
Speaker 1: on the Loud and Quiet substack, which is just Loud
Speaker 1: and Quiet dot substack dot com. But for now, here
Speaker 1: is an very interesting conversation I had with Patrick Wolf
Speaker 1: as you're here. It's it's like a good old fashioned
Speaker 1: midnights in many ways, lots to get into with Patrick Wolf,
Speaker 1: and I won't tee it up now because I'm about
Speaker 1: to tee it up in two seconds time on this recording.
Speaker 1: I hope you've all been doing well. I hope twenty
Speaker 1: twenty fives going to plan so far, it's been an
Speaker 1: absolute dustbin fire for me so far, and Greg's faring
Speaker 1: much better. It was his birthday at the weekend, his fortieth,
Speaker 1: and that wasn't even enough to dampen his spirits. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: my life is on fire. Please do enjoy Patrick Wolf
Speaker 1: here on the Midnight Chats feed and then give us
Speaker 1: a follow. Keep following Midnight Chats, but give us a
Speaker 1: follow on the Loud and Quiet podcast wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. This is the Loud and Quiet Podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Stuart Stubbs and today I'm joined by Patrick Wolf. Patrick
Speaker 1: is currently aged forty one years old. He was born
Speaker 1: and grew up in Southwest London, and in two thousand
Speaker 1: and three released his debut Albumlyanthropy. Since then, he has
Speaker 1: released five more albums and a few EPs. His music
Speaker 1: usually consists of violin, piano, keyboards, ukulele, accordion, mandolin, guitar
Speaker 1: and bass, giving a baroque pop fill, but it also
Speaker 1: features elements of what became known in the mid two
Speaker 1: thousands as folktronica. Patrick sings in a very deep croon
Speaker 1: and I have been a fan of his since the beginning.
Speaker 1: Really two thousand and five is when I started doing
Speaker 1: Loud and Quiet in its original form as a printed fanzine,
Speaker 1: and around that time, we had him on the cover
Speaker 1: of one of our very early fanzines, something that I
Speaker 1: took to him when we recorded this interview and presented
Speaker 1: to him, so stay tuned to hear his reactions. I
Speaker 1: think he took it quite well. In two thousand and
Speaker 1: seven Patrick had some major label success with his third record,
Speaker 1: The Magic Position, and in the same year he also
Speaker 1: modeled for Birbury. But over the last ten years Patrick
Speaker 1: has experienced some of the most traumatic and dramatic things
Speaker 1: that anyone can go through, including addiction, grief, financial and
Speaker 1: legal troubles, and serious injury. I had a great idea
Speaker 1: for us to do this, walking along the Kent coast
Speaker 1: with the sea dropping away to our side, beautiful sunshine,
Speaker 1: seagulls in the air. But on the day of recording,
Speaker 1: when I got to our meeting place a little earlier,
Speaker 1: just to see what conditions were like, it was clear
Speaker 1: that that was a terrible idea. So I carried on
Speaker 1: driving to Patrick's house where in his garden he has
Speaker 1: got the most incredible garden studio that I've certainly ever seen.
Speaker 1: It's in a converted double garage and in this one
Speaker 1: room he has four corners as most rooms have, but
Speaker 1: each corner has been set up with a different station.
Speaker 1: He's got a writing area and a library. He's got
Speaker 1: a TV studio that he uses for his Patreon concerts.
Speaker 1: He's got his recording studio of all of his instruments
Speaker 1: in one corner, and then in this final corner where
Speaker 1: we're going to start this conversation, he's got all of
Speaker 1: his clothes and his stage costumes and the sewing machine
Speaker 1: that he makes them on.
Speaker 2: In the other corner is the recent edition. I got
Speaker 2: rid of my bicycle because I've never cycled since I
Speaker 2: moved down. There are too many cliffs and hills and
Speaker 2: it's my costume making area. So I realized how much
Speaker 2: I was making, especially for the album artwork. I you know,
Speaker 2: I don't have any of the connections I used to
Speaker 2: living in London, and I kind of don't want them.
Speaker 2: So in terms of, you know, stylists or calling up
Speaker 2: designers for pieces, I can't call Alexander McQueen's studio anymore
Speaker 2: because I think they probably think I'm dead, you know.
Speaker 2: So I decided to get back to what I.
Speaker 3: Used to do, was make all my own clothes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, are you enjoying that? You enjoying getting back in time.
Speaker 3: I'm really enjoying.
Speaker 2: It feels very If I'm furious about something then although
Speaker 2: the sewing machine is not the place to take your
Speaker 2: anger up because it registers it and everything goes wrong,
Speaker 2: but there's something about I think I have to calm
Speaker 2: down in order to be productive there. It's a very
Speaker 2: very holistic area for me. Yeah, very pragmatic. Sure, it's
Speaker 2: either gardening or sewing gets me into get some of
Speaker 2: the rage out of me of the modern world.
Speaker 1: So it's like the perfect perfect space. I think, like
Speaker 1: you've got these four zones. It's a beautiful garden. It's
Speaker 1: a lovely day. We're in rams Gay. How long have
Speaker 1: you been here?
Speaker 3: So it's coming out to like five years?
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: I was thinking about it when I got When I
Speaker 2: got sober was in June twenty twenty, and then I
Speaker 2: was here by May May the first, the year after,
Speaker 2: and then I moved into this house on Halloween.
Speaker 1: Kent as an area, I know it's because Kent, Kent.
Speaker 3: I'm very specifical.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, why is that?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, like Middle Kent is like Tunbridge Wells,
Speaker 2: North Kent is getting I like Medway I'm not saying
Speaker 2: I don't like these places. I just feel an affinity
Speaker 2: with something about you know, East Kent goes I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know that even like the local folklore changes
Speaker 2: when you get to East Kent. There are some very
Speaker 2: specific things about the border land of East Kent, of
Speaker 2: seeing France on the other side of the cliffs of
Speaker 2: the of the the rhythm here. It's not Tunbridge Wells. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it is very different than Tumbridge and and Medway has
Speaker 2: that slight dystopian paradise about it.
Speaker 1: It's interesting actually because I'm from Essex. I'm from South
Speaker 1: End in Essex. And you know, people talk about Essex
Speaker 1: probably in a similar way to the way they talk
Speaker 1: about Kent and by lumping it all together. But you're
Speaker 1: dead right. You don't actually have to travel far within
Speaker 1: a county like Kent or Essex to realize how different
Speaker 1: places are. Like the north of Essex is completely unrecognizable
Speaker 1: to where I grew up. I know this place is
Speaker 1: has become really special to you, But what what made
Speaker 1: what drew you to? What made you move here?
Speaker 2: So like I live between Ramsgate and broad Stairs. So
Speaker 2: actually the name of the place where in between. It's
Speaker 2: quite unfortunate has the word dump in it, so so
Speaker 2: I live in the dump right So, but but Broadstairs.
Speaker 1: I saw a.
Speaker 3: Clip of it on.
Speaker 2: The Alan Bennett film Lady in the Van. There's a
Speaker 2: bit where she gets in the van and she she
Speaker 2: vanishes and he finds her on Broadstairs and and I
Speaker 2: just loved there was something about the about about the bay,
Speaker 2: and I just was like, I need to find where
Speaker 2: that is and I need I need to go. So
Speaker 2: my partner and I then we we would make it
Speaker 2: our escape out of London because so it was only
Speaker 2: felt like an hour and a half and it just
Speaker 2: became like a romantic place to come to.
Speaker 3: And then and then.
Speaker 2: The the week that I was declared bankrupt by by
Speaker 2: the court, then I am I was pretty shell shocked
Speaker 2: and and my partner took me down to Broadstairs and
Speaker 2: there was just a sense of like a feeling of
Speaker 2: like this is where I start again. I don't know,
Speaker 2: I don't know what I felt, but I just remember
Speaker 2: staying up all night and watching two seagulls fight.
Speaker 3: Over like a bottle of beer or something like outside
Speaker 3: and just watching that and watching it was it was.
Speaker 2: A January January, and it was on January February really
Speaker 2: really bleak, and I just felt at home. I just
Speaker 2: felt like in this out of season. And the strange
Speaker 2: thing is like on Wind and the Wires, my second album,
Speaker 2: I had imagined I had a lover down in who
Speaker 2: had a family in Penzance and Hail, and the whole
Speaker 2: mythology of Wind and the Wires was based around this.
Speaker 3: Really, I wouldn't, I wouldn't.
Speaker 2: I'd say it was too hardcore for Thomas Hardy, but
Speaker 2: it was like this very tragic romantic relationship in set
Speaker 2: in this area. But that set off my imagination to
Speaker 2: into out of season. And I say imagination because it
Speaker 2: was i'd grow I grew up in Wandsworth, but I
Speaker 2: started to I think I was using the imaginary the
Speaker 2: places I saw on the train trips down there, like Tigemouth,
Speaker 2: the ferris wheel on the but I don't even know if.
Speaker 3: There was a firest wheel, but I was.
Speaker 2: I was sketching out this how I felt, but using
Speaker 2: out of low season England to tell that story. And
Speaker 2: then when I and I think it was like that
Speaker 2: always felt like home wherever that was where I was describing,
Speaker 2: and then it wasn't until I did my first winter
Speaker 2: here that I realized there's a song called This Weather
Speaker 2: and it basically like like prophetically describes what it is
Speaker 2: to do a winter here. And I just was like,
Speaker 2: I think I kind of wrote about this place, and
Speaker 2: I'd like to say it was a prophecy. Yeah, do
Speaker 2: the wise that was I was describing where I needed
Speaker 2: to to I was going to live one day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and now you found it. Was it just that
Speaker 1: you were sort of bored of London? Did you just
Speaker 1: need to change it up? Did you want to quieter,
Speaker 1: quieter existence?
Speaker 2: No, I was, you know, I was very ill and
Speaker 2: am tired of London. I I guess in a way,
Speaker 2: I felt like I had spated me out and and
Speaker 2: strange like luckily I always lived in central London, so
Speaker 2: like I lived in Southwark opposite the Tate Modern, like
Speaker 2: in this very you know, like very bougie penthouse apartment,
Speaker 2: and then moved to this little mewse house and I
Speaker 2: lived like a really like I lived in central London
Speaker 2: and I lived in Bloomsbury for like four years and
Speaker 2: and yeah, I know, but like for a flat that
Speaker 2: was eight hundred pounds a month, like rent like old.
Speaker 2: It was like it was an old Art Deco building
Speaker 2: that was for that was built for single it was
Speaker 2: like a feminist architect who built it for single women.
Speaker 2: And and for some reason, the rent had just stayed
Speaker 2: really low. So I stayed there on about about eight
Speaker 2: hundred pounds a month during the period that I was
Speaker 2: bankrupt as well, so you know, And and then my
Speaker 2: mother died and sorry, that's just some some great, great
Speaker 2: positive moments in my life, just to draw a dump
Speaker 2: on everybody, but the yeah, but basically I was like
Speaker 2: I had when she died. I had a lump sum
Speaker 2: of money and I was like, well, I'm going to
Speaker 2: try to stay in London, which led me to buying
Speaker 2: like the literally the cheapest flat you could could in
Speaker 2: London on right move. I was just like, okay, because
Speaker 2: it's it's my last last chance of holding on here
Speaker 2: financially if I can stay, And it was just the
Speaker 2: it was like it was I really spiraled there mentally.
Speaker 1: And where was that flat in.
Speaker 3: Perry Vale? And you might you might Lewisham, you said you're.
Speaker 1: From, I'm living in Lewisham. Now yeah, where right?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So it's like between sydonym and Catford, and it's like
Speaker 2: it's like a small area in between there, but it
Speaker 2: was and it was like I moved in there three
Speaker 2: months before the pandemic hit, on an eighth floor of
Speaker 2: the of a tower block. And and the thing, like
Speaker 2: romantically I I all I saw was this view over.
Speaker 2: I could see across the whole of London from a distance,
Speaker 2: and on the other side I could see in my head.
Speaker 3: It was like this liminal world where I could like
Speaker 3: wander and wonder. And and.
Speaker 2: When I actually started exploring, like in so there was
Speaker 2: London that side, I was like, okay, I've lived here.
Speaker 3: I'm like, how old am I now? I'm like thirty five.
Speaker 2: But in the distance, I was still looking for one.
Speaker 2: I was looking for something that would inspire me to
Speaker 2: work and to come back to life and come back
Speaker 2: to what, come back to writing. And I thought I
Speaker 2: would find it there, but you know, I would just
Speaker 2: wander and I couldn't get and keep on walking and
Speaker 2: walking for like hours and I just end up in
Speaker 2: Bromley or Beckenham or and I just felt like completely
Speaker 2: trapped by this city. It just was like endless and
Speaker 2: just got and I was like, well, how do I
Speaker 2: get inspired by this area or research people that you
Speaker 2: used that lived or made stuff here. And so I
Speaker 2: ended up discovering like the Bromley contingent and listening to
Speaker 2: Susie the Banchies for the first time and like really
Speaker 2: getting into that.
Speaker 3: But it really didn't help.
Speaker 2: It just it just made me feel it, like to
Speaker 2: get darker and more anxious and like, you know, it
Speaker 2: was like the most inspiring thing I could find was
Speaker 2: Sir Chiselhurst Caves, you know, And I said, oh, I'm
Speaker 2: going to make an album in the caves and I
Speaker 2: got permission to.
Speaker 3: Do it, and and.
Speaker 2: The pandemic happened, and I realized I was had gone
Speaker 2: from getting clean in twenty sixteen to becoming a full
Speaker 2: blown alcoholic. Like what do they say some people use
Speaker 2: the word functioning, like but whatever, the opposite of functioning is,
Speaker 2: you know, so deathly and when.
Speaker 1: You weren't funk, you weren't functioning.
Speaker 3: No, like malfunctioning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and and very ill, and the whole the
Speaker 2: whole building just became possessed in that in that way
Speaker 2: before me and London just felt like I had reached
Speaker 2: completely not the end of the road, but I've been
Speaker 2: kicked off the road, you know, And and I just thought,
Speaker 2: there's no way back there, and and I don't want
Speaker 2: to go back, and and and I knew that if
Speaker 2: I was going to be sober, then I needed to
Speaker 2: be I needed to every day have something that I
Speaker 2: didn't put in my body that gave me a sense
Speaker 2: of wonder. And for me, that was an element bigger
Speaker 2: than me. So for me that's always been the center
Speaker 2: of a city can feel like bigger than you. That's exciting,
Speaker 2: you know, being in the desert, being up a mountain,
Speaker 2: being in a huge forest, lost, having something as a
Speaker 2: human being, it's really important to have to not.
Speaker 3: Feel like you're on top.
Speaker 2: Of it, like you're bigger than everything, or you're too
Speaker 2: big for this space. To have something that completely makes
Speaker 2: you feel small. So I needed to be by the sea.
Speaker 1: I realized that, as Patrick's already alluded to, there's been
Speaker 1: a long gap between his last album and what is
Speaker 1: going to be a new album that comes out later
Speaker 1: this year in June twenty twenty five. It's been thirteen
Speaker 1: years since he released Sun Dark, River Lights in twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: which was an album that celebrated his first decade in
Speaker 1: music by reimagining old songs. It was sort of a
Speaker 1: best of that boiled some of his songs from previous
Speaker 1: albums back down to more traditional folk songs. But between
Speaker 1: its release and where we are now in spring of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, this man has experienced one tragedy after another.
Speaker 1: It includes addiction to alcohol and hard drugs. In twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: his mother died, he was involved in a hit and
Speaker 1: run accident where he was a pedestrian whilst in Italy,
Speaker 1: and in twenty seventeen he was declared bankrupt after it
Speaker 1: turned out his manager and accountant had been failing to
Speaker 1: pay his taxes.
Speaker 3: I have a theory that chaos begets chaos, you know,
Speaker 3: so if you are you know, at the at the
Speaker 3: heart of.
Speaker 2: All of this stuff is is somebody without any self control,
Speaker 2: without any healing of any raw nerve, all the all
Speaker 2: the nerve endings like like you've you've wider plug and
Speaker 2: put the earth in the but all the different colors
Speaker 2: in the wrong places. And and there is a sense
Speaker 2: of responsibility that that I take for all of those.
Speaker 3: Things that happened.
Speaker 2: I the bankruptcy came through financial abuse through a management
Speaker 2: system and accountant.
Speaker 3: For eight years of my life.
Speaker 2: I you know, at the end of the day, the
Speaker 2: only person that could ever have found that out was
Speaker 2: somebody that that decided to take a little bit of
Speaker 2: responsibility for their financeing and investigate these things. But of
Speaker 2: course they should never have done those things in the
Speaker 2: first place. But at the end of the day, it
Speaker 2: didn't stop until I.
Speaker 3: Wised up a bit.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry those things happened to me in one way,
Speaker 2: but I also believe that things got that those things
Speaker 2: stopped happening when I decided to to change my behavior.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, I do know.
Speaker 2: You know, there is there's a pattern of people entering
Speaker 2: rock bottom that It's not just that they can't stop
Speaker 2: drinking or they can't stop using. It's that they're losing
Speaker 2: their relationships, their house, they're breaking their mobile phone every week,
Speaker 2: they've lost their ten passports like me, like they like
Speaker 2: I used to go through a phone every month, you know,
Speaker 2: and I kin't and I.
Speaker 1: Am from from what from just drop.
Speaker 2: Drop, dropping it, running it over, putting it in the bath,
Speaker 2: just like you. You know, I went ten passports. I
Speaker 2: had the government people warning me up saying you're not
Speaker 2: allowed another one. We think you might be committing fraud,
Speaker 2: you know, like I haven't lost a passport since I've
Speaker 2: got since I've got sober, I haven't. I still had
Speaker 2: the same phone, you know, there's and and if you
Speaker 2: look at that on a macro scale, of course, it
Speaker 2: were most likely that I would get run over or
Speaker 2: or you know.
Speaker 1: So even even that, even like being hit by a
Speaker 1: car in Italy, you take a certain amount of responsibilief.
Speaker 2: I take it as a big warning sign that you
Speaker 2: know as well. But you know, I had to romanticize
Speaker 2: it because like on one side at the end of
Speaker 2: that road was where Byrons it was a beach in
Speaker 2: Lago del Puccini in Via Reggio, was where Byron's body
Speaker 2: was washed up on the shore. You know, some like
Speaker 2: romanticizing it at the time, you know, and still like
Speaker 2: and it's like, yeah, you know, it's like near it was.
Speaker 2: It was all quite like, you know, kind of glamorous
Speaker 2: and felt like part of ye know, I didn't take it.
Speaker 2: I just didn't take it very seriously for another few years, basically,
Speaker 2: but I saw it that that I do take it.
Speaker 2: I do take it as a one of the many
Speaker 2: things that happened because I was a bit of a
Speaker 2: vortex really, Yeah, as a black hole.
Speaker 1: Way back when that last YEW came out, we actually
Speaker 1: spoke on the phone for an interview for the magazine,
Speaker 1: and I think, I don't know if you were just there,
Speaker 1: you just happened to be there. But were you living
Speaker 1: in LA at that point and you spoke to me
Speaker 1: from LA?
Speaker 3: That would have been terrifying.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, that's not a great place for me.
Speaker 1: Was that it was? But you were there at that
Speaker 1: point around that time they're releasing that record? What was
Speaker 1: the sort of plan? Obviously it's you know, thirteen years
Speaker 1: between records, obviously very long time. It's a lot's happened.
Speaker 1: But when you think back to that time of twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: was the plan to put out that record, tour it,
Speaker 1: promote it, and then make another record within you know,
Speaker 1: as you normally, you know, as an art as normally
Speaker 1: would within two or three four years. Can you remember
Speaker 1: what you what? What was the plan back then? Or
Speaker 1: was there not one?
Speaker 2: I do remember because I had started to work out
Speaker 2: that there was something very dark sided happening with my
Speaker 2: management and perhaps with my accounts and I and I
Speaker 2: needed to get out of that situation, and because I
Speaker 2: didn't really know any other alternative, I was like, well,
Speaker 2: I just need I just need all this to stop
Speaker 2: so I can work out what's going on. And so
Speaker 2: I decided I.
Speaker 3: Started to.
Speaker 2: Make I started to sew to to sew seeds in
Speaker 2: my management's management's head, saying that I was going to
Speaker 2: this is going to be my last album for a while.
Speaker 2: I was going to go and learn sculpture, and that
Speaker 2: I was going to and I was basically looking like
Speaker 2: trying to say to everybody, like you can't make.
Speaker 3: Money out of me anymore.
Speaker 2: I'm going to this is my last record for a
Speaker 2: long time. And I was kind of putting it like
Speaker 2: kind of I'm kind of use that word manifest.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a clay to use that.
Speaker 2: No, I guess, like you know, manifest what manifests, like,
Speaker 2: you know, we manifest everything apparently these days. So but
Speaker 2: I was, you know, without without really going into the
Speaker 2: grotesquery of of of of what was happening at that time,
Speaker 2: I was setting up a period of a break as
Speaker 2: a test to to the people around me to see
Speaker 2: how they react about me not making money for them anymore.
Speaker 2: But also because and but in order to do that,
Speaker 2: I realized that I was going to have to.
Speaker 3: To physically take time.
Speaker 2: And when I was and I was starting to realize
Speaker 2: at the end of Sun Dark and Riverlight, and I
Speaker 2: was also just a feeling of like I did, I
Speaker 2: just felt like a sense of a chapter of work ending.
Speaker 2: And I'm talking about not like the recent album, but
Speaker 2: the thing, the thing I started at eighteen, I felt
Speaker 2: like was coming to a natural end. I don't like
Speaker 2: in this studio, I've got two albums I'm preparing to
Speaker 2: come after this album. I've always had another project on
Speaker 2: the go. When I was making the Chan three, I
Speaker 2: was demoing some songs for the Magic Position. When I
Speaker 2: was doing Wind in the Wires, some of the songs
Speaker 2: set up on the batch. There's always like kind of
Speaker 2: a two album, like there's always a long distance element
Speaker 2: to what I was doing. And there was just nothing
Speaker 2: coming to me at all, And.
Speaker 3: It was like, so yeah, I was. I remember, I felt.
Speaker 2: Like it was the ending of something. I didn't realize
Speaker 2: how how long it would be, but you know, you
Speaker 2: can't like it was. It was really when my voicelessness
Speaker 2: took over and I lost my voice to quite a
Speaker 2: furious addiction for the next four or five years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, has there ever been a point within that period
Speaker 1: of time where you sort of told yourself, I don't
Speaker 1: think I'm going to make another record. I don't got
Speaker 1: it in me.
Speaker 3: I mean exactly that. And it was when.
Speaker 2: I was assigned a psychotherapist by the NHS. I'd gone
Speaker 2: to them about some you know, things that were troubling
Speaker 2: them my behavior, and they they wanted to diagnose me
Speaker 2: with with with something. They wanted to work out what
Speaker 2: was wrong with me. And I was given a psychiatrist,
Speaker 2: so it's a clinical psychotherapist. And the first thing he
Speaker 2: did it was like, you haven't worked for for.
Speaker 3: Like eight years.
Speaker 2: That's not usual for somebody in that, you know, you
Speaker 2: haven't whatever it's like if you were because I wasn't unemployed,
Speaker 2: because I still receiving royalties for like the magic position,
Speaker 2: and from you know, like it wasn't like what he
Speaker 2: realized was like, the first thing we're going to do
Speaker 2: is work out why you why you can't function with
Speaker 2: the thing that you're meant to be doing in your life.
Speaker 2: And then and it was it was like that was
Speaker 2: I didn't realize it was like a clinically diagnosed that
Speaker 2: like I hadn't worked for like eight years, I hadn't
Speaker 2: finished anything, and we went about.
Speaker 1: Were you aware of it, Like, was that like being
Speaker 1: told that number. Was that like a sudden realization or
Speaker 1: were you constantly aware of the fact that, like, shit,
Speaker 1: I've not made something again.
Speaker 2: Well, I always always used to feel that the New
Speaker 2: Year's Eve of like, oh my god, Patrick, another year
Speaker 2: has gone.
Speaker 3: By and you haven't Year's I.
Speaker 2: Mean literally, like the thing is I was still doing.
Speaker 3: That.
Speaker 2: I mean that the the synchronicity of this whole period,
Speaker 2: you know, is really blessed because despite all this malevolence
Speaker 2: going on, there were people really lifting me and carrying
Speaker 2: me for so like that weekend where I played there
Speaker 2: was like this like about a month basically where I'd
Speaker 2: already been playing a fiddle with Patty Smith in her
Speaker 2: band at the end of Lupekalia and into Sundarken River
Speaker 2: Light during this so twenty ten to twenty twelve, I
Speaker 2: had met Patty at Land Festival.
Speaker 3: And then she.
Speaker 2: And then I had fired my management, which meant I
Speaker 2: also had to lose my booking agent, my accountant, like
Speaker 2: I lost basically all contacts to the music industry very
Speaker 2: very rapidly. And so the weekend that I lost my
Speaker 2: booking agent, I did a show with Patti at World
Speaker 2: Festival Hall for like the Yoko own know, the Double
Speaker 2: Fantasy album, So I had to sing three Yoko and
Speaker 2: John Lennon songs and did a song with Patty. We
Speaker 2: did Beautiful Boy anyway, so that was already magical. But
Speaker 2: she then her booking agent was in the room and
Speaker 2: she said, Andy, look after Patrick. He hasn't got a
Speaker 2: booking agent. And then and then basically he put me
Speaker 2: on tour because then I had all these I had
Speaker 2: all these legal problems with because I'd fire the management.
Speaker 2: But then I had to get a lump sum in
Speaker 2: order to get my uh to get my rights back
Speaker 2: off them of my my early work, so that it
Speaker 2: wasn't like so anyway I had to I had to
Speaker 2: come up with this huge amount of money to to
Speaker 2: get that back, and then he put me on the
Speaker 2: road to do that. And in the meantime, over those years,
Speaker 2: I was playing with Patty every three months or quite
Speaker 2: a lot of shows. Even if I was in La
Speaker 2: I'd do a show over there. But so I was
Speaker 2: still like functioning as a musician. I was still doing things.
Speaker 1: You were doing enough to not realize, not realize and
Speaker 1: to not necessarily need to because you sort of had.
Speaker 1: I guess you had while I'm doing this and I'm
Speaker 1: still I'm working musician, I'm just not making a record
Speaker 1: right now. And that's yeah.
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 2: I was very I was very aware and the you know,
Speaker 2: the the the addiction was, it's just you know, and
Speaker 2: the way, the type of addiction it was is a
Speaker 2: swallower of people's voices and souls, you know, And and
Speaker 2: i'd noticed that we are. I was going down that
Speaker 2: path quite quite quickly. And I think when I started
Speaker 2: to realize the co morbidity of it all it was
Speaker 2: just because I was a a songwriter who hadn't released,
Speaker 2: who hadn't finished the song in ages.
Speaker 3: It was because I was an addict, you know, and.
Speaker 2: Co morbidity of it all was was when I realized
Speaker 2: I had a very very big problem on top of that.
Speaker 3: If you think.
Speaker 2: Without management, without booking agent, with that record label, without
Speaker 2: all of those things, like, how do you even begin
Speaker 2: to work your way back into any of those situations too?
Speaker 2: To release to release anything again? I mean, now I
Speaker 2: have all this all those things. It wasn't easy to
Speaker 2: come by and to build that all up again. And
Speaker 2: it's quite a huge infrastructure that goes into releasing a
Speaker 2: song or like in this the way that we're doing it,
Speaker 2: you know, or putting a tour together, like you need.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of people.
Speaker 2: I didn't have one person I had. I had my
Speaker 2: booking agent, but that was on a very like the
Speaker 2: other artists that he represented were people that didn't need
Speaker 2: those things anymore, like Lou Read and marrying faithful Patti Smith.
Speaker 2: You know, I was like the youngest person in all
Speaker 2: this group of people. But yeah, that that part is
Speaker 2: we really don't underestimate that that side. It just it
Speaker 2: just felt like I was just completely not in the
Speaker 2: music industry anymore at all.
Speaker 1: I think that's quite interesting because I think people would
Speaker 1: listening would maybe just presume, but you're Patrick Wolf and
Speaker 1: you're you're like, you're a tried and tested name, you've
Speaker 1: been signed to like a major, you've been you've done
Speaker 1: things yourself, you've done things independently. I think people would
Speaker 1: just presume that, yeah, you'd been away for a lot
Speaker 1: of time, but you can still call some be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm ready to go. No, I need a man. You know,
Speaker 1: you can call a manager and get a manager. You
Speaker 1: can call a booker and get a booker.
Speaker 2: But and let me let me tell you this, Like that,
Speaker 2: when I was ready to go back to work, because
Speaker 2: of the amount of time that I had taken away
Speaker 2: the I had to prove every step of the way
Speaker 2: that I still had an audience. So I knew I
Speaker 2: hadn't still had an audience. I knew what kind of
Speaker 2: venues I could sell out, but working with a new
Speaker 2: booking agent, I had to slam my fist down on
Speaker 2: the table and say, book me in this city, book
Speaker 2: me in this.
Speaker 3: Town, book me in this venue.
Speaker 2: Even when I first when I finished my EP that
Speaker 2: the people putting it out didn't think that I would.
Speaker 2: They thought, oh, would just to go straight to digital
Speaker 2: because we don't know if Patrick they're enough people that
Speaker 2: are interested in buying vinyl anymore. So I said, I
Speaker 2: dare you to press up a thousand copies. And we
Speaker 2: sold out the first one thousand in the first month,
Speaker 2: actually the first week, first two weeks, we sold out
Speaker 2: the first to London. We sold out the first London
Speaker 2: show in two hours. I had to for like eight years,
Speaker 2: and during that lost period, I had lost all my
Speaker 2: self confidence and faith in myself and possibilities. So I
Speaker 2: had to like when suddenly I got back to work
Speaker 2: and people were doubting that I could be successful whatever
Speaker 2: that means. But successful in terms of just functioning as
Speaker 2: an artist. Putting out a thousand copies of record, doing
Speaker 2: a four hundred and fifty capacity venue, small things in
Speaker 2: terms of what I've done in the past. But like
Speaker 2: I felt like I was being punished for taking that
Speaker 2: time away. There was no that apart from my management,
Speaker 2: there wasn't there was no faith in the fact that
Speaker 2: like it's like the music industry says, take take time,
Speaker 2: take you know, your mental health and stuff, but it's like,
Speaker 2: but not too long, because then we don't you're useless
Speaker 2: to us.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So it was a lot of that, and even last
Speaker 2: year I had to really prove that there was an
Speaker 2: audience still in Berlin. There's an audience still in all
Speaker 2: the major cities that I worked really hard for since
Speaker 2: I was eighteen.
Speaker 1: I realize now as we get to the end of
Speaker 1: this episode that I'm really making you wait for it.
Speaker 1: But there are happier times coming for Patrick. Wolfe. I've
Speaker 1: chopped this episode into part one and part two because
Speaker 1: we did spend a lot of time talking and there
Speaker 1: was just a lot to get into. As we've already heard,
Speaker 1: it's been a thirteen year hiatus and it's not been
Speaker 1: the easiest thirteen years. But in part two of my
Speaker 1: chat with Patrick Wolfe, which I'll put out next week,
Speaker 1: is talk of the Haye of the major labels and
Speaker 1: the amount of money he spent audaciously.
Speaker 2: I thought should be on a major label. I was like, well,
Speaker 2: why isn't this on a major? Why isn't it got
Speaker 2: the same treatment as Girls Allowed? I end up on
Speaker 2: the same label as like Girls Allowed, you know, and
Speaker 2: it's like, I didn't know if you looked at it
Speaker 2: from the outside, if I looked at it at him, like
Speaker 2: what are you doing there?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: But it was it was a fun game to play
Speaker 2: in it, and I don't think actually I lost.
Speaker 1: And of course where he is now. There's a new
Speaker 1: album coming in June of this year called Crying the Neck.
Speaker 1: We get into what that is about, how some of
Speaker 1: the songs on there, how he feels about it, and
Speaker 1: how he's adapting to being a musician again in a
Speaker 1: world that is very different to the one that he
Speaker 1: left twenty twelve. Things were not asked of musicians that
Speaker 1: are being asked of them today with promotion and social
Speaker 1: media and content creation. Luckily for Patrick Wolfe, he's got
Speaker 1: a lot of that in his locker because he's always
Speaker 1: been a very industrious person. And there's something very unique
Speaker 1: about Patrick wolf in the sense that he is a
Speaker 1: man who has done it both ways. He's done extremely
Speaker 1: DIY records where he's done everything himself. He's done big
Speaker 1: major label records where he's had huge budgets to work with.
Speaker 1: So we talk a lot about that and get into it.
Speaker 1: It's not all sad. Thank you to Patrick for taking
Speaker 1: the time. We spoke for a long time, which is
Speaker 1: why it is in two and as you've already heard,
Speaker 1: he's very honest and open, so hopefully you've enjoyed part
Speaker 1: one to come back for part two. The best thing
Speaker 1: to do is if you just subscribe wherever you're listening
Speaker 1: to this, then you will know exactly when it arrives,
Speaker 1: or give us a follow on substack land quiet dot
Speaker 1: substack dot com and you'll receive an email as soon
Speaker 1: as this is ready to go. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: Thank you to Patrick, and thank you to me.