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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the barber of Certified That.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is David Great. David, you have a

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Speaker 1: new album. Tell me about it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's called Dear Life. It's been in the pipeline,

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Speaker 2: the creative pipeline, quite a while. It's it's it's birth

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Speaker 2: process has been somewhat dislocated by the complications of COVID

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Speaker 2: and all the sort of touring backlog and life backlog

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Speaker 2: that happened. So it's it's it's a massive work because

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Speaker 2: I think I'm trying to sort of clear the decks.

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Speaker 2: So this is sort of chapter one of the stuff

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Speaker 2: that I've been doing for the last few years. It's

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Speaker 2: a record that, I mean, I don't know why some

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Speaker 2: records come out more sort of energized, or I say

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Speaker 2: about these songs that they were born standing up. They've

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Speaker 2: seemed very direct, melodic and and moving out to the listener.

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Speaker 2: So some of my stuff maybe a little bit more

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Speaker 2: introspective or oblique or just slightly more abstracted. This record

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Speaker 2: is not suffering depth wise for its immediacy, but I

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Speaker 2: feel it has this kind of melodic principle and a

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Speaker 2: very direct engagement. It's straight to camera as I would

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Speaker 2: say as well. So I use the kind of short

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Speaker 2: story writer's imaginative trick of using other voices, not just

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Speaker 2: a straight autio but altobiographical approach. I kind of use

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Speaker 2: lots of different angles to get different views of the

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Speaker 2: same mountain. Twenty views of Mount Fuji by Hockasei's it's

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Speaker 2: it's lots of different views of life. Maybe as life

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Speaker 2: starts to progress, as the view begins to change. So that,

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Speaker 2: in an that's what it's all about.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back. You say it was long time

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Speaker 1: in the development. Is that because of COVID? Be a

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Speaker 1: little more specific, please, yeah.

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Speaker 2: No. I started the process in twenty nineteen in full

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Speaker 2: knowledge that in March of twenty twenty I was going

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Speaker 2: to be embarking on the White Ladder Anniversary Tour, which

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Speaker 2: was going to take most of twenty twenty out of

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Speaker 2: the equation, So I knew I would be sort of

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Speaker 2: rejoining the album at the end of that, But of

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Speaker 2: course life had other ideas, and we did all the

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Speaker 2: prep and we rehearsals and the production rehearsals, and then

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Speaker 2: the day just before the first show, we locked down

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Speaker 2: and it was a long time before the tour was viable.

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Speaker 2: So it then changed everything and the real star burst

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Speaker 2: of song writing I had written a few songs at

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Speaker 2: the end of twenty nineteen happened at the end of

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Speaker 2: COVID when I've had a zoom call with my managers

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Speaker 2: and agents and we decided that the tour was going

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Speaker 2: to have to go ahead in early twenty twenty two.

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Speaker 2: Because you could no longer hold other dates. It wasn't

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Speaker 2: possible to sort of hedge your bets. You had to

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Speaker 2: either do it or not do it and wait another

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Speaker 2: eighteen months if you weren't going to go. Then there

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Speaker 2: were so many tours in a holding pattern, and that

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Speaker 2: kind of gave me this kind of clarity that I

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Speaker 2: had five months before rehearsal started. During COVID, I, like

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Speaker 2: many creative people, thought I'll go down to my studio

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Speaker 2: in the basement and I'm going to start making music

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Speaker 2: while everyone else is wondering what to do with themselves.

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Speaker 2: But eventually the pressure and the strangeness of this experience

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Speaker 2: bore down on me and it became sort of ridiculously

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Speaker 2: unhealthy actually to indulge my creative principles when there was

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Speaker 2: something much bigger to address, which was life itself. Finally,

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Speaker 2: the horizon had been canceled. What we just had was

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Speaker 2: the day, the time, and the people, and I'd luckily

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Speaker 2: had my family around me. So after a couple of

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Speaker 2: months of writing songs and trying to press record and

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Speaker 2: run in and record things, I just took the pressure

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Speaker 2: off and decided to just exist with my family and

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Speaker 2: partly that fund of experience and actually letting the field

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Speaker 2: go fallow I think had a huge effect, positive effect

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Speaker 2: in terms of the writing and the emotional coherence of

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Speaker 2: what then happened. So some of the lyrics and some

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Speaker 2: of the songs relate directly to that experience, but I

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Speaker 2: think just as a whole. Anyway, I got to the

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Speaker 2: end of twenty one, as I say, and we had

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Speaker 2: this Zoom meeting and it was clear that the tour

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Speaker 2: was going ahead in May or not or not at all.

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Speaker 2: So with this clarity in mind, I just began to work,

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Speaker 2: and I worked in a way I've never worked before.

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Speaker 2: It wasn't that new songs came, which is always something

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Speaker 2: that will happen if you put yourself at the cold

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Speaker 2: face and keep turning up. It was that the song

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Speaker 2: the Half Finished things which I've always got hundreds of

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Speaker 2: the ones I was just picking up, I was just

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Speaker 2: finishing them, and it was an extraordinary experience. I've completed

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Speaker 2: thirty or forty things in the space of a few months,

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Speaker 2: and that's a hell of a pace for me. So

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Speaker 2: it was informed by this whole relationship to not doing

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Speaker 2: it so that the making of this record. So sometimes

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Speaker 2: time can be a collaborator. Putting records out always takes

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Speaker 2: longer than you wanted to. In this case, there was

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Speaker 2: a great, big two year hole in the middle. But

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Speaker 2: in the end it's all been in favor of the music.

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Speaker 2: It's all worked out well.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So since you decided that working in the studio

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Speaker 1: was counter productive, how did you cope with COVID.

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Speaker 2: Well, I just I tried to just be I mean,

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Speaker 2: I've been telling myself perhaps somewhat dishonestly. Or did I

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Speaker 2: have the courage to just stop be with my family?

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Speaker 2: The elephant in the room is that I love these

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Speaker 2: guys very much, but it's always work that comes first,

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Speaker 2: and there's always something burning in my imagination that I've

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Speaker 2: got to get to, or there's an event or a

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Speaker 2: tour or a deadline that I'm working towards so they're

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Speaker 2: just accommodated really a lot of the time in my head. Anyway,

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Speaker 2: in amongst all that stuff that I chose, they were

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Speaker 2: getting into their late teens. It was a chance to

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Speaker 2: sort of be together with my wife and my children.

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Speaker 2: I've been saying for years, Jesus, I need to stop

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Speaker 2: touring and just be for a while, And finally I

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Speaker 2: was being made to do it. And of course the

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Speaker 2: first thing I wanted to do was find something else

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Speaker 2: to do, so I kind of it took a while

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Speaker 2: to to see the elephant in the room, which was

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Speaker 2: that God, this stuff really matters. And I think there

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Speaker 2: was something that happened in COVID that was there was

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Speaker 2: many things that happened that were extraordinary. I know it

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Speaker 2: was a horrendous experience on so many levels for so

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Speaker 2: many people. But death in our culture is absent or

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Speaker 2: at least postponed as a reality in most kind of

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Speaker 2: conversations and dialogue. And here we were looking at daily

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Speaker 2: stats and hearing stories and suddenly it was the center

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Speaker 2: of attention. Not only that, but we were robbed of

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Speaker 2: this kind of must do something, the constellations of action.

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Speaker 2: We had to just contemplate the bare realities of changing

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Speaker 2: seasons and the tick of the clock and people being

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Speaker 2: in life and death situations. And it was a very

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Speaker 2: contemplative experience. But anyway, I felt personally very enriched by

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Speaker 2: spending time with my family. We watched films, we played games,

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Speaker 2: we did stuff. It was like a long Christmas holiday

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Speaker 2: for a while.

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Speaker 1: And have you gotten COVID?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? I got it in twenty one, and actually I

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Speaker 2: got it in twenty two, just before the tours, so

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Speaker 2: luckily I was nicely immunized before it all kicked off.

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Speaker 1: And when you actually went on the tour in twenty two,

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Speaker 1: to what degree did you have COVID precautions so that

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Speaker 1: the band or you didn't get sick and you didn't

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Speaker 1: have to cancel deats?

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Speaker 2: We didn't have any, to be honest, Bob, there was

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Speaker 2: by that point. I mean you were standing in a

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Speaker 2: room of however many thousand people bellowing at you. I

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Speaker 2: don't think on a sort of virus prevention level there

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Speaker 2: was much chance of avoiding things. What happened was that

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Speaker 2: one of the band got COVID during the tour, and

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Speaker 2: it was then passed on to all the other members.

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Speaker 2: Of the band apart from me. So one particular show

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Speaker 2: we had to do with everybody being isolated from everybody

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Speaker 2: else crew band. It was quite crazy, and I was

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Speaker 2: the only person who was actually healthy. So it affected

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Speaker 2: the tour in that way. But in terms of the

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Speaker 2: precautions when you're living on a tour bus together and

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Speaker 2: I mean you're constantly just in these situations, it was

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Speaker 2: it was very difficult. Like a lot of COVID it

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Speaker 2: was good in theory that you can do things, but

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Speaker 2: separation wasn't really possible. So we obviously we did We

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Speaker 2: didn't throw caution to the wind. We were kind of

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Speaker 2: mindful of what the dangers were, but I think at

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Speaker 2: that point people were restless anyway to reconnect. It gave

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Speaker 2: it provided the tour with an incredible burst of energy

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Speaker 2: for us who'd been denied the thing that we do,

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Speaker 2: but also for the crowds to do a feel good

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Speaker 2: thing like that as well. I mean to be gratifying

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Speaker 2: everyone in that fashion. It was just what they wanted

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Speaker 2: and what they needed probably, so it gave this electric

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Speaker 2: electricity to everything, a sort of extra charge. So that

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Speaker 2: was quite remarkable to be a part of.

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Speaker 1: Let's Go Back you say your work is always number

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Speaker 1: one in your family. We can talk about that generally,

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Speaker 1: like hey, I have to go on the road, But

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Speaker 1: as a practical matter, how does that manifest itself. It's

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Speaker 1: like all of a sudden, you get an idea and

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Speaker 1: you go, I gotta go into my room. I gotta

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Speaker 1: cut it. Or your wife says, hey, you've been working

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Speaker 1: for twenty days straight. You got to stay at dinner.

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Speaker 1: Tell me what it's actually like.

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Speaker 2: Well, the way I deal with it, Bob, is that

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Speaker 2: I compartmentalize. So I do either of those things. Most

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Speaker 2: of my life is organizational. It's not creative at all.

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Speaker 2: It's very hard to find the time for pure creativity.

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Speaker 2: But when I get into a writing mode and I

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Speaker 2: say to everyone, right, stop emailing me, stop bothering me.

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Speaker 2: I'm going to be writing a record. Now, I'm recording,

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Speaker 2: leave me alone. And then if I get three clear

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Speaker 2: days a week, I think I'm doing well. For it's

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Speaker 2: superb There's so many other things to attend to. So

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Speaker 2: I would normally work like a working day, get up early,

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Speaker 2: get into the studio early. I like the fresh mind

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Speaker 2: of the morning, and I would work through till seven o'clock.

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Speaker 2: Maybe and stop, and that would be my working day.

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Speaker 2: And as I say, Monday to Thursday if I can

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Speaker 2: get that, if I can't, and Tuesday to Thursday, you know,

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Speaker 2: making this record. Sometimes I went away and that was

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Speaker 2: another part of it, to the countryside and would work

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Speaker 2: longer hours. I'd work into the night, and that was

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Speaker 2: actually very beautiful, so still so quiet. Some extraordinary things

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Speaker 2: happened in those spaces. But no, basically I try and

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Speaker 2: just be quite disciplined. So if I have an idea,

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Speaker 2: it generally just has to wait until I have the

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Speaker 2: time to explore it. I mean, now, I've just been

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Speaker 2: writing lyric notes down this afternoon. A few things came

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Speaker 2: into my mind, and then a musical idea came to

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Speaker 2: me while I was practicing. Because I got the tour

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Speaker 2: obviously starting for this new record, I've got to get

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Speaker 2: myself up to speed. So as accidents still happened on

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Speaker 2: the peyboard or on the guitar, and oh, that's interesting,

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Speaker 2: I must remember this. And then a little melody came

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Speaker 2: and I thought, actually that works with this lyric, and

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Speaker 2: blah blah blah, I just have to make a little

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Speaker 2: note of it and come back to it. So it's

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Speaker 2: it's it's it's not possible. It's like I work a

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Speaker 2: sort of milk round and I can get to be

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Speaker 2: a musician, you know when I've finished.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's say it's Monday to Thursday and you're working.

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Speaker 1: Can your family interrupt you? Or do you turn off

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Speaker 1: all your devices? And everybody knows David's working, leave them alone?

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Speaker 2: Now that kids will just interrupt you. They say things

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Speaker 2: like world shattering importance, Like Dad, the Wi Fi isn't working,

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Speaker 2: you know, I mean the world, the world's come to

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Speaker 2: an end. Life being what it is, there's sort of

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Speaker 2: digital hell. We've all been plunged into that. There's enough.

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Speaker 2: There's always something going wrong, So no, there's there's if

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Speaker 2: Amazon aren't tapping on your door or something, there's always

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Speaker 2: some bloody interruption. So no, I think, as I say,

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Speaker 2: broadly speaking, yes, if I said no, I'm in this mode,

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Speaker 2: that they wouldn't come down. I'd be left to my

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Speaker 2: own devices during the day. Now, I don't have a

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Speaker 2: studio at home because I've moved house. So I've got

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Speaker 2: a studio just up the road, a few miles up

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Speaker 2: the road in West London. So when I'm there, I'm there,

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Speaker 2: so that in a way, that's a lot more straightforward.

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Speaker 2: When my studio was in the house, it was deeply problematic,

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Speaker 2: so children would have parties in there and all kinds

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Speaker 2: of things, you know, So it was it was, it was.

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Speaker 2: It was a complex. Having my life squashed together with

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Speaker 2: the house above the studio sounds ideal, but actually it

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Speaker 2: was problematic. So I'm happier with this separation that I

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Speaker 2: have now in some ways.

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Speaker 1: So why did you move house?

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Speaker 2: Because kids are sort of getting older and leaving home.

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Speaker 2: And we lived in a nice leafy part of London

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Speaker 2: called Hampstead, and it's all very nice, got lovely schools

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Speaker 2: and beautiful. The heath is what it's famous for, where

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Speaker 2: Keats and Coleridge used to wander and compose their rhymes.

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Speaker 2: But it's really a bit boring. So we've decided to

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Speaker 2: move right into the center of town. So we've kind

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Speaker 2: of we've moved into w one, trying to make our

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Speaker 2: lives a bit more interesting and a bit more cultural cultural,

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Speaker 2: I suppose, like, so you can just walk out and

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Speaker 2: do stuff, go to the shops, restaurants, theaters, galleries. Not

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Speaker 2: that I'm spending all my time doing that, but you

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Speaker 2: certainly can. And I like being just walking distance to everything,

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Speaker 2: whether it's Selfridges or the Tait. I can kind of

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Speaker 2: just basically just wander to it. So that's been the change.

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Speaker 2: I think I wouldn't have enacted that change if we

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Speaker 2: didn't have a second home. We're lucky enough to have

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Speaker 2: the ultimate luxury, which is a country place. I've got

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Speaker 2: a little house up on the coast in Norfolk, right

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Speaker 2: by the beach, so I get all the fresh air

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Speaker 2: and wilderness I can deal with when I'm up there,

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Speaker 2: and then I come back to London and I can

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Speaker 2: live in a different way.

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Speaker 1: How many kids do you have?

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Speaker 2: Two? I got two.

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Speaker 1: Girls in their presently what age.

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Speaker 2: Twenty two and twenty and are.

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Speaker 1: They still live in their house? Are they out? Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Exactly. Well, one of them's kind of half living here,

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Speaker 2: half not living here. But I think it's a lot

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Speaker 2: nicer to live here than it is in her crappy

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Speaker 2: student flat. So the other ones just gone back to

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Speaker 2: university this morning. She's gone back to Glasgow, so she's

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Speaker 2: there during the terms and she comes back for holidays,

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Speaker 2: so they're kind of here some of the time. It's

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Speaker 2: a lot nicer being at home than it is in

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Speaker 2: your little flat, that's for sure.

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Speaker 1: And you know, there's a TV show in America that

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Speaker 1: you may or may not be familiar with call Family

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Speaker 1: Ties from the eighties nineties where the parents are hippies

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Speaker 1: and Michael J. Fox is very conservative. What are your

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Speaker 1: kids like relative to you and your wife?

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Speaker 2: Well, I think just the way that they are as

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Speaker 2: they've always been very conversational children, So they're highly articulate

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Speaker 2: and sociable and not intimidated by adults or other people.

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Speaker 2: They will be very chatty people, good, able to speak

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Speaker 2: much better than I am, certainly, So that's sort of

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Speaker 2: what they're like. What are they like politically culturally? Well

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Speaker 2: that they've they're in this touch of a finger generation

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Speaker 2: for everything they want, so they have a different relationship

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Speaker 2: to things. It's interesting. I mean I haven't protected them

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Speaker 2: from what was basically, you know, the open sewer of

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Speaker 2: the internet and social media. They've been a how to

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Speaker 2: ramble because I guess I feel that they need to

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Speaker 2: know how to survive this this world. So they've been left,

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Speaker 2: they've had phones, they've had all this stuff. They've been

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Speaker 2: exposed to god knows what. So but they have this

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Speaker 2: different relationship to music and culture, and obviously there's different

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Speaker 2: political opinions. So identity politics has become such a huge thing.

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Speaker 2: It's something we all disagree about in our family.

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Speaker 1: So they're there.

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Speaker 2: They're My youngest is very political. Ye, this not as much,

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Speaker 2: although recent events have made her more so. So it's

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Speaker 2: that they're they're not dissimilar to us. They're just have

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Speaker 2: a different generation and they view certain things very differently.

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Speaker 2: I think when I was growing up, music was it

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Speaker 2: was more than what you listen to, what kind of

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Speaker 2: reflected on you. It was it was actually your identity

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Speaker 2: because choosing what you didn't like was just as profound

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Speaker 2: as what you did. So if you were a mode

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Speaker 2: or a rocker, or if you were a punk, or

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Speaker 2: you were this, if you're you know, if you like

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Speaker 2: talking heads and this and that, but you don't like

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Speaker 2: Joranne Joanna, you were you positioned yourself, glued yourself together.

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Speaker 2: If you discovered Leonard coh and John Martin, Nick Drake,

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Speaker 2: these are the things that became what you were not

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Speaker 2: internally and also sort of your character sort of thing.

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Speaker 2: I think it was more tribal, it was rara, and

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Speaker 2: now it's like everything's available all the time. It's it's

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Speaker 2: not quite the same.

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Speaker 1: So if your kids turned you on to music or

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Speaker 1: turned you off to music.

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Speaker 2: Well, of course they listened to all They listened to

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Speaker 2: all kinds of stuff, which to me is it's just

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Speaker 2: lays it on too thick, maybe you know, moaning about this,

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Speaker 2: that or the rest. So but yeah, they've they've turned

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Speaker 2: me on to quite a few things because they have

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Speaker 2: very diverse listening. It they're being they're connecting through I

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Speaker 2: don't know if it's algorithmic, but they're certainly accelerating their

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Speaker 2: their knowledge and contact with music through TV through sort

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Speaker 2: of applied versions of the music. They find it in

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Speaker 2: places and then they pass it around like so they

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Speaker 2: have quite a kind of quite catholic taste in some ways.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, I've picked up on a few tracks which

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Speaker 2: I really really like. So but generally one of the

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Speaker 2: problems is we don't share our listening. In the old days,

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Speaker 2: the parents used to have to watch Top of the

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Speaker 2: Pops with the kids and go, what's this rubbish? You know,

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00:19:42,359 --> 00:19:47,520
Speaker 2: the crazy world of Arthur Brown fire. You know, he

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00:19:47,520 --> 00:19:49,560
Speaker 2: should he should get a job, you know, like they

339
00:19:49,640 --> 00:19:54,359
Speaker 2: used to say things like that, and you know, these days,

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Speaker 2: we don't have that common experience. There isn't a thing

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00:19:57,080 --> 00:19:59,400
Speaker 2: that everyone does to listen to music, So you get

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00:19:59,440 --> 00:20:01,760
Speaker 2: to hear what they're listening to. You just occasionally hear

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00:20:01,800 --> 00:20:05,080
Speaker 2: it blasting out of the shower or something, or they've

344
00:20:05,119 --> 00:20:08,160
Speaker 2: stolen your bow speaker and they've taken over the living

345
00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:11,359
Speaker 2: room and you get to hear something. But you know,

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Speaker 2: I think I heard they were the other days that

347
00:20:14,359 --> 00:20:17,240
Speaker 2: they were playing some Velvet Morning by what you McCall

348
00:20:17,320 --> 00:20:20,679
Speaker 2: it and Nancy Sinatra and what's his name? I thought, well,

349
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Speaker 2: I said, this is a great track. I said, have

350
00:20:23,720 --> 00:20:26,520
Speaker 2: you listened to this record? This is a great record.

351
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Speaker 2: They were like, no, we just know this track. I'm like, well,

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Speaker 2: when you listen to the whole thing?

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Speaker 1: Okay, To what degree are you a student of the game?

354
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Speaker 1: To what degree do you know what the ticket prices are?

355
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Speaker 1: To what degree are you concerned with praises? To what

356
00:20:43,080 --> 00:20:48,080
Speaker 1: degree do you know the gross? Do you know the cross? Well?

357
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Speaker 2: I have I have to. I've been an independent artist

358
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Speaker 2: for a long time now, so it's touring has become

359
00:20:55,920 --> 00:20:58,399
Speaker 2: much more expensive and it's very high risk. I mean,

360
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Speaker 2: you you you spend a lot of money to put

361
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Speaker 2: a tour on, and this tour I'm about to do

362
00:21:03,280 --> 00:21:05,840
Speaker 2: for dear Life, it's called the Past and Present Tour.

363
00:21:05,920 --> 00:21:09,160
Speaker 2: This will be the culmination of many years work. So

364
00:21:09,640 --> 00:21:11,480
Speaker 2: we're not going to sell a load of vinyl. It's

365
00:21:11,520 --> 00:21:15,159
Speaker 2: not like the coffers will be full. We've got to

366
00:21:15,200 --> 00:21:17,800
Speaker 2: go out and talk do these shows for our fans,

367
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Speaker 2: So it's very important. You know, people will push the

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Speaker 2: ticket price up, push to cover all these cost but

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Speaker 2: that just goes on to the consumer, and I feel

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Speaker 2: very strongly that there's only so far you can take that.

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Speaker 2: So I think for these reasons, if you choose to

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Speaker 2: wash your hands of the sort of the dirty business

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Speaker 2: of selling tickets in the market, then you're in danger

374
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Speaker 2: of distancing people who haven't got as much money but

375
00:21:44,440 --> 00:21:47,040
Speaker 2: a big passion for music, and the very people that

376
00:21:47,080 --> 00:21:50,480
Speaker 2: probably prop you up. So for those reasons, I take

377
00:21:50,520 --> 00:21:54,960
Speaker 2: all that stuff quite seriously. I'm not sitting in meetings going, hey,

378
00:21:55,000 --> 00:22:00,720
Speaker 2: we should charge this, but I am paying attention. But yeah,

379
00:22:00,760 --> 00:22:03,199
Speaker 2: one of the great problems is the sort of the

380
00:22:03,240 --> 00:22:07,639
Speaker 2: profitability of things. It's become very expensive to tour, and

381
00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:11,080
Speaker 2: everyone's wages want to go up, and all the rest

382
00:22:11,080 --> 00:22:15,240
Speaker 2: of it, You've got things like environmental concerns and trying

383
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Speaker 2: to do things in a different way, which may be

384
00:22:17,040 --> 00:22:21,720
Speaker 2: more awkward, more expensive, more time consuming. So there's lots

385
00:22:21,760 --> 00:22:26,760
Speaker 2: of pressures to do things differently, but not much slack

386
00:22:26,800 --> 00:22:30,000
Speaker 2: in the line financially. So yes, I pay attention. I

387
00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:34,400
Speaker 2: have my own record label. I notice things, and I've

388
00:22:34,400 --> 00:22:38,800
Speaker 2: been involved in putting my own music out. Not I mean,

389
00:22:38,840 --> 00:22:41,399
Speaker 2: I'm not hands on deck or I'm not part of that,

390
00:22:41,440 --> 00:22:43,280
Speaker 2: but I'll be a part of the conversations. I'll meet

391
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Speaker 2: the people, and I'll take good note of what happens

392
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Speaker 2: and what doesn't happen, what gets spent, what doesn't get spent.

393
00:22:48,720 --> 00:22:51,560
Speaker 2: Of course, because at the moment, I'm spending my own money.

394
00:22:52,119 --> 00:22:54,320
Speaker 2: I'm spending my own money set up a new record company,

395
00:22:54,320 --> 00:22:56,800
Speaker 2: and I'm spending my own money making the record and

396
00:22:56,840 --> 00:23:00,560
Speaker 2: putting it out. So it's a lot of money that this.

397
00:23:01,240 --> 00:23:03,760
Speaker 2: So this, all of this has an effect on how

398
00:23:03,800 --> 00:23:06,840
Speaker 2: you think about your ticket prices and everything else. It's

399
00:23:06,920 --> 00:23:11,120
Speaker 2: it's it's all interconnected, and it's no doubt a more

400
00:23:12,920 --> 00:23:17,000
Speaker 2: abundant creative space to ignore the whole damn lot and

401
00:23:17,080 --> 00:23:19,639
Speaker 2: just and live in your own little world, your little

402
00:23:19,640 --> 00:23:24,320
Speaker 2: creative bubble. But I find that I can't do that really,

403
00:23:24,520 --> 00:23:29,160
Speaker 2: I'm just drawn to the detail of what's actually happening.

404
00:23:30,720 --> 00:23:37,240
Speaker 1: Okay, So if you stop being a musician today, do

405
00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:39,280
Speaker 1: you have enough money that you could get to the

406
00:23:39,440 --> 00:23:41,840
Speaker 1: end or is it album to album?

407
00:23:43,840 --> 00:23:47,000
Speaker 2: No, I'm comfortably off. I could stop now.

408
00:23:47,720 --> 00:23:51,800
Speaker 1: Okay, So you're making this record, you know, the record

409
00:23:51,880 --> 00:23:57,439
Speaker 1: you made independently, but you've licensed it to other people

410
00:23:57,480 --> 00:23:58,680
Speaker 1: in different territories.

411
00:23:58,720 --> 00:24:03,280
Speaker 2: Correct, Yeah, well this time that's what we've licensed it

412
00:24:03,320 --> 00:24:08,119
Speaker 2: to secretly distribution this time. So that's that's that's a

413
00:24:08,119 --> 00:24:10,760
Speaker 2: worldwide deal as far as I'm aware. And was there

414
00:24:10,760 --> 00:24:16,399
Speaker 2: an advance with that, No, I don't take advances. It's

415
00:24:16,440 --> 00:24:18,400
Speaker 2: it's just to do with how much, what the marketing

416
00:24:18,440 --> 00:24:21,240
Speaker 2: spend will be and all those kind of things, and

417
00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:24,320
Speaker 2: you know, some of the other detail and how long

418
00:24:24,359 --> 00:24:28,520
Speaker 2: the deal's going to be. So it's a one album deal.

419
00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:32,600
Speaker 2: That's that's what we've been doing for the last little while.

420
00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:37,320
Speaker 1: So do you have a view on streaming?

421
00:24:38,160 --> 00:24:43,639
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, you know, yes, yes, very much so.

422
00:24:44,920 --> 00:24:48,479
Speaker 2: I I think that the way that our industry works

423
00:24:48,600 --> 00:24:51,760
Speaker 2: is to hell with it. That's the way. That's the

424
00:24:51,760 --> 00:24:54,760
Speaker 2: way it goes. With the tech and the power that

425
00:24:54,960 --> 00:24:58,240
Speaker 2: they you know, they don't worry too much about the

426
00:24:58,240 --> 00:25:00,399
Speaker 2: people who making the music. That don't worry all. I

427
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:04,080
Speaker 2: wouldn't say, really, they've just got to float their brand

428
00:25:04,200 --> 00:25:07,760
Speaker 2: and get to so and of course it's ended up

429
00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:14,919
Speaker 2: being a hugely profitable thing for major labels who've stripped

430
00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:19,840
Speaker 2: out staff and costs and amalgamated and joined and all

431
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:23,600
Speaker 2: this enormous back catalog that's just probably playing the minimum,

432
00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:26,399
Speaker 2: bare minimum to some of these people, and they're getting

433
00:25:26,400 --> 00:25:29,760
Speaker 2: phenomenal figures streaming all these old songs, so they're not

434
00:25:29,760 --> 00:25:32,160
Speaker 2: having to do anything, not spending anything, shipping a load

435
00:25:32,200 --> 00:25:35,800
Speaker 2: of vinyl to Canada. They're just you know, basically just

436
00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:39,320
Speaker 2: sitting there and this stuff's just pouring in. So it's

437
00:25:39,359 --> 00:25:41,600
Speaker 2: not recognizing songwriters, producers.

438
00:25:41,640 --> 00:25:42,200
Speaker 1: There's just not.

439
00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:48,160
Speaker 2: Enough in there. So I think that what we thought

440
00:25:48,160 --> 00:25:52,119
Speaker 2: in the eighties was that you know, sound was going

441
00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:54,320
Speaker 2: to get higher and higher quality, and the tech would

442
00:25:54,320 --> 00:25:57,359
Speaker 2: get higher and higher quality, and you know, but actually

443
00:25:57,400 --> 00:26:00,280
Speaker 2: what's happened is it went the other way. And hell

444
00:26:00,359 --> 00:26:04,760
Speaker 2: with quality, it's just about immediacy, which is an interesting thing.

445
00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:11,720
Speaker 2: So you know if there were higher quality brands, none

446
00:26:11,720 --> 00:26:14,159
Speaker 2: of them have really succeeded that you could have a

447
00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:18,800
Speaker 2: really incredible listening experience and maybe spend a bit more money.

448
00:26:18,800 --> 00:26:20,359
Speaker 2: There might be a little bit more money there for

449
00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:22,920
Speaker 2: the artists. But and again that would take a load

450
00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:25,040
Speaker 2: of money to float it, and there's been various people

451
00:26:25,080 --> 00:26:28,800
Speaker 2: trying to launch various things. So yes, streaming is a

452
00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:32,600
Speaker 2: wonderful resource for the listener, it's not so rewarding for

453
00:26:32,680 --> 00:26:34,040
Speaker 2: the struggling artist.

454
00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:39,080
Speaker 1: Okay, tell me about the difference between quality and immediacly.

455
00:26:40,600 --> 00:26:43,679
Speaker 2: Well as in the actual quality of the audio is

456
00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:48,239
Speaker 2: very very limited on your basic streaming platform on an

457
00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:51,440
Speaker 2: MP three, as opposed to listen to a beautiful piece

458
00:26:51,440 --> 00:26:54,520
Speaker 2: of finyl from an amazing record player and lovely speakers,

459
00:26:55,720 --> 00:26:57,679
Speaker 2: or then you had the CD and you take it

460
00:26:57,720 --> 00:27:01,400
Speaker 2: to the next musical clarity level. But what you get

461
00:27:01,520 --> 00:27:04,400
Speaker 2: is you get to listen to something immediately. Now, just

462
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:06,439
Speaker 2: just touch it. It's there, it's yours. You don't have

463
00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:07,919
Speaker 2: to wait, you don't have to go to the shops.

464
00:27:08,119 --> 00:27:09,840
Speaker 2: I used to have to save up my dinner money

465
00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:11,760
Speaker 2: for two weeks if I wanted to buy an album,

466
00:27:12,280 --> 00:27:16,360
Speaker 2: Basically half to starve meself at school and then get

467
00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:20,679
Speaker 2: the bus into town fifteen miles and buy the record

468
00:27:20,720 --> 00:27:23,000
Speaker 2: I wanted, and come back again. And I would on

469
00:27:23,080 --> 00:27:25,160
Speaker 2: the bus that I would have read the inside cover,

470
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:27,840
Speaker 2: the outside cover. I've looked at all the photos. I'd

471
00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:30,080
Speaker 2: even have taken the vinyl out and looked inside there

472
00:27:30,119 --> 00:27:32,119
Speaker 2: and read what was scratched onto the center of that.

473
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:34,720
Speaker 2: You had a level of sort of involvement that was very,

474
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:35,320
Speaker 2: very different.

475
00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:43,040
Speaker 1: Okay, you have certain songs on Spotify with triple digit millions.

476
00:27:44,280 --> 00:27:46,960
Speaker 1: Are you making any money from streaming? Of course there

477
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:48,240
Speaker 1: are songs with billions.

478
00:27:49,480 --> 00:27:52,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course I'm making I'm making good money. I

479
00:27:52,920 --> 00:27:55,480
Speaker 2: own the Masters, though I'm not in a I'm not

480
00:27:55,600 --> 00:27:59,040
Speaker 2: in the position that someone else would be, you know,

481
00:27:59,160 --> 00:28:02,960
Speaker 2: at a major would be in. I own, well, at

482
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:09,399
Speaker 2: least I used to own the Masters until I sold them.

483
00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:14,000
Speaker 2: So I own some of my I own my current music,

484
00:28:14,119 --> 00:28:16,160
Speaker 2: and the last record I put out is called Skelleig.

485
00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:16,560
Speaker 1: I own.

486
00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:19,680
Speaker 2: I own that record and this record. That's all part

487
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:23,200
Speaker 2: of my new record company, so that those things, when

488
00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:26,119
Speaker 2: we put them out, the streaming will be it's not

489
00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:28,320
Speaker 2: getting taken by a record company. And I get my

490
00:28:28,720 --> 00:28:32,479
Speaker 2: whatever percent. At the end of it, I get whatever

491
00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:36,119
Speaker 2: that the majority of the money from the streaming. My

492
00:28:36,280 --> 00:28:41,040
Speaker 2: partners will receive a certain amount of that. So it's

493
00:28:41,080 --> 00:28:44,040
Speaker 2: it's it. Yes, when you start getting big numbers, it

494
00:28:44,160 --> 00:28:47,760
Speaker 2: starts to add up, and it's it's a significant thing and.

495
00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:52,240
Speaker 1: You're a new work. Will the numbers be significant enough

496
00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:53,440
Speaker 1: to cover your costs?

497
00:28:56,240 --> 00:29:03,440
Speaker 2: HI? Hopefully over time. You know, I have no idea, Bob.

498
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:05,320
Speaker 2: And we've spent a bloody arm and a leg making

499
00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:10,280
Speaker 2: this record. We've got orchestra's horn sections, We've spent bloody

500
00:29:10,480 --> 00:29:14,240
Speaker 2: months on it, the damn thing, you know, years even so,

501
00:29:15,080 --> 00:29:17,360
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's going to take a while. It's

502
00:29:17,360 --> 00:29:21,160
Speaker 2: not just the spend of making the record, as I say,

503
00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:24,320
Speaker 2: marketing it and all the people I pay who work

504
00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:26,360
Speaker 2: for me, who run the record label, I mean all

505
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 2: their wages, all their salaries. If I take that whole

506
00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:31,840
Speaker 2: chunk of time, it's going to take a long time.

507
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:34,520
Speaker 2: I'd say, be lucky if in ten years I've made

508
00:29:34,520 --> 00:29:36,840
Speaker 2: a penny out of the damn thing. But you just

509
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:38,600
Speaker 2: never know what's going to happen. If you stay in

510
00:29:38,640 --> 00:29:40,840
Speaker 2: the boat long enough, you might just catch a fish.

511
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:46,000
Speaker 2: I maybe some mad TV producers going to go, you

512
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:48,560
Speaker 2: know what this new David Gray song? This is it

513
00:29:48,920 --> 00:29:52,600
Speaker 2: sopranos too, We need this as the title music. It's

514
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:54,719
Speaker 2: like you might get a break that you hadn't dreamed

515
00:29:54,720 --> 00:29:58,000
Speaker 2: of that could transform your fortunes, and suddenly you've got

516
00:29:58,160 --> 00:30:01,560
Speaker 2: gazillions of streams going on. No, the streaming numbers are

517
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:05,240
Speaker 2: utterly unspectacular because in the world of finger touch immediacy,

518
00:30:06,080 --> 00:30:08,520
Speaker 2: the old are much much slower than the young, and

519
00:30:08,560 --> 00:30:11,800
Speaker 2: obviously Maya fans are by and large older than some,

520
00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:15,600
Speaker 2: so you're not dealing with this thing. I'm doing the

521
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:18,240
Speaker 2: best I can to notify anyone who might be interested,

522
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:21,840
Speaker 2: but it's going to be hard work. I put a

523
00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:24,800
Speaker 2: record out a couple of years ago called Skellig. This

524
00:30:24,960 --> 00:30:29,600
Speaker 2: was a very uncommercial record. It's very very personal, very

525
00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:32,840
Speaker 2: low tempo. But we also because it was COVID, there

526
00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:35,720
Speaker 2: was no real marketing spend on. Very low amount of

527
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:37,960
Speaker 2: money was spent. We could only do so much because

528
00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:41,280
Speaker 2: we couldn't physically do anything. So we spent a few

529
00:30:41,320 --> 00:30:44,280
Speaker 2: mony a bit of money and actually it's sort of recouped,

530
00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:48,880
Speaker 2: so within three years I'm now getting a very small

531
00:30:48,920 --> 00:30:52,400
Speaker 2: amount of money every month from that record, so it

532
00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:54,880
Speaker 2: shows that it is possible. The difference there is that

533
00:30:54,920 --> 00:30:58,440
Speaker 2: the spend wasn't anything like as great either on making

534
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:01,959
Speaker 2: or releasing the record. So this time around it will

535
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:03,600
Speaker 2: I'd say it's going to take a lot longer. I'd

536
00:31:03,640 --> 00:31:06,120
Speaker 2: like to think with the kind of immediacy of this music,

537
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:10,880
Speaker 2: that it may strike a chord and we get some

538
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:13,240
Speaker 2: kind of fire under the whole thing and it starts

539
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:15,719
Speaker 2: to move a little bit. But I'm just not in

540
00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:17,480
Speaker 2: control of all that. All I can do is make

541
00:31:17,520 --> 00:31:19,080
Speaker 2: it as good as I can make it and put

542
00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:21,240
Speaker 2: it out there and sing my heart out.

543
00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:31,760
Speaker 1: You've worked both in the old era and the transition

544
00:31:31,920 --> 00:31:35,440
Speaker 1: in the new era. Not that many people have, but

545
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:38,120
Speaker 1: they used to say the tour was the advertisement for

546
00:31:38,200 --> 00:31:41,280
Speaker 1: the album, and now the album is the advertisement for

547
00:31:41,360 --> 00:31:48,360
Speaker 1: the tour. Today's scattered landscape and different remuneration periodigm does

548
00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:54,080
Speaker 1: that affect the inspiration and desire to make new records?

549
00:31:54,920 --> 00:32:00,680
Speaker 2: No, you know, making records is where it's at. I mean,

550
00:32:01,520 --> 00:32:04,040
Speaker 2: playing live is where it's at. The two things are

551
00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:08,040
Speaker 2: to a record as a world, I mean, anyone who's

552
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:11,200
Speaker 2: experienced a record as a world gone to the planet

553
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:15,840
Speaker 2: Pink Moon, or gone to the planet astral Weeks or Nebraska,

554
00:32:16,480 --> 00:32:20,040
Speaker 2: you know, free wheeling. Anyone who's been to any of

555
00:32:20,080 --> 00:32:23,840
Speaker 2: these places and been consumed by the spirit of Eden

556
00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:27,400
Speaker 2: by Talk Talk kind of Blue by Miles Davis. It

557
00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:30,760
Speaker 2: doesn't matter. When you've been there, you know what's going on,

558
00:32:30,880 --> 00:32:32,960
Speaker 2: Marvin Gay. Once you've gone to a planet and like

559
00:32:33,040 --> 00:32:37,040
Speaker 2: being completely obsessed and absorbed by it, how can you

560
00:32:37,080 --> 00:32:38,760
Speaker 2: not want to make a record? I mean, a record

561
00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:41,959
Speaker 2: isn't a song. It's you hang the pictures in the

562
00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:46,240
Speaker 2: gallery and you take people through, and there's the cadence

563
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:48,719
Speaker 2: of each song leads to a kind of cascade of

564
00:32:48,720 --> 00:32:50,880
Speaker 2: emotion that flows from one to the other and creates

565
00:32:50,920 --> 00:32:55,000
Speaker 2: an overall effect. So that's still what I believe in.

566
00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:57,640
Speaker 2: I still believe in the novel. Even though everyone's writing.

567
00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:00,000
Speaker 2: They're not even writing short stories, they're writing sentence.

568
00:33:02,080 --> 00:33:05,880
Speaker 1: Okay, you mentioned a little bit earlier you sold your masters.

569
00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:10,000
Speaker 1: Traditionally in the music business, people didn't even own their masters.

570
00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:12,840
Speaker 1: We live in an era where many people are selling

571
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:17,720
Speaker 1: their publishing, selling their masters. Let's start with the masters.

572
00:33:17,760 --> 00:33:22,320
Speaker 1: Did you sell them outright such that you'll never get royalties,

573
00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 1: or did you sell the ownership and you still have royalties.

574
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:34,800
Speaker 2: It's a complicated question to answer. I didn't sell them

575
00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:38,040
Speaker 2: through choice. But first of all, I sold my recording

576
00:33:38,080 --> 00:33:43,200
Speaker 2: masters from White Ladder until Golden the brass Age, so

577
00:33:43,480 --> 00:33:49,400
Speaker 2: eight albums up until the one before Skelg. So it

578
00:33:49,440 --> 00:33:51,840
Speaker 2: was because I was at the end of a relationship

579
00:33:52,360 --> 00:33:54,640
Speaker 2: that had lasted through my entire career, and the only

580
00:33:54,680 --> 00:33:56,840
Speaker 2: way to get out of it was we owned a

581
00:33:56,880 --> 00:34:00,680
Speaker 2: record company together, was to sell the record company. Essentially,

582
00:34:00,760 --> 00:34:06,480
Speaker 2: it's sell the Masters. So that's that was the only

583
00:34:06,520 --> 00:34:12,640
Speaker 2: way to really make a break. So uh yeah, well,

584
00:34:13,120 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 2: I've maintained a stake in the Masters. I didn't sell

585
00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:18,279
Speaker 2: it all. I kept a bit, so I still have

586
00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:22,480
Speaker 2: a vested interest. I got skin in the game, underwhelming

587
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:23,759
Speaker 2: skin in the game so far.

588
00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:29,560
Speaker 1: So while we're on this tip, did you sell the

589
00:34:29,600 --> 00:34:30,359
Speaker 1: publishing too?

590
00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:33,640
Speaker 2: No, no, no, I haven't sold that. So for the

591
00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:35,960
Speaker 2: very first time in my life, all my publishing has

592
00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:38,799
Speaker 2: come back to me and it's now all housed with

593
00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:42,600
Speaker 2: Chrystalis on a sort of rolling deal, so it's all

594
00:34:42,640 --> 00:34:44,399
Speaker 2: in the same place for the very first time ever.

595
00:34:44,520 --> 00:34:48,480
Speaker 2: In fact, so they're sort of administering my publishing for me. No,

596
00:34:48,600 --> 00:34:50,440
Speaker 2: I haven't sold any publisher.

597
00:34:52,640 --> 00:34:57,560
Speaker 1: Without any dire circumstances coming up. Would you ever sell

598
00:34:57,600 --> 00:34:58,279
Speaker 1: the publishing?

599
00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:06,719
Speaker 2: We never say never, but it's unlikely. For one thing.

600
00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:11,759
Speaker 2: Money is completely overrated, you know, as some kind of

601
00:35:12,520 --> 00:35:17,800
Speaker 2: great aid in your life towards greater meaning and enjoyments.

602
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:20,520
Speaker 2: It can be incredibly helpful when you haven't got enough

603
00:35:20,560 --> 00:35:23,560
Speaker 2: of it, but that's not the position I'm in. I'm

604
00:35:23,600 --> 00:35:27,319
Speaker 2: doing perfectly okay, thanks very much. So why would I

605
00:35:27,360 --> 00:35:30,279
Speaker 2: want to a pay shitloads of tax? By result, it's

606
00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:32,239
Speaker 2: getting a fuckload of money that I wouldn't know what

607
00:35:32,280 --> 00:35:34,440
Speaker 2: to do with anyway, And why would I want to

608
00:35:34,440 --> 00:35:36,359
Speaker 2: fuckload of money that I have no idea what to

609
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:39,799
Speaker 2: do with. It's I don't want for anything, I don't

610
00:35:39,880 --> 00:35:43,560
Speaker 2: need anything. It'd be totally stupid. So those are the

611
00:35:43,600 --> 00:35:47,400
Speaker 2: reasons that I when money first broke in my life,

612
00:35:47,440 --> 00:35:50,680
Speaker 2: when things were going well, it was a really complicated

613
00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:54,800
Speaker 2: thing to negotiate because we started when it just coming

614
00:35:54,800 --> 00:35:57,480
Speaker 2: in and it didn't stop. After a while, you start just

615
00:35:57,480 --> 00:36:01,160
Speaker 2: making really bad decisions because nothing has as much meaning,

616
00:36:01,360 --> 00:36:03,480
Speaker 2: so you can just replace things you don't like or

617
00:36:03,480 --> 00:36:06,000
Speaker 2: buy something you decide you don't want it, and it's

618
00:36:06,080 --> 00:36:08,279
Speaker 2: like you're suddenly living an episode of the Real Housewives

619
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:16,480
Speaker 2: of Beverly Hills. So that's something I've been exposed to

620
00:36:16,560 --> 00:36:21,719
Speaker 2: by my children. It's not one of my personal viewing choices.

621
00:36:22,120 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think that, you know, getting a routload

622
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:28,200
Speaker 2: of money is great, but it's just it just ends

623
00:36:28,400 --> 00:36:34,560
Speaker 2: in a sort of disassociative, disassociative state where you're it

624
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:37,680
Speaker 2: distances you from life and meaning and what I'm needing

625
00:36:37,719 --> 00:36:41,560
Speaker 2: to do things. So in a way, I'm kind of

626
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:44,279
Speaker 2: I'm not falsely pressurizing. I'm choosing to be in a

627
00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:47,640
Speaker 2: more pressurized situation in terms of putting money out and

628
00:36:47,680 --> 00:36:50,480
Speaker 2: investing in it and having to make a success of things,

629
00:36:50,800 --> 00:36:54,600
Speaker 2: because it's a more relatable thing and it makes for

630
00:36:54,680 --> 00:37:00,560
Speaker 2: more sensible views and ideas about what you're doing. So

631
00:37:00,680 --> 00:37:02,560
Speaker 2: that's the way I choose to do it. As I

632
00:37:02,600 --> 00:37:05,480
Speaker 2: said that, the classic artist pose would have been, we've

633
00:37:05,480 --> 00:37:07,560
Speaker 2: received so much money, we don't have to worry about anything.

634
00:37:07,600 --> 00:37:10,239
Speaker 2: Now we can just dream our dreams. But to me,

635
00:37:10,360 --> 00:37:13,439
Speaker 2: the dreams are part of this fabric. There's so many

636
00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:18,759
Speaker 2: compromises making music in a commercial world. Where do you

637
00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:23,279
Speaker 2: even start it's very, very elaborate, complex, full of compromise.

638
00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:31,759
Speaker 2: So you I think it's important to understand what it's

639
00:37:31,800 --> 00:37:34,319
Speaker 2: like for someone spending money to get to your show

640
00:37:34,440 --> 00:37:37,840
Speaker 2: or to get your CD, just what that means. So

641
00:37:38,360 --> 00:37:41,719
Speaker 2: I think, because it's still a relatable thing for me

642
00:37:41,840 --> 00:37:44,640
Speaker 2: putting music out, I consider myself to be more in

643
00:37:44,719 --> 00:37:49,520
Speaker 2: relation to the listener because I'm in a more reasonable position.

644
00:37:50,160 --> 00:37:52,080
Speaker 2: So you know, God knows. As I said, I wish

645
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:54,600
Speaker 2: something wonderful happened and my fucking songs would go crazy

646
00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:57,720
Speaker 2: and I can just relax. You know, Wow, this is amazing.

647
00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:00,480
Speaker 2: It'd be more amazing because the energy it would give everything.

648
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:02,759
Speaker 2: It wouldn't be the money. It would be the way

649
00:38:02,800 --> 00:38:05,920
Speaker 2: the show's go with this crazy energy because people are

650
00:38:05,920 --> 00:38:08,799
Speaker 2: a new wave of fans would be getting a hold

651
00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:13,640
Speaker 2: of this stuff. That would be incredible. So it's those

652
00:38:13,680 --> 00:38:17,600
Speaker 2: are the things that you lost for and being taken seriously,

653
00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:22,440
Speaker 2: so you know that those are my sort of preoccupations.

654
00:38:23,840 --> 00:38:25,960
Speaker 1: Just to go back a point, so how many times

655
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:30,880
Speaker 1: have you been married? Just once and you got divorced

656
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:33,080
Speaker 1: and that's why you had to sell the catalog?

657
00:38:34,400 --> 00:38:37,440
Speaker 2: No, no, no, it was my business partner, not my wife.

658
00:38:37,600 --> 00:38:38,560
Speaker 2: She's still involved.

659
00:38:40,640 --> 00:38:43,520
Speaker 1: So you had when you've been independent in this independent

660
00:38:43,600 --> 00:38:48,040
Speaker 1: record company, you had a financial partner, Yeah.

661
00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:51,239
Speaker 2: My manager, my old manager and I. When White Ladder

662
00:38:51,280 --> 00:38:53,120
Speaker 2: came along, no one wanted to put it out, so

663
00:38:53,920 --> 00:38:57,080
Speaker 2: we put it out ourselves. We created a record company

664
00:38:57,120 --> 00:39:00,280
Speaker 2: and we put it out ourselves, and that's how that

665
00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:02,640
Speaker 2: that began. That record began in that way. We put

666
00:39:02,640 --> 00:39:04,720
Speaker 2: it out in Ireland, the only place where we could

667
00:39:05,280 --> 00:39:06,880
Speaker 2: sell anywhere records to the only place I had a

668
00:39:06,960 --> 00:39:11,080
Speaker 2: sort of beginning of a sort of commercial viability, sort

669
00:39:11,080 --> 00:39:13,279
Speaker 2: of cult following. So we put it out there and

670
00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:15,319
Speaker 2: it just began to sell and then began to sell

671
00:39:15,400 --> 00:39:19,560
Speaker 2: more and then like hotcakes, and that funded we signed

672
00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:22,799
Speaker 2: with Ato Dave Matthew's label in the States, and we

673
00:39:22,880 --> 00:39:26,839
Speaker 2: signed we licensed to Warners in the for the UK

674
00:39:26,920 --> 00:39:28,640
Speaker 2: and the rest of the world, but we kept Ireland

675
00:39:29,040 --> 00:39:31,960
Speaker 2: as our own independent thing, and that's how it began.

676
00:39:32,120 --> 00:39:35,560
Speaker 2: So this relationship was very complex. And then for the

677
00:39:35,600 --> 00:39:38,000
Speaker 2: next however many albums it followed that we just put

678
00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:40,399
Speaker 2: them out through this record company and we licensed them

679
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:45,000
Speaker 2: to various partners. So yeah, So when that relationship came

680
00:39:45,040 --> 00:39:48,960
Speaker 2: to an end after thirty years, the easiest thing to do,

681
00:39:49,040 --> 00:39:51,280
Speaker 2: the only thing to do, was to sell the company

682
00:39:51,920 --> 00:39:55,040
Speaker 2: in order that everyone could take a little bit away

683
00:39:55,080 --> 00:39:55,959
Speaker 2: with them.

684
00:39:56,440 --> 00:39:58,440
Speaker 1: And why did the relationship come to an end?

685
00:40:00,200 --> 00:40:02,120
Speaker 2: Well, look, I don't want to get into all that.

686
00:40:02,360 --> 00:40:03,440
Speaker 2: That's that's personal.

687
00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:04,600
Speaker 1: Okay, So.

688
00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:10,439
Speaker 2: These things happen, you know, it's a long time. We've

689
00:40:10,480 --> 00:40:14,120
Speaker 2: been through an awful lot together. And furthermore, this is

690
00:40:14,160 --> 00:40:16,960
Speaker 2: someone who without who's belief in me, I would not

691
00:40:17,080 --> 00:40:20,040
Speaker 2: be sitting in front of you now. The people who

692
00:40:20,080 --> 00:40:24,439
Speaker 2: invest in you, like emotionally and musically and in other

693
00:40:24,520 --> 00:40:28,480
Speaker 2: ways when you don't mean anything, those are the people

694
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:32,120
Speaker 2: that you value, you know, really ultimately. So when someone

695
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:35,080
Speaker 2: makes a choice not based on their own on the

696
00:40:35,120 --> 00:40:38,000
Speaker 2: profitability of something or whatever or the look that it

697
00:40:38,040 --> 00:40:40,880
Speaker 2: gives them, then that means a lot. So it's still

698
00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:45,560
Speaker 2: a very intense relationship, but albeit from a distance at

699
00:40:45,560 --> 00:40:49,400
Speaker 2: the moment. But yeah, it had run its course and

700
00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:51,280
Speaker 2: now I'm in a new phase of my life.

701
00:40:51,800 --> 00:40:57,880
Speaker 1: Okay. Why was the record company called IHD?

702
00:40:58,480 --> 00:41:02,000
Speaker 2: He rob as Robert wanted to call it Hit Records,

703
00:41:02,880 --> 00:41:05,600
Speaker 2: but when we applied to company's house, they said that's

704
00:41:05,640 --> 00:41:09,080
Speaker 2: already taken. So he couldn't be bothered to do it.

705
00:41:09,160 --> 00:41:11,480
Speaker 2: He's just turned changed the letters round, and it was

706
00:41:11,520 --> 00:41:15,680
Speaker 2: I h T. So that that was the story of

707
00:41:15,800 --> 00:41:17,160
Speaker 2: why it was I HD.

708
00:41:17,960 --> 00:41:22,560
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to the present album. You started

709
00:41:22,640 --> 00:41:30,319
Speaker 1: recording before COVID. Generally speaking, are you always recording or

710
00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:32,480
Speaker 1: did you say I want to make an album?

711
00:41:34,400 --> 00:41:37,480
Speaker 2: No, this was definitely I'm ready to make an album,

712
00:41:37,800 --> 00:41:42,840
Speaker 2: so i'd I had some ideas live from the whole

713
00:41:42,880 --> 00:41:46,719
Speaker 2: COVID period, but even before that, I had I had

714
00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:50,080
Speaker 2: this spark of what the new music might feel like.

715
00:41:50,200 --> 00:41:52,920
Speaker 2: I'd started to write a couple of songs. So no,

716
00:41:53,120 --> 00:41:55,839
Speaker 2: I was ready. I mean I was. I was more

717
00:41:55,920 --> 00:41:58,799
Speaker 2: than ready to make a record. I had no idea

718
00:41:58,840 --> 00:42:00,799
Speaker 2: how long it was going to take, so no, it

719
00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:04,520
Speaker 2: was definitely. It wasn't playing around. I mean, at the

720
00:42:04,640 --> 00:42:08,400
Speaker 2: end of this album cycle, I'll be finishing of this

721
00:42:08,520 --> 00:42:11,040
Speaker 2: touring cycle, I'll be finishing the rest of the music

722
00:42:11,080 --> 00:42:13,640
Speaker 2: from the same period off and that will come out

723
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:16,920
Speaker 2: as a separate album. But when that is done, I'll

724
00:42:16,960 --> 00:42:19,560
Speaker 2: be pretty I'll pretty much have cleared the decks. Never entirely,

725
00:42:19,560 --> 00:42:21,760
Speaker 2: there's always lots of loose ends, songs that I haven't

726
00:42:22,239 --> 00:42:23,200
Speaker 2: found a place.

727
00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:24,960
Speaker 1: For I thought you said it to trilogy.

728
00:42:26,600 --> 00:42:29,080
Speaker 2: No, No, it's I'd say this album is a double

729
00:42:29,160 --> 00:42:32,960
Speaker 2: album in itself, Dear Life. I think if you time it,

730
00:42:32,960 --> 00:42:35,960
Speaker 2: it's like it's like four sides of vinyl for sure.

731
00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:40,040
Speaker 2: So it's yeah, so this is a double Then there's

732
00:42:40,080 --> 00:42:42,120
Speaker 2: another album that's going to come out, which would just

733
00:42:42,160 --> 00:42:45,200
Speaker 2: be a single album a bit further down the line.

734
00:42:45,800 --> 00:42:52,319
Speaker 2: So no, I'm always writing, making, thinking, storing as I say,

735
00:42:52,400 --> 00:42:54,120
Speaker 2: that's the way it works. Now. I have to just

736
00:42:54,160 --> 00:42:57,959
Speaker 2: make notes and then finally I'll come to a point

737
00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:00,560
Speaker 2: where I'll start going through some of the most of

738
00:43:00,600 --> 00:43:03,200
Speaker 2: them will be lost, but I believe this it like

739
00:43:04,000 --> 00:43:09,360
Speaker 2: you know, it all goes into the earth and comes

740
00:43:09,400 --> 00:43:11,640
Speaker 2: back out as new plants. I don't think you lose

741
00:43:11,719 --> 00:43:15,040
Speaker 2: this stuff entirely. I think if there was something good there,

742
00:43:15,080 --> 00:43:20,239
Speaker 2: you would remember it. So there's always lots of different ideas, lyrics,

743
00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:24,000
Speaker 2: stories that notes. I mean, the phone is a highly

744
00:43:24,040 --> 00:43:26,840
Speaker 2: annoying thing to have on you, but also highly convenient.

745
00:43:27,560 --> 00:43:30,560
Speaker 2: It's got a camera, it's got a recording device, and

746
00:43:30,560 --> 00:43:34,160
Speaker 2: it's got a little notebook, so it just fits in

747
00:43:34,200 --> 00:43:36,040
Speaker 2: your pocket and you can do all these things. So

748
00:43:36,040 --> 00:43:40,480
Speaker 2: I'm constantly notekeeping. Not only that, I mean the inside

749
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:42,800
Speaker 2: of my mind is like a giant sort of car,

750
00:43:43,640 --> 00:43:47,280
Speaker 2: like a giant warehouse full of car parts. I'm always

751
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:50,040
Speaker 2: trying to fit something together. Oh, I could use that

752
00:43:50,040 --> 00:43:52,719
Speaker 2: that wheel would fit on here, or this axle would

753
00:43:52,719 --> 00:43:55,399
Speaker 2: work there, or you know, that steering wheel would look

754
00:43:55,400 --> 00:43:57,880
Speaker 2: good in this car. I'm always using one bit and

755
00:43:57,920 --> 00:44:00,279
Speaker 2: wondering whether I can finish another song with it, or

756
00:44:00,560 --> 00:44:04,720
Speaker 2: there's just unfinished bits everywhere. So that's just a normal

757
00:44:04,800 --> 00:44:08,080
Speaker 2: state of things that's constantly ongoing. But when I get

758
00:44:08,080 --> 00:44:10,960
Speaker 2: into writing, it becomes a little bit more focused and

759
00:44:11,040 --> 00:44:14,160
Speaker 2: the time opens out and I start to expand these ideas.

760
00:44:14,320 --> 00:44:16,800
Speaker 2: The difficulty is that when you first have a mood,

761
00:44:17,600 --> 00:44:19,920
Speaker 2: the mood that envelops you when you come up with

762
00:44:19,960 --> 00:44:24,359
Speaker 2: a tune and you start to write, you're in a

763
00:44:24,400 --> 00:44:28,399
Speaker 2: there's a great suggestibility about your state of being at

764
00:44:28,400 --> 00:44:32,200
Speaker 2: that moment. You're sort of you're under hypnosis in a way.

765
00:44:32,520 --> 00:44:35,640
Speaker 2: The music starts to hypnotize you. It's very hard to

766
00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:38,600
Speaker 2: pick up that thread at a later date. Oh yeah,

767
00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:41,920
Speaker 2: and that's what I Yeah, So it's that's what was

768
00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:45,560
Speaker 2: unusual about this particular sort of starburst of song writing.

769
00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:48,360
Speaker 2: At the end of COVID, I was writing new music

770
00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:50,680
Speaker 2: but also just picking other things up off the shelf

771
00:44:50,719 --> 00:44:54,480
Speaker 2: and just finishing the songs, but not in a way

772
00:44:54,560 --> 00:44:57,440
Speaker 2: that you can see the join. It was just oh right, okay,

773
00:44:57,480 --> 00:44:59,560
Speaker 2: here we go. It was I was like, what was

774
00:44:59,600 --> 00:44:59,960
Speaker 2: going on?

775
00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:13,840
Speaker 1: Okay? So you have these periods where you were saying,

776
00:45:14,000 --> 00:45:19,520
Speaker 1: I'm writing the album. In between these periods, thoughts are

777
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:23,000
Speaker 1: just going through your brain the car parts' occasionally making

778
00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:27,319
Speaker 1: notes or are you ever writing a complete song just

779
00:45:27,360 --> 00:45:29,920
Speaker 1: because something comes to you? Oh?

780
00:45:30,000 --> 00:45:34,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean those are the best days. Yeah, those

781
00:45:34,320 --> 00:45:37,319
Speaker 2: are the days you pray for and if you keep

782
00:45:37,360 --> 00:45:41,239
Speaker 2: working hard enough, it will happen. So yes, occasionally there's

783
00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:43,279
Speaker 2: a song on this new record called that day must

784
00:45:43,320 --> 00:45:46,920
Speaker 2: surely come. And I was working on something completely different,

785
00:45:47,680 --> 00:45:49,640
Speaker 2: and I just made an A chord on the second

786
00:45:49,760 --> 00:45:53,359
Speaker 2: I had the capo to a chord or B, and

787
00:45:53,480 --> 00:45:55,960
Speaker 2: I just I made this extension with my pinky that

788
00:45:56,040 --> 00:45:59,839
Speaker 2: I'd never done before, and I went up, I went

789
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:03,120
Speaker 2: under the A two four and then all the way

790
00:46:03,160 --> 00:46:05,960
Speaker 2: to five, very long extension, and then I moved the

791
00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:08,799
Speaker 2: bass note with my thumb, and I thought, oh, that's

792
00:46:08,840 --> 00:46:12,960
Speaker 2: a really nice run of chords. I've never played that before.

793
00:46:13,719 --> 00:46:16,239
Speaker 2: And then I just began to pick it. And as

794
00:46:16,239 --> 00:46:18,520
Speaker 2: I picked it, I just read, I sang the first line,

795
00:46:19,520 --> 00:46:21,319
Speaker 2: and I just stopped what I was doing and I

796
00:46:21,400 --> 00:46:22,919
Speaker 2: just wrote the song. And in a couple of hours

797
00:46:22,960 --> 00:46:27,719
Speaker 2: later it was written, and it was in Those experiences

798
00:46:27,760 --> 00:46:33,280
Speaker 2: are have a mysticism about them, because you become both

799
00:46:33,440 --> 00:46:40,240
Speaker 2: more entirely yourself, the sort of fertile vistas of experience,

800
00:46:40,320 --> 00:46:44,360
Speaker 2: and all the loged emotion that you've held is waited

801
00:46:44,440 --> 00:46:46,480
Speaker 2: to be born into this song. At moments like that,

802
00:46:46,560 --> 00:46:48,759
Speaker 2: you could just they feel that they've been waiting a

803
00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:52,080
Speaker 2: long time to be born. This thing begins to emerge,

804
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:54,759
Speaker 2: and at the same time, your brain is sending up

805
00:46:54,800 --> 00:46:57,160
Speaker 2: the sort of editorial drone. You're going up to the

806
00:46:57,160 --> 00:46:59,680
Speaker 2: top office on the top floor, and you're just making

807
00:46:59,800 --> 00:47:02,680
Speaker 2: very cool and clear decisions about what you're doing. So

808
00:47:02,719 --> 00:47:06,680
Speaker 2: you become more objective and more subjective simultaneously, and you

809
00:47:06,760 --> 00:47:11,200
Speaker 2: begin to work in a very unfussy, un self conscious way.

810
00:47:11,239 --> 00:47:13,920
Speaker 2: And those are the best songs. Please forgive me that

811
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:16,600
Speaker 2: they must surely come from here. You can almost see

812
00:47:16,600 --> 00:47:18,200
Speaker 2: the sea. These are the ones that just poured out

813
00:47:18,239 --> 00:47:21,400
Speaker 2: of me in like moments. So that's what that's what

814
00:47:21,440 --> 00:47:21,920
Speaker 2: I hope for.

815
00:47:23,400 --> 00:47:26,040
Speaker 1: Okay, as a writer, but not a writer of songs.

816
00:47:26,080 --> 00:47:29,640
Speaker 1: I know exactly what you're talking about. And sometimes when

817
00:47:29,640 --> 00:47:33,839
Speaker 1: it's really working, I might become self conscious and then

818
00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:36,560
Speaker 1: all of a sudden it veers off. Is that something

819
00:47:36,600 --> 00:47:39,400
Speaker 1: that resonates? Oh yeah, totally.

820
00:47:39,480 --> 00:47:42,040
Speaker 2: As I say, self consciousness is the enemy in life,

821
00:47:42,040 --> 00:47:46,160
Speaker 2: in music, in making. You know, it's it's it's totally

822
00:47:46,200 --> 00:47:50,799
Speaker 2: the enemy, very hard to avoid. And you know, I

823
00:47:50,920 --> 00:47:54,279
Speaker 2: use all kinds of tricks to trick myself out of

824
00:47:54,400 --> 00:47:59,560
Speaker 2: thinking too much. So for example, when I haven't been

825
00:47:59,600 --> 00:48:03,719
Speaker 2: making music, writing music, it's it's pressing. I'll be it's

826
00:48:03,719 --> 00:48:05,959
Speaker 2: pressing on me now because it's been a while since

827
00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:10,120
Speaker 2: I've been in that position, when I've been exploring and making.

828
00:48:11,400 --> 00:48:14,480
Speaker 2: So when I get back to it, it'll have been

829
00:48:14,520 --> 00:48:16,720
Speaker 2: so long it'll be like getting into a cold bath,

830
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:20,240
Speaker 2: not just a cold bath, ice cold. I'll be scared

831
00:48:20,440 --> 00:48:22,520
Speaker 2: of like what it all means. It will all start

832
00:48:22,640 --> 00:48:25,880
Speaker 2: meaning too much. So these days i'd use little tricks like,

833
00:48:25,960 --> 00:48:31,160
Speaker 2: for example, rather than I usually work from chords, the

834
00:48:31,239 --> 00:48:33,279
Speaker 2: rhythm of the cause, the chords, the rhythm of the chords,

835
00:48:33,280 --> 00:48:36,200
Speaker 2: a sequence of chords, and then the melody that associates.

836
00:48:36,760 --> 00:48:38,880
Speaker 2: But if I find I work the other way round,

837
00:48:38,920 --> 00:48:41,560
Speaker 2: and I take a lyric and I try and fit it,

838
00:48:41,600 --> 00:48:45,120
Speaker 2: fit some music to the lyric, so I feel backwards,

839
00:48:45,320 --> 00:48:47,520
Speaker 2: or from a poem which I leave taking on this

840
00:48:47,560 --> 00:48:50,560
Speaker 2: record was a good example of that. I took someone

841
00:48:50,560 --> 00:48:52,920
Speaker 2: else's words and I sensed there was music in them,

842
00:48:52,920 --> 00:48:55,879
Speaker 2: and I felt like a water diviner with a stick.

843
00:48:55,920 --> 00:48:58,279
Speaker 2: I felt blind across the ground, just looking for where

844
00:48:58,280 --> 00:49:00,400
Speaker 2: it could take me, and I began to make, like

845
00:49:00,440 --> 00:49:03,279
Speaker 2: a child in a sandpit. I just shaped things, and

846
00:49:03,320 --> 00:49:05,080
Speaker 2: I didn't get my head up until i'd sort of

847
00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:07,879
Speaker 2: made something. And when I had made something, I had

848
00:49:07,920 --> 00:49:10,080
Speaker 2: no idea. I couldn't do like a quality assessment of

849
00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:13,960
Speaker 2: it because my melodic instincts were disabled, and my sense

850
00:49:13,960 --> 00:49:16,960
Speaker 2: of meaning and value was also not engaged. So I

851
00:49:16,960 --> 00:49:20,120
Speaker 2: didn't have that sort of white writer's block preoccupation, this

852
00:49:20,239 --> 00:49:22,560
Speaker 2: is a piece of shit, Why should it matter? The

853
00:49:22,840 --> 00:49:25,880
Speaker 2: sort of doubting voices. I try and cheat those doubting voices,

854
00:49:25,920 --> 00:49:28,239
Speaker 2: and I find that once if I can manage to

855
00:49:28,239 --> 00:49:31,080
Speaker 2: find a way past them, the guards on the gate.

856
00:49:31,760 --> 00:49:34,080
Speaker 2: Then once I'm in, I'm in the room of making,

857
00:49:34,120 --> 00:49:36,200
Speaker 2: and I get back into it. I stopped thinking about

858
00:49:36,200 --> 00:49:38,640
Speaker 2: it all so much, and it becomes much faster and

859
00:49:38,719 --> 00:49:41,759
Speaker 2: more immediate. That's not to say everything's great, it's just

860
00:49:42,480 --> 00:49:45,160
Speaker 2: I find that we've all got that writer's block, that

861
00:49:45,239 --> 00:49:49,440
Speaker 2: doubting voice, the negative voice that's waiting, and particularly I

862
00:49:49,520 --> 00:49:52,360
Speaker 2: find after an absence. So I mean, my ultimate existence

863
00:49:52,360 --> 00:49:54,360
Speaker 2: would be that I would never lose the fluency that

864
00:49:54,440 --> 00:49:57,200
Speaker 2: I have when I'm in these deep writing sessions. But

865
00:49:57,480 --> 00:49:59,800
Speaker 2: it's a bit like losing the fluency and my calluses

866
00:49:59,840 --> 00:50:02,200
Speaker 2: on my fingers from playing on the road. And as

867
00:50:02,200 --> 00:50:04,680
Speaker 2: a musician, when I'm playing every night, I'll reach I'll

868
00:50:04,680 --> 00:50:09,560
Speaker 2: attain a physical level of ability and emotional and mental

869
00:50:09,600 --> 00:50:12,400
Speaker 2: connection that I wouldn't be able to sustain on an

870
00:50:12,400 --> 00:50:15,680
Speaker 2: average day because I'll be doing two, three, four hours

871
00:50:15,719 --> 00:50:20,600
Speaker 2: of music every day. So you know, it's different. It's

872
00:50:20,640 --> 00:50:23,880
Speaker 2: like that with the writing too. You sort of lose

873
00:50:24,040 --> 00:50:27,520
Speaker 2: your confidence and you start to think about it far

874
00:50:27,640 --> 00:50:28,120
Speaker 2: too much.

875
00:50:29,120 --> 00:50:32,960
Speaker 1: Okay, so you had this time you're with the family

876
00:50:33,040 --> 00:50:37,360
Speaker 1: with COVID, then you go back to writing. Are you

877
00:50:37,520 --> 00:50:43,160
Speaker 1: literally saying, okay, I'm sitting here. It's Monday to Thursday.

878
00:50:43,640 --> 00:50:46,759
Speaker 1: I have to write songs. I'm going to sit here

879
00:50:47,080 --> 00:50:51,600
Speaker 1: until I finished the songs. Or do you wait for

880
00:50:51,719 --> 00:50:56,319
Speaker 1: inspiration or do you have tricks to trick yourself into inspiration?

881
00:50:57,719 --> 00:51:01,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, as I say, it's like self hypnosis. So I

882
00:51:01,520 --> 00:51:03,799
Speaker 2: don't sit there waiting for inspiration. I just get on

883
00:51:03,880 --> 00:51:05,640
Speaker 2: with it. As I say, I've always got a million

884
00:51:05,719 --> 00:51:07,480
Speaker 2: unfinished things, so I'll just pick one of them up

885
00:51:07,520 --> 00:51:09,880
Speaker 2: and start working on it. Or I'll think of a

886
00:51:09,880 --> 00:51:12,200
Speaker 2: little simple idea and I think that could be a

887
00:51:12,239 --> 00:51:15,359
Speaker 2: simple little song. Maybe I'll just start with that, something achievable,

888
00:51:15,640 --> 00:51:20,160
Speaker 2: something small, not too demanding, not too ambitious, something intriguing

889
00:51:20,200 --> 00:51:24,160
Speaker 2: and small. So I'll start humble. And then, as I say,

890
00:51:24,200 --> 00:51:26,640
Speaker 2: once I've achieved a few things, it's a little easier

891
00:51:26,680 --> 00:51:30,600
Speaker 2: to get into rhythm. So I mean, those those are

892
00:51:30,680 --> 00:51:33,800
Speaker 2: my tricks. I mean, I don't think there's any escaping effect.

893
00:51:33,880 --> 00:51:38,839
Speaker 2: It's it's difficult. Yeah, it's some days you just don't

894
00:51:38,840 --> 00:51:41,319
Speaker 2: get anywhere. I mean, it's just the way it is.

895
00:51:41,960 --> 00:51:44,120
Speaker 2: So but I think you just turn up and you

896
00:51:44,239 --> 00:51:47,879
Speaker 2: start working, and sound can be a great unlocker as well.

897
00:51:47,920 --> 00:51:51,319
Speaker 2: It's like that you know, there's there's the same old

898
00:51:51,360 --> 00:51:54,840
Speaker 2: six strings on the same old guitar, but put it

899
00:51:54,880 --> 00:51:57,360
Speaker 2: through a sort of effect. It's like a Leslie effect

900
00:51:57,520 --> 00:52:00,759
Speaker 2: or chorus or you know, a new am or you

901
00:52:02,360 --> 00:52:05,040
Speaker 2: put a capo up high to change the tuning and

902
00:52:05,160 --> 00:52:11,080
Speaker 2: open tuning. Suddenly, ah, the same old motes remake. They

903
00:52:11,120 --> 00:52:14,800
Speaker 2: invert chords, and it inverts chords. It changes your relation

904
00:52:15,000 --> 00:52:18,399
Speaker 2: to the things you already know and charms you back

905
00:52:18,440 --> 00:52:20,799
Speaker 2: into that sense of mystery that you need to be in.

906
00:52:21,480 --> 00:52:27,120
Speaker 2: So it's just important to well, anyway, these are the

907
00:52:27,160 --> 00:52:28,640
Speaker 2: ways I choose to do it. I mean, some people

908
00:52:28,719 --> 00:52:30,680
Speaker 2: work completely the opposite way. They wait until they're in

909
00:52:30,719 --> 00:52:32,719
Speaker 2: the mood and then they make music and they don't

910
00:52:32,719 --> 00:52:36,200
Speaker 2: stop until it's done. Maybe that's the best way to

911
00:52:36,239 --> 00:52:36,400
Speaker 2: do it.

912
00:52:36,440 --> 00:52:37,120
Speaker 1: I don't know.

913
00:52:37,440 --> 00:52:39,080
Speaker 2: This is the way that my life is involved because

914
00:52:39,080 --> 00:52:41,279
Speaker 2: I wanted to be a dad and I wanted to

915
00:52:41,320 --> 00:52:43,960
Speaker 2: be a husband, and I've got all this music I've

916
00:52:44,000 --> 00:52:47,640
Speaker 2: already created, and I need to deal with curate my

917
00:52:47,719 --> 00:52:50,480
Speaker 2: own life to a certain extent, and my own businesses

918
00:52:51,120 --> 00:52:53,319
Speaker 2: demand a lot of my attention, so I need to

919
00:52:53,320 --> 00:52:56,799
Speaker 2: be I need to sort of compartmentalize a lot of

920
00:52:56,880 --> 00:52:58,920
Speaker 2: the time in order to get the space to work

921
00:52:59,000 --> 00:53:02,319
Speaker 2: properly and over long period. So this is just my

922
00:53:02,520 --> 00:53:03,359
Speaker 2: means of doing it.

923
00:53:04,400 --> 00:53:08,280
Speaker 1: Okay, is your process that you write all the songs

924
00:53:08,520 --> 00:53:11,640
Speaker 1: and then you record, or do you write and record,

925
00:53:11,800 --> 00:53:12,560
Speaker 1: write and record.

926
00:53:14,280 --> 00:53:16,560
Speaker 2: I just write and record, and in fact, the recording

927
00:53:16,560 --> 00:53:20,600
Speaker 2: process is the writing process. I have a wonderful producer.

928
00:53:20,719 --> 00:53:25,120
Speaker 2: We have a very strong relationship and it's very very complimentary.

929
00:53:25,760 --> 00:53:31,720
Speaker 2: So I'm totally disinhibited these days in terms of writing lyrics,

930
00:53:32,040 --> 00:53:35,040
Speaker 2: trying things. I don't care. I'm not waiting till I

931
00:53:35,080 --> 00:53:36,880
Speaker 2: look good and then you can come into the room.

932
00:53:37,040 --> 00:53:40,160
Speaker 2: It's like you just see it all like I'll pour

933
00:53:40,239 --> 00:53:44,400
Speaker 2: it all out. Oh that's fucking terrible, like delete, you know.

934
00:53:44,600 --> 00:53:48,160
Speaker 2: So we we just we work, so I'll stay. I've

935
00:53:48,160 --> 00:53:51,200
Speaker 2: got this idea. So like on this record, Eyes Made

936
00:53:51,280 --> 00:53:54,359
Speaker 2: Rain would be a good example, a very simple song.

937
00:53:54,400 --> 00:53:56,319
Speaker 2: I said, it's like a mantra, eyes Made Rain, My

938
00:53:56,360 --> 00:53:58,640
Speaker 2: eyes made Rain, My eyes made Rain. And I have

939
00:53:58,800 --> 00:54:00,800
Speaker 2: this chord sequence, had all the chords worked out, I

940
00:54:00,840 --> 00:54:03,040
Speaker 2: didn't really have a lyric, and he was like, oh

941
00:54:03,080 --> 00:54:06,000
Speaker 2: I love this, I love this, let's start putting it down.

942
00:54:06,760 --> 00:54:09,719
Speaker 2: So I hadn't even started to write the lyric. I

943
00:54:09,760 --> 00:54:11,640
Speaker 2: had like maybe one or two lines that are going

944
00:54:11,719 --> 00:54:16,040
Speaker 2: to ghosting in here and there, and so we said, Okay,

945
00:54:16,040 --> 00:54:18,640
Speaker 2: what's the tempo going to be. Let's decide on a tempo. Okay,

946
00:54:18,840 --> 00:54:20,880
Speaker 2: let's take a little rhythm so I can play along

947
00:54:20,920 --> 00:54:22,879
Speaker 2: with it, so we don't want it just to click.

948
00:54:22,960 --> 00:54:24,600
Speaker 2: Let's get a little rythm. He came up with this

949
00:54:24,680 --> 00:54:29,280
Speaker 2: really odd rhythm, and actually the arpedu I was playing

950
00:54:29,520 --> 00:54:32,880
Speaker 2: was the vital link. So I thought, oh, this actually

951
00:54:32,960 --> 00:54:35,960
Speaker 2: really works. It's like very jazzy, very odd anyway, So

952
00:54:35,960 --> 00:54:38,080
Speaker 2: then we began to work, and as we shaped the

953
00:54:38,160 --> 00:54:41,000
Speaker 2: sound of the song and we put these kind of

954
00:54:41,040 --> 00:54:44,279
Speaker 2: little sample drum parts in and other little sounds that

955
00:54:44,320 --> 00:54:49,399
Speaker 2: came into it, it began to speak as a piece

956
00:54:49,440 --> 00:54:53,719
Speaker 2: of music, and I wanted to inhabit the space in

957
00:54:53,760 --> 00:54:56,160
Speaker 2: a way that would have been perhaps different than what

958
00:54:56,239 --> 00:54:59,560
Speaker 2: I might have come to as a lyricist if you'd

959
00:54:59,640 --> 00:55:02,000
Speaker 2: just been and the acoustic guitar and I just toughed

960
00:55:02,040 --> 00:55:05,560
Speaker 2: it out and finished the lyric on my own. The

961
00:55:05,600 --> 00:55:08,719
Speaker 2: song became something I was getting inside of as a

962
00:55:08,760 --> 00:55:12,520
Speaker 2: piece of music. All the different elements, the bass we

963
00:55:12,560 --> 00:55:15,879
Speaker 2: added the drums, we added the little sounds and subtleties,

964
00:55:16,160 --> 00:55:18,719
Speaker 2: and the space we put it in. The short reverbs

965
00:55:18,760 --> 00:55:21,719
Speaker 2: and the different things began to sort of make me

966
00:55:21,760 --> 00:55:24,719
Speaker 2: feel like I was in a different country. So the

967
00:55:25,400 --> 00:55:28,240
Speaker 2: lyric became much more impressionistic in a way. I didn't

968
00:55:28,239 --> 00:55:33,320
Speaker 2: worry too much because I was kind of slotting into

969
00:55:33,400 --> 00:55:37,480
Speaker 2: us what was basically the finished song. So I hadn't

970
00:55:37,520 --> 00:55:40,239
Speaker 2: recorded a vocal on it yet. And we got to

971
00:55:40,280 --> 00:55:42,680
Speaker 2: the end of this few hours of making this track,

972
00:55:42,719 --> 00:55:44,960
Speaker 2: and I said, right, I guess you know, I need

973
00:55:44,960 --> 00:55:48,759
Speaker 2: to put some kind of performance on top of this.

974
00:55:48,920 --> 00:55:52,800
Speaker 2: So if you leave something without a lyric or anything

975
00:55:52,800 --> 00:55:54,799
Speaker 2: on it, a voice on it, it's less hard to

976
00:55:54,800 --> 00:55:58,719
Speaker 2: relate to, it's much harder to relate to other So

977
00:55:59,160 --> 00:56:02,320
Speaker 2: I basically just I sat down and until I had

978
00:56:02,360 --> 00:56:06,560
Speaker 2: like three verses and a middle section to some kind

979
00:56:06,560 --> 00:56:11,160
Speaker 2: of degree working, you know, no one could leave. So

980
00:56:11,200 --> 00:56:12,840
Speaker 2: I just sat there and he just had to wait,

981
00:56:13,040 --> 00:56:16,520
Speaker 2: and I was just writing and writing and writing and

982
00:56:16,560 --> 00:56:19,279
Speaker 2: writing until I had something. I was happy enough to

983
00:56:19,320 --> 00:56:21,239
Speaker 2: go in there and go behind the mic and try

984
00:56:21,239 --> 00:56:23,160
Speaker 2: and put down so that we had something to relate to.

985
00:56:23,400 --> 00:56:26,719
Speaker 2: And in fact, what happened was I remember thinking, God,

986
00:56:26,719 --> 00:56:28,560
Speaker 2: what is this? What I'm even saying? This is all

987
00:56:28,680 --> 00:56:32,040
Speaker 2: rather vague, but it's sort of It's just remained a

988
00:56:32,040 --> 00:56:34,200
Speaker 2: bit like that. So I did change a few lines,

989
00:56:34,239 --> 00:56:37,399
Speaker 2: but essentially I stuck with what I came up with,

990
00:56:38,040 --> 00:56:41,400
Speaker 2: and that was just we recorded it as I was

991
00:56:41,440 --> 00:56:45,759
Speaker 2: making it, so and that's pretty much true for I'd

992
00:56:45,800 --> 00:56:47,759
Speaker 2: say probably most of the tracks on the record have

993
00:56:47,800 --> 00:56:48,560
Speaker 2: been a bit like that.

994
00:56:49,880 --> 00:56:54,720
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated you worked with Marius Defrees, who's a friend

995
00:56:54,719 --> 00:56:58,120
Speaker 1: of mine, and then you work with his son. How

996
00:56:58,160 --> 00:56:59,160
Speaker 1: does that happen?

997
00:57:00,680 --> 00:57:02,839
Speaker 2: It's such a lovely thing. And I'll tell you what's

998
00:57:02,840 --> 00:57:06,560
Speaker 2: absolutely beautiful about it is they both have this There's

999
00:57:06,840 --> 00:57:12,080
Speaker 2: talk about the genes of taste and subtlety. They both

1000
00:57:12,120 --> 00:57:18,800
Speaker 2: have this incredible musicality, this rich and very subtle bordering

1001
00:57:18,800 --> 00:57:25,440
Speaker 2: on classical understanding of music and voicings and orchestration. And

1002
00:57:25,480 --> 00:57:31,040
Speaker 2: Marius is a very different personality to Ben. But yeah,

1003
00:57:31,160 --> 00:57:35,280
Speaker 2: working with Marius was lovely, so much more pressurized situation.

1004
00:57:35,560 --> 00:57:37,360
Speaker 2: He came into a thing where everyone wanted a record

1005
00:57:37,400 --> 00:57:40,520
Speaker 2: with a hit. I've had a couple of big hit

1006
00:57:40,600 --> 00:57:43,480
Speaker 2: records and this was going to be life in slow motion.

1007
00:57:43,560 --> 00:57:46,200
Speaker 2: This was going to be a big deal basically. So

1008
00:57:46,960 --> 00:57:49,439
Speaker 2: working with Ben has been very different, and we've over

1009
00:57:49,480 --> 00:57:51,520
Speaker 2: the course of now three records and a few other

1010
00:57:51,600 --> 00:57:55,960
Speaker 2: side projects, we've developed a wonderful relationship. But they they're

1011
00:57:56,000 --> 00:57:59,160
Speaker 2: both old school. They don't flinch, they don't mess, they

1012
00:57:59,160 --> 00:58:02,560
Speaker 2: don't mess. They there until the until the projects finished.

1013
00:58:02,560 --> 00:58:05,720
Speaker 2: They give you everything that they should give you. There's

1014
00:58:05,760 --> 00:58:08,800
Speaker 2: no none of this kind of you know, I'm tired

1015
00:58:08,920 --> 00:58:10,880
Speaker 2: kind of bollocks you get from some people.

1016
00:58:13,080 --> 00:58:15,120
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back though to what you were saying

1017
00:58:15,160 --> 00:58:20,320
Speaker 1: before that you're in your writing phase. At what point

1018
00:58:20,400 --> 00:58:21,840
Speaker 1: do you bring in the producer.

1019
00:58:26,000 --> 00:58:31,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do need some time to myself two to

1020
00:58:31,920 --> 00:58:38,160
Speaker 2: sketch the ideas, to begin to just so early on, though,

1021
00:58:38,200 --> 00:58:41,200
Speaker 2: because I have the sense of trust with Ben that

1022
00:58:41,320 --> 00:58:44,280
Speaker 2: I don't need a finished thing, although it's much nicer

1023
00:58:44,320 --> 00:58:46,360
Speaker 2: to have. I've written the song, come on, let's work

1024
00:58:46,400 --> 00:58:50,080
Speaker 2: on it. I'd normally be more in its infancy. I've

1025
00:58:50,160 --> 00:58:52,440
Speaker 2: got this idea. What do you think of the idea?

1026
00:58:54,040 --> 00:58:58,480
Speaker 2: Let's let's work on it. So very early on these

1027
00:58:58,600 --> 00:59:03,120
Speaker 2: days the producer would come in because, as I said,

1028
00:59:03,200 --> 00:59:07,080
Speaker 2: I've seen many good examples now of how we've got

1029
00:59:07,640 --> 00:59:10,040
Speaker 2: a long way with the song without me having finished

1030
00:59:10,040 --> 00:59:14,080
Speaker 2: the lyric. The lyric writing is what takes time. So

1031
00:59:15,200 --> 00:59:19,160
Speaker 2: but yeah, but when this album and this tour slows down,

1032
00:59:19,400 --> 00:59:21,080
Speaker 2: as I said, I want to finish this other record.

1033
00:59:21,160 --> 00:59:26,120
Speaker 2: But after that, I'll be trying to sort of locate myself,

1034
00:59:26,160 --> 00:59:30,360
Speaker 2: feel where I am, get a sense of the topography,

1035
00:59:30,600 --> 00:59:34,600
Speaker 2: geography of my heart, what's going on inside me, the

1036
00:59:35,200 --> 00:59:38,400
Speaker 2: bedrock of what this music is going to be springing from,

1037
00:59:38,440 --> 00:59:41,360
Speaker 2: what's going to be built upon this next wave of stuff.

1038
00:59:41,840 --> 00:59:45,320
Speaker 2: I've got dreams and ideas already for what that will be.

1039
00:59:45,360 --> 00:59:48,040
Speaker 2: I've already started making notes, but it may be that

1040
00:59:48,120 --> 00:59:52,640
Speaker 2: they never see the light of day. They don't. There's

1041
00:59:52,640 --> 00:59:54,960
Speaker 2: no fruition for all that stuff. It's just a dream.

1042
00:59:55,360 --> 00:59:57,480
Speaker 2: When I actually get there, something might happen and my

1043
00:59:57,520 --> 00:59:59,480
Speaker 2: life might be quite different, and the record might take

1044
00:59:59,480 --> 01:00:03,120
Speaker 2: on a different feel or tone. So but yes, when

1045
01:00:03,160 --> 01:00:05,120
Speaker 2: when I've finished and things slow down and I get

1046
01:00:05,120 --> 01:00:07,520
Speaker 2: some time to myself, I'll get my little studio set

1047
01:00:07,600 --> 01:00:10,520
Speaker 2: up out in the countryside, and I'll spend some time

1048
01:00:10,640 --> 01:00:14,200
Speaker 2: just working on things on my own and and feeling

1049
01:00:14,480 --> 01:00:17,680
Speaker 2: for things Before I involve anybody, but it won't be

1050
01:00:17,760 --> 01:00:18,600
Speaker 2: long before I do.

1051
01:00:26,840 --> 01:00:29,880
Speaker 1: So. Earlier you also said on this album you have

1052
01:00:30,040 --> 01:00:34,280
Speaker 1: horns and strings. How did you decide to employ those?

1053
01:00:36,200 --> 01:00:38,600
Speaker 2: Well, just where the music told me they needed to go.

1054
01:00:38,760 --> 01:00:44,720
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's it's not a given that adding

1055
01:00:44,840 --> 01:00:48,200
Speaker 2: orchestration or horns takes you any further down the track

1056
01:00:48,280 --> 01:00:51,840
Speaker 2: in terms of realizing what a song must be. Quite

1057
01:00:51,840 --> 01:00:54,800
Speaker 2: the contrary. I mean, sometimes some songs sound better just

1058
01:00:54,880 --> 01:00:58,680
Speaker 2: on your own, sometimes better with a drum player, drum drummer,

1059
01:00:58,760 --> 01:01:01,800
Speaker 2: some with a bass player on to some without. So

1060
01:01:02,720 --> 01:01:07,880
Speaker 2: with orchestration, there was a as I say, a melodic strength.

1061
01:01:08,040 --> 01:01:12,280
Speaker 2: There was just some of these songs we're just asking

1062
01:01:12,520 --> 01:01:17,640
Speaker 2: for orchestration there there there they were big melodies. So

1063
01:01:17,880 --> 01:01:22,640
Speaker 2: it's different every time. So and as I say, Ben

1064
01:01:22,880 --> 01:01:29,760
Speaker 2: like his dad, is very very talented at voicings. So

1065
01:01:30,600 --> 01:01:35,480
Speaker 2: for example, using leave taking user bass clarinet introduces the

1066
01:01:35,480 --> 01:01:38,240
Speaker 2: the sort of the horn section. You don't go straight

1067
01:01:38,280 --> 01:01:41,680
Speaker 2: in with a saxophone or a trombone or a trumpet.

1068
01:01:41,800 --> 01:01:45,520
Speaker 2: You you use a bass clarinet to play. I mean,

1069
01:01:46,240 --> 01:01:48,640
Speaker 2: who think of using a bass clarinet. It's a beautiful,

1070
01:01:48,720 --> 01:01:53,800
Speaker 2: beautiful sound, and there's a these little touches of class.

1071
01:01:53,840 --> 01:01:57,440
Speaker 2: We're using obo here and this there, and there's little

1072
01:01:57,440 --> 01:02:00,520
Speaker 2: bits of knowledge and and and they to a much

1073
01:02:00,560 --> 01:02:04,480
Speaker 2: more satisfying end result. So yeah, it's just it's different

1074
01:02:04,520 --> 01:02:07,439
Speaker 2: every record. This time it wanted these. I don't think

1075
01:02:07,480 --> 01:02:12,720
Speaker 2: the next record will probably have an orchestra or horns

1076
01:02:12,800 --> 01:02:15,760
Speaker 2: or anything. I think we might get my friend Caroline

1077
01:02:15,760 --> 01:02:17,560
Speaker 2: to come around with her cello and do a little

1078
01:02:17,600 --> 01:02:19,480
Speaker 2: bit of playing on a couple of things, but it

1079
01:02:19,480 --> 01:02:23,760
Speaker 2: will be more layering some strings into the odd song maybe,

1080
01:02:24,280 --> 01:02:27,040
Speaker 2: But I don't see that the next chapter will have

1081
01:02:27,640 --> 01:02:29,760
Speaker 2: any of that stuff. This time around, it was. It

1082
01:02:29,800 --> 01:02:32,840
Speaker 2: definitely felt right and it sounds wonderful that the session

1083
01:02:32,880 --> 01:02:35,840
Speaker 2: we did for the orchestra was absolutely out of this world.

1084
01:02:35,840 --> 01:02:40,960
Speaker 1: It's phenomenal forgetting orchestra and other big productions. Your studio

1085
01:02:41,040 --> 01:02:43,320
Speaker 1: in the old home, your studio up the street. Now,

1086
01:02:43,600 --> 01:02:46,560
Speaker 1: can you make the records in these studios or do

1087
01:02:46,600 --> 01:02:49,400
Speaker 1: you have to go to another room to make the records?

1088
01:02:50,600 --> 01:02:55,200
Speaker 2: No, I can make all the record that. If we

1089
01:02:55,280 --> 01:02:57,840
Speaker 2: wanted a big drum sound, or we want to record

1090
01:02:57,880 --> 01:03:01,480
Speaker 2: horns or strings, we go somewhere else because I haven't

1091
01:03:01,480 --> 01:03:03,360
Speaker 2: got the mics, and I haven't got the mic stands,

1092
01:03:03,360 --> 01:03:04,360
Speaker 2: and I haven't got the space.

1093
01:03:05,600 --> 01:03:07,960
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go to the previous album you mentioned. It

1094
01:03:08,000 --> 01:03:11,960
Speaker 1: was very made during COVID scaleg I think, and in

1095
01:03:12,000 --> 01:03:15,640
Speaker 1: the old days let's just call it pre internet, last century.

1096
01:03:16,160 --> 01:03:20,080
Speaker 1: If you made an album that was not as successful

1097
01:03:20,160 --> 01:03:25,000
Speaker 1: commercially or critically, he could really negatively impact your career.

1098
01:03:26,040 --> 01:03:28,960
Speaker 1: To what degree is that a factor or is that

1099
01:03:29,120 --> 01:03:31,280
Speaker 1: even not a factor in today's world.

1100
01:03:34,160 --> 01:03:36,280
Speaker 2: It depends how you set your stall out. I mean,

1101
01:03:36,320 --> 01:03:39,280
Speaker 2: I've seen it have that very negative effect on my

1102
01:03:39,360 --> 01:03:44,520
Speaker 2: own career more than once. So God knows, I've seen

1103
01:03:44,520 --> 01:03:50,080
Speaker 2: this every which way. I've been nowhere, somewhere, somewhere in between,

1104
01:03:50,280 --> 01:03:53,480
Speaker 2: and I've done things I love that didn't really get

1105
01:03:53,520 --> 01:03:56,040
Speaker 2: anywhere with the radio, and then everyone turns around and goes, well,

1106
01:03:56,720 --> 01:04:01,400
Speaker 2: he's only worth this now, so dismiss It's like, yeah,

1107
01:04:01,440 --> 01:04:04,320
Speaker 2: you've got to be very careful. I think. Ultimately, though,

1108
01:04:04,320 --> 01:04:05,960
Speaker 2: you've got to make yourself happy. You've got to do

1109
01:04:06,000 --> 01:04:07,920
Speaker 2: what you want to do. If you want to be

1110
01:04:07,960 --> 01:04:10,760
Speaker 2: in music, if it's your life, then you're going to

1111
01:04:10,800 --> 01:04:13,800
Speaker 2: be there with a passion and a zeal to see

1112
01:04:13,800 --> 01:04:16,640
Speaker 2: it through till the end. Then you've got to set

1113
01:04:16,680 --> 01:04:19,560
Speaker 2: your stall out accordingly. I mean, do you care about

1114
01:04:19,560 --> 01:04:22,920
Speaker 2: the fucking numbers or what? Of course you do. Everyone

1115
01:04:22,960 --> 01:04:26,360
Speaker 2: wants to connect to the listener who doesn't want listeners,

1116
01:04:27,080 --> 01:04:29,240
Speaker 2: But there's more to it than that. It's like what

1117
01:04:29,400 --> 01:04:31,600
Speaker 2: kind of listener and how do they listen and all

1118
01:04:31,640 --> 01:04:34,720
Speaker 2: the rest of it. So there are this Because I've

1119
01:04:34,760 --> 01:04:36,480
Speaker 2: got my own label, I can I guess, to a

1120
01:04:36,520 --> 01:04:38,520
Speaker 2: certain extent, do what I want to do. And this

1121
01:04:38,560 --> 01:04:42,520
Speaker 2: record was a labor of love. And I think this

1122
01:04:42,560 --> 01:04:44,840
Speaker 2: record will still be being listened to when I'm dead.

1123
01:04:45,760 --> 01:04:49,840
Speaker 2: It was a magic experience. But it's never going to

1124
01:04:50,200 --> 01:04:53,320
Speaker 2: unless it gets some kind of sink or film placement

1125
01:04:53,400 --> 01:04:56,480
Speaker 2: that suddenly makes everyone aware of it. It's going to

1126
01:04:56,520 --> 01:04:59,840
Speaker 2: be a very slow word of mouth or word of

1127
01:05:00,040 --> 01:05:04,080
Speaker 2: finger movement that it makes through people's consciousness. It's going

1128
01:05:04,120 --> 01:05:07,320
Speaker 2: to be the sort of thing that's passed around. So

1129
01:05:08,000 --> 01:05:11,640
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know. I did the White Ladder

1130
01:05:11,680 --> 01:05:14,280
Speaker 2: to all. That meant all the promoters and venues suddenly

1131
01:05:14,320 --> 01:05:17,000
Speaker 2: went well, look he sold all these tickets. So now

1132
01:05:17,000 --> 01:05:19,520
Speaker 2: I'm being treated slightly differently because I can prove I

1133
01:05:19,520 --> 01:05:22,240
Speaker 2: can still sell some tickets, So all the things you

1134
01:05:22,280 --> 01:05:25,600
Speaker 2: say about the industry are absolutely true and they haven't changed.

1135
01:05:25,680 --> 01:05:28,800
Speaker 2: I think that when you've made as many records and

1136
01:05:28,840 --> 01:05:32,520
Speaker 2: you've carried on as long as I have, it obviously

1137
01:05:32,560 --> 01:05:36,280
Speaker 2: becomes maybe slightly less significant. If I just followed White

1138
01:05:36,400 --> 01:05:42,000
Speaker 2: Ladder with, you know, some obscure electronic project that was

1139
01:05:42,200 --> 01:05:44,480
Speaker 2: never going to flow anyone's boat, it would have been

1140
01:05:44,840 --> 01:05:47,240
Speaker 2: maybe a really stupid dumb thing to do from a

1141
01:05:47,240 --> 01:05:49,840
Speaker 2: commercial point of view. But if that's what I really felt,

1142
01:05:49,840 --> 01:05:52,880
Speaker 2: I wanted to do it just anyway. It's all down

1143
01:05:52,920 --> 01:05:57,280
Speaker 2: to the individual, and I don't think there's a right

1144
01:05:57,320 --> 01:05:59,040
Speaker 2: and wrong way of doing it. If what you're trying

1145
01:05:59,040 --> 01:06:01,320
Speaker 2: to say is has it changed? Does the industry more

1146
01:06:01,360 --> 01:06:04,440
Speaker 2: forgiving now? I don't think it really is. But I

1147
01:06:04,440 --> 01:06:06,760
Speaker 2: think that it's so much easier to put music out.

1148
01:06:06,960 --> 01:06:09,120
Speaker 2: There's so much going out that it's not such a big, big,

1149
01:06:09,160 --> 01:06:13,040
Speaker 2: big deal. There's a lot of covering fire as people

1150
01:06:13,080 --> 01:06:16,840
Speaker 2: putting shit out all the time, So it's it's it's

1151
01:06:16,880 --> 01:06:21,080
Speaker 2: it's completely naturally saturated in new music, So maybe it's

1152
01:06:21,160 --> 01:06:25,040
Speaker 2: it's just less prominent and less obvious now.

1153
01:06:24,800 --> 01:06:28,680
Speaker 1: In today's world. I mean you literally have your own label.

1154
01:06:28,840 --> 01:06:31,960
Speaker 1: You're involved. You know, we have a distributor does marketing

1155
01:06:32,360 --> 01:06:36,240
Speaker 1: to what degree? Or you or your team involved in

1156
01:06:36,320 --> 01:06:39,400
Speaker 1: social media direct access to your fans.

1157
01:06:41,000 --> 01:06:44,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I try and keep the tone. I do

1158
01:06:44,560 --> 01:06:47,360
Speaker 2: all the writing of the copy when it's in first person,

1159
01:06:47,760 --> 01:06:52,640
Speaker 2: they're my posts. And I don't use social media in

1160
01:06:52,760 --> 01:06:57,480
Speaker 2: my life too. I don't use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, I

1161
01:06:57,480 --> 01:07:00,680
Speaker 2: don't use any of it. I don't have person not accounts,

1162
01:07:00,720 --> 01:07:04,280
Speaker 2: I don't communicate with anyone through those things. But it's

1163
01:07:04,320 --> 01:07:07,760
Speaker 2: as a means of letting my fans know. Writing something

1164
01:07:07,840 --> 01:07:09,800
Speaker 2: on the blackboard is sort of how I see it.

1165
01:07:09,880 --> 01:07:12,200
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't follow anyone. I don't engage. It

1166
01:07:12,320 --> 01:07:15,400
Speaker 2: just gobbles up your time, mind, everything else. I can't

1167
01:07:15,400 --> 01:07:17,880
Speaker 2: be bothered with any of it. But I see it

1168
01:07:17,880 --> 01:07:20,360
Speaker 2: as a vital tool these days for letting people know

1169
01:07:20,440 --> 01:07:25,120
Speaker 2: what's happening. So, of course the gatekeepers are very much

1170
01:07:25,520 --> 01:07:28,160
Speaker 2: in control of how it all works. That there was

1171
01:07:28,200 --> 01:07:31,880
Speaker 2: a certain innocent period when it sort of went out

1172
01:07:31,920 --> 01:07:35,640
Speaker 2: to everyone. Apparently it doesn't work like that anymore. So

1173
01:07:36,560 --> 01:07:42,720
Speaker 2: you know that it's very carefully managed, in choreographed so yes,

1174
01:07:42,800 --> 01:07:47,640
Speaker 2: but it's a personal things, and it needs to feel authentic.

1175
01:07:48,120 --> 01:07:50,800
Speaker 2: So when I speak one of the things I find

1176
01:07:50,880 --> 01:07:53,440
Speaker 2: rather dull as these things become more important, which is

1177
01:07:53,480 --> 01:07:56,680
Speaker 2: what's happened with Instagram, for example, something I quite liked

1178
01:07:56,720 --> 01:07:59,720
Speaker 2: because you When I started, I was just doing weird photos,

1179
01:08:00,160 --> 01:08:02,960
Speaker 2: which I enjoyed, and writing because there was no limit

1180
01:08:03,000 --> 01:08:06,680
Speaker 2: on the characters, writing a few words or a lot

1181
01:08:06,680 --> 01:08:08,480
Speaker 2: of words about what I was doing or what I

1182
01:08:08,520 --> 01:08:11,760
Speaker 2: was seeing. But of course it becomes like the only

1183
01:08:11,800 --> 01:08:14,200
Speaker 2: show in town in terms of letting everybody know you've

1184
01:08:14,200 --> 01:08:16,519
Speaker 2: got to tour an album of this. So everything now

1185
01:08:16,640 --> 01:08:20,600
Speaker 2: is just basically much more related to your job. So

1186
01:08:20,960 --> 01:08:23,519
Speaker 2: when it started, it was a bit more innocent and fun,

1187
01:08:23,560 --> 01:08:30,360
Speaker 2: and that's not really true anymore. But it's still a

1188
01:08:30,439 --> 01:08:33,200
Speaker 2: vital tool. So I try and make the best of

1189
01:08:33,200 --> 01:08:38,479
Speaker 2: it that I can and give an authentic view into

1190
01:08:38,520 --> 01:08:41,040
Speaker 2: my life, my thoughts and feelings. I don't share photos

1191
01:08:41,080 --> 01:08:47,880
Speaker 2: of food, holidays, children, or opinions on current political situations

1192
01:08:47,960 --> 01:08:51,920
Speaker 2: or war or anything. I keep that to myself. It's

1193
01:08:51,960 --> 01:08:54,360
Speaker 2: not that I'm afraid of voicing those opinions, but I

1194
01:08:54,880 --> 01:08:57,080
Speaker 2: don't foist them on my listeners.

1195
01:08:57,760 --> 01:09:03,120
Speaker 1: To what degree online are you two way interacting with europeand.

1196
01:09:03,640 --> 01:09:08,120
Speaker 2: Not at all. I don't follow anyone or any other artists.

1197
01:09:08,800 --> 01:09:12,280
Speaker 2: I don't engage in that way. I just put things

1198
01:09:12,280 --> 01:09:15,360
Speaker 2: on my thing. If I was going to if I

1199
01:09:15,479 --> 01:09:18,719
Speaker 2: was going to interact with a fellow artist, I would

1200
01:09:18,720 --> 01:09:19,599
Speaker 2: send them an email.

1201
01:09:20,640 --> 01:09:23,479
Speaker 1: Okay, So where did you grow up?

1202
01:09:24,960 --> 01:09:28,920
Speaker 2: I grew up in Manchester until I was eight, in

1203
01:09:28,960 --> 01:09:32,519
Speaker 2: the North of England, and then my parents moved to

1204
01:09:32,560 --> 01:09:35,840
Speaker 2: a tiny fishing village in the Very West Wales called Solver.

1205
01:09:36,560 --> 01:09:39,400
Speaker 2: So if you've ever read Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood,

1206
01:09:39,960 --> 01:09:42,560
Speaker 2: then it was something like that, a sort of enchanted

1207
01:09:42,640 --> 01:09:46,960
Speaker 2: realm of sea and sand and woodland and cliff that

1208
01:09:47,080 --> 01:09:49,720
Speaker 2: I was suddenly thrust into and being a sort of

1209
01:09:49,800 --> 01:09:53,120
Speaker 2: avid nature lover, it was just the most incredible adventure.

1210
01:09:53,800 --> 01:09:57,920
Speaker 2: It sort of seeded my imagination with imagery and thoughts

1211
01:09:58,640 --> 01:10:02,120
Speaker 2: and beauty and I still draw on that fund now.

1212
01:10:03,880 --> 01:10:05,160
Speaker 1: And what kind of kid? Were you?

1213
01:10:08,720 --> 01:10:19,880
Speaker 2: Very interested in stuff? Very sporty, loved all sport, loved,

1214
01:10:19,960 --> 01:10:25,120
Speaker 2: playing out, was just out all the time, kind of shy.

1215
01:10:26,720 --> 01:10:30,360
Speaker 2: So when I discovered going on stage, that was like

1216
01:10:30,720 --> 01:10:33,599
Speaker 2: a big moment. I had to be a stand in

1217
01:10:33,680 --> 01:10:38,440
Speaker 2: for the main part in the primary school production Christmas

1218
01:10:38,479 --> 01:10:42,240
Speaker 2: play the main Wizard, the Wizard and the Wizard the Witch.

1219
01:10:42,840 --> 01:10:45,840
Speaker 2: The Wizard was taken ill on day of show, and

1220
01:10:45,920 --> 01:10:48,479
Speaker 2: I had a very good memory. I had a very

1221
01:10:48,520 --> 01:10:52,479
Speaker 2: good memory, so they said they plumped on me, even

1222
01:10:52,520 --> 01:10:54,559
Speaker 2: though I was a year younger than lots of the

1223
01:10:54,560 --> 01:10:57,680
Speaker 2: other children, to be the main part because I'm the

1224
01:10:57,720 --> 01:11:03,439
Speaker 2: only person who might remember all the the different lines.

1225
01:11:03,560 --> 01:11:06,680
Speaker 2: So I learned the Wizard's part, but they didn't have

1226
01:11:06,760 --> 01:11:09,000
Speaker 2: time before we got to the performance to teach me

1227
01:11:09,080 --> 01:11:12,800
Speaker 2: the dances, so I had to improvise my song and

1228
01:11:12,920 --> 01:11:15,960
Speaker 2: dance routine. And let's just say, Bob that I was

1229
01:11:16,000 --> 01:11:18,559
Speaker 2: a big hit with the audience. I was a big

1230
01:11:18,640 --> 01:11:22,679
Speaker 2: hit with the audience. The audience loved me. And as

1231
01:11:22,680 --> 01:11:26,280
Speaker 2: I stood there doing my crazy wizard dancing, singing these

1232
01:11:26,320 --> 01:11:31,880
Speaker 2: little songs, and they gave me rapturous applause. And I

1233
01:11:31,880 --> 01:11:35,280
Speaker 2: remember looking out at them from this stage, which was

1234
01:11:35,320 --> 01:11:39,679
Speaker 2: probably only about six inches high, into the dark all

1235
01:11:39,720 --> 01:11:41,519
Speaker 2: that what felt like a sea of faces, which was

1236
01:11:41,520 --> 01:11:46,559
Speaker 2: probably about sixty people, and thinking, yeah, I get this.

1237
01:11:47,320 --> 01:11:50,280
Speaker 2: I get I'm in a magic world of mate believe,

1238
01:11:50,840 --> 01:11:54,080
Speaker 2: and I'm what I'm giving them. They loved me because

1239
01:11:54,120 --> 01:11:57,920
Speaker 2: I'm doing something freely and giving it to them, and

1240
01:11:57,960 --> 01:12:02,519
Speaker 2: their their joy is in my giving and where some

1241
01:12:02,560 --> 01:12:07,320
Speaker 2: people would have just been inhibited. And I was shy,

1242
01:12:07,400 --> 01:12:10,200
Speaker 2: but I love this and that stayed with me, and

1243
01:12:10,240 --> 01:12:13,600
Speaker 2: I then sort of pursued sort of amateur dramatics. We

1244
01:12:13,640 --> 01:12:16,960
Speaker 2: are probably grand term, but I was in school plays

1245
01:12:16,960 --> 01:12:21,760
Speaker 2: from then on and I got some big roles and

1246
01:12:21,800 --> 01:12:24,479
Speaker 2: I started my own band. So I loved it on

1247
01:12:24,520 --> 01:12:28,760
Speaker 2: the stage. So choosing to do music over art was

1248
01:12:28,800 --> 01:12:31,080
Speaker 2: probably because I liked the fact it brought me into

1249
01:12:31,120 --> 01:12:34,720
Speaker 2: the world and you've got this instant reaction. So I

1250
01:12:35,280 --> 01:12:37,760
Speaker 2: was when I was a teenager. I just became your

1251
01:12:37,760 --> 01:12:43,400
Speaker 2: classic teenager, smoking, drinking and wanting to kiss girls and

1252
01:12:44,240 --> 01:12:46,160
Speaker 2: you know, then wanting to be in a band. And

1253
01:12:46,200 --> 01:12:49,000
Speaker 2: I stopped studying. I stopped paying any attention apart from

1254
01:12:49,320 --> 01:12:52,200
Speaker 2: art and reading a few of the English texts. And

1255
01:12:52,760 --> 01:12:55,120
Speaker 2: they all sort of were tearing their hair out. Probably

1256
01:12:55,200 --> 01:12:58,080
Speaker 2: I can't imagine what it's like for my mum, but

1257
01:12:58,160 --> 01:13:02,439
Speaker 2: she showed incredible patience. So I kind of disconnected from

1258
01:13:02,479 --> 01:13:06,080
Speaker 2: my studies somewhat, and it made a bit of a

1259
01:13:06,320 --> 01:13:10,760
Speaker 2: mockery of my exams at various points, but I kind

1260
01:13:10,760 --> 01:13:12,880
Speaker 2: of got through. I chose the path of least resistance,

1261
01:13:13,080 --> 01:13:14,160
Speaker 2: which was art school.

1262
01:13:15,320 --> 01:13:19,040
Speaker 1: What did your parents do for a living, Well.

1263
01:13:19,000 --> 01:13:21,080
Speaker 2: My dad had been a baker in Manchester, in the

1264
01:13:21,120 --> 01:13:26,080
Speaker 2: family in firm, and when they didn't know what they

1265
01:13:26,120 --> 01:13:27,240
Speaker 2: were going to do when they went to well, so

1266
01:13:27,280 --> 01:13:31,040
Speaker 2: my mum was making these quilted clothes using Liberty fabrics

1267
01:13:31,080 --> 01:13:36,040
Speaker 2: and they started a little cottage industry selling these, and

1268
01:13:36,080 --> 01:13:40,320
Speaker 2: then it became successful and they were Liberty in London's

1269
01:13:40,360 --> 01:13:43,880
Speaker 2: biggest sellers. They were for a while, and then they

1270
01:13:43,960 --> 01:13:46,320
Speaker 2: started their own little shop to sell their own clothes,

1271
01:13:46,800 --> 01:13:50,680
Speaker 2: which developed into a craft shop, and then eventually they

1272
01:13:50,760 --> 01:13:53,439
Speaker 2: folded the clothing business and they just had a craft

1273
01:13:53,439 --> 01:13:56,400
Speaker 2: shop and the restaurant down the street where I worked

1274
01:13:56,400 --> 01:14:00,800
Speaker 2: as a washer up for many years made it to waiter.

1275
01:14:02,720 --> 01:14:03,880
Speaker 1: And do you have any siblings?

1276
01:14:05,240 --> 01:14:07,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got two sisters. I'm the eldest. I got

1277
01:14:07,920 --> 01:14:09,400
Speaker 2: two younger sisters.

1278
01:14:10,160 --> 01:14:14,360
Speaker 1: So how did you get into music? Yeah?

1279
01:14:14,400 --> 01:14:16,280
Speaker 2: I always loved it. I mean, my mum was a

1280
01:14:16,360 --> 01:14:18,240
Speaker 2: very good singer. She used to sing in the choir.

1281
01:14:19,320 --> 01:14:22,040
Speaker 2: And I didn't have any elder brothers and sisters to

1282
01:14:22,120 --> 01:14:25,160
Speaker 2: kind of guide me. Into what was cool, just reacted

1283
01:14:25,200 --> 01:14:30,160
Speaker 2: to things. So saw music on the Telly and fell

1284
01:14:30,200 --> 01:14:33,200
Speaker 2: in love with Madness the Specials, sort of whole two

1285
01:14:33,280 --> 01:14:38,680
Speaker 2: tone thing that was nineteen seventy nine, and I was

1286
01:14:38,680 --> 01:14:43,240
Speaker 2: obsessed with that for several years and then became more

1287
01:14:43,280 --> 01:14:45,320
Speaker 2: like an indie thing. And while I was getting into

1288
01:14:45,360 --> 01:14:48,519
Speaker 2: indie music, I kind of got into other things that

1289
01:14:48,640 --> 01:14:51,599
Speaker 2: was something we'd all talk about. You'd watch Telly Don't

1290
01:14:51,600 --> 01:14:54,320
Speaker 2: Look Back was on, like the Da Pennybecker film. I

1291
01:14:54,360 --> 01:14:57,719
Speaker 2: watched that fucking in hell. I already loved Bob Dylan.

1292
01:14:57,760 --> 01:15:00,559
Speaker 2: I discovered him, I thought, well, I started buying Dealing

1293
01:15:00,640 --> 01:15:05,679
Speaker 2: Records and Leonard Cohen Records, Jny Mitchell Records, John Martin Records,

1294
01:15:05,720 --> 01:15:08,400
Speaker 2: and I started to explore Tom Waite's all these things

1295
01:15:08,439 --> 01:15:11,679
Speaker 2: at the same time as listening to the cool pop

1296
01:15:11,760 --> 01:15:15,559
Speaker 2: music of the sort of early to mid eighties. So

1297
01:15:15,640 --> 01:15:17,360
Speaker 2: that's kind of what happened. I just got into it.

1298
01:15:17,439 --> 01:15:19,519
Speaker 2: My dad had an acoustic guitar which he didn't know

1299
01:15:19,560 --> 01:15:22,000
Speaker 2: how to play. I just started using it, and my

1300
01:15:22,000 --> 01:15:24,400
Speaker 2: friend wrote down some chords for me and I started

1301
01:15:24,439 --> 01:15:24,800
Speaker 2: from there.

1302
01:15:32,880 --> 01:15:36,280
Speaker 1: So how did you decide this is going to be

1303
01:15:36,320 --> 01:15:40,040
Speaker 1: a career? And how did you end up becoming a professional.

1304
01:15:42,080 --> 01:15:45,400
Speaker 2: Well, I was very lucky. I'm very fortunate. I've always

1305
01:15:45,439 --> 01:15:51,840
Speaker 2: very driven, very self confident, very determined. So I went

1306
01:15:51,880 --> 01:15:55,559
Speaker 2: to art school, I formed a band, made demos and

1307
01:15:55,720 --> 01:15:58,800
Speaker 2: already at that point decided this is the way I'm

1308
01:15:58,840 --> 01:16:03,439
Speaker 2: going to go. And so I was painting and stuff

1309
01:16:03,439 --> 01:16:07,120
Speaker 2: for my degree, but really most of my energy and

1310
01:16:07,200 --> 01:16:10,439
Speaker 2: money as well, I was buying equipment and stuff was

1311
01:16:10,479 --> 01:16:12,639
Speaker 2: going into playing with my band, and we were playing

1312
01:16:12,680 --> 01:16:15,599
Speaker 2: shows in Glasgow, tried Manchester, didn't go so well there

1313
01:16:15,880 --> 01:16:18,720
Speaker 2: Liverpool where I went to art school, so I was

1314
01:16:18,760 --> 01:16:22,240
Speaker 2: gigging and we made a demo at the end of

1315
01:16:22,280 --> 01:16:28,400
Speaker 2: my last year and sent it into the Manchester Evening News.

1316
01:16:28,880 --> 01:16:31,559
Speaker 2: John Slater was an A and R man in Manchester

1317
01:16:31,600 --> 01:16:36,439
Speaker 2: who do a demo review. So he really liked the

1318
01:16:36,520 --> 01:16:40,320
Speaker 2: demo and sent an A and R man like a

1319
01:16:40,360 --> 01:16:44,240
Speaker 2: scout to see us in Liverpool to check us out.

1320
01:16:44,280 --> 01:16:45,800
Speaker 2: He gave us a good review, and he sent a

1321
01:16:45,800 --> 01:16:47,920
Speaker 2: scout and the scout was working for the person who

1322
01:16:48,000 --> 01:16:51,200
Speaker 2: would become my manager, who was just taken on a

1323
01:16:51,280 --> 01:16:54,559
Speaker 2: job at Pollardor to sort of pay a few bills with.

1324
01:16:54,680 --> 01:16:57,519
Speaker 2: So he was working for Polydor and also sort of

1325
01:16:57,560 --> 01:17:01,000
Speaker 2: scouting out talent at the same time time from his

1326
01:17:01,080 --> 01:17:06,479
Speaker 2: own POV and he was given this demo and so

1327
01:17:06,960 --> 01:17:09,800
Speaker 2: my very first demo ended up in the hands of

1328
01:17:09,840 --> 01:17:13,679
Speaker 2: the person who would be my manager. And then Pollodor

1329
01:17:13,720 --> 01:17:18,000
Speaker 2: commissioned a second demo and things began to move forward,

1330
01:17:18,560 --> 01:17:21,519
Speaker 2: and they got a publishing deal with Warner Chapel the

1331
01:17:21,560 --> 01:17:24,000
Speaker 2: following year. Then I moved to London and got a

1332
01:17:24,040 --> 01:17:29,160
Speaker 2: record deal with Virgin So that's sort of how it started.

1333
01:17:29,200 --> 01:17:30,920
Speaker 2: It all happened very quickly. I mean I finished my

1334
01:17:30,920 --> 01:17:32,760
Speaker 2: college and within a year I was in London with

1335
01:17:32,800 --> 01:17:33,439
Speaker 2: a record deal.

1336
01:17:34,640 --> 01:17:40,920
Speaker 1: So the first three records were let's just say they

1337
01:17:40,960 --> 01:17:46,880
Speaker 1: weren't hit. What was your experience, Yeah, it was well.

1338
01:17:46,920 --> 01:17:51,760
Speaker 2: I was, first of all, super exciting. I didn't ever

1339
01:17:51,840 --> 01:17:54,559
Speaker 2: have a kind of overview or a plan of how

1340
01:17:54,640 --> 01:17:56,479
Speaker 2: I was going to crack the music industry. I didn't

1341
01:17:56,479 --> 01:18:00,800
Speaker 2: have some hey press guy, this is my take on things.

1342
01:18:00,840 --> 01:18:03,800
Speaker 2: I didn't have any of that shite. I just I

1343
01:18:03,920 --> 01:18:07,200
Speaker 2: just had myself, my heart, my songs. I just wanted

1344
01:18:07,200 --> 01:18:11,120
Speaker 2: to do it. So the whole thing was a crazy

1345
01:18:11,200 --> 01:18:17,240
Speaker 2: learning experience, character building, as they say. So the first

1346
01:18:17,280 --> 01:18:21,479
Speaker 2: album new record label, got to go to America, tour

1347
01:18:21,600 --> 01:18:24,439
Speaker 2: America a couple of times as a support act, play

1348
01:18:24,560 --> 01:18:27,840
Speaker 2: shows of my own in New York and LA and

1349
01:18:28,560 --> 01:18:34,360
Speaker 2: you know, a super super exciting but by record too

1350
01:18:34,600 --> 01:18:38,160
Speaker 2: because I hadn't sold any records, you know, they were

1351
01:18:38,479 --> 01:18:40,960
Speaker 2: And also the guy who signed me, the classic music

1352
01:18:41,000 --> 01:18:43,960
Speaker 2: business thing, he was sacked before the record. He was

1353
01:18:44,000 --> 01:18:46,960
Speaker 2: sacked before the record had even come out, so my

1354
01:18:47,120 --> 01:18:50,519
Speaker 2: champion was gone, and they kind of let me make

1355
01:18:50,560 --> 01:18:53,479
Speaker 2: another record then said your recording budgets over. You just

1356
01:18:53,520 --> 01:18:55,640
Speaker 2: have to put this out as it is, put it

1357
01:18:55,680 --> 01:18:58,439
Speaker 2: out and then drop me. And then I was picked

1358
01:18:58,479 --> 01:19:02,200
Speaker 2: up by a label in America very fortunately about six

1359
01:19:02,240 --> 01:19:05,200
Speaker 2: months later. So this was the story of the first

1360
01:19:05,200 --> 01:19:08,559
Speaker 2: three albums. But the only really significant thing that happened,

1361
01:19:08,600 --> 01:19:12,200
Speaker 2: apart from me learning the hard way, playing fucking horrible

1362
01:19:12,280 --> 01:19:15,599
Speaker 2: shows in all over the fucking world as well as

1363
01:19:15,640 --> 01:19:18,320
Speaker 2: some good ones, was the connection I made with the Irish.

1364
01:19:18,520 --> 01:19:20,760
Speaker 2: They loved my first album, and I got some really

1365
01:19:20,800 --> 01:19:25,000
Speaker 2: good press, and I got some cool radio going on,

1366
01:19:25,040 --> 01:19:28,519
Speaker 2: like late night radio stuff. And when I played my

1367
01:19:28,560 --> 01:19:31,200
Speaker 2: first gig in Ireland at the beginning of nineteen ninety four,

1368
01:19:33,080 --> 01:19:37,639
Speaker 2: it was a sellout and second gig, and I thought, God,

1369
01:19:37,680 --> 01:19:39,400
Speaker 2: I love it here and I just kept going back

1370
01:19:39,439 --> 01:19:41,920
Speaker 2: and I built up this following so they kind of

1371
01:19:41,960 --> 01:19:44,640
Speaker 2: got it. The Irish got it. They got the lyricism,

1372
01:19:44,720 --> 01:19:48,040
Speaker 2: they got the sort of earthiness, the rawness, the simplicity,

1373
01:19:48,479 --> 01:19:51,120
Speaker 2: the singer songwriter in us of what I was doing,

1374
01:19:51,120 --> 01:19:53,439
Speaker 2: which was like not a very cool look at the time,

1375
01:19:54,200 --> 01:19:58,040
Speaker 2: So particularly in the UK, which is the hardest place

1376
01:19:58,080 --> 01:20:00,880
Speaker 2: to break in the world, the most cynical, sort of

1377
01:20:02,240 --> 01:20:06,080
Speaker 2: hard edged place I've ever been to anyway, putting new

1378
01:20:06,160 --> 01:20:09,599
Speaker 2: music out and everything. So that that was the story.

1379
01:20:09,960 --> 01:20:14,280
Speaker 2: That that that that's that's That's pretty much how it went.

1380
01:20:14,320 --> 01:20:16,080
Speaker 2: So it was hard work. I think. By the third

1381
01:20:16,160 --> 01:20:19,240
Speaker 2: record coming out on EMI America, it was a total

1382
01:20:19,400 --> 01:20:23,000
Speaker 2: not a disaster, and they didn't even put it out properly.

1383
01:20:23,600 --> 01:20:26,040
Speaker 2: The whole thing was a joke. They were imploding, They

1384
01:20:26,040 --> 01:20:28,280
Speaker 2: weren't even there was they were they were non functioning

1385
01:20:28,439 --> 01:20:31,760
Speaker 2: as a record company. We went on an absolutely soul

1386
01:20:31,880 --> 01:20:35,960
Speaker 2: destroying tour of the Midwest and that was that, and

1387
01:20:36,040 --> 01:20:39,080
Speaker 2: we had an option to have a second album with them.

1388
01:20:39,120 --> 01:20:42,280
Speaker 2: We chose not to take the advance and just end it.

1389
01:20:42,400 --> 01:20:47,000
Speaker 2: Such was the pitiful state of things. So eventually that

1390
01:20:47,120 --> 01:20:49,040
Speaker 2: led to me making a record in my own bedroom,

1391
01:20:49,080 --> 01:20:51,400
Speaker 2: which was white ladder. But it didn't happen straight away.

1392
01:20:51,479 --> 01:20:54,559
Speaker 1: Well, well, before you go to the record your own bedroom,

1393
01:20:54,840 --> 01:20:56,800
Speaker 1: you know, you make the first record, you have all

1394
01:20:56,800 --> 01:21:00,200
Speaker 1: the hopes, you have the second record, you know your

1395
01:21:00,240 --> 01:21:03,040
Speaker 1: ain R guy goes. But then you sign with a

1396
01:21:03,080 --> 01:21:07,280
Speaker 1: major label and that implodes. What does this do for

1397
01:21:07,320 --> 01:21:08,240
Speaker 1: your confidence?

1398
01:21:08,360 --> 01:21:11,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I was doubtful about whether I wanted

1399
01:21:11,120 --> 01:21:13,559
Speaker 2: to continue, if it was going to continue in this vein.

1400
01:21:14,600 --> 01:21:18,040
Speaker 2: I think it makes you think everyone's good when not

1401
01:21:18,080 --> 01:21:20,320
Speaker 2: when it's not working out. Everyone's got ideas about what

1402
01:21:20,320 --> 01:21:23,439
Speaker 2: you need to do and what you're not doing. So

1403
01:21:24,960 --> 01:21:30,520
Speaker 2: I actually took a beat. It obviously does hurt. I mean, Jesus,

1404
01:21:30,840 --> 01:21:33,679
Speaker 2: my music is made of emotion. Music is made of emotion.

1405
01:21:33,800 --> 01:21:34,800
Speaker 1: This is.

1406
01:21:36,439 --> 01:21:40,599
Speaker 2: The deepest part of me. I'm showing everyone there's nowhere

1407
01:21:40,640 --> 01:21:45,719
Speaker 2: to hide. And it was grim. So I thought, christ,

1408
01:21:45,720 --> 01:21:49,800
Speaker 2: I can't do this for a living. I need to

1409
01:21:49,840 --> 01:21:52,200
Speaker 2: find something else to do. If if this is the

1410
01:21:52,240 --> 01:21:55,880
Speaker 2: way it's just going to go. So yeah, it had

1411
01:21:56,080 --> 01:21:59,360
Speaker 2: a huge effect and I wanted to pause from being

1412
01:21:59,400 --> 01:22:01,559
Speaker 2: with my manager. I wanted to pause from everything. I

1413
01:22:01,600 --> 01:22:04,880
Speaker 2: took some time out after the year Ideal, just to

1414
01:22:05,000 --> 01:22:07,559
Speaker 2: reconfigure myself and work out what it was I was

1415
01:22:07,600 --> 01:22:11,920
Speaker 2: doing and why, because it seemed like I didn't know anymore.

1416
01:22:11,960 --> 01:22:15,040
Speaker 2: I'd lost all that youthful momentum and now I was

1417
01:22:15,040 --> 01:22:16,559
Speaker 2: in a completely different reality.

1418
01:22:18,960 --> 01:22:22,120
Speaker 1: Okay, and what was the next step forward?

1419
01:22:24,120 --> 01:22:26,800
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well it was this record we made at Homes.

1420
01:22:27,040 --> 01:22:30,160
Speaker 1: A little bit slower, just just to start. The manager

1421
01:22:30,760 --> 01:22:34,879
Speaker 1: who you had ight with, was that the same manager

1422
01:22:34,920 --> 01:22:35,639
Speaker 1: from day one?

1423
01:22:37,280 --> 01:22:41,599
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so Rob, Rob Holden, we kind

1424
01:22:41,600 --> 01:22:43,160
Speaker 2: of got back together. I had to say. I took

1425
01:22:43,200 --> 01:22:46,639
Speaker 2: a little hiatus from everything and kind of got back

1426
01:22:46,640 --> 01:22:47,600
Speaker 2: to Oh okay.

1427
01:22:47,320 --> 01:22:49,600
Speaker 1: Wait, wait you're you You're on your hiatus? What do

1428
01:22:49,680 --> 01:22:50,240
Speaker 1: you living on?

1429
01:22:52,520 --> 01:22:57,799
Speaker 2: Just very Fortunately, an Irish singer called Mary Black covered

1430
01:22:57,920 --> 01:23:02,439
Speaker 2: some of my songs, albeit without my consent, for her album,

1431
01:23:02,520 --> 01:23:04,439
Speaker 2: some of my new songs. A demo I'd made while

1432
01:23:04,479 --> 01:23:06,680
Speaker 2: I was on EMI had got into the hands of

1433
01:23:06,680 --> 01:23:08,679
Speaker 2: a producer who was a big fan of my music,

1434
01:23:09,160 --> 01:23:11,920
Speaker 2: and she covered a whole load of my stuff. So

1435
01:23:11,960 --> 01:23:15,679
Speaker 2: I had this Suddenly at the MCPS came through from

1436
01:23:15,680 --> 01:23:18,040
Speaker 2: her album being pressed up, and I had a little

1437
01:23:18,080 --> 01:23:19,880
Speaker 2: bit of money to live on. My wife at this

1438
01:23:19,920 --> 01:23:22,479
Speaker 2: point had started working as a solicitor. She was actually

1439
01:23:22,520 --> 01:23:26,840
Speaker 2: the main breadwinner. So that was the reality at the time.

1440
01:23:27,160 --> 01:23:29,720
Speaker 2: It was kind of we were making it up as well.

1441
01:23:29,760 --> 01:23:31,280
Speaker 1: Go along. How did you meet your wife?

1442
01:23:33,600 --> 01:23:38,280
Speaker 2: I met her when I moved to London. I got

1443
01:23:38,320 --> 01:23:41,679
Speaker 2: a room in the squat that was her best friend's

1444
01:23:41,960 --> 01:23:46,439
Speaker 2: squat in South London, in the Elephant and Castle, and

1445
01:23:47,439 --> 01:23:49,639
Speaker 2: I then met her. I met her on the day

1446
01:23:49,680 --> 01:23:53,840
Speaker 2: of the general election April the ninth, nineteen ninety two.

1447
01:23:54,840 --> 01:23:57,320
Speaker 2: I called it the death of the British imagination. I

1448
01:23:57,320 --> 01:24:01,479
Speaker 2: stayed up all night to watch the horrifying reality of

1449
01:24:01,520 --> 01:24:06,960
Speaker 2: the Tories getting in yet another time. So and I

1450
01:24:07,000 --> 01:24:09,840
Speaker 2: called it the death of the British imagination. So we

1451
01:24:10,280 --> 01:24:12,960
Speaker 2: had a common ground and that we were utterly disgusted

1452
01:24:13,680 --> 01:24:18,439
Speaker 2: with our conservative country. Little did we know how worse

1453
01:24:18,479 --> 01:24:22,600
Speaker 2: it was going to get. So yeah, we's that was

1454
01:24:22,600 --> 01:24:24,920
Speaker 2: a sort of early bonding thing. So that's when I

1455
01:24:24,960 --> 01:24:28,479
Speaker 2: met a day of the election April the ninth, nineteen

1456
01:24:28,560 --> 01:24:29,120
Speaker 2: ninety two.

1457
01:24:30,479 --> 01:24:34,439
Speaker 1: Okay, this is when your career is on the up,

1458
01:24:35,360 --> 01:24:39,560
Speaker 1: When your career is on the down, is she supportive?

1459
01:24:40,080 --> 01:24:41,680
Speaker 1: Or is she saying, maybe you need to get a

1460
01:24:41,760 --> 01:24:44,760
Speaker 1: day job. What is her reaction to you, and what's

1461
01:24:44,800 --> 01:24:46,080
Speaker 1: your relationship like.

1462
01:24:47,640 --> 01:24:50,559
Speaker 2: Yeah, at what stage, like when things weren't going well

1463
01:24:50,600 --> 01:24:51,559
Speaker 2: in my early career.

1464
01:24:52,479 --> 01:24:55,000
Speaker 1: No, no, after it ended with them, I.

1465
01:24:57,720 --> 01:24:59,120
Speaker 2: Oh well, I mean it was just.

1466
01:25:00,640 --> 01:25:00,720
Speaker 1: It.

1467
01:25:02,400 --> 01:25:05,639
Speaker 2: She was supportive. Yeah, sure, if she could see when

1468
01:25:05,640 --> 01:25:07,559
Speaker 2: she met me, I was this. I was a person.

1469
01:25:07,560 --> 01:25:10,840
Speaker 2: I have a I have a mission. It's not I

1470
01:25:10,880 --> 01:25:13,200
Speaker 2: need to be doing something. It's sort of non negotiable.

1471
01:25:13,200 --> 01:25:17,000
Speaker 2: It's a giant coping strategy. It's not something I have

1472
01:25:17,080 --> 01:25:20,599
Speaker 2: a choice over. I have to make things. So maybe

1473
01:25:20,640 --> 01:25:23,440
Speaker 2: I don't have to make music. Maybe I could make art,

1474
01:25:23,680 --> 01:25:27,480
Speaker 2: but I need to make something. I don't think I'm employable.

1475
01:25:28,200 --> 01:25:32,439
Speaker 2: So so she was supportive. Yeah, Well we didn't get

1476
01:25:32,439 --> 01:25:37,120
Speaker 2: to the point of total meltdown because life rode into

1477
01:25:37,120 --> 01:25:41,160
Speaker 2: the rescue or on a white steed. So a fairy

1478
01:25:41,240 --> 01:25:44,960
Speaker 2: tale ensued, whereby I made a record in my bedroom

1479
01:25:45,000 --> 01:25:47,120
Speaker 2: and okay, we're gonna get anyway.

1480
01:25:47,200 --> 01:25:49,040
Speaker 1: We're going to get there right now. So you have

1481
01:25:49,120 --> 01:25:53,799
Speaker 1: the money from the Mary Black covers, you say, yeah,

1482
01:25:54,160 --> 01:25:58,240
Speaker 1: you were disconnected from the manager and then the manager reconnected.

1483
01:25:58,320 --> 01:25:59,160
Speaker 1: What happened there.

1484
01:26:00,720 --> 01:26:02,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I just said I need a break because

1485
01:26:02,720 --> 01:26:05,080
Speaker 2: I can't listen to your thoughts about what I need

1486
01:26:05,120 --> 01:26:07,720
Speaker 2: to do. I need to work out for myself what

1487
01:26:07,760 --> 01:26:12,080
Speaker 2: it is I'm doing. I don't need extra advice. I

1488
01:26:12,120 --> 01:26:14,439
Speaker 2: need to just everyone to shut up. I need to

1489
01:26:14,439 --> 01:26:15,760
Speaker 2: go away and do this. I don't know if I

1490
01:26:15,800 --> 01:26:18,240
Speaker 2: want to do it anymore. Let's just take a break.

1491
01:26:18,920 --> 01:26:23,920
Speaker 2: When he said, very reluctantly, he said, okay. So after

1492
01:26:23,960 --> 01:26:26,600
Speaker 2: a break, I sort of fooled around, looked for a

1493
01:26:26,600 --> 01:26:30,760
Speaker 2: few different ways of doing it, scouted about, and then

1494
01:26:30,800 --> 01:26:33,120
Speaker 2: I began to make White Ladder. And once I was

1495
01:26:33,160 --> 01:26:38,040
Speaker 2: making that, it was he that introduced Yestin Poulsen, who

1496
01:26:38,080 --> 01:26:41,080
Speaker 2: was the guy who would become the producer of that record.

1497
01:26:41,320 --> 01:26:43,679
Speaker 2: It was co produced with me and the drama Clune.

1498
01:26:44,439 --> 01:26:46,920
Speaker 2: But yes, it made the massive difference to the sound

1499
01:26:47,000 --> 01:26:48,800
Speaker 2: of it all. He knew what he was doing. So

1500
01:26:48,840 --> 01:26:51,680
Speaker 2: we made this kind of bedroom recording together. So and

1501
01:26:51,720 --> 01:26:54,160
Speaker 2: that was us coming back online. And then, as I say,

1502
01:26:54,200 --> 01:26:56,000
Speaker 2: no one wanted to put the record out. We couldn't

1503
01:26:56,000 --> 01:26:59,720
Speaker 2: get any takers, so we put it out ourselves and

1504
01:27:00,280 --> 01:27:00,719
Speaker 2: is history.

1505
01:27:01,200 --> 01:27:05,400
Speaker 1: Okay, bye, by way, you're making the record. To what

1506
01:27:05,520 --> 01:27:09,960
Speaker 1: degree is this record informed by your previous three records?

1507
01:27:10,439 --> 01:27:13,840
Speaker 1: And to what degree is this a clean sleep? You

1508
01:27:13,880 --> 01:27:16,080
Speaker 1: know you took some time off. You don't need any

1509
01:27:16,120 --> 01:27:20,000
Speaker 1: more business advice when you start to write and make

1510
01:27:20,120 --> 01:27:25,599
Speaker 1: this record. What is the inspiration and what is different

1511
01:27:25,800 --> 01:27:28,360
Speaker 1: or the same from what you've done previously.

1512
01:27:30,720 --> 01:27:33,360
Speaker 2: Well, there's so much that was different because it was

1513
01:27:33,400 --> 01:27:37,320
Speaker 2: made in my bedroom, so we didn't have any equipment.

1514
01:27:38,080 --> 01:27:41,280
Speaker 2: We're using a computer and a drum machine and a

1515
01:27:41,320 --> 01:27:43,960
Speaker 2: little you know, zip drive or hard drive or jazz

1516
01:27:44,040 --> 01:27:48,479
Speaker 2: drive and an ADAP to record the actual physical sound

1517
01:27:48,520 --> 01:27:52,160
Speaker 2: if you like. So what it gave me working over

1518
01:27:52,200 --> 01:27:55,760
Speaker 2: sort of drum machine rhythms that was programming in because

1519
01:27:55,760 --> 01:27:58,639
Speaker 2: it gave me a freedom to perform over them. I'd

1520
01:27:58,680 --> 01:28:01,280
Speaker 2: never really used clicks or anything like that. I'd always

1521
01:28:01,360 --> 01:28:04,280
Speaker 2: just wanted to go free, but it actually freed me up.

1522
01:28:04,400 --> 01:28:07,560
Speaker 2: So that was an important creative development. And there was

1523
01:28:07,600 --> 01:28:10,559
Speaker 2: also the sort of intimacy of your own personal space

1524
01:28:11,560 --> 01:28:13,439
Speaker 2: and the times of day when you can just work

1525
01:28:13,479 --> 01:28:16,160
Speaker 2: when there's no one around and there's no sound, and

1526
01:28:16,240 --> 01:28:21,160
Speaker 2: it led to a more intimate relationship with the vocal

1527
01:28:21,240 --> 01:28:24,639
Speaker 2: mic and the guitar mic it just brought me in

1528
01:28:25,560 --> 01:28:28,160
Speaker 2: as opposed to being a sort of arm's length kind

1529
01:28:28,160 --> 01:28:30,679
Speaker 2: of style recording in a big POSH studio which could

1530
01:28:30,680 --> 01:28:33,120
Speaker 2: be a car showroom or something, this was like my

1531
01:28:33,200 --> 01:28:36,160
Speaker 2: own little space. So I think those were important things

1532
01:28:36,200 --> 01:28:40,120
Speaker 2: that that definitely was a significant change. What was in

1533
01:28:40,200 --> 01:28:42,280
Speaker 2: terms of what the record was based on. I have

1534
01:28:42,320 --> 01:28:44,800
Speaker 2: to say bother and I've talked about this ad infinitum,

1535
01:28:44,880 --> 01:28:48,080
Speaker 2: ad nauseum over many many years. I can give you

1536
01:28:48,120 --> 01:28:51,320
Speaker 2: in a nutshell, I think it was definitely a back

1537
01:28:51,600 --> 01:28:54,960
Speaker 2: against the wall. That the principles of how I wrote

1538
01:28:55,000 --> 01:28:57,280
Speaker 2: a song remained the same, but this was a back

1539
01:28:57,360 --> 01:29:00,439
Speaker 2: against the war moment. I'd been through this thing. One thing.

1540
01:29:00,439 --> 01:29:02,400
Speaker 2: I was determined I was going to make a record

1541
01:29:02,439 --> 01:29:07,880
Speaker 2: that from start to finish would be identifiable, coherent, interrelated,

1542
01:29:08,120 --> 01:29:10,439
Speaker 2: and flowing from the first note to the last. That

1543
01:29:10,600 --> 01:29:14,080
Speaker 2: was the objective. We started to use electronic sound. I

1544
01:29:14,120 --> 01:29:18,080
Speaker 2: was itching to get sound into the music, and so

1545
01:29:18,120 --> 01:29:20,160
Speaker 2: it was going to be this kind of hybrid form.

1546
01:29:20,800 --> 01:29:24,479
Speaker 2: And I was also determined to not just give up

1547
01:29:24,520 --> 01:29:27,920
Speaker 2: with everything and blame the music industry, blame journalists, blame

1548
01:29:27,960 --> 01:29:30,680
Speaker 2: whatever the hell I wanted to. I thought, I can

1549
01:29:30,720 --> 01:29:32,720
Speaker 2: do a better record. I haven't made the record I

1550
01:29:32,760 --> 01:29:35,360
Speaker 2: could make. I need to make the best possible record

1551
01:29:35,360 --> 01:29:37,840
Speaker 2: I can. So it's a kind of heart on sleeve

1552
01:29:37,920 --> 01:29:41,240
Speaker 2: record it had. I wasn't shy of melody. I never

1553
01:29:41,320 --> 01:29:43,920
Speaker 2: shy away from melody, but I didn't shy away from

1554
01:29:43,960 --> 01:29:48,599
Speaker 2: melody or open hearted sentiment. So I didn't. I'd recovered

1555
01:29:48,680 --> 01:29:51,280
Speaker 2: enough that I didn't retract into sort of bitterness or

1556
01:29:51,720 --> 01:29:56,280
Speaker 2: hide myself behind some sort of opaque shell. I let

1557
01:29:56,360 --> 01:30:00,000
Speaker 2: everything show. It was a greater act of vulnerability and share,

1558
01:30:00,640 --> 01:30:03,720
Speaker 2: and that was what the record's power was ultimately. But

1559
01:30:03,800 --> 01:30:06,640
Speaker 2: the process, the principle of how I wrote and how

1560
01:30:06,680 --> 01:30:09,160
Speaker 2: I did things, was largely the same as the way

1561
01:30:09,200 --> 01:30:11,519
Speaker 2: I'd always done it. I just did it under different

1562
01:30:11,520 --> 01:30:14,320
Speaker 2: conditions and definitely with a different mindset. And I also

1563
01:30:14,400 --> 01:30:16,639
Speaker 2: involved other people in a way that I never had

1564
01:30:16,720 --> 01:30:19,200
Speaker 2: up until then. I just wrote songs and other people

1565
01:30:19,200 --> 01:30:22,000
Speaker 2: played on them or helped press record while we did that.

1566
01:30:23,000 --> 01:30:25,479
Speaker 2: This was like involving people from the ground up and

1567
01:30:25,520 --> 01:30:27,479
Speaker 2: how it sounded, what it might sound like, how we

1568
01:30:27,560 --> 01:30:32,400
Speaker 2: might make a record, and far from actually diluting the

1569
01:30:32,439 --> 01:30:35,640
Speaker 2: effect of what my music might be, how personal it was,

1570
01:30:35,760 --> 01:30:39,160
Speaker 2: how its identity might be it actually strengthened it because

1571
01:30:39,560 --> 01:30:43,639
Speaker 2: they brought their strengths and wisdom and energy and sense

1572
01:30:43,680 --> 01:30:46,360
Speaker 2: of fun, and it lightened the music and it made

1573
01:30:46,400 --> 01:30:47,440
Speaker 2: it much more effective.

1574
01:30:55,520 --> 01:30:58,519
Speaker 1: Okay, in the US, living in the West Coast, you know,

1575
01:30:58,600 --> 01:31:02,200
Speaker 1: public radio started to blow Babylon. It looked like an

1576
01:31:02,200 --> 01:31:06,000
Speaker 1: instant's success. But the record had been out for over

1577
01:31:06,120 --> 01:31:11,639
Speaker 1: a year in the UK. Yeah, so you put out

1578
01:31:11,720 --> 01:31:15,599
Speaker 1: the record, you have the best perspective. Was it a

1579
01:31:15,840 --> 01:31:20,160
Speaker 1: constant uphill trend or what was it like when the

1580
01:31:20,200 --> 01:31:21,080
Speaker 1: record came out.

1581
01:31:22,880 --> 01:31:24,559
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a lot of hard work, but I

1582
01:31:24,560 --> 01:31:27,600
Speaker 2: mean it was absolutely amazing in Ireland by the end

1583
01:31:27,680 --> 01:31:30,120
Speaker 2: of nineteen nineteen, and we released it in nineteen November

1584
01:31:30,200 --> 01:31:33,880
Speaker 2: ninety eight, was actually released in Ireland on our own label.

1585
01:31:33,920 --> 01:31:36,680
Speaker 2: By the end of December nineteen ninety nine, it was

1586
01:31:36,720 --> 01:31:40,880
Speaker 2: seven times platinum, so we'd also released it in the

1587
01:31:41,000 --> 01:31:43,840
Speaker 2: UK at that stage, but on our own label. So

1588
01:31:43,880 --> 01:31:46,160
Speaker 2: by the time Warners got involved at the beginning of

1589
01:31:46,160 --> 01:31:48,759
Speaker 2: two thousand, I think we made this maybe sold twenty

1590
01:31:48,800 --> 01:31:53,160
Speaker 2: five thousand copies in the UK. In America and ato

1591
01:31:53,320 --> 01:31:56,519
Speaker 2: the record came out, we signed the contract at a

1592
01:31:56,560 --> 01:31:59,599
Speaker 2: big concert in Ireland at the end of nineteen ninety

1593
01:31:59,680 --> 01:32:02,799
Speaker 2: nine and the record came out in early two thousand,

1594
01:32:03,080 --> 01:32:06,719
Speaker 2: so by that point we were almost i'd say, eighteen

1595
01:32:06,800 --> 01:32:10,800
Speaker 2: months into working the record. But what was amazing was

1596
01:32:10,840 --> 01:32:13,200
Speaker 2: it just the record had a magic charm. It just

1597
01:32:13,400 --> 01:32:17,320
Speaker 2: connected connected and people would pass it around and every

1598
01:32:17,400 --> 01:32:19,559
Speaker 2: show we could feel the vibes that we could feel

1599
01:32:19,560 --> 01:32:21,840
Speaker 2: them in Ireland, and by this point we felt we've

1600
01:32:21,880 --> 01:32:24,840
Speaker 2: got something. This record has a magic. We just need

1601
01:32:24,840 --> 01:32:27,080
Speaker 2: to get out behind it and it's going to translate.

1602
01:32:27,600 --> 01:32:28,760
Speaker 2: So that's what it felt.

1603
01:32:28,840 --> 01:32:29,080
Speaker 1: It was.

1604
01:32:29,400 --> 01:32:33,080
Speaker 2: The whole ascent to the top was absolutely incredible. It

1605
01:32:33,120 --> 01:32:36,360
Speaker 2: was a thrilling, thrilling two years once we got to

1606
01:32:36,439 --> 01:32:39,519
Speaker 2: the top. So by the sort of towards the end

1607
01:32:39,640 --> 01:32:41,960
Speaker 2: of two thousand, when it had been a you know,

1608
01:32:42,040 --> 01:32:44,960
Speaker 2: a hit in America, hit in the UK, hit in Australia,

1609
01:32:45,040 --> 01:32:48,400
Speaker 2: New Zealand and everything became a bit of a blur.

1610
01:32:49,560 --> 01:32:53,120
Speaker 2: But the climb up was absolutely incredible and the view

1611
01:32:53,160 --> 01:32:57,200
Speaker 2: from the top was unforgettable. From that point it becomes

1612
01:32:57,200 --> 01:32:59,599
Speaker 2: a bit of a blur. The shows get bigger, they're

1613
01:32:59,600 --> 01:33:03,120
Speaker 2: always old out, everyone's your friend, you're having the best

1614
01:33:03,120 --> 01:33:06,400
Speaker 2: time you've ever had. And there you go.

1615
01:33:07,160 --> 01:33:11,160
Speaker 1: Why ATO as opposed to another label in America? Were

1616
01:33:11,200 --> 01:33:13,519
Speaker 1: there even any other authors?

1617
01:33:15,040 --> 01:33:17,960
Speaker 2: But we didn't even ask around. I mean it felt

1618
01:33:18,040 --> 01:33:21,160
Speaker 2: like a perfect fit. We already believed in that you

1619
01:33:21,200 --> 01:33:24,000
Speaker 2: didn't need a load of people or a load of money,

1620
01:33:24,360 --> 01:33:26,760
Speaker 2: You just needed the right people working in the right way.

1621
01:33:26,840 --> 01:33:30,920
Speaker 2: So Michael McDonald and Chris Tetseli that was ATO Records.

1622
01:33:31,080 --> 01:33:36,000
Speaker 2: We had no one IHT Records was me and my manager.

1623
01:33:36,600 --> 01:33:39,960
Speaker 2: So it was like, so what Obviously Dave Matthews was

1624
01:33:40,000 --> 01:33:43,760
Speaker 2: a big influential character, a great supporter to have, and

1625
01:33:43,800 --> 01:33:46,719
Speaker 2: not only that, he had fans and people's street teams,

1626
01:33:46,960 --> 01:33:49,880
Speaker 2: people who'd leaflet for you, put the word out for you.

1627
01:33:50,240 --> 01:33:52,680
Speaker 2: We had something concrete. Well, they basically said to me

1628
01:33:52,800 --> 01:33:55,320
Speaker 2: was we'll work your airstaff. And they were good to that.

1629
01:33:55,360 --> 01:34:00,639
Speaker 2: They fucking crucified me. I did six tours on record,

1630
01:34:00,760 --> 01:34:03,160
Speaker 2: so you know, they said, we'll send you out and

1631
01:34:03,240 --> 01:34:05,040
Speaker 2: will they do it the old way? They were old school,

1632
01:34:05,040 --> 01:34:08,080
Speaker 2: but I like the lack of bullshit, so yeah, that's

1633
01:34:08,080 --> 01:34:11,200
Speaker 2: the way it's going to be. So we signed up

1634
01:34:11,200 --> 01:34:13,160
Speaker 2: for that. Years of suffering.

1635
01:34:14,680 --> 01:34:18,320
Speaker 1: So at this point, twenty five years later, are you sick

1636
01:34:18,360 --> 01:34:19,200
Speaker 1: of White Ladder.

1637
01:34:22,120 --> 01:34:25,080
Speaker 2: No, but there's certainly been points where I have been No.

1638
01:34:25,200 --> 01:34:28,240
Speaker 2: I think it's great. I mean playing the anniversary tour

1639
01:34:28,360 --> 01:34:31,719
Speaker 2: was an unexpected thrill. I think, coming as it did

1640
01:34:31,760 --> 01:34:35,280
Speaker 2: after the COVID shut down, it gave it this kind

1641
01:34:35,280 --> 01:34:38,240
Speaker 2: of crazy energy. It was a record that really connected

1642
01:34:38,280 --> 01:34:42,120
Speaker 2: with people. People love that record. They feel so strong.

1643
01:34:42,200 --> 01:34:44,960
Speaker 2: I love it. I love it too, but I wanted

1644
01:34:45,000 --> 01:34:47,639
Speaker 2: to distance myself from it when it was all I

1645
01:34:47,680 --> 01:34:51,160
Speaker 2: was was the White Ladder guy, because it becomes suffocating.

1646
01:34:51,360 --> 01:34:53,120
Speaker 2: I'm not I'm an artist. If you listen to my

1647
01:34:53,200 --> 01:34:55,479
Speaker 2: new record, it's as good as White Ladder. I'm not

1648
01:34:55,520 --> 01:34:58,680
Speaker 2: saying it's as perfect as a commercial form, or that

1649
01:34:58,760 --> 01:35:00,560
Speaker 2: it's ever going to get the breaks got That was

1650
01:35:00,600 --> 01:35:05,000
Speaker 2: the right record at the right time, But it's the

1651
01:35:05,080 --> 01:35:09,600
Speaker 2: dip in quality hasn't happened. I'm still going. I'm still pushing, experimenting,

1652
01:35:10,000 --> 01:35:14,320
Speaker 2: reaching out, branching out. So I'm looking for new ground,

1653
01:35:14,439 --> 01:35:18,360
Speaker 2: new ways of saying things, freshening things up. So so

1654
01:35:19,120 --> 01:35:21,560
Speaker 2: it's it's It's a record I'm hugely proud of. I

1655
01:35:21,600 --> 01:35:24,120
Speaker 2: think it's great. I love its economy of means. We

1656
01:35:24,160 --> 01:35:27,639
Speaker 2: didn't have any stuff. So we just it's just very

1657
01:35:27,720 --> 01:35:31,760
Speaker 2: simple really. But what we did, we did well. So

1658
01:35:32,120 --> 01:35:34,120
Speaker 2: you know, if we bring the claps in and please

1659
01:35:34,160 --> 01:35:38,559
Speaker 2: forgive me. You know, I remember the Chemical brother saying

1660
01:35:38,600 --> 01:35:42,360
Speaker 2: to me, yeah, it's amazing you kept the claps back

1661
01:35:42,439 --> 01:35:44,360
Speaker 2: right to the end. I'm like, yeah, because we haven't

1662
01:35:44,400 --> 01:35:46,679
Speaker 2: got it an we haven't gotten it enough to bring

1663
01:35:46,720 --> 01:35:50,599
Speaker 2: in put the claps in. It's like so it was.

1664
01:35:50,720 --> 01:35:53,840
Speaker 2: It was an exercise in minimalism, which to a certain

1665
01:35:53,840 --> 01:35:56,479
Speaker 2: extent is still the way that I think about making music.

1666
01:35:56,920 --> 01:35:59,120
Speaker 2: If the vocal or the main rhythm instrument and the

1667
01:35:59,200 --> 01:36:02,360
Speaker 2: rhythm or if that can uphold the song for a

1668
01:36:02,360 --> 01:36:04,240
Speaker 2: long period of time, then you can bring other things

1669
01:36:04,240 --> 01:36:05,400
Speaker 2: in and really make an effect.

1670
01:36:06,840 --> 01:36:12,400
Speaker 1: Okay, forgetting the anniversary tour, to what degree are you

1671
01:36:12,560 --> 01:36:16,400
Speaker 1: feeling an obligation to play songs from White Ladder on

1672
01:36:16,479 --> 01:36:16,880
Speaker 1: a tour?

1673
01:36:19,439 --> 01:36:23,759
Speaker 2: Well, I mean the way I have subdivided my touring

1674
01:36:23,920 --> 01:36:27,160
Speaker 2: now is that like on this tour, I've told people

1675
01:36:27,160 --> 01:36:29,320
Speaker 2: you can expect to hear the songs you love to hear.

1676
01:36:30,479 --> 01:36:32,720
Speaker 2: They'll be mixed in with new songs, and not just

1677
01:36:32,760 --> 01:36:35,439
Speaker 2: songs from White Ladder, but songs from all those old albums.

1678
01:36:36,000 --> 01:36:38,120
Speaker 2: This is going to be a really, really deep dive,

1679
01:36:38,479 --> 01:36:41,519
Speaker 2: and you also hear a few unexpected cover versions. It's

1680
01:36:41,560 --> 01:36:45,439
Speaker 2: going to be a highly energized tapestry of stuff. But

1681
01:36:45,479 --> 01:36:49,240
Speaker 2: you'll definitely hear sail Away Babylon, Please Forgive Me, etc.

1682
01:36:50,479 --> 01:36:52,599
Speaker 2: The one I Love You Know, Blah blah blah. You'll

1683
01:36:52,600 --> 01:36:55,880
Speaker 2: hear these songs. I'm not pretending. But on other when

1684
01:36:55,920 --> 01:36:58,679
Speaker 2: I toured Skeleg, I said to the audience, you're only

1685
01:36:58,720 --> 01:37:01,120
Speaker 2: gonna hear Skeleg. If you buy tickets for this concert,

1686
01:37:01,560 --> 01:37:05,240
Speaker 2: you're not going to hear anything except this. And when

1687
01:37:05,240 --> 01:37:07,640
Speaker 2: I did the Century Ends tour, the tour of my

1688
01:37:07,680 --> 01:37:12,000
Speaker 2: first album first two albums earlier last year, I said

1689
01:37:12,040 --> 01:37:13,600
Speaker 2: the same thing, that I'm just going to play the

1690
01:37:14,000 --> 01:37:17,040
Speaker 2: two first albums and that's all I'm playing. And it's very,

1691
01:37:17,120 --> 01:37:21,719
Speaker 2: very liberating, and I enjoyed them absolutely enormously those tours

1692
01:37:21,720 --> 01:37:24,240
Speaker 2: because I was not obliged to play anything, and I

1693
01:37:24,240 --> 01:37:28,479
Speaker 2: think it's a much more simple way of dividing Otherwise. Basically,

1694
01:37:28,479 --> 01:37:31,559
Speaker 2: every tour is a negotiation with the audience to get

1695
01:37:31,600 --> 01:37:34,680
Speaker 2: them to listen to something they're not maybe as familiar with,

1696
01:37:35,680 --> 01:37:39,120
Speaker 2: and that's if you cut your cloth too much in

1697
01:37:39,160 --> 01:37:42,320
Speaker 2: their favor. Excuse me, cut the cloth too much in

1698
01:37:42,360 --> 01:37:46,240
Speaker 2: their favor. You'll end up resenting them and not wanting

1699
01:37:46,280 --> 01:37:47,880
Speaker 2: to do it. I think I'd just be bored if

1700
01:37:47,920 --> 01:37:49,519
Speaker 2: I just felt I had to play those songs all

1701
01:37:49,560 --> 01:37:53,320
Speaker 2: the time. So for me, it's it's it's it's a

1702
01:37:53,360 --> 01:37:57,520
Speaker 2: constant negotiation. But I love those songs, so in this context,

1703
01:37:57,560 --> 01:37:59,240
Speaker 2: I'm going to enjoy playing them. They're going to be

1704
01:37:59,240 --> 01:38:00,599
Speaker 2: part of a much beer a picture.

1705
01:38:01,240 --> 01:38:03,800
Speaker 1: Okay, when you did Skellig and you did the first

1706
01:38:03,840 --> 01:38:08,240
Speaker 1: two albums live, Todd Rungren has gone out many iterations

1707
01:38:08,280 --> 01:38:10,680
Speaker 1: and he's done the same things and I'm gonna play X.

1708
01:38:11,120 --> 01:38:14,439
Speaker 1: But there's still people who come thinking they're gonna hear

1709
01:38:14,560 --> 01:38:18,160
Speaker 1: the so called hits. When you said, because you know,

1710
01:38:18,160 --> 01:38:19,400
Speaker 1: we live in a world it's hard to get the

1711
01:38:19,439 --> 01:38:21,960
Speaker 1: message out and people are fit when you said I'm

1712
01:38:22,000 --> 01:38:25,200
Speaker 1: only going to do this stuff, did you find that

1713
01:38:25,200 --> 01:38:27,080
Speaker 1: that was the audience you got or do you still

1714
01:38:27,080 --> 01:38:29,160
Speaker 1: get people saying I want to hear White Ladder.

1715
01:38:33,680 --> 01:38:36,960
Speaker 2: There was a few heckles. What you're really dealing with

1716
01:38:37,000 --> 01:38:41,960
Speaker 2: there is secondary ticketing, so people reselling their tickets and

1717
01:38:42,439 --> 01:38:45,400
Speaker 2: they'll just say David Gray tickets tonight, you know, and

1718
01:38:45,800 --> 01:38:47,720
Speaker 2: that they won't have all the info in it, that

1719
01:38:47,840 --> 01:38:50,960
Speaker 2: of what it is, and that's what happens. None of

1720
01:38:51,000 --> 01:38:55,320
Speaker 2: the fans who bought tickets will be in any doubt

1721
01:38:55,360 --> 01:38:57,320
Speaker 2: as to what's about to happen. But you get the

1722
01:38:57,360 --> 01:38:59,920
Speaker 2: odd person who's out with their girlfriend or you know,

1723
01:39:00,000 --> 01:39:02,280
Speaker 2: their mates, and they say, oh, let's go and see

1724
01:39:02,320 --> 01:39:04,000
Speaker 2: Davi Grant and then they want to hear Babylon. It's

1725
01:39:04,000 --> 01:39:07,720
Speaker 2: like you know with Babylon, So that happens every now

1726
01:39:07,720 --> 01:39:10,000
Speaker 2: and again. Yeah, you can't stamp that, but it actually

1727
01:39:10,000 --> 01:39:12,240
Speaker 2: worked for the rest of the time. The skellic thing

1728
01:39:12,320 --> 01:39:15,400
Speaker 2: that that happened didn't happen at all. I mean people

1729
01:39:15,400 --> 01:39:18,960
Speaker 2: were completely in on it. I didn't get any heckles.

1730
01:39:19,840 --> 01:39:24,680
Speaker 1: Okay, you have this huge success with White Ladder, you

1731
01:39:24,840 --> 01:39:28,120
Speaker 1: go to pick another record. To what degree do you

1732
01:39:28,240 --> 01:39:31,400
Speaker 1: feel the pressure and to what degree do you say

1733
01:39:31,520 --> 01:39:35,519
Speaker 1: I should replicate the previous formula, make it in my

1734
01:39:35,640 --> 01:39:38,320
Speaker 1: bedroom of this stripe, although now I have all the

1735
01:39:38,400 --> 01:39:41,280
Speaker 1: money to do it the old way. What was it like.

1736
01:39:43,160 --> 01:39:45,960
Speaker 2: Or just to return to the theme of self consciousness,

1737
01:39:46,520 --> 01:39:50,200
Speaker 2: we'd gone from very innocently making something for nothing, having

1738
01:39:50,240 --> 01:39:54,000
Speaker 2: no idea that it was going to succeed whatsoever. That

1739
01:39:54,040 --> 01:39:56,559
Speaker 2: would have been a preposterous thought to suddenly being in

1740
01:39:56,560 --> 01:40:00,360
Speaker 2: the reverse. You know, we were underdogs. We became fain it,

1741
01:40:00,960 --> 01:40:03,040
Speaker 2: and we had a huge budget and a load of

1742
01:40:03,040 --> 01:40:06,000
Speaker 2: people chomping at the bit to sell millions of these things.

1743
01:40:06,800 --> 01:40:09,120
Speaker 2: Not only that, I you know, we just had a

1744
01:40:09,240 --> 01:40:11,640
Speaker 2: child and that was a kind of traumatic experience that

1745
01:40:11,680 --> 01:40:15,360
Speaker 2: went horribly wrong. My father had just died, So I

1746
01:40:15,439 --> 01:40:17,720
Speaker 2: came back from tour. I had a dead father and

1747
01:40:17,720 --> 01:40:21,360
Speaker 2: a new baby and wife who'd been very ill, and

1748
01:40:21,600 --> 01:40:24,280
Speaker 2: that was my reality. I was also suddenly famous. I

1749
01:40:24,320 --> 01:40:26,519
Speaker 2: had money starting to come into my whole life felt

1750
01:40:26,600 --> 01:40:34,240
Speaker 2: like it belonged to somebody else. So it was. It was.

1751
01:40:34,400 --> 01:40:38,479
Speaker 2: It was tricky, you know, to find a way to

1752
01:40:38,560 --> 01:40:41,360
Speaker 2: connect to the music without thinking about it too much.

1753
01:40:41,720 --> 01:40:46,120
Speaker 2: So certainly for at least one record a new day

1754
01:40:46,160 --> 01:40:50,920
Speaker 2: at midnight, I think it was impossible to feel normal

1755
01:40:50,960 --> 01:40:54,640
Speaker 2: about anything or find a comfortable way of doing things.

1756
01:40:54,680 --> 01:40:58,640
Speaker 2: Everything was odd. So and I'm not the kind of

1757
01:40:58,640 --> 01:41:00,880
Speaker 2: guy who like, you know, hey, yeah, check out my

1758
01:41:00,920 --> 01:41:05,360
Speaker 2: new ferrari and my girlfriend. You know, I'm drinking the

1759
01:41:05,400 --> 01:41:08,960
Speaker 2: best tequila man can buy you know, whatever, you know,

1760
01:41:09,040 --> 01:41:11,040
Speaker 2: Let's have fun, Let's make a record, Let's go to

1761
01:41:11,040 --> 01:41:14,960
Speaker 2: the Bahamas. I'm not that person. I take it all

1762
01:41:15,080 --> 01:41:19,680
Speaker 2: very seriously and too seriously sometimes maybe so I was

1763
01:41:19,720 --> 01:41:22,400
Speaker 2: wearing it and trying to wear it in a way. Anyway.

1764
01:41:22,439 --> 01:41:26,799
Speaker 2: It was surrendous. I didn't enjoy that period. I was suffering.

1765
01:41:27,320 --> 01:41:29,160
Speaker 2: It was a bit like being John Malkovich. I was

1766
01:41:29,160 --> 01:41:33,519
Speaker 2: sort of looking at someone else's eyes, so but trying

1767
01:41:33,560 --> 01:41:35,400
Speaker 2: my best to connect and do the things. And there

1768
01:41:35,479 --> 01:41:36,760
Speaker 2: was a lot of pain in there, and there's a

1769
01:41:36,800 --> 01:41:39,479
Speaker 2: lot of weirdness because I just suddenly was in this

1770
01:41:39,520 --> 01:41:42,400
Speaker 2: other reality. But I think by the time of life

1771
01:41:42,400 --> 01:41:45,559
Speaker 2: in slow Motion the next record, I took some time

1772
01:41:45,880 --> 01:41:49,920
Speaker 2: to rEFInd my way into music and that rescued me.

1773
01:41:50,680 --> 01:41:54,479
Speaker 2: So we made a huge amount of music. I bought

1774
01:41:54,520 --> 01:41:57,200
Speaker 2: a studio and we just basically embedded ourselves there. The

1775
01:41:57,240 --> 01:41:59,519
Speaker 2: band are on retainers at this point, and we just

1776
01:41:59,600 --> 01:42:04,120
Speaker 2: recorded and recorded and recorded and had a way of

1777
01:42:04,160 --> 01:42:06,760
Speaker 2: a time just coming up with things and using a

1778
01:42:06,760 --> 01:42:11,479
Speaker 2: big studio. So that's basically, in a nutshell, how it

1779
01:42:11,600 --> 01:42:14,520
Speaker 2: sort of evolved from that white ladder moment of innocence

1780
01:42:15,000 --> 01:42:20,680
Speaker 2: through the sort of completely debilitating fame and oddness and

1781
01:42:20,720 --> 01:42:24,760
Speaker 2: self consciousness to refinding my way back to music and

1782
01:42:24,800 --> 01:42:28,120
Speaker 2: honesty and naturalness. It took a few years, to say

1783
01:42:28,120 --> 01:42:29,639
Speaker 2: the least, and I think it took a lot longer

1784
01:42:29,640 --> 01:42:31,040
Speaker 2: than that for me to come to terms with what

1785
01:42:31,120 --> 01:42:31,639
Speaker 2: had happened.

1786
01:42:33,080 --> 01:42:35,599
Speaker 1: If I said to you, I want you to write

1787
01:42:35,600 --> 01:42:39,640
Speaker 1: a hit song, would you say, I don't know what

1788
01:42:39,680 --> 01:42:42,200
Speaker 1: a hit song is. I don't want to write a

1789
01:42:42,280 --> 01:42:45,360
Speaker 1: hit song. I could write what I think is a hit,

1790
01:42:45,840 --> 01:42:48,240
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure. Or do you just say I

1791
01:42:48,360 --> 01:42:51,240
Speaker 1: just do what I do? Who the hell knows?

1792
01:42:51,960 --> 01:42:57,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't genuinely don't really know what a hit

1793
01:42:57,960 --> 01:42:59,960
Speaker 2: song is, and I don't even know what a hit

1794
01:43:00,080 --> 01:43:04,400
Speaker 2: looks like anymore from my point of view. So you know,

1795
01:43:04,479 --> 01:43:08,680
Speaker 2: I've got probably the most commercial song I've written in

1796
01:43:08,760 --> 01:43:11,400
Speaker 2: many years, in plus and minus on the new record,

1797
01:43:11,600 --> 01:43:14,240
Speaker 2: which has received a certain amount of airplay over here.

1798
01:43:14,280 --> 01:43:17,439
Speaker 2: I have no idea how it's doing in America, but

1799
01:43:18,200 --> 01:43:20,280
Speaker 2: that's as close as I'm going to get to a single.

1800
01:43:21,040 --> 01:43:23,920
Speaker 2: I don't go seeking them. But if something comes along

1801
01:43:23,960 --> 01:43:27,479
Speaker 2: and I think, oh this, you know, this is like

1802
01:43:27,520 --> 01:43:30,200
Speaker 2: a three minute pop song, It's not that I throw

1803
01:43:30,240 --> 01:43:34,160
Speaker 2: it out. I won't neglect it. I'll try and make

1804
01:43:34,200 --> 01:43:39,280
Speaker 2: it work. I love three minute pop songs, so you know,

1805
01:43:39,400 --> 01:43:42,400
Speaker 2: the point is having some depth to everything. It's just

1806
01:43:42,880 --> 01:43:49,120
Speaker 2: it's not enough just to satisfy. I don't know. Commercial

1807
01:43:49,920 --> 01:43:54,200
Speaker 2: lusts for success and numbers. That's not what motivates me.

1808
01:43:54,640 --> 01:43:57,400
Speaker 2: But when we were making White Ladder, I was also

1809
01:43:57,439 --> 01:44:00,240
Speaker 2: involved in a movie called This Year's Love and the

1810
01:44:00,320 --> 01:44:04,400
Speaker 2: director was a big fan, and he said, Dave, you know,

1811
01:44:05,080 --> 01:44:08,120
Speaker 2: i'd like you to write the title song of the film.

1812
01:44:09,200 --> 01:44:11,639
Speaker 2: And I said, but that's not really what I do.

1813
01:44:11,840 --> 01:44:14,919
Speaker 2: I mean, I said, if I just write what occurs

1814
01:44:15,000 --> 01:44:18,479
Speaker 2: to me, I don't look for a project or like.

1815
01:44:20,320 --> 01:44:22,160
Speaker 2: But then I went away and I thought, Jesus, I'm

1816
01:44:22,200 --> 01:44:25,679
Speaker 2: in the complete commercial wilderness. This is a guy who's

1817
01:44:25,680 --> 01:44:27,680
Speaker 2: making a movie. He's a big fan. He's asked me

1818
01:44:27,720 --> 01:44:30,280
Speaker 2: to write, so why don't I at least try? And

1819
01:44:30,360 --> 01:44:33,000
Speaker 2: I went home and I literally wrote This Year's Love

1820
01:44:33,080 --> 01:44:35,200
Speaker 2: that afternoon, and I sent him a cassette of it

1821
01:44:35,280 --> 01:44:37,280
Speaker 2: and said, this is what I've written. What do you think?

1822
01:44:37,600 --> 01:44:40,200
Speaker 2: He said, I love it. In the end, the movie

1823
01:44:40,280 --> 01:44:42,840
Speaker 2: came out. V two bought the movie rights and the

1824
01:44:42,880 --> 01:44:45,120
Speaker 2: song was removed from the movie. It was only played

1825
01:44:45,120 --> 01:44:47,280
Speaker 2: on a transistor radio in the back of a scene.

1826
01:44:47,640 --> 01:44:51,639
Speaker 2: But that's another story. But you know, and that's ended

1827
01:44:51,720 --> 01:44:56,320
Speaker 2: up being my most streamed song, So it's it's I

1828
01:44:56,360 --> 01:45:00,880
Speaker 2: don't necessarily fear doing something with a commercial sort of

1829
01:45:00,960 --> 01:45:05,040
Speaker 2: reason behind it. If only life was so predictable that

1830
01:45:05,080 --> 01:45:07,920
Speaker 2: there was sort of some kind of integrity ometer that

1831
01:45:07,960 --> 01:45:10,680
Speaker 2: you could apply to things. I don't believe in that

1832
01:45:10,760 --> 01:45:14,680
Speaker 2: fantasy stuff. I think that life's generally are compromise and

1833
01:45:14,760 --> 01:45:16,720
Speaker 2: lots of different things. But I think it's more the

1834
01:45:16,720 --> 01:45:20,160
Speaker 2: way that you make something and what you give to it,

1835
01:45:20,240 --> 01:45:23,839
Speaker 2: how you bring this brushstrokes to life that really matters.

1836
01:45:23,920 --> 01:45:25,960
Speaker 2: So yes, if you asked me to write a song,

1837
01:45:26,000 --> 01:45:27,600
Speaker 2: it'd have to depend who you were and what the

1838
01:45:27,640 --> 01:45:31,920
Speaker 2: context was. I'd probably ignore you, but it's possible I

1839
01:45:31,960 --> 01:45:33,080
Speaker 2: would take you seriously.

1840
01:45:34,160 --> 01:45:37,960
Speaker 1: At this point in time, you have the best viewpoint.

1841
01:45:38,479 --> 01:45:41,600
Speaker 1: You know, Where can you tour? Where are you successful?

1842
01:45:41,640 --> 01:45:45,200
Speaker 1: Obviously Ireland is a hotbed to what do we the UK,

1843
01:45:45,960 --> 01:45:51,120
Speaker 1: the US, the continent, anywhere else where are your fans?

1844
01:45:52,000 --> 01:45:55,599
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're all over the place, and obviously mainly English

1845
01:45:55,640 --> 01:46:03,960
Speaker 2: speaking countries, Ireland, UK, Canada, America, North America, you know, Australia,

1846
01:46:04,080 --> 01:46:08,360
Speaker 2: New Zealand, South Africa. But you know, there were certain

1847
01:46:08,400 --> 01:46:10,640
Speaker 2: points where I did have fans. I can see on

1848
01:46:10,680 --> 01:46:13,760
Speaker 2: the streaming numbers when streaming started that, Wow, there's a

1849
01:46:13,800 --> 01:46:17,000
Speaker 2: lot of people listening in Santiago, Chile, and there's quite

1850
01:46:17,000 --> 01:46:19,040
Speaker 2: a lot of people listening in Mexico City, and there's

1851
01:46:19,040 --> 01:46:21,519
Speaker 2: people listening here and there and everywhere. And I've obviously

1852
01:46:21,600 --> 01:46:24,360
Speaker 2: got fans in Germany. The problem is when you engineer

1853
01:46:24,439 --> 01:46:26,760
Speaker 2: a tour, you're looking at your best markets and do

1854
01:46:26,800 --> 01:46:29,240
Speaker 2: the best show for those markets. And then if you

1855
01:46:29,320 --> 01:46:31,760
Speaker 2: basically go and tour around Southern Europe, as much as

1856
01:46:31,760 --> 01:46:33,599
Speaker 2: it will be beautiful and the food will be great,

1857
01:46:34,760 --> 01:46:36,720
Speaker 2: you know, you canie a shitload of money because you're

1858
01:46:36,760 --> 01:46:39,400
Speaker 2: not selling enough tickets there to sustain the crew, the

1859
01:46:39,439 --> 01:46:41,720
Speaker 2: band and all the stuff you've got with you. So

1860
01:46:42,280 --> 01:46:44,400
Speaker 2: it's like you just need to cut your class accordingly.

1861
01:46:44,560 --> 01:46:46,639
Speaker 2: So I think if I do another acoustic tour, I'm

1862
01:46:46,640 --> 01:46:48,200
Speaker 2: going to try and get to some of the places

1863
01:46:48,240 --> 01:46:52,240
Speaker 2: I've never been, you know, like South America and Central

1864
01:46:52,280 --> 01:46:55,240
Speaker 2: America and the places I haven't been for a long time,

1865
01:46:55,320 --> 01:46:59,880
Speaker 2: like the southern Europe, Italy, Spain, et cetera. Paris, places

1866
01:46:59,880 --> 01:47:02,200
Speaker 2: like that will playing smaller venues and it won't be

1867
01:47:02,240 --> 01:47:05,840
Speaker 2: such a big deal. So you know, that's that's what

1868
01:47:05,880 --> 01:47:09,120
Speaker 2: my fan base looks like. It's all over the world,

1869
01:47:09,160 --> 01:47:11,679
Speaker 2: but it's mainly in those English speaking countries.

1870
01:47:12,400 --> 01:47:16,120
Speaker 1: Okay, you talk about playing some covers on this tour.

1871
01:47:16,280 --> 01:47:18,599
Speaker 1: You know you have a White Ladder live album where

1872
01:47:18,600 --> 01:47:26,599
Speaker 1: you cover some Bowie songs Tainted Love. You know, how

1873
01:47:26,600 --> 01:47:29,120
Speaker 1: did you choose those and what kind of covers might

1874
01:47:29,200 --> 01:47:30,080
Speaker 1: someone expect.

1875
01:47:31,920 --> 01:47:33,720
Speaker 2: I wouldn't want to talk about it because it's going

1876
01:47:33,800 --> 01:47:37,360
Speaker 2: to be a surprise so in terms of what we're

1877
01:47:37,360 --> 01:47:40,639
Speaker 2: going to do next, but it was a huge pleasure

1878
01:47:40,720 --> 01:47:45,479
Speaker 2: to play the well. Obviously, say Hello Wave Goodbye is

1879
01:47:45,200 --> 01:47:49,720
Speaker 2: a soft cell song. So on the White Ladder tour,

1880
01:47:49,800 --> 01:47:51,920
Speaker 2: I got Mark Alman to come out and sing with me,

1881
01:47:52,560 --> 01:47:56,800
Speaker 2: and we surprised him by having prepared a version of

1882
01:47:56,880 --> 01:47:59,559
Speaker 2: Tainted Love. I think it was absolutely horrified, to be honest,

1883
01:48:01,240 --> 01:48:04,600
Speaker 2: but he's a good sport and he stepped up and

1884
01:48:04,640 --> 01:48:08,000
Speaker 2: he did it and the crowd went absolutely crazy. So

1885
01:48:09,240 --> 01:48:12,120
Speaker 2: we kind of fired off the back of that. Say

1886
01:48:12,120 --> 01:48:14,439
Speaker 2: Hello Wave Goodbye would end the White Ladder set, we'd

1887
01:48:14,439 --> 01:48:17,280
Speaker 2: come back out and do Tainted Love, another Soft Cell

1888
01:48:17,439 --> 01:48:20,760
Speaker 2: song or famous made famous by soft Cell. It's not

1889
01:48:20,800 --> 01:48:23,960
Speaker 2: written by them, of course. And then the Bowie story

1890
01:48:24,120 --> 01:48:26,160
Speaker 2: was part of the history of White Ladder and the

1891
01:48:26,280 --> 01:48:29,040
Speaker 2: very this big long story about my dad being sick

1892
01:48:29,080 --> 01:48:31,760
Speaker 2: and us playing at Glastonbury and meeting Bowie, and I

1893
01:48:31,920 --> 01:48:34,040
Speaker 2: tell the story, and then we play life on Mars

1894
01:48:34,040 --> 01:48:37,320
Speaker 2: into Oh you pretty things. I mean, those songs were amazing.

1895
01:48:37,360 --> 01:48:41,360
Speaker 2: Just getting to play those songs was so exciting. People

1896
01:48:41,400 --> 01:48:44,360
Speaker 2: were just blown away by that, you know, to hear

1897
01:48:44,400 --> 01:48:48,479
Speaker 2: someone really do a good version of that. So yeah,

1898
01:48:48,560 --> 01:48:51,799
Speaker 2: that's in terms of if I was going to record

1899
01:48:51,880 --> 01:48:53,840
Speaker 2: a cover and use it on a record, that would

1900
01:48:53,840 --> 01:48:57,680
Speaker 2: be a much more delicate matter. But live, I'm just

1901
01:48:57,720 --> 01:48:59,360
Speaker 2: what I want to do on this tour is use

1902
01:48:59,439 --> 01:49:04,280
Speaker 2: covers to bring the energy up without having to play

1903
01:49:04,320 --> 01:49:08,320
Speaker 2: a Babylon card or a big song card, so to

1904
01:49:08,479 --> 01:49:14,280
Speaker 2: unexpectedly surprise people and just suddenly disarm them. So that

1905
01:49:14,400 --> 01:49:16,920
Speaker 2: I'm buying space really for the intimacy I need for

1906
01:49:17,000 --> 01:49:19,880
Speaker 2: some of the more low key stuff. So I'm going

1907
01:49:19,960 --> 01:49:25,080
Speaker 2: to use short bursts of very famous songs to energize

1908
01:49:25,120 --> 01:49:27,840
Speaker 2: people and hopefully thought provoked them a little bit.

1909
01:49:27,880 --> 01:49:31,240
Speaker 1: Now you mentioned the Chemical Brothers, you mentioned Mark Alman.

1910
01:49:31,880 --> 01:49:35,720
Speaker 1: Are you someone who knows everybody in the rock and

1911
01:49:35,800 --> 01:49:39,280
Speaker 1: roll high school or use somebody as more isolated.

1912
01:49:41,040 --> 01:49:45,839
Speaker 2: Totally isolated? Yeah, totally said. I don't know anyone.

1913
01:49:45,840 --> 01:49:46,160
Speaker 1: I don't.

1914
01:49:46,560 --> 01:49:49,559
Speaker 2: The celebrity village was a mystery to me. I couldn't

1915
01:49:49,600 --> 01:49:52,479
Speaker 2: really make head nor tail of what the ground rules

1916
01:49:52,520 --> 01:49:55,400
Speaker 2: were supposed to be. So whatever it is the gift

1917
01:49:55,439 --> 01:49:58,519
Speaker 2: of getting to, you know, make making people feel at ease,

1918
01:50:00,200 --> 01:50:02,920
Speaker 2: I don't seem to have it in that capacity. So

1919
01:50:03,040 --> 01:50:07,400
Speaker 2: my friendship group is basically the people I make music with,

1920
01:50:08,439 --> 01:50:11,240
Speaker 2: put music out with, and the people I knew before

1921
01:50:11,280 --> 01:50:14,960
Speaker 2: I became famous. It's my wife's friends who are very

1922
01:50:14,960 --> 01:50:18,240
Speaker 2: dear friends of mine. That's those are the people I see.

1923
01:50:18,320 --> 01:50:21,640
Speaker 2: I don't have famous friends, per se. I know a

1924
01:50:21,640 --> 01:50:24,559
Speaker 2: few people, of course, you know, Jesus, there's a lot

1925
01:50:24,600 --> 01:50:27,960
Speaker 2: of nice people out there that I've met and sort

1926
01:50:27,960 --> 01:50:31,200
Speaker 2: of become friendly with, But that's not my gig. Now

1927
01:50:31,240 --> 01:50:34,920
Speaker 2: I'm much more isolated, I think, unhealthily so. In some

1928
01:50:34,960 --> 01:50:39,240
Speaker 2: ways I feel that that the artists need the community

1929
01:50:39,280 --> 01:50:44,000
Speaker 2: of artists to support them and with whatever it is.

1930
01:50:44,000 --> 01:50:46,439
Speaker 2: I don't know why I've evolved a certain ways. It's

1931
01:50:46,479 --> 01:50:49,719
Speaker 2: complicated without getting to some kind of deep Freudian shit.

1932
01:50:50,720 --> 01:50:53,360
Speaker 2: I think that that's just the way I am.

1933
01:50:53,640 --> 01:50:56,280
Speaker 1: And you know there's that blind in the Joe Walls song.

1934
01:50:56,400 --> 01:51:00,880
Speaker 1: You know, everybody's so different and I haven't changed. To

1935
01:51:01,040 --> 01:51:04,960
Speaker 1: what degree do people treat you differently now that you're

1936
01:51:05,080 --> 01:51:09,679
Speaker 1: famous or you know, your recognizable character? To what degree

1937
01:51:09,720 --> 01:51:10,600
Speaker 1: is that inhibiting?

1938
01:51:13,760 --> 01:51:16,160
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think it's died down to such an extent

1939
01:51:16,200 --> 01:51:19,240
Speaker 2: that it's not really a big deal. Two things have happened.

1940
01:51:19,640 --> 01:51:22,519
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I've got used to it. And

1941
01:51:22,600 --> 01:51:25,320
Speaker 2: also people don't give a shit about me anymore, you know,

1942
01:51:25,479 --> 01:51:29,720
Speaker 2: So it's it's might I live a completely pretty normal life.

1943
01:51:29,800 --> 01:51:32,000
Speaker 2: I don't I go out, I wander around. I can

1944
01:51:32,000 --> 01:51:34,400
Speaker 2: go to a restaurant without everyone standing and looking at me.

1945
01:51:34,960 --> 01:51:37,520
Speaker 2: You know. I was in a I know Ricky Gervais

1946
01:51:37,520 --> 01:51:40,639
Speaker 2: from he's a fellow resident in Hampstead where I used

1947
01:51:40,680 --> 01:51:42,880
Speaker 2: to live. I used to see him out and about,

1948
01:51:42,920 --> 01:51:45,000
Speaker 2: and of course he's always got the shades on. And

1949
01:51:45,120 --> 01:51:47,560
Speaker 2: I remember being in the pub and we were just

1950
01:51:47,600 --> 01:51:50,280
Speaker 2: sitting there as a family having lunch and he came

1951
01:51:50,320 --> 01:51:53,040
Speaker 2: in with his wife. It was obviously an impromptu thing.

1952
01:51:53,520 --> 01:51:56,280
Speaker 2: Place was packed, and they kind of went, oh my god,

1953
01:51:56,320 --> 01:51:58,320
Speaker 2: we better sort Ricky at, We better sort Ricky at.

1954
01:51:58,720 --> 01:52:00,960
Speaker 2: And they gave him this. It was like right in

1955
01:52:01,000 --> 01:52:04,479
Speaker 2: the middle, and everyone was just looking at him, and

1956
01:52:05,320 --> 01:52:07,320
Speaker 2: I just felt so uncomfortable for him, and he just

1957
01:52:07,360 --> 01:52:09,280
Speaker 2: got up and left. After a certain amount of time,

1958
01:52:09,560 --> 01:52:12,040
Speaker 2: they started placing an order and he went and they

1959
01:52:12,080 --> 01:52:14,200
Speaker 2: just went. And I thought, yeah, my god, you know,

1960
01:52:14,240 --> 01:52:17,559
Speaker 2: what's it like being whatever you think of these people,

1961
01:52:17,640 --> 01:52:20,599
Speaker 2: Harry and Megan or Brad Pitt or something. You walk

1962
01:52:20,600 --> 01:52:23,880
Speaker 2: into a room and everybody it's like it's all about you. Jesus.

1963
01:52:24,320 --> 01:52:28,000
Speaker 2: Sounds horrendous. So yeah, I don't have to deal with

1964
01:52:28,040 --> 01:52:30,320
Speaker 2: any of that stuff. I don't got no high grade

1965
01:52:30,360 --> 01:52:32,880
Speaker 2: sort of scrutiny going on. Of course, I live a

1966
01:52:32,880 --> 01:52:35,799
Speaker 2: life that's in the public eye. Occasionally get stupid stories

1967
01:52:35,840 --> 01:52:39,080
Speaker 2: in the press or whatever. It's the usual carry on,

1968
01:52:39,280 --> 01:52:42,559
Speaker 2: but it's not something that inhibits my life. I do

1969
01:52:42,720 --> 01:52:44,240
Speaker 2: exactly what I want to go to the beach when

1970
01:52:44,240 --> 01:52:46,280
Speaker 2: I'm up in Norfolk, I go for swear, I do

1971
01:52:46,360 --> 01:52:48,160
Speaker 2: whatever I want to go to the pub for a pint.

1972
01:52:48,479 --> 01:52:49,960
Speaker 2: I don't give a shit. I just do what I

1973
01:52:50,000 --> 01:52:52,639
Speaker 2: want to do. I go to you know, it doesn't

1974
01:52:52,680 --> 01:52:55,040
Speaker 2: there's there's nothing happening. I don't see what's happening behind me.

1975
01:52:55,080 --> 01:52:56,720
Speaker 2: I might be walking down the high street and they go, oh,

1976
01:52:56,720 --> 01:52:59,920
Speaker 2: I was David gra Occasionally someone will bellow, some drunk

1977
01:53:00,040 --> 01:53:03,200
Speaker 2: will bellow out to me, but you know, it's pretty

1978
01:53:03,200 --> 01:53:03,679
Speaker 2: low key.

1979
01:53:03,720 --> 01:53:03,880
Speaker 1: Now.

1980
01:53:04,200 --> 01:53:06,479
Speaker 2: I'm not very I'm not really very famous anymore.

1981
01:53:06,520 --> 01:53:09,280
Speaker 1: Well, that may be your perspective that a lot of

1982
01:53:09,360 --> 01:53:12,080
Speaker 1: us feel differently. In any event, David, I want to

1983
01:53:12,120 --> 01:53:14,240
Speaker 1: thank you for taking the time to speak with me

1984
01:53:14,680 --> 01:53:18,520
Speaker 1: in my audience. You've made a lot of very perceptive,

1985
01:53:18,680 --> 01:53:22,800
Speaker 1: insightful comments certainly rooted me. So I want to thank

1986
01:53:22,840 --> 01:53:27,320
Speaker 1: you again and wish you luck with a new album.

1987
01:53:27,600 --> 01:53:29,519
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Bob. And this is maybe the

1988
01:53:29,560 --> 01:53:31,840
Speaker 2: longest interview I've ever done. I had no idea it

1989
01:53:31,880 --> 01:53:34,960
Speaker 2: was going to be so epic. If Concord was still running,

1990
01:53:35,000 --> 01:53:36,840
Speaker 2: someone could have flown to New York in the time

1991
01:53:36,880 --> 01:53:43,960
Speaker 2: we've had this. Yeah, I wish you all the best,

1992
01:53:44,280 --> 01:53:47,519
Speaker 2: happy and healthy New Year, Bobs. And if you're in

1993
01:53:47,560 --> 01:53:51,120
Speaker 2: Los Angeles, Yeah, I hope that the fire the fire

1994
01:53:51,160 --> 01:53:54,280
Speaker 2: has died down real soon, so I'm sorry for you

1995
01:53:54,479 --> 01:53:57,000
Speaker 2: all the suffering that's over there, and let's talk.

1996
01:53:57,479 --> 01:54:01,200
Speaker 1: The winds died down in any event. Next time, this

1997
01:54:01,360 --> 01:54:02,519
Speaker 1: is Bob left Sex