WEBVTT - David Gray

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the barber of Certified That.

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<v Speaker 1>My guest today is David Great. David, you have a

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<v Speaker 1>new album. Tell me about it.

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

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<v Speaker 2>the creative pipeline, quite a while. It's it's it's birth

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<v Speaker 2>process has been somewhat dislocated by the complications of COVID

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<v Speaker 2>and all the sort of touring backlog and life backlog

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<v Speaker 2>that happened. So it's it's it's a massive work because

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<v Speaker 2>I think I'm trying to sort of clear the decks.

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<v Speaker 2>So this is sort of chapter one of the stuff

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

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<v Speaker 2>a record that, I mean, I don't know why some

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<v Speaker 2>records come out more sort of energized, or I say

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<v Speaker 2>about these songs that they were born standing up. They've

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<v Speaker 2>seemed very direct, melodic and and moving out to the listener.

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<v Speaker 2>So some of my stuff maybe a little bit more

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<v Speaker 2>introspective or oblique or just slightly more abstracted. This record

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<v Speaker 2>is not suffering depth wise for its immediacy, but I

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<v Speaker 2>feel it has this kind of melodic principle and a

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<v Speaker 2>very direct engagement. It's straight to camera as I would

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<v Speaker 2>say as well. So I use the kind of short

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<v Speaker 2>story writer's imaginative trick of using other voices, not just

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<v Speaker 2>a straight autio but altobiographical approach. I kind of use

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<v Speaker 2>lots of different angles to get different views of the

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<v Speaker 2>same mountain. Twenty views of Mount Fuji by Hockasei's it's

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<v Speaker 2>it's lots of different views of life. Maybe as life

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<v Speaker 2>starts to progress, as the view begins to change. So that,

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<v Speaker 2>in an that's what it's all about.

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

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<v Speaker 1>in the development. Is that because of COVID? Be a

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<v Speaker 1>little more specific, please, yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>No. I started the process in twenty nineteen in full

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<v Speaker 2>knowledge that in March of twenty twenty I was going

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<v Speaker 2>to be embarking on the White Ladder Anniversary Tour, which

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<v Speaker 2>was going to take most of twenty twenty out of

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<v Speaker 2>the equation, So I knew I would be sort of

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<v Speaker 2>rejoining the album at the end of that, But of

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<v Speaker 2>course life had other ideas, and we did all the

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<v Speaker 2>prep and we rehearsals and the production rehearsals, and then

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<v Speaker 2>the day just before the first show, we locked down

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<v Speaker 2>and it was a long time before the tour was viable.

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<v Speaker 2>So it then changed everything and the real star burst

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<v Speaker 2>of song writing I had written a few songs at

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<v Speaker 2>the end of twenty nineteen happened at the end of

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<v Speaker 2>COVID when I've had a zoom call with my managers

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<v Speaker 2>and agents and we decided that the tour was going

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<v Speaker 2>to have to go ahead in early twenty twenty two.

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<v Speaker 2>Because you could no longer hold other dates. It wasn't

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<v Speaker 2>possible to sort of hedge your bets. You had to

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<v Speaker 2>either do it or not do it and wait another

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<v Speaker 2>eighteen months if you weren't going to go. Then there

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<v Speaker 2>were so many tours in a holding pattern, and that

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<v Speaker 2>kind of gave me this kind of clarity that I

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<v Speaker 2>had five months before rehearsal started. During COVID, I, like

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<v Speaker 2>many creative people, thought I'll go down to my studio

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<v Speaker 2>in the basement and I'm going to start making music

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<v Speaker 2>while everyone else is wondering what to do with themselves.

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<v Speaker 2>But eventually the pressure and the strangeness of this experience

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<v Speaker 2>bore down on me and it became sort of ridiculously

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<v Speaker 2>unhealthy actually to indulge my creative principles when there was

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<v Speaker 2>something much bigger to address, which was life itself. Finally,

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<v Speaker 2>the horizon had been canceled. What we just had was

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<v Speaker 2>the day, the time, and the people, and I'd luckily

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<v Speaker 2>had my family around me. So after a couple of

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<v Speaker 2>months of writing songs and trying to press record and

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<v Speaker 2>run in and record things, I just took the pressure

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<v Speaker 2>off and decided to just exist with my family and

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<v Speaker 2>partly that fund of experience and actually letting the field

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<v Speaker 2>go fallow I think had a huge effect, positive effect

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<v Speaker 2>in terms of the writing and the emotional coherence of

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<v Speaker 2>what then happened. So some of the lyrics and some

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<v Speaker 2>of the songs relate directly to that experience, but I

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<v Speaker 2>think just as a whole. Anyway, I got to the

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<v Speaker 2>end of twenty one, as I say, and we had

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<v Speaker 2>this Zoom meeting and it was clear that the tour

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<v Speaker 2>was going ahead in May or not or not at all.

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<v Speaker 2>So with this clarity in mind, I just began to work,

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<v Speaker 2>and I worked in a way I've never worked before.

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<v Speaker 2>It wasn't that new songs came, which is always something

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<v Speaker 2>that will happen if you put yourself at the cold

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<v Speaker 2>face and keep turning up. It was that the song

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<v Speaker 2>the Half Finished things which I've always got hundreds of

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<v Speaker 2>the ones I was just picking up, I was just

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

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<v Speaker 2>thirty or forty things in the space of a few months,

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<v Speaker 2>and that's a hell of a pace for me. So

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<v Speaker 2>it was informed by this whole relationship to not doing

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<v Speaker 2>it so that the making of this record. So sometimes

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<v Speaker 2>time can be a collaborator. Putting records out always takes

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<v Speaker 2>longer than you wanted to. In this case, there was

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<v Speaker 2>a great, big two year hole in the middle. But

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<v Speaker 2>in the end it's all been in favor of the music.

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<v Speaker 2>It's all worked out well.

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<v Speaker 1>Okay, So since you decided that working in the studio

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<v Speaker 1>was counter productive, how did you cope with COVID.

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<v Speaker 2>Well, I just I tried to just be I mean,

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<v Speaker 2>I've been telling myself perhaps somewhat dishonestly. Or did I

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<v Speaker 2>have the courage to just stop be with my family?

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<v Speaker 2>The elephant in the room is that I love these

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<v Speaker 2>guys very much, but it's always work that comes first,

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<v Speaker 2>and there's always something burning in my imagination that I've

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<v Speaker 2>got to get to, or there's an event or a

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<v Speaker 2>tour or a deadline that I'm working towards so they're

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

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<v Speaker 2>in amongst all that stuff that I chose, they were

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<v Speaker 2>getting into their late teens. It was a chance to

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<v Speaker 2>sort of be together with my wife and my children.

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<v Speaker 2>I've been saying for years, Jesus, I need to stop

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<v Speaker 2>touring and just be for a while, And finally I

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<v Speaker 2>was being made to do it. And of course the

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<v Speaker 2>first thing I wanted to do was find something else

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<v Speaker 2>to do, so I kind of it took a while

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<v Speaker 2>to to see the elephant in the room, which was

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<v Speaker 2>that God, this stuff really matters. And I think there

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<v Speaker 2>was something that happened in COVID that was there was

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<v Speaker 2>many things that happened that were extraordinary. I know it

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<v Speaker 2>was a horrendous experience on so many levels for so

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<v Speaker 2>many people. But death in our culture is absent or

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<v Speaker 2>at least postponed as a reality in most kind of

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<v Speaker 2>conversations and dialogue. And here we were looking at daily

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<v Speaker 2>stats and hearing stories and suddenly it was the center

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<v Speaker 2>of attention. Not only that, but we were robbed of

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<v Speaker 2>this kind of must do something, the constellations of action.

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<v Speaker 2>We had to just contemplate the bare realities of changing

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<v Speaker 2>seasons and the tick of the clock and people being

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<v Speaker 2>in life and death situations. And it was a very

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<v Speaker 2>contemplative experience. But anyway, I felt personally very enriched by

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<v Speaker 2>spending time with my family. We watched films, we played games,

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<v Speaker 2>we did stuff. It was like a long Christmas holiday

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<v Speaker 2>for a while.

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<v Speaker 1>And have you gotten COVID?

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah? I got it in twenty one, and actually I

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<v Speaker 2>got it in twenty two, just before the tours, so

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<v Speaker 2>luckily I was nicely immunized before it all kicked off.

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<v Speaker 1>And when you actually went on the tour in twenty two,

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<v Speaker 1>to what degree did you have COVID precautions so that

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<v Speaker 1>the band or you didn't get sick and you didn't

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<v Speaker 1>have to cancel deats?

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<v Speaker 2>We didn't have any, to be honest, Bob, there was

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<v Speaker 2>by that point. I mean you were standing in a

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<v Speaker 2>room of however many thousand people bellowing at you. I

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<v Speaker 2>don't think on a sort of virus prevention level there

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<v Speaker 2>was much chance of avoiding things. What happened was that

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<v Speaker 2>one of the band got COVID during the tour, and

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<v Speaker 2>it was then passed on to all the other members.

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<v Speaker 2>Of the band apart from me. So one particular show

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<v Speaker 2>we had to do with everybody being isolated from everybody

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<v Speaker 2>else crew band. It was quite crazy, and I was

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<v Speaker 2>the only person who was actually healthy. So it affected

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<v Speaker 2>the tour in that way. But in terms of the

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<v Speaker 2>precautions when you're living on a tour bus together and

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<v Speaker 2>I mean you're constantly just in these situations, it was

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<v Speaker 2>it was very difficult. Like a lot of COVID it

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<v Speaker 2>was good in theory that you can do things, but

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<v Speaker 2>separation wasn't really possible. So we obviously we did We

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<v Speaker 2>didn't throw caution to the wind. We were kind of

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<v Speaker 2>mindful of what the dangers were, but I think at

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<v Speaker 2>that point people were restless anyway to reconnect. It gave

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<v Speaker 2>it provided the tour with an incredible burst of energy

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<v Speaker 2>for us who'd been denied the thing that we do,

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<v Speaker 2>but also for the crowds to do a feel good

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<v Speaker 2>thing like that as well. I mean to be gratifying

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<v Speaker 2>everyone in that fashion. It was just what they wanted

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<v Speaker 2>and what they needed probably, so it gave this electric

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<v Speaker 2>electricity to everything, a sort of extra charge. So that

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<v Speaker 2>was quite remarkable to be a part of.

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<v Speaker 1>Let's Go Back you say your work is always number

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<v Speaker 1>one in your family. We can talk about that generally,

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<v Speaker 1>like hey, I have to go on the road, But

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

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<v Speaker 1>like all of a sudden, you get an idea and

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<v Speaker 1>you go, I gotta go into my room. I gotta

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

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<v Speaker 1>for twenty days straight. You got to stay at dinner.

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<v Speaker 1>Tell me what it's actually like.

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<v Speaker 2>Well, the way I deal with it, Bob, is that

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<v Speaker 2>I compartmentalize. So I do either of those things. Most

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<v Speaker 2>of my life is organizational. It's not creative at all.

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<v Speaker 2>It's very hard to find the time for pure creativity.

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<v Speaker 2>But when I get into a writing mode and I

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<v Speaker 2>say to everyone, right, stop emailing me, stop bothering me.

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<v Speaker 2>I'm going to be writing a record. Now, I'm recording,

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<v Speaker 2>leave me alone. And then if I get three clear

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

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<v Speaker 2>superb There's so many other things to attend to. So

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<v Speaker 2>I would normally work like a working day, get up early,

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<v Speaker 2>get into the studio early. I like the fresh mind

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

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<v Speaker 2>Maybe and stop, and that would be my working day.

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<v Speaker 2>And as I say, Monday to Thursday if I can

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

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<v Speaker 2>making this record. Sometimes I went away and that was

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<v Speaker 2>another part of it, to the countryside and would work

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

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<v Speaker 2>actually very beautiful, so still so quiet. Some extraordinary things

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<v Speaker 2>happened in those spaces. But no, basically I try and

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<v Speaker 2>just be quite disciplined. So if I have an idea,

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<v Speaker 2>it generally just has to wait until I have the

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<v Speaker 2>time to explore it. I mean, now, I've just been

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<v Speaker 2>writing lyric notes down this afternoon. A few things came

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<v Speaker 2>into my mind, and then a musical idea came to

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<v Speaker 2>me while I was practicing. Because I got the tour

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<v Speaker 2>obviously starting for this new record, I've got to get

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<v Speaker 2>myself up to speed. So as accidents still happened on

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<v Speaker 2>the peyboard or on the guitar, and oh, that's interesting,

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<v Speaker 2>I must remember this. And then a little melody came

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<v Speaker 2>and I thought, actually that works with this lyric, and

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<v Speaker 2>blah blah blah, I just have to make a little

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<v Speaker 2>note of it and come back to it. So it's

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<v Speaker 2>it's it's it's not possible. It's like I work a

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<v Speaker 2>sort of milk round and I can get to be

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<v Speaker 2>a musician, you know when I've finished.

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

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<v Speaker 1>Can your family interrupt you? Or do you turn off

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

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<v Speaker 2>Now that kids will just interrupt you. They say things

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

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<v Speaker 2>you know, I mean the world, the world's come to

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

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

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<v Speaker 2>There's always something going wrong, So no, there's there's if

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

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<v Speaker 2>some bloody interruption. So no, I think, as I say,

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<v Speaker 2>broadly speaking, yes, if I said no, I'm in this mode,

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

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

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<v Speaker 2>studio at home because I've moved house. So I've got

0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:15.960
<v Speaker 2>a studio just up the road, a few miles up

0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:18.480
<v Speaker 2>the road in West London. So when I'm there, I'm there,

0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:20.559
<v Speaker 2>so that in a way, that's a lot more straightforward.

0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:23.760
<v Speaker 2>When my studio was in the house, it was deeply problematic,

0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:27.680
<v Speaker 2>so children would have parties in there and all kinds

0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:32.680
<v Speaker 2>of things, you know, So it was it was, it was.

0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:36.800
<v Speaker 2>It was a complex. Having my life squashed together with

0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:40.439
<v Speaker 2>the house above the studio sounds ideal, but actually it

0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:43.760
<v Speaker 2>was problematic. So I'm happier with this separation that I

0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:44.920
<v Speaker 2>have now in some ways.

0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:47.160
<v Speaker 1>So why did you move house?

0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:51.880
<v Speaker 2>Because kids are sort of getting older and leaving home.

0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:54.560
<v Speaker 2>And we lived in a nice leafy part of London

0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:59.160
<v Speaker 2>called Hampstead, and it's all very nice, got lovely schools

0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:02.720
<v Speaker 2>and beautiful. The heath is what it's famous for, where

0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:06.120
<v Speaker 2>Keats and Coleridge used to wander and compose their rhymes.

0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:10.440
<v Speaker 2>But it's really a bit boring. So we've decided to

0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:12.760
<v Speaker 2>move right into the center of town. So we've kind

0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:16.280
<v Speaker 2>of we've moved into w one, trying to make our

0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:19.520
<v Speaker 2>lives a bit more interesting and a bit more cultural cultural,

0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:21.360
<v Speaker 2>I suppose, like, so you can just walk out and

0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:25.680
<v Speaker 2>do stuff, go to the shops, restaurants, theaters, galleries. Not

0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:28.600
<v Speaker 2>that I'm spending all my time doing that, but you

0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:31.920
<v Speaker 2>certainly can. And I like being just walking distance to everything,

0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:34.560
<v Speaker 2>whether it's Selfridges or the Tait. I can kind of

0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:38.440
<v Speaker 2>just basically just wander to it. So that's been the change.

0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:41.280
<v Speaker 2>I think I wouldn't have enacted that change if we

0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:43.240
<v Speaker 2>didn't have a second home. We're lucky enough to have

0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:46.320
<v Speaker 2>the ultimate luxury, which is a country place. I've got

0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:49.360
<v Speaker 2>a little house up on the coast in Norfolk, right

0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:51.640
<v Speaker 2>by the beach, so I get all the fresh air

0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:54.800
<v Speaker 2>and wilderness I can deal with when I'm up there,

0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:56.520
<v Speaker 2>and then I come back to London and I can

0:14:56.640 --> 0:15:00.120
<v Speaker 2>live in a different way.

0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:06.520
<v Speaker 1>How many kids do you have?

0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:09.680
<v Speaker 2>Two? I got two.

0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:12.440
<v Speaker 1>Girls in their presently what age.

0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:16.880
<v Speaker 2>Twenty two and twenty and are.

0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:22.600
<v Speaker 1>They still live in their house? Are they out? Yeah?

0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:27.480
<v Speaker 2>Exactly. Well, one of them's kind of half living here,

0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:29.440
<v Speaker 2>half not living here. But I think it's a lot

0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:32.360
<v Speaker 2>nicer to live here than it is in her crappy

0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:36.280
<v Speaker 2>student flat. So the other ones just gone back to

0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:40.080
<v Speaker 2>university this morning. She's gone back to Glasgow, so she's

0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:42.800
<v Speaker 2>there during the terms and she comes back for holidays,

0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:46.320
<v Speaker 2>so they're kind of here some of the time. It's

0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:48.320
<v Speaker 2>a lot nicer being at home than it is in

0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:50.600
<v Speaker 2>your little flat, that's for sure.

0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:54.440
<v Speaker 1>And you know, there's a TV show in America that

0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:57.360
<v Speaker 1>you may or may not be familiar with call Family

0:15:57.560 --> 0:16:01.960
<v Speaker 1>Ties from the eighties nineties where the parents are hippies

0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:06.520
<v Speaker 1>and Michael J. Fox is very conservative. What are your

0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:12.880
<v Speaker 1>kids like relative to you and your wife?

0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:15.960
<v Speaker 2>Well, I think just the way that they are as

0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:22.000
<v Speaker 2>they've always been very conversational children, So they're highly articulate

0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:26.920
<v Speaker 2>and sociable and not intimidated by adults or other people.

0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:31.040
<v Speaker 2>They will be very chatty people, good, able to speak

0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:36.120
<v Speaker 2>much better than I am, certainly, So that's sort of

0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:39.880
<v Speaker 2>what they're like. What are they like politically culturally? Well

0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:43.320
<v Speaker 2>that they've they're in this touch of a finger generation

0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:47.120
<v Speaker 2>for everything they want, so they have a different relationship

0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:50.600
<v Speaker 2>to things. It's interesting. I mean I haven't protected them

0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:56.760
<v Speaker 2>from what was basically, you know, the open sewer of

0:16:56.840 --> 0:17:00.440
<v Speaker 2>the internet and social media. They've been a how to

0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:04.800
<v Speaker 2>ramble because I guess I feel that they need to

0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:09.000
<v Speaker 2>know how to survive this this world. So they've been left,

0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:11.919
<v Speaker 2>they've had phones, they've had all this stuff. They've been

0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:16.000
<v Speaker 2>exposed to god knows what. So but they have this

0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:20.160
<v Speaker 2>different relationship to music and culture, and obviously there's different

0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:24.400
<v Speaker 2>political opinions. So identity politics has become such a huge thing.

0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:26.639
<v Speaker 2>It's something we all disagree about in our family.

0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:29.160
<v Speaker 1>So they're there.

0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:33.560
<v Speaker 2>They're My youngest is very political. Ye, this not as much,

0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:38.440
<v Speaker 2>although recent events have made her more so. So it's

0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:41.600
<v Speaker 2>that they're they're not dissimilar to us. They're just have

0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:45.600
<v Speaker 2>a different generation and they view certain things very differently.

0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:48.679
<v Speaker 2>I think when I was growing up, music was it

0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:51.199
<v Speaker 2>was more than what you listen to, what kind of

0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:54.560
<v Speaker 2>reflected on you. It was it was actually your identity

0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:58.440
<v Speaker 2>because choosing what you didn't like was just as profound

0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:01.280
<v Speaker 2>as what you did. So if you were a mode

0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:03.239
<v Speaker 2>or a rocker, or if you were a punk, or

0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:05.399
<v Speaker 2>you were this, if you're you know, if you like

0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:07.520
<v Speaker 2>talking heads and this and that, but you don't like

0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:12.240
<v Speaker 2>Joranne Joanna, you were you positioned yourself, glued yourself together.

0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:15.160
<v Speaker 2>If you discovered Leonard coh and John Martin, Nick Drake,

0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:18.639
<v Speaker 2>these are the things that became what you were not

0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:22.480
<v Speaker 2>internally and also sort of your character sort of thing.

0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:26.720
<v Speaker 2>I think it was more tribal, it was rara, and

0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:30.480
<v Speaker 2>now it's like everything's available all the time. It's it's

0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:31.440
<v Speaker 2>not quite the same.

0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:36.240
<v Speaker 1>So if your kids turned you on to music or

0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:38.280
<v Speaker 1>turned you off to music.

0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:42.119
<v Speaker 2>Well, of course they listened to all They listened to

0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:48.119
<v Speaker 2>all kinds of stuff, which to me is it's just

0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:54.080
<v Speaker 2>lays it on too thick, maybe you know, moaning about this,

0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:57.840
<v Speaker 2>that or the rest. So but yeah, they've they've turned

0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:01.679
<v Speaker 2>me on to quite a few things because they have

0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:05.960
<v Speaker 2>very diverse listening. It they're being they're connecting through I

0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:10.440
<v Speaker 2>don't know if it's algorithmic, but they're certainly accelerating their

0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:13.640
<v Speaker 2>their knowledge and contact with music through TV through sort

0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:16.919
<v Speaker 2>of applied versions of the music. They find it in

0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:21.160
<v Speaker 2>places and then they pass it around like so they

0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:24.959
<v Speaker 2>have quite a kind of quite catholic taste in some ways.

0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:27.960
<v Speaker 2>So yeah, I've picked up on a few tracks which

0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:32.639
<v Speaker 2>I really really like. So but generally one of the

0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:36.399
<v Speaker 2>problems is we don't share our listening. In the old days,

0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:38.199
<v Speaker 2>the parents used to have to watch Top of the

0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:41.840
<v Speaker 2>Pops with the kids and go, what's this rubbish? You know,

0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:47.520
<v Speaker 2>the crazy world of Arthur Brown fire. You know, he

0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:49.560
<v Speaker 2>should he should get a job, you know, like they

0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:54.359
<v Speaker 2>used to say things like that, and you know, these days,

0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:57.040
<v Speaker 2>we don't have that common experience. There isn't a thing

0:19:57.080 --> 0:19:59.400
<v Speaker 2>that everyone does to listen to music, So you get

0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:01.760
<v Speaker 2>to hear what they're listening to. You just occasionally hear

0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:05.080
<v Speaker 2>it blasting out of the shower or something, or they've

0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:08.160
<v Speaker 2>stolen your bow speaker and they've taken over the living

0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:11.359
<v Speaker 2>room and you get to hear something. But you know,

0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:14.320
<v Speaker 2>I think I heard they were the other days that

0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:17.240
<v Speaker 2>they were playing some Velvet Morning by what you McCall

0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:20.679
<v Speaker 2>it and Nancy Sinatra and what's his name? I thought, well,

0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:23.600
<v Speaker 2>I said, this is a great track. I said, have

0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:26.520
<v Speaker 2>you listened to this record? This is a great record.

0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:29.479
<v Speaker 2>They were like, no, we just know this track. I'm like, well,

0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:30.600
<v Speaker 2>when you listen to the whole thing?

0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:36.520
<v Speaker 1>Okay, To what degree are you a student of the game?

0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:40.240
<v Speaker 1>To what degree do you know what the ticket prices are?

0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:43.000
<v Speaker 1>To what degree are you concerned with praises? To what

0:20:43.080 --> 0:20:48.080
<v Speaker 1>degree do you know the gross? Do you know the cross? Well?

0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:50.800
<v Speaker 2>I have I have to. I've been an independent artist

0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:55.800
<v Speaker 2>for a long time now, so it's touring has become

0:20:55.920 --> 0:20:58.399
<v Speaker 2>much more expensive and it's very high risk. I mean,

0:20:58.440 --> 0:21:00.600
<v Speaker 2>you you you spend a lot of money to put

0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:03.199
<v Speaker 2>a tour on, and this tour I'm about to do

0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:05.840
<v Speaker 2>for dear Life, it's called the Past and Present Tour.

0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:09.160
<v Speaker 2>This will be the culmination of many years work. So

0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:11.480
<v Speaker 2>we're not going to sell a load of vinyl. It's

0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:15.159
<v Speaker 2>not like the coffers will be full. We've got to

0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:17.800
<v Speaker 2>go out and talk do these shows for our fans,

0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:23.320
<v Speaker 2>So it's very important. You know, people will push the

0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:25.639
<v Speaker 2>ticket price up, push to cover all these cost but

0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:29.119
<v Speaker 2>that just goes on to the consumer, and I feel

0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:32.000
<v Speaker 2>very strongly that there's only so far you can take that.

0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:34.919
<v Speaker 2>So I think for these reasons, if you choose to

0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:38.000
<v Speaker 2>wash your hands of the sort of the dirty business

0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:41.119
<v Speaker 2>of selling tickets in the market, then you're in danger

0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:44.359
<v Speaker 2>of distancing people who haven't got as much money but

0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:47.040
<v Speaker 2>a big passion for music, and the very people that

0:21:47.080 --> 0:21:50.480
<v Speaker 2>probably prop you up. So for those reasons, I take

0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:54.960
<v Speaker 2>all that stuff quite seriously. I'm not sitting in meetings going, hey,

0:21:55.000 --> 0:22:00.720
<v Speaker 2>we should charge this, but I am paying attention. But yeah,

0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:03.199
<v Speaker 2>one of the great problems is the sort of the

0:22:03.240 --> 0:22:07.639
<v Speaker 2>profitability of things. It's become very expensive to tour, and

0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:11.080
<v Speaker 2>everyone's wages want to go up, and all the rest

0:22:11.080 --> 0:22:15.240
<v Speaker 2>of it, You've got things like environmental concerns and trying

0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:16.879
<v Speaker 2>to do things in a different way, which may be

0:22:17.040 --> 0:22:21.720
<v Speaker 2>more awkward, more expensive, more time consuming. So there's lots

0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:26.760
<v Speaker 2>of pressures to do things differently, but not much slack

0:22:26.800 --> 0:22:30.000
<v Speaker 2>in the line financially. So yes, I pay attention. I

0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:34.400
<v Speaker 2>have my own record label. I notice things, and I've

0:22:34.400 --> 0:22:38.800
<v Speaker 2>been involved in putting my own music out. Not I mean,

0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:41.399
<v Speaker 2>I'm not hands on deck or I'm not part of that,

0:22:41.440 --> 0:22:43.280
<v Speaker 2>but I'll be a part of the conversations. I'll meet

0:22:43.320 --> 0:22:45.479
<v Speaker 2>the people, and I'll take good note of what happens

0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:48.680
<v Speaker 2>and what doesn't happen, what gets spent, what doesn't get spent.

0:22:48.720 --> 0:22:51.560
<v Speaker 2>Of course, because at the moment, I'm spending my own money.

0:22:52.119 --> 0:22:54.320
<v Speaker 2>I'm spending my own money set up a new record company,

0:22:54.320 --> 0:22:56.800
<v Speaker 2>and I'm spending my own money making the record and

0:22:56.840 --> 0:23:00.560
<v Speaker 2>putting it out. So it's a lot of money that this.

0:23:01.240 --> 0:23:03.760
<v Speaker 2>So this, all of this has an effect on how

0:23:03.800 --> 0:23:06.840
<v Speaker 2>you think about your ticket prices and everything else. It's

0:23:06.920 --> 0:23:11.120
<v Speaker 2>it's it's all interconnected, and it's no doubt a more

0:23:12.920 --> 0:23:17.000
<v Speaker 2>abundant creative space to ignore the whole damn lot and

0:23:17.080 --> 0:23:19.639
<v Speaker 2>just and live in your own little world, your little

0:23:19.640 --> 0:23:24.320
<v Speaker 2>creative bubble. But I find that I can't do that really,

0:23:24.520 --> 0:23:29.160
<v Speaker 2>I'm just drawn to the detail of what's actually happening.

0:23:30.720 --> 0:23:37.240
<v Speaker 1>Okay, So if you stop being a musician today, do

0:23:37.280 --> 0:23:39.280
<v Speaker 1>you have enough money that you could get to the

0:23:39.440 --> 0:23:41.840
<v Speaker 1>end or is it album to album?

0:23:43.840 --> 0:23:47.000
<v Speaker 2>No, I'm comfortably off. I could stop now.

0:23:47.720 --> 0:23:51.800
<v Speaker 1>Okay, So you're making this record, you know, the record

0:23:51.880 --> 0:23:57.439
<v Speaker 1>you made independently, but you've licensed it to other people

0:23:57.480 --> 0:23:58.680
<v Speaker 1>in different territories.

0:23:58.720 --> 0:24:03.280
<v Speaker 2>Correct, Yeah, well this time that's what we've licensed it

0:24:03.320 --> 0:24:08.119
<v Speaker 2>to secretly distribution this time. So that's that's that's a

0:24:08.119 --> 0:24:10.760
<v Speaker 2>worldwide deal as far as I'm aware. And was there

0:24:10.760 --> 0:24:16.399
<v Speaker 2>an advance with that, No, I don't take advances. It's

0:24:16.440 --> 0:24:18.400
<v Speaker 2>it's just to do with how much, what the marketing

0:24:18.440 --> 0:24:21.240
<v Speaker 2>spend will be and all those kind of things, and

0:24:21.480 --> 0:24:24.320
<v Speaker 2>you know, some of the other detail and how long

0:24:24.359 --> 0:24:28.520
<v Speaker 2>the deal's going to be. So it's a one album deal.

0:24:29.280 --> 0:24:32.600
<v Speaker 2>That's that's what we've been doing for the last little while.

0:24:34.000 --> 0:24:37.320
<v Speaker 1>So do you have a view on streaming?

0:24:38.160 --> 0:24:43.639
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, of course, you know, yes, yes, very much so.

0:24:44.920 --> 0:24:48.479
<v Speaker 2>I I think that the way that our industry works

0:24:48.600 --> 0:24:51.760
<v Speaker 2>is to hell with it. That's the way. That's the

0:24:51.760 --> 0:24:54.760
<v Speaker 2>way it goes. With the tech and the power that

0:24:54.960 --> 0:24:58.240
<v Speaker 2>they you know, they don't worry too much about the

0:24:58.240 --> 0:25:00.399
<v Speaker 2>people who making the music. That don't worry all. I

0:25:00.400 --> 0:25:04.080
<v Speaker 2>wouldn't say, really, they've just got to float their brand

0:25:04.200 --> 0:25:07.760
<v Speaker 2>and get to so and of course it's ended up

0:25:07.760 --> 0:25:14.919
<v Speaker 2>being a hugely profitable thing for major labels who've stripped

0:25:14.960 --> 0:25:19.840
<v Speaker 2>out staff and costs and amalgamated and joined and all

0:25:19.880 --> 0:25:23.600
<v Speaker 2>this enormous back catalog that's just probably playing the minimum,

0:25:23.600 --> 0:25:26.399
<v Speaker 2>bare minimum to some of these people, and they're getting

0:25:26.400 --> 0:25:29.760
<v Speaker 2>phenomenal figures streaming all these old songs, so they're not

0:25:29.760 --> 0:25:32.160
<v Speaker 2>having to do anything, not spending anything, shipping a load

0:25:32.200 --> 0:25:35.800
<v Speaker 2>of vinyl to Canada. They're just you know, basically just

0:25:35.840 --> 0:25:39.320
<v Speaker 2>sitting there and this stuff's just pouring in. So it's

0:25:39.359 --> 0:25:41.600
<v Speaker 2>not recognizing songwriters, producers.

0:25:41.640 --> 0:25:42.200
<v Speaker 1>There's just not.

0:25:42.280 --> 0:25:48.160
<v Speaker 2>Enough in there. So I think that what we thought

0:25:48.160 --> 0:25:52.119
<v Speaker 2>in the eighties was that you know, sound was going

0:25:52.200 --> 0:25:54.320
<v Speaker 2>to get higher and higher quality, and the tech would

0:25:54.320 --> 0:25:57.359
<v Speaker 2>get higher and higher quality, and you know, but actually

0:25:57.400 --> 0:26:00.280
<v Speaker 2>what's happened is it went the other way. And hell

0:26:00.359 --> 0:26:04.760
<v Speaker 2>with quality, it's just about immediacy, which is an interesting thing.

0:26:05.520 --> 0:26:11.720
<v Speaker 2>So you know if there were higher quality brands, none

0:26:11.720 --> 0:26:14.159
<v Speaker 2>of them have really succeeded that you could have a

0:26:14.160 --> 0:26:18.800
<v Speaker 2>really incredible listening experience and maybe spend a bit more money.

0:26:18.800 --> 0:26:20.359
<v Speaker 2>There might be a little bit more money there for

0:26:20.400 --> 0:26:22.920
<v Speaker 2>the artists. But and again that would take a load

0:26:22.960 --> 0:26:25.040
<v Speaker 2>of money to float it, and there's been various people

0:26:25.080 --> 0:26:28.800
<v Speaker 2>trying to launch various things. So yes, streaming is a

0:26:28.840 --> 0:26:32.600
<v Speaker 2>wonderful resource for the listener, it's not so rewarding for

0:26:32.680 --> 0:26:34.040
<v Speaker 2>the struggling artist.

0:26:34.880 --> 0:26:39.080
<v Speaker 1>Okay, tell me about the difference between quality and immediacly.

0:26:40.600 --> 0:26:43.679
<v Speaker 2>Well as in the actual quality of the audio is

0:26:44.240 --> 0:26:48.239
<v Speaker 2>very very limited on your basic streaming platform on an

0:26:48.359 --> 0:26:51.440
<v Speaker 2>MP three, as opposed to listen to a beautiful piece

0:26:51.440 --> 0:26:54.520
<v Speaker 2>of finyl from an amazing record player and lovely speakers,

0:26:55.720 --> 0:26:57.679
<v Speaker 2>or then you had the CD and you take it

0:26:57.720 --> 0:27:01.400
<v Speaker 2>to the next musical clarity level. But what you get

0:27:01.520 --> 0:27:04.400
<v Speaker 2>is you get to listen to something immediately. Now, just

0:27:04.400 --> 0:27:06.439
<v Speaker 2>just touch it. It's there, it's yours. You don't have

0:27:06.480 --> 0:27:07.919
<v Speaker 2>to wait, you don't have to go to the shops.

0:27:08.119 --> 0:27:09.840
<v Speaker 2>I used to have to save up my dinner money

0:27:09.880 --> 0:27:11.760
<v Speaker 2>for two weeks if I wanted to buy an album,

0:27:12.280 --> 0:27:16.360
<v Speaker 2>Basically half to starve meself at school and then get

0:27:16.400 --> 0:27:20.679
<v Speaker 2>the bus into town fifteen miles and buy the record

0:27:20.720 --> 0:27:23.000
<v Speaker 2>I wanted, and come back again. And I would on

0:27:23.080 --> 0:27:25.160
<v Speaker 2>the bus that I would have read the inside cover,

0:27:25.280 --> 0:27:27.840
<v Speaker 2>the outside cover. I've looked at all the photos. I'd

0:27:27.880 --> 0:27:30.080
<v Speaker 2>even have taken the vinyl out and looked inside there

0:27:30.119 --> 0:27:32.119
<v Speaker 2>and read what was scratched onto the center of that.

0:27:32.600 --> 0:27:34.720
<v Speaker 2>You had a level of sort of involvement that was very,

0:27:34.800 --> 0:27:35.320
<v Speaker 2>very different.

0:27:36.600 --> 0:27:43.040
<v Speaker 1>Okay, you have certain songs on Spotify with triple digit millions.

0:27:44.280 --> 0:27:46.960
<v Speaker 1>Are you making any money from streaming? Of course there

0:27:47.000 --> 0:27:48.240
<v Speaker 1>are songs with billions.

0:27:49.480 --> 0:27:52.480
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, of course I'm making I'm making good money. I

0:27:52.920 --> 0:27:55.480
<v Speaker 2>own the Masters, though I'm not in a I'm not

0:27:55.600 --> 0:27:59.040
<v Speaker 2>in the position that someone else would be, you know,

0:27:59.160 --> 0:28:02.960
<v Speaker 2>at a major would be in. I own, well, at

0:28:03.040 --> 0:28:09.399
<v Speaker 2>least I used to own the Masters until I sold them.

0:28:09.440 --> 0:28:14.000
<v Speaker 2>So I own some of my I own my current music,

0:28:14.119 --> 0:28:16.160
<v Speaker 2>and the last record I put out is called Skelleig.

0:28:16.200 --> 0:28:16.560
<v Speaker 1>I own.

0:28:16.880 --> 0:28:19.680
<v Speaker 2>I own that record and this record. That's all part

0:28:19.680 --> 0:28:23.200
<v Speaker 2>of my new record company, so that those things, when

0:28:23.200 --> 0:28:26.119
<v Speaker 2>we put them out, the streaming will be it's not

0:28:26.200 --> 0:28:28.320
<v Speaker 2>getting taken by a record company. And I get my

0:28:28.720 --> 0:28:32.479
<v Speaker 2>whatever percent. At the end of it, I get whatever

0:28:32.720 --> 0:28:36.119
<v Speaker 2>that the majority of the money from the streaming. My

0:28:36.280 --> 0:28:41.040
<v Speaker 2>partners will receive a certain amount of that. So it's

0:28:41.080 --> 0:28:44.040
<v Speaker 2>it's it. Yes, when you start getting big numbers, it

0:28:44.160 --> 0:28:47.760
<v Speaker 2>starts to add up, and it's it's a significant thing and.

0:28:47.760 --> 0:28:52.240
<v Speaker 1>You're a new work. Will the numbers be significant enough

0:28:52.280 --> 0:28:53.440
<v Speaker 1>to cover your costs?

0:28:56.240 --> 0:29:03.440
<v Speaker 2>HI? Hopefully over time. You know, I have no idea, Bob.

0:29:03.480 --> 0:29:05.320
<v Speaker 2>And we've spent a bloody arm and a leg making

0:29:05.400 --> 0:29:10.280
<v Speaker 2>this record. We've got orchestra's horn sections, We've spent bloody

0:29:10.480 --> 0:29:14.240
<v Speaker 2>months on it, the damn thing, you know, years even so,

0:29:15.080 --> 0:29:17.360
<v Speaker 2>I don't know. It's going to take a while. It's

0:29:17.360 --> 0:29:21.160
<v Speaker 2>not just the spend of making the record, as I say,

0:29:21.240 --> 0:29:24.320
<v Speaker 2>marketing it and all the people I pay who work

0:29:24.440 --> 0:29:26.360
<v Speaker 2>for me, who run the record label, I mean all

0:29:26.360 --> 0:29:29.080
<v Speaker 2>their wages, all their salaries. If I take that whole

0:29:29.160 --> 0:29:31.840
<v Speaker 2>chunk of time, it's going to take a long time.

0:29:31.880 --> 0:29:34.520
<v Speaker 2>I'd say, be lucky if in ten years I've made

0:29:34.520 --> 0:29:36.840
<v Speaker 2>a penny out of the damn thing. But you just

0:29:36.840 --> 0:29:38.600
<v Speaker 2>never know what's going to happen. If you stay in

0:29:38.640 --> 0:29:40.840
<v Speaker 2>the boat long enough, you might just catch a fish.

0:29:41.520 --> 0:29:46.000
<v Speaker 2>I maybe some mad TV producers going to go, you

0:29:46.000 --> 0:29:48.560
<v Speaker 2>know what this new David Gray song? This is it

0:29:48.920 --> 0:29:52.600
<v Speaker 2>sopranos too, We need this as the title music. It's

0:29:52.640 --> 0:29:54.719
<v Speaker 2>like you might get a break that you hadn't dreamed

0:29:54.720 --> 0:29:58.000
<v Speaker 2>of that could transform your fortunes, and suddenly you've got

0:29:58.160 --> 0:30:01.560
<v Speaker 2>gazillions of streams going on. No, the streaming numbers are

0:30:01.640 --> 0:30:05.240
<v Speaker 2>utterly unspectacular because in the world of finger touch immediacy,

0:30:06.080 --> 0:30:08.520
<v Speaker 2>the old are much much slower than the young, and

0:30:08.560 --> 0:30:11.800
<v Speaker 2>obviously Maya fans are by and large older than some,

0:30:12.520 --> 0:30:15.600
<v Speaker 2>so you're not dealing with this thing. I'm doing the

0:30:15.640 --> 0:30:18.240
<v Speaker 2>best I can to notify anyone who might be interested,

0:30:19.000 --> 0:30:21.840
<v Speaker 2>but it's going to be hard work. I put a

0:30:21.880 --> 0:30:24.800
<v Speaker 2>record out a couple of years ago called Skellig. This

0:30:24.960 --> 0:30:29.600
<v Speaker 2>was a very uncommercial record. It's very very personal, very

0:30:29.680 --> 0:30:32.840
<v Speaker 2>low tempo. But we also because it was COVID, there

0:30:32.880 --> 0:30:35.720
<v Speaker 2>was no real marketing spend on. Very low amount of

0:30:35.760 --> 0:30:37.960
<v Speaker 2>money was spent. We could only do so much because

0:30:37.960 --> 0:30:41.280
<v Speaker 2>we couldn't physically do anything. So we spent a few

0:30:41.320 --> 0:30:44.280
<v Speaker 2>mony a bit of money and actually it's sort of recouped,

0:30:44.760 --> 0:30:48.880
<v Speaker 2>so within three years I'm now getting a very small

0:30:48.920 --> 0:30:52.400
<v Speaker 2>amount of money every month from that record, so it

0:30:52.440 --> 0:30:54.880
<v Speaker 2>shows that it is possible. The difference there is that

0:30:54.920 --> 0:30:58.440
<v Speaker 2>the spend wasn't anything like as great either on making

0:30:58.640 --> 0:31:01.959
<v Speaker 2>or releasing the record. So this time around it will

0:31:02.000 --> 0:31:03.600
<v Speaker 2>I'd say it's going to take a lot longer. I'd

0:31:03.640 --> 0:31:06.120
<v Speaker 2>like to think with the kind of immediacy of this music,

0:31:06.880 --> 0:31:10.880
<v Speaker 2>that it may strike a chord and we get some

0:31:11.040 --> 0:31:13.240
<v Speaker 2>kind of fire under the whole thing and it starts

0:31:13.280 --> 0:31:15.719
<v Speaker 2>to move a little bit. But I'm just not in

0:31:15.720 --> 0:31:17.480
<v Speaker 2>control of all that. All I can do is make

0:31:17.520 --> 0:31:19.080
<v Speaker 2>it as good as I can make it and put

0:31:19.120 --> 0:31:21.240
<v Speaker 2>it out there and sing my heart out.

0:31:28.920 --> 0:31:31.760
<v Speaker 1>You've worked both in the old era and the transition

0:31:31.920 --> 0:31:35.440
<v Speaker 1>in the new era. Not that many people have, but

0:31:35.480 --> 0:31:38.120
<v Speaker 1>they used to say the tour was the advertisement for

0:31:38.200 --> 0:31:41.280
<v Speaker 1>the album, and now the album is the advertisement for

0:31:41.360 --> 0:31:48.360
<v Speaker 1>the tour. Today's scattered landscape and different remuneration periodigm does

0:31:48.400 --> 0:31:54.080
<v Speaker 1>that affect the inspiration and desire to make new records?

0:31:54.920 --> 0:32:00.680
<v Speaker 2>No, you know, making records is where it's at. I mean,

0:32:01.520 --> 0:32:04.040
<v Speaker 2>playing live is where it's at. The two things are

0:32:04.080 --> 0:32:08.040
<v Speaker 2>to a record as a world, I mean, anyone who's

0:32:08.080 --> 0:32:11.200
<v Speaker 2>experienced a record as a world gone to the planet

0:32:11.400 --> 0:32:15.840
<v Speaker 2>Pink Moon, or gone to the planet astral Weeks or Nebraska,

0:32:16.480 --> 0:32:20.040
<v Speaker 2>you know, free wheeling. Anyone who's been to any of

0:32:20.080 --> 0:32:23.840
<v Speaker 2>these places and been consumed by the spirit of Eden

0:32:23.880 --> 0:32:27.400
<v Speaker 2>by Talk Talk kind of Blue by Miles Davis. It

0:32:27.400 --> 0:32:30.760
<v Speaker 2>doesn't matter. When you've been there, you know what's going on,

0:32:30.880 --> 0:32:32.960
<v Speaker 2>Marvin Gay. Once you've gone to a planet and like

0:32:33.040 --> 0:32:37.040
<v Speaker 2>being completely obsessed and absorbed by it, how can you

0:32:37.080 --> 0:32:38.760
<v Speaker 2>not want to make a record? I mean, a record

0:32:38.800 --> 0:32:41.959
<v Speaker 2>isn't a song. It's you hang the pictures in the

0:32:41.960 --> 0:32:46.240
<v Speaker 2>gallery and you take people through, and there's the cadence

0:32:46.280 --> 0:32:48.719
<v Speaker 2>of each song leads to a kind of cascade of

0:32:48.720 --> 0:32:50.880
<v Speaker 2>emotion that flows from one to the other and creates

0:32:50.920 --> 0:32:55.000
<v Speaker 2>an overall effect. So that's still what I believe in.

0:32:55.040 --> 0:32:57.640
<v Speaker 2>I still believe in the novel. Even though everyone's writing.

0:32:57.880 --> 0:33:00.000
<v Speaker 2>They're not even writing short stories, they're writing sentence.

0:33:02.080 --> 0:33:05.880
<v Speaker 1>Okay, you mentioned a little bit earlier you sold your masters.

0:33:05.920 --> 0:33:10.000
<v Speaker 1>Traditionally in the music business, people didn't even own their masters.

0:33:10.440 --> 0:33:12.840
<v Speaker 1>We live in an era where many people are selling

0:33:12.960 --> 0:33:17.720
<v Speaker 1>their publishing, selling their masters. Let's start with the masters.

0:33:17.760 --> 0:33:22.320
<v Speaker 1>Did you sell them outright such that you'll never get royalties,

0:33:22.480 --> 0:33:25.600
<v Speaker 1>or did you sell the ownership and you still have royalties.

0:33:28.120 --> 0:33:34.800
<v Speaker 2>It's a complicated question to answer. I didn't sell them

0:33:34.800 --> 0:33:38.040
<v Speaker 2>through choice. But first of all, I sold my recording

0:33:38.080 --> 0:33:43.200
<v Speaker 2>masters from White Ladder until Golden the brass Age, so

0:33:43.480 --> 0:33:49.400
<v Speaker 2>eight albums up until the one before Skelg. So it

0:33:49.440 --> 0:33:51.840
<v Speaker 2>was because I was at the end of a relationship

0:33:52.360 --> 0:33:54.640
<v Speaker 2>that had lasted through my entire career, and the only

0:33:54.680 --> 0:33:56.840
<v Speaker 2>way to get out of it was we owned a

0:33:56.880 --> 0:34:00.680
<v Speaker 2>record company together, was to sell the record company. Essentially,

0:34:00.760 --> 0:34:06.480
<v Speaker 2>it's sell the Masters. So that's that was the only

0:34:06.520 --> 0:34:12.640
<v Speaker 2>way to really make a break. So uh yeah, well,

0:34:13.120 --> 0:34:16.160
<v Speaker 2>I've maintained a stake in the Masters. I didn't sell

0:34:16.239 --> 0:34:18.279
<v Speaker 2>it all. I kept a bit, so I still have

0:34:18.320 --> 0:34:22.480
<v Speaker 2>a vested interest. I got skin in the game, underwhelming

0:34:22.520 --> 0:34:23.759
<v Speaker 2>skin in the game so far.

0:34:26.360 --> 0:34:29.560
<v Speaker 1>So while we're on this tip, did you sell the

0:34:29.600 --> 0:34:30.359
<v Speaker 1>publishing too?

0:34:31.520 --> 0:34:33.640
<v Speaker 2>No, no, no, I haven't sold that. So for the

0:34:33.760 --> 0:34:35.960
<v Speaker 2>very first time in my life, all my publishing has

0:34:35.960 --> 0:34:38.799
<v Speaker 2>come back to me and it's now all housed with

0:34:38.880 --> 0:34:42.600
<v Speaker 2>Chrystalis on a sort of rolling deal, so it's all

0:34:42.640 --> 0:34:44.399
<v Speaker 2>in the same place for the very first time ever.

0:34:44.520 --> 0:34:48.480
<v Speaker 2>In fact, so they're sort of administering my publishing for me. No,

0:34:48.600 --> 0:34:50.440
<v Speaker 2>I haven't sold any publisher.

0:34:52.640 --> 0:34:57.560
<v Speaker 1>Without any dire circumstances coming up. Would you ever sell

0:34:57.600 --> 0:34:58.279
<v Speaker 1>the publishing?

0:35:00.280 --> 0:35:06.719
<v Speaker 2>We never say never, but it's unlikely. For one thing.

0:35:08.000 --> 0:35:11.759
<v Speaker 2>Money is completely overrated, you know, as some kind of

0:35:12.520 --> 0:35:17.800
<v Speaker 2>great aid in your life towards greater meaning and enjoyments.

0:35:18.200 --> 0:35:20.520
<v Speaker 2>It can be incredibly helpful when you haven't got enough

0:35:20.560 --> 0:35:23.560
<v Speaker 2>of it, but that's not the position I'm in. I'm

0:35:23.600 --> 0:35:27.319
<v Speaker 2>doing perfectly okay, thanks very much. So why would I

0:35:27.360 --> 0:35:30.279
<v Speaker 2>want to a pay shitloads of tax? By result, it's

0:35:30.320 --> 0:35:32.239
<v Speaker 2>getting a fuckload of money that I wouldn't know what

0:35:32.280 --> 0:35:34.440
<v Speaker 2>to do with anyway, And why would I want to

0:35:34.440 --> 0:35:36.359
<v Speaker 2>fuckload of money that I have no idea what to

0:35:36.360 --> 0:35:39.799
<v Speaker 2>do with. It's I don't want for anything, I don't

0:35:39.880 --> 0:35:43.560
<v Speaker 2>need anything. It'd be totally stupid. So those are the

0:35:43.600 --> 0:35:47.400
<v Speaker 2>reasons that I when money first broke in my life,

0:35:47.440 --> 0:35:50.680
<v Speaker 2>when things were going well, it was a really complicated

0:35:50.920 --> 0:35:54.800
<v Speaker 2>thing to negotiate because we started when it just coming

0:35:54.800 --> 0:35:57.480
<v Speaker 2>in and it didn't stop. After a while, you start just

0:35:57.480 --> 0:36:01.160
<v Speaker 2>making really bad decisions because nothing has as much meaning,

0:36:01.360 --> 0:36:03.480
<v Speaker 2>so you can just replace things you don't like or

0:36:03.480 --> 0:36:06.000
<v Speaker 2>buy something you decide you don't want it, and it's

0:36:06.080 --> 0:36:08.279
<v Speaker 2>like you're suddenly living an episode of the Real Housewives

0:36:08.320 --> 0:36:16.480
<v Speaker 2>of Beverly Hills. So that's something I've been exposed to

0:36:16.560 --> 0:36:21.719
<v Speaker 2>by my children. It's not one of my personal viewing choices.

0:36:22.120 --> 0:36:25.640
<v Speaker 2>So yeah, I think that, you know, getting a routload

0:36:25.680 --> 0:36:28.200
<v Speaker 2>of money is great, but it's just it just ends

0:36:28.400 --> 0:36:34.560
<v Speaker 2>in a sort of disassociative, disassociative state where you're it

0:36:34.600 --> 0:36:37.680
<v Speaker 2>distances you from life and meaning and what I'm needing

0:36:37.719 --> 0:36:41.560
<v Speaker 2>to do things. So in a way, I'm kind of

0:36:41.880 --> 0:36:44.279
<v Speaker 2>I'm not falsely pressurizing. I'm choosing to be in a

0:36:44.320 --> 0:36:47.640
<v Speaker 2>more pressurized situation in terms of putting money out and

0:36:47.680 --> 0:36:50.480
<v Speaker 2>investing in it and having to make a success of things,

0:36:50.800 --> 0:36:54.600
<v Speaker 2>because it's a more relatable thing and it makes for

0:36:54.680 --> 0:37:00.560
<v Speaker 2>more sensible views and ideas about what you're doing. So

0:37:00.680 --> 0:37:02.560
<v Speaker 2>that's the way I choose to do it. As I

0:37:02.600 --> 0:37:05.480
<v Speaker 2>said that, the classic artist pose would have been, we've

0:37:05.480 --> 0:37:07.560
<v Speaker 2>received so much money, we don't have to worry about anything.

0:37:07.600 --> 0:37:10.239
<v Speaker 2>Now we can just dream our dreams. But to me,

0:37:10.360 --> 0:37:13.439
<v Speaker 2>the dreams are part of this fabric. There's so many

0:37:13.440 --> 0:37:18.759
<v Speaker 2>compromises making music in a commercial world. Where do you

0:37:18.760 --> 0:37:23.279
<v Speaker 2>even start it's very, very elaborate, complex, full of compromise.

0:37:24.000 --> 0:37:31.759
<v Speaker 2>So you I think it's important to understand what it's

0:37:31.800 --> 0:37:34.319
<v Speaker 2>like for someone spending money to get to your show

0:37:34.440 --> 0:37:37.840
<v Speaker 2>or to get your CD, just what that means. So

0:37:38.360 --> 0:37:41.719
<v Speaker 2>I think, because it's still a relatable thing for me

0:37:41.840 --> 0:37:44.640
<v Speaker 2>putting music out, I consider myself to be more in

0:37:44.719 --> 0:37:49.520
<v Speaker 2>relation to the listener because I'm in a more reasonable position.

0:37:50.160 --> 0:37:52.080
<v Speaker 2>So you know, God knows. As I said, I wish

0:37:52.080 --> 0:37:54.600
<v Speaker 2>something wonderful happened and my fucking songs would go crazy

0:37:55.000 --> 0:37:57.720
<v Speaker 2>and I can just relax. You know, Wow, this is amazing.

0:37:57.800 --> 0:38:00.480
<v Speaker 2>It'd be more amazing because the energy it would give everything.

0:38:00.800 --> 0:38:02.759
<v Speaker 2>It wouldn't be the money. It would be the way

0:38:02.800 --> 0:38:05.920
<v Speaker 2>the show's go with this crazy energy because people are

0:38:05.920 --> 0:38:08.799
<v Speaker 2>a new wave of fans would be getting a hold

0:38:08.840 --> 0:38:13.640
<v Speaker 2>of this stuff. That would be incredible. So it's those

0:38:13.680 --> 0:38:17.600
<v Speaker 2>are the things that you lost for and being taken seriously,

0:38:18.440 --> 0:38:22.440
<v Speaker 2>so you know that those are my sort of preoccupations.

0:38:23.840 --> 0:38:25.960
<v Speaker 1>Just to go back a point, so how many times

0:38:26.000 --> 0:38:30.880
<v Speaker 1>have you been married? Just once and you got divorced

0:38:30.920 --> 0:38:33.080
<v Speaker 1>and that's why you had to sell the catalog?

0:38:34.400 --> 0:38:37.440
<v Speaker 2>No, no, no, it was my business partner, not my wife.

0:38:37.600 --> 0:38:38.560
<v Speaker 2>She's still involved.

0:38:40.640 --> 0:38:43.520
<v Speaker 1>So you had when you've been independent in this independent

0:38:43.600 --> 0:38:48.040
<v Speaker 1>record company, you had a financial partner, Yeah.

0:38:47.920 --> 0:38:51.239
<v Speaker 2>My manager, my old manager and I. When White Ladder

0:38:51.280 --> 0:38:53.120
<v Speaker 2>came along, no one wanted to put it out, so

0:38:53.920 --> 0:38:57.080
<v Speaker 2>we put it out ourselves. We created a record company

0:38:57.120 --> 0:39:00.280
<v Speaker 2>and we put it out ourselves, and that's how that

0:39:00.280 --> 0:39:02.640
<v Speaker 2>that began. That record began in that way. We put

0:39:02.640 --> 0:39:04.720
<v Speaker 2>it out in Ireland, the only place where we could

0:39:05.280 --> 0:39:06.880
<v Speaker 2>sell anywhere records to the only place I had a

0:39:06.960 --> 0:39:11.080
<v Speaker 2>sort of beginning of a sort of commercial viability, sort

0:39:11.080 --> 0:39:13.279
<v Speaker 2>of cult following. So we put it out there and

0:39:13.320 --> 0:39:15.319
<v Speaker 2>it just began to sell and then began to sell

0:39:15.400 --> 0:39:19.560
<v Speaker 2>more and then like hotcakes, and that funded we signed

0:39:19.560 --> 0:39:22.799
<v Speaker 2>with Ato Dave Matthew's label in the States, and we

0:39:22.880 --> 0:39:26.839
<v Speaker 2>signed we licensed to Warners in the for the UK

0:39:26.920 --> 0:39:28.640
<v Speaker 2>and the rest of the world, but we kept Ireland

0:39:29.040 --> 0:39:31.960
<v Speaker 2>as our own independent thing, and that's how it began.

0:39:32.120 --> 0:39:35.560
<v Speaker 2>So this relationship was very complex. And then for the

0:39:35.600 --> 0:39:38.000
<v Speaker 2>next however many albums it followed that we just put

0:39:38.080 --> 0:39:40.399
<v Speaker 2>them out through this record company and we licensed them

0:39:40.400 --> 0:39:45.000
<v Speaker 2>to various partners. So yeah, So when that relationship came

0:39:45.040 --> 0:39:48.960
<v Speaker 2>to an end after thirty years, the easiest thing to do,

0:39:49.040 --> 0:39:51.280
<v Speaker 2>the only thing to do, was to sell the company

0:39:51.920 --> 0:39:55.040
<v Speaker 2>in order that everyone could take a little bit away

0:39:55.080 --> 0:39:55.959
<v Speaker 2>with them.

0:39:56.440 --> 0:39:58.440
<v Speaker 1>And why did the relationship come to an end?

0:40:00.200 --> 0:40:02.120
<v Speaker 2>Well, look, I don't want to get into all that.

0:40:02.360 --> 0:40:03.440
<v Speaker 2>That's that's personal.

0:40:04.000 --> 0:40:04.600
<v Speaker 1>Okay, So.

0:40:06.520 --> 0:40:10.439
<v Speaker 2>These things happen, you know, it's a long time. We've

0:40:10.480 --> 0:40:14.120
<v Speaker 2>been through an awful lot together. And furthermore, this is

0:40:14.160 --> 0:40:16.960
<v Speaker 2>someone who without who's belief in me, I would not

0:40:17.080 --> 0:40:20.040
<v Speaker 2>be sitting in front of you now. The people who

0:40:20.080 --> 0:40:24.439
<v Speaker 2>invest in you, like emotionally and musically and in other

0:40:24.520 --> 0:40:28.480
<v Speaker 2>ways when you don't mean anything, those are the people

0:40:28.520 --> 0:40:32.120
<v Speaker 2>that you value, you know, really ultimately. So when someone

0:40:32.160 --> 0:40:35.080
<v Speaker 2>makes a choice not based on their own on the

0:40:35.120 --> 0:40:38.000
<v Speaker 2>profitability of something or whatever or the look that it

0:40:38.040 --> 0:40:40.880
<v Speaker 2>gives them, then that means a lot. So it's still

0:40:41.600 --> 0:40:45.560
<v Speaker 2>a very intense relationship, but albeit from a distance at

0:40:45.560 --> 0:40:49.400
<v Speaker 2>the moment. But yeah, it had run its course and

0:40:49.400 --> 0:40:51.280
<v Speaker 2>now I'm in a new phase of my life.

0:40:51.800 --> 0:40:57.880
<v Speaker 1>Okay. Why was the record company called IHD?

0:40:58.480 --> 0:41:02.000
<v Speaker 2>He rob as Robert wanted to call it Hit Records,

0:41:02.880 --> 0:41:05.600
<v Speaker 2>but when we applied to company's house, they said that's

0:41:05.640 --> 0:41:09.080
<v Speaker 2>already taken. So he couldn't be bothered to do it.

0:41:09.160 --> 0:41:11.480
<v Speaker 2>He's just turned changed the letters round, and it was

0:41:11.520 --> 0:41:15.680
<v Speaker 2>I h T. So that that was the story of

0:41:15.800 --> 0:41:17.160
<v Speaker 2>why it was I HD.

0:41:17.960 --> 0:41:22.560
<v Speaker 1>Okay, let's go back to the present album. You started

0:41:22.640 --> 0:41:30.319
<v Speaker 1>recording before COVID. Generally speaking, are you always recording or

0:41:30.320 --> 0:41:32.480
<v Speaker 1>did you say I want to make an album?

0:41:34.400 --> 0:41:37.480
<v Speaker 2>No, this was definitely I'm ready to make an album,

0:41:37.800 --> 0:41:42.840
<v Speaker 2>so i'd I had some ideas live from the whole

0:41:42.880 --> 0:41:46.719
<v Speaker 2>COVID period, but even before that, I had I had

0:41:46.719 --> 0:41:50.080
<v Speaker 2>this spark of what the new music might feel like.

0:41:50.200 --> 0:41:52.920
<v Speaker 2>I'd started to write a couple of songs. So no,

0:41:53.120 --> 0:41:55.839
<v Speaker 2>I was ready. I mean I was. I was more

0:41:55.920 --> 0:41:58.799
<v Speaker 2>than ready to make a record. I had no idea

0:41:58.840 --> 0:42:00.799
<v Speaker 2>how long it was going to take, so no, it

0:42:00.880 --> 0:42:04.520
<v Speaker 2>was definitely. It wasn't playing around. I mean, at the

0:42:04.640 --> 0:42:08.400
<v Speaker 2>end of this album cycle, I'll be finishing of this

0:42:08.520 --> 0:42:11.040
<v Speaker 2>touring cycle, I'll be finishing the rest of the music

0:42:11.080 --> 0:42:13.640
<v Speaker 2>from the same period off and that will come out

0:42:13.680 --> 0:42:16.920
<v Speaker 2>as a separate album. But when that is done, I'll

0:42:16.960 --> 0:42:19.560
<v Speaker 2>be pretty I'll pretty much have cleared the decks. Never entirely,

0:42:19.560 --> 0:42:21.760
<v Speaker 2>there's always lots of loose ends, songs that I haven't

0:42:22.239 --> 0:42:23.200
<v Speaker 2>found a place.

0:42:23.000 --> 0:42:24.960
<v Speaker 1>For I thought you said it to trilogy.

0:42:26.600 --> 0:42:29.080
<v Speaker 2>No, No, it's I'd say this album is a double

0:42:29.160 --> 0:42:32.960
<v Speaker 2>album in itself, Dear Life. I think if you time it,

0:42:32.960 --> 0:42:35.960
<v Speaker 2>it's like it's like four sides of vinyl for sure.

0:42:36.160 --> 0:42:40.040
<v Speaker 2>So it's yeah, so this is a double Then there's

0:42:40.080 --> 0:42:42.120
<v Speaker 2>another album that's going to come out, which would just

0:42:42.160 --> 0:42:45.200
<v Speaker 2>be a single album a bit further down the line.

0:42:45.800 --> 0:42:52.319
<v Speaker 2>So no, I'm always writing, making, thinking, storing as I say,

0:42:52.400 --> 0:42:54.120
<v Speaker 2>that's the way it works. Now. I have to just

0:42:54.160 --> 0:42:57.959
<v Speaker 2>make notes and then finally I'll come to a point

0:42:57.960 --> 0:43:00.560
<v Speaker 2>where I'll start going through some of the most of

0:43:00.600 --> 0:43:03.200
<v Speaker 2>them will be lost, but I believe this it like

0:43:04.000 --> 0:43:09.360
<v Speaker 2>you know, it all goes into the earth and comes

0:43:09.400 --> 0:43:11.640
<v Speaker 2>back out as new plants. I don't think you lose

0:43:11.719 --> 0:43:15.040
<v Speaker 2>this stuff entirely. I think if there was something good there,

0:43:15.080 --> 0:43:20.239
<v Speaker 2>you would remember it. So there's always lots of different ideas, lyrics,

0:43:20.480 --> 0:43:24.000
<v Speaker 2>stories that notes. I mean, the phone is a highly

0:43:24.040 --> 0:43:26.840
<v Speaker 2>annoying thing to have on you, but also highly convenient.

0:43:27.560 --> 0:43:30.560
<v Speaker 2>It's got a camera, it's got a recording device, and

0:43:30.560 --> 0:43:34.160
<v Speaker 2>it's got a little notebook, so it just fits in

0:43:34.200 --> 0:43:36.040
<v Speaker 2>your pocket and you can do all these things. So

0:43:36.040 --> 0:43:40.480
<v Speaker 2>I'm constantly notekeeping. Not only that, I mean the inside

0:43:40.480 --> 0:43:42.800
<v Speaker 2>of my mind is like a giant sort of car,

0:43:43.640 --> 0:43:47.280
<v Speaker 2>like a giant warehouse full of car parts. I'm always

0:43:47.280 --> 0:43:50.040
<v Speaker 2>trying to fit something together. Oh, I could use that

0:43:50.040 --> 0:43:52.719
<v Speaker 2>that wheel would fit on here, or this axle would

0:43:52.719 --> 0:43:55.399
<v Speaker 2>work there, or you know, that steering wheel would look

0:43:55.400 --> 0:43:57.880
<v Speaker 2>good in this car. I'm always using one bit and

0:43:57.920 --> 0:44:00.279
<v Speaker 2>wondering whether I can finish another song with it, or

0:44:00.560 --> 0:44:04.720
<v Speaker 2>there's just unfinished bits everywhere. So that's just a normal

0:44:04.800 --> 0:44:08.080
<v Speaker 2>state of things that's constantly ongoing. But when I get

0:44:08.080 --> 0:44:10.960
<v Speaker 2>into writing, it becomes a little bit more focused and

0:44:11.040 --> 0:44:14.160
<v Speaker 2>the time opens out and I start to expand these ideas.

0:44:14.320 --> 0:44:16.800
<v Speaker 2>The difficulty is that when you first have a mood,

0:44:17.600 --> 0:44:19.920
<v Speaker 2>the mood that envelops you when you come up with

0:44:19.960 --> 0:44:24.359
<v Speaker 2>a tune and you start to write, you're in a

0:44:24.400 --> 0:44:28.399
<v Speaker 2>there's a great suggestibility about your state of being at

0:44:28.400 --> 0:44:32.200
<v Speaker 2>that moment. You're sort of you're under hypnosis in a way.

0:44:32.520 --> 0:44:35.640
<v Speaker 2>The music starts to hypnotize you. It's very hard to

0:44:35.719 --> 0:44:38.600
<v Speaker 2>pick up that thread at a later date. Oh yeah,

0:44:38.680 --> 0:44:41.920
<v Speaker 2>and that's what I Yeah, So it's that's what was

0:44:42.000 --> 0:44:45.560
<v Speaker 2>unusual about this particular sort of starburst of song writing.

0:44:45.600 --> 0:44:48.360
<v Speaker 2>At the end of COVID, I was writing new music

0:44:48.400 --> 0:44:50.680
<v Speaker 2>but also just picking other things up off the shelf

0:44:50.719 --> 0:44:54.480
<v Speaker 2>and just finishing the songs, but not in a way

0:44:54.560 --> 0:44:57.440
<v Speaker 2>that you can see the join. It was just oh right, okay,

0:44:57.480 --> 0:44:59.560
<v Speaker 2>here we go. It was I was like, what was

0:44:59.600 --> 0:44:59.960
<v Speaker 2>going on?

0:45:08.000 --> 0:45:13.840
<v Speaker 1>Okay? So you have these periods where you were saying,

0:45:14.000 --> 0:45:19.520
<v Speaker 1>I'm writing the album. In between these periods, thoughts are

0:45:19.600 --> 0:45:23.000
<v Speaker 1>just going through your brain the car parts' occasionally making

0:45:23.080 --> 0:45:27.319
<v Speaker 1>notes or are you ever writing a complete song just

0:45:27.360 --> 0:45:29.920
<v Speaker 1>because something comes to you? Oh?

0:45:30.000 --> 0:45:34.280
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean those are the best days. Yeah, those

0:45:34.320 --> 0:45:37.319
<v Speaker 2>are the days you pray for and if you keep

0:45:37.360 --> 0:45:41.239
<v Speaker 2>working hard enough, it will happen. So yes, occasionally there's

0:45:41.280 --> 0:45:43.279
<v Speaker 2>a song on this new record called that day must

0:45:43.320 --> 0:45:46.920
<v Speaker 2>surely come. And I was working on something completely different,

0:45:47.680 --> 0:45:49.640
<v Speaker 2>and I just made an A chord on the second

0:45:49.760 --> 0:45:53.359
<v Speaker 2>I had the capo to a chord or B, and

0:45:53.480 --> 0:45:55.960
<v Speaker 2>I just I made this extension with my pinky that

0:45:56.040 --> 0:45:59.839
<v Speaker 2>I'd never done before, and I went up, I went

0:46:00.080 --> 0:46:03.120
<v Speaker 2>under the A two four and then all the way

0:46:03.160 --> 0:46:05.960
<v Speaker 2>to five, very long extension, and then I moved the

0:46:06.000 --> 0:46:08.799
<v Speaker 2>bass note with my thumb, and I thought, oh, that's

0:46:08.840 --> 0:46:12.960
<v Speaker 2>a really nice run of chords. I've never played that before.

0:46:13.719 --> 0:46:16.239
<v Speaker 2>And then I just began to pick it. And as

0:46:16.239 --> 0:46:18.520
<v Speaker 2>I picked it, I just read, I sang the first line,

0:46:19.520 --> 0:46:21.319
<v Speaker 2>and I just stopped what I was doing and I

0:46:21.400 --> 0:46:22.919
<v Speaker 2>just wrote the song. And in a couple of hours

0:46:22.960 --> 0:46:27.719
<v Speaker 2>later it was written, and it was in Those experiences

0:46:27.760 --> 0:46:33.280
<v Speaker 2>are have a mysticism about them, because you become both

0:46:33.440 --> 0:46:40.240
<v Speaker 2>more entirely yourself, the sort of fertile vistas of experience,

0:46:40.320 --> 0:46:44.360
<v Speaker 2>and all the loged emotion that you've held is waited

0:46:44.440 --> 0:46:46.480
<v Speaker 2>to be born into this song. At moments like that,

0:46:46.560 --> 0:46:48.759
<v Speaker 2>you could just they feel that they've been waiting a

0:46:48.800 --> 0:46:52.080
<v Speaker 2>long time to be born. This thing begins to emerge,

0:46:52.080 --> 0:46:54.759
<v Speaker 2>and at the same time, your brain is sending up

0:46:54.800 --> 0:46:57.160
<v Speaker 2>the sort of editorial drone. You're going up to the

0:46:57.160 --> 0:46:59.680
<v Speaker 2>top office on the top floor, and you're just making

0:46:59.800 --> 0:47:02.680
<v Speaker 2>very cool and clear decisions about what you're doing. So

0:47:02.719 --> 0:47:06.680
<v Speaker 2>you become more objective and more subjective simultaneously, and you

0:47:06.760 --> 0:47:11.200
<v Speaker 2>begin to work in a very unfussy, un self conscious way.

0:47:11.239 --> 0:47:13.920
<v Speaker 2>And those are the best songs. Please forgive me that

0:47:14.040 --> 0:47:16.600
<v Speaker 2>they must surely come from here. You can almost see

0:47:16.600 --> 0:47:18.200
<v Speaker 2>the sea. These are the ones that just poured out

0:47:18.239 --> 0:47:21.400
<v Speaker 2>of me in like moments. So that's what that's what

0:47:21.440 --> 0:47:21.920
<v Speaker 2>I hope for.

0:47:23.400 --> 0:47:26.040
<v Speaker 1>Okay, as a writer, but not a writer of songs.

0:47:26.080 --> 0:47:29.640
<v Speaker 1>I know exactly what you're talking about. And sometimes when

0:47:29.640 --> 0:47:33.839
<v Speaker 1>it's really working, I might become self conscious and then

0:47:33.880 --> 0:47:36.560
<v Speaker 1>all of a sudden it veers off. Is that something

0:47:36.600 --> 0:47:39.400
<v Speaker 1>that resonates? Oh yeah, totally.

0:47:39.480 --> 0:47:42.040
<v Speaker 2>As I say, self consciousness is the enemy in life,

0:47:42.040 --> 0:47:46.160
<v Speaker 2>in music, in making. You know, it's it's it's totally

0:47:46.200 --> 0:47:50.799
<v Speaker 2>the enemy, very hard to avoid. And you know, I

0:47:50.920 --> 0:47:54.279
<v Speaker 2>use all kinds of tricks to trick myself out of

0:47:54.400 --> 0:47:59.560
<v Speaker 2>thinking too much. So for example, when I haven't been

0:47:59.600 --> 0:48:03.719
<v Speaker 2>making music, writing music, it's it's pressing. I'll be it's

0:48:03.719 --> 0:48:05.959
<v Speaker 2>pressing on me now because it's been a while since

0:48:06.000 --> 0:48:10.120
<v Speaker 2>I've been in that position, when I've been exploring and making.

0:48:11.400 --> 0:48:14.480
<v Speaker 2>So when I get back to it, it'll have been

0:48:14.520 --> 0:48:16.720
<v Speaker 2>so long it'll be like getting into a cold bath,

0:48:16.880 --> 0:48:20.240
<v Speaker 2>not just a cold bath, ice cold. I'll be scared

0:48:20.440 --> 0:48:22.520
<v Speaker 2>of like what it all means. It will all start

0:48:22.640 --> 0:48:25.880
<v Speaker 2>meaning too much. So these days i'd use little tricks like,

0:48:25.960 --> 0:48:31.160
<v Speaker 2>for example, rather than I usually work from chords, the

0:48:31.239 --> 0:48:33.279
<v Speaker 2>rhythm of the cause, the chords, the rhythm of the chords,

0:48:33.280 --> 0:48:36.200
<v Speaker 2>a sequence of chords, and then the melody that associates.

0:48:36.760 --> 0:48:38.880
<v Speaker 2>But if I find I work the other way round,

0:48:38.920 --> 0:48:41.560
<v Speaker 2>and I take a lyric and I try and fit it,

0:48:41.600 --> 0:48:45.120
<v Speaker 2>fit some music to the lyric, so I feel backwards,

0:48:45.320 --> 0:48:47.520
<v Speaker 2>or from a poem which I leave taking on this

0:48:47.560 --> 0:48:50.560
<v Speaker 2>record was a good example of that. I took someone

0:48:50.560 --> 0:48:52.920
<v Speaker 2>else's words and I sensed there was music in them,

0:48:52.920 --> 0:48:55.879
<v Speaker 2>and I felt like a water diviner with a stick.

0:48:55.920 --> 0:48:58.279
<v Speaker 2>I felt blind across the ground, just looking for where

0:48:58.280 --> 0:49:00.400
<v Speaker 2>it could take me, and I began to make, like

0:49:00.440 --> 0:49:03.279
<v Speaker 2>a child in a sandpit. I just shaped things, and

0:49:03.320 --> 0:49:05.080
<v Speaker 2>I didn't get my head up until i'd sort of

0:49:05.280 --> 0:49:07.879
<v Speaker 2>made something. And when I had made something, I had

0:49:07.920 --> 0:49:10.080
<v Speaker 2>no idea. I couldn't do like a quality assessment of

0:49:10.080 --> 0:49:13.960
<v Speaker 2>it because my melodic instincts were disabled, and my sense

0:49:13.960 --> 0:49:16.960
<v Speaker 2>of meaning and value was also not engaged. So I

0:49:16.960 --> 0:49:20.120
<v Speaker 2>didn't have that sort of white writer's block preoccupation, this

0:49:20.239 --> 0:49:22.560
<v Speaker 2>is a piece of shit, Why should it matter? The

0:49:22.840 --> 0:49:25.880
<v Speaker 2>sort of doubting voices. I try and cheat those doubting voices,

0:49:25.920 --> 0:49:28.239
<v Speaker 2>and I find that once if I can manage to

0:49:28.239 --> 0:49:31.080
<v Speaker 2>find a way past them, the guards on the gate.

0:49:31.760 --> 0:49:34.080
<v Speaker 2>Then once I'm in, I'm in the room of making,

0:49:34.120 --> 0:49:36.200
<v Speaker 2>and I get back into it. I stopped thinking about

0:49:36.200 --> 0:49:38.640
<v Speaker 2>it all so much, and it becomes much faster and

0:49:38.719 --> 0:49:41.759
<v Speaker 2>more immediate. That's not to say everything's great, it's just

0:49:42.480 --> 0:49:45.160
<v Speaker 2>I find that we've all got that writer's block, that

0:49:45.239 --> 0:49:49.440
<v Speaker 2>doubting voice, the negative voice that's waiting, and particularly I

0:49:49.520 --> 0:49:52.360
<v Speaker 2>find after an absence. So I mean, my ultimate existence

0:49:52.360 --> 0:49:54.360
<v Speaker 2>would be that I would never lose the fluency that

0:49:54.440 --> 0:49:57.200
<v Speaker 2>I have when I'm in these deep writing sessions. But

0:49:57.480 --> 0:49:59.800
<v Speaker 2>it's a bit like losing the fluency and my calluses

0:49:59.840 --> 0:50:02.200
<v Speaker 2>on my fingers from playing on the road. And as

0:50:02.200 --> 0:50:04.680
<v Speaker 2>a musician, when I'm playing every night, I'll reach I'll

0:50:04.680 --> 0:50:09.560
<v Speaker 2>attain a physical level of ability and emotional and mental

0:50:09.600 --> 0:50:12.400
<v Speaker 2>connection that I wouldn't be able to sustain on an

0:50:12.400 --> 0:50:15.680
<v Speaker 2>average day because I'll be doing two, three, four hours

0:50:15.719 --> 0:50:20.600
<v Speaker 2>of music every day. So you know, it's different. It's

0:50:20.640 --> 0:50:23.880
<v Speaker 2>like that with the writing too. You sort of lose

0:50:24.040 --> 0:50:27.520
<v Speaker 2>your confidence and you start to think about it far

0:50:27.640 --> 0:50:28.120
<v Speaker 2>too much.

0:50:29.120 --> 0:50:32.960
<v Speaker 1>Okay, so you had this time you're with the family

0:50:33.040 --> 0:50:37.360
<v Speaker 1>with COVID, then you go back to writing. Are you

0:50:37.520 --> 0:50:43.160
<v Speaker 1>literally saying, okay, I'm sitting here. It's Monday to Thursday.

0:50:43.640 --> 0:50:46.759
<v Speaker 1>I have to write songs. I'm going to sit here

0:50:47.080 --> 0:50:51.600
<v Speaker 1>until I finished the songs. Or do you wait for

0:50:51.719 --> 0:50:56.319
<v Speaker 1>inspiration or do you have tricks to trick yourself into inspiration?

0:50:57.719 --> 0:51:01.520
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, as I say, it's like self hypnosis. So I

0:51:01.520 --> 0:51:03.799
<v Speaker 2>don't sit there waiting for inspiration. I just get on

0:51:03.880 --> 0:51:05.640
<v Speaker 2>with it. As I say, I've always got a million

0:51:05.719 --> 0:51:07.480
<v Speaker 2>unfinished things, so I'll just pick one of them up

0:51:07.520 --> 0:51:09.880
<v Speaker 2>and start working on it. Or I'll think of a

0:51:09.880 --> 0:51:12.200
<v Speaker 2>little simple idea and I think that could be a

0:51:12.239 --> 0:51:15.359
<v Speaker 2>simple little song. Maybe I'll just start with that, something achievable,

0:51:15.640 --> 0:51:20.160
<v Speaker 2>something small, not too demanding, not too ambitious, something intriguing

0:51:20.200 --> 0:51:24.160
<v Speaker 2>and small. So I'll start humble. And then, as I say,

0:51:24.200 --> 0:51:26.640
<v Speaker 2>once I've achieved a few things, it's a little easier

0:51:26.680 --> 0:51:30.600
<v Speaker 2>to get into rhythm. So I mean, those those are

0:51:30.680 --> 0:51:33.800
<v Speaker 2>my tricks. I mean, I don't think there's any escaping effect.

0:51:33.880 --> 0:51:38.839
<v Speaker 2>It's it's difficult. Yeah, it's some days you just don't

0:51:38.840 --> 0:51:41.319
<v Speaker 2>get anywhere. I mean, it's just the way it is.

0:51:41.960 --> 0:51:44.120
<v Speaker 2>So but I think you just turn up and you

0:51:44.239 --> 0:51:47.879
<v Speaker 2>start working, and sound can be a great unlocker as well.

0:51:47.920 --> 0:51:51.319
<v Speaker 2>It's like that you know, there's there's the same old

0:51:51.360 --> 0:51:54.840
<v Speaker 2>six strings on the same old guitar, but put it

0:51:54.880 --> 0:51:57.360
<v Speaker 2>through a sort of effect. It's like a Leslie effect

0:51:57.520 --> 0:52:00.759
<v Speaker 2>or chorus or you know, a new am or you

0:52:02.360 --> 0:52:05.040
<v Speaker 2>put a capo up high to change the tuning and

0:52:05.160 --> 0:52:11.080
<v Speaker 2>open tuning. Suddenly, ah, the same old motes remake. They

0:52:11.120 --> 0:52:14.800
<v Speaker 2>invert chords, and it inverts chords. It changes your relation

0:52:15.000 --> 0:52:18.399
<v Speaker 2>to the things you already know and charms you back

0:52:18.440 --> 0:52:20.799
<v Speaker 2>into that sense of mystery that you need to be in.

0:52:21.480 --> 0:52:27.120
<v Speaker 2>So it's just important to well, anyway, these are the

0:52:27.160 --> 0:52:28.640
<v Speaker 2>ways I choose to do it. I mean, some people

0:52:28.719 --> 0:52:30.680
<v Speaker 2>work completely the opposite way. They wait until they're in

0:52:30.719 --> 0:52:32.719
<v Speaker 2>the mood and then they make music and they don't

0:52:32.719 --> 0:52:36.200
<v Speaker 2>stop until it's done. Maybe that's the best way to

0:52:36.239 --> 0:52:36.400
<v Speaker 2>do it.

0:52:36.440 --> 0:52:37.120
<v Speaker 1>I don't know.

0:52:37.440 --> 0:52:39.080
<v Speaker 2>This is the way that my life is involved because

0:52:39.080 --> 0:52:41.279
<v Speaker 2>I wanted to be a dad and I wanted to

0:52:41.320 --> 0:52:43.960
<v Speaker 2>be a husband, and I've got all this music I've

0:52:44.000 --> 0:52:47.640
<v Speaker 2>already created, and I need to deal with curate my

0:52:47.719 --> 0:52:50.480
<v Speaker 2>own life to a certain extent, and my own businesses

0:52:51.120 --> 0:52:53.319
<v Speaker 2>demand a lot of my attention, so I need to

0:52:53.320 --> 0:52:56.799
<v Speaker 2>be I need to sort of compartmentalize a lot of

0:52:56.880 --> 0:52:58.920
<v Speaker 2>the time in order to get the space to work

0:52:59.000 --> 0:53:02.319
<v Speaker 2>properly and over long period. So this is just my

0:53:02.520 --> 0:53:03.359
<v Speaker 2>means of doing it.

0:53:04.400 --> 0:53:08.280
<v Speaker 1>Okay, is your process that you write all the songs

0:53:08.520 --> 0:53:11.640
<v Speaker 1>and then you record, or do you write and record,

0:53:11.800 --> 0:53:12.560
<v Speaker 1>write and record.

0:53:14.280 --> 0:53:16.560
<v Speaker 2>I just write and record, and in fact, the recording

0:53:16.560 --> 0:53:20.600
<v Speaker 2>process is the writing process. I have a wonderful producer.

0:53:20.719 --> 0:53:25.120
<v Speaker 2>We have a very strong relationship and it's very very complimentary.

0:53:25.760 --> 0:53:31.720
<v Speaker 2>So I'm totally disinhibited these days in terms of writing lyrics,

0:53:32.040 --> 0:53:35.040
<v Speaker 2>trying things. I don't care. I'm not waiting till I

0:53:35.080 --> 0:53:36.880
<v Speaker 2>look good and then you can come into the room.

0:53:37.040 --> 0:53:40.160
<v Speaker 2>It's like you just see it all like I'll pour

0:53:40.239 --> 0:53:44.400
<v Speaker 2>it all out. Oh that's fucking terrible, like delete, you know.

0:53:44.600 --> 0:53:48.160
<v Speaker 2>So we we just we work, so I'll stay. I've

0:53:48.160 --> 0:53:51.200
<v Speaker 2>got this idea. So like on this record, Eyes Made

0:53:51.280 --> 0:53:54.359
<v Speaker 2>Rain would be a good example, a very simple song.

0:53:54.400 --> 0:53:56.319
<v Speaker 2>I said, it's like a mantra, eyes Made Rain, My

0:53:56.360 --> 0:53:58.640
<v Speaker 2>eyes made Rain, My eyes made Rain. And I have

0:53:58.800 --> 0:54:00.800
<v Speaker 2>this chord sequence, had all the chords worked out, I

0:54:00.840 --> 0:54:03.040
<v Speaker 2>didn't really have a lyric, and he was like, oh

0:54:03.080 --> 0:54:06.000
<v Speaker 2>I love this, I love this, let's start putting it down.

0:54:06.760 --> 0:54:09.719
<v Speaker 2>So I hadn't even started to write the lyric. I

0:54:09.760 --> 0:54:11.640
<v Speaker 2>had like maybe one or two lines that are going

0:54:11.719 --> 0:54:16.040
<v Speaker 2>to ghosting in here and there, and so we said, Okay,

0:54:16.040 --> 0:54:18.640
<v Speaker 2>what's the tempo going to be. Let's decide on a tempo. Okay,

0:54:18.840 --> 0:54:20.880
<v Speaker 2>let's take a little rhythm so I can play along

0:54:20.920 --> 0:54:22.879
<v Speaker 2>with it, so we don't want it just to click.

0:54:22.960 --> 0:54:24.600
<v Speaker 2>Let's get a little rythm. He came up with this

0:54:24.680 --> 0:54:29.280
<v Speaker 2>really odd rhythm, and actually the arpedu I was playing

0:54:29.520 --> 0:54:32.880
<v Speaker 2>was the vital link. So I thought, oh, this actually

0:54:32.960 --> 0:54:35.960
<v Speaker 2>really works. It's like very jazzy, very odd anyway, So

0:54:35.960 --> 0:54:38.080
<v Speaker 2>then we began to work, and as we shaped the

0:54:38.160 --> 0:54:41.000
<v Speaker 2>sound of the song and we put these kind of

0:54:41.040 --> 0:54:44.279
<v Speaker 2>little sample drum parts in and other little sounds that

0:54:44.320 --> 0:54:49.399
<v Speaker 2>came into it, it began to speak as a piece

0:54:49.440 --> 0:54:53.719
<v Speaker 2>of music, and I wanted to inhabit the space in

0:54:53.760 --> 0:54:56.160
<v Speaker 2>a way that would have been perhaps different than what

0:54:56.239 --> 0:54:59.560
<v Speaker 2>I might have come to as a lyricist if you'd

0:54:59.640 --> 0:55:02.000
<v Speaker 2>just been and the acoustic guitar and I just toughed

0:55:02.040 --> 0:55:05.560
<v Speaker 2>it out and finished the lyric on my own. The

0:55:05.600 --> 0:55:08.719
<v Speaker 2>song became something I was getting inside of as a

0:55:08.760 --> 0:55:12.520
<v Speaker 2>piece of music. All the different elements, the bass we

0:55:12.560 --> 0:55:15.879
<v Speaker 2>added the drums, we added the little sounds and subtleties,

0:55:16.160 --> 0:55:18.719
<v Speaker 2>and the space we put it in. The short reverbs

0:55:18.760 --> 0:55:21.719
<v Speaker 2>and the different things began to sort of make me

0:55:21.760 --> 0:55:24.719
<v Speaker 2>feel like I was in a different country. So the

0:55:25.400 --> 0:55:28.240
<v Speaker 2>lyric became much more impressionistic in a way. I didn't

0:55:28.239 --> 0:55:33.320
<v Speaker 2>worry too much because I was kind of slotting into

0:55:33.400 --> 0:55:37.480
<v Speaker 2>us what was basically the finished song. So I hadn't

0:55:37.520 --> 0:55:40.239
<v Speaker 2>recorded a vocal on it yet. And we got to

0:55:40.280 --> 0:55:42.680
<v Speaker 2>the end of this few hours of making this track,

0:55:42.719 --> 0:55:44.960
<v Speaker 2>and I said, right, I guess you know, I need

0:55:44.960 --> 0:55:48.759
<v Speaker 2>to put some kind of performance on top of this.

0:55:48.920 --> 0:55:52.800
<v Speaker 2>So if you leave something without a lyric or anything

0:55:52.800 --> 0:55:54.799
<v Speaker 2>on it, a voice on it, it's less hard to

0:55:54.800 --> 0:55:58.719
<v Speaker 2>relate to, it's much harder to relate to other So

0:55:59.160 --> 0:56:02.320
<v Speaker 2>I basically just I sat down and until I had

0:56:02.360 --> 0:56:06.560
<v Speaker 2>like three verses and a middle section to some kind

0:56:06.560 --> 0:56:11.160
<v Speaker 2>of degree working, you know, no one could leave. So

0:56:11.200 --> 0:56:12.840
<v Speaker 2>I just sat there and he just had to wait,

0:56:13.040 --> 0:56:16.520
<v Speaker 2>and I was just writing and writing and writing and

0:56:16.560 --> 0:56:19.279
<v Speaker 2>writing until I had something. I was happy enough to

0:56:19.320 --> 0:56:21.239
<v Speaker 2>go in there and go behind the mic and try

0:56:21.239 --> 0:56:23.160
<v Speaker 2>and put down so that we had something to relate to.

0:56:23.400 --> 0:56:26.719
<v Speaker 2>And in fact, what happened was I remember thinking, God,

0:56:26.719 --> 0:56:28.560
<v Speaker 2>what is this? What I'm even saying? This is all

0:56:28.680 --> 0:56:32.040
<v Speaker 2>rather vague, but it's sort of It's just remained a

0:56:32.040 --> 0:56:34.200
<v Speaker 2>bit like that. So I did change a few lines,

0:56:34.239 --> 0:56:37.399
<v Speaker 2>but essentially I stuck with what I came up with,

0:56:38.040 --> 0:56:41.400
<v Speaker 2>and that was just we recorded it as I was

0:56:41.440 --> 0:56:45.759
<v Speaker 2>making it, so and that's pretty much true for I'd

0:56:45.800 --> 0:56:47.759
<v Speaker 2>say probably most of the tracks on the record have

0:56:47.800 --> 0:56:48.560
<v Speaker 2>been a bit like that.

0:56:49.880 --> 0:56:54.720
<v Speaker 1>I'm fascinated you worked with Marius Defrees, who's a friend

0:56:54.719 --> 0:56:58.120
<v Speaker 1>of mine, and then you work with his son. How

0:56:58.160 --> 0:56:59.160
<v Speaker 1>does that happen?

0:57:00.680 --> 0:57:02.839
<v Speaker 2>It's such a lovely thing. And I'll tell you what's

0:57:02.840 --> 0:57:06.560
<v Speaker 2>absolutely beautiful about it is they both have this There's

0:57:06.840 --> 0:57:12.080
<v Speaker 2>talk about the genes of taste and subtlety. They both

0:57:12.120 --> 0:57:18.800
<v Speaker 2>have this incredible musicality, this rich and very subtle bordering

0:57:18.800 --> 0:57:25.440
<v Speaker 2>on classical understanding of music and voicings and orchestration. And

0:57:25.480 --> 0:57:31.040
<v Speaker 2>Marius is a very different personality to Ben. But yeah,

0:57:31.160 --> 0:57:35.280
<v Speaker 2>working with Marius was lovely, so much more pressurized situation.

0:57:35.560 --> 0:57:37.360
<v Speaker 2>He came into a thing where everyone wanted a record

0:57:37.400 --> 0:57:40.520
<v Speaker 2>with a hit. I've had a couple of big hit

0:57:40.600 --> 0:57:43.480
<v Speaker 2>records and this was going to be life in slow motion.

0:57:43.560 --> 0:57:46.200
<v Speaker 2>This was going to be a big deal basically. So

0:57:46.960 --> 0:57:49.439
<v Speaker 2>working with Ben has been very different, and we've over

0:57:49.480 --> 0:57:51.520
<v Speaker 2>the course of now three records and a few other

0:57:51.600 --> 0:57:55.960
<v Speaker 2>side projects, we've developed a wonderful relationship. But they they're

0:57:56.000 --> 0:57:59.160
<v Speaker 2>both old school. They don't flinch, they don't mess, they

0:57:59.160 --> 0:58:02.560
<v Speaker 2>don't mess. They there until the until the projects finished.

0:58:02.560 --> 0:58:05.720
<v Speaker 2>They give you everything that they should give you. There's

0:58:05.760 --> 0:58:08.800
<v Speaker 2>no none of this kind of you know, I'm tired

0:58:08.920 --> 0:58:10.880
<v Speaker 2>kind of bollocks you get from some people.

0:58:13.080 --> 0:58:15.120
<v Speaker 1>Okay, let's go back though to what you were saying

0:58:15.160 --> 0:58:20.320
<v Speaker 1>before that you're in your writing phase. At what point

0:58:20.400 --> 0:58:21.840
<v Speaker 1>do you bring in the producer.

0:58:26.000 --> 0:58:31.560
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I do need some time to myself two to

0:58:31.920 --> 0:58:38.160
<v Speaker 2>sketch the ideas, to begin to just so early on, though,

0:58:38.200 --> 0:58:41.200
<v Speaker 2>because I have the sense of trust with Ben that

0:58:41.320 --> 0:58:44.280
<v Speaker 2>I don't need a finished thing, although it's much nicer

0:58:44.320 --> 0:58:46.360
<v Speaker 2>to have. I've written the song, come on, let's work

0:58:46.400 --> 0:58:50.080
<v Speaker 2>on it. I'd normally be more in its infancy. I've

0:58:50.160 --> 0:58:52.440
<v Speaker 2>got this idea. What do you think of the idea?

0:58:54.040 --> 0:58:58.480
<v Speaker 2>Let's let's work on it. So very early on these

0:58:58.600 --> 0:59:03.120
<v Speaker 2>days the producer would come in because, as I said,

0:59:03.200 --> 0:59:07.080
<v Speaker 2>I've seen many good examples now of how we've got

0:59:07.640 --> 0:59:10.040
<v Speaker 2>a long way with the song without me having finished

0:59:10.040 --> 0:59:14.080
<v Speaker 2>the lyric. The lyric writing is what takes time. So

0:59:15.200 --> 0:59:19.160
<v Speaker 2>but yeah, but when this album and this tour slows down,

0:59:19.400 --> 0:59:21.080
<v Speaker 2>as I said, I want to finish this other record.

0:59:21.160 --> 0:59:26.120
<v Speaker 2>But after that, I'll be trying to sort of locate myself,

0:59:26.160 --> 0:59:30.360
<v Speaker 2>feel where I am, get a sense of the topography,

0:59:30.600 --> 0:59:34.600
<v Speaker 2>geography of my heart, what's going on inside me, the

0:59:35.200 --> 0:59:38.400
<v Speaker 2>bedrock of what this music is going to be springing from,

0:59:38.440 --> 0:59:41.360
<v Speaker 2>what's going to be built upon this next wave of stuff.

0:59:41.840 --> 0:59:45.320
<v Speaker 2>I've got dreams and ideas already for what that will be.

0:59:45.360 --> 0:59:48.040
<v Speaker 2>I've already started making notes, but it may be that

0:59:48.120 --> 0:59:52.640
<v Speaker 2>they never see the light of day. They don't. There's

0:59:52.640 --> 0:59:54.960
<v Speaker 2>no fruition for all that stuff. It's just a dream.

0:59:55.360 --> 0:59:57.480
<v Speaker 2>When I actually get there, something might happen and my

0:59:57.520 --> 0:59:59.480
<v Speaker 2>life might be quite different, and the record might take

0:59:59.480 --> 1:00:03.120
<v Speaker 2>on a different feel or tone. So but yes, when

1:00:03.160 --> 1:00:05.120
<v Speaker 2>when I've finished and things slow down and I get

1:00:05.120 --> 1:00:07.520
<v Speaker 2>some time to myself, I'll get my little studio set

1:00:07.600 --> 1:00:10.520
<v Speaker 2>up out in the countryside, and I'll spend some time

1:00:10.640 --> 1:00:14.200
<v Speaker 2>just working on things on my own and and feeling

1:00:14.480 --> 1:00:17.680
<v Speaker 2>for things Before I involve anybody, but it won't be

1:00:17.760 --> 1:00:18.600
<v Speaker 2>long before I do.

1:00:26.840 --> 1:00:29.880
<v Speaker 1>So. Earlier you also said on this album you have

1:00:30.040 --> 1:00:34.280
<v Speaker 1>horns and strings. How did you decide to employ those?

1:00:36.200 --> 1:00:38.600
<v Speaker 2>Well, just where the music told me they needed to go.

1:00:38.760 --> 1:00:44.720
<v Speaker 2>I mean, it's it's it's not a given that adding

1:00:44.840 --> 1:00:48.200
<v Speaker 2>orchestration or horns takes you any further down the track

1:00:48.280 --> 1:00:51.840
<v Speaker 2>in terms of realizing what a song must be. Quite

1:00:51.840 --> 1:00:54.800
<v Speaker 2>the contrary. I mean, sometimes some songs sound better just

1:00:54.880 --> 1:00:58.680
<v Speaker 2>on your own, sometimes better with a drum player, drum drummer,

1:00:58.760 --> 1:01:01.800
<v Speaker 2>some with a bass player on to some without. So

1:01:02.720 --> 1:01:07.880
<v Speaker 2>with orchestration, there was a as I say, a melodic strength.

1:01:08.040 --> 1:01:12.280
<v Speaker 2>There was just some of these songs we're just asking

1:01:12.520 --> 1:01:17.640
<v Speaker 2>for orchestration there there there they were big melodies. So

1:01:17.880 --> 1:01:22.640
<v Speaker 2>it's different every time. So and as I say, Ben

1:01:22.880 --> 1:01:29.760
<v Speaker 2>like his dad, is very very talented at voicings. So

1:01:30.600 --> 1:01:35.480
<v Speaker 2>for example, using leave taking user bass clarinet introduces the

1:01:35.480 --> 1:01:38.240
<v Speaker 2>the sort of the horn section. You don't go straight

1:01:38.280 --> 1:01:41.680
<v Speaker 2>in with a saxophone or a trombone or a trumpet.

1:01:41.800 --> 1:01:45.520
<v Speaker 2>You you use a bass clarinet to play. I mean,

1:01:46.240 --> 1:01:48.640
<v Speaker 2>who think of using a bass clarinet. It's a beautiful,

1:01:48.720 --> 1:01:53.800
<v Speaker 2>beautiful sound, and there's a these little touches of class.

1:01:53.840 --> 1:01:57.440
<v Speaker 2>We're using obo here and this there, and there's little

1:01:57.440 --> 1:02:00.520
<v Speaker 2>bits of knowledge and and and they to a much

1:02:00.560 --> 1:02:04.480
<v Speaker 2>more satisfying end result. So yeah, it's just it's different

1:02:04.520 --> 1:02:07.439
<v Speaker 2>every record. This time it wanted these. I don't think

1:02:07.480 --> 1:02:12.720
<v Speaker 2>the next record will probably have an orchestra or horns

1:02:12.800 --> 1:02:15.760
<v Speaker 2>or anything. I think we might get my friend Caroline

1:02:15.760 --> 1:02:17.560
<v Speaker 2>to come around with her cello and do a little

1:02:17.600 --> 1:02:19.480
<v Speaker 2>bit of playing on a couple of things, but it

1:02:19.480 --> 1:02:23.760
<v Speaker 2>will be more layering some strings into the odd song maybe,

1:02:24.280 --> 1:02:27.040
<v Speaker 2>But I don't see that the next chapter will have

1:02:27.640 --> 1:02:29.760
<v Speaker 2>any of that stuff. This time around, it was. It

1:02:29.800 --> 1:02:32.840
<v Speaker 2>definitely felt right and it sounds wonderful that the session

1:02:32.880 --> 1:02:35.840
<v Speaker 2>we did for the orchestra was absolutely out of this world.

1:02:35.840 --> 1:02:40.960
<v Speaker 1>It's phenomenal forgetting orchestra and other big productions. Your studio

1:02:41.040 --> 1:02:43.320
<v Speaker 1>in the old home, your studio up the street. Now,

1:02:43.600 --> 1:02:46.560
<v Speaker 1>can you make the records in these studios or do

1:02:46.600 --> 1:02:49.400
<v Speaker 1>you have to go to another room to make the records?

1:02:50.600 --> 1:02:55.200
<v Speaker 2>No, I can make all the record that. If we

1:02:55.280 --> 1:02:57.840
<v Speaker 2>wanted a big drum sound, or we want to record

1:02:57.880 --> 1:03:01.480
<v Speaker 2>horns or strings, we go somewhere else because I haven't

1:03:01.480 --> 1:03:03.360
<v Speaker 2>got the mics, and I haven't got the mic stands,

1:03:03.360 --> 1:03:04.360
<v Speaker 2>and I haven't got the space.

1:03:05.600 --> 1:03:07.960
<v Speaker 1>Okay, let's go to the previous album you mentioned. It

1:03:08.000 --> 1:03:11.960
<v Speaker 1>was very made during COVID scaleg I think, and in

1:03:12.000 --> 1:03:15.640
<v Speaker 1>the old days let's just call it pre internet, last century.

1:03:16.160 --> 1:03:20.080
<v Speaker 1>If you made an album that was not as successful

1:03:20.160 --> 1:03:25.000
<v Speaker 1>commercially or critically, he could really negatively impact your career.

1:03:26.040 --> 1:03:28.960
<v Speaker 1>To what degree is that a factor or is that

1:03:29.120 --> 1:03:31.280
<v Speaker 1>even not a factor in today's world.

1:03:34.160 --> 1:03:36.280
<v Speaker 2>It depends how you set your stall out. I mean,

1:03:36.320 --> 1:03:39.280
<v Speaker 2>I've seen it have that very negative effect on my

1:03:39.360 --> 1:03:44.520
<v Speaker 2>own career more than once. So God knows, I've seen

1:03:44.520 --> 1:03:50.080
<v Speaker 2>this every which way. I've been nowhere, somewhere, somewhere in between,

1:03:50.280 --> 1:03:53.480
<v Speaker 2>and I've done things I love that didn't really get

1:03:53.520 --> 1:03:56.040
<v Speaker 2>anywhere with the radio, and then everyone turns around and goes, well,

1:03:56.720 --> 1:04:01.400
<v Speaker 2>he's only worth this now, so dismiss It's like, yeah,

1:04:01.440 --> 1:04:04.320
<v Speaker 2>you've got to be very careful. I think. Ultimately, though,

1:04:04.320 --> 1:04:05.960
<v Speaker 2>you've got to make yourself happy. You've got to do

1:04:06.000 --> 1:04:07.920
<v Speaker 2>what you want to do. If you want to be

1:04:07.960 --> 1:04:10.760
<v Speaker 2>in music, if it's your life, then you're going to

1:04:10.800 --> 1:04:13.800
<v Speaker 2>be there with a passion and a zeal to see

1:04:13.800 --> 1:04:16.640
<v Speaker 2>it through till the end. Then you've got to set

1:04:16.680 --> 1:04:19.560
<v Speaker 2>your stall out accordingly. I mean, do you care about

1:04:19.560 --> 1:04:22.920
<v Speaker 2>the fucking numbers or what? Of course you do. Everyone

1:04:22.960 --> 1:04:26.360
<v Speaker 2>wants to connect to the listener who doesn't want listeners,

1:04:27.080 --> 1:04:29.240
<v Speaker 2>But there's more to it than that. It's like what

1:04:29.400 --> 1:04:31.600
<v Speaker 2>kind of listener and how do they listen and all

1:04:31.640 --> 1:04:34.720
<v Speaker 2>the rest of it. So there are this Because I've

1:04:34.760 --> 1:04:36.480
<v Speaker 2>got my own label, I can I guess, to a

1:04:36.520 --> 1:04:38.520
<v Speaker 2>certain extent, do what I want to do. And this

1:04:38.560 --> 1:04:42.520
<v Speaker 2>record was a labor of love. And I think this

1:04:42.560 --> 1:04:44.840
<v Speaker 2>record will still be being listened to when I'm dead.

1:04:45.760 --> 1:04:49.840
<v Speaker 2>It was a magic experience. But it's never going to

1:04:50.200 --> 1:04:53.320
<v Speaker 2>unless it gets some kind of sink or film placement

1:04:53.400 --> 1:04:56.480
<v Speaker 2>that suddenly makes everyone aware of it. It's going to

1:04:56.520 --> 1:04:59.840
<v Speaker 2>be a very slow word of mouth or word of

1:05:00.040 --> 1:05:04.080
<v Speaker 2>finger movement that it makes through people's consciousness. It's going

1:05:04.120 --> 1:05:07.320
<v Speaker 2>to be the sort of thing that's passed around. So

1:05:08.000 --> 1:05:11.640
<v Speaker 2>you know, I don't know. I did the White Ladder

1:05:11.680 --> 1:05:14.280
<v Speaker 2>to all. That meant all the promoters and venues suddenly

1:05:14.320 --> 1:05:17.000
<v Speaker 2>went well, look he sold all these tickets. So now

1:05:17.000 --> 1:05:19.520
<v Speaker 2>I'm being treated slightly differently because I can prove I

1:05:19.520 --> 1:05:22.240
<v Speaker 2>can still sell some tickets, So all the things you

1:05:22.280 --> 1:05:25.600
<v Speaker 2>say about the industry are absolutely true and they haven't changed.

1:05:25.680 --> 1:05:28.800
<v Speaker 2>I think that when you've made as many records and

1:05:28.840 --> 1:05:32.520
<v Speaker 2>you've carried on as long as I have, it obviously

1:05:32.560 --> 1:05:36.280
<v Speaker 2>becomes maybe slightly less significant. If I just followed White

1:05:36.400 --> 1:05:42.000
<v Speaker 2>Ladder with, you know, some obscure electronic project that was

1:05:42.200 --> 1:05:44.480
<v Speaker 2>never going to flow anyone's boat, it would have been

1:05:44.840 --> 1:05:47.240
<v Speaker 2>maybe a really stupid dumb thing to do from a

1:05:47.240 --> 1:05:49.840
<v Speaker 2>commercial point of view. But if that's what I really felt,

1:05:49.840 --> 1:05:52.880
<v Speaker 2>I wanted to do it just anyway. It's all down

1:05:52.920 --> 1:05:57.280
<v Speaker 2>to the individual, and I don't think there's a right

1:05:57.320 --> 1:05:59.040
<v Speaker 2>and wrong way of doing it. If what you're trying

1:05:59.040 --> 1:06:01.320
<v Speaker 2>to say is has it changed? Does the industry more

1:06:01.360 --> 1:06:04.440
<v Speaker 2>forgiving now? I don't think it really is. But I

1:06:04.440 --> 1:06:06.760
<v Speaker 2>think that it's so much easier to put music out.

1:06:06.960 --> 1:06:09.120
<v Speaker 2>There's so much going out that it's not such a big, big,

1:06:09.160 --> 1:06:13.040
<v Speaker 2>big deal. There's a lot of covering fire as people

1:06:13.080 --> 1:06:16.840
<v Speaker 2>putting shit out all the time, So it's it's it's

1:06:16.880 --> 1:06:21.080
<v Speaker 2>it's completely naturally saturated in new music, So maybe it's

1:06:21.160 --> 1:06:25.040
<v Speaker 2>it's just less prominent and less obvious now.

1:06:24.800 --> 1:06:28.680
<v Speaker 1>In today's world. I mean you literally have your own label.

1:06:28.840 --> 1:06:31.960
<v Speaker 1>You're involved. You know, we have a distributor does marketing

1:06:32.360 --> 1:06:36.240
<v Speaker 1>to what degree? Or you or your team involved in

1:06:36.320 --> 1:06:39.400
<v Speaker 1>social media direct access to your fans.

1:06:41.000 --> 1:06:44.440
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, well, I try and keep the tone. I do

1:06:44.560 --> 1:06:47.360
<v Speaker 2>all the writing of the copy when it's in first person,

1:06:47.760 --> 1:06:52.640
<v Speaker 2>they're my posts. And I don't use social media in

1:06:52.760 --> 1:06:57.480
<v Speaker 2>my life too. I don't use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, I

1:06:57.480 --> 1:07:00.680
<v Speaker 2>don't use any of it. I don't have person not accounts,

1:07:00.720 --> 1:07:04.280
<v Speaker 2>I don't communicate with anyone through those things. But it's

1:07:04.320 --> 1:07:07.760
<v Speaker 2>as a means of letting my fans know. Writing something

1:07:07.840 --> 1:07:09.800
<v Speaker 2>on the blackboard is sort of how I see it.

1:07:09.880 --> 1:07:12.200
<v Speaker 2>I mean, I don't follow anyone. I don't engage. It

1:07:12.320 --> 1:07:15.400
<v Speaker 2>just gobbles up your time, mind, everything else. I can't

1:07:15.400 --> 1:07:17.880
<v Speaker 2>be bothered with any of it. But I see it

1:07:17.880 --> 1:07:20.360
<v Speaker 2>as a vital tool these days for letting people know

1:07:20.440 --> 1:07:25.120
<v Speaker 2>what's happening. So, of course the gatekeepers are very much

1:07:25.520 --> 1:07:28.160
<v Speaker 2>in control of how it all works. That there was

1:07:28.200 --> 1:07:31.880
<v Speaker 2>a certain innocent period when it sort of went out

1:07:31.920 --> 1:07:35.640
<v Speaker 2>to everyone. Apparently it doesn't work like that anymore. So

1:07:36.560 --> 1:07:42.720
<v Speaker 2>you know that it's very carefully managed, in choreographed so yes,

1:07:42.800 --> 1:07:47.640
<v Speaker 2>but it's a personal things, and it needs to feel authentic.

1:07:48.120 --> 1:07:50.800
<v Speaker 2>So when I speak one of the things I find

1:07:50.880 --> 1:07:53.440
<v Speaker 2>rather dull as these things become more important, which is

1:07:53.480 --> 1:07:56.680
<v Speaker 2>what's happened with Instagram, for example, something I quite liked

1:07:56.720 --> 1:07:59.720
<v Speaker 2>because you When I started, I was just doing weird photos,

1:08:00.160 --> 1:08:02.960
<v Speaker 2>which I enjoyed, and writing because there was no limit

1:08:03.000 --> 1:08:06.680
<v Speaker 2>on the characters, writing a few words or a lot

1:08:06.680 --> 1:08:08.480
<v Speaker 2>of words about what I was doing or what I

1:08:08.520 --> 1:08:11.760
<v Speaker 2>was seeing. But of course it becomes like the only

1:08:11.800 --> 1:08:14.200
<v Speaker 2>show in town in terms of letting everybody know you've

1:08:14.200 --> 1:08:16.519
<v Speaker 2>got to tour an album of this. So everything now

1:08:16.640 --> 1:08:20.600
<v Speaker 2>is just basically much more related to your job. So

1:08:20.960 --> 1:08:23.519
<v Speaker 2>when it started, it was a bit more innocent and fun,

1:08:23.560 --> 1:08:30.360
<v Speaker 2>and that's not really true anymore. But it's still a

1:08:30.439 --> 1:08:33.200
<v Speaker 2>vital tool. So I try and make the best of

1:08:33.200 --> 1:08:38.479
<v Speaker 2>it that I can and give an authentic view into

1:08:38.520 --> 1:08:41.040
<v Speaker 2>my life, my thoughts and feelings. I don't share photos

1:08:41.080 --> 1:08:47.880
<v Speaker 2>of food, holidays, children, or opinions on current political situations

1:08:47.960 --> 1:08:51.920
<v Speaker 2>or war or anything. I keep that to myself. It's

1:08:51.960 --> 1:08:54.360
<v Speaker 2>not that I'm afraid of voicing those opinions, but I

1:08:54.880 --> 1:08:57.080
<v Speaker 2>don't foist them on my listeners.

1:08:57.760 --> 1:09:03.120
<v Speaker 1>To what degree online are you two way interacting with europeand.

1:09:03.640 --> 1:09:08.120
<v Speaker 2>Not at all. I don't follow anyone or any other artists.

1:09:08.800 --> 1:09:12.280
<v Speaker 2>I don't engage in that way. I just put things

1:09:12.280 --> 1:09:15.360
<v Speaker 2>on my thing. If I was going to if I

1:09:15.479 --> 1:09:18.719
<v Speaker 2>was going to interact with a fellow artist, I would

1:09:18.720 --> 1:09:19.599
<v Speaker 2>send them an email.

1:09:20.640 --> 1:09:23.479
<v Speaker 1>Okay, So where did you grow up?

1:09:24.960 --> 1:09:28.920
<v Speaker 2>I grew up in Manchester until I was eight, in

1:09:28.960 --> 1:09:32.519
<v Speaker 2>the North of England, and then my parents moved to

1:09:32.560 --> 1:09:35.840
<v Speaker 2>a tiny fishing village in the Very West Wales called Solver.

1:09:36.560 --> 1:09:39.400
<v Speaker 2>So if you've ever read Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood,

1:09:39.960 --> 1:09:42.560
<v Speaker 2>then it was something like that, a sort of enchanted

1:09:42.640 --> 1:09:46.960
<v Speaker 2>realm of sea and sand and woodland and cliff that

1:09:47.080 --> 1:09:49.720
<v Speaker 2>I was suddenly thrust into and being a sort of

1:09:49.800 --> 1:09:53.120
<v Speaker 2>avid nature lover, it was just the most incredible adventure.

1:09:53.800 --> 1:09:57.920
<v Speaker 2>It sort of seeded my imagination with imagery and thoughts

1:09:58.640 --> 1:10:02.120
<v Speaker 2>and beauty and I still draw on that fund now.

1:10:03.880 --> 1:10:05.160
<v Speaker 1>And what kind of kid? Were you?

1:10:08.720 --> 1:10:19.880
<v Speaker 2>Very interested in stuff? Very sporty, loved all sport, loved,

1:10:19.960 --> 1:10:25.120
<v Speaker 2>playing out, was just out all the time, kind of shy.

1:10:26.720 --> 1:10:30.360
<v Speaker 2>So when I discovered going on stage, that was like

1:10:30.720 --> 1:10:33.599
<v Speaker 2>a big moment. I had to be a stand in

1:10:33.680 --> 1:10:38.440
<v Speaker 2>for the main part in the primary school production Christmas

1:10:38.479 --> 1:10:42.240
<v Speaker 2>play the main Wizard, the Wizard and the Wizard the Witch.

1:10:42.840 --> 1:10:45.840
<v Speaker 2>The Wizard was taken ill on day of show, and

1:10:45.920 --> 1:10:48.479
<v Speaker 2>I had a very good memory. I had a very

1:10:48.520 --> 1:10:52.479
<v Speaker 2>good memory, so they said they plumped on me, even

1:10:52.520 --> 1:10:54.559
<v Speaker 2>though I was a year younger than lots of the

1:10:54.560 --> 1:10:57.680
<v Speaker 2>other children, to be the main part because I'm the

1:10:57.720 --> 1:11:03.439
<v Speaker 2>only person who might remember all the the different lines.

1:11:03.560 --> 1:11:06.680
<v Speaker 2>So I learned the Wizard's part, but they didn't have

1:11:06.760 --> 1:11:09.000
<v Speaker 2>time before we got to the performance to teach me

1:11:09.080 --> 1:11:12.800
<v Speaker 2>the dances, so I had to improvise my song and

1:11:12.920 --> 1:11:15.960
<v Speaker 2>dance routine. And let's just say, Bob that I was

1:11:16.000 --> 1:11:18.559
<v Speaker 2>a big hit with the audience. I was a big

1:11:18.640 --> 1:11:22.679
<v Speaker 2>hit with the audience. The audience loved me. And as

1:11:22.680 --> 1:11:26.280
<v Speaker 2>I stood there doing my crazy wizard dancing, singing these

1:11:26.320 --> 1:11:31.880
<v Speaker 2>little songs, and they gave me rapturous applause. And I

1:11:31.880 --> 1:11:35.280
<v Speaker 2>remember looking out at them from this stage, which was

1:11:35.320 --> 1:11:39.679
<v Speaker 2>probably only about six inches high, into the dark all

1:11:39.720 --> 1:11:41.519
<v Speaker 2>that what felt like a sea of faces, which was

1:11:41.520 --> 1:11:46.559
<v Speaker 2>probably about sixty people, and thinking, yeah, I get this.

1:11:47.320 --> 1:11:50.280
<v Speaker 2>I get I'm in a magic world of mate believe,

1:11:50.840 --> 1:11:54.080
<v Speaker 2>and I'm what I'm giving them. They loved me because

1:11:54.120 --> 1:11:57.920
<v Speaker 2>I'm doing something freely and giving it to them, and

1:11:57.960 --> 1:12:02.519
<v Speaker 2>their their joy is in my giving and where some

1:12:02.560 --> 1:12:07.320
<v Speaker 2>people would have just been inhibited. And I was shy,

1:12:07.400 --> 1:12:10.200
<v Speaker 2>but I love this and that stayed with me, and

1:12:10.240 --> 1:12:13.600
<v Speaker 2>I then sort of pursued sort of amateur dramatics. We

1:12:13.640 --> 1:12:16.960
<v Speaker 2>are probably grand term, but I was in school plays

1:12:16.960 --> 1:12:21.760
<v Speaker 2>from then on and I got some big roles and

1:12:21.800 --> 1:12:24.479
<v Speaker 2>I started my own band. So I loved it on

1:12:24.520 --> 1:12:28.760
<v Speaker 2>the stage. So choosing to do music over art was

1:12:28.800 --> 1:12:31.080
<v Speaker 2>probably because I liked the fact it brought me into

1:12:31.120 --> 1:12:34.720
<v Speaker 2>the world and you've got this instant reaction. So I

1:12:35.280 --> 1:12:37.760
<v Speaker 2>was when I was a teenager. I just became your

1:12:37.760 --> 1:12:43.400
<v Speaker 2>classic teenager, smoking, drinking and wanting to kiss girls and

1:12:44.240 --> 1:12:46.160
<v Speaker 2>you know, then wanting to be in a band. And

1:12:46.200 --> 1:12:49.000
<v Speaker 2>I stopped studying. I stopped paying any attention apart from

1:12:49.320 --> 1:12:52.200
<v Speaker 2>art and reading a few of the English texts. And

1:12:52.760 --> 1:12:55.120
<v Speaker 2>they all sort of were tearing their hair out. Probably

1:12:55.200 --> 1:12:58.080
<v Speaker 2>I can't imagine what it's like for my mum, but

1:12:58.160 --> 1:13:02.439
<v Speaker 2>she showed incredible patience. So I kind of disconnected from

1:13:02.479 --> 1:13:06.080
<v Speaker 2>my studies somewhat, and it made a bit of a

1:13:06.320 --> 1:13:10.760
<v Speaker 2>mockery of my exams at various points, but I kind

1:13:10.760 --> 1:13:12.880
<v Speaker 2>of got through. I chose the path of least resistance,

1:13:13.080 --> 1:13:14.160
<v Speaker 2>which was art school.

1:13:15.320 --> 1:13:19.040
<v Speaker 1>What did your parents do for a living, Well.

1:13:19.000 --> 1:13:21.080
<v Speaker 2>My dad had been a baker in Manchester, in the

1:13:21.120 --> 1:13:26.080
<v Speaker 2>family in firm, and when they didn't know what they

1:13:26.120 --> 1:13:27.240
<v Speaker 2>were going to do when they went to well, so

1:13:27.280 --> 1:13:31.040
<v Speaker 2>my mum was making these quilted clothes using Liberty fabrics

1:13:31.080 --> 1:13:36.040
<v Speaker 2>and they started a little cottage industry selling these, and

1:13:36.080 --> 1:13:40.320
<v Speaker 2>then it became successful and they were Liberty in London's

1:13:40.360 --> 1:13:43.880
<v Speaker 2>biggest sellers. They were for a while, and then they

1:13:43.960 --> 1:13:46.320
<v Speaker 2>started their own little shop to sell their own clothes,

1:13:46.800 --> 1:13:50.680
<v Speaker 2>which developed into a craft shop, and then eventually they

1:13:50.760 --> 1:13:53.439
<v Speaker 2>folded the clothing business and they just had a craft

1:13:53.439 --> 1:13:56.400
<v Speaker 2>shop and the restaurant down the street where I worked

1:13:56.400 --> 1:14:00.800
<v Speaker 2>as a washer up for many years made it to waiter.

1:14:02.720 --> 1:14:03.880
<v Speaker 1>And do you have any siblings?

1:14:05.240 --> 1:14:07.880
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I got two sisters. I'm the eldest. I got

1:14:07.920 --> 1:14:09.400
<v Speaker 2>two younger sisters.

1:14:10.160 --> 1:14:14.360
<v Speaker 1>So how did you get into music? Yeah?

1:14:14.400 --> 1:14:16.280
<v Speaker 2>I always loved it. I mean, my mum was a

1:14:16.360 --> 1:14:18.240
<v Speaker 2>very good singer. She used to sing in the choir.

1:14:19.320 --> 1:14:22.040
<v Speaker 2>And I didn't have any elder brothers and sisters to

1:14:22.120 --> 1:14:25.160
<v Speaker 2>kind of guide me. Into what was cool, just reacted

1:14:25.200 --> 1:14:30.160
<v Speaker 2>to things. So saw music on the Telly and fell

1:14:30.200 --> 1:14:33.200
<v Speaker 2>in love with Madness the Specials, sort of whole two

1:14:33.280 --> 1:14:38.680
<v Speaker 2>tone thing that was nineteen seventy nine, and I was

1:14:38.680 --> 1:14:43.240
<v Speaker 2>obsessed with that for several years and then became more

1:14:43.280 --> 1:14:45.320
<v Speaker 2>like an indie thing. And while I was getting into

1:14:45.360 --> 1:14:48.519
<v Speaker 2>indie music, I kind of got into other things that

1:14:48.640 --> 1:14:51.599
<v Speaker 2>was something we'd all talk about. You'd watch Telly Don't

1:14:51.600 --> 1:14:54.320
<v Speaker 2>Look Back was on, like the Da Pennybecker film. I

1:14:54.360 --> 1:14:57.719
<v Speaker 2>watched that fucking in hell. I already loved Bob Dylan.

1:14:57.760 --> 1:15:00.559
<v Speaker 2>I discovered him, I thought, well, I started buying Dealing

1:15:00.640 --> 1:15:05.679
<v Speaker 2>Records and Leonard Cohen Records, Jny Mitchell Records, John Martin Records,

1:15:05.720 --> 1:15:08.400
<v Speaker 2>and I started to explore Tom Waite's all these things

1:15:08.439 --> 1:15:11.679
<v Speaker 2>at the same time as listening to the cool pop

1:15:11.760 --> 1:15:15.559
<v Speaker 2>music of the sort of early to mid eighties. So

1:15:15.640 --> 1:15:17.360
<v Speaker 2>that's kind of what happened. I just got into it.

1:15:17.439 --> 1:15:19.519
<v Speaker 2>My dad had an acoustic guitar which he didn't know

1:15:19.560 --> 1:15:22.000
<v Speaker 2>how to play. I just started using it, and my

1:15:22.000 --> 1:15:24.400
<v Speaker 2>friend wrote down some chords for me and I started

1:15:24.439 --> 1:15:24.800
<v Speaker 2>from there.

1:15:32.880 --> 1:15:36.280
<v Speaker 1>So how did you decide this is going to be

1:15:36.320 --> 1:15:40.040
<v Speaker 1>a career? And how did you end up becoming a professional.

1:15:42.080 --> 1:15:45.400
<v Speaker 2>Well, I was very lucky. I'm very fortunate. I've always

1:15:45.439 --> 1:15:51.840
<v Speaker 2>very driven, very self confident, very determined. So I went

1:15:51.880 --> 1:15:55.559
<v Speaker 2>to art school, I formed a band, made demos and

1:15:55.720 --> 1:15:58.800
<v Speaker 2>already at that point decided this is the way I'm

1:15:58.840 --> 1:16:03.439
<v Speaker 2>going to go. And so I was painting and stuff

1:16:03.439 --> 1:16:07.120
<v Speaker 2>for my degree, but really most of my energy and

1:16:07.200 --> 1:16:10.439
<v Speaker 2>money as well, I was buying equipment and stuff was

1:16:10.479 --> 1:16:12.639
<v Speaker 2>going into playing with my band, and we were playing

1:16:12.680 --> 1:16:15.599
<v Speaker 2>shows in Glasgow, tried Manchester, didn't go so well there

1:16:15.880 --> 1:16:18.720
<v Speaker 2>Liverpool where I went to art school, so I was

1:16:18.760 --> 1:16:22.240
<v Speaker 2>gigging and we made a demo at the end of

1:16:22.280 --> 1:16:28.400
<v Speaker 2>my last year and sent it into the Manchester Evening News.

1:16:28.880 --> 1:16:31.559
<v Speaker 2>John Slater was an A and R man in Manchester

1:16:31.600 --> 1:16:36.439
<v Speaker 2>who do a demo review. So he really liked the

1:16:36.520 --> 1:16:40.320
<v Speaker 2>demo and sent an A and R man like a

1:16:40.360 --> 1:16:44.240
<v Speaker 2>scout to see us in Liverpool to check us out.

1:16:44.280 --> 1:16:45.800
<v Speaker 2>He gave us a good review, and he sent a

1:16:45.800 --> 1:16:47.920
<v Speaker 2>scout and the scout was working for the person who

1:16:48.000 --> 1:16:51.200
<v Speaker 2>would become my manager, who was just taken on a

1:16:51.280 --> 1:16:54.559
<v Speaker 2>job at Pollardor to sort of pay a few bills with.

1:16:54.680 --> 1:16:57.519
<v Speaker 2>So he was working for Polydor and also sort of

1:16:57.560 --> 1:17:01.000
<v Speaker 2>scouting out talent at the same time time from his

1:17:01.080 --> 1:17:06.479
<v Speaker 2>own POV and he was given this demo and so

1:17:06.960 --> 1:17:09.800
<v Speaker 2>my very first demo ended up in the hands of

1:17:09.840 --> 1:17:13.679
<v Speaker 2>the person who would be my manager. And then Pollodor

1:17:13.720 --> 1:17:18.000
<v Speaker 2>commissioned a second demo and things began to move forward,

1:17:18.560 --> 1:17:21.519
<v Speaker 2>and they got a publishing deal with Warner Chapel the

1:17:21.560 --> 1:17:24.000
<v Speaker 2>following year. Then I moved to London and got a

1:17:24.040 --> 1:17:29.160
<v Speaker 2>record deal with Virgin So that's sort of how it started.

1:17:29.200 --> 1:17:30.920
<v Speaker 2>It all happened very quickly. I mean I finished my

1:17:30.920 --> 1:17:32.760
<v Speaker 2>college and within a year I was in London with

1:17:32.800 --> 1:17:33.439
<v Speaker 2>a record deal.

1:17:34.640 --> 1:17:40.920
<v Speaker 1>So the first three records were let's just say they

1:17:40.960 --> 1:17:46.880
<v Speaker 1>weren't hit. What was your experience, Yeah, it was well.

1:17:46.920 --> 1:17:51.760
<v Speaker 2>I was, first of all, super exciting. I didn't ever

1:17:51.840 --> 1:17:54.559
<v Speaker 2>have a kind of overview or a plan of how

1:17:54.640 --> 1:17:56.479
<v Speaker 2>I was going to crack the music industry. I didn't

1:17:56.479 --> 1:18:00.800
<v Speaker 2>have some hey press guy, this is my take on things.

1:18:00.840 --> 1:18:03.800
<v Speaker 2>I didn't have any of that shite. I just I

1:18:03.920 --> 1:18:07.200
<v Speaker 2>just had myself, my heart, my songs. I just wanted

1:18:07.200 --> 1:18:11.120
<v Speaker 2>to do it. So the whole thing was a crazy

1:18:11.200 --> 1:18:17.240
<v Speaker 2>learning experience, character building, as they say. So the first

1:18:17.280 --> 1:18:21.479
<v Speaker 2>album new record label, got to go to America, tour

1:18:21.600 --> 1:18:24.439
<v Speaker 2>America a couple of times as a support act, play

1:18:24.560 --> 1:18:27.840
<v Speaker 2>shows of my own in New York and LA and

1:18:28.560 --> 1:18:34.360
<v Speaker 2>you know, a super super exciting but by record too

1:18:34.600 --> 1:18:38.160
<v Speaker 2>because I hadn't sold any records, you know, they were

1:18:38.479 --> 1:18:40.960
<v Speaker 2>And also the guy who signed me, the classic music

1:18:41.000 --> 1:18:43.960
<v Speaker 2>business thing, he was sacked before the record. He was

1:18:44.000 --> 1:18:46.960
<v Speaker 2>sacked before the record had even come out, so my

1:18:47.120 --> 1:18:50.519
<v Speaker 2>champion was gone, and they kind of let me make

1:18:50.560 --> 1:18:53.479
<v Speaker 2>another record then said your recording budgets over. You just

1:18:53.520 --> 1:18:55.640
<v Speaker 2>have to put this out as it is, put it

1:18:55.680 --> 1:18:58.439
<v Speaker 2>out and then drop me. And then I was picked

1:18:58.479 --> 1:19:02.200
<v Speaker 2>up by a label in America very fortunately about six

1:19:02.240 --> 1:19:05.200
<v Speaker 2>months later. So this was the story of the first

1:19:05.200 --> 1:19:08.559
<v Speaker 2>three albums. But the only really significant thing that happened,

1:19:08.600 --> 1:19:12.200
<v Speaker 2>apart from me learning the hard way, playing fucking horrible

1:19:12.280 --> 1:19:15.599
<v Speaker 2>shows in all over the fucking world as well as

1:19:15.640 --> 1:19:18.320
<v Speaker 2>some good ones, was the connection I made with the Irish.

1:19:18.520 --> 1:19:20.760
<v Speaker 2>They loved my first album, and I got some really

1:19:20.800 --> 1:19:25.000
<v Speaker 2>good press, and I got some cool radio going on,

1:19:25.040 --> 1:19:28.519
<v Speaker 2>like late night radio stuff. And when I played my

1:19:28.560 --> 1:19:31.200
<v Speaker 2>first gig in Ireland at the beginning of nineteen ninety four,

1:19:33.080 --> 1:19:37.639
<v Speaker 2>it was a sellout and second gig, and I thought, God,

1:19:37.680 --> 1:19:39.400
<v Speaker 2>I love it here and I just kept going back

1:19:39.439 --> 1:19:41.920
<v Speaker 2>and I built up this following so they kind of

1:19:41.960 --> 1:19:44.640
<v Speaker 2>got it. The Irish got it. They got the lyricism,

1:19:44.720 --> 1:19:48.040
<v Speaker 2>they got the sort of earthiness, the rawness, the simplicity,

1:19:48.479 --> 1:19:51.120
<v Speaker 2>the singer songwriter in us of what I was doing,

1:19:51.120 --> 1:19:53.439
<v Speaker 2>which was like not a very cool look at the time,

1:19:54.200 --> 1:19:58.040
<v Speaker 2>So particularly in the UK, which is the hardest place

1:19:58.080 --> 1:20:00.880
<v Speaker 2>to break in the world, the most cynical, sort of

1:20:02.240 --> 1:20:06.080
<v Speaker 2>hard edged place I've ever been to anyway, putting new

1:20:06.160 --> 1:20:09.599
<v Speaker 2>music out and everything. So that that was the story.

1:20:09.960 --> 1:20:14.280
<v Speaker 2>That that that that's that's That's pretty much how it went.

1:20:14.320 --> 1:20:16.080
<v Speaker 2>So it was hard work. I think. By the third

1:20:16.160 --> 1:20:19.240
<v Speaker 2>record coming out on EMI America, it was a total

1:20:19.400 --> 1:20:23.000
<v Speaker 2>not a disaster, and they didn't even put it out properly.

1:20:23.600 --> 1:20:26.040
<v Speaker 2>The whole thing was a joke. They were imploding, They

1:20:26.040 --> 1:20:28.280
<v Speaker 2>weren't even there was they were they were non functioning

1:20:28.439 --> 1:20:31.760
<v Speaker 2>as a record company. We went on an absolutely soul

1:20:31.880 --> 1:20:35.960
<v Speaker 2>destroying tour of the Midwest and that was that, and

1:20:36.040 --> 1:20:39.080
<v Speaker 2>we had an option to have a second album with them.

1:20:39.120 --> 1:20:42.280
<v Speaker 2>We chose not to take the advance and just end it.

1:20:42.400 --> 1:20:47.000
<v Speaker 2>Such was the pitiful state of things. So eventually that

1:20:47.120 --> 1:20:49.040
<v Speaker 2>led to me making a record in my own bedroom,

1:20:49.080 --> 1:20:51.400
<v Speaker 2>which was white ladder. But it didn't happen straight away.

1:20:51.479 --> 1:20:54.559
<v Speaker 1>Well, well, before you go to the record your own bedroom,

1:20:54.840 --> 1:20:56.800
<v Speaker 1>you know, you make the first record, you have all

1:20:56.800 --> 1:21:00.200
<v Speaker 1>the hopes, you have the second record, you know your

1:21:00.240 --> 1:21:03.040
<v Speaker 1>ain R guy goes. But then you sign with a

1:21:03.080 --> 1:21:07.280
<v Speaker 1>major label and that implodes. What does this do for

1:21:07.320 --> 1:21:08.240
<v Speaker 1>your confidence?

1:21:08.360 --> 1:21:11.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean I was doubtful about whether I wanted

1:21:11.120 --> 1:21:13.559
<v Speaker 2>to continue, if it was going to continue in this vein.

1:21:14.600 --> 1:21:18.040
<v Speaker 2>I think it makes you think everyone's good when not

1:21:18.080 --> 1:21:20.320
<v Speaker 2>when it's not working out. Everyone's got ideas about what

1:21:20.320 --> 1:21:23.439
<v Speaker 2>you need to do and what you're not doing. So

1:21:24.960 --> 1:21:30.520
<v Speaker 2>I actually took a beat. It obviously does hurt. I mean, Jesus,

1:21:30.840 --> 1:21:33.679
<v Speaker 2>my music is made of emotion. Music is made of emotion.

1:21:33.800 --> 1:21:34.800
<v Speaker 1>This is.

1:21:36.439 --> 1:21:40.599
<v Speaker 2>The deepest part of me. I'm showing everyone there's nowhere

1:21:40.640 --> 1:21:45.719
<v Speaker 2>to hide. And it was grim. So I thought, christ,

1:21:45.720 --> 1:21:49.800
<v Speaker 2>I can't do this for a living. I need to

1:21:49.840 --> 1:21:52.200
<v Speaker 2>find something else to do. If if this is the

1:21:52.240 --> 1:21:55.880
<v Speaker 2>way it's just going to go. So yeah, it had

1:21:56.080 --> 1:21:59.360
<v Speaker 2>a huge effect and I wanted to pause from being

1:21:59.400 --> 1:22:01.559
<v Speaker 2>with my manager. I wanted to pause from everything. I

1:22:01.600 --> 1:22:04.880
<v Speaker 2>took some time out after the year Ideal, just to

1:22:05.000 --> 1:22:07.559
<v Speaker 2>reconfigure myself and work out what it was I was

1:22:07.600 --> 1:22:11.920
<v Speaker 2>doing and why, because it seemed like I didn't know anymore.

1:22:11.960 --> 1:22:15.040
<v Speaker 2>I'd lost all that youthful momentum and now I was

1:22:15.040 --> 1:22:16.559
<v Speaker 2>in a completely different reality.

1:22:18.960 --> 1:22:22.120
<v Speaker 1>Okay, and what was the next step forward?

1:22:24.120 --> 1:22:26.800
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? Well it was this record we made at Homes.

1:22:27.040 --> 1:22:30.160
<v Speaker 1>A little bit slower, just just to start. The manager

1:22:30.760 --> 1:22:34.879
<v Speaker 1>who you had ight with, was that the same manager

1:22:34.920 --> 1:22:35.639
<v Speaker 1>from day one?

1:22:37.280 --> 1:22:41.599
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so Rob, Rob Holden, we kind

1:22:41.600 --> 1:22:43.160
<v Speaker 2>of got back together. I had to say. I took

1:22:43.200 --> 1:22:46.639
<v Speaker 2>a little hiatus from everything and kind of got back

1:22:46.640 --> 1:22:47.600
<v Speaker 2>to Oh okay.

1:22:47.320 --> 1:22:49.600
<v Speaker 1>Wait, wait you're you You're on your hiatus? What do

1:22:49.680 --> 1:22:50.240
<v Speaker 1>you living on?

1:22:52.520 --> 1:22:57.799
<v Speaker 2>Just very Fortunately, an Irish singer called Mary Black covered

1:22:57.920 --> 1:23:02.439
<v Speaker 2>some of my songs, albeit without my consent, for her album,

1:23:02.520 --> 1:23:04.439
<v Speaker 2>some of my new songs. A demo I'd made while

1:23:04.479 --> 1:23:06.680
<v Speaker 2>I was on EMI had got into the hands of

1:23:06.680 --> 1:23:08.679
<v Speaker 2>a producer who was a big fan of my music,

1:23:09.160 --> 1:23:11.920
<v Speaker 2>and she covered a whole load of my stuff. So

1:23:11.960 --> 1:23:15.679
<v Speaker 2>I had this Suddenly at the MCPS came through from

1:23:15.680 --> 1:23:18.040
<v Speaker 2>her album being pressed up, and I had a little

1:23:18.080 --> 1:23:19.880
<v Speaker 2>bit of money to live on. My wife at this

1:23:19.920 --> 1:23:22.479
<v Speaker 2>point had started working as a solicitor. She was actually

1:23:22.520 --> 1:23:26.840
<v Speaker 2>the main breadwinner. So that was the reality at the time.

1:23:27.160 --> 1:23:29.720
<v Speaker 2>It was kind of we were making it up as well.

1:23:29.760 --> 1:23:31.280
<v Speaker 1>Go along. How did you meet your wife?

1:23:33.600 --> 1:23:38.280
<v Speaker 2>I met her when I moved to London. I got

1:23:38.320 --> 1:23:41.679
<v Speaker 2>a room in the squat that was her best friend's

1:23:41.960 --> 1:23:46.439
<v Speaker 2>squat in South London, in the Elephant and Castle, and

1:23:47.439 --> 1:23:49.639
<v Speaker 2>I then met her. I met her on the day

1:23:49.680 --> 1:23:53.840
<v Speaker 2>of the general election April the ninth, nineteen ninety two.

1:23:54.840 --> 1:23:57.320
<v Speaker 2>I called it the death of the British imagination. I

1:23:57.320 --> 1:24:01.479
<v Speaker 2>stayed up all night to watch the horrifying reality of

1:24:01.520 --> 1:24:06.960
<v Speaker 2>the Tories getting in yet another time. So and I

1:24:07.000 --> 1:24:09.840
<v Speaker 2>called it the death of the British imagination. So we

1:24:10.280 --> 1:24:12.960
<v Speaker 2>had a common ground and that we were utterly disgusted

1:24:13.680 --> 1:24:18.439
<v Speaker 2>with our conservative country. Little did we know how worse

1:24:18.479 --> 1:24:22.600
<v Speaker 2>it was going to get. So yeah, we's that was

1:24:22.600 --> 1:24:24.920
<v Speaker 2>a sort of early bonding thing. So that's when I

1:24:24.960 --> 1:24:28.479
<v Speaker 2>met a day of the election April the ninth, nineteen

1:24:28.560 --> 1:24:29.120
<v Speaker 2>ninety two.

1:24:30.479 --> 1:24:34.439
<v Speaker 1>Okay, this is when your career is on the up,

1:24:35.360 --> 1:24:39.560
<v Speaker 1>When your career is on the down, is she supportive?

1:24:40.080 --> 1:24:41.680
<v Speaker 1>Or is she saying, maybe you need to get a

1:24:41.760 --> 1:24:44.760
<v Speaker 1>day job. What is her reaction to you, and what's

1:24:44.800 --> 1:24:46.080
<v Speaker 1>your relationship like.

1:24:47.640 --> 1:24:50.559
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, at what stage, like when things weren't going well

1:24:50.600 --> 1:24:51.559
<v Speaker 2>in my early career.

1:24:52.479 --> 1:24:55.000
<v Speaker 1>No, no, after it ended with them, I.

1:24:57.720 --> 1:24:59.120
<v Speaker 2>Oh well, I mean it was just.

1:25:00.640 --> 1:25:00.720
<v Speaker 1>It.

1:25:02.400 --> 1:25:05.639
<v Speaker 2>She was supportive. Yeah, sure, if she could see when

1:25:05.640 --> 1:25:07.559
<v Speaker 2>she met me, I was this. I was a person.

1:25:07.560 --> 1:25:10.840
<v Speaker 2>I have a I have a mission. It's not I

1:25:10.880 --> 1:25:13.200
<v Speaker 2>need to be doing something. It's sort of non negotiable.

1:25:13.200 --> 1:25:17.000
<v Speaker 2>It's a giant coping strategy. It's not something I have

1:25:17.080 --> 1:25:20.599
<v Speaker 2>a choice over. I have to make things. So maybe

1:25:20.640 --> 1:25:23.440
<v Speaker 2>I don't have to make music. Maybe I could make art,

1:25:23.680 --> 1:25:27.480
<v Speaker 2>but I need to make something. I don't think I'm employable.

1:25:28.200 --> 1:25:32.439
<v Speaker 2>So so she was supportive. Yeah, Well we didn't get

1:25:32.439 --> 1:25:37.120
<v Speaker 2>to the point of total meltdown because life rode into

1:25:37.120 --> 1:25:41.160
<v Speaker 2>the rescue or on a white steed. So a fairy

1:25:41.240 --> 1:25:44.960
<v Speaker 2>tale ensued, whereby I made a record in my bedroom

1:25:45.000 --> 1:25:47.120
<v Speaker 2>and okay, we're gonna get anyway.

1:25:47.200 --> 1:25:49.040
<v Speaker 1>We're going to get there right now. So you have

1:25:49.120 --> 1:25:53.799
<v Speaker 1>the money from the Mary Black covers, you say, yeah,

1:25:54.160 --> 1:25:58.240
<v Speaker 1>you were disconnected from the manager and then the manager reconnected.

1:25:58.320 --> 1:25:59.160
<v Speaker 1>What happened there.

1:26:00.720 --> 1:26:02.719
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, I just said I need a break because

1:26:02.720 --> 1:26:05.080
<v Speaker 2>I can't listen to your thoughts about what I need

1:26:05.120 --> 1:26:07.720
<v Speaker 2>to do. I need to work out for myself what

1:26:07.760 --> 1:26:12.080
<v Speaker 2>it is I'm doing. I don't need extra advice. I

1:26:12.120 --> 1:26:14.439
<v Speaker 2>need to just everyone to shut up. I need to

1:26:14.439 --> 1:26:15.760
<v Speaker 2>go away and do this. I don't know if I

1:26:15.800 --> 1:26:18.240
<v Speaker 2>want to do it anymore. Let's just take a break.

1:26:18.920 --> 1:26:23.920
<v Speaker 2>When he said, very reluctantly, he said, okay. So after

1:26:23.960 --> 1:26:26.600
<v Speaker 2>a break, I sort of fooled around, looked for a

1:26:26.600 --> 1:26:30.760
<v Speaker 2>few different ways of doing it, scouted about, and then

1:26:30.800 --> 1:26:33.120
<v Speaker 2>I began to make White Ladder. And once I was

1:26:33.160 --> 1:26:38.040
<v Speaker 2>making that, it was he that introduced Yestin Poulsen, who

1:26:38.080 --> 1:26:41.080
<v Speaker 2>was the guy who would become the producer of that record.

1:26:41.320 --> 1:26:43.679
<v Speaker 2>It was co produced with me and the drama Clune.

1:26:44.439 --> 1:26:46.920
<v Speaker 2>But yes, it made the massive difference to the sound

1:26:47.000 --> 1:26:48.800
<v Speaker 2>of it all. He knew what he was doing. So

1:26:48.840 --> 1:26:51.680
<v Speaker 2>we made this kind of bedroom recording together. So and

1:26:51.720 --> 1:26:54.160
<v Speaker 2>that was us coming back online. And then, as I say,

1:26:54.200 --> 1:26:56.000
<v Speaker 2>no one wanted to put the record out. We couldn't

1:26:56.000 --> 1:26:59.720
<v Speaker 2>get any takers, so we put it out ourselves and

1:27:00.280 --> 1:27:00.719
<v Speaker 2>is history.

1:27:01.200 --> 1:27:05.400
<v Speaker 1>Okay, bye, by way, you're making the record. To what

1:27:05.520 --> 1:27:09.960
<v Speaker 1>degree is this record informed by your previous three records?

1:27:10.439 --> 1:27:13.840
<v Speaker 1>And to what degree is this a clean sleep? You

1:27:13.880 --> 1:27:16.080
<v Speaker 1>know you took some time off. You don't need any

1:27:16.120 --> 1:27:20.000
<v Speaker 1>more business advice when you start to write and make

1:27:20.120 --> 1:27:25.599
<v Speaker 1>this record. What is the inspiration and what is different

1:27:25.800 --> 1:27:28.360
<v Speaker 1>or the same from what you've done previously.

1:27:30.720 --> 1:27:33.360
<v Speaker 2>Well, there's so much that was different because it was

1:27:33.400 --> 1:27:37.320
<v Speaker 2>made in my bedroom, so we didn't have any equipment.

1:27:38.080 --> 1:27:41.280
<v Speaker 2>We're using a computer and a drum machine and a

1:27:41.320 --> 1:27:43.960
<v Speaker 2>little you know, zip drive or hard drive or jazz

1:27:44.040 --> 1:27:48.479
<v Speaker 2>drive and an ADAP to record the actual physical sound

1:27:48.520 --> 1:27:52.160
<v Speaker 2>if you like. So what it gave me working over

1:27:52.200 --> 1:27:55.760
<v Speaker 2>sort of drum machine rhythms that was programming in because

1:27:55.760 --> 1:27:58.639
<v Speaker 2>it gave me a freedom to perform over them. I'd

1:27:58.680 --> 1:28:01.280
<v Speaker 2>never really used clicks or anything like that. I'd always

1:28:01.360 --> 1:28:04.280
<v Speaker 2>just wanted to go free, but it actually freed me up.

1:28:04.400 --> 1:28:07.560
<v Speaker 2>So that was an important creative development. And there was

1:28:07.600 --> 1:28:10.559
<v Speaker 2>also the sort of intimacy of your own personal space

1:28:11.560 --> 1:28:13.439
<v Speaker 2>and the times of day when you can just work

1:28:13.479 --> 1:28:16.160
<v Speaker 2>when there's no one around and there's no sound, and

1:28:16.240 --> 1:28:21.160
<v Speaker 2>it led to a more intimate relationship with the vocal

1:28:21.240 --> 1:28:24.639
<v Speaker 2>mic and the guitar mic it just brought me in

1:28:25.560 --> 1:28:28.160
<v Speaker 2>as opposed to being a sort of arm's length kind

1:28:28.160 --> 1:28:30.679
<v Speaker 2>of style recording in a big POSH studio which could

1:28:30.680 --> 1:28:33.120
<v Speaker 2>be a car showroom or something, this was like my

1:28:33.200 --> 1:28:36.160
<v Speaker 2>own little space. So I think those were important things

1:28:36.200 --> 1:28:40.120
<v Speaker 2>that that definitely was a significant change. What was in

1:28:40.200 --> 1:28:42.280
<v Speaker 2>terms of what the record was based on. I have

1:28:42.320 --> 1:28:44.800
<v Speaker 2>to say bother and I've talked about this ad infinitum,

1:28:44.880 --> 1:28:48.080
<v Speaker 2>ad nauseum over many many years. I can give you

1:28:48.120 --> 1:28:51.320
<v Speaker 2>in a nutshell, I think it was definitely a back

1:28:51.600 --> 1:28:54.960
<v Speaker 2>against the wall. That the principles of how I wrote

1:28:55.000 --> 1:28:57.280
<v Speaker 2>a song remained the same, but this was a back

1:28:57.360 --> 1:29:00.439
<v Speaker 2>against the war moment. I'd been through this thing. One thing.

1:29:00.439 --> 1:29:02.400
<v Speaker 2>I was determined I was going to make a record

1:29:02.439 --> 1:29:07.880
<v Speaker 2>that from start to finish would be identifiable, coherent, interrelated,

1:29:08.120 --> 1:29:10.439
<v Speaker 2>and flowing from the first note to the last. That

1:29:10.600 --> 1:29:14.080
<v Speaker 2>was the objective. We started to use electronic sound. I

1:29:14.120 --> 1:29:18.080
<v Speaker 2>was itching to get sound into the music, and so

1:29:18.120 --> 1:29:20.160
<v Speaker 2>it was going to be this kind of hybrid form.

1:29:20.800 --> 1:29:24.479
<v Speaker 2>And I was also determined to not just give up

1:29:24.520 --> 1:29:27.920
<v Speaker 2>with everything and blame the music industry, blame journalists, blame

1:29:27.960 --> 1:29:30.680
<v Speaker 2>whatever the hell I wanted to. I thought, I can

1:29:30.720 --> 1:29:32.720
<v Speaker 2>do a better record. I haven't made the record I

1:29:32.760 --> 1:29:35.360
<v Speaker 2>could make. I need to make the best possible record

1:29:35.360 --> 1:29:37.840
<v Speaker 2>I can. So it's a kind of heart on sleeve

1:29:37.920 --> 1:29:41.240
<v Speaker 2>record it had. I wasn't shy of melody. I never

1:29:41.320 --> 1:29:43.920
<v Speaker 2>shy away from melody, but I didn't shy away from

1:29:43.960 --> 1:29:48.599
<v Speaker 2>melody or open hearted sentiment. So I didn't. I'd recovered

1:29:48.680 --> 1:29:51.280
<v Speaker 2>enough that I didn't retract into sort of bitterness or

1:29:51.720 --> 1:29:56.280
<v Speaker 2>hide myself behind some sort of opaque shell. I let

1:29:56.360 --> 1:30:00.000
<v Speaker 2>everything show. It was a greater act of vulnerability and share,

1:30:00.640 --> 1:30:03.720
<v Speaker 2>and that was what the record's power was ultimately. But

1:30:03.800 --> 1:30:06.640
<v Speaker 2>the process, the principle of how I wrote and how

1:30:06.680 --> 1:30:09.160
<v Speaker 2>I did things, was largely the same as the way

1:30:09.200 --> 1:30:11.519
<v Speaker 2>I'd always done it. I just did it under different

1:30:11.520 --> 1:30:14.320
<v Speaker 2>conditions and definitely with a different mindset. And I also

1:30:14.400 --> 1:30:16.639
<v Speaker 2>involved other people in a way that I never had

1:30:16.720 --> 1:30:19.200
<v Speaker 2>up until then. I just wrote songs and other people

1:30:19.200 --> 1:30:22.000
<v Speaker 2>played on them or helped press record while we did that.

1:30:23.000 --> 1:30:25.479
<v Speaker 2>This was like involving people from the ground up and

1:30:25.520 --> 1:30:27.479
<v Speaker 2>how it sounded, what it might sound like, how we

1:30:27.560 --> 1:30:32.400
<v Speaker 2>might make a record, and far from actually diluting the

1:30:32.439 --> 1:30:35.640
<v Speaker 2>effect of what my music might be, how personal it was,

1:30:35.760 --> 1:30:39.160
<v Speaker 2>how its identity might be it actually strengthened it because

1:30:39.560 --> 1:30:43.639
<v Speaker 2>they brought their strengths and wisdom and energy and sense

1:30:43.680 --> 1:30:46.360
<v Speaker 2>of fun, and it lightened the music and it made

1:30:46.400 --> 1:30:47.440
<v Speaker 2>it much more effective.

1:30:55.520 --> 1:30:58.519
<v Speaker 1>Okay, in the US, living in the West Coast, you know,

1:30:58.600 --> 1:31:02.200
<v Speaker 1>public radio started to blow Babylon. It looked like an

1:31:02.200 --> 1:31:06.000
<v Speaker 1>instant's success. But the record had been out for over

1:31:06.120 --> 1:31:11.639
<v Speaker 1>a year in the UK. Yeah, so you put out

1:31:11.720 --> 1:31:15.599
<v Speaker 1>the record, you have the best perspective. Was it a

1:31:15.840 --> 1:31:20.160
<v Speaker 1>constant uphill trend or what was it like when the

1:31:20.200 --> 1:31:21.080
<v Speaker 1>record came out.

1:31:22.880 --> 1:31:24.559
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it was a lot of hard work, but I

1:31:24.560 --> 1:31:27.600
<v Speaker 2>mean it was absolutely amazing in Ireland by the end

1:31:27.680 --> 1:31:30.120
<v Speaker 2>of nineteen nineteen, and we released it in nineteen November

1:31:30.200 --> 1:31:33.880
<v Speaker 2>ninety eight, was actually released in Ireland on our own label.

1:31:33.920 --> 1:31:36.680
<v Speaker 2>By the end of December nineteen ninety nine, it was

1:31:36.720 --> 1:31:40.880
<v Speaker 2>seven times platinum, so we'd also released it in the

1:31:41.000 --> 1:31:43.840
<v Speaker 2>UK at that stage, but on our own label. So

1:31:43.880 --> 1:31:46.160
<v Speaker 2>by the time Warners got involved at the beginning of

1:31:46.160 --> 1:31:48.759
<v Speaker 2>two thousand, I think we made this maybe sold twenty

1:31:48.800 --> 1:31:53.160
<v Speaker 2>five thousand copies in the UK. In America and ato

1:31:53.320 --> 1:31:56.519
<v Speaker 2>the record came out, we signed the contract at a

1:31:56.560 --> 1:31:59.599
<v Speaker 2>big concert in Ireland at the end of nineteen ninety

1:31:59.680 --> 1:32:02.799
<v Speaker 2>nine and the record came out in early two thousand,

1:32:03.080 --> 1:32:06.719
<v Speaker 2>so by that point we were almost i'd say, eighteen

1:32:06.800 --> 1:32:10.800
<v Speaker 2>months into working the record. But what was amazing was

1:32:10.840 --> 1:32:13.200
<v Speaker 2>it just the record had a magic charm. It just

1:32:13.400 --> 1:32:17.320
<v Speaker 2>connected connected and people would pass it around and every

1:32:17.400 --> 1:32:19.559
<v Speaker 2>show we could feel the vibes that we could feel

1:32:19.560 --> 1:32:21.840
<v Speaker 2>them in Ireland, and by this point we felt we've

1:32:21.880 --> 1:32:24.840
<v Speaker 2>got something. This record has a magic. We just need

1:32:24.840 --> 1:32:27.080
<v Speaker 2>to get out behind it and it's going to translate.

1:32:27.600 --> 1:32:28.760
<v Speaker 2>So that's what it felt.

1:32:28.840 --> 1:32:29.080
<v Speaker 1>It was.

1:32:29.400 --> 1:32:33.080
<v Speaker 2>The whole ascent to the top was absolutely incredible. It

1:32:33.120 --> 1:32:36.360
<v Speaker 2>was a thrilling, thrilling two years once we got to

1:32:36.439 --> 1:32:39.519
<v Speaker 2>the top. So by the sort of towards the end

1:32:39.640 --> 1:32:41.960
<v Speaker 2>of two thousand, when it had been a you know,

1:32:42.040 --> 1:32:44.960
<v Speaker 2>a hit in America, hit in the UK, hit in Australia,

1:32:45.040 --> 1:32:48.400
<v Speaker 2>New Zealand and everything became a bit of a blur.

1:32:49.560 --> 1:32:53.120
<v Speaker 2>But the climb up was absolutely incredible and the view

1:32:53.160 --> 1:32:57.200
<v Speaker 2>from the top was unforgettable. From that point it becomes

1:32:57.200 --> 1:32:59.599
<v Speaker 2>a bit of a blur. The shows get bigger, they're

1:32:59.600 --> 1:33:03.120
<v Speaker 2>always old out, everyone's your friend, you're having the best

1:33:03.120 --> 1:33:06.400
<v Speaker 2>time you've ever had. And there you go.

1:33:07.160 --> 1:33:11.160
<v Speaker 1>Why ATO as opposed to another label in America? Were

1:33:11.200 --> 1:33:13.519
<v Speaker 1>there even any other authors?

1:33:15.040 --> 1:33:17.960
<v Speaker 2>But we didn't even ask around. I mean it felt

1:33:18.040 --> 1:33:21.160
<v Speaker 2>like a perfect fit. We already believed in that you

1:33:21.200 --> 1:33:24.000
<v Speaker 2>didn't need a load of people or a load of money,

1:33:24.360 --> 1:33:26.760
<v Speaker 2>You just needed the right people working in the right way.

1:33:26.840 --> 1:33:30.920
<v Speaker 2>So Michael McDonald and Chris Tetseli that was ATO Records.

1:33:31.080 --> 1:33:36.000
<v Speaker 2>We had no one IHT Records was me and my manager.

1:33:36.600 --> 1:33:39.960
<v Speaker 2>So it was like, so what Obviously Dave Matthews was

1:33:40.000 --> 1:33:43.760
<v Speaker 2>a big influential character, a great supporter to have, and

1:33:43.800 --> 1:33:46.719
<v Speaker 2>not only that, he had fans and people's street teams,

1:33:46.960 --> 1:33:49.880
<v Speaker 2>people who'd leaflet for you, put the word out for you.

1:33:50.240 --> 1:33:52.680
<v Speaker 2>We had something concrete. Well, they basically said to me

1:33:52.800 --> 1:33:55.320
<v Speaker 2>was we'll work your airstaff. And they were good to that.

1:33:55.360 --> 1:34:00.639
<v Speaker 2>They fucking crucified me. I did six tours on record,

1:34:00.760 --> 1:34:03.160
<v Speaker 2>so you know, they said, we'll send you out and

1:34:03.240 --> 1:34:05.040
<v Speaker 2>will they do it the old way? They were old school,

1:34:05.040 --> 1:34:08.080
<v Speaker 2>but I like the lack of bullshit, so yeah, that's

1:34:08.080 --> 1:34:11.200
<v Speaker 2>the way it's going to be. So we signed up

1:34:11.200 --> 1:34:13.160
<v Speaker 2>for that. Years of suffering.

1:34:14.680 --> 1:34:18.320
<v Speaker 1>So at this point, twenty five years later, are you sick

1:34:18.360 --> 1:34:19.200
<v Speaker 1>of White Ladder.

1:34:22.120 --> 1:34:25.080
<v Speaker 2>No, but there's certainly been points where I have been No.

1:34:25.200 --> 1:34:28.240
<v Speaker 2>I think it's great. I mean playing the anniversary tour

1:34:28.360 --> 1:34:31.719
<v Speaker 2>was an unexpected thrill. I think, coming as it did

1:34:31.760 --> 1:34:35.280
<v Speaker 2>after the COVID shut down, it gave it this kind

1:34:35.280 --> 1:34:38.240
<v Speaker 2>of crazy energy. It was a record that really connected

1:34:38.280 --> 1:34:42.120
<v Speaker 2>with people. People love that record. They feel so strong.

1:34:42.200 --> 1:34:44.960
<v Speaker 2>I love it. I love it too, but I wanted

1:34:45.000 --> 1:34:47.639
<v Speaker 2>to distance myself from it when it was all I

1:34:47.680 --> 1:34:51.160
<v Speaker 2>was was the White Ladder guy, because it becomes suffocating.

1:34:51.360 --> 1:34:53.120
<v Speaker 2>I'm not I'm an artist. If you listen to my

1:34:53.200 --> 1:34:55.479
<v Speaker 2>new record, it's as good as White Ladder. I'm not

1:34:55.520 --> 1:34:58.680
<v Speaker 2>saying it's as perfect as a commercial form, or that

1:34:58.760 --> 1:35:00.560
<v Speaker 2>it's ever going to get the breaks got That was

1:35:00.600 --> 1:35:05.000
<v Speaker 2>the right record at the right time, But it's the

1:35:05.080 --> 1:35:09.600
<v Speaker 2>dip in quality hasn't happened. I'm still going. I'm still pushing, experimenting,

1:35:10.000 --> 1:35:14.320
<v Speaker 2>reaching out, branching out. So I'm looking for new ground,

1:35:14.439 --> 1:35:18.360
<v Speaker 2>new ways of saying things, freshening things up. So so

1:35:19.120 --> 1:35:21.560
<v Speaker 2>it's it's It's a record I'm hugely proud of. I

1:35:21.600 --> 1:35:24.120
<v Speaker 2>think it's great. I love its economy of means. We

1:35:24.160 --> 1:35:27.639
<v Speaker 2>didn't have any stuff. So we just it's just very

1:35:27.720 --> 1:35:31.760
<v Speaker 2>simple really. But what we did, we did well. So

1:35:32.120 --> 1:35:34.120
<v Speaker 2>you know, if we bring the claps in and please

1:35:34.160 --> 1:35:38.559
<v Speaker 2>forgive me. You know, I remember the Chemical brother saying

1:35:38.600 --> 1:35:42.360
<v Speaker 2>to me, yeah, it's amazing you kept the claps back

1:35:42.439 --> 1:35:44.360
<v Speaker 2>right to the end. I'm like, yeah, because we haven't

1:35:44.400 --> 1:35:46.679
<v Speaker 2>got it an we haven't gotten it enough to bring

1:35:46.720 --> 1:35:50.599
<v Speaker 2>in put the claps in. It's like so it was.

1:35:50.720 --> 1:35:53.840
<v Speaker 2>It was an exercise in minimalism, which to a certain

1:35:53.840 --> 1:35:56.479
<v Speaker 2>extent is still the way that I think about making music.

1:35:56.920 --> 1:35:59.120
<v Speaker 2>If the vocal or the main rhythm instrument and the

1:35:59.200 --> 1:36:02.360
<v Speaker 2>rhythm or if that can uphold the song for a

1:36:02.360 --> 1:36:04.240
<v Speaker 2>long period of time, then you can bring other things

1:36:04.240 --> 1:36:05.400
<v Speaker 2>in and really make an effect.

1:36:06.840 --> 1:36:12.400
<v Speaker 1>Okay, forgetting the anniversary tour, to what degree are you

1:36:12.560 --> 1:36:16.400
<v Speaker 1>feeling an obligation to play songs from White Ladder on

1:36:16.479 --> 1:36:16.880
<v Speaker 1>a tour?

1:36:19.439 --> 1:36:23.759
<v Speaker 2>Well, I mean the way I have subdivided my touring

1:36:23.920 --> 1:36:27.160
<v Speaker 2>now is that like on this tour, I've told people

1:36:27.160 --> 1:36:29.320
<v Speaker 2>you can expect to hear the songs you love to hear.

1:36:30.479 --> 1:36:32.720
<v Speaker 2>They'll be mixed in with new songs, and not just

1:36:32.760 --> 1:36:35.439
<v Speaker 2>songs from White Ladder, but songs from all those old albums.

1:36:36.000 --> 1:36:38.120
<v Speaker 2>This is going to be a really, really deep dive,

1:36:38.479 --> 1:36:41.519
<v Speaker 2>and you also hear a few unexpected cover versions. It's

1:36:41.560 --> 1:36:45.439
<v Speaker 2>going to be a highly energized tapestry of stuff. But

1:36:45.479 --> 1:36:49.240
<v Speaker 2>you'll definitely hear sail Away Babylon, Please Forgive Me, etc.

1:36:50.479 --> 1:36:52.599
<v Speaker 2>The one I Love You Know, Blah blah blah. You'll

1:36:52.600 --> 1:36:55.880
<v Speaker 2>hear these songs. I'm not pretending. But on other when

1:36:55.920 --> 1:36:58.679
<v Speaker 2>I toured Skeleg, I said to the audience, you're only

1:36:58.720 --> 1:37:01.120
<v Speaker 2>gonna hear Skeleg. If you buy tickets for this concert,

1:37:01.560 --> 1:37:05.240
<v Speaker 2>you're not going to hear anything except this. And when

1:37:05.240 --> 1:37:07.640
<v Speaker 2>I did the Century Ends tour, the tour of my

1:37:07.680 --> 1:37:12.000
<v Speaker 2>first album first two albums earlier last year, I said

1:37:12.040 --> 1:37:13.600
<v Speaker 2>the same thing, that I'm just going to play the

1:37:14.000 --> 1:37:17.040
<v Speaker 2>two first albums and that's all I'm playing. And it's very,

1:37:17.120 --> 1:37:21.719
<v Speaker 2>very liberating, and I enjoyed them absolutely enormously those tours

1:37:21.720 --> 1:37:24.240
<v Speaker 2>because I was not obliged to play anything, and I

1:37:24.240 --> 1:37:28.479
<v Speaker 2>think it's a much more simple way of dividing Otherwise. Basically,

1:37:28.479 --> 1:37:31.559
<v Speaker 2>every tour is a negotiation with the audience to get

1:37:31.600 --> 1:37:34.680
<v Speaker 2>them to listen to something they're not maybe as familiar with,

1:37:35.680 --> 1:37:39.120
<v Speaker 2>and that's if you cut your cloth too much in

1:37:39.160 --> 1:37:42.320
<v Speaker 2>their favor. Excuse me, cut the cloth too much in

1:37:42.360 --> 1:37:46.240
<v Speaker 2>their favor. You'll end up resenting them and not wanting

1:37:46.280 --> 1:37:47.880
<v Speaker 2>to do it. I think I'd just be bored if

1:37:47.920 --> 1:37:49.519
<v Speaker 2>I just felt I had to play those songs all

1:37:49.560 --> 1:37:53.320
<v Speaker 2>the time. So for me, it's it's it's it's a

1:37:53.360 --> 1:37:57.520
<v Speaker 2>constant negotiation. But I love those songs, so in this context,

1:37:57.560 --> 1:37:59.240
<v Speaker 2>I'm going to enjoy playing them. They're going to be

1:37:59.240 --> 1:38:00.599
<v Speaker 2>part of a much beer a picture.

1:38:01.240 --> 1:38:03.800
<v Speaker 1>Okay, when you did Skellig and you did the first

1:38:03.840 --> 1:38:08.240
<v Speaker 1>two albums live, Todd Rungren has gone out many iterations

1:38:08.280 --> 1:38:10.680
<v Speaker 1>and he's done the same things and I'm gonna play X.

1:38:11.120 --> 1:38:14.439
<v Speaker 1>But there's still people who come thinking they're gonna hear

1:38:14.560 --> 1:38:18.160
<v Speaker 1>the so called hits. When you said, because you know,

1:38:18.160 --> 1:38:19.400
<v Speaker 1>we live in a world it's hard to get the

1:38:19.439 --> 1:38:21.960
<v Speaker 1>message out and people are fit when you said I'm

1:38:22.000 --> 1:38:25.200
<v Speaker 1>only going to do this stuff, did you find that

1:38:25.200 --> 1:38:27.080
<v Speaker 1>that was the audience you got or do you still

1:38:27.080 --> 1:38:29.160
<v Speaker 1>get people saying I want to hear White Ladder.

1:38:33.680 --> 1:38:36.960
<v Speaker 2>There was a few heckles. What you're really dealing with

1:38:37.000 --> 1:38:41.960
<v Speaker 2>there is secondary ticketing, so people reselling their tickets and

1:38:42.439 --> 1:38:45.400
<v Speaker 2>they'll just say David Gray tickets tonight, you know, and

1:38:45.800 --> 1:38:47.720
<v Speaker 2>that they won't have all the info in it, that

1:38:47.840 --> 1:38:50.960
<v Speaker 2>of what it is, and that's what happens. None of

1:38:51.000 --> 1:38:55.320
<v Speaker 2>the fans who bought tickets will be in any doubt

1:38:55.360 --> 1:38:57.320
<v Speaker 2>as to what's about to happen. But you get the

1:38:57.360 --> 1:38:59.920
<v Speaker 2>odd person who's out with their girlfriend or you know,

1:39:00.000 --> 1:39:02.280
<v Speaker 2>their mates, and they say, oh, let's go and see

1:39:02.320 --> 1:39:04.000
<v Speaker 2>Davi Grant and then they want to hear Babylon. It's

1:39:04.000 --> 1:39:07.720
<v Speaker 2>like you know with Babylon, So that happens every now

1:39:07.720 --> 1:39:10.000
<v Speaker 2>and again. Yeah, you can't stamp that, but it actually

1:39:10.000 --> 1:39:12.240
<v Speaker 2>worked for the rest of the time. The skellic thing

1:39:12.320 --> 1:39:15.400
<v Speaker 2>that that happened didn't happen at all. I mean people

1:39:15.400 --> 1:39:18.960
<v Speaker 2>were completely in on it. I didn't get any heckles.

1:39:19.840 --> 1:39:24.680
<v Speaker 1>Okay, you have this huge success with White Ladder, you

1:39:24.840 --> 1:39:28.120
<v Speaker 1>go to pick another record. To what degree do you

1:39:28.240 --> 1:39:31.400
<v Speaker 1>feel the pressure and to what degree do you say

1:39:31.520 --> 1:39:35.519
<v Speaker 1>I should replicate the previous formula, make it in my

1:39:35.640 --> 1:39:38.320
<v Speaker 1>bedroom of this stripe, although now I have all the

1:39:38.400 --> 1:39:41.280
<v Speaker 1>money to do it the old way. What was it like.

1:39:43.160 --> 1:39:45.960
<v Speaker 2>Or just to return to the theme of self consciousness,

1:39:46.520 --> 1:39:50.200
<v Speaker 2>we'd gone from very innocently making something for nothing, having

1:39:50.240 --> 1:39:54.000
<v Speaker 2>no idea that it was going to succeed whatsoever. That

1:39:54.040 --> 1:39:56.559
<v Speaker 2>would have been a preposterous thought to suddenly being in

1:39:56.560 --> 1:40:00.360
<v Speaker 2>the reverse. You know, we were underdogs. We became fain it,

1:40:00.960 --> 1:40:03.040
<v Speaker 2>and we had a huge budget and a load of

1:40:03.040 --> 1:40:06.000
<v Speaker 2>people chomping at the bit to sell millions of these things.

1:40:06.800 --> 1:40:09.120
<v Speaker 2>Not only that, I you know, we just had a

1:40:09.240 --> 1:40:11.640
<v Speaker 2>child and that was a kind of traumatic experience that

1:40:11.680 --> 1:40:15.360
<v Speaker 2>went horribly wrong. My father had just died, So I

1:40:15.439 --> 1:40:17.720
<v Speaker 2>came back from tour. I had a dead father and

1:40:17.720 --> 1:40:21.360
<v Speaker 2>a new baby and wife who'd been very ill, and

1:40:21.600 --> 1:40:24.280
<v Speaker 2>that was my reality. I was also suddenly famous. I

1:40:24.320 --> 1:40:26.519
<v Speaker 2>had money starting to come into my whole life felt

1:40:26.600 --> 1:40:34.240
<v Speaker 2>like it belonged to somebody else. So it was. It was.

1:40:34.400 --> 1:40:38.479
<v Speaker 2>It was tricky, you know, to find a way to

1:40:38.560 --> 1:40:41.360
<v Speaker 2>connect to the music without thinking about it too much.

1:40:41.720 --> 1:40:46.120
<v Speaker 2>So certainly for at least one record a new day

1:40:46.160 --> 1:40:50.920
<v Speaker 2>at midnight, I think it was impossible to feel normal

1:40:50.960 --> 1:40:54.640
<v Speaker 2>about anything or find a comfortable way of doing things.

1:40:54.680 --> 1:40:58.640
<v Speaker 2>Everything was odd. So and I'm not the kind of

1:40:58.640 --> 1:41:00.880
<v Speaker 2>guy who like, you know, hey, yeah, check out my

1:41:00.920 --> 1:41:05.360
<v Speaker 2>new ferrari and my girlfriend. You know, I'm drinking the

1:41:05.400 --> 1:41:08.960
<v Speaker 2>best tequila man can buy you know, whatever, you know,

1:41:09.040 --> 1:41:11.040
<v Speaker 2>Let's have fun, Let's make a record, Let's go to

1:41:11.040 --> 1:41:14.960
<v Speaker 2>the Bahamas. I'm not that person. I take it all

1:41:15.080 --> 1:41:19.680
<v Speaker 2>very seriously and too seriously sometimes maybe so I was

1:41:19.720 --> 1:41:22.400
<v Speaker 2>wearing it and trying to wear it in a way. Anyway.

1:41:22.439 --> 1:41:26.799
<v Speaker 2>It was surrendous. I didn't enjoy that period. I was suffering.

1:41:27.320 --> 1:41:29.160
<v Speaker 2>It was a bit like being John Malkovich. I was

1:41:29.160 --> 1:41:33.519
<v Speaker 2>sort of looking at someone else's eyes, so but trying

1:41:33.560 --> 1:41:35.400
<v Speaker 2>my best to connect and do the things. And there

1:41:35.479 --> 1:41:36.760
<v Speaker 2>was a lot of pain in there, and there's a

1:41:36.800 --> 1:41:39.479
<v Speaker 2>lot of weirdness because I just suddenly was in this

1:41:39.520 --> 1:41:42.400
<v Speaker 2>other reality. But I think by the time of life

1:41:42.400 --> 1:41:45.559
<v Speaker 2>in slow Motion the next record, I took some time

1:41:45.880 --> 1:41:49.920
<v Speaker 2>to rEFInd my way into music and that rescued me.

1:41:50.680 --> 1:41:54.479
<v Speaker 2>So we made a huge amount of music. I bought

1:41:54.520 --> 1:41:57.200
<v Speaker 2>a studio and we just basically embedded ourselves there. The

1:41:57.240 --> 1:41:59.519
<v Speaker 2>band are on retainers at this point, and we just

1:41:59.600 --> 1:42:04.120
<v Speaker 2>recorded and recorded and recorded and had a way of

1:42:04.160 --> 1:42:06.760
<v Speaker 2>a time just coming up with things and using a

1:42:06.760 --> 1:42:11.479
<v Speaker 2>big studio. So that's basically, in a nutshell, how it

1:42:11.600 --> 1:42:14.520
<v Speaker 2>sort of evolved from that white ladder moment of innocence

1:42:15.000 --> 1:42:20.680
<v Speaker 2>through the sort of completely debilitating fame and oddness and

1:42:20.720 --> 1:42:24.760
<v Speaker 2>self consciousness to refinding my way back to music and

1:42:24.800 --> 1:42:28.120
<v Speaker 2>honesty and naturalness. It took a few years, to say

1:42:28.120 --> 1:42:29.639
<v Speaker 2>the least, and I think it took a lot longer

1:42:29.640 --> 1:42:31.040
<v Speaker 2>than that for me to come to terms with what

1:42:31.120 --> 1:42:31.639
<v Speaker 2>had happened.

1:42:33.080 --> 1:42:35.599
<v Speaker 1>If I said to you, I want you to write

1:42:35.600 --> 1:42:39.640
<v Speaker 1>a hit song, would you say, I don't know what

1:42:39.680 --> 1:42:42.200
<v Speaker 1>a hit song is. I don't want to write a

1:42:42.280 --> 1:42:45.360
<v Speaker 1>hit song. I could write what I think is a hit,

1:42:45.840 --> 1:42:48.240
<v Speaker 1>but I'm not sure. Or do you just say I

1:42:48.360 --> 1:42:51.240
<v Speaker 1>just do what I do? Who the hell knows?

1:42:51.960 --> 1:42:57.880
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I don't genuinely don't really know what a hit

1:42:57.960 --> 1:42:59.960
<v Speaker 2>song is, and I don't even know what a hit

1:43:00.080 --> 1:43:04.400
<v Speaker 2>looks like anymore from my point of view. So you know,

1:43:04.479 --> 1:43:08.680
<v Speaker 2>I've got probably the most commercial song I've written in

1:43:08.760 --> 1:43:11.400
<v Speaker 2>many years, in plus and minus on the new record,

1:43:11.600 --> 1:43:14.240
<v Speaker 2>which has received a certain amount of airplay over here.

1:43:14.280 --> 1:43:17.439
<v Speaker 2>I have no idea how it's doing in America, but

1:43:18.200 --> 1:43:20.280
<v Speaker 2>that's as close as I'm going to get to a single.

1:43:21.040 --> 1:43:23.920
<v Speaker 2>I don't go seeking them. But if something comes along

1:43:23.960 --> 1:43:27.479
<v Speaker 2>and I think, oh this, you know, this is like

1:43:27.520 --> 1:43:30.200
<v Speaker 2>a three minute pop song, It's not that I throw

1:43:30.240 --> 1:43:34.160
<v Speaker 2>it out. I won't neglect it. I'll try and make

1:43:34.200 --> 1:43:39.280
<v Speaker 2>it work. I love three minute pop songs, so you know,

1:43:39.400 --> 1:43:42.400
<v Speaker 2>the point is having some depth to everything. It's just

1:43:42.880 --> 1:43:49.120
<v Speaker 2>it's not enough just to satisfy. I don't know. Commercial

1:43:49.920 --> 1:43:54.200
<v Speaker 2>lusts for success and numbers. That's not what motivates me.

1:43:54.640 --> 1:43:57.400
<v Speaker 2>But when we were making White Ladder, I was also

1:43:57.439 --> 1:44:00.240
<v Speaker 2>involved in a movie called This Year's Love and the

1:44:00.320 --> 1:44:04.400
<v Speaker 2>director was a big fan, and he said, Dave, you know,

1:44:05.080 --> 1:44:08.120
<v Speaker 2>i'd like you to write the title song of the film.

1:44:09.200 --> 1:44:11.639
<v Speaker 2>And I said, but that's not really what I do.

1:44:11.840 --> 1:44:14.919
<v Speaker 2>I mean, I said, if I just write what occurs

1:44:15.000 --> 1:44:18.479
<v Speaker 2>to me, I don't look for a project or like.

1:44:20.320 --> 1:44:22.160
<v Speaker 2>But then I went away and I thought, Jesus, I'm

1:44:22.200 --> 1:44:25.679
<v Speaker 2>in the complete commercial wilderness. This is a guy who's

1:44:25.680 --> 1:44:27.680
<v Speaker 2>making a movie. He's a big fan. He's asked me

1:44:27.720 --> 1:44:30.280
<v Speaker 2>to write, so why don't I at least try? And

1:44:30.360 --> 1:44:33.000
<v Speaker 2>I went home and I literally wrote This Year's Love

1:44:33.080 --> 1:44:35.200
<v Speaker 2>that afternoon, and I sent him a cassette of it

1:44:35.280 --> 1:44:37.280
<v Speaker 2>and said, this is what I've written. What do you think?

1:44:37.600 --> 1:44:40.200
<v Speaker 2>He said, I love it. In the end, the movie

1:44:40.280 --> 1:44:42.840
<v Speaker 2>came out. V two bought the movie rights and the

1:44:42.880 --> 1:44:45.120
<v Speaker 2>song was removed from the movie. It was only played

1:44:45.120 --> 1:44:47.280
<v Speaker 2>on a transistor radio in the back of a scene.

1:44:47.640 --> 1:44:51.639
<v Speaker 2>But that's another story. But you know, and that's ended

1:44:51.720 --> 1:44:56.320
<v Speaker 2>up being my most streamed song, So it's it's I

1:44:56.360 --> 1:45:00.880
<v Speaker 2>don't necessarily fear doing something with a commercial sort of

1:45:00.960 --> 1:45:05.040
<v Speaker 2>reason behind it. If only life was so predictable that

1:45:05.080 --> 1:45:07.920
<v Speaker 2>there was sort of some kind of integrity ometer that

1:45:07.960 --> 1:45:10.680
<v Speaker 2>you could apply to things. I don't believe in that

1:45:10.760 --> 1:45:14.680
<v Speaker 2>fantasy stuff. I think that life's generally are compromise and

1:45:14.760 --> 1:45:16.720
<v Speaker 2>lots of different things. But I think it's more the

1:45:16.720 --> 1:45:20.160
<v Speaker 2>way that you make something and what you give to it,

1:45:20.240 --> 1:45:23.839
<v Speaker 2>how you bring this brushstrokes to life that really matters.

1:45:23.920 --> 1:45:25.960
<v Speaker 2>So yes, if you asked me to write a song,

1:45:26.000 --> 1:45:27.600
<v Speaker 2>it'd have to depend who you were and what the

1:45:27.640 --> 1:45:31.920
<v Speaker 2>context was. I'd probably ignore you, but it's possible I

1:45:31.960 --> 1:45:33.080
<v Speaker 2>would take you seriously.

1:45:34.160 --> 1:45:37.960
<v Speaker 1>At this point in time, you have the best viewpoint.

1:45:38.479 --> 1:45:41.600
<v Speaker 1>You know, Where can you tour? Where are you successful?

1:45:41.640 --> 1:45:45.200
<v Speaker 1>Obviously Ireland is a hotbed to what do we the UK,

1:45:45.960 --> 1:45:51.120
<v Speaker 1>the US, the continent, anywhere else where are your fans?

1:45:52.000 --> 1:45:55.599
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they're all over the place, and obviously mainly English

1:45:55.640 --> 1:46:03.960
<v Speaker 2>speaking countries, Ireland, UK, Canada, America, North America, you know, Australia,

1:46:04.080 --> 1:46:08.360
<v Speaker 2>New Zealand, South Africa. But you know, there were certain

1:46:08.400 --> 1:46:10.640
<v Speaker 2>points where I did have fans. I can see on

1:46:10.680 --> 1:46:13.760
<v Speaker 2>the streaming numbers when streaming started that, Wow, there's a

1:46:13.800 --> 1:46:17.000
<v Speaker 2>lot of people listening in Santiago, Chile, and there's quite

1:46:17.000 --> 1:46:19.040
<v Speaker 2>a lot of people listening in Mexico City, and there's

1:46:19.040 --> 1:46:21.519
<v Speaker 2>people listening here and there and everywhere. And I've obviously

1:46:21.600 --> 1:46:24.360
<v Speaker 2>got fans in Germany. The problem is when you engineer

1:46:24.439 --> 1:46:26.760
<v Speaker 2>a tour, you're looking at your best markets and do

1:46:26.800 --> 1:46:29.240
<v Speaker 2>the best show for those markets. And then if you

1:46:29.320 --> 1:46:31.760
<v Speaker 2>basically go and tour around Southern Europe, as much as

1:46:31.760 --> 1:46:33.599
<v Speaker 2>it will be beautiful and the food will be great,

1:46:34.760 --> 1:46:36.720
<v Speaker 2>you know, you canie a shitload of money because you're

1:46:36.760 --> 1:46:39.400
<v Speaker 2>not selling enough tickets there to sustain the crew, the

1:46:39.439 --> 1:46:41.720
<v Speaker 2>band and all the stuff you've got with you. So

1:46:42.280 --> 1:46:44.400
<v Speaker 2>it's like you just need to cut your class accordingly.

1:46:44.560 --> 1:46:46.639
<v Speaker 2>So I think if I do another acoustic tour, I'm

1:46:46.640 --> 1:46:48.200
<v Speaker 2>going to try and get to some of the places

1:46:48.240 --> 1:46:52.240
<v Speaker 2>I've never been, you know, like South America and Central

1:46:52.280 --> 1:46:55.240
<v Speaker 2>America and the places I haven't been for a long time,

1:46:55.320 --> 1:46:59.880
<v Speaker 2>like the southern Europe, Italy, Spain, et cetera. Paris, places

1:46:59.880 --> 1:47:02.200
<v Speaker 2>like that will playing smaller venues and it won't be

1:47:02.240 --> 1:47:05.840
<v Speaker 2>such a big deal. So you know, that's that's what

1:47:05.880 --> 1:47:09.120
<v Speaker 2>my fan base looks like. It's all over the world,

1:47:09.160 --> 1:47:11.679
<v Speaker 2>but it's mainly in those English speaking countries.

1:47:12.400 --> 1:47:16.120
<v Speaker 1>Okay, you talk about playing some covers on this tour.

1:47:16.280 --> 1:47:18.599
<v Speaker 1>You know you have a White Ladder live album where

1:47:18.600 --> 1:47:26.599
<v Speaker 1>you cover some Bowie songs Tainted Love. You know, how

1:47:26.600 --> 1:47:29.120
<v Speaker 1>did you choose those and what kind of covers might

1:47:29.200 --> 1:47:30.080
<v Speaker 1>someone expect.

1:47:31.920 --> 1:47:33.720
<v Speaker 2>I wouldn't want to talk about it because it's going

1:47:33.800 --> 1:47:37.360
<v Speaker 2>to be a surprise so in terms of what we're

1:47:37.360 --> 1:47:40.639
<v Speaker 2>going to do next, but it was a huge pleasure

1:47:40.720 --> 1:47:45.479
<v Speaker 2>to play the well. Obviously, say Hello Wave Goodbye is

1:47:45.200 --> 1:47:49.720
<v Speaker 2>a soft cell song. So on the White Ladder tour,

1:47:49.800 --> 1:47:51.920
<v Speaker 2>I got Mark Alman to come out and sing with me,

1:47:52.560 --> 1:47:56.800
<v Speaker 2>and we surprised him by having prepared a version of

1:47:56.880 --> 1:47:59.559
<v Speaker 2>Tainted Love. I think it was absolutely horrified, to be honest,

1:48:01.240 --> 1:48:04.600
<v Speaker 2>but he's a good sport and he stepped up and

1:48:04.640 --> 1:48:08.000
<v Speaker 2>he did it and the crowd went absolutely crazy. So

1:48:09.240 --> 1:48:12.120
<v Speaker 2>we kind of fired off the back of that. Say

1:48:12.120 --> 1:48:14.439
<v Speaker 2>Hello Wave Goodbye would end the White Ladder set, we'd

1:48:14.439 --> 1:48:17.280
<v Speaker 2>come back out and do Tainted Love, another Soft Cell

1:48:17.439 --> 1:48:20.760
<v Speaker 2>song or famous made famous by soft Cell. It's not

1:48:20.800 --> 1:48:23.960
<v Speaker 2>written by them, of course. And then the Bowie story

1:48:24.120 --> 1:48:26.160
<v Speaker 2>was part of the history of White Ladder and the

1:48:26.280 --> 1:48:29.040
<v Speaker 2>very this big long story about my dad being sick

1:48:29.080 --> 1:48:31.760
<v Speaker 2>and us playing at Glastonbury and meeting Bowie, and I

1:48:31.920 --> 1:48:34.040
<v Speaker 2>tell the story, and then we play life on Mars

1:48:34.040 --> 1:48:37.320
<v Speaker 2>into Oh you pretty things. I mean, those songs were amazing.

1:48:37.360 --> 1:48:41.360
<v Speaker 2>Just getting to play those songs was so exciting. People

1:48:41.400 --> 1:48:44.360
<v Speaker 2>were just blown away by that, you know, to hear

1:48:44.400 --> 1:48:48.479
<v Speaker 2>someone really do a good version of that. So yeah,

1:48:48.560 --> 1:48:51.799
<v Speaker 2>that's in terms of if I was going to record

1:48:51.880 --> 1:48:53.840
<v Speaker 2>a cover and use it on a record, that would

1:48:53.840 --> 1:48:57.680
<v Speaker 2>be a much more delicate matter. But live, I'm just

1:48:57.720 --> 1:48:59.360
<v Speaker 2>what I want to do on this tour is use

1:48:59.439 --> 1:49:04.280
<v Speaker 2>covers to bring the energy up without having to play

1:49:04.320 --> 1:49:08.320
<v Speaker 2>a Babylon card or a big song card, so to

1:49:08.479 --> 1:49:14.280
<v Speaker 2>unexpectedly surprise people and just suddenly disarm them. So that

1:49:14.400 --> 1:49:16.920
<v Speaker 2>I'm buying space really for the intimacy I need for

1:49:17.000 --> 1:49:19.880
<v Speaker 2>some of the more low key stuff. So I'm going

1:49:19.960 --> 1:49:25.080
<v Speaker 2>to use short bursts of very famous songs to energize

1:49:25.120 --> 1:49:27.840
<v Speaker 2>people and hopefully thought provoked them a little bit.

1:49:27.880 --> 1:49:31.240
<v Speaker 1>Now you mentioned the Chemical Brothers, you mentioned Mark Alman.

1:49:31.880 --> 1:49:35.720
<v Speaker 1>Are you someone who knows everybody in the rock and

1:49:35.800 --> 1:49:39.280
<v Speaker 1>roll high school or use somebody as more isolated.

1:49:41.040 --> 1:49:45.839
<v Speaker 2>Totally isolated? Yeah, totally said. I don't know anyone.

1:49:45.840 --> 1:49:46.160
<v Speaker 1>I don't.

1:49:46.560 --> 1:49:49.559
<v Speaker 2>The celebrity village was a mystery to me. I couldn't

1:49:49.600 --> 1:49:52.479
<v Speaker 2>really make head nor tail of what the ground rules

1:49:52.520 --> 1:49:55.400
<v Speaker 2>were supposed to be. So whatever it is the gift

1:49:55.439 --> 1:49:58.519
<v Speaker 2>of getting to, you know, make making people feel at ease,

1:50:00.200 --> 1:50:02.920
<v Speaker 2>I don't seem to have it in that capacity. So

1:50:03.040 --> 1:50:07.400
<v Speaker 2>my friendship group is basically the people I make music with,

1:50:08.439 --> 1:50:11.240
<v Speaker 2>put music out with, and the people I knew before

1:50:11.280 --> 1:50:14.960
<v Speaker 2>I became famous. It's my wife's friends who are very

1:50:14.960 --> 1:50:18.240
<v Speaker 2>dear friends of mine. That's those are the people I see.

1:50:18.320 --> 1:50:21.640
<v Speaker 2>I don't have famous friends, per se. I know a

1:50:21.640 --> 1:50:24.559
<v Speaker 2>few people, of course, you know, Jesus, there's a lot

1:50:24.600 --> 1:50:27.960
<v Speaker 2>of nice people out there that I've met and sort

1:50:27.960 --> 1:50:31.200
<v Speaker 2>of become friendly with, But that's not my gig. Now

1:50:31.240 --> 1:50:34.920
<v Speaker 2>I'm much more isolated, I think, unhealthily so. In some

1:50:34.960 --> 1:50:39.240
<v Speaker 2>ways I feel that that the artists need the community

1:50:39.280 --> 1:50:44.000
<v Speaker 2>of artists to support them and with whatever it is.

1:50:44.000 --> 1:50:46.439
<v Speaker 2>I don't know why I've evolved a certain ways. It's

1:50:46.479 --> 1:50:49.719
<v Speaker 2>complicated without getting to some kind of deep Freudian shit.

1:50:50.720 --> 1:50:53.360
<v Speaker 2>I think that that's just the way I am.

1:50:53.640 --> 1:50:56.280
<v Speaker 1>And you know there's that blind in the Joe Walls song.

1:50:56.400 --> 1:51:00.880
<v Speaker 1>You know, everybody's so different and I haven't changed. To

1:51:01.040 --> 1:51:04.960
<v Speaker 1>what degree do people treat you differently now that you're

1:51:05.080 --> 1:51:09.679
<v Speaker 1>famous or you know, your recognizable character? To what degree

1:51:09.720 --> 1:51:10.600
<v Speaker 1>is that inhibiting?

1:51:13.760 --> 1:51:16.160
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? I think it's died down to such an extent

1:51:16.200 --> 1:51:19.240
<v Speaker 2>that it's not really a big deal. Two things have happened.

1:51:19.640 --> 1:51:22.519
<v Speaker 2>I mean, you know, I've got used to it. And

1:51:22.600 --> 1:51:25.320
<v Speaker 2>also people don't give a shit about me anymore, you know,

1:51:25.479 --> 1:51:29.720
<v Speaker 2>So it's it's might I live a completely pretty normal life.

1:51:29.800 --> 1:51:32.000
<v Speaker 2>I don't I go out, I wander around. I can

1:51:32.000 --> 1:51:34.400
<v Speaker 2>go to a restaurant without everyone standing and looking at me.

1:51:34.960 --> 1:51:37.520
<v Speaker 2>You know. I was in a I know Ricky Gervais

1:51:37.520 --> 1:51:40.639
<v Speaker 2>from he's a fellow resident in Hampstead where I used

1:51:40.680 --> 1:51:42.880
<v Speaker 2>to live. I used to see him out and about,

1:51:42.920 --> 1:51:45.000
<v Speaker 2>and of course he's always got the shades on. And

1:51:45.120 --> 1:51:47.560
<v Speaker 2>I remember being in the pub and we were just

1:51:47.600 --> 1:51:50.280
<v Speaker 2>sitting there as a family having lunch and he came

1:51:50.320 --> 1:51:53.040
<v Speaker 2>in with his wife. It was obviously an impromptu thing.

1:51:53.520 --> 1:51:56.280
<v Speaker 2>Place was packed, and they kind of went, oh my god,

1:51:56.320 --> 1:51:58.320
<v Speaker 2>we better sort Ricky at, We better sort Ricky at.

1:51:58.720 --> 1:52:00.960
<v Speaker 2>And they gave him this. It was like right in

1:52:01.000 --> 1:52:04.479
<v Speaker 2>the middle, and everyone was just looking at him, and

1:52:05.320 --> 1:52:07.320
<v Speaker 2>I just felt so uncomfortable for him, and he just

1:52:07.360 --> 1:52:09.280
<v Speaker 2>got up and left. After a certain amount of time,

1:52:09.560 --> 1:52:12.040
<v Speaker 2>they started placing an order and he went and they

1:52:12.080 --> 1:52:14.200
<v Speaker 2>just went. And I thought, yeah, my god, you know,

1:52:14.240 --> 1:52:17.559
<v Speaker 2>what's it like being whatever you think of these people,

1:52:17.640 --> 1:52:20.599
<v Speaker 2>Harry and Megan or Brad Pitt or something. You walk

1:52:20.600 --> 1:52:23.880
<v Speaker 2>into a room and everybody it's like it's all about you. Jesus.

1:52:24.320 --> 1:52:28.000
<v Speaker 2>Sounds horrendous. So yeah, I don't have to deal with

1:52:28.040 --> 1:52:30.320
<v Speaker 2>any of that stuff. I don't got no high grade

1:52:30.360 --> 1:52:32.880
<v Speaker 2>sort of scrutiny going on. Of course, I live a

1:52:32.880 --> 1:52:35.799
<v Speaker 2>life that's in the public eye. Occasionally get stupid stories

1:52:35.840 --> 1:52:39.080
<v Speaker 2>in the press or whatever. It's the usual carry on,

1:52:39.280 --> 1:52:42.559
<v Speaker 2>but it's not something that inhibits my life. I do

1:52:42.720 --> 1:52:44.240
<v Speaker 2>exactly what I want to go to the beach when

1:52:44.240 --> 1:52:46.280
<v Speaker 2>I'm up in Norfolk, I go for swear, I do

1:52:46.360 --> 1:52:48.160
<v Speaker 2>whatever I want to go to the pub for a pint.

1:52:48.479 --> 1:52:49.960
<v Speaker 2>I don't give a shit. I just do what I

1:52:50.000 --> 1:52:52.639
<v Speaker 2>want to do. I go to you know, it doesn't

1:52:52.680 --> 1:52:55.040
<v Speaker 2>there's there's nothing happening. I don't see what's happening behind me.

1:52:55.080 --> 1:52:56.720
<v Speaker 2>I might be walking down the high street and they go, oh,

1:52:56.720 --> 1:52:59.920
<v Speaker 2>I was David gra Occasionally someone will bellow, some drunk

1:53:00.040 --> 1:53:03.200
<v Speaker 2>will bellow out to me, but you know, it's pretty

1:53:03.200 --> 1:53:03.679
<v Speaker 2>low key.

1:53:03.720 --> 1:53:03.880
<v Speaker 1>Now.

1:53:04.200 --> 1:53:06.479
<v Speaker 2>I'm not very I'm not really very famous anymore.

1:53:06.520 --> 1:53:09.280
<v Speaker 1>Well, that may be your perspective that a lot of

1:53:09.360 --> 1:53:12.080
<v Speaker 1>us feel differently. In any event, David, I want to

1:53:12.120 --> 1:53:14.240
<v Speaker 1>thank you for taking the time to speak with me

1:53:14.680 --> 1:53:18.520
<v Speaker 1>in my audience. You've made a lot of very perceptive,

1:53:18.680 --> 1:53:22.800
<v Speaker 1>insightful comments certainly rooted me. So I want to thank

1:53:22.840 --> 1:53:27.320
<v Speaker 1>you again and wish you luck with a new album.

1:53:27.600 --> 1:53:29.519
<v Speaker 2>Thank you very much, Bob. And this is maybe the

1:53:29.560 --> 1:53:31.840
<v Speaker 2>longest interview I've ever done. I had no idea it

1:53:31.880 --> 1:53:34.960
<v Speaker 2>was going to be so epic. If Concord was still running,

1:53:35.000 --> 1:53:36.840
<v Speaker 2>someone could have flown to New York in the time

1:53:36.880 --> 1:53:43.960
<v Speaker 2>we've had this. Yeah, I wish you all the best,

1:53:44.280 --> 1:53:47.519
<v Speaker 2>happy and healthy New Year, Bobs. And if you're in

1:53:47.560 --> 1:53:51.120
<v Speaker 2>Los Angeles, Yeah, I hope that the fire the fire

1:53:51.160 --> 1:53:54.280
<v Speaker 2>has died down real soon, so I'm sorry for you

1:53:54.479 --> 1:53:57.000
<v Speaker 2>all the suffering that's over there, and let's talk.

1:53:57.479 --> 1:54:01.200
<v Speaker 1>The winds died down in any event. Next time, this

1:54:01.360 --> 1:54:02.519
<v Speaker 1>is Bob left Sex