Speaker 1: I understood that question right till the end, like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I went too far with it. Hello and welcome
Speaker 2: to Midnight Chats, a podcast of casual interviews with leading musicians,
Speaker 2: published weekly and midnight to suit these informal and often
Speaker 2: under researched conversations. This week's episode is hosted by me
Speaker 2: Stuart Stubbs, editor of Loud and Quiet magazine. Thank you
Speaker 2: for joining me on tonight's episode of the podcast, where
Speaker 2: my guest is Orlando Weeks, who, as luck would have it,
Speaker 2: has released a brand new track today on the sixteenth
Speaker 2: of June twenty twenty one. It's called Big Sky's Silly Faces,
Speaker 2: and it's the first track to come from a new
Speaker 2: solo album that will be out a little later this year.
Speaker 2: Now why we weren't allowed to go into too much
Speaker 2: details about the album just yet, we did manage to
Speaker 2: have a bit of a chat about it when Orlando
Speaker 2: came by our office last month to record this episode.
Speaker 2: It was great to spare and a bit of time
Speaker 2: with him and meet him properly. I'd met him briefly
Speaker 2: as you'll hear, a very long time ago, but it
Speaker 2: was great to actually sit down and also to just
Speaker 2: be in a room with somebody. It's been a while
Speaker 2: since we've been able to record Midnight Chat's face to face,
Speaker 2: and hopefully this is a sign of things to come,
Speaker 2: and it's getting back into a room with people because
Speaker 2: it's always much more enjoyable and I think it's always
Speaker 2: a much better listen as well. Orlando you will know,
Speaker 2: of course, as the lead singer of the Maccabees, who
Speaker 2: split up in twenty sixteen. But since then he's been
Speaker 2: extremely busy writing and illustrating a book called The gritter Man,
Speaker 2: which he also wrote and recorded a solo album for.
Speaker 2: It's a beautifully melancholic Christmas story that's narrated by Paul
Speaker 2: white House in the role of the gritter Man. You
Speaker 2: can listen to it on streaming platforms and it can
Speaker 2: make you feel quite sad, but it is beautiful as well.
Speaker 2: After that came Orlando's first proper solo album, The Quickening,
Speaker 2: which he released during Lockdown last year in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Thank you to Orlando for taking the time and coming
Speaker 2: by the office to record this episode of the podcast.
Speaker 2: Thank you to you for listening. I really love this one.
Speaker 2: So here it is Orlando Weeks episode one hundred and
Speaker 2: nine of Midnight Chats. This episode of Midnight Chat is
Speaker 2: supported by Partisan Records, the independent label who have already
Speaker 2: given us Idols Fontein's, DC, Laura Marlin, Femi Coutie, loads
Speaker 2: of really great independent artists, and on the twenty fifth
Speaker 2: of June they will give us another one. Maple Glider
Speaker 2: is the Melbourne based singer songwriter Tory Zeitch whose debut
Speaker 2: album is called to Enjoy is the Only Thing As
Speaker 2: I say, It's out on June the twenty fifth. It
Speaker 2: will be available on limited vinyl that will be pearly green.
Speaker 2: There's also going to be a Dinked edition which will
Speaker 2: be hand numbered on green and lime marble splattered vinyl,
Speaker 2: along with a photo print. If you're a fan of
Speaker 2: Sharon Vanett and Kasma Coombs Bedin, if that's your kind
Speaker 2: of thing, then Maple Glider is probably one for you
Speaker 2: as well. Thank you to Partisan Records for supporting this
Speaker 2: episode of Midnight Chats. End of the Week, how's your
Speaker 2: week been?
Speaker 1: It's been all right, it's been I'm trying to think.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like I've done anything. No big grand
Speaker 1: moments this week, but just ticking along.
Speaker 3: I've been working on some music for for for a play,
Speaker 3: and I've been doing lots of that, and I've been
Speaker 3: doing just the beginnings of this beginning to talk about
Speaker 3: new staff.
Speaker 2: Music and stuff. What can you tell me about the play?
Speaker 2: Is that? Is that a play that you have devised.
Speaker 3: Or No, it's it's a play that is at the
Speaker 3: National Theater and I am writing some music for some
Speaker 3: original music for it. And I went to I think
Speaker 3: it was Monday. I went to the first read through
Speaker 3: the first rehearsal, which I've never never been to anything
Speaker 3: like that, and I loved it, and I felt so
Speaker 3: part of something bigger. And I think seeing anyone, I mean,
Speaker 3: anytime you see people that are very good at what
Speaker 3: they do, sort of in the raw just doing it
Speaker 3: is pretty inspiring. And it makes you feel, I've really
Speaker 3: minded about the music I've written for it, and sort
Speaker 3: of qualifies that a little bit and also makes you
Speaker 3: want to keep being part of it and keep being
Speaker 3: sort of part of that process that they're all going through.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Is it a big cast?
Speaker 1: It felt big to me, I mean, but there's probably
Speaker 1: maybe ten fifteen actors.
Speaker 2: So this was was this a table read?
Speaker 3: So well?
Speaker 1: I think maybe it would have been a table. There
Speaker 1: would have been a table.
Speaker 2: In normal times, in normal times, right, but this was
Speaker 2: more tables. Too dangerous right now.
Speaker 3: Too dangerous for this theatrical read through. So everyone was
Speaker 3: in the in the round and all laid out, and
Speaker 3: it all felt very distanced and safe, but still just
Speaker 3: hearing actors give lines that you've read. But suddenly it
Speaker 3: all starts taking on a much more life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: They were they acting their lines, they were acting because
Speaker 2: that that sort of thing. I've said this before on
Speaker 2: this podcast, and I swear to anyone listening, I haven't
Speaker 2: got a problem with actors, but when I see people acting,
Speaker 2: especially if they're not especially I guess if they're not
Speaker 2: in costume or cartoon characters or cartoon characters. That's part
Speaker 2: of me that kind of just tightens up when you
Speaker 2: see them doing the bit and I think, but you're
Speaker 2: not that person. Yeah, I can't suspend my disbelief. And
Speaker 2: I studied drama. Okay, maybe this is it. Maybe it's
Speaker 2: there's something in me it's embarrassed about my past and
Speaker 2: the way knowing that that was me. There was a
Speaker 2: terrible moment there was a terrible moment when I would
Speaker 2: have been that person suddenly pretending reading from this script.
Speaker 2: Yeah there's something in it, but you didn't get that.
Speaker 2: You just were just in awe of it.
Speaker 3: And I would say that on the whole my freeze up.
Speaker 3: It's probably similar to yours. But I think if people
Speaker 3: are doing it really well, I didn't get it anyway.
Speaker 3: I think also I was feeling quite fish out of water,
Speaker 3: and maybe that helps with just going with the flow
Speaker 3: a little bit.
Speaker 1: I didn't freeze up, and I thought, God, they're good
Speaker 1: at this.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I remember getting off that.
Speaker 3: I got off the tube and I felt like I
Speaker 3: had a real sort of sympathy panic that. Imagine to
Speaker 3: be an actor that's going in for that first read.
Speaker 1: Especially quite a lot of.
Speaker 3: Them are quite young, I imagine, haven't done it lot. Maybe
Speaker 3: this is their first thing at you know, the National Theater.
Speaker 3: It's big, old concrete monstrouss. I like it.
Speaker 1: I don't know why.
Speaker 2: I good. But it's a huge institution, huge institution, the
Speaker 2: big time.
Speaker 1: And you're going in there and you're going to read,
Speaker 1: you know, going.
Speaker 3: To act, and weeks is going to be Yeah, there's
Speaker 3: going to be this awkward man at the back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's one of the reasons I didn't pursue acting.
Speaker 2: I mean while I was rubbish, but I could never
Speaker 2: in a million years have dealt with the nerves of that,
Speaker 2: of the the rejection of it, of not getting the thing,
Speaker 2: but also just the nerves of walking into that room. Awful.
Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know how. I genuinely don't know how they.
Speaker 2: Do how they do it? How How are you? How
Speaker 2: are your nerves genuine? Do you some means very nervous?
Speaker 1: Yeah most of the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Has that always been the case?
Speaker 1: I think so.
Speaker 2: I mean, lots of lots of musicians are aren't they
Speaker 2: like you? You're in good company there. There are so
Speaker 2: many singers and front people, I mean all musicians, but
Speaker 2: people at the front who everybody thinks that the confident one,
Speaker 2: sometimes the least confident in the group or whatever. I
Speaker 2: think that's just a natural thing.
Speaker 3: I think, in a way, what is maybe not appealing,
Speaker 3: but what you come to and maybe enjoys too strong
Speaker 3: But what what what the sort of saving grace of
Speaker 3: that is that you're nervous until or at least I
Speaker 3: have felt nervous until.
Speaker 1: Almost the day of the thing, because by then.
Speaker 3: That the boulder is rolling and you're you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: you're not going to stop it. You're too nervous to
Speaker 3: try and divert it anyway, So it's happening. So then
Speaker 3: so the kind of commitment that that kind of the
Speaker 3: step off the cliff's been taken and that that is
Speaker 3: then then it's kind of okay.
Speaker 2: So you see, your nerves don't evaporate once you're walking
Speaker 2: onto a stage that the day before you're all right,
Speaker 2: the day.
Speaker 1: Of it, I'm sort of all right. The morning.
Speaker 3: I'm committed to this and there's no going back, And
Speaker 3: I remember, I think sometimes I feel the nerves creeping
Speaker 3: in towards the end of the set, but I think
Speaker 3: it's more adrenaline than anything, and just not being very
Speaker 3: good at knowing how or you know, on a dream
Speaker 3: or level, knowing how to compartmentalize that or push that
Speaker 3: into kind of rousing hurrah, just the big fish.
Speaker 1: I just feel it.
Speaker 2: So I think maybe by that point in the show,
Speaker 2: people are there right like.
Speaker 1: I feel like they're not.
Speaker 2: Either way, Yeah, I suppose sometimes they're not, and you
Speaker 2: and you feel this sudden responsibility of getting getting them
Speaker 2: over the line on their way home, like, when was
Speaker 2: the first time you sang in front of people? And
Speaker 2: just how nervous you felt then, Like these actors who
Speaker 2: were going into their read through, I.
Speaker 3: Remember thinking quite early on, I mean not on my own,
Speaker 3: but really liking everyone's singing in assembly and is that
Speaker 3: that's sort of slightly dodging the question.
Speaker 2: Uh, that's singing in a group?
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, Well, then the first time was the first ever?
Speaker 1: Would have been the first?
Speaker 3: Like in front of when the first time we started
Speaker 3: a band, or like the first time maccabee sat in
Speaker 3: a room together.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean as someone who sings terribly, and that's
Speaker 2: not modesty. I mean I am appalling.
Speaker 1: Can't sing, can't act, can't sing, can't act.
Speaker 2: That's why I turned to podcasting, as we were just
Speaker 2: saying before we started, I hate the sound of my
Speaker 2: own voice. So maybe this isn't my calling either, But
Speaker 2: as somebone who can't sing, I like even singing in
Speaker 2: front of a band, like if I was with I've
Speaker 2: been in bands, bad bands, I wouldn't sing. Even singing
Speaker 2: in front of a group of friends fills me with anxiety.
Speaker 2: Singing in front of people, I mean, we're on another
Speaker 2: level there. But are you would you have been when
Speaker 2: you formed your first band? I mean, was your was
Speaker 2: your first living for your first man? Okay, so the
Speaker 2: first time you got in a room with those guys
Speaker 2: and sang in front of them, what was that like? Well?
Speaker 3: I did it kind of incrementally because I did it
Speaker 3: with sort of.
Speaker 1: One of them.
Speaker 3: And then because there was only me and Rob to
Speaker 3: begin with, Rob who was played drums originally, and so
Speaker 3: I sung in front of him and that was kind
Speaker 3: of all right. And then then I say in front
Speaker 3: of him and Hugo and that's sort of all right,
Speaker 3: and you know.
Speaker 1: So, and also no one else was going to do it.
Speaker 1: So if I was going, if we were going to
Speaker 1: do this, that happened someone to do it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: There are so many bands where singers have been asked
Speaker 2: have said no one else wanted to. Someone had to
Speaker 2: step up and do this. Yeah, because I suppose lots
Speaker 2: of people start bands when they're in that young and
Speaker 2: cripplingly anxious state. Nobody wants to be the singer. No
Speaker 2: one wants to put themselves out there. It's a big
Speaker 2: deal of singing in front of people, I think at
Speaker 2: any age. But especially if you're a teenager and you're
Speaker 2: starting out. I think it's brave, man, I think it's
Speaker 2: really brave.
Speaker 1: Well, that's very kind. I'll remind myself.
Speaker 2: Remind yourself. So where was the first Can you remember
Speaker 2: what the first show was?
Speaker 3: Then?
Speaker 1: When it was the first show?
Speaker 2: Was?
Speaker 1: It wasn't Maybe it was on this No, it was
Speaker 1: on this road. It was on Kings No, it was
Speaker 1: it was it used to.
Speaker 3: Be called the Pleasure Unit, okay, and it was on
Speaker 3: I think it was the Bethnal Green Road. So is
Speaker 3: that the next one along from there? And it's now
Speaker 3: called something like star something just next to the test
Speaker 3: goes if it's still a testos.
Speaker 2: Was the pub there?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: The pub on the corner?
Speaker 2: Yeah? That?
Speaker 1: And it was it was great.
Speaker 3: I mean just in terms of I mean in the
Speaker 3: same way of as saying, you know, if no one's
Speaker 3: going to sing, all right, I'll sing. I think I
Speaker 3: felt so committed to the idea of just doing something
Speaker 3: and if that's something, was this band, I'm going to
Speaker 3: do this, and I'm going to make the flyers and
Speaker 3: I'm going to you know, like all of that fun stuff.
Speaker 1: Doing the first gig.
Speaker 3: I didn't care I had no idea how it sounded,
Speaker 3: because the chaos of it was, you know, how.
Speaker 1: It sounded wasn't the point.
Speaker 3: The point was getting to the end of it and thinking,
Speaker 3: we have we have carried all our crappy kit to here,
Speaker 3: we have set it up, we have managed to get
Speaker 3: through a sound check not knowing what it was, you know,
Speaker 3: like we've got to the end of it, and then
Speaker 3: all just sort of feeling the relief and the celebration
Speaker 3: of achieving that it was a big deal for us, Like,
Speaker 3: because I don't think we'd even We were all sort
Speaker 3: of nineteen or something, so.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, I hadn't really been to many I don't
Speaker 3: think i'd been to many gigs in that kind of room,
Speaker 3: so I had not a huge amount to you know,
Speaker 3: I'd been to some bigger, bigger concerts and stuff, and
Speaker 3: so I didn't have a lot to go on. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but we've done it.
Speaker 2: It's funny, that, isn't it, Because I was exactly the same.
Speaker 2: You know, I'd go to gigs at the end of school,
Speaker 2: but that'd be at bricks and Academy or something. It'd
Speaker 2: be like a big shot. And then when you're a
Speaker 2: bit older. You go to UNI or wherever, however you
Speaker 2: do it, you come across you start to realize this
Speaker 2: world of people playing in pubs and small clubs, and
Speaker 2: you realize that actually you can go and see a
Speaker 2: gig every night if you want, but it's like a
Speaker 2: different world, and that different types of shows and it's
Speaker 2: just a different thing. It's like a really exciting thing.
Speaker 3: And then open mic nights and you know that just
Speaker 3: all these funny offshoots of you know, waiting for the
Speaker 3: next proper bricks and academy gig you're going to go to.
Speaker 2: Knowing you were coming today. Right dug out something from
Speaker 2: the Loud and Quiet archive. Okay, right here, Okay it is.
Speaker 2: Do you remember this I'm showing Wow, Well, a very
Speaker 2: early copy of the magazine issue twenty one. We're currently
Speaker 2: on issue one hundred and forty seven, so this is
Speaker 2: like two I try to work out. I think it's
Speaker 2: two thousand and seven. Okay, I think it was February time.
Speaker 2: It's I will post a picture of this like under
Speaker 2: this podcast so people can see what I'm tormenting you with. Essentially,
Speaker 2: do you do? I mean? I think you will look
Speaker 2: good that there.
Speaker 1: Was a good sort of almost question on that.
Speaker 2: How do you how do you generally feel about seeing
Speaker 2: like old old pictures and stuff? Does it should I
Speaker 2: turn this over? Is that making you feel quite ill?
Speaker 1: I've seen it now.
Speaker 2: So I need to look at that anymore.
Speaker 3: I think I've probably got all I need to take
Speaker 3: from that. No, but I I weirdly I remember this,
Speaker 3: remember that graphic, like, I just think there was that
Speaker 3: era that kind of graphic was sort of everywhere, and
Speaker 3: that it's nice.
Speaker 1: I mean, what I'm seeing in that picture is no
Speaker 1: rob which I think you were.
Speaker 2: I think you were just between without I think it
Speaker 2: was that little window when Robert left sam Adam.
Speaker 3: Yeah started yeah, yeah, so I'm sort of trying to
Speaker 3: join some dots.
Speaker 2: It was in Brixton, right, so I think it was
Speaker 2: at Rufe's house. Who was doing Yeah, it was there,
Speaker 2: and I think if I remember correct, because I was there.
Speaker 2: I didn't do that interview. I didn't take the phoze,
Speaker 2: but I was there just skulking around. Okay. I seem
Speaker 2: to remember you were all trying to get into Bricks
Speaker 2: and Academy that night Arcade Fire were playing. We think
Speaker 2: you were all trying to hustle into that show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we got in.
Speaker 2: Did you get in?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Because I mean I definitely saw them at Bricks
Speaker 3: and I remember them playing at the end of the thing,
Speaker 3: playing guns of Brixton and walking through the crowds just
Speaker 3: with the acoustic instruments and everyone following them out like
Speaker 3: pied pipers, and it just like the chant of that
Speaker 3: of the of the kind of just saying yeah and yeah,
Speaker 3: that one. That was one of the great gigs I've
Speaker 3: seen there.
Speaker 2: I mean, that was obviously so long ago. We're talking
Speaker 2: a long time. Yeah, two thousand and seven times so
Speaker 2: and so much has obviously changed since then. You've become
Speaker 2: a father in recent years, the band have obviously disbanded
Speaker 2: a few years back. You've released a book, you've released it.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't really know where to start a
Speaker 2: solo album. I mean, how is post mccabee's life treating you?
Speaker 2: Just on a general scale, it's been what four years,
Speaker 2: I think, so seeing that that suddenly seems doesn't seem
Speaker 2: that long ago to an outsider? Does it feel like
Speaker 2: a world ago?
Speaker 1: I don't know about a world And I also think
Speaker 1: we're all going.
Speaker 3: To feel that because this year or that the kind
Speaker 3: of COVID year is going to make That would explain
Speaker 3: why that feels. But I suppose what I'm trying to
Speaker 3: do is use the time well and and so I
Speaker 3: feel good because I feel busy. And the thing that
Speaker 3: I love most is, you know, in terms of work
Speaker 3: life is making stuff. So and I feel like I'm
Speaker 3: doing a lot of that. So it's been it's been
Speaker 3: really good. I've been really enjoying my making good.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I thought it was very classy. The way you guys
Speaker 2: announced your final shows a whole year is that it
Speaker 2: was a year before, wasn't It was like you announced
Speaker 2: that that the band was ending, and he said, we're
Speaker 2: going to do these final run of shows and there
Speaker 2: any years time, Yeah, like when it actually came to
Speaker 2: those moments, because that then essentially gave you a year
Speaker 2: to prepare yourself for those shows and for the end
Speaker 2: of a band that had been your life for like
Speaker 2: a huge proportion of it at that point, you know,
Speaker 2: thirteen years or whatever it was. You know, you say
Speaker 2: that the day of a show, your nerves go. How
Speaker 2: did you feel at those shows at that what was
Speaker 2: the final show like? And apose what's more interested to be.
Speaker 2: I guess it's always what does the next day feel like?
Speaker 2: That feel like after that?
Speaker 3: Well, I think we part of booking the shows was
Speaker 3: that we wanted to have them be these celebrations, and
Speaker 3: and we sort of had a we hoped enough people
Speaker 3: might come to One Alley Paddy, but even to book
Speaker 3: that is it's you need a big run up to
Speaker 3: book it. So did that and then that I think
Speaker 3: we booked that, and that sold out and it became
Speaker 3: three and it was you know, if we hadn't had
Speaker 3: it that far off, then we couldn't have done out
Speaker 3: of my the realms of my organizational anyway. And then
Speaker 3: on the day of the very final one, it felt
Speaker 3: really really hard to explain, actually sort of sad. And
Speaker 3: again that's a sort of feeling of resignedness, if that's
Speaker 3: the word.
Speaker 2: That just.
Speaker 3: Definitely not nervous, trying to just feel as much of
Speaker 3: it as possible, and knowing my.
Speaker 1: You know, all my.
Speaker 3: All of our families, all of our lots, you know,
Speaker 3: all the wider friends and everyone was going to be
Speaker 3: there was quite just that on its own is quite
Speaker 3: a lot to sort of keeping your head. And my
Speaker 3: I remember getting a call quite late in the afternoon,
Speaker 3: and it was my mum saying that she wasn't going
Speaker 3: to know she was going to be able to make it,
Speaker 3: but my dad had tripped over something and had broken
Speaker 3: his arm and was it wasn't going to come. And
Speaker 3: I remember thinking, I mean, once I knew that he
Speaker 3: was all right, just to think thinking that sort of
Speaker 3: took the edge off it a little bit, because it
Speaker 3: just felt like that is way, you know, is he
Speaker 3: all right? That's so I can just it just you
Speaker 3: needed I needed something.
Speaker 2: Maybe do you think he did it on purpose?
Speaker 1: He's a very good dad, but he's not that good.
Speaker 3: But yeah, he is as clumsy as he is good,
Speaker 3: So yeah, you'd have to ask him. But yeah, I
Speaker 3: just it just felt like just shifted your position, just
Speaker 3: slightly took the kind of the heat of it.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 1: And then the next day.
Speaker 3: My partner and I flew first thing to France. We
Speaker 3: flew to Bordeaux for four or five days, three or
Speaker 3: four days, I can't remember, and just walked around a
Speaker 3: beautiful city.
Speaker 1: Just to because I think if i'd stayed.
Speaker 2: You planned that, right, you were like, You're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I just can't stay. I can't go back to my
Speaker 2: house that night and wake up there. Yeah, exactly, because
Speaker 2: which just because you thought it would just be too
Speaker 2: weird and you wouldn't really really know what to do,
Speaker 2: or you.
Speaker 3: Just think, yeah, I think I think it just felt
Speaker 3: like a good I can't really I don't know what
Speaker 3: the thinking was, but at the time, it felt like
Speaker 3: definitely the best idea to not to not be sticking around,
Speaker 3: to be in a sort of alien environment and to
Speaker 3: be looking at beautiful things and going to.
Speaker 1: You know, drink wine and whatever. You know, Yeah, mooch.
Speaker 3: Was going to be a good antidote to whatever, the
Speaker 3: kind of complexity of whatever was going to be, the
Speaker 3: kind of feelings after something like that.
Speaker 2: And also just I imagine that's such a comp like
Speaker 2: that's an almost the complete opposite environment to what you've
Speaker 2: just been through in every level, Like you've been in
Speaker 2: a crowded place, No you've been you know, you've gone
Speaker 2: from one pure extreme in every way emotionallyyically, everything to
Speaker 2: this quiet rural setting just you and your partner exactly decompressing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think absolutely the perfect move. That sounds like that's
Speaker 2: what everyone should do. When did you do you guys?
Speaker 2: Then move to Berlin? At some point after that was
Speaker 2: that we were.
Speaker 3: In Berlin for that Berlin and in Lisbon in Portugal
Speaker 3: for the for the year when we were in the
Speaker 3: run up to those final shows, was.
Speaker 2: That where you conceived and wrote The gritter Man? But yeah, great, okay, cool,
Speaker 2: because I was going to ask you, Okay, I'm just
Speaker 2: getting this is right, because I was going to ask
Speaker 2: you how I didn't know if that came after that
Speaker 2: final show, and I didn't know how long it had been.
Speaker 2: How long had that been in your mind that to
Speaker 2: make that book and a record to go with it?
Speaker 3: I'd made a I hadn't done the illustrations, but I'd
Speaker 3: made something called Young Colossus, which was a sort of
Speaker 3: EP but with a book, and I'd like that.
Speaker 1: Am I supposed to answer your question? Not terribly long?
Speaker 3: I think just when we got to Berlin, I knew
Speaker 3: I'd need something to focus on, and so we had
Speaker 3: we'd been to the or I'd been to the Enemy
Speaker 3: Awards sometime in early February of that year, and Fowles
Speaker 3: had said that it was all right, and so I
Speaker 3: put all of my and my partner's luggage and equipment
Speaker 3: and music stuff on their bus because they had a
Speaker 3: gig in Berlin two nights later, and they drove all
Speaker 3: my stuff the thing, and then when they got there,
Speaker 3: I went and saw the gig and then got all
Speaker 3: the gear went home. And I think in that window
Speaker 3: of time, I decided that this song that I had
Speaker 3: about a man that gritted roads like a seasonal hero,
Speaker 3: was I was going to I was going to fleshed
Speaker 3: that out a bit. And and so by the time
Speaker 3: the gear arrived in Berlin, I should have knew what
Speaker 3: I was going to do, what I wanted to focus on.
Speaker 2: The book that came out of it. It is brilliant. Actually,
Speaker 2: I was listening to it again yesterday on on the
Speaker 2: train into here. Uh kind of made me want to cry.
Speaker 2: It's very sad, isn't it like It's like but in
Speaker 2: a what does it remind me of? It reminds me
Speaker 2: of like the Snowman. I think that's part of your illustrations,
Speaker 2: which are brilliant. They're all done by hand as well,
Speaker 2: aren't they like you?
Speaker 3: And are a complete you know, depending on your position,
Speaker 3: either a homage or a rip off of Raymond Briggs.
Speaker 3: And I think I got a remember for the paperback
Speaker 3: edition of it, he wrote me. I wrote to him saying,
Speaker 3: look he wrote, and he wrote he said, well, I
Speaker 3: appreciate it, and uh, and wrote me a kind of
Speaker 3: quote for the front of the book that says something like,
Speaker 3: it's totally unique and.
Speaker 1: So and I can't help but think that that is
Speaker 1: all dry.
Speaker 2: It's been quite sarcastic, but a style all of his own. Hey,
Speaker 2: it's you know, it's it's beautiful. It looks amazing.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: The pictures are so great. You studied illustration, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was Briggs like a big Has he always been
Speaker 2: someone that you've that you've enjoyed that style or was
Speaker 2: it just for this particular story it fitted the bill.
Speaker 1: That's that's the right way around.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I feel I definitely felt like I
Speaker 3: sort of grew up on his start and I still
Speaker 3: love his style of illustration, but definitely for the for
Speaker 3: the for what I was doing.
Speaker 1: It felt like it would fit.
Speaker 3: And I tried others and this was just the one
Speaker 3: that felt that my comfortable with the writing that I
Speaker 3: was doing and with the music I was making basically
Speaker 3: only having a piano and a guitar and very basic
Speaker 3: setup in Berlin, it just all felt like and the
Speaker 3: way the way that I was making it was sort
Speaker 3: of having trying to have those three elements have have
Speaker 3: a conversation and that way fill out the rest of
Speaker 3: the project, because I had this this one song about
Speaker 3: a seasonal hero, and then I had the kind of
Speaker 3: illustrations starting to form and sort of what he might
Speaker 3: look like, and then I had some of the writing,
Speaker 3: and then it just yeah, it's okay.
Speaker 2: Where did Paul Whitehouse come into that? When did he
Speaker 2: come into the picture of it? How did you know him?
Speaker 2: Because he for listeners that haven't heard the record, he
Speaker 2: reads the part of the he is the gritter hera,
Speaker 2: he is the gritter man. Yeah. It does a great
Speaker 2: job of it. It sounds great. Yeah, he but did
Speaker 2: you know him before? How did you How did you
Speaker 2: get him on board? Because he's the perfect guy for
Speaker 2: the role.
Speaker 3: So I had a sort of their manager had a
Speaker 3: friend who had done some writing with him, I think
Speaker 3: with on the Something to do with maybe even on
Speaker 3: the Far Show or something, and so we could get
Speaker 3: to him, and so I sent him everything I had
Speaker 3: and I just said, if any of this feels like something,
Speaker 3: you could talk to me on the phone about then
Speaker 3: please can we do that?
Speaker 1: And he was great, He really.
Speaker 3: Understood it and wanted to do it and has continued
Speaker 3: to be extremely generous with his time and energy and
Speaker 3: just you know, everything that he can do.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it was a pleasure, total pleasure.
Speaker 2: It's absolutely crying out for a TV version of it,
Speaker 2: like a christ Christmas special. You must have thought of it.
Speaker 1: I would love that. I mean it's it's can.
Speaker 2: We make that happen? Someone listening to this make that happen.
Speaker 2: We need to get this can be. It could be
Speaker 2: like this year's Gruffalo.
Speaker 1: Do you know what?
Speaker 3: I what I would always love how I picture it
Speaker 3: is do you remember the film or have you seen
Speaker 3: bed Knobs and Broomstick?
Speaker 2: Yes? I have?
Speaker 1: Yeah, one of the great.
Speaker 2: Lovely bit of string right, very good.
Speaker 1: So the way that that uses.
Speaker 3: Real real life footage against to the animation is exactly
Speaker 3: how I think. Because if Paul can be the gritter
Speaker 3: Man in you know, physically as well as just in
Speaker 3: terms of the audio, then and then against this two
Speaker 3: dimensional flat animation, I think it's.
Speaker 2: Perfect, absolutely perfect perfect. It would it would sit well,
Speaker 2: I feel BBC one four twenty five Christmas Day will
Speaker 2: do that would do me. Okay, right, we'll get that
Speaker 2: sort of after. Do you have any ambition to do
Speaker 2: more kids books? I basically feel that if you want
Speaker 2: to make some real cash these days, then make a
Speaker 2: kid's book franchise thing.
Speaker 1: I think if you make a franchise anything, you're doing
Speaker 1: all right.
Speaker 2: That's true. But you know the person that made pepper Pig.
Speaker 2: I don't know that name, but I know that right
Speaker 2: now that they're laughing. Wherever they are right now, they're
Speaker 2: probably laughing.
Speaker 3: In a massive pepper Pig shaped mansion just on the
Speaker 3: tip of the nose, absolutely.
Speaker 1: Howling with howling with laughter.
Speaker 2: And then after that came see I'm bringing I'm bringing
Speaker 2: us all up to date.
Speaker 1: Now, this is great, This is.
Speaker 2: This is a professional.
Speaker 1: This is one of those seg those.
Speaker 2: It was the Quickening your which I guess is your
Speaker 2: first if you don't count The Gritterman as a as
Speaker 2: a solo album, because it was a book and it
Speaker 2: was part of something else. Your first album album, which
Speaker 2: was released last year, Was it weird? Did it feel
Speaker 2: strange releasing it, releasing your first solo album as someone
Speaker 2: that had been in a band for so long, or
Speaker 2: did it just feel strange because you did it in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty during the COVID pandemic, And could you even
Speaker 2: work out at the time which feelings were related to
Speaker 2: which of those two things.
Speaker 1: I understood that question right till the end.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, I went too far with it. I should know.
Speaker 1: It was not good and it's my you know, it's
Speaker 1: my shortcoming.
Speaker 2: It's like, I suppose what I mean is because you'd
Speaker 2: never done you'd never released a solo record before, You've
Speaker 2: been in the band for so long. Yeah, and you
Speaker 2: finally get to do that. Yes, it's probably going to
Speaker 2: feel strange in many ways. Yeah, maybe it didn't. You
Speaker 2: can tell me otherwise, but it's probably going to feel strange.
Speaker 2: But then, on top of that, you're doing it during
Speaker 2: the pandemic, where releasing a record's weird anyway. So was
Speaker 2: it hard to any feelings you had? Was it hard
Speaker 2: to say, Okay, well I'm feeling this way because I'm
Speaker 2: just having this band around me, or compared to I'm
Speaker 2: feeling this way because there's a global pandemic going on.
Speaker 1: I was so not relieved, but I was so ready
Speaker 1: for it to come out and very proud of it.
Speaker 3: And really happy with how it turned out, and so
Speaker 3: in terms of just the release, I felt really good
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 1: I felt like it puts a lot of stuff in.
Speaker 3: I'm sure for everyone the work that you're doing gets
Speaker 3: sort of put into you sort of see it for
Speaker 3: what it is when there's these much larger problems going on.
Speaker 3: But really the point was for it to be there,
Speaker 3: to exist, and to have been released, and so the
Speaker 3: way that that maybe it got a bit more swallowed
Speaker 3: up in that, I was sort of at peace with that.
Speaker 2: In terms of when you when you put out the
Speaker 2: gritter Mans and it was a book and a record,
Speaker 2: was it either intentional or just was it a happy
Speaker 2: coincidence that your first when you've been in a band
Speaker 2: and that's such a big part of your identity, especially
Speaker 2: if you're the singer. I think there's so many eyes
Speaker 2: on what you're going to do next in your first record,
Speaker 2: And I guess because the first thing that you released
Speaker 2: was also a book and it was part of something else,
Speaker 2: did that take the edge off.
Speaker 3: I think on some level, I felt like gritter Man
Speaker 3: was enough of a sort of not eccentric but sort
Speaker 3: of other enough and a whole package enough that it
Speaker 3: meant that whatever I ended up wanting to do after
Speaker 3: it I could do. I liked that it It sort
Speaker 3: of left whatever that whatever I wanted to do be
Speaker 3: could Yeah, I was I was sort of free to
Speaker 3: move to step on from there in whichever direction, because
Speaker 3: I didn't know. I didn't know whether I'd want to
Speaker 3: go straight into doing another maybe just a book, or
Speaker 3: maybe just try and write something, or you know, I
Speaker 3: had no idea. And then I think just the us
Speaker 3: finding out that we were expecting a baby, just it
Speaker 3: became almost It's just that that's the way everything started moving,
Speaker 3: Like when I would sit down to write, that's what
Speaker 3: I was writing about, and so slowly it's sort of
Speaker 3: answered the question for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the difference between those between the gritter
Speaker 2: Amount music and those songs and the Quickening quite there's
Speaker 2: quite a contrast there in like the themes obviously like
Speaker 2: the rec The Quickening is all about your son and
Speaker 2: beca coming a father and kind of feels it's a
Speaker 2: beautiful record. It also feels just quite a bit more.
Speaker 2: I don't, like I was saying, like the gritter Man
Speaker 2: has got this kind of sad vibe to it. Old
Speaker 2: people make you sad, and young babies make you happy,
Speaker 2: just genuinely speaking, you know, So it's got a totally
Speaker 2: different feel to it. How would your son now, he's
Speaker 2: gonna be three, he's going to be three, but at
Speaker 2: one point he's gonna he'll be old enough to listen
Speaker 2: to this record that is about him, very much about him.
Speaker 2: What do you think he'll make of it? Well, what
Speaker 2: an amazing thing to have. Yeah, I mean everyone's embarrassed
Speaker 2: by that dad, So he's obviously gonna he's obviously gonna
Speaker 2: hate it in manys because.
Speaker 1: That should he's right to do that. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, if he's clever like his mum, then what he'll
Speaker 3: do is listen to it and say this is actually
Speaker 3: about you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and uh, and then I'll sit down and be quiet.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: But I think and he and you know.
Speaker 3: If he were to say that, I'd probably have to
Speaker 3: say it's probably right because it's I think it is
Speaker 3: a record about being witness to all of that stuff.
Speaker 3: And I'm glad that you felt like it was happy
Speaker 3: and perhaps just comparatively with Gritterman is happier when I
Speaker 3: in retrospect, I feel like that record doesn't didn't come
Speaker 3: close to exploring how happy and joyful I felt. I
Speaker 3: think a lot of that record to me feels like
Speaker 3: the anticipation, the suspense and the anxiety and the breath
Speaker 3: holding of waiting, you know. And and so with the
Speaker 3: new with this new record that was that was definitely
Speaker 3: the beginning, the sort of starting point for it was
Speaker 3: was trying to think, I haven't done that.
Speaker 1: And if he ever.
Speaker 3: Listened to it, mm, which you know, whatever is, then
Speaker 3: then he would say A he'd say it's about you,
Speaker 3: so I don't know why it's you know, and also
Speaker 3: that yeah, he's also say it sounds very sad.
Speaker 2: But weren't you excited?
Speaker 3: And and so I thought, right well, in case that
Speaker 3: ever happened, I'd want to be able to show him.
Speaker 3: The next thing that I made was an exploration in
Speaker 3: exactly that, like the bounce and and pleasure and excitement
Speaker 3: and relief of his arrival. If my dad had written
Speaker 3: and made anything like that, I would find it very
Speaker 3: hard at no point to go and listen to it.
Speaker 3: So I suppose at some point he will.
Speaker 1: Listen to it, but thankfully that's a very long way off.
Speaker 2: Yes, sure, yeah, you can deal with that when it yeah,
Speaker 2: it's way down the road.
Speaker 1: Don't worry about that yet.
Speaker 2: So the new but it's the new record for him
Speaker 2: as well. Is it even more for him in a sense?
Speaker 3: I think again he would in the future tell me
Speaker 3: that it's for me. But I think what it was.
Speaker 3: I think what I was trying to do is and
Speaker 3: this was just the start of it. Was just trying
Speaker 3: to think like it wasn't just and you know that
Speaker 3: the anxiety and the anticipation, it was just the I
Speaker 3: cannot wait and I am so excited and I'm so
Speaker 3: you know, happy, and I wanted some of that on record,
Speaker 3: you know, on record too.
Speaker 2: So the record's done, right, It's completely done, finished, completely finished.
Speaker 2: It's going to be out later this year. Let's just
Speaker 2: well we can say that much at this point. The
Speaker 2: when you listen back to it, do you feel that
Speaker 2: you you captured that that kind of that joy that
Speaker 2: you were maybe wanted, that you felt was missing off
Speaker 2: that that first record? Do you think, yeah, I got it?
Speaker 2: Because I on these podcasts, for example, I always have
Speaker 2: to do an intro bit at the beginning. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: I always sound really bored in them. And every time
Speaker 2: I go to do that, I've done this nearly one
Speaker 2: hundred times, i'd say, And when I record them, I
Speaker 2: normally do it in my car because I get a
Speaker 2: bit embarrassed about my partner hearing me in the house
Speaker 2: do it, because I tend to do it at home,
Speaker 2: So I go out to my car, and every time
Speaker 2: I try and put some real energy into it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I think I've nailed it. Yeah, I'm in my
Speaker 2: car and I'm shouting at my microphone. I'm absolutely now
Speaker 2: that's the one. And once I've edited it and I
Speaker 2: put it up and I listen back to it, and
Speaker 2: I just sound awful, really bored, really monotone, and I
Speaker 2: can't capture it. So if you how do you feel
Speaker 2: with that? Do you do you have these experiences where
Speaker 2: you think you're getting it in the moment, and then
Speaker 2: afterwards you're like, I've still not got it. I'm still
Speaker 2: chasing that thing.
Speaker 3: At the beginning, you asked whether I felt like I'd
Speaker 3: got it, and I think I have. Like I think
Speaker 3: it's you know, not completely by any stretch, but it
Speaker 3: is even for me.
Speaker 1: And I don't like listening back to my stuff.
Speaker 3: I don't you know the mastering process where you're having
Speaker 3: to really listen for sort of dread it, but even
Speaker 3: I have enjoyed that, Like I think it feels uplifting
Speaker 3: as a record, and I'm not sure i've and I
Speaker 3: set out to do that. So it feels like I've
Speaker 3: sort of answered my brief. And in terms of giving
Speaker 3: you some advice for your in car recordings, ah, you
Speaker 3: should get I mean, if you get bullioned to produce it,
Speaker 3: that would help. You could put music to it in general.
Speaker 2: In yeah, it does, it does have some music.
Speaker 1: Whilst you're recording your No, I don't.
Speaker 2: The recording is dry, right, Well, there we go. Maybe
Speaker 2: that's it. Yeah, that's the issue.
Speaker 1: It sounds to me like you need accompaniment.
Speaker 2: Yes, what are you doing tomorrow night? Can you meet
Speaker 2: me in my car in the front of my house?
Speaker 2: Do it? I think, yeah, okay, these are good. That's
Speaker 2: a good tip. And maybe it is that, but it's
Speaker 2: good to hear that you feel that you've that you've
Speaker 2: got it, that you've that you've nailed it, and well.
Speaker 1: I've got I think nailed it. I wouldn't say that
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I'm really happy with it and I'm really
Speaker 3: and I think in terms of feeling like an uplifting record.
Speaker 3: I think it does that, and I think it's and
Speaker 3: I feel the pleasure of it and the joy of
Speaker 3: it when I listen to it and that and I
Speaker 3: hope that that is what will be other people's experience
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 2: So what's what's the rest of your year looking like?
Speaker 2: Obviously there's the record, I mean, I suppose that's impossible
Speaker 2: to answer right now due to like COVID restrictions still
Speaker 2: being lifted and stuff. But you've got the the play, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you've got the record. Ye have you got anything else?
Speaker 2: You've got your son obviously to keep you occupied all
Speaker 2: the time. That should be enough. But you do seem
Speaker 2: to always have like lots of things going on.
Speaker 3: That's I mean that that will be the thing that
Speaker 3: making all the hopefully having a bit more options in
Speaker 3: terms of making videos and doing performances, you know, I'm
Speaker 3: sure you know, not on the kind of pre COVID scale,
Speaker 3: but whatever form that takes. I want to try and
Speaker 3: embrace that as much as I possibly can. And yeah,
Speaker 3: and then starting to think about whatever the.
Speaker 2: Next thing is leading up to that Christmas Day premiere,
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, everything just slowly moving towards like a glacier just
Speaker 3: to that moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, looking forward to it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Twenty five past four one the good Tune. For previous
Speaker 2: episodes of Midnight Chats, simply search your podcast app and
Speaker 2: don't forget to follow or subscribe in order to receive
Speaker 2: new episodes as that published every week at midnight. For
Speaker 2: more information on the music magazine that makes this series,
Speaker 2: visit Loud and Quiet dot com. Anyway, good night,