Rihanna Unapologetic

It was billed as an opportunity for fans and journalists to gain an insight into the singer and join her on a weeklong party while she completing her 777 tour; seven gigs in seven cities to celebrate the release of her seventh album. What should have been a great PR opportunity turned flat when the singer failed to spend any time with the people she had invited to be around her and promises of parties failed to materialise and one journalist got so bored he took all his clothes off, which certainly Rihanna would approve of. It all sounded so good to start with, a private jet with a star who is  (if her Twitter account is anything to go by) a party princess but failed to deliver, much like the album.

Unapologetic has all the ingredients to make it a huge record. The industries best writers, the best producers and the powerhouse of Def Jam and of course the lady herself. Considering her six previous albums have a strong ratio of hits to filler it’s surprising that Unapologetic lacks any substance.

It feels like Rihanna or more accurately the people who write her songs have got bored. Considering all Rihanna had to do was add her vocals to the record she could have put some effort in, it sounds like she recorded all her parts in one take with the same enthusiasm she would put into ordering a drive through. She doesn’t in any way make it sound like she is enjoying it so how is the listener meant to?

Opening track ‘Phesh out the Runway’ sounds like it should have been given to Nicki Minaj and the songs carry on from there. It’s more a collection of songs ordered together rather than an entity that has had some time taken over it. Even the lead single ‘Diamonds’ lacks the power that it should have being filled with clichés and absence of any hook. Tracks are littered with Dubstep, more because that’s what’s selling records at the moment rather than because it needs it.

The only theme that is present throughout is the thinly veiled attempt to justify her relationship with Chris Brown. Their collaboration on ‘Nobodies Business’ is completely tasteless and musically uninspiring. There is a difference between forgiving someone for a mistake and victimising a misogynist by flaunting your toxic relationship. If it really is nobodies business keep it that way rather than whining on through a whole album about how misunderstood your relationship is.

Does the fact that there is no theme, no consistency and most worrying of all every song is devoid of even a feeble attempt at a chorus hamper it’s chances of selling well. No. Has the fact that most critics have reviewed it in a negative tone stopped it going to straight to number 1? No. Should anybody bother buying? No.

Ben Howard @ O2 Academy Leeds 14th November 2012

A faint spotlight searches the stage, giving the occasional glimpse of a lone figure. For the first song Ben Howard remains on his own, dressed in black, delicately strumming an electric guitar.

His band, consisting of three multi-instrumentalists who switch instruments between tracks, join him on stage and help produce the soaring folk harmonies his songs are known for. Throughout the set Howard displays amazing musician qualities, using an acoustic guitar to get percussive rhythms by tapping, slapping and knocking the sides.

You get the sense he doesn’t give himself an easy time vocally and makes himself work for it, pushing his voice to desperate places but never missing a note. Considering his talking voice has such a soft tone that it slightly gets lost while he talks to the audience, when he sings it fills the room with power and emotion. His set follows the same pattern as his songs, a measured start, teasing the audience with what is coming and then building up to a glorious crescendo of voices and cymbals.
The Wolves and Keep Your Head Up were the highlights of the show, songs that cry out for the audience to sing, clap and holler along.

Howard has an extremely warm tone to his voice and his songs are so tender it would have been nice to hear them in a more intimate setting, as occasionally the chatter from the audience took away from their beauty.


Published in Yorkshire Evening Post 

Bad for Lazarus Interview

 

Brighton based psychedelic rockers Bad for Lazarus have been whipping audiences into a frenzy in the last few years with their energetic live shows. Ahead of their long awaited debut album they released the stand alone single ‘My Muddle’, the video of which was the second most popular on NME. I chatted to Rich Fownes to find out what the reaction has been like to the new tracks and the state of rock music.

You set up your own label Shit Chic, why do that rather than approach an already established label?

For every cliché reason you hear about day after day. We'll always be open to offers, but it's a fucking wasteland out there and I don't expect any favours or easy rides. No established label would have much of a reason to gamble on us, why pick us over One Direction...if I had money to invest I'd know who the safer bet is. We don't want to curb our ideas to try to appeal to the last, panic-stricken dinosaurs remaining.

As a band you have had a few incarnations, was it every frustrating and how did you keep the motivation going?

Not frustrating at all, we got better every time. So there were always a few cum faces when we took it to the next level.

How’s the tour been going? What’s the reaction been to the new tracks?

Amazing so far! (I have to say that though, right?) ..but genuinely amazing. The main difference I've felt on this tour is our singing has started getting really tidy. It's nice when that kind of thing starts feeling effortless, when you start you never know if you're gonna get there. Right now we're feeling the karmic payoff for all our public onstage no-no's.

Goyte @ O2 Apollo Manchester 15th November 2012

Nothing about Goyte’s gig tonight is ordinary, from the stage set up to the display of musical talent. The stage is a solar system of sample triggers strewn in all corners and Wouter "Wally" De Backer spends the show bouncing around hitting, tapping and plinking the various samples that make up his distinctive alternative rock. The superb drummer he is becomes apparent in the first song and even though he is hammering the skins his voice doesn’t falter from its impressive range.

Throughout the set a projector casts animation and images on the back wall, a favourite would be the cartoon organ taking over a family house in ‘State of the Art’, a funky and dark track using a vocoder to create some menacing vocals.

Midway through there were a few quieter tracks that show he can still create great songs that are stripped back. Like the fabulous ‘Bronte’, a touching song about a family putting their pet dog down, which combines ethereal harmonies with simple drums. Considering his excitement throughout the rest of the set he is able to perform the track with tenderness and keep the same fullness of his more layered songs.

When the time comes for the breakup song of 2012 to be performed, the audience notes Kimbra’s absence. Brilliantly, the audience is asked to join in to cover her second verse and chorus backing vocal part, it’s a warming moment. Not many performers would be able to get that level of audience participation without encouragement. In fact not many performers would be able to seamlessly navigate their way around the huge selection of sample triggers set up whilst still maintaining an engaging and humours dialogue with the audience.

The entire set is well choreographed around the huge selection of instruments and is extremely well executed. The transitions between songs are smooth and the band genuinely looks like they are having a great time. Goyte’s live show proves him to be a dynamic and enormously talented individual.



Published on Music-New.com

The Lovely Eggs Interview

Bands don’t get much more wonderfully bizarre than TheLovely Eggs, a married duo from Lancaster that have, for the past five years, been touring their surreal punk rock around the globe. Back with their third album ‘WILDLIFE’ we talk to Holly and delve into the minds of the band that write about sausage roll thumbs and washing line smiles.

For those who don’t yet know much about you, tells us a bit about the Lovely Eggs?

We are a two-piece band from Lancaster, we got together about 5 years ago mucking around really. I was living in Paris and a friend said ‘oh I bet you cant write a song’ because they didn’t believe we had been musicians as me and Dave have both been in bands before. There and then we wrote a song and we quite liked it and we have never stopped really.

You are very prolific; does song writing come naturally to you?

Yeah it does, we don’t even think about it we keep writing and then if we have got a particular song we want to release we just release it, we just keep writing away. It’s like stories to us about our life and things we have observed.

You have a unique way of looking at things.

We do wear a different pair of spectacles to most other people I think. The way we look at life been inspired by other authors and other writers and musicians, its about looking at the world differently from how you normally would. If you do that you end up with lyrics that are maybe different. I suppose we have a different approach to song writing, as we don’t really write about what other bands are writing about. We write about what happens in our life, we are quite like voyeurs, we see stuff and write about what had happened to us.

The Staves Interview

Folk trio The Staves enamoured legendary producers Ethan and Glyn Jones so much so that for the first time the father and son duo co-produced a record together. The result is the sisters debut album ‘Dead & Born & Grown’ an incredible blend of the girls angelic harmonies and poetic stories. Scene caught up with Emily to talk about their debut album and how they look after their voices.

Was there much in the way of preproduction on the album, as it doesn’t feel overworked at all, just very natural and charming?

We didn’t really do very much preproduction at all, we went and sat in Ethan’s garden for an afternoon with him and Glynn and we just played through some songs. We would play them a song and Ethan would say “I can hear a bit of that maybe” and we had tea and cake and went home and we were like “ok we will see you in a couple of months” and that was it. We really didn’t have it all planned out at all and we wanted quite a live feel to it. We didn’t want to over think it by being absolutely sure and making all the decisions about what would happen musically before we had actually got into the right space with the right people and kind of discovered what everybody was feeling should happen in the song.

Is there one song that best represents the album?

We sort of had that thought process when we were deciding on what the album should be called and so we settled on ‘Dead & Born & Grown’, which is the title of one of the songs. It’s one of the first songs that we wrote together, I think if you get that song then you really understand where we are going from, it’s very simple it’s just guitars and vocals, some simple harmonies in there. I would say that’s fairly representative of us but then there is also a song which comes at the end called ‘The Eagle’ and that is the most recent song that we have written and that’s also kind of the most representative in a way because that’s the point that we are at now so you have kind of got both ends of the album.

The video for ‘Tongue Behind my Teeth’ has a great cowgirl and revenge theme, who came up with the concept?

It was a friend of ours, we were talking about that being the next single and doing a video for it and our friend was like “I always hear horses hoofs, I always just see you girls on horses” and we all kind of laughed. Then we looked at each other and were like “do you think we could do a cowboy thing?” We went in and said to our video people that we had this idea ‘we want to go to the desert and make a cowboy video but we will be girls, we are not going to be all corset, sexy girls, we want to be like men seeking revenge.’ We were expecting to get shot down but they said ok so we went out to this place in Spain and we were like “I don’t really think anyone has thought this through as we can’t really ride horses, what are we going to do?” It was really good fun.

Hot Chip Interview

HotChip have spent the last 8 years refining their electro pop sound with their fifth studio album, In Our Heads, gaining critical acclaim as their best yet. The band have left record label giant EMI, who released 2006’s The Warning, an album that saw them nominated for the Mercury Prize and was Mixmag’s album of the year. We spoke to Felix Martin (drum machine/synthesizer) about the bands decision to change labels, measuring the bands success and whether he would have chosen instant success at a young age.

With the fifth studio album is it easier to create the songs together?

Our albums seem to come out pretty regularly, one every couple of years, we are onto our fifth album and we kind of pride ourselves on being quite prolific, we don’t really get musically constipated like some other bands who keep trying to make other records and it just doesn’t work out. We are lucky enough that we always have loads of ideas, I’m not saying they are always amazing ideas but we keep moving forward, we just keep trying to add momentum. We create a lot of music so there is no point in hanging around and not putting it out there when it’s ready.

Why the decision to release In Out Heads on Domino rather than EMI?

It was a very natural decision to say we’re friends with them, they really like our music, they wanted to sign us originally years ago and they get who we are and what we want to do. We don’t have to explain to them too much and they won’t try and force a round peg into a square hole, which is maybe what you get slightly with a major label. On the other hand we never really had a problem with EMI and there were some nice people there, they did do a good job. It did change a lot towards the end and it wasn’t really the same company as when we had first signed to them. 

How do you quantify success as a band?

We definitely think about it. From the point of view that we are, partly at least, a pop band, we are definitely aware of whether or not our albums are being listened to by a lot of people and whether our tours are selling out and whether we are still relevant in any way, shape of form. When you’ve made five albums, internally you start trying to justify it. Why do I think it’s necessary for me to keep doing this or would it be better to stop now but we just haven’t really come to that point in terms of creativity and the ideas that we have. You see people’s careers on the up and down, not everyone retires when they are at the peak of their success. A lot of people, the venues are getting smaller and the crowd is diminishing, that’s hard as well but it’s your career so you have to keep plugging away at it I guess. 

Conor Maynard Interview

In the space of a year ConorMaynard has gone from a YouTube sensation into a pop star in his own right. He first started posting videos of himself singing covers and built up a strong online fan base. He was signed to Parlophone in late 2011 and began working on his album Contrast, which went straight to number 1 in the UK. Scene catches up with the Conor when he has just got back from America to find out what it was like getting so much attention before his album was released and his dream acting role.

How has this year been for you?

I think this year has been the rapid part, obviously the past four years was me posting covers on YouTube and getting signed and working on my first album. That kind of took about four years and then this year it kind of all took off in one go and it’s been amazing for me to step back and see the growth. Fans and my friends get to see it as well, how my life has changed. I suppose that’s one of the reasons I named the album Contrast because of that crazy change.

How was it getting so much attention before your album was even released?

It was very crazy for me. It was kind of scary at the same time because it did put pressure on me putting out the album and people enjoying it. I suppose it delivered as it got to number 1 in its first week, which was an incredible thing to happen. For me it’s definitely been a plan to keep releasing music and keep pleasing fans with my music, so hopefully that will continue to happen.

How did you celebrate when it went to number 1?

I actually got to sleep for once. I got a day off afterwards so I got to sleep and then I think that night I went out with my friends and you can actually find pictures of me being asked for ID trying to get into a club. That was hilarious. 

Lianne La Havas

Lianne La Havas was tipped to be big this year and she certainly didn’t disappoint. Her debut album charted at number 4 and gained her a Mercury Prize nomination and a host of famous fans including Prince, Stevie Wonder and Bon Iver. You can tell she is enjoying the experience as she recounts us with her tales from America, the artists she is nominated with and how she looks after that beautiful voice of hers.

We last spoke to you at the end of last year, how’s the past year been for you?

I’ve had a lot of fun this year, lots of exciting things have happened so I’m chuffed. Meeting Stevie Wonder, actually just the fact that he came to my show is pinch yourself. I screamed when I found out I was so excited, my whole band where excited. We are all massive fans and I’ve learnt a lot about music just from him as well as other artists, that was a really amazing highlight of this year.

Your album, Is Your Love Big Enough, has just been nominated for the Mercury Prize, how does that feel?

I’m so trilled I can’t believe it. I didn’t find out properly because what they do is they ask you if you’re available on the night of the ceremony rather than say you’re nominated, as there is a certain time when they announce it all. They knew my availability but I found out the day before or something about the actual nomination. I was over the moon.

What do you think of the acts you are up against?

I love Jessie Ware, I know her and I love her voice and I love her songs. Michael Kiwanuka I love, Ben Howard and I love the Alt-J album, Richard Hawley as well. It’s a really mixed bag but just to be nominated is just the best feeling in the world. I can’t wait to be at the ceremony and be a part of it all, see everyone’s performances. It’s going to be a really wonderful evening of music. It’s crazy, so prestigious and just a wonderful thing so I am very happy. 

Life in Film Interview

 

London based guitar band Life in Film is made up of Samuel Fry, Micky Osment, Edward Ibbotson and Dominic Sennétt. They caught the attention of industry giant Stephen Street (The Smiths, Blur) who has been working with them on their album and been asked by fashion label Burberry to play an acoustic session for them. When we speak to Ed the excitement the boys have for the music they are making and the tour they are just about to set off on is evident.

How did you guys meet and decide to start making music together?

I’ve known Sam since we were at school together, we did a few half arsed band things when we were at school but then we both went to Uni. That’s where Sam met Dom and Mick. They played about a bit but nothing serious and then when Uni ended they broke up and Sam came back to London. We started playing about with guitars and the other two moved up to London and we decided to give it a go. Dom says he remembers the first time I met him and it was in a pub in Acton, I seem to remember that being ages after I met him so that’s an on going dispute.

We all get on really well, we pretty much spend all of our time together and it’s quality. I think it’s pretty much all we have wanted to do. In an interview we did a while ago Dom said that most of our humour is based on insulting each other so if it ever came down to an argument we have already said the worst stuff you could possibly say already, it would almost be pointless to have the argument. It’s wicked, there has never been a big bust up and we are all quite close emotionally and sort of look after each other.

How did you come up with the bands name as there are several stories around. I read that an Indian guru told you that you needed to be in a band called My Life in Film, that’s not true is it?

I quite like the guru one but it’s absolute bollocks. I got told that the other day, I think Dom said that I’d gone to India and meditated with a guru or something like that, it’s absolute nonsense. Although I kind of wish it was because that’s far more interesting.

It came from this film called American Movie, this sort of documentary about this guy in America. He is obsessed with horror movies and he is trying to make his own movie but it’s really low budget and he is slightly deluded and this documentary follows him trying to make a horror movie. Although he was the guy that was desperate to make the movie this documentary was actually following him, so it was kind of his life in film, even though it was all about him trying to make his own film. We liked the ideas running through that. We spent ages trying to think of a name and we came up with some bad ones. I think it’s a bit like hearing the sound of your own voice. It always sounds a bit alien.

How was it working with Stephen Street?

Yeah that was brilliant, that’s probably been a high point for all of us. We like the same music but also each like our own different things but I think the Smiths and Blur are probably the two bands that we would say are big influences, probably the Smiths more than Blur and so that was just a dream. I think a lot of people that aren’t in bands maybe don’t know about producers but even before I was in a band I knew about Stephen Street. I just thought it would be amazing to work with him. I think he had heard a couple of early demos and he knew that we weren’t signed at the time so he just did it because he obviously really liked. I know people always say what an honour it is to work with someone but for us that was a pretty big thing, probably the biggest thing that’s happened to me.   

AxeWound Interview

What’s better than being in one hugely successful metal band? Being in two, a feat AxeWound are working for with their debut album Vultures. Instigator Matt Tuck (Bullet For My Valentine) got together Liam Cormier (Cancer Bats), Jason Bowld (Pitchshifter), Mike Kingswood (Glamour Of The Kill) and ex-Rise To Remain bassist Joe Copcutt to push metal to it’s limits. Here Matt talks us through the changes in metal music and how he lost his confidence when he had his tonsils removed.

How did the group come together?

It was something I had wanted to do for a long time and I had know Jason from when he stood in at some Bullet shows. We kept in touch ever since as he was the guy I wanted to do it with. We had an opportunity to do it December last year so I just phoned him up and we kind of just did it there and then. Then after the music was written and recorded then we kind of put the band around it.

Which song do you think most defines the bands sound?

If I had to pick one it would probably be Post Apocalyptic Party. It’s got a little bit of everything that AxeWounds is about. There’s a lot of swagger in that song, it’s brutally heavy but it still something you can nod your head to which is a nice thing to be able to do.

You recorded Vultures in 11 days, with no pre-writing or rehearsing, what was the motivation behind that?

We just didn’t have the luxury of time or budget. We did it all in my downtime from Bullet and we funded everything ourselves, then it was coming up to Christmas so we just gave ourselves a goal of 11 days. We actually dropped one from the album because we weren’t too sure of it so we put it to bed. 

Don Broco Interview

It’s been a busy summer for DonBroco, although the band have been together since 2008 relentlessly touring the country, the release of their debut album Priorities saw the crowds get bigger and their shows reviewed in Kerrang! Lead singer Rob Damiani took the time to talk to us about his writing process, dealing with doubters and doing it DIY.

It seems to be very important to you guys to do it yourselves, what are the advantages and disadvantages of doing it DIY?

We have always had a quite DIY ethos, it’s almost quite hard to give that up in a way. Since we signed to Sony they have been great, obviously they have had more ideas for us, there is a bigger team behind us but we still get to keep our individuality and any ideas that we want to put forward come first, which is great. I think it’s important because it means you don’t turn into a standard band in a way you still get to get all your original ideas out.

If someone came along and said they could guarantee you a No1 album and lots of money but you would have to change the band would you do it?

No I don’t think so because everything has happened so naturally for us, I don’t think we could ever change things up dramatically. The way things are going they seem to be working all right. It’s nice having other people involved, with anything really. With the album, we wrote that ourselves but we are also taking advice from our producer, collaborations are great but when anyone comes in and tells you what to do it’s not going to end well. 

How did you guys know when you found your sound?

It’s definitely a more gradual process. When we first started writing songs three years ago they don’t sound anything like the songs we are coming up with now. It’s a learning curve, learning how to write songs and learning what we liked about our own music. It defiantly wasn’t straight away. We’ve all got such varied influences, it was quite hard to pick what is was we wanted to do as when we first started we just wanted to be a band, we wanted to play anything. When we wrote our mini album Big Fat Smile we saw that as a definite turning point, this is what we like, this is what we want to do. Writing the album it really came together, now it’s finished it’s still quite diverse in the sense that we cover a lot of ground and we have tried a lot of things out on it but it’s a way more focused release. Looking back through the progression of stuff it’s definitely changed and I don’t think when we started we could have written that.   

Foxes Interview

 

When we get to speak to Foxes (A.K.A Louis Rose Allen) she is on her tour bus on her way to Berlin and surprisingly upbeat for someone who has got another five hours of travelling in front of them. With an infectious charisma and stunning ethereal vocals that were showcased on her Neon Gold Records’ debut Youth late last year, Foxes is capturing people’s attention all over the world.

You moved down to London and studied music, why did you stop?

Well I feel like music can’t really be taught. I think it was a bit too much of a classroom for me and I just wanted to run off and create some sounds. It was great fun but it wasn’t really for me. I feel that music school is for if you want to become a teacher. It’s probably different for lots of people but for me I wasn’t really into all of the theory classes. I just don’t feel like you can be taught music, I feel like it’s something you learn yourself. I just wanted to run off and write songs and sing them on stages really.

What were your musical influences when you were growing up compared to now?

Growing up I loved the Spice Girls, Eminem, it was very pop, typical young kid in the 90’s. I loved all sorts of stuff. I was a big fan of 90’s dance music. I really liked Kate Bush, Patti Smith, still do and Björk, Portishead, Massive Attack, stuff like that really. I actually get my inspiration more from film. It’s visually more inspiring for me so I watch a lot of films and soundtracks. I love Leon, more recently I think the Drive soundtracks brilliant. When I was younger I used to watch Leon five times a day and Forest Gump five times day apparently, my mum said I used to sit there and have them on repeat.

How do you describe yourself as a performer?

I think I just get into it. I really enjoy magical stage performances. I like it when the artist can take the listener away for half and hour and make them think they have gone into another world. I’m a big fan of magical moments in performances and the occasional jump about. It’s taken me a while to get good at my craft, stage confidence and performance. I don’t get nervous now, I used to.

Richard Hawley @ Leeds O2 Academy 25th September 2012

On a night when the rain just wouldn’t stop and the last of summer had been washed away for good, Richard Hawley had the difficult task of making people forget what was outside for a few hours. For many Hawley has been under valued for years but with his latest release ‘Standing at the Sky’s Edge’ his legendary status is being cemented. He is one of only a few musicians ever to be nominated twice for a Mercury Music Prize and currently he is mesmerizing audience up and down the country with his performances.

He walks onto the stage as the personification of cool, his dark hair in a quiff and dressed in all black. Trees surrounding the stage create an ethereal feel that perfectly matches Hawley’s magical performance. The music stand in front of him making him look like a minister in front of a lectern, you can’t stop being drawn to him. Talking to the audience throughout, occasionally a foulmouthed yet witty retort to the few people not completely engrossed in the songs, he balances being charming and humble.

Considering the capacity of the venue Hawley makes the performance feel intimate, it’s almost as if a friend has picked up a guitar and sung to you after a dinner party. Tracks like the existential ‘Leave Your Body Behind You’ and ‘Don’t Stare at the Sun’ showcase his talents as a songwriter and allow him to reveal his abilities as a masterful guitar player. As the gig closes with ‘Ocean’ a couple of women can be noticed crying and a sense that greatness has touched the room can be felt. 

Published in Yorkshire Evening Post 

Bad for Lazarus release debut single My Muddle

Putting Bad For Lazarus new single ‘My Muddle’ into a genre isn’t easy and that’s because it really doesn’t belong in one, apart from ‘fucking awesome music’.  The band themselves are made up of a tapestry of ex-members of Nine Inch Nails, The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster and UNKLE so maybe that goes someway in understanding the musical mayhem pouring from them. The band say they sound like Motown Hell “because we like Motown and we like Richard Hell” and that’s probably as accurate a description as you are going to get. The adrenaline of punk meets the groove of Soul, add in some determined heavy guitars and rock vocals and you have the start of what the band have created.

It isn’t a song to symbolise how shit the economy is or one you are likely to hear in Starbucks but one to turn up loud and one that’s going to make you smile. It’s unadulterated, undiluted, beautifully chaotic fun. Check out the video exclusively at NME before it’s released on 7^th November, I double dare you

http://www.nme.com/nme-video/bad-for-lazarus---my-muddle/1911386920001

Richard Hawley Interview

After 30 years helping to landscape Sheffield’s music scene Richard Hawley’s seventh studio album has achieved his highest album chart yet. A musician whose career has always held high critical acclaim, he was instrumental in Brit Pop with the band Longpigs then went on to join Pulp for a short time. Alongside his solo career he has a tapestry of session work including Elbow, All Saints, Hank Marvin and Arctic Monkeys. For a man who is held in such high esteem by others and optimises rock star cool, when we speak to him he is faultlessly courteous and completely entrancing.

How was it performing at Latitude after breaking your leg?

Yeah I was on crutches, there was a load of old mates and stuff around, it was lovely to see them anyway but they were all quite shocked to see me with a pot on my leg and in a wheelchair. Guy Garvey (Elbow) wheeled me on, he was dressed in one of these high visibility shirts, we looked like that couple off Little Britain.

I was just glad throughout the whole thing I didn’t pull any gigs. I didn’t want to spoil it for everybody in the band and crew but also the audience who have given their money, love and time to come and see us. A lot of people these days, they cry off a tour or whatever and end up in A&E because they have broken a nail, you know what I mean.

You said of your latest record that you deliberately limited yourself with regards to instrumentation, how did it change the way you wrote and arranged?

I think that the fundamental thing, I still wrote the songs in my head, but then a lot of the songs were based from jam sessions. I would just play a song with the guys and we would come up with a bit that would work for certain sections. It was definitely a hands on record, for the most of it anyway you could see the whites of each other’s eyes in the room. It wasn’t like I would lay some guitar down then leave it for a month because that’s the bit where we put the 90-piece orchestra, it wasn’t like that. It was just old fashioned really but I really liked it. A lot of it is recorded live, just us together in a room and I loved that, it was the way I used to make records a long long time ago.

You have just produced Duane Eddy’s new album Road Trip, how has that turned out?  
I love it. I think it’s a great record. I know he is happy with it. He’s not recorded in a studio for 25 years before that and the previous record that he had done was with pop star fans of his like Paul McCartney and George Harrison and all that, it was awful. I’m being honest about it, it was a truly tragic record.

It’s one of those records that I was so glad to have made, to repay a massive debt that I owe Duane. We have become very good friends, I speak to him on the phone, as my wife reminds me when she shows me the phone bill. He is a great artist and he is someone who I think has been criminally neglected and criminally ripped off by the music industry. It was good to pay respect, but not just do it out of that because it’s got some musical merit. I think we have pushed things forward for him without introducing dance music or electronica. Its very sort of much a representation of what he does as an artist but very slightly updated that’s all.

Wild Beasts Interview

Wild Beasts typify the exciting music that has been coming out of Leeds the past few years, evocative, honest and occasionally catching you off guard with the bands vocals shared by Hayden Thorpe with his emotive falsetto and Tom Fleming’s deeper croon. Now located in the capital and touring the globe they haven’t forgotten their first gig in Leeds “terrible, just awful” or the friends and fans they have made there. Ahead of the bands set at Beacons Festival we talk to Tom find out about the evolution of their albums and misconceptions about the band. 

You toured for two straight years, did you ever feel disconnected from things?

Not necessarily, it’s very easy to go into ‘poor me I have to tour the world’ you know what me? I think it’s more like anything, imagine if you were away from home a lot of the time and trying to have a normal life as well, it’s a tug of war. It’s not that it’s not worth doing, it’s just that it changes the dynamic of course. You can’t come home to your girlfriend every night, it’s just not possible. I think it’s necessary for musicians to put their stuff on the road and also think it’s up to them to try and keep your feet on the ground, remember why your doing it in the first place and not get caught up in the distractions. 

When Katie Harkin from Sky Larkin has joined for your live set, did it change the dynamics having a female on board?

Effectively she is helping us out on stage, I think Katie is too good a writer and musician and singer to actually stay with us forever. She has been wonderful, we have known her from way back and she has fit into the machine beautifully, she has been great to tour with.

Do you think there are any misconceptions about the band?

I am sure there are. I think for the most part people know what we are doing now. We have been accused of being over serious or being pretentious, we have also been accused of being to silly, I don’t know. Put it this way, it used to bother me and it really doesn’t anymore. I think to an extent we have a body of work now and hopefully it has it’s own kind of logic, we can kind of trace that back.

Delilah Interview

She wrote her first song at 12, signed to Island records at 17 and now aged 21, Delilah (born Paloma Stoecker), has already toured the world with Chase and Status. Having been brought up surrounded by musicians, her mother and late stepfather were involved in independent record labels and her father a club in Camden, her musical influences are far reaching and helped shape her unique style of dark, sparse, soulful pop. Before her performance at M Fest we spoke to her about the album, how far she has come and living on a bus with 18 men.

How did you decide on the album name?

‘From The Roots Up’ came from a mixture of things really. I changed my name to Delilah, it was my great grandmothers name, when I was investigating the real meaning to it, it was someone who up roots and I sort of took that and played with it. ‘From The Roots Up’ just kind of symbolised the beginning of something and growth, it made sense.

It was three years in the making; did you know straight away it was finished?

You do, you mess around with it and then suddenly it’s done and your like ‘oh wait it’s all done now that’s great.’ It didn’t all come together too easily, it took a long time going back and forth but when we put that last little note in and mixed it all down it was a moment of insane cheers.

What themes do the songs cover?

I guess it’s about life. I would sum it up like that. I know it’s a very broad statement but it’s about life and falling in love and falling out of love, falling back in love again, relationships, whether it be with your friends or family, yourself, all of that.

All songs are written or co-written by you, did you consider songs by other writers?

It wasn’t even something we thought about, it was just something that I’ve always done. I signed as a writer and I continued to do that while we were making the album. I started writing a lot of these songs for myself, I wasn’t writing for an album. It was just me going through stuff and needing to express it. I was always going to write the album because it’s an album about my life.

Lone Wolf Interview

Leeds based musician Lone Wolf, born Paul Marshall, has spent the last year constructing his third album The Lovers with friends James Kenosha and Jon Fougler. He received critical acclaim for his first 2 albums and comparisons to Tom Waits and Nick Cave. The Lovers though is a strong departure from his last, a brilliant folk record, and we spoke to him to find out more about the different direction of the album and how his fans are funding it.

Your new album is being funded through fans pledges, why did you take that route?

It’s one of those things, I’ve been doing this for a little while now, this is my third record, and I always find myself having to sit on my hands a little. I’m always wishing I was a little bit more involved with what was going on, even though a lot of the time I would probably rather not be involved, it’s a weird double edged sword really. I just always really wanted to start my own record label, do it my own way on my own terms. I’ve always been vocal in speaking directly to the fans on Twitter and Facebook and email and stuff, I never hide, I always talk directly to people. I thought this was a really good way of talking directly to the fans and allowing them to be a part of it as well, so that we could all be in this together and make it our project. I just thought in this day and age where everyone is robbing Peter to pay Paul kind of thing, I thought it was nice for the fans, for them to know exactly where their money was going and exactly what every penny of that was going towards.

How did you decide what people could pledge for?

We had to do a bit of research and see what other bands had been offering. From doing a bit of a sweeping view of what other bands had done it became clearly obvious what kind of angle I wanted to do and what things I really didn’t want to do. For example I saw some bands offering things like ‘be our roadie for the day’ for £100 and I thought that’s a bit cruel on the fans. Being a roadie isn’t really the most fun job in the world, to have someone lug all your equipment around and then charge them for the privilege. I was determined that I wanted to do things that were very fan orientated and I really wanted the fan to feel, that when they pledge they really do get something personal out of it from me. I wanted more to talk directly to the fan and therefore show them that I am doing something specifically for them to thank them for pledging.

You didn’t use any piano, drums or acoustic guitar on your new record, why not?

When I did a couple of demos at home for a couple of the new songs, I don’t have access to a drum kit at home or things like that so I just played my electric guitar and I made one song by banging the back of a acoustic guitar to make the beat because its just what was there. Then I had a tambourine and made a rhythm like that, as we went further along I was going around the house banging on jars with spoons and scraping walls. I just started doing things and creating a bit of a sound bank from it of different organic percussive sounds instead of actually using a drum kit or cymbals or whatever. Then when we went into the studio I decided that I wanted everything to be kind of organic. I mean I still use instruments, I just use an electric guitar instead of an acoustic and that was just because I didn’t want to make another folk album, I wanted to make something a bit more interesting. I wanted to experiment more and let my brain do it’s thing. I use a lot of synths and a lot of electric bass and instruments like that. Before you were used to hearing an acoustic guitar with real drums generally and kind of down beat kind of folky tunes with strings. I don’t like to go over the same footprints that I’ve already trodden, I just wanted to try something new and I feel like it was the best decision that I’ve made.

The Charlatans Interview

In the 22 years that The Charlatans have been together they have endured more than most bands ever would. They have had huge success with albums like Tellin’ Stories and Us and Us Only. They have also had to face the grief of losing member Rob Collins in a car crash and drummer Jon Brookes treatment for a brain tumour. We spoke to the faultlessly affable Tim Burgess who has been the bands lead singer throughout their highs and lows.

You’ve just published your memoir, what was the most challenging part of getting that together?

It’s just that I’d never written a book before I suppose, it’s quite challenging. The fact that I don’t consider myself an author in any shape or form. I said that at the beginning of the book, which kind of blew my chances of anybody reading it. People got passed that and started to really enjoy it. An agent approached me and asked if I’d thought of writing a book, I actually hadn’t but lied and told him I had. Two years later I started writing it after a lot of false starts.

Was there anything you thought twice about putting in?

There’s a chapter on the Wu-Tang Clan that I didn’t put in. The missing chapter I like to call it. I wrote about New Order, The Clash and Paul Weller so I thought having the Wu-Tang Clan in there as well was pushing it too far. I think everything made up the book, there were bits I thought were missing towards the end but it was actually bringing it all up to date. All the way through it I was changing my mind all the time, so I think it came out quite considered. It’s got some brilliant reviews, I’m thrilled.

You are playing the Magic Loungeabout festival this year, any others?

Yeah we’ve got a few festival things. We started off with the idea of just doing 4, but it’s kind of grown a little bit this one and it’s got out of control. I’ve heard very good things about the Magic Loungeabout though.

Django Django @ Cockpit 14th June 2012

It’s another sold out gig for Django Django and tonight at the Cockpit is swelling with bodies. Movement is rendered nearly impossible with the throng of fans awaiting the band and when they take to the stage in home bleached t-shirts, arms and drinks fly everywhere.

The energy the band gives off is contagious as they bound about the small stage and smile knowingly at each other often. When they talk to the crowd between songs they are engaging and humble, there are no ego’s here. They seem just as pleased to be here as the crowd are.

The bands sound is highly percussive and throughout the set they showcase an array of percussive instruments including a humongous tambourine. Songs like ‘Skies over Cario’ create syncopated rhythms that are perfect for mass dancing and the crowd oblige freely. The tribal drumming and Egyptian melody produce an alluring and absorbing effect, the crowd in a trance. Their most downbeat track, the simple ‘Hand of Man’, has a country twang, with ethereal harmonies and warm guitars.

The music reaches every part of your body as the heavy bass crawls up your legs and guitars rattle round your head. Every song is like an aural assault as it reaches out and grabs you. The band bends sounds and blends them with contrasting melodies getting them to co-exist perfectly. They use futuristic sounding synths to add interesting textures and show that this is a band that isn’t going to run out of ideas any time soon.

Published in the Yorkshire Evening Post