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  

Kate Nash Interview

Summer 2007 and Kate Nash’s hit song Foundations was on constant loop on the radio.

She was one of a few London born singer-songwriters that were experiencing notoriety and she threw herself at every opportunity; she worked so hard in fact that she burnt herself out and had to take a year off.

Before the release of her third album and intimate preview tour, we chat to her about her charity work and breakdown.

Your new album is out soon, is it a departure from your first two?

I would say it’s quite a departure from my old stuff, I think. For me it feels like a pretty natural progression. It’s like when people haven’t seen you for a few years and they see you and say that you’ve changed.

You’ve been seeing yourself every day in the mirror so you don’t really realise it. It’s a bit like that. It’s quite raw and quite strong stuff. I think it’s the best work I have done so far.

You have been running after-school clubs for girls to get them interested in a career in the music industry – how did you first get involved in that?

Basically I did this panel talk for a group that supports female filmmakers. They asked me to talk about the gender gap in the music industry. I was quite passionate about that topic anyway, there were some really quite shocking statistics about the gaps that I learnt about and I wanted to do something about it.

I watched this interview with Kathleen Hanna [of the Riot Grrrl group Bikini Kill] who is one of my heroes and she was talking about these rock and roll camps they have for girls in New York.

I really wanted to bring something like that to the UK but didn’t know how to start a camp.

I thought I could start some after-school clubs and basically picked schools that were in places that I had days off on my tour and literally went to the schools and did them a little presentation and just kept going back.

Did you see any improvements?

I think what it boils down to is confidence.

A lot of girls were suffering with self-esteem issues because of the crazy celebrity culture that seems to be getting more and more explosive in this country.

I’ve got footage of about 100 teenage girls saying they don’t think they are attractive enough to be musicians. I think that’s really sad and I think it’s really quite a serious problem that we all need to take responsibility for.

We need to stop buying into this image of the perfect culture that basically says ‘you’re not as good as these people and here is a product that might make you feel like you are getting there.’ That and constantly slagging women off for being human beings and being normal, having the same sort of things we all have. I think it’s actually really destructive.