Hi! “Messages In Blood” is an intriguing title for your new album. Can you share the inspiration or story behind this name?
A: I was thinking of a few different things when coming to this album. When I was writing and recording ‘Messages In Blood’, I was thinking of the messages in my songs. I’ve grappled with this at times in my work, for instance, my songs aren’t all happy upbeat or simply positive songs, there’s dark songs in there, and I was also thinking of that, almost self justifying it to myself with this title. I was once criticised with an album that I could have a failure to communicate in my work; I guess I was thinking of these different things with the title for the album, that if anything, that I’m communicating messages from the heart, something true, almost something instinctual and real, and something natural for an artist. Obviously not everyone will get my music, as with any musician, I guess they’re messages not everyone will understand, messages that won’t reach some people, so I was thinking of messages written in blood, that all I can really do sometimes is try.
Your work is often compared to Bob Dylan, especially with your inspiration from ‘The Bootleg Series Vol. 1 – 3’. How do you feel your music parallels or diverges from Dylan’s influence?
A: Although I was mainly influenced by Dylan early on, he was a stand out influence, ironically I’ve often mostly been compared to sounding like Neil Young, I think in the voice. Although I’ve been very occasionally compared to Dylan in my live performances, my recordings I think objectively, vary with this comparison. Obviously I’ve always tried to create something of my own, the majority of my work veers far from Dylanesque sounding music, although also, yeah I guess there could be the odd thing that comes through that shows this early influence. I think the only work where I looked back and thought, that is a bit like Dylan, was the collection of songs I wrote in 2002 titled ‘Renaissance Songs’, I hadn’t even seen it at the time, but afterwards there was a similar country twang in the songs, like Dylan’s earlier works. Having said that, a main theme for me has always been subconscious driven music, something I’m not completely in control of, this was maybe when I was at my best, doing something instinctual and deeper than I could delve with conscious skills or abilities. Part of why I loved Dylan’s music was that I had read a lot about him, his life, his music. A style he had, and I don’t know if he still does this, was stream of consciousness, this is something that has paralleled my work such as subconscious driven music.
The release of ‘Chronology’ marks over 30 years of your musical journey. How have your songwriting and musical style evolved from your early days recording on a stereo blaster in 1993?
A: My earliest songs, the first songs I wrote, I had come from writing poetry and also fiction, such as short stories, and also reading a lot of horror fiction. I was very focused on crafting poetic turns of phrases, quite intellectual, ironically I was possibly writing my most lyrically crafted songs back in ’93.
In a strange way, my writing style simplified as the years progressed; my songs became more musical and less lyric driven. Obviously these things varied throughout albums and years, styles changed, but for example in 1993 I went from ‘The Moon Has Risen’, an epic tale about Captain Cook, full of dark imagery and foretelling dramatic lines, to something like ‘Tornado’ in 1995, just a little acoustic pop ditty with few words. Of course, since back then, all of the changes and developments are difficult for me to describe, lest fathom, looking back right now it seems abstract in my mind. Although, if I were to have some objectivity around this, time is a central theme in my back catalogue ‘Chronology’, each decade bringing a different era, a different period, each album signposting an either familiar or new direction to take me to the next album in my life.
Can you share a particularly memorable or significant moment from your early recording days that has stayed with you throughout your career?
A: I guess the most significant time in my early recordings was ’99. Looking back I don’t know how I managed it. Although it wasn’t my most prolific year in terms of new songs, I went about recording songs/albums from ’93 – ’98 for the first time, as I hadn’t recorded them before, or hadn’t recorded them properly before. It was my most prolific year in those terms. I had kind of just covered the basics so far with recording technique, such on basic tape machines, but I now had a Tascam 4 Track Porto Studio, I figured out how to get a decent signal when recording, and knew enough from reading about Dylan that I had to record tracks separately. I never achieved that amount of recording again, not in the volume of albums, but that year stands out in that sense. In personal terms it was a difficult year for me, but creatively productive. I remember failing my second year of Uni as my health deteriorated, then all I did was record every day, driven to capture what I had written since ’93. When it came to the last album of ’99, ‘Tribal’, I was in the heights of creativity, writing and recording my best stuff before my health further declined and I went into hospital. It was the best and worst time for me, but I captured a lot of those earliest songs the best I could at that time.
With such a vast and varied catalog of work, how did you go about selecting the tracks for ‘Chronology’? Were there any songs that were particularly challenging to revisit or rework?
A: Originally I never had the intention of releasing my entire catalogue with the title ‘Chronology’. Someone who should be mentioned behind ‘Chronology’ was a friend of mine, Simon Harding. All I had done so far was create a standard discography of ‘official’ albums since ’93, a selection of the better albums I had decided to release. After that, in about ’07, I had a box of around 100 cassette tapes, the masters for the recordings, I then had the idea to release a ‘best of’ compilation alongside my discography, with all the better outtakes titled ‘Chronology’, it would have been a similar idea to Dylan’s ‘The Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3’, highlights of all the outtakes from the ‘unofficial’ albums. However, Simon came up with the idea that as I had done all of those albums with a purpose in mind, I should release them all together as one set, and title it ‘Chronology’. So really, it wasn’t initially my idea, this project was gradually evolving into what it became. Therefore, with the compilation that is now available, ‘Chronology – Story Seasons’, a ‘best of’ compilation; this is what I would have originally released, and nothing more. Obviously, with 4 decades of amateur home recordings, I had no intention of releasing everything, there were bad songs, poor albums, badly produced songs and albums, I had no intention of releasing it. But then I thought, Simon was right, it wasn’t about putting all of the best stuff out there as an inauthentic showcase, it was creating something truer, more authentic, something more honest than that – for example, music is basically subjective, and not objective anyway. We wanted to present a whole, something which shows a story, a narrative, a journey, and that’s where the ideas came from. Yes, you could pick out certain albums or songs etc and state ‘this is bad’, but that wouldn’t be the point, it would be missing the point, my music can only be understood in context, everything is in context, with a lot of different things, and obviously not everyone will get that. It was also debating the issues around back catalogues, reworking a catalogue with a title, a theme and a story, rather than just a collection of music. Of course, quality control can still be important, I’m not saying anyone should release everything that is bad, there sometimes needs to be some awareness of quality, but I think the point is that the modern day culture of DIY home recording production, tends to be that a song/production needs to be perfect, almost artificially so, to the point where there is zero flaws or issues. Very little of my work is perfect, but it’s not about perfection, it’s about the meaning of the songs, what the song is conveying, the lyrics, performance, the story, that is what ‘Chronology’ is about.
Your fans have eagerly awaited the release of ‘Chronology’. What do you hope listeners will take away from this comprehensive collection of your life’s work?
A: ‘Chronology’ has evolved since its first ideas, and I’m happy with its final vision, it’s basically ready for release, which I’ll have to do gradually in practical terms. I’ll be releasing ‘Chronology’ online in the next few years as a streamlined version with an expanded version as a limited edition deluxe usb boxset (with everything included) in the future. I think rather than selling the collection to someone, I’d say if you prefer high quality commercial production, then don’t listen to ‘Chronology’, it isn’t that. I guess the most I can hope that someone takes from the collection is that it’s just something interesting, even if it’s just curiosity. We’re living in religious times, a lot is very heavy and intense, everything is immediate, such as the internet, 24 hour news, all the technology – ‘Chronology’ is an antithesis to that, it is something slower, more thoughtful, it’s something deeper; I just wanted to create something interesting. On one side of the coin, it’s true that this collection is nothing, it’s uninteresting, it’s just another back catalogue, just old music, yes that’s true. However, on the other side of the coin, it’s a story, if you want to find that out.
Over the years, how have technological advancements in recording and producing music influenced your creative process and the final sound of your albums?
A: My early stuff is raw, it’s fair to say it’s lo-fi and demo like, to be honest, as my later stuff can be too. It doesn’t come up to current modern day standards of production, but again, like with the songs themselves, that’s not the point. High quality commercial production was not the purpose, it was always just to capture moments, to capture sometimes one off improvised performances which came and went, never to be heard again. Besides, hardly any of my albums were recorded properly anyway. It’s true that it’s not always been successful, sometimes I’ve failed at this, you could listen to an album and pick it apart in comparison to modern music, but that wasn’t what happened. You’d have to bear in mind I was mostly alone in my bedroom with no money, a second hand acoustic guitar and a keyboard with a drum machine, with a few bits like a shaky egg and a tambourine, I was self taught and had limited skills. I wasn’t a professional musician in an expensive studio with a producer overseeing the sound, I’ve never had thousands of pounds to spend on making albums – that was the reality. Of course, quality in production can be important, I’m not saying it isn’t, I just wonder if sometimes people don’t listen to songs anymore, they listen to the production, and there’s something not quite right about that, to me anyway. I just always preferred the intimate sound of a bedroom or living room, like a lot of musicians say ‘it sounded good in my living room’, there was something warm and authentic about it. However, you could criticise this approach, but it was genuine, it was honest, it was human. I think in a way we’ve lost touch with that now, it’s common place now to hear professional quality production, which is good, but there’s also a downside, the downside is everything sounds the same, it’s bland, boring, sometimes it feels almost a bit egotistical to me. I can’t particularly single myself out as anything different, I’ve been on a long learning curve with production but I’ve tried and that’s all that matters to me, I’ve tried with what I’ve had.
Can you discuss a track from “Messages In Blood” that you feel particularly connected to or proud of, and the story or process behind its creation?
A: I think ‘Drop Out’ would be the stand out song, as a single or something. I wrote that song as a personal statement of my life and music, something at the heart of me. Although none of my songs are me really, nothing I’ve ever written is really me, but I was playing with this in the song. I was playing with how I could be perceived by others, or maybe it was just my imagination, but I was thinking of these things, the roles you play in life; to get a ‘proper’ job and become a member of society, the pressures with that. I wanted to show my failings and weaknesses, but be honest about it, and turn those failings and weaknesses around, to free myself of that shame, the song is about liberation, a common theme in my later music.
Finally, looking back over more than three decades of music-making, what advice would you give to your younger self at the start of your career in 1993?
A: My first advice would be to either buy a proper microphone and keep hold of all the masters you record! I didn’t do that through some years, to the detriment of some recordings. But seriously, I guess I’d say, as I would to any young creative out there, enjoy the journey, don’t be so hard on yourself, stay true to yourself, and believe in yourself, you’ll come out the other side, wherever that may be.