Interview

How much of the inspiration for your writing is drawn from real life?

It really all depends on the song. Most of my melodic ideas tend to just come to me, either while I'm playing around with some chords or I'm driving down the road. Usually the first verse will lyrically fall together of it's own accord, with the rhythms of certain words making up the key points of the melody. Then, if I like it, I'll read through them and try to decipher what the hell they might mean! Often they're obvious but sometimes they remain ambiguous and I can take the song in various directions to suit the mood i happen to be in. Quite flexible really.

I've used a huge amount of my own life as the material for geography, mainly because it was going all over the place at the time of writing, but also because i wanted to address a lot of issues and try and clear my head. It works for a while, depending on the issue. Some troubles never go away and you keep writing about them. I've written from other peoples lives at times as well. Usually friends and people I know, rather than made up individuals. So, overall I would say that real experiences are more alive to me and seem to suggest themselves more vibrantly. I guess they have more energy.

Describe your creative process.

I think I just did that in the last answer. But after the germ of the song sticks in my head, I tend to finish it quite quickly. Otherwise it often goes off and I can't stand mouldy ideas sitting around in my head being all unfinished and no longer relevant. I always try to record the idea in some fashion, usually on my phone or before they had that facility, I sometimes phoned my home number and left it on the answerphone. Normally i got to it first, but it can be a bit hard to explain to someone else when they listen to it that you aren't mad. I just lost too many ideas by thinking i'd remember them, a hook is normally just a coincidence if rhythm and melody so recording it works best for me. Then I usually try and stick it down on my 8 track within a few days so I know what I was talking about!

Best Gig?

Gigs are really funny, cause you can do ten shit ones in the same place, and then one night, for no reason at all, you have a great one! There's no real formula for it. A lot of it's actually enjoying it yourself. If you're bored and miserable then you're quite likely to make the whole place bored and miserable, simply on the grounds that you have a p.a. and are therefore louder then anyone else. I really try not to do that to people, it's not fair! I had a great showcase at the Roadhouse in Covent Garden with an old band, that was so vibey and we all thought there were some industry bods there to see us, which of course there weren't. Shame as we were quite good that night.

Probably the best fun one was a marshals party at the Grand Prix at Silverstone. There were about fifteen hundred people in this massive marquee, and they all had a totally free bar! Imagine. Of course the mess in the morning was something to behold. I wish I'd had a camera!

Worst Gig

Some places are just too awful to have live music but they do it anyway. We once turned up and played a gig for a fiver and a chicken leg each. That took the piss a bit. Others, oh I used to play in this club in Rochester called The Casino Rooms and we had to play to the food queue as the clubbers came out to fill themselves up for more booze. We were only there to justify some kind of stupid food law that had to do with needing live music if you were serving food. We did it more than once too. I've played on the back of a float. Don't ever do that. Of course the ones where your voice goes are always exciting.

Which song(s) are you most proud of on the album?

I love them all differently I suppose. The ones that really work for me are the ones where I get the whole feeling of where i was at the time of writing them. That can happen with different ones on different nights though. I guess most of the time I'm too close to my own songs to really hear them as they are. I always prefer other peoples songs to my own, but I imagine that most writers do. Apart from the wankers.

Anything you regret leaving off?

For a while geography was going to be an ambitious double album with two relatively short discs and about seventeen songs. That would've been too much to deal with so some were chopped to make way. There was one called, 'Be your Dog', which I really like but it just didn't work out properly, although it might make something else one day. I've got so many songs I MUST use that it's hard to even remember them all and I usually don't. But they're all demoed, awaiting their grand day out.

What's next?

It's all rehearse, rehearse, rehearse at the moment. Got a great band together and we're working on some upcoming gigs. Hopefully get on a few festivals next summer and try and generate a mass of interest. I'll get some details of the live band up at some point soon, suffice to say that the line up consists of me obviously, Simon Shaw on guitar, Matt Novis on bass, Sacha Trochet on drums and of course Harvey Summers on all things piano like. I imagine the next album will be a lot more band orientated, as we now have one. So we'll have to see how it develops.