Thank you for sitting down and talking to FLEX. Can you tell us a bit about how you got into music?
I got into music probably the same way as everybody else gets into music - whatever my parents gave me. My dad gave me a lot of George Michael. I’d sit by the radio waiting for George to come on, then I’d record the song to tape and listen to it repeatedly. I loved that guy.
Later on, I was offered free guitar lessons at school - 15 minutes every Tuesday. I took it up because it got me out of maths class for a bit. Right away I got the guitar and started forming bands with my friends - bashing the hell out of it and trying to replicate my idols. I got really into bands like Jesus Lizard, Shellac, And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, Fugazi - stuff like that. I really dig heavy grooves so the bands I formed early on had that kind of feel to the music.
Who would you say are your biggest musical influences?
It's an interesting question because it depends on where I’m looking for influence. I watch a lot of films and I take great pleasure in finding out where great music from old movies comes from. Quentin Tarantino is great for that. The music he puts in his films, the placement, the tone, the imagination - he nails it more often than is reasonable.
His movies have sent me on great adventures towards incredible musicians through the ages - Surf, Blues, traditional Americana, Hip-Hop, R&B, and of course, Italian composers such as Ennio Morricone and Luis Bacalov. The compositions in those old Spaghetti Western movies are awesome and really get my imagination working.
If you were to put a .45 to my head and ask me who my favourite classic bands and musicians are: say Creedence Clearwater Revival, Tom Waits, Sonic Youth, Buena Vista Social Club, Neil Young and Leadbelly.
Congratulations on your brand-new album, Beyond The Sun Road - what inspired this particular record?
Beyond The Sun Road is a homage to my memories I suppose. If I feel particularly touched or inspired by a particular place, person or situation then my way of digesting this is to write a song or a story. Ultimately, I want to create something that reflects a moment in time or feeling I've experienced.
On this occasion, Beyond The Sun Road is a dramatised diary of the past decade of my life. The first songs were recorded sometime in 2016 and I only really finally finished saying what I wanted to say last year.
Through the record, I talk about people who have died on me, such as my stepfather and my dog. Other songs reflect the television, movies or art that I've been enjoying. You’ll find references in there to Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5 and Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. And of course, I’ve slipped in some quotes from Classic spaghetti western movies. It's essentially just throwing pieces of myself into a selection of three-minute tunes.
The title track is a memory of road-tripping through the west of America, heading from Cut Bank in Montana, through Glacier National Park and beyond the Sun Road. I’ve spent a good deal of my life in the American West, chugging from Alberta in Canada down to New Mexico, Arizona, California etc. It's a lot to remember what happened out there and I forgot to take my camera, so I wrote an album about it.
How do you channel personal experiences into your songwriting, and what do you hope listeners gain from connecting with your music?
The whole experience is a very personal journey really. I’m forever analysing something or recalling events from my past and wondering what to do with it. I wouldn’t call myself a ‘living in the moment’ kind of bloke. It’s often after an event when I decide if I had a good time or not.
The experiences that stick with me tend to get something. If I can turn some small moments of my existence into a song, story or something creative, then it was worth the experience, no matter how painful some days as a human can be. There comes a point in a man’s life where stories are all we have left, so I’m trying to get as much down while I can.
When I was a young writer, I never felt as though I was really exploring myself through lyrics. I couldn’t tell you what the point of most of my songs was. When I started making this record, I was relearning to write and teaching myself to express myself in a way I hadn’t worked out to do before.
There isn’t much hiding in the song’s contents. My dog dies: bam, he gets a song. My stepdad’s dead, boom, he gets a song. I wander around a dead gold rush town in the Nevada desert with no water or lip balm. Booosh - that gets a song.
If a person listens to my music and feels good about the experience then I hope they can hear that it’s just another human going about their business.
Each aspect of music – writing, recording, practising, and playing live – offers something different. Can you share a particularly meaningful moment from each?
Writing: There are enough ways to write a song that no one should ever get fed up. One way I entertain myself is to write songs in the style of perfectly good hits. I’m big on those old country records; your Marty Robbins, Hank Williams and Frankie Lane-type singers.
On Beyond The Sun Road, I wanted to put a Western story in a 4-minute song. The lyrics needed to explore the story thoroughly enough to the point you could fill in the blanks and write your own movie script. And the music needed to be dynamic enough to carry the tale through.
The song I ended up with is called Dead Man’s .45. It turned out to be an absolute belter of a song and I intend to write the script myself.
Recording: On the same tune, we’d just about wrapped up the mix when Callum decided he wanted to have a go at throwing a guitar solo in the middle section. We would up in some two-week-long discussion about whether to keep it or not.
I didn’t think the second needed the work so I was at the point of just cutting it. A few days later, Cal said we should listen to it one more time….long story short, it’s the best solo on the record! I only make this point to highlight how quickly you can change as a human. If I can change my mind so emphatically within a few days, Lord knows who the person was who started writing this record 8 years ago.
Live: I got heckled in Berlin once, the guy shouted ‘too intellectual’. Afterwards, he came over to congratulate me on the set. Told me he was a psychiatrist, gave me his business card, and then accidentally stubbed a cigarette out on his own arm. When I called the next day, the number had too many digits.
Is there a song in your repertoire that holds a particularly deep personal meaning for you? Can you share the story or inspiration behind it?
Yeah, they are A Dog Knows and No Greater Love. Both are about family death. The dog, I picked him up from a rescue home for a fiver when I was 18. I adored that animal. He had a wonderful sense of humour and he taught me a lot of important lessons in our time together.
The person who guided me through owning a dog in the early years was my stepfather. He brought great stability and comfort to my life. But that guy slipped off too and the best I can give him is a song.
Sometimes they are incredibly painful to play live. It feels like a chunk of my heart is exposed. Still, it’s useful to have a permanent reminder of them both in my guitar case.
What are your goals for the future with your music?
Actually, this is easy. I have a plan of records I want to make before I retire or die. Whichever comes sooner.
Beyond The Sun Road: an ode to the great American road trip. Complete.
Search For Meaning: my second album, written and recorded already. Nearly complete.
Write a spaghetti-western-style soundtrack for a film I don’t have the budget to make.
Head to Texas for BBQ and music.
Compile a record of music based on traditional South American folk songs.
Retire
What message or feeling do you hope listeners take away from your music?
Once upon a time, musicians would write albums. They’d go to great lengths to make both a Side A and a Side B that flowed easily from one song to the next. People would have the time to sit down in front of their well-balanced hi-fi speakers, crack a cold one and listen to that album in its entirety, as it was meant to be heard.
That was a long time ago now, but I’m still dreaming.
To wrap things up, is there anything else you'd like to share with our readers?
My last show of the summer is at High Line in Calgary, Canada, on 24/8/24.
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