¶ Intro / Opening
🎵 Music
¶ Early Life and Career Milestones
Welcome to So the Jacker on Songwriting. This is Brian and Simon here again and joining us today is an English songwriter and musician who first came to national prominence as co-frontman of the last Shadow Puppets before going on to an impressive solo career.
As we record this episode he's set to release his terrific third solo album, Coup de Gras, recorded in LA and produced by the Grammy winning John Congleton. We're very pleased to welcome the excellent Miles Kane to the show.
We caught up with Miles Pricewizgigat Hangar 34 in our hometown of Liverpool in early July of this year, 2018. The UK was in the grip of a lengthy heat wave at the time, so naturally we sequestered ourselves in a stiflingly hot dressing room to conduct the interview. after which we all emerged soaked with sweat and several pounds later.
It was a bit of a sweat box but we had a nice little chat, didn't we?
We did. Miles was a very amiable fellow.
Looked great, didn't he? Very healthy glow.
Well that's what LA Living will do for you.
Indeed. It all began a far cry from the city of Angels, though. Miles was born in nineteen eighty six in Birkenhead, Wirral, just across the Mersey from Liverpool, and raised in the seaside village of Mells. Didn't you used to go there?
I used to go to the beach there as a kid, yeah, during summer holidays.
Isn't that where Malcolm was from in the show Watching?
Yeah, with his motorbike insidecar, I loved watching. I had a crush on Brenda. Google it folk. Anyway, Miles actually started out on the sacks before receiving a Spanish guitar from an auntie when he was thirteen, which he took to immediately. It was while at secondary school though that he really fell in love with playing music. So much so that he later gave up a place studying graphic design at college in favour of pursuing a music career.
He formed The Little Flames with Childhood Friends around two thousand and four and the band was signed to celebrated Liverpool label Deltasonic, however they split in two thousand seven just prior to releasing their debut album. Said album was eventually released some nine years later. From the remnant of the Little Flames emerged the Rascals, and Miles took over the songwriting duties there. The band released one album, Rascalize, in two thousand eight, which was also on Deltasonic.
Whilst on tour with the Rascals in two thousand seven, supporting the Arctic Monkeys, Miles forged a songwriting partnership, not to mention an enduring friendship with their front man Alex Turner. which, thanks to their shared appreciation of Scott Walker and with the addition of musician and producer James Ford, developed into the last Shadow Puppets. They reportedly recorded their debut album, The Age of the Understatements, in just a fortnight.
Released in two thousand eight, it went to number one in the UK album chart and was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. Eight years elapsed before the arrival of its follow up, Everything You've Come to Expect, which also topped the UK chart.
Needless to say, Miles had kept very busy in the interim. He embarked on a solo career in early 2009 following the dissolution of the Rascals.
I like that phrase. I'm gonna make an album called The Dissolution of the Rascals.
Having signed to Columbia, he made his solo debut with Colour of the Trap in late 2010. Co-written with the likes of Alex Turner and Super Fairy Animals Griff Reese, the record reached the UK top 20 and was certified goal. Sophomore efforts Don't Forget Who You Are arrived in the summer of twenty thirteen, went top ten, and featured co writes with such denizens as Paul Weller, the Lightning C and Brody, who also produced, and our former guests Guy Chambers and Andy Partridge.
Miles plays in a Beatles tribute band too, doesn't he?
Oh yeah, uh Doctor Pepper's Jaded Hearts Club Band with Matt Bellamy from Muse, I think.
Yeah, and I think members of the Zotons and Nine Inch Nails and uh Graham Coxsons played with them. I think even Macker himself got up once and did Helter Skelter with them.
Is that right? Yeah, yeah. Fantastic.
You can hear a selection of songs from Miles Solo and Las Shadow Puppets releases if you check out our Spotify playlist for this episode. Head to sodajeker.com slash podcast, click on Miles page and you'll find the link beneath the episode player.
Miles is embarking on a twelve date winter UK tour starting in Glasgow on the twenty second of November, which ends in Liverpool on the eighth of December. He's also doing some shows across Europe prior to that, so you can keep up to date with all his tour dates and any other news at milescane dot com, facebook.com slash milescane music, at Miles Kane Music on Twitter and at Miles Kane on Instagram.
You can find us, your intrepid hosts, at Sodajer.com, Facebook.com slash Sodajer and at Soda Jaca on Twitter and Instagram. To ensure you receive new episodes, hot off the skillet, subscribe in Apple Podcasts, and leave us a nice review and rating while you're at it.
We also have a donate page on our website if you'd like to help us with the costs of keeping the show ticking over. It's at sodajerker.com slash donate. No pressure, but both of us are now down to only the one kidney.
Okay, let's hear from our guest. Please enjoy our chat with the very talented Mal
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¶ Unpacking "Coup De Gras" Inspirations
It's been great listening to the record this week. We've really enjoyed it. We wanted to start by talking about the title track actually. Mm-hmm'cause it's got that huge chorus, it's got an interesting title. But the production's actually fairly sparse at times. It's not over egged at all, we thought.
And it was all done pretty live. Well it w actually it was done live. Right. Uh the producer John Congleton. Oh yeah. He was buzzing off that track and all those weird little sound effects. The guide even stuck and then I just double tracked it. We just did it all live in the room and it um yeah, it's mega. It's really good. And it it took quite a while to form that song. There was uh
a couple of different variations of verses on it. One was kind of a more sort of croonier, sort of spaced out verse, and then there was one yna yna yna yna yna yna yna yna yna yna yna yna yna yna yna yna yna yna yna yna yna yna yna And it was definitely a conscious effort to do like the um when the clash do like the disco vibe.
Yes.
There's that uh clashed uh like Train in Vain and Magnificent Seven. It's sort of when they entered that sort of punky disco-y like
The rock because. A little bit talking heads as well.
Yeah, definitely. It was definitely a sort of conscious thing. Like that style of Those class tunes I r I really do love, you know, and sort of got into it more over the last couple of years really of that sort of stuff.
And we read somewhere that the the title was inspired by a wrestling move, is that right?
Yeah. Yeah, and again it was when we were jamming the tune we were messing around these ideas and I am a big fan of the WWE and I became friends with this wrestler called Finn Balor who uh he's like a big fan of music and uh we we were both fans of each other and then we we became friends, whatever.
And um and that's his finishing manoeuvre is called the coup de grain. And when we were jamming, we didn't have a chorus and I I think he texted me or something while we were jamming and I just started saying coup de gras, coup de coup de And it was like that. It was just one of them. And then it sort of I I didn't even know the meaning of it then. And then when I looked it up, it's quite dramatic and it's sort of, you know, it just felt right.
So the song got called that to start and then it just sort of felt right for the album title as well, and as like a little sort of uh kind of catchphrase. The right it just seemed right, you know what I mean?
Sings well, doesn't it, as a as a choice?
Cue the ground.
Yeah.
No.
I think we definitely remember the first wave of WWF when it was...
So I'm thirty two, so it is yeah, I was into it then. I just never grew out of it, you know.
Everyone had ultimate warrior figures. Mae'n llawer o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn
Yeah, definitely was getting more into the sort of The punkier things. I think it started when we were um when I was doing the puppets tour with Al and we were covering Totally Wired by the fall in our live set. And also even the song Bad Habits that we had there. I've always loved the fall and stuff like that and I think I've hinted at it before but
When where we were sort of playing them tunes live and stuff, everyone was like, Oh, that really suits you, you know? And I was like, Yeah, kind of it feels really good to sort of be singing that fall tune and that and and the bad habits. It it just felt right. So it was it was like kinda set out to sort of try and do more tunes in that world, you know yeah.
¶ Lana Del Rey, Jamie T, and Mojo
And loaded is considerably more laid back, isn't it? And wasn't Lana Del Rey involved? Yeah.
Yeah, that was she again, it was when me and Jamie had started to write together. I bumped into her at his little gig he was doing in LA. That's Jamie. Jamie T, yeah. Um we've known each other for ten years and we we like each other's music and we always set about trying some tunes together. So we set aside a week after his gig last January,'cause he was over in LA as well.
to sort of try some tunes and to hang out and see if we had a vibe on a working level. And she was at his gig and I'd met her a couple of times before and she was like, what are you up to this week? And I was like, Well I'm gonna try me and Jay are going to try and write actually and she's like, oh I'd love to hear that.
She took my number then the next day me and Jay had started to write loaded. Just in my apartment, you know, sat on the sofa, two acoustics. We had the verses down and then we were messing about with the chorus. We went out, got some lunch or whatever. And then as we're walking along on a FaceTime doesn't we're like, this is mental. No text, nothing. You know what I mean? Straight on the FaceTime. Wow. Mega. And um and anyway, she came over.
And we had this chorus and she said, Can I try something on the chorus? And she started like humming the melody, the dun dun dun dun dun dun, and you know, started doing the lyrics and me and Jay sat there and we were like That's just fucking wiped the floor with our idea. So I was like, Go on, keep going. It literally happened like that and uh and then that tune was sort of finished within a few hours if you sort of added it up.
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And didn't you say that writing with Jamie T kinda got you out of a rut at one point?
Yeah, I couldn't'cause I went to New York after the puppets tour and that was where Coup de Gras came from and there's a song called Silver Screen on there. Um them two came from that and then there was lots of other tunes written but all sort of half written if you want, you know what I mean? And I couldn't really uh couldn't finish anything and then
It was just all a bit half arshed, do you know what I mean? And it was like I couldn't really get anything then, even in my life. I just couldn't I I wasn't sort of present in anything, do you know what I mean? I was just sort of I couldn't get into the tunes and then I sort of had that block and then I thought I couldn't play guitar and I couldn't write and I couldn't sing and then I couldn't do anything
Imposter syndrome.
And but then when a a Jay came over and I played him the demos I had he was like, Man, silver screen, this is amazing, man He said, This is what you should be doing And I was like, Yeah, maybe it is cool that tune You know,'cause when you've got like There's so many sort of demos and half demos on a drop box. It's sort of you don't know what's what sometimes, you know, it takes
It takes someone else that you trust to be like, that's got to do that shit or whatever, you know. And uh and that's what he did. And I could see he was getting really turned on, excited by it. And then it sort of gave him that boost. Then when me and him started to sit down and just from scratch nothing and things were happening at a very fast rate really. Right. You know, the the mojo was back kind of thing or started to come back, you know.
Is it face to face?
Oh, just look like this, you know what I mean? Just in my little apartment or over in uh his room in London, either in his house or he had a little room in the premises. And we just literally just you know, not in fancy, just really basic, just acoustics and Rydyn ni'n gwneud rhywbeth. Rydyn ni'n gwneud rhywbeth. Rydyn ni'n gwneud rhywbeth. Rydyn ni'n gwneud rhywbeth. Rydyn ni'n gwneud rhywbeth. Rydyn ni'n gwneud rhywbeth. Rydyn ni'n gwneud rhywbeth.
I'd be at home and he'd be at home and like we'd be like saying like you like singing in the mirror, listening to the demo for the twentieth time. And we were we had a great like we were really sort of uh proud of what we were doing, do you know what I mean? Of these songs.
¶ Collaborating: Riffs, Partridge, and Weller
Yeah and the current single, Crying My Guitar, that was
That was one of the uh one of the later ones me and Jay did. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, just a real sort of straightforward glammy tune, really. Really simple.
Works great live, don't I saw you performing at that what's that festival in Glasgow?
Oh the transmit.
Yeah, that it really went over.
Well it's been good live, yeah. I think when people sort of sit with that one for a minute, I think it'll be and when the albums are I think it it'll be a good sing along one that hopefully.
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Riffs have always seemed fairly important in your work as well. Like cold light of the day's got a nice punchy kind of riff to it, hasn't it? They typically just come on the guitar, do they?
Um yeah. They just sort of happen, those ones. And some of them are really terrible, but then now and again you get a a half decent one. Yeah, that's a cool tune as well. I like that. Yeah, you like that and there's something to rely on there sort of That and Silver Screen are sort of the same vibe. Yeah. I find. Yeah. Yeah.
How do you know when you've got a great riff? Is it the one that just kinda sticks in your mind or
Um well in any riffs that are on this, it'd just be with Jay. I'd probably trust him and if he was getting turned on by it, I'd be like, Okay, let's go with this one then. Right. Definitely some that were like, you know
Ac yn ymwneud Jamie T, rydym yn gyntaf gyntaf gyntaf gyntaf gyntaf gyntaf gyntaf gyntaf gyntaf gyntaf gyntaf gyntaf gyntaf gyntaf gyntaf gyntaf gyntaf gyntaf
Oh yeah.
Oh, actually I think literally the day before we spoke to him had been writing with you for
Oh on the don't forget who you are. Yeah, me and Andy did a lot and uh he's such a talented writer.
A great brain, isn't he?
I mean, yeah, he's like that eccentric genius, lovely fella.
The other person we spoke to, that's co-written with them as well.
Yeah, me and him really clicked. Me and him definitely vibed off each other.
Dyna'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn
Yeah.
The analogy you use was like if you had David Beckham where you strapped someone to David Beckham's like right foot.
Yeah.
Wow, it's a good Yeah. He's Beckham. Yeah, obviously. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. But no, you spoke very highly you actually.
No, as I do with him. Did you see that documentary on XTC? Yeah, I did I I'd said a few words on that. Um there's good.
Yeah. The results were great. Were there stuff like better than that in particular?
Oh yeah. And it's weird how those sort of songs 'Cause that's like what was that, five, six years ago when we've been playing them now, it's like they're still sort of They grow or yeah, and they sort of say fresh and they feel sort of better than what they were before, you know what I mean? Seasoned. Yeah. Marinated.
Yeah.
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Yeah, and he played with us in Brighton on Monday. He came down and got up with us and he we that song that we did, Could You Gonna Get It? Mm he got up with us and we did that and um I really get on with Paul. He's such a lovely guy.
Must be an interesting collaborator to sit down with.
Yeah, well he's yeah, I mean he's he's a hero, as Andy is and that, but I've really enjoyed working with Paul and you know, whenever he's played and I've jumped up on stage with him and vice versa and he's given me a lot of his time and it meant a lot.
Yeah. It makes you feel good. It was great. The other day it was amazing. Me and him were in Brighton and then we did the sound check and then we sat you know, we went and had fishing chips, me and Wella before the gig. People walking past that fuck.
That's about as mud as it gets, yeah.
Yeah, it was like he'd missed the London gig and he said, uh, Oh, I want to see a gig'cause he was on holiday and I said, I think the nearest one's Brighton. Yeah, it was like you couldn't you had to go ultimate Mardoff and remote. That's what we said. We did say that.
and uh ian brody as well has played quite a yeah don't forget who you are great chorus on erm
Taking over.
I was gonna see the title trick.
Oh yeah, and that one. Yeah.
was taking over the first one. Yeah.
Yeah, that's they're definitely quite a bit light and seeds that call the tears. But we'll never know. You can hear him a bit on that, uh, for sure. And don't forget you are has become um that one live has been
Huge. That's got a kind of that classic kind of cosmic scouse verse, hasn't it? The Delta.
Yeah, exactly. About a hundred bands have written that, I think. Yeah.
Works so well in the song.
It's definitely got a Mersey vibe, hasn't it? That DelSonic verse.
¶ Confidence, Alex Turner, and Lyrics
Yeah, yeah. Well joining the Little Flames is the reason why I didn't go to college and you know, I could sort of play guitar every day really, you know.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, he gave me my, yeah, he gave me my first break I he gave me a lot of confidence to be a singer, d'in'cause he saw something in me that I just started to sort of write bits of tunes in the little flames, like the odd song here and there or off a tune and but I I didn't really have the confidence to uh to sing.
At that time I was I was smoking a lot of weed and I couldn't anything I sang was just so off key. But he said to me, he's like, You should start singing. And then after about a year, I remember in my mum's bedroom, I just I had a tape recorder and I'd uh I just record myself and then I found if I sort of shouted quite angrily it was in key.
So a lot of the first tunes that we sort of did, those early rascals songs, it's quite shouty, but I found it was in key and it sort of sounded half decent. But he definitely gave me that confidence to sort of be a
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And yet you're quite young when you met Alex Turner as well when you
We were seventeen, huh?
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean that was round that same time'cause the flames were on Delta Sonic and they were Domino or whatever and I think they were doing their first tour and I think that they saw the Little Flames song Goodbye Little Rose on like M T V or whatever. And uh it was like, Oh, let's do like a double headline club thing, you know what I mean? And then when we turned up there and obviously
their gigs, it was just it was going off, you know what I mean?'Cause everyone knew the tunes and it was just mental. So it was quickly became a support meet with support and I was like, This is crazy, man. But yeah, that was just from then and at that time all of us Rydyn ni'n gwneud. Rydyn ni'n gwneud. Rydyn ni'n gwneud. Rydyn ni'n gwneud. Rydyn ni'n gwneud.
Yeah. And would you say that each of you had particular skills you brought to that partnership?
Yeah, I think it started even that time I remember having sort of ideas for tunes, even though it was like standing next to me. I remember playing that to Al in the dressing room and he's like, That was that's amazing. But like at that time in the flames, it wasn't right. And uh that was the start of me and him just sitting in dressing rooms when we were on tour.
We were like playing together really, you know. And then from doing that we'd end up sort of finishing bits and barbs of tunes, then we had like about eight or ten songs after a couple of years or something, which ended up being most of that first album.
So striking that the age of the understatement though, isn't it? I mean the words particularly
yeah it is yeah still haven't topped it yeah
Do you guys um kind of collaborate on the words in and throw different lines?
That one was definitely um well, he's a better lyricist than I am, hands down, but I remember round that time it was definitely sort of spitting back and forth. Do you know what I mean? It was definitely that on those tunes, yeah.
Well I hear something like, um, what is it? She would throw a feather bower in the road if she thought it would set the scene. Images aren't they? I mean you conjure an image and
Uh yeah, exactly. Um writing them could even be a year before that. So yeah, we were young and like listening to loads of Scott Walker and uh yeah, when you think about it, they make good paintings, you know.
Yeah. And the strings are particularly good on the
Yeah, well that was uh we gotta owe that to Owen Pallet. There was little ideas on keyboards of rough strings, but it was he you know, did all that. Oh.
Was the process any different when you wrote together for your first solo album or was it much?
Same, really. Yeah. And at that time as well, before that record, that took a while to write as well, because um that was after the Rascals thing. And again there was around that time it was like There was loads of songs and it was a weirdly similar maybe not as drastic as what it went to get to this album, but there was a similar sort of uh questioning and block and uh lots of half.
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¶ "Shavambacu" and Songwriting Openness
It must be challenging when you co write with someone like that'cause your stuff's quite personal really, isn't it? I mean do you ever have to
Explain um oh yeah. Well if it's a friend, like say Al or Jamie, I've got no Well, with my friends in general that are close to me, if I'm a very open person, whether you know you're sort of happy or sad that day day you know about it. I don't really bottle things up, you know what I mean? I sort of Whatever you're going through, I sort of say it. I can't really hold things in. Um I like living like that as well. I like to be open.
So yeah, with with them and um especially with Jamie on this one,'cause it it it's probably the most personal and sort of it was nice to um speak about it, you know.
Mm. Well just before we we finish we thought we'd return to a track from the new album. Um we wanted to ask about Shavam Bakou, mm which uh it seems like the meaning of that way that's kind of explained in the in the
song. It is actually yeah. It was something that me and my ex used to call each other but it stemmed from my mum would call it me and my grandmother would call it my mum. And when we was writing this album I said, What is this word that has been around that in this family for years? And uh it was my nan
There's an old Dean Martin song called Jatem Bakou. Right. But she thought it said Shavam Bakou. So that went for my mum's life. And I think my mum asked the same question to her before you know, she's not with us anymore, me nan. But um Yeah, it was just like she misheard it as that. But I do stuff like that quite a lot, mis hear things and then it just sticks. Even if you know it's wrong, it's still uh
I'm imagining that for that. Yeah.
I think it's quite a scouse thing. Yeah. Or something. Do you know what I mean? Like where I'm t I always do that. So it's like that. And it's a it's a gorgeous little love song. And I thought it was a nice way to end the album. And uh I I love that song, yeah. And we played it for the first time last night and we're gonna play it tonight. Yeah.
I love the the opening guitar. It has a kind of a French quality to it, doesn't it? I don't know how, but it does
You say that actually. We were just speaking about maybe doing a French version. Oh wow. Well getting there like maybe do it as a duet or something, get like a French singer on it. Yeah.
That includes gras kind of a gaulic flavour to the But anyway, this has been great. Thanks so much for uh for sitting down with us.
My pleasure. Thank you.
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That was Miles Kane talking to us in Liverpool about his new album Coup des Gras. We had a really good chat in me.
Yeah, and we've had a nice run recently, haven't we, of northwest-based Delta Sonic related acts. Yeah. And that's something that I think's been missing a little bit in our our lineup thus far. Yeah. So it's been fantastic to fill in some of those gaps and learn more about how those artists have approached their songwriting.
Bringing it all home. And Miles gave a great account of himself, didn't he? It was cool to hear about what it was like to collaborate with Lana Del Rey and Paul Weller and Alex Turner and all those people.
Yeah, especially in the case of the latter, I've always wanted to ask about those lyrics on the on the Shadow Puppets records, so it was nice to get that opportunity.
Yeah, and as he pointed out, you know, even just mishearing a word can be a spark for a song, so people shouldn't forget to capitalise upon mistakes in the writing, it works.
It certainly does. So we highly recommend you check out the new album, Coup de Gras. It's uh full of energy, very immediate, plenty of hooks, just how we like our records. So give that a listen. And uh cheers to Miles of course and to Ashley for the booking.
So with that said, I guess we'll see you guys next time.
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