Episode 253 - Damon Albarn

Welcome everyone to Soda Jerker on Songwriting. This is Simon here with Brian and joining us for episode 253 is a Grammy, Brit Award and Ivan Novella winning English singer, songwriter and musician. Best known as a founder member and lead vocalist of both Blair and Gorillas.

Throughout a quite insanely productive career spanning over three decades, he's performed or recorded with artists like Ray Davies. David Bowie, Lou Reed, Erica Badu, Bobby Womack, Mark E. Smith, Little Sims, George Benson, Della Sole, Sean Ryder, and Grace Jones.

As this episode reaches you, Blair have recently reunited, not only for a number of triumphant live summer dates, but also to write, record and release a fantastic new album, The Ballad of Darren, their first in eight years.

It was produced by James Ford and recorded in London and Devon and we had the great pleasure of visiting their front man at his West London studio recently for a chat about both the record and his relentless creativity. We're thrilled to welcome the one and only Damon Albarn to the show.

Damon was born in London in nineteen sixty eight and grew up in Leytonstone in the east end of the city, later moving with his family to Colchester in Essex when he was ten. The Albarn household was very much an artistic one, which evidently rubbed off on the young Damon. He took up piano and violin at an early age, studied acting as a teen, and began writing songs around the age of twelve.

Whilst attending Stanway Comprehensive, he struck up a friendship with fellow pupil Graeme Coxon and the pair began making music together in the school's on-site porter cabins as well as playing in various bands. They both went on to attend Goldsmith's College in London, where in nineteen eighty eight they formed the band's Circus, recruiting drummer Dave Roundtree, then bassist Alex James.

Nineteen ninety three's modern life is rubbish consolidated their status as one of the most exciting indie bands around, but it was nineteen ninety four's park life that catapulted them to fame. As well as boasting the Smash hit singles Girls and Boys and the title track, it will go on to spend over ninety weeks in the UK charts, not to mention help spark their intense, largely media fuelled rivalry with Oasis. and ensure their eternal synonymity with the Brit Hop era.

Several more critically and commercially well received efforts like The Great Escape, Blair and thirteen followed as the nineties drew to a close, but creative tension saw the departure of Graham Coxon during the recording of two thousand three's think tank.

So called virtual band Gorillas was formed in nineteen ninety eight, the brainchild of Damon and comic artist Jamie Hewlett. A conscious departure from Blair, Gorillas explored sundry styles including hip hop, electronic music, dub and world music. As departures go, it was a pretty successful one. To date Gorillas have sold over twenty five million records worldwide.

Their self-titled first album went Triple Platinum in the UK and yielded several hit singles, including Clint Eastwood, while a follow-up, 2005's Demon Days, went sex two pull platinum and spawned further hits like Feel Good Inc., Dirty Harry and the UK number one Dare. Other long players include twenty ten's Plastic Beach, twenty seventeen's Humans, and twenty eighteen's The Now Now.

Earlier this year they dropped their eighth studio offering, Cracker Island, produced by Damon with Greg Kirsten and featuring guest appearances by the diverse likes of Thundercat, Beck, Tamin Parler and Stevie Nick.

Damon's sundry other past projects include The Good, The Bad and The Queen with bassist Paul Simonen, the late Tony Allen on drums and guitarist Simon Tong, The Afro Beat and Funk influenced Rocket Juice and the Moon with Tony Allen and Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And a couple of fine solo albums, twenty fourteen's Makery nominated Everyday Robots, and twenty twenty one's Love Letter to his adopted home of Iceland, the nearer the fountain, more pure the stream flows.

In twenty sixteen, Damon received the Ivan Novello Lifetime Achievement Award. He also shared the nineteen ninety-six Songwriter of the Year Gong with his Blair bandmates and received the same award for his work with Gorillas in 2006.

If you're new to the Soda Jacob, do ensure you follow us on your favoured provider so you never miss an episode, and take the time to delve into our ever expanding archive of interviews with top songwriters like Damon.

Should you wish to help with the upkeep of this fully independent ad and sponsor-free endeavour, give whatever you can spare at Sodajerker.com/slash donate.

Before we move on, sincerest thanks to Bree for her help setting up the interview and her assistance on the day.

Okay, so here we are in conversation at Studio 13 in London with the brilliant Damien.

Damon, thanks for having us. My pleasure. Thanks for being on the podcast.

Yeah, I mean, it's about my second podcast. Um hmm, I think I was on a Chelsea one very briefly about fifteen years ago when we actually had something to talk about. Not recent.

It's not going so well now. No.

Well, I mean it couldn't go worse than last year really, but never mind.

Well the new record is gorgeous.

Oh thank you.

There's some stuff on there we think might be among your best actually.

Yeah, I think so. I think that's good. You'll hear this through the interviews just trained. The heavy goods ones are obviously louder than the the commuter trains. Occasionally you get like a sort of uh uh like a fancy steam train holiday train that goes through.

Orient Express type thing.

And then very occasionally you get the sort of nuclear waste trailer. That's usually sort of about three in the morning. But that is very slow and very noisy.

So it seems like this album was quite a rapid project, start to finish. Would that be right?

Well, uh we agreed to do one gig, Wembley, based on the idea that it would be good to sing those songs again. Just for ourselves and just to kind of have an excuse to spend some time together. Mm-hmm. I only say that because it's just everyone's lives are genuinely really busy. I mean, if you can imagine Alex has got five teenage children. Wow. And I really I don't know, I just fancied singing those songs again, genuinely just really quite excited about singing the old songs again.

It's interesting actually that you you wrote a lot on tour'cause a lot of writers we speak to won't write on tour under any circumstances that you can.

Really?

Yeah, they just they can't get into the head space right now.

Oh no, I love it. It's light relief from the tedium. The performances are not tedious but the travel sometimes.

Yeah.

It's just the generic nature of the of the bubble you inhabit and the repetition of it. So you have to fill in those voids with something.

Do you feel quite settled in your abilities as a songwriter now? You know, after so many people, I think it's not a good thing. Yeah, I was gonna say after so many albums and projects

Mm. I mean I've definitely had a lot of practice and and I suppose that's part of the the confidence just to bang out X amount a week or a month and then I kinda go back and revisit it all and go well that one's rubbish. I never get rid of anything. But I kind of sort of I list them, you know, they get their own like uh they might get a thumbs up or a a fire.

Yeah, lots of writers we've spoken to they have a big list of voice memos or whatever and they find it quite hard to navigate through them. So

This is why you have to give'em titles, you can't just have it on numbers and everything'cause you don't know where to go, especially if you've got a lot. You know, so I try and make the ones I really want to go back, the most interesting emojis. So I go, Oh, what I wonder what I was thinking about

Ja.

A surefire hit.

Yeah, something like that. Even though it probably isn't. Sometimes I go back and I go, What the f why did I give that free fires?

Yeah.

It's not everywhere for long time

Has the process changed much over the years in terms of producing material with the band? Are you getting together to do this or are you mainly developing stuff that you then

I did my idea I did my songs with my idea about how they could go, suggestions. um structure. And then really I just allow everyone to you know, Graham tends to be the most kind of sort of he takes them apart sometimes and completely transforms them. But I think overall, yeah, there's a There is a sound that kind of assembles when we all get together, which can't really find anywhere else, and that's great. It's makes it precious.

Yeah. I think you've always had the strong work ethic, haven't you? Do you still like to have a routine based around a sort of five day work and week?

Absolutely, yeah. I don't know what to do during the week if I'm not doing stuff. And fine at weekends. I don't like working in the evenings as well, really.

Right. So you keep it to like a kind of nine to five thing then?

Yeah, I would start half eight till like six would be my ideal thing, but Music business, for some reason, when I got into it, started at ten o'clock in the morning and that sort of has remained. I don't really understand why why everyone who works here is ten o'clock that we start. Why? Why can't we start earlier?

Yeah.

Just start early.

Yeah.

Wake'em bake.

Is there sort of a a sweet spot during that day where you you feel you're really firing with ideas or does it just come?

Right.

Like a writing day like that.

I mean, at any time of the day a kind of melody can come into your head or words or something. And you know, sometimes I can be bothered to record it and sometimes I just let it go.'Cause I do a lot of improvisation as well. And I I find with my improvisation, especially on on the piano, if I know that I pressed record, it's not as magic.

Oh okay, yeah. You're too conscious of it.

Well it's just so pure then. It's like something beautiful that happens and you can never recreate it and no one else will ever know about it. It's just between you and your maker, you know. I like that. I mean, sometimes I'd like to be able to harness that. Yeah. So basically I'm saying, you know, I'm really good but no one's ever heard it. Right.

Yeah, your best work is on record.

Yeah, I'm recorded, yeah.

Yeah. There are some subtleties to the process though, aren't there, about creating the right conditions for things to happen and you know

Well, I think it's best to get rid of that, is just be able to do it all the time and you know, the more relaxed you are with the whole thing. I suppose I I learnt that playing places like Mali.

Yeah, it wasn't great at our school actually was it now?

I mean, I was really, really lucky. I didn't go to a good school. I went to a shitty little comprehensive in Essex and it wasn't great, but we did have an amazing music department. So I was very lucky'cause I wasn't good at anything else. I wasn't even particularly academically good. I failed my A level music.

You do capture a a great sort of interplay between you and Graham on this new record though we think.

Well because he actually answers my lyrics with his guitar. There's a real conversation going on there and that's amazing. To know someone that well, that you can do that together, you know?

Yeah.

Yes, exactly. That's exactly. Because we've been through the same experiences, you know, it's something to be said from playing music with someone since the age of twelve. Yeah. Not many people can say that at the age of fifty five. No. I mean, in traditional societies, yeah, maybe, but in our sort of shattered version of a society. It's not so easy, you know what I mean?

It's got a great structure, that one as well. Slightly unusual'cause you've got that different section towards the end, which I guess most songwriters would have.

I don't know what the fuck.

Most songwriters might have used that as a kind of middle ace, but

It's like a coda.

Well the first round of it you go, what the fuck's happening? But the second time you're like It had to be strong to come in so late in a song, you know what I mean? That bit of a song is a classic example of the band working together and just doing that on the flights, thinking, why don't we try this at the end?

Right. I get a strong uh Bale and era Bowie vibe from that song as well. Wow. Yeah, the guitar line, especially uh

Yeah, I mean it's part of the language, isn't it? That era new wave is kind of sort of highly processed, distorted.

Performance-wise you create like a really unsettling atmosphere. The band on that one. You've got kind of um those sort of horror images of like monsters and claws coming up through

I see happen.

Oh r really?

Well yeah, because uh I went into this flat in uh St Charles Square and I kind of looking on looking on the walls, going, These paintings look familiar. On closer inspection I realised they were all original Rolf Harris's and I just thought that's really inappropriate in twenty twenty three, isn't it?

Yeah, you wouldn't have them on display, would you?

No, you wouldn't. So anyway, that was kind of part of the energy of St Charles Square. But it's also there's a monastery there, there's a a mortuary. There's a a hospital I mean, you know. Well i i it isn't a way and uh back in the nineties, you know, you used to go and get your drugs from there as well on occasions. Had one dealer called Pauly

No, I looked it up before we came actually.

It's really it's historically that part of North Kensington's very interesting in anyway, that's another whole podcast.

Proof.

Yeah, and they couldn't. But it was bossa nova.

Very cool. Yeah. Tesco disco's nice.

Yeah. It existed. That's another kind of thing very close to St Charles Square. Really? It was a disco uh like a nightclub under Tesco's. I think the council knew about it, but it didn't have like a a sign or anything. It was just a door next to the desco's that you just go down into a basement, speak easy kind of thing, yeah.

It's interesting though that you've got all these very specific details like specific to that location in the song, get the

The lyrics one song, you know what I mean? How exhausting if you're actually gonna dissect the whole album we're gonna be here for We're gonna be here till the nuclear waste train comes by. In my songwriting I think that's something I do a lot of. There's multiple kind of parallel universes going on in each song, but a lot of quite prosaic detail about what actually did happen. But I kinda sort of add some other emotional aspect to it.

There's room for interpretation, is what I'm trying to say, I suppose. Like there's things people can grasp. You know, is that something you enjoy, like having room for people to

Yeah, I'm happy to wear however however it takes to listen, I don't mind. I'm not I'm not ramming anything down people's necks.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean we didn't know the origins of some of those particular images, but we still got that sense of foreboding from

Yeah, well exactly. Th that's what you're doing with a song, isn't it? You're you're loading it with stuff so you can kind of communicate a bigger emotion.

I believe a lot of your words tend to come at the same time as the melodies, is that right?

The good phrases do.

But the rest would be kind of placeholder type stuff.

Really annoying well, I just sort of I mumble a lot when I'm singing and then I kinda try and work out what I'm saying.

Yeah, we've heard that before from other people actually like a transcription process almost.

Some words are really clear, but it's so annoying because those first takes if you have'em as the guide for too long, you you can't divorce yourself from them and it's a tyranny then. It's like, how can I make it sound like that? When you're missing the whole point of it only sounded like that'cause you did it once. The next one you did, if you forget about that, after a while you'll you'll like it just as much, you know what I mean?

Yeah. Do you find that your subconscious tells you things in that process that you then later?

Exactly. That's exactly what it does. That's it. You hit the nail on the head.

But some of them I guess might just sound like something interesting and

Sometimes I say things that I'm shocked I've said when I listen to it back. It's almost like Speaking in a kind of sort of weird tongues. Well not weird tongues, just tongues. really have to sort of h hype the tongues aspect of speaking.

What do you think?

That speaking in tongues just wasn't weird enough.

Yeah. Yeah, the um the ballad, that's another one that has a kind of it's gentle and there's an there's an affectionate kind of undertone to it, but there's a a certain ambiguity as well because you've got that line, you know, when the ballad comes for you.

Yeah, yeah.

Sounds threatening to me.

I know. It does, doesn't it? It's like when the belly comes to you, it comes like me. On the original, because that song's really old. It was called Half a Song. And I had it on an album called Demo Crazy like twenty years ago. Mm. And then my mate Darren He always used to fucking have a go at me when we were up late going, Dee, you've gotta finish that song. You've got to finish it. I love that. I wanna hear the rest of it.

When the bug

So for twenty years he nagged me about this and when it came to this time round in America I thought, Oh fuck it, I'll fucking finish it. So I originally called it the Ballad of Darren for him'cause I've there you go, done it. But then Ballad of Darren didn't uh feel right for that song'cause it's not about Darren, he just really gave me a hard time about finishing it. But the album's perfect to be called Ballad of Darren because

Yeah. That's why you've got lines like I met you at an early show and stuff.

Yeah, that that comes in, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And we traveled round the world together.

We must be happy with the name check in the title.

He's got uh seventy thousand cutouts of his face to be distributed to people at Wembley.

Ha ha ha.

That might be quite terrifying for him as well.

You know, he used to like acid when he was younger, so I just reckon he should just drop another one now and then face that.

Yeah.

Seventy thousand people with his face.

Ficy.

Narcissist is another one. That's right up there with some of your best Mm I think that's an absolutely lovely song, don't we?

Yeah. Yeah, I mean I I love it as well. You know, sometimes I'm a bit uh it's a bit basic, but it's not.

It's very organic and pure.

Powerful? Has it got power to it? I think.

Definitely. I feel that when I sing it, I really do. It's the journey of a kid in Essex in the early nineteen eighties who saved up and bought himself a transcendent two thousand. of Martin Hannett fame and jewelry division fame. Not that I knew that at the time. It was just the cheapest one I could get my hands on. And I had a

Yeah. I think anyone could identify with that like striking posers in front of the mirror, your guitar with

Strobe.

But yeah, that's awesome.

Yeah, strobe. And like if I had it on a really slow one, once a minute you'd see a little flash of yourself. And it'd be darkness again. Fantastic. Yeah. I don't know whether they'd let you get your hands on something like that now. I was doing this like four or five nights a week for hours on end.

God, you're lucky.

This is why I apply. This is why

I imagine people are picking out lines in that song like um I Took the Acid Under the White Horse is things like that. But um

Well actually I'll tell you the whole story but you like the whole story.

Oh, yeah

It's like Early, early doors we went to an EMI conference. They were kind of very hedonistic affairs. Yeah. And I remember sitting at the table and we'd all done some acid because it was like a dinner and everything. It had a formality to it. And then they'd have a stage and EMI artists would come and perform during the meal, you know, and then there'd be presentations and slaps on the back and all that stuff.

It's still quite risky laying underneath a horse.

But I did you know when I say I took the acid I literally did, yeah. Some of my stuff is quite it's very literal.

I would have assumed a lot of those images that you create are can't be.

I have them. No, no, they're not. I mainly speak completely about experiences I've had. I don't really Do it any other way.

Yeah. Works with our anthemic chorus as well, doesn't it?

Well, yeah, if you don't like what I'm saying, don't listen to it. You know, and if you can't deal with the dark side of life, then how is there ever going to be?

It was James Ford who produced, wasn't it? Yes. He seems to have captured this kind of very specific And it's the right.

Himself, you know what I mean? And definitely shares the vision. Well yeah, so my demos originally were done in America and a little bit in here when I got back. Then we started as a band in January, two months here, and then right at the end I went down and did all my vocals or finished off my vocals and they all came down and Graham did his vocals.

And does the environment, you know, having these sort of creative spaces where you've got all your gear at your fingertips and stuff in in these different locations like London or Devon, does that help set things in motion?

I've got a place in Iceland as well, which is a studio as well. I don't get out there as much as I like to, but that's amazing. It looks out to sea and a mountain on the other side of a bay. It's amazing.

Do you feel like you're at the point now where you can continually make the right kinds of choices with a song or with a production because of all this experience, or is it still kind of like There's an alchemy happening here, let's sort of ride this wave, this seems to be working, that sort of thing.

I suppose I just right. You just need to keep doing it otherwise it might be really difficult when you have to do it.

Right, yeah.

Stop walking, yeah. It's gonna be harder when you get up again. Yeah. Doesn't mean you don't need a rest sometimes. It's not too long around.

It's a continual practice for you.

Yeah, it's like yoga. It's like yoga, it's like eating, watching television, reading.

Again, it's interesting just to hear the different viewpoints of other songwriters we've spoken to of you know they're happy to take a few months off.

See, I don't get that. I do not get taking mumps off.

Yeah. We've had people who've said, Oh, I took a decade off and then I felt like I was ready to come back to it and

Okay, well fair enough. Well maybe they're not so consumed by it. I mean i I'm definitely on the spectrum, I don't know where, but there's definitely an aspect of that of it has to be. As Jimmy said in Quadrofina, what is normal?

Yeah.

I wondered about some of the the arrangements on the album as well, like the brass and the strings. Yeah. They contribute a lot to the feeling the listener gets from like Avalon, um Faraway Island, the Everglades, and you got like the back. Yeah. And the back and vocals on um Russian strings.

Yeah.

Do you and the band have sort of very specific ideas about what those parts should

Yeah, well, I don't really worry too much about that. I just sort of get on with it and we're like kids in the studio and James is the same. Not so much Alex and Dave because kind of once they've got their bits, they're not coming on keyboards and have to get past me. Um no, but like James and and Graham's always padding and fiddling about and I'm always and you know, so it's we just try anything. Right. You know, it really is not

It's not an exact science.

Well it's also not precious, I think for me is really important.

there must be a process of knowing what

When to stop. Yeah. Yeah, I suppose so, yeah. Usually six.

Would you be that regimented? Would you say time's up?

Yeah, definitely. Right. I mean unless at like half past five something i incredible started to happen. But generally sort of y you get it all done'cause you know you're gonna come in tomorrow. I mean I do work at night. Some sessions, especially with gorillas, like when somebody comes in and they're like on a different time'cause they've just got off a plane or whatever. Yeah. Obviously you work till the early hours and stuff.

Yeah, me too.

Yeah, I mean those EKs.

Yeah.

It's worse and worse, isn't it? I mean the summer'cause I don't sleep with uh cursors. I always keep my cursins open, whatever. Oh. So I get up really early during the summer.

But we don't think of you as old, I know that.

Thank you very much.

But there's definitely a kind of maturity on this record in terms of the lyrics, like the Everglades We were growing tall with the pain, I thought was a a lovely line. Yeah. And I think Barbaric's got some stuff in there too. We lost the feeling we never thought we'd lose. That feels like it comes from experience, that kind.

Well it does, isn't it? But it can be two things, couldn't it? It can be like cathartic, you've lost that depression, whatever.

Yeah, it can be an escape from a negative feeling as opposed to a a loss, yeah. Yeah. Well I guess you can look at a lot of these looks through different lenses, couldn't you? And come up with different

I do like to feel politically engaged, as I say, the powder cake of common cause is uh fracturing of the British psyche that's happened because of Brexit. That's Boris Johnson, isn't it? Yeah. You know, I'm not Billy Bragg, obviously. And nor could I be. I mean Billy's amazing.

Ja, former guest on this podcast.

I suppose you have over since we've had that knack of saying things in songs that resonate with people, you know, like in songs like Tender or Park Life or Girls and Boys.

Yeah, well I don't know. I mean that's just I'm aware of it. But I know it doesn't happen all the time, you know what I mean? But yeah, how do you look at it from the inside? Do you know what I mean? How do you I don't know. I mean I come from farming stock in Lincolnshire. So I can be pretty matter of fact about the whole thing.

Do you see it just as the work, the labour, the craft?

Well, yeah, but it's what you put into that. It's the madness that you put into that, I suppose, that's the tough bit, you know. Being open to madness and chaos. But at the same time, that not turning into a malign, negative, breakable thing.

I guess and also seeing the value in simple ideas like something like Tender. Yeah. It's a very, very simple song but the treatment you give it it creates something very powerful. Obviously there's a lot to do with performance and and production.

I mean but I mean that I was going through a tough time then, so that's what happens as a songwriter. You kind of

who you are at that moment if you're true to yourself.

Are there decades of notebooks stored somewhere that you can go back and see these things kind of emerge over time?

I mean I'm very chaotic about sort of filing stuff. I've never had a file or a plans chest as such, but it's it's a lot of it all r knocking around all over the place. I wish I'd been a bit more of a librarian archivist. I'm not like Meek Jones, who's got everything. Which is brilliant. But I dunno, I'm I'm always on to something else. I mean I've typed out everything for this, so it's all there somewhere, but I wouldn't know where it is now.

That's interesting'cause some songwriters will go back through their archives looking for cool titles or things they want to make use of.

Well yeah, I mean as I say, I mean I I write every day a bit and just stick it all together and then read it back afterwards like like every month. You know, it's just sort of Yeah. It's a thing. I just work and then I edit and then I move on.

So there's lots of that falls by the wayside in that process.

Over the years, yeah. I mean I don't know how many published songs I got now. Six hundred and fifty, seven hundred, something like that. But I mean three, four times that stuff that's still just I'm not saying it's all good though. Believe me. But I just I like it. I just it's a condition, isn't it? You know. Yeah. I'm going on my train and I'm already thinking, is my iPad charged up enough so I can write? About you two.

Yeah.

No man, I've I've I've it was the first place I got off a tour bus and someone said, Hey Demo First time I'd ever been called anything other than Damon or Damien or other not so pleasant names. Yeah.

That wasn't a bad Scouse accent, by the way.

That was

Yeah.

Mate, no, no, no. I mean I I lived through scousers and, you know I realised very early on that uh the particular relationship that people grow up in that part of the world have to melody and singing and yeah. Lyricism, I'm with you.

Excellent.

It's definitely on the same page.

Are you very technical when you're you're writing? Are you thinking about the technical underpinnings like the tempo and key and all that sort of stuff, or is it is it more instinctual, maybe?

Well, I mean, just gotta speed it up or slow it down, I mean. Just keep it the same. It's not really fucking rocket science.

No some people will I wanna we've heard people say, Oh no we'll start with a tempo and then uh

Yeah.

I won't say who.

Spend an evening with that person necessarily.

Are they more likely to start with concepts then or ideas? Or might they start with prose or something like that?

Sometimes I mean I'm writing a embarking on writing uh an opera, like a bona fide opera in the sense of using operatic voice.

Doubled in opera before.

Yeah, but this is an outro.

Yeah.

This is a fragment that Goethe wrote. He wrote basically the magic flute part two because he loved the magic flute so much at the time. He wrote a second part to Mozart to set to music. It's a fragment, it's like about twelve pages long. And it's never been set to music. And uh this mad guy in Paris basically commissioned me to do this. So the writing process for that is like Where'd he start?

Do you need a different skill set for something?

I just he just said to me,'cause he's worked with me quite a lot on those kind of projects in the past. He said, For God's sake, just be yourself. You know,'cause like opera and all that, working at National Fear and English National Opera and Royal Opera. It all sounds fancy and I've failed my air level music. Do you know what I mean? Everyone I'm working with either went to fucking Cambridge or Royal School of Music. You know, in that context it's always

Do you f generally favour collaboration over working on your own or you know, does having other people around spare your on to finish stuff?

I'm easy either way. I mean yesterday I was working with Kenny Beats. It's like hip hop and dance. Their whole idea of songwriting is completely different to the real people, for example, who I knew really well back in the I knew a lot of people back in the nineties from Liverpool. Yeah. As I say, that's where I felt really welcome outside of well, apart from Wolverhampton. It was Liverpool for me was the place where it's like, Oh yeah, like they appreciate this here.

So do you have to be quite well versed in different genres? Do you purposefully listen to different genres so that you feel like you've got that vocabulary if you're gonna work on hip hop or something else?

I mean, I just listen to music. I mean, I don't necessarily go home after working at the studio all day and go, oh, what am I going to do in my evening? I listen to music.

Υπότιτλοι AUTHORWAVE

Well yeah, of course you're studying all the time. I mean I've got the full score of magic flute at the moment. I sort of you know, sit down grandily at the piano Which movement shall I uh look at this evening? But you know, I mean my site reading's shit, but I can start read. So I don't know. Everyone's got a different way of doing it. I just think if it comes from your heart.

You must have learned so much just from the sheer volume of people you've worked with.

Yeah, no I have. I mean I've worked with a ridiculous amount of people. Yeah, of course. You're always learning. I learned stuff. Yes, so Kenny Beats a different approach.

Yeah. And when you were starting out with a particular songwriter too you sort of sort of maybe emulate or studied while you were developing your own style?

Oh yeah, I mean I mean I've listened to some stuff I did pre blur. I had a song called Hippie Children and it's kind of like a little bit like part life really.

Nice.

It's nowhere near as good as Part Life, but you know what I mean? And then I've got another song. Which was about like acid rain that I wrote in eighty four or five. Very earnest. But that kind of touches on the other side of my kind of funny, kind of satirical side and then my dark

Right. Yeah, so you were forging your identity.

Yeah. Yeah, so I think I was doing all of that anyway, but just not as well, you know.

Wow. So your sensibilities were present in those songs from a really early

I suppose so, you know, without over egging it.

Now let's over egg it.

No, it's not necessary.

Ha ha ha.

And I mean, you know, if you wanna get really fucking silly, I had a harmonica when I was in my cradle. Apparently. I used to play. So I suppose I've always been at it in one form or another. It's their fault, whoever gave me that harmonica.

Your parents were quite creative as well, weren't they? So I guess that was very

They still are, they still are. They still work most evenings on whatever it is they're creating at the moment. on his computer creating new geometric atomic patterns. And my mum's kind of I know, one day she'd be making a beautiful kind of piece of fabric using some plant or whatever and another day she'd be painting. My daughter's mum, she's a amazing artist. My daughter's at a fashion college. Everyone's at it. You know what I mean?

Creative genes.

Well, it's arts and crafts, isn't it, really? As Ian Jury said, you know, it's a sort of island thing, isn't it? What do you do when it's dark?

Get your strobe light out. Yeah.

Mae'n rhaid i'w finnau, Brian. No, seriously, Damon, congrats on the new album. We think it's superb. And we love Cracker Island as well. Oh, thanks.

Great. No, I mean it's been a good year, you know. I mean I'm I'm very grateful for uh just being able to do what I do.

We love the catalogue, don't we? How it continues to evolve as yeah.

It's just great revisiting so much of the stuff, you know, and preparing.

Yeah, there is

There is a lot. It was it was a daunting task. Yeah. But uh it was very enjoyable.

Oh okay, good. Oh great. Well thanks for bothering to come down and talk to me and

Thanks for having.

Yeah, my as I say, my second podcast.

We're on it.

Cool.

What a character he is. Really a fun day out for us, wasn't it?

Oh that was great, yeah. And just going into his space, you know, as we ascended the stairs in the studio we could hear him playing his piano, couldn't we?

We could, yet, so we actually heard him before we saw him and and yeah, I our first glimpse was him sat down, bashing away at the piano. It was, yeah, apparently he acquired that organ from a theatre in Liverpool, he told us. We thought it might be the Olympia in West Derby, but we're not sure.

Oh he said it had a dead rat inside it when it was recovered, didn't he?

Are we sure it wasn't a Roland?

Very good. He seems to be someone who likes to keep the wheels greased, songwriting wise, doesn't he?

Definitely, yeah, he'll take a short break, but he doesn't want to interrupt his flow across all these different projects that he's involved in.

Yeah, and that's in contrast to a lot of people who've been on the show, as we said, you know, they like to lie fallow for a while and refill the well, so to speak.

If you'll uh permit us to mix our metaphors. But yeah, I guess his synapses are just always firing, aren't they?

Yeah, and you can hear that can't you on the recent Cracker Island record from Gorillas. I mean it's packed with stuff. But also the new Blair record too.

Yeah, I mean as we discussed the lyrics leap from one great image to the next and and so much of it, as he said, is drawn from his real life experiences.

But you'd think that such colourful language would have to be fiction, wouldn't you? Mm-hmm.

Yeah. But uh he's able to elevate and and heighten these uh everyday occurrences.

And once you sit down with a person like that, it becomes easier to understand his achievements, if you know what I mean.

Yeah, and how he's been able to concoct so many of those great melodies as well. He he he sort of buzzes with energy, doesn't he, to be in his presence.

Yeah, and you can hear, you know, house songs like The Universal or Coffee and T V, you know, that have got these kind of trademark choruses of his. They sort of make more sense when you're exposed to the way he thinks and talks.

Absolutely it was just so much fun, wasn't it, spending time with him while uh surrounded by pianos and guitars and synths and and all the kind of obje d'ar he's collected over the years.

Yeah, the space is very conducive to his creativity, isn't it? You can just feel it when you're in the

You can indeed. So thanks to Damon for the wonderful conversation and for having us dance with studio, and cheers also to Bree for organising.

The Ballad of Darren is out now, so pick up a copy at your earliest convenience, and we'll be back soon to delve into more great songs with their old.