Homepage Site Map Chronicle Front Page Shed Index Interview March 2002 Interview October 2003 david hughes in conversation with nick skeens July 2001 ____________________________________________________________________________________________
1. It's been 18 months since your last confession; when is the next album coming out? The plan, if that's not too strong a word, is to record the next solo album in the New Year. More precisely, January 2002. That's when there's an annual window of availability involving several of my collaborators, most importantly Gerry Conway. From February onwards, most of the people I can call upon are out on tour. The other reason for the wait is budgetary. The Folk Corporation, which is me and my partner, Colin Edwards (executive producer) are involved in producing a Christmas album for December and we have to get that out of the way first from many points of view, not least, budgetarily (if that's a word). There's a December tour revolving around that album so, what with concert revenue and album sales, we can make a stash for January. From the timing perspective, I much prefer the situation with the last two albums, they were both recorded in the early summer at the Woodworm Studio in Oxfordshire. I prefer the summer, don't you? There is one other factor, the songs. I haven't written any yet. Well, one. Usually, I take time to recover from the last album, about a year of not writing anything. Then, over time, I start up again and once I've got say three new songs I'll ring up my co-producer and engineer, Mark Tucker, and tell him to book the studio time. Usually that means three months away from the moment I ring him. That's when I kick into gear and in those three months I'll write the rest of the songs for the album. About three a month on average. Once we get to the studio, I'm alive with the stuff and often I'll kick a song out and write another, better one, whilst we're recording. That's happened the last two times. On Fifty Yards it was "Fifty Yards" and, in fact, "Sensitivity". On This Other Eden it was "Blue Car". We're going to be working a little differently this time. I've got my own recording facility now. It's called the shed. I'll record the guitars and maybe vocals there. I've always had the ability to use a four track machine to write the songs at home but now I should be able to do the finished thing as well. It's all a new approach. We'll see how it works out. 2. Rumour has it you might move away from the more complex arrangements of This Other Eden. What have you got to say to that? Well, it's early days and it will depend on the kind of songs that emerge in the interim and also, to some extent, the things that I've been listening to recently. I try to steal as much of what I hear as I can, like you should. But, yes, I've an idea I want to make it starker. It's a case of wanting the guitar to stand out a bit more, really. The danger with a more augmented arrangement is that the guitar is lost which, for an acoustic guitarist, is not a sensible thing to do. But I did enjoy doing the last one with Spencer Cozens and Danny Thompson and the others. Actually, having said that, it may sound lush but there's not a lot on This Other Eden when you think about it. I mean, "Shouting At The Radio" has only got me and Dave Mattacks and some backing vocals on it but with Mark Tucker on the desk it sounds like Led Zeppelin. The thing is, the less you have on a track, the more huge Tucker can make it sound. But, give an acoustic guitarist the option of recording with just guitar or with guitar and the Royal Philharmonic, what are they going to choose. I think This Other Eden works. I still like to listen to it, it sounds good to me. However, sometimes, if you're into acoustic guitar and have heard me solo, I know that some people would prefer that experience to the more orchestrated approach. But, as I say, it will all depend on the songs. In any case, I've got Dave Mattacks and Spencer Cozens on the phone every now and again, just checking what I'm planning. It's so hard to say no when they're offering to come in. I do love what they do. 3. Let's go back a bit, and talk about some of the albums you've done to date. Some would argue that Active in the Parish is your greatest album, while others might say "50 Yards!" Still others would say "bollocks; it's This Other Eden". Which do you think is the best and why? I like all of them, which might sound obvious but I'm proud of each of them. I think I'd got into the art of songwriting by the time of Active In The Parish and I've kept going. There's many a slip..., as they say, when it comes to recording them properly but I've worked hard at that too and so have the people I've worked with. I'm proud not just of the songs but of the recordings. That's another thing. You can write a good song and then completely bugger it up in the studio, no problem. I see you don't mention my first solo album, Curtains. This I understand of course. I wouldn't put it in a boxed set with the others myself. I was just getting the feel of what I do best and there's too much of my formative years on it for it to compare. But there are two or three songs on that album which would pass muster. Active In The Parish I'm particularly proud of because I had no backing at all apart from my wife, Karen. It was all my own energy. Writing, playing, producing myself and overcoming all the problems that can occur. I did it all on my own. As it was, it paved the way for a lot that's happened since. It gave me confidence that I could produce a piece of work worthy of the name. It got me noticed by people, for instance, Dave Pegg thinks I'm a genius. He booked me for the Cropredy Festival which so many artists bust their gut to get and that brought me to the attention of a certain Q magazine reviewer who subsequently chose the album as one of Q's albums of the year. Active In The Parish got me all this without a recording contract, no advance or backing of any kind. It was just from sitting at home writing songs. The album and the Cropredy performance with Gerry Conway and Jacqui McShee also impressed Colin Edwards enough to get in touch and after that, everything was possible. Active In The Parish is probably the sparest thing I've done. It's basically acoustic guitar and drum kit which was pretty unusual in itself I suppose. It's also got an attitude which even Folk Roots magazine, not the greatest admirer of "singer -songwritery", begrudgingly gave the thumbs up. They said it was "..without a trace of meandering self-absorption or lecturing". Which is pretty good for them I'm telling you. The album that sometimes gets forgotten is Fifty Yards… Maybe that's because it's bookended by the other extremes. It's got some good songs on it and some excellent arrangements, particularly "Sensitivity" and "An Ordinary Life" with Spencer. That album contains a lot of the core repertoire too. 4. Who's That? - The Summer of Love (Active in the Parish) is not only brilliant, it is probably your most mass-market tune to date. At a recent gig you got cornered by a drunk woman telling you that you'll never make it as big as David Gray until you write songs with music and lyrics thick people can understand. What did you make of that? Ah, well. Now there are other facets to becoming a success that, I'm afraid, I'm simply not qualified to utilise. Just the other day, a friend listed them for me in the enduring discussion I have with people about "how do you make a living from this game". My friend said you need Sex, Youth and Attitude. I think David Gray has probably got two of those over me, plus he's a very good singer. I've got attitude. At least I have that but commercially it's not enough unless you get very lucky in the cult department. I do know that I appeal to a wide age group of the "student - past and present" category but it's always difficult to get to them without a lot of radio or media attention. I think they're all too busy with the Sex bit. As Karen says, "Brilliant doesn't make you rich." She's right. I'm a husband and a father and it's a worrying thing in your life when you have those responsibilities. But the one thing I'm happy about is that whatever happens, I know I've done some good work. That's something everyone strives for and I'm glad to be able to say it. It counts for a lot. Of course, I'd love to appeal to the mentally challenged. I'm still trying. Incidentally, "Who's That? - The Summer Of Love" was another of those last minute songs. It was written in an afternoon between the recording sessions. 5. Tell us how Heart on This Other Eden came about. Seems to be a distinct lack of guitar on it. Let's see. I love giving names to things and I'm trying to work out which one you mean. (Giving titles to tracks is the greatest part of songwriting by the way.) It's the opening track isn't it. Well, Spencer Cozens came down to Maldon, he was and is playing keyboards for John Martyn and Joan Armatrading as well as playing and writing with Jacqui McShee and Gerry Conway. Mark Tucker set him up in my brother Ian's shed and recorded him on a mobile studio. He was only supposed to be here for a day to put a few twiddles on a few tracks but he stayed a couple more days (he likes Maldon). Anyway, given the less frenetic pace that recording in a shed affords, we'd knock off and go down to the Queen's Head for last orders each evening. The second night, Mark came back ahead of us to set up the computer to carry on and when Spencer and I returned from the pub we found Mark playing this track we'd never heard. Not on its own anyway. He was playing Spencer's backing track to "Heart Of Stone". "We've got to use this solo," he said. And quite right too. What Spencer was doing was sensational. It also gave us the start of the segues we wanted for the album to become "one piece" as it were. Yeah, chuck my guitar out and you've got a hit mate. BACK TO THE TOP		6. Watching Brazil, if there is any justice on earth, should become the thinking man's football anthem. Any chance? Did you ever ask what Liverpool FC thought of the number? Funny you should mention that. It's on This Other Eden and, of course, the first verse names the entire Championship-winning Liverpool team of 1966. They're my team, naturally, being born there (I first saw them play when they were in the second division, my grandad took me.) The album's been out about eighteen months. I've performed the song live on Ned Sherrin's "Loose Ends" on Radio 4 but I never thought of sending it to Liverpool Football Club. At least, not until I clicked on my Internet favourites one morning about a month ago and saw the club have revamped their web site into one of the most splendicious things I've ever seen. It's now called www.liverpoolfc.tv and it's a work of art. You can sit at your desk all day watching the groundsmen rolling the pitch! Fantastic! Well, anyway, one of their many TV channels featured "behind the scenes" stuff including a concert held at the club during the winter to launch a "famous recording star fans of Liverpool" CD. There was Elvis Costello singing with his guitar and the Curator of the Liverpool Football Club Museum waxing lyrically about Liverpool and the great songwriters associated with the club. (Showbiz is a longstanding thing at Liverpool since before Ted Ray and Jimmy Tarbuck. These days, though, it's The Light'ning Seeds and Julian Cope, not just comedians.) So, I thought, "that chap might be interested in my song!" The curator's name is Stephen Done, obviously steeped in Liverpool history and folklore and a music fan to boot. The day after I sent him the album he emailed me: "At last," he wrote, "an intelligent football song". He loved it and wanted another copy for Mr. Costello. Since then I've been in regular touch, getting emails relating post match events in Dortmund hotel bars (not with the players of course) and signed off: "Cheers, Steve." There's a suggestion that I might have an article about me in the official Liverpool Football Club magazine next season. That would be the proudest moment in my life. (Er, after marriage and the kids of course. Have you got that written down?) 7. Yep. Now, Shouting at the Radio was released as a single. A thumping road number, ideal for playing when you're carving up the opposition on the M25 - what ever happened to it? Having a single was Colin's idea, a marketing ploy to push the album which it did to some extent. Singles are the way that radio works. If you want to get on a playlist you have to have a single, they can't be arsed faffing about with albums. Radios 1 and 2, for instance, have a weekly playlist meeting whereby the controller and producers sit round and work out which songs are going to be played, and how often, over the next seven days. With a single and a pusher (which my manager, Sue Cavendish engaged) we were under consideration. It's all to get your name noticed. We didn't get on the playlist. If I remember correctly, it was the same week that Martina McCutcheon's single came out. That's the way it works. So, what was the point? Well, the same week, I did get a second appearance on Radio 4. I sang "It's Hard To Imagine" with Eddi Reader on Ned Sherrin and Michael Parkinson was one of the other guests. Parky liked the song and asked if I had a copy of my album. There you go. As it happens I'd left the albums in the car. "No, Parky, mate, you can't have one." We went for a pint though. 8. A little bit about your influences. How come you play the music you play? At the beginning of the sixties my father said to me he thought that folk music was going to be "big". I was into Lonnie Donegan at the time and I thought he was off his head. He'd just been to Colchester Folk Club and seen Arlo Guthrie. He came back convinced. I thought he was talking about the Spinners. He was also a rather huge Glenn Miller and Sinatra fan so I knew all the Sinatra songs by the time I was twelve. I've always had a great love for the songwriters of the first half of the 20th Century as a result. My parents were both from Liverpool and up there they had a great reverence for performing artists (much more so than was apparent in Essex) and I became equally fascinated. I was predisposed genetically I expect. Either my mother or my father would call me in from playing football to watch a film they loved. They thought it was important. It was all second nature to me. I mean, who, in my generation knows who the young black guy is in the opening scenes of the film Platinum Blonde? Who is the guy playing boogie woogie piano and tap dancing at the same time? - Maurice Rocco. I know stuff like this you see; that's my parents for you. Then I was into my teenage and the sixties. I loved it all. School work didn't matter because I was going to be an actor and a singer; that was my excuse. I did go to the Grammar School, captained the first eleven, got some A levels and qualified as a teacher but that was all to "fall back on" as my father said. He didn't mind what I did after that so long as it was something "interesting". I didn't take to guitar at first. I had some lessons (three) in a group when I was about 13 but the chap teaching us was into jazz and Bert Weedon, you know, plectrum style, and that didn't mean a thing to me. It wasn't until later, after I got to know the sixth formers' idols of Bert Jansch, Pentangle and others that I started to think there was something in this. I was at college by then and there were people around to show me where to actually put my fingers, none of this theory bollocks. It was easy. I loved it. I could play the guitar. Stopped playing football virtually the same day. I loved everything. From Cream, Focus, virtually everyone at Woodstock. Leonard Cohen of course (now there's a joyous concert if you ever wanted one), Judy Collins, The Incredible String Band alongside Count Basie and the Duke. Then, I heard John Martyn. Oh! Took me about twenty years to get over him. And that's what happened. 9. Who do you respect in the music business who is gigging now? Who do you listen to? Everyone and everything. Anyone who's gigging has my total respect. First and foremost, because I've spent so much time with him on the road, is Bert Jansch. A solid man, always held to his instincts and his beliefs. He gave me my real start after I'd been farting around folk clubs for a few years. I knew him from the early eighties at the Half Moon, Putney. It was quite a fraternity who met there on Monday nights, acoustic gig night. Ralph McTell, Wizz Jones, Cliff Aungier, they were all Half Moon people and so was every musician coming into town, like Flaco Jiminez, Loudon Wainwright, Dr. John, Fairport. Everyone played the Half Moon. The other people I admire? Certainly the members of Pentangle who, mostly through Bert, took me on the road round Germany, the UK and Denmark with them (this was before Active): Gerry Conway, Jacqui McShee, Nigel Portman-Smith and Peter Kirtley. Then there were the other guitarists who were friends too, Duck Baker, for instance. I've also known Eddi Reader since she first came down to London around 1980 or so. It's good to see someone you know developing into a consummate artist particularly when she's brought up two lovely children pretty much single-handed at the same time. Later on, I've got to know the family that is Fairport Convention. Dave Pegg is an incredibly energetic personality and a linchpin of so much. I love all of them. Got to know Dave Mattacks before he left the band too which was a bonus. I've recorded and played with all of them. The person I admired most for his all-round stage performance was Isaac Guillory. His death has been a huge loss to so many. And then there's the people I haven't really met: Wainwright and Randy Newman are two of the greatest songwriters of the last fifty years in my opinion. Tom Waits just behind them. And there's also the younger ones. There's a lot of them I like (and filch from). Is there anyone I don't respect in the business? I don't know, you don't waste time with plonkers do you. There's some people I don't like, naturally. People with no vision mostly. Ignorant people. Shall we end on this sour note? 10. Wot's all this about a Christmas album? We're doing the last recording sessions at the end of June. Me, Chris Leslie, Chris While and Julie Matthews. We're touring it in December, booked solid I think from the 1st to the 19th and we're all really looking forward to it. It should be something of an event. Now there's a thing. I get to sing a Perry Como-ish standard with Chris While, "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas", it's wonderful. It all started after I did the Fairport tour in '98. Chris Leslie and I recorded an EP called Acoustic Christmas, him on mandolin and me on guitar. We wanted to do another one but the distributors prefer albums in this instance to Eps. Anyway, we got the girls in and they've been fantastic. We're probably going to call the album and the ensemble after a line in Good King Wenceslas, St Agnes Fountain. It's going to be great fun. © Nick Skeens and David Hughes. Please email the Folk Corporation for permission to reproduce this article. Back Homepage Site Map Chronicle Front Page