Issue 105 / November 2019

lonely up here in Middle England,” laments
RICHARD DAWSON on Jogging, the first single
lifted from his latest solo album 2020. It would
“It’s
appear Northumberland’s finest harbinger of doom
has bid farewell to the sixth-century kingdom of Bryneich that
provided the grizzled backdrop to his last record Peasant, turning
in favour of an all too familiar contemporary scene.
Whether detected in the nervous sideways glance of the
jogger, in the pained expression of the Civil Servant severing
another Disability Living Allowance, or stood quivering in the
piss-specked shoes of the fulfilment centre employee peeing in
a bottle to save missing their quarters, it’s easy to make out the
emerging figure of a conflicted 21st-century Britain in Dawson’s
tales.
Yet, despite the bleakness, 2020 still triumphs through
instances of courageousness, black comedy and real lingering
beauty. Tasked with decoding his aching accounts, David Weir
caught up with the Hen Ogledd main-man to discuss UFOs,
time perception and the ins-and-outs of writing a minor-key
masterpiece.
There’s definitely a stronger pop feel on 2020 compared to your
past records. What triggered the move away from acoustic and
brass in favour of synths and vocoders?
Well, I think a big factor is Sally’s [Pilkington] influence. She’s
been introducing me to a lot of classic pop that I’ve never really
explored. Artists like Kate Bush, Erasure and Prince. This record
needed to be really direct or ‘direct sounding’. So, I wanted to use
the language of rock music to create these big, anthemic choruses,
but then the words would be in opposition to that. I hope it makes
for a really awkward feeling, but you might not even really pick up
on why. Musically, it should almost sound ubiquitous. Peasant had
a very distinct sound design. For instance Angharad Davies’ violin,
I saw this almost as if it were a weather event, like frost.
This record needed to use this ‘common language’ of electric
guitar and drums. It feels more familiar, like the estate where you
grew up. These blocks of sound, all semi-detached houses. Then
hopefully, the melodies and the words are the lifeforms that aren’t
quite fitting in to that blander picture. It’s a strange aim to make a
record that’s bland sounding!
Peasant and The Glass Trunk required a lot of archival research,
whereas 2020 is obviously more concerned with current affairs.
Against the constant flood of news and media content, how did
you manage to narrow down the individual accounts in these
songs?
Well, I’m quite lucky in a way, people will just open up to us about
things. This time around it was more through my own experiences,
talking to friends, family and to a lot of people at gigs. I’m not one
of those vulture kind of writers, always on the hunt for lyrics. But
repeatedly people would mention the same kind of issues they
were going through. It just felt like this was worth writing about.
When I’m working on a piece – I’ve had this sense more and more
recently – of the people being real and alive. I recognise it could
be a symptom of my mental health situation, but I’m convinced
that it’s possible to be in touch with people in different ways and
different times. You know our perception of time is that it goes in a
line. Well, that’s our experience of it, for the sake of our bodies to
manoeuvre them safely through space. But actually, I find time… it
doesn’t work like that.
I’ve been singing this song about a mother in 15th-century
Hexham and I really like this person, she’s alive! It’s not an act of
imagination, it’s just a different way of life. When you’re working
on these songs and these people make themselves known –
whether or not this is all bollocks, and it’s just my imagination
and I’m disguising that, the fact remains that you have to be
honourable to these people and treat them with respect. It was
just a case of trying to do right by them.
Certain tracks remind me of David Foster Wallace’s short stories
Brief Interviews With Hideous Men. Wallace was interested in
our approach to ‘dreary, seemingly meaningless routines’. He
spoke about the kind of freedom that’s truly important is the
one we rarely hear about in the ‘great outside world of wanting
and achieving’. I was wondering if you feel that crops up in the
narrative at all?
I guess it’s more about what’s the stuff of life? In the space of all
of this, how do you keep your eyes and heart open? How can we
really express something about what it is to be alive? Because
these things like having to brush your teeth, wipe your arse, put
on clothes in the right manner, it’s so basic yet it amounts to so
much time. It has a massive effect on our day, though, and it’s not
separate from a big life event.
If you don’t feel comfortable in your clothes, you’re going to feel
awkward and anxious in public. Even just walking past people in
the street, everyone you pass you’re going through an internal
dialogue in your head at a hundred miles per hour. I don’t see
separation between this and maybe more dramatic events. It’s
amazing to think about brushing your teeth, all those little germs
and microbes that you’re dislodging. If you could zoom in and see
all the living things that are in between your gums. There’s drama
at every level.
People in these songs are often simply just trying to catch their
breath or start their day on the right side of the bed…
Yeh, for sure. We wake up and we just get stuff hurled at us in a
way that has never been part of the human make-up ever before.
GIG
PREVIEWS
RICHARD DAWSON
Parr Street Studio 2 – 23/11
The North Eastern bard casts his gaze towards 2020 and locates an
endearing magic found in the most common sets of eyes.
Just the sheer amount of information we’re processing and the
different ways we’re engaging with faces and people, all the
streams we’re looking at. It’s so brand new. We haven’t adapted. I
think it’s a really crazy time to be a human.
We wonder why we’re kind of confused and a bit lost, but the
landscape has just changed so dramatically that it’s no wonder. It
would be more of a wonder if we weren’t anxious or depressed.
It’s more of a physical reaction to being surrounded by stress,
information and fast change.
Black Triangle is a standout for
me. It begins with a UFO sighting.
Do you feel these kinds of reports
are founded in escapism or
something else?
From my experience with these
kind of things, no. I’m sure that’s
an element to it, you see all these
conspiracies on YouTube. But this
song is not about that for me. None
of the album is autobiographical,
but the first half of this song
is drawn from something that
happened to me and my pal Neil.
We did see this incredible black
craft come over my parents’ house
and it wasn’t a commercial aircraft
either. The government released
papers on this phenomenon, as it’s the most widely spotted
UFO. It was so crazy the explanation they gave, they said it
was a “triangular illusion” created by plasma. I can tell you with
certainty, this isn’t what we saw. This was a solid thing and it
moved incredibly fast and silent. So, it’s either a secret aircraft or
it’s extra-terrestrials. I don’t see that there’s any other explanation.
It’s a hopeful song in some ways. He goes out to the country with
his daughter and they share in watching the stars together. I can’t
think of a happier moment than that, really. There’s a lot of hope
on the album, even if it is predominantly sad.
It can regularly feel as humans we’re chasing some form of
magic or mystery. How do you feel that plays into you work as
a songwriter?
I believe in magic. I’ve talked in a few other interviews about Alan
Moore and an interview he gave where he speaks about the role
of the bard. In the past, the role of the bard was doubly important
“The power of a word or
a melody can be quite
profound: it can change
minds, it can change
the way in which people
perceive things”
because not everyone had access to the written word. So, to cast
a spell was simply to ‘spell’ – this is Moore talking, not me. I’ve
thought about this a lot since, what the role of a musician is.
The power of a word or a melody combined is something I think
can be quite profound: it can change minds, it can change the way
in which people perceive things, it can change the way people act.
So, it’s absolutely the highest honour and of grave importance to
try connect with people. Without wanting to be self-righteous, you
feel that you’re maybe fighting the good fight. It’s probably a losing
battle but those are the only battles worth fighting anyhow.
So, is that how you keep faith,
then? Does sharing it within
a musical community help
strengthen that feeling, maybe
making it more impactful?
You don’t have a choice whether
you do it or not, really; you just do
it. People have always made stuff
regardless of the scene or what the
wider picture is. Even just playing
music at home, you’re communing
with something off in some far
place. Music is alive and that’s
enough. But, if you share it with
other musicians and audiences,
you can really change things. We’re
all making an impact. Hence why
you’ve got to be careful with your time and be considerate of how
you live. It all has an effect. Whether you’re doing something public
and outgoing or something quiet and private. I think that as much
as I treasure the role of the bardic tradition and my place in that,
I see that it’s not brain surgery. It’s not being a nurse, fireman or
teacher. I’d be very remiss to place it in any hierarchy, because how
can you say anything is more life-changing than those jobs. !
Words: David Weir / @betweenseeds
Photography: Sally Pilkington
richarddawson.net
Richard Dawson plays Parr Street Studio 2 on Saturday 23rd
November. 2020 is out now via Weird World.
PREVIEWS
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