The Golden Dregs new album ‘Hope Is For The Hopeless’ is brilliant, check it out now.
Hello and welcome to The Rodeo, how are you? And how are things going?
Hey, thanks for having me. I’m well – a little sleep deprived perhaps. I blame the warm weather, it makes me feel guilty if I’m not constantly doing something. Things are well I think. We put out a new single and a video to go with it on Friday, and it’s been getting some nice feedback. And we just shot a video for the next single. That was a lot of fun.
Every other band’s wearing Stetsons.
How did music enter your life? How’d did you develop into what you are today?
There was always music playing in the house growing up. My parents have a broad taste in music but never pushed it on me, so I guess I was able to work through their record collection on my own terms. I found a lot of comfort in song. And then I discovered late-night radio and that introduced me to this whole new universe of music that I felt a connection with, but that felt so far away from where I was growing up in Cornwall. I started playing drums when I was at school, and then when I got to college I started playing in bands. There was a good garage rock scene going on around that time and that was a lot of fun. This project grew out of my desire to focus in more on lyrics and storytelling, although I didn’t really know what it was. I defined it more based on what it wasn’t. I moved to London a couple of years ago, and being in this ridiculous overcrowded overpriced environment pushed me to figure out what the project was all about. Because suddenly I’m surrounded by all these amazing artists and musicians, all trying to make it work in this crazy complex city and it seemed to me like the only way to justify something as dumb as trying being an artist in London was to at least be sure of what you’re doing. That’s not to say I’ve got it all figured out, but trying to work it out has definitely helped me develop my ideas.
What draws you to the symbolism of a western “cowboy” in your excellent new track “The Queen of Clubs”, and cover art for new album Hope is for the Hopeless? It can mean multiple things to multiple people, both good and bad.
The album was written under lousy conditions. I’d made a mess of things in Falmouth where I’d lived for four or so years. I ducked out and spent a month around Germany, staying with friends, trying to avoid myself. And when I got back to the UK I moved back to my parents, to the room I grew up in. And I wrote this record that I guess reflects on that experience. Loneliness is a recurring theme. And I see the cowboy as the perfect personification of loneliness. They have a lot of time for reflection out there, lonesome on the trail. The concept for the album artwork came quite naturally with the record. But the ‘Queen of Clubs’ video was actually dreamt up by Jessie and Felix in response to the song. So they must’ve heard the songs, inner cowboy. And now we’ve gone and done it, I see cowboys everywhere. Every other band’s wearing Stetsons. It’s pretty fascinating, I wonder what series of events led to the cowboy making a comeback?
…The more you can create a world around a project, the more there is for an audience to get lost in.
You have a distinct image, what role do aesthetics play in the way you express yourself? Not just in your music necessarily but across anything and everything.
I guess this goes back to what I said earlier about defining the project. Aesthetic can play such a big part in definition. I like to be totally taken in by music, and I feel the more you can create a world around a project, the more there is for an audience to get lost in. So I guess it’s not really me that I’m expressing through aesthetic. I express myself through the music, and then I develop (or toy with) an aesthetic to express the music.
At this point, the creative process is mostly a solo venture where the music is concerned, so to be able to collaborate with all these really talented friends of mine who are photographers and painters and cinematographers and understand visuals so much better than me has been so exciting and rewarding.
“Nobody Ever Got Rich (making people sad)” deals with God, family and entitlement, what’s your relationship to faith? Not simply in religion but in general as a concept, Is it something you have in yourself and your work? Your life or your being?
Big question. My Dads side of the family is Quaker. So that was part of my upbringing, although not pushed on me. But I attended Quaker Meetings when I was younger and was a part of a community that looked out for me and I definitely got something from that. And although I don’t consider myself religious, a lot of my values do correlate with the teachings of the Quaker faith, and I’m happy that that is part of my background. And I do have faith and beliefs, but not to the extent that I would think myself to be religious. When I refer to faith or religion in song, it’s not from personal experience. I find religious imagery to be really powerful and I feel that, religious or not, most people can relate to it in some way.
In terms of my work, sometimes I can feel good about it; sometimes I can feel bad about it. But I can’t feel something so strong and so permanent as to say that I do or don’t have faith in what I’m doing.
I express myself through the music, and then I develop (or toy with) an aesthetic to express the music.
Do you write as a reflective or active person when you write, in other words, do you look upon events in hindsight as inspiration, or do you look forward and engage in fiction? It could be both or neither perhaps? or simply things come from nowhere at all?
Everything comes from somewhere. I only occasionally indulge in being on the nose and write directly from hindsight. Usually, I write fiction with past events as inspiration. I’ll use characters as a vessel to talk about a personal experience or an experience I’ve had of another person.
Although your vocal style is controlled it is powerful, what catharsis do you find in performance? What about it, and creating in general, keeps you coming back to sit at the table with a pen at 2 am?
That’s kind. I think it’s more the act of being on stage and engaging with a people in a room that I find cathartic. I don’t consider myself a vocalist as such. I enjoy singing, but my voice isn’t tuneful enough to allow me to be playful or performative with it.
I wish I could sit at a table with a pen at 2 am! I actually write best in the morning, and it requires some discipline and a decent routine. But since we finished the mixes for the new record, I haven’t had the chance to write. London’s expensive and I go to the pub too much, so most of my time is given up to working a bar job. My free time is filled with organizing videos and artwork and sharing posts on the Internet. I really care about doing the visual stuff, but I have a bunch of ideas for my next record and I want to get going on them soon. I feel like I have some new things I want to talk about, some stories to tell. I’m not really sure what else I’d do with my life if I didn’t.
I’ll use characters as a vessel to talk about a personal experience or an experience I’ve had of another person.
Finally, what are your plans for the rest of the year? When can we lasso that new album?
So the albums out on September 27th. We’re doing a show at SET in Dalston on release day to celebrate. And then a UK tour in November. So I have plenty of time to get that third record sorted.
Listen to the Golden Dregs on Spotify and Apple Music.
