{"id":9331,"date":"2013-04-01T14:55:59","date_gmt":"2013-04-01T21:55:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=9331"},"modified":"2013-04-01T14:56:35","modified_gmt":"2013-04-01T21:56:35","slug":"robyn-hitchock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2013\/04\/robyn-hitchock\/","title":{"rendered":"ROBYN HITCHOCK"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ROBYN-HITCHCOCK-Issue-No25\"<\/h1>\n

ROBYN HITCHCOCK\u00a0<\/b><\/h1>\n
\n

\u00a0<\/b>The enduring godfather of alt-rock is still full of sonic surprises\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

By Russell Hall\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

If Robyn Hitchcock never again hears the word \u201cquirky,\u201d that\u2019ll be just fine with him. \u201cI think what people mean is that, for me, an idea can come from anywhere,\u201d he says. \u201cThey come from under the table, from behind the sofa, or from the back of a cupboard. They\u2019re not the first places everybody looks. I suppose you could call that quirky, but I wish you wouldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Imaginative is a more apt description of Hitchcock\u2019s work over the past three decades. After making his mark with the Soft Boys, a band whose soaring jangle pop impacted the likes of R.E.M. and the Replacements, the Cambridge, England, native launched his solo career in the early \u201980s and established himself as a college-radio favorite.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople sometimes complain I cover up emotions by making a joke of things, but humor is what makes stuff bearable,\u201d says Hitchcock. \u201cJust because there are jokes in my material doesn\u2019t mean I don\u2019t fundamentally take it seriously. My favorite songs have different emotions layered on top of each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hitchcock, 60, certainly has a serious work ethic. Recent projects include recording with frequent collaborators the Venus 3 (R.E.M. alum Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey and Bill Rieflin) and staging intimate club performances of such classic albums as David Bowie\u2019s Hunky Dory<\/i>, the Beatles\u2019 Abbey Road<\/i> and Pink Floyd\u2019s The Piper at the Gates of Dawn<\/i>. \u201cRock \u2019n\u2019 roll is an old man\u2019s game now,\u201d he says, \u201cso I\u2019m staying in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For his latest album, Love From London<\/i>, Hitchcock worked from the home of his longtime bassist Paul Noble\u2014who produced the record\u2014and recruited a tight-knit cast of backers to craft what he calls \u201cpaintings you can listen to.\u201d During a stop in Manhattan, he spoke with us about the new record, his songwriting process, and why he doesn\u2019t consider himself a quintessentially British pop musician.<\/p>\n

How did you approach the record?<\/b><\/p>\n

I played guitar and sang to a variety of rhythm tracks, and then Paul grafted the bass on afterward. Machinery being what it is today, you\u2019ve got the sounds of Ocean Way, Abbey Road or Olympic Studios\u2014all these legendary facilities\u2014available at your fingertips. Jenny Adejayan came in to play cello, which gives the record a large part of its sound. Jenny Macro and Lucy Parnell did some vocals. Anne Lise Fr\u00f8kedal sent her voice from Oslo, singing harmony on \u201cBe Still\u201d and \u201cI Love You.\u201d I didn\u2019t even meet Lizzie Anstey, but she did harmonies on \u201cFix You\u201d and played keyboard on \u201cStupefied.\u201d We worked in a little room with the curtains drawn. There was only space enough for three people at once. One of the pluses of technological development: Fewer people are buying records, but at least you can make them more cheaply.<\/p>\n

Was the material already written?<\/b><\/p>\n

Some of it was. The first song we recorded was \u201cHarry\u2019s Song,\u201d which opens the album. It pointed the way, especially with regard to establishing we didn\u2019t need live drums. The drums were all computer-generated. Paul created his dream drummer. As the recording developed, I wrote more songs that I felt would work well with what I had already written.<\/p>\n

Did a theme emerge?<\/b><\/p>\n

That\u2019s always interesting. Themes are never conscious. I don\u2019t think you can steer your own conscious. Your conscious is there to steer you. It\u2019s sort of a kind<\/i> record, I suppose\u2014hence the title, Love From London<\/i>. As you get older you wish evil on fewer and fewer people, unless you\u2019ve had a particularly shitty life. People tend to become either mellower or more bitter.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your songwriting process?<\/b><\/p>\n

I just pick up the guitar or walk to the piano and start playing. If there\u2019s something there, you nurture it. It\u2019s like bringing up a small animal. You feed it, water it, keep it clean and get it to behave properly. When it\u2019s ready, you let it go. But you need the embryo. And once you\u2019ve got that, the essence, you might spend six to nine months developing it. The gestation period is long, but the conception is instantaneous. And sometimes you just have to abort, because there\u2019s not enough there to bring a song to birth.<\/p>\n

How about your sense of melody?<\/b><\/p>\n

I had no sense of melody to begin with. I used to try to make up songs as a teenager and couldn\u2019t do it. It evolved. I was influenced by all the Beatles. I spent five years wanting to be Syd Barrett and 30 wanting to be Bryan Ferry. Ferry has a very strong sense of melody. His voice is like a handkerchief, whereas my voice is much more heavy-footed.<\/p>\n

What drove you to write songs?<\/b><\/p>\n

I never really wanted to do anything else once I dropped out of art school. It took me a long time to work out how it\u2019s done. I started to write when I was 15 but didn\u2019t write anything good until I was 25. Some people pick it up very fast. Apparently Syd Barrett wrote everything he did in the span of six months to a year and then he fell apart. He peaked very early. Dylan and the Beatles were writing some of their best material when they were 22. Ferry and Bowie, on the other hand, took a while to get going.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your go-to guitar?<\/b><\/p>\n

The rockers, the songs with the more overdriven sound, were written on an old Spanish nylon-string guitar. Writing on that guitar gives the songs a more bass-heavy approach. When I play steel-string acoustic\u2014Fyldes, mostly\u2014I tend to go for a trebly, wire-between-the-ears kind of spangle.<\/p>\n

For live performance?<\/b><\/p>\n

I have Sennheiser lapel mics in my two Fylde acoustics. Fylde kindly made me a new copy of my veteran Olivia guitar. The Olivia has been to the doctor even more than I have over the years, and needs to retire from touring. The Sennheiser captures the actual sound of an acoustic guitar, as opposed to making it sound like a weedy electric, which other mics seem to do. I keep the level down so that it doesn\u2019t feed back into the monitors. As long as the audience can hear the guitar, it doesn\u2019t matter too much whether I can hear it.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the attraction of performing albums in their entirety?<\/b><\/p>\n

Our generation grew up not knowing much about Mahler\u2019s Fifth Symphony<\/i> or Beethoven\u2019s Ninth<\/i>, but we do know all there is to know about Sgt. Pepper\u2019s<\/i> and Hunky Dory<\/i>. Even while John Lennon was alive, the Bootleg Beatles tribute band was a popular draw. Now, half a lifetime later, tribute bands perform the best-known works of defunct rock acts, and rock acts who are still functioning are out playing their masterworks. Like classical music, rock now has a menu. People know what they\u2019re going to get, they feel safe with it and enjoy it. I\u2019ve enjoyed doing all those full-album performances. I have never seen a happier troupe of musicians than when we performed Hunky Dory<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Do you see yourself as part of a distinctly British pop tradition?<\/b><\/p>\n

No, I don\u2019t. I think Britain and America merge in one beautiful way, and that\u2019s with music. I see rock as an Anglo-American tradition. Rock \u2019n\u2019 roll started in America, but since the British Invasion around \u201964 it\u2019s been evenly divided. It\u2019s since spread throughout the world, but Britain and the States pretty much spearheaded it. I\u2019m from Britain, but I\u2019m at least as influenced by American artists as I am the British\u2014and all the British artists I like were also influenced by Americans. I dare say I come at it through a British filter, but no, I don\u2019t see myself as a quintessentially British songwriter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ROBYN HITCHCOCK\u00a0 \u00a0The enduring godfather of alt-rock is still full of sonic surprises\u00a0 By Russell Hall\u00a0 If Robyn Hitchcock never again hears the word \u201cquirky,\u201d that\u2019ll be just fine with him. \u201cI think what people mean is that, for me, an idea can come from anywhere,\u201d he says. \u201cThey come from under the table, from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[6229,206,6226,6164,6225,6227,970,6224,6228],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9331"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9331"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9334,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9331\/revisions\/9334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}