the end it’s my voice, so it’s cool.
Being a regional magazine concerned with locality, I read an interview with you that said that, ‘if I grew up in London, I wouldn’t have been able to write the songs that I have whilst growing up in York. Home is home.’ Do you think being outside the capital gives you the space to create something individual? Totally, yeah. Tere are so many bands who come out of London and they have a year or two, then nothing happens and personally I think that’s because that’s where the industry is, that’s where the gigs are, but sometimes it’s healthy to take a step back and listen to what you’re doing. I don’t think that happens much in London. For me, growing up in York was amazing, and there are certain things about London that I don’t like too much, so it’s good to have that space away from there.
Te album itself has so much relaxed space in it; it’s not over- produced – was it written with the same amount of calm? Yeah, yeah, totally. I always wanted to make an acoustic record and even though there are a few extra bits of instrumentation on there – drums, strings and electric guitar and stuff – I think on the whole it is very much an acoustic album. Tat’s the way I write my songs and that’s how I play them live and that’s how I wanted it to be.
One of the tracks that hints at expansion is ‘Stole You Away’ - you must be moving on to new material even though we’re still bedding in with the album, but can you see new stuff going that way? Definitely, yeah; I think I like the idea of writing with a band, maybe not a conventional band, but a bit more percussion maybe and a bit more stuff going on, but that’s just kind of the stuff I’ve been listening to while on tour. I don’t have a clear image of what I want the second album to be like yet, but I know I want it to be different.
BUT FOR ANYTHING WITH A TINY BIT OF SOUL, IT’S NOT A GOODPLACE TO BE.
Picking out one of the songs from the album, ‘Atlas Hands’ has such a nice, adventurous spirit to it. Do you relish getting lost? Yeah, I always like spending time by myself and I think it’s kinda like quite chilling. For me that song’s about a journey, then coming back to a place.
I read that you wrote ‘A Million Miles Out’ in Southern France, didn’t you? Yeah, I wrote a lot of the songs off ‘A Million Miles Out’ in France. It was probably about three years ago now.
You have to park a lot of your own home comforts when you go anywhere else – do you need that change to be creative? I used to write a lot at home, but now I’ve found that I’m writing more when I’m in different kind of places, and out of my comfort zone. I guess it’s just about finding a place that isn’t your own that you feel comfortable in and then going from there, but that’s just the way I like to do it – I’m sure everyone’s different.
What I thought was a great story was that Jamie Oborne brought about Dirty Hit Records for you, essentially – that’s a massive commitment and I think it takes independent people to do things like that to make something happen nowadays – do you feel the same? Yeah, Jamie’s amazing, he’s such a great manager and a good friend and it’s nice to have someone to talk to on a really honest level and just sort of figure stuff out. So many record labels don’t have any respect for any creative instinct that the artists might have, so in that respect I’m really lucky to have such an amazing label.
What’s really good is that you’ve had the national radio airplay already, and recognition from influential
people, so you’ve proven that that independent route can really work… I think the reason my stuff’s working is that we didn’t decide to go with a big production on it, we just went honest and stuck to how the songs needed to be presented. You know, I’ve been in rooms with the heads of big record labels in London telling me that “Atlas Hands’ and ‘Pictures’ and songs like that need big drums and guitars to get released and we were just like, nah, you know. I think some record labels are good for big pop stuff, but for anything with a tiny bit of soul, it’s not a good place to be.
What I thought was really interesting is that Mike Skinner has got hold of ‘Atlas Hands’ on remixing duties. He seems like the most unlikely remixer, but it’s worked really well. Is it quite exciting for you to hand it over? Yeah, it really is. I mean, he’s an amazing producer and an amazing songwriter and I was a big fan of the Streets and of the other remixes he’s done for people like Giggs and stuff like that, but for me it was just amazing. For me, he’s one of the top 5 living British songwriters.
Now Ben, you’re coming back to Norwich and I promise you it’s gonna be a lot more packed this time, so what would you like from your Norwich audience? From my Norwich audience what would I like? Good question… I’d like them to have a good time! What else? I’d like them to all wear U2 shirts.
Well I was gonna come, but now you’ve said I have to wear a U2 tshirt, I don’t think I can do it! OK, U2 or… McFly?
Emma Garwood
Benjamin Francis Leftwich is coming to the NAC on October 3rd. For tickets, go to
www.norwichartscentre.co.uk. Read the uncut version of this interview at
Outlineonline.co.uk
outlineonline.co.uk /October 2011 / 35
I THINK SOME RECORD LABELS ARE GOOD FOR BIG POP STUFF,
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