Will Doyle is a master of making electronic tunes. From his Mercury-nominated debut album to his latest release, Culture of Volume, his music conjures up an awesome variety of moods and soundscapes. Brian Eno loves him, Jon Hopkins loves him and we love him. I caught up with him ahead of his intimate gig at Norwich Arts Centre to find out more about how surprised he is to find himself in the spotlight.
ow did you get into music in the first place and go about creating your unique sound? I started playing guitar when
I was about 11 and started writing songs immediately and was in bands through my teens. I started making music on my computer when I was about 14 and I started making vaguely electronic stuff then even though I didn’t listen to much electronic music at the time. I was playing with the software that I had and ended up making electronic sounds by accident. As I got more into listening to electronic music I started making music properly. It’s been a process of about 10 years or learning how to use the computer to make music. Your albums have such a wide range of styles of electronic styles on them. Who has influenced your sound, both when you were just starting out and now? Brian Eno has been the biggest influence on the way I conduct myself as an artist as much as anything, and by extension the stuff he did in the late 70’s with Bowie. Scott Walker has been a big influence on my singing style but basically anything that I listen to more than once I absorb and it finds its way into my sound. Total Strife Forever was your debut
album and was nominated for Mercury last year. Did you expect it to do so well? No, absolutely not. I knew I wanted to make music for life but I’d given up the band I was in before. I’d stopped caring about trying to make music that was successful and that freed me up in a way to make my first album with no holds barred. Because of that and the way it ended up sounding, I though it was going to end up more of a niche, leftfield thing and I was totally OK with that. When it came out people were really getting it, to the point where it ended up on this massive mainstream scale that I never really considered as part of the plan! But it’s nice to get recognition and I was really happy. I never thought it was an easy listen but people thought it was great. Your second album Culture of Volume is due out this month. Te two covers are very different, and to me the music sounds happier and less tortured. Is that true and is that what you wanted to reflect with the covers? Absolutely. Tere was some cross over in time between writing the two albums but it was impossible not to feel excited and in a much better place when I was making Culture of Volume as so many amazing things have happened to me in the last
couple years. It was a lot busier, exciting and social and more outward looking than Total Strife Forever; not to say that the new album doesn’t have some introspective moments, but it was written more with an audience in mind whereas the first album was made just for me. Tat’s reflected in the album covers for sure; I wanted it to be brighter and more of a present thing. Te fact that I sing more on it makes for a different feel too. I really like the video for Looking for Someone where you’re surrounded by an urban landscape. To what extent does your environment influence your music? My environment is one of my biggest influences really. Total Strife Forever was written in suburban Southampton, which lent itself to more of an inward looking album, whereas this new album was made entirely in London, which really affected the choices I made, not only the sound but the sequencing of the sounds in terms of the order of the album. So yeah my environment is hugely important to me, the architecture, the multiculturalism of London…there are so many musical styles to delve into here. When you go about starting to make a track, is the lyrics or the electronic sounds or the tunes that come first?
12 / May 2015/
outlineonline.co.uk
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